Ideal Laptop for SL

I cant say enough about my new laptop HP Pavilion, 4 gig of ram to start with. Its great for Second Life, if you are interested in getting one do take a look at the two links Im sending on.
http://www.circuitcity.com/ccd/productDetail.do?oid=185878&WT.mc_n=4&WT.mc_t=U&cm_ven=COMPARISON%20SHOPPING&cm_cat=GOOGLE&cm_pla=DATAFEED->PRODUCTS&cm_ite=1%20PRODUCT&cm_keycode=4


HP Pavilion dv6589us 15.4" Widescreen Laptop Computer (Search this and compare)

Happy shopping,
Alliez

My second computer is an HP Pavilion, and I love it! 2 Gigs of Ram, some kind of Nvidia card, dual core processor. It runs SL well.

I think we found the secret to run SL in a perfect way. My main computer in an HP Pavilion Media Center and I just love it also for SL. I too have 2GB of ram on this one.

hp 6500t 2 gigs ram ( upgradeable to 4 gig), nvidea 8400m 128 mb card, not a week old yet and runs SL like a champ

That looks WONDERFUL Alliez!

If anyone deserves it for all their efforts in SL, you do. Don't forget to shut SL off once in a while!

your ol' pal Des from way before all this SL madness started

Post voluntarily removed.

I'd had some bad information. Sorry for any confusion.

Maybe this might show you a bit why I like it. Its shows what the video card is and how much dedicated memory there is.

Hardware
Product Name dv6589us
Product Number GA411UA#ABA
Microprocessor 1.5 GHz Intel® Centrino® Duo processor technology featuring Intel® Core ™ 2 Duo processor T5250
Microprocessor Cache 2 MB L2 Cache
Memory 4 GB 667 MHz DDR2 System Memory (2 Dimm)
Memory Max 4 GB max supported
Video Graphics NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS
Video Memory Up to 895 MB total graphics memory (128 MB dedicated)
Hard Drive 200 GB (4200 RPM) Hard Drive (SATA)
Multimedia Drive LightScribe Super Multi 8X DVD±R/RW with Double Layer Support
Display 15.4" WXGA High-Definition BrightView Widescreen (1280 x 800) Display
Fax/Modem High speed 56k modem
Network Card Integrated 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet LAN (RJ-45 connector)
Wireless Connectivity Intel® PRO/Wireless 4965AGN Network Connection
Multimedia Features HP Imprint finish, HP Pavilion Webcam & Mic, & Fingerprint reader
Sound Altec Lansing
Keyboard 101-key compatible & 2 Quick Launch Buttons-HP Quick Play Menu and DVD
Pointing Device Touch Pad with On/Off button and dedicated vertical scroll Up/Down pad
PC Card Slots 1 ExpressCard/54 Slot (also supports ExpressCard/34)

External Ports 5-in-1 integrated Digital Media Reader for Secure Digital cards, MultiMedia cards, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro, or xD Picture cards
3 Universal Serial Bus (USB) 2.0
2 Headphone out
1 microphone-in
1 VGA (15-pin)
1 TV-Out (S-video)
1 RJ-11 (modem)
1 RJ-45 (LAN)
1 notebook expansion port 3
1 IEEE 1394 Firewire (4-pin)
1 Consumer IR

Dimensions 14.05" (L) X 10.12" (W) X 1" (MIN H)/1.69" (MAX H)
Weight 6.14 lbs
Security Kensington® MicroSaver lock slot
Power-on password
Accepts 3rd party security lock devices

Power 90W AC Adapter
6-Cell Lithium-Ion battery

What's In The Box Mobile Stereo Earbud Headphones (1 pair)

HP Mobile Remote Control

Software

My advice is to read one of the many many identical threads to this one that have begun in the last week.

Hmm. Looks like what I read about the graphics card is wrong then. Good to know. That changes a lot, actually. No more fatal flaw. With that in mind, I'd say for the money, it sounds like a good machine. I'll remove my first reply.

I have been using a Pavilion 9000 for about a year. It has a 7600 GO nvidia card. it works great.

I wont buy another one. My Pavillion ZD7000 has been in the shop three times since I bought it a few years ago. HP laptops have a notorious problem with their power jacks. More so than with other companies. The jack is mounted on the board, which gets very hot, starts melting plastic, and makes the jack wiggle about more so than normal. Sooner or later it shorts out the board with an electrical arc. This happened to me once under warrenty ( shipped in to HP and had it back in a week) and once NOT under warrenty ( A few months back brought it to a repair shop that kept it for two months! They shipped it cross country to a jack repair place that had their main tech guy quit so it sat on a shelf for a month. When I got it back, the jack repair had failed so they had to replace the board. Two weeks and 400 bucks later everything works again. Why didnt I send it back to HP for repair? Cus HP offered to fix it for 300 dollars, plus the price of the part. ( the motherboard, $700). Yes, the math dictates a $1000 dollar repair from HP, whos design flaw created the problem to begin with. There are in fact class action suits against HP for this problem ( google it). Apple has come up with a nifty idea to prevent power jack problems, the power cord attaches to the machine WITH A MAGNET! So does my 3.2 pentium HP laptop play SL o.k with its Nvidia graphics card and gig of ram? Yes it does, WHEN ITS WORKING!

Interesting, Winter. It sounds like maybe they inherited their power jack design from Compaq. Those Compaq jacks used to break all the time too. When I brought my broken one into the local repair shop (this was like 2001 or maybe 2002), I remember the guy at said he sees them all the time, and that he ends up doing the same thing to all of them. He drilled into the chassis to mount much sturdier generic jack (the kind you might buy at Radio Shack), which he wired to the board, and then coated the whole thing in epoxy. It was solid as a rock after that. Couldn't break it if you tried.

Why Compaq couldn't have made the 27 cent investment to do the same thing in the first place is beyond me. That 27 cent part cost me about a hundred bucks to have installed.

It's unfortunate to hear they haven't improved anything in all this time.

I have a Pavilion - desk top substitute - but... sorry

Try a Dell Precision Workstation, or a MacBook Pro running Vista.

A pleasure, either way.

My one has just packed in! It's going back for repair this week - fortunately still under warrantee. I've lost all my recent Poser work because of this - so I am not a happy bunny with HP.

I prefer mac.

Having 'mislaid' my laptop somewhere between London and Nice, I now have some insurance money to spend.

I have a choice betwen a cool-looking silver one or a cool-looking black one. What do you guys think, black or silver? They both have lots of flashing lights.

Sadly, the keyboard on both is still in the wrong place.

Do any of them have an orangey flashing light? Cause that's the one I'd get.

Yes, they both have an orangey flashing light. That's why it's so hard to choose.

Go with the black one.

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Winter, thank you for bringing that recall to my attention. I looked it up, and it would appear they have isolated the problem in certain model's battery packs which they recalled around 135000. Luckily my model is the dv9000 & not listed here:



This information was taken from the HP website.

http://bpr.hpordercenter.com/bpr/

aah but do they have blue flashing lights. Thats the deal breaker!
I'd go with silver. Kinda space agey don't you think? Everyone has black ones.

I'm gonna have a look at the pavillion. I have a HP at the moment but it is on the verge of packing up completely, so if people are recommending the pavillion - its worth a look. I'll just make sure I stay away from the ones in the list lol.

We have a Pavilion. It's black but has LOADS of blue lights at the top of the keyboard, and an extra one on the front that comes on if the battery's charging. It's brill.

Thanks everyone. If I can find one with lots of flashing blue lights, that's the one I'll buy. Just have to decide whether it's black or silver now.

Thanks for the info, but I don't see the ZD7000 (Winter's problem model) on the list either. I'm also shopping for a new machine and trying to gather info and compare brands and models.

Thanks to everyone for your input. I think if we can help each other with knowledge before any of us purchases a computer it gives us options as to what we should look for and research. After all, we invest a lot of $ in our computers and want the best possible we are able to purchase.

Winter, I'm sorry for all your problems. I know what that is like from a Dell laptop I had, would just turn off after 48 seconds. That went back to them about 5 times and finally I had enough, I told them enough was enough if same problem again send me a new computer. Then they gave me a new HD in the last exchange. But, that is not to say all Dell 'puters are flawed, mine might have been the lemon in the batch

So far the HP is great, just hope it continues~