Cheap Laptops

[Joann]

I

upgrade


I upgraded my 3yo Toshiba Satellite C850 running 64bit W7 Pro to W10 Pro and have had not one issue. Runs like a dream.

My Toshiba Satellite is about 4 or 5 years old, came with 7 and now running 10 with no problems either.

 

[Robert Dell]

We have a 4 year old HP and upgraded to WIN 10. Sorry I did not do an image back-up, but I don't know how. The Boot time is at least 7-10 minutes. HP wanted $130. to fix outdated drivers. Guess I have to grin and bear it.

 

[Vince Massi]

JoAnne and Mr. Ed, thank you for your posts. When I wrote on the Acer forums, I had advised everyone with a cheap 7 laptop not to upgrade to 8. But upgrading to 10 seems to work better.

Robert, you need to re-post in a help thread. We can tell you how to update your drivers for free.

 

[Winters3rd]

I can't believe my good luck. In January 2009 I purchased a Lenovo SL500 Thinkpad laptop with Windows Vista. I believe I loaded XP, but I know I have run Windows 7 for 2 or more years and have now successfully loaded Windows 10 Home. I have had not trouble on any of these changes.

I am not a gamer, just and old retiree that doesn't push my computer hard at all.

 

[Vince Massi]

It ain't luck, Winters. It's skill.

The truth is that most Windows 10 upgrades have no problems. Most of the problems that do occur are easily fixed.

A few years ago, on the Acer forums, several people reported upgrading a cheap laptop from 7 to 8 with no problems. Others fouled themselves up--even when it worked, it often ran slower.

 

[Vince Massi]

An Air Force veteran told me that in their workshop, you were issued a laptop that you put on your work table and rarely moved it. The Air Force expected them to last seven years. Although they were not elevated (which would lower the temperature about 10 F) they were rarely moved and were not used for high-end games. Most of them lasted at least seven years.

 

[Vince Massi]

For years, I have had a shortcut to "Create a Restore Point" on my desktop. I used it whenever I installed ANYTHING. But such a shortcut is imposible with my beloved Windows 8. However, I found this http://www.toms-world.org/blog/restore_point_creator and have a working System Restore Point shortcut on my 8 and 10 desktops now.

 

[Vince Massi]

Mickey's back, with more common-sense solutions to complicated laptop problems.

A fellow wrote into the forums that he had bought an expensive laptop with an expensive video card and an expensive touchscreen monitor. He could easily swipe with one, two, three, or four fingers. Then he bought a large cheap external touchscreen monitor, and it not only doesn't show the pictures as clearly as his laptop monitor, but he can only swipe with one finger. We explained that no matter how good your video card is, it cannot make a cheap monitor do something it isn't built to do.

Another fellow bought a budget netbook and upgraded the built-in monitor to a better one. But it doesn't give him a good picture. The answer: his drivers aren't designed for the new monitor, his laptop isn't powerful enough to run the new monitor well, and for less than he paid for the new monitor he could have bought a full-size laptop.


Anybody else have a Mickey Mouse solution to a common problem? Feel free to post it here.

 

[MrEd]

An excellent series of articles demonstrating a high level of common sense.
Thanks Vince.

 

[Vince Massi]

If you can Start your computer but can't get Windows to open, you are probably having a hard drive problem. There is about 1/3 of a chance that it is a software problem, however. So you try to get into Safe Mode and can't. Now what?

On some versions of Windows, including Windows 8, you can put ANY legal copy of Windows into your DVD drive and restart your computer. Depending on your operating system, the DVD will allow you to go into Safe Mode, and various repair modes, before it asks for your Windows Key. No, it is not illegal, because you are only using it to access your own legal copy of Windows.

On Windows 10, it is ridiculously easy to make a recovery disk. Get an unformatted CD or DVD and type "Windows 10 recovery disk" into any search engine. And if you're already fouled up, you can make it on another Win 10 computer, or even borrow one, because they're all identical.

 

[Vince Massi]

For those who came in late, the power of computers doubles about every eighteen months. Your new, expensive laptop will be middle of the road in eighteen months and will be bottom of the line in three years. I recommend buying a new cheap laptop every two years or so--it's cheaper than buying an expensive rig, you can throw it away of the hard drive fails, and you'll actually have a more powerful computer with a better operating system this way.

 

[MrEd]

For those who came in late, the power of computers doubles about every eighteen months. Your new, expensive laptop will be middle of the road in eighteen months and will be bottom of the line in three years. I recommend buying a new cheap laptop every two years or so--it's cheaper than buying an expensive rig, you can throw it away of the hard drive fails, and you'll actually have a more powerful computer with a better operating system this way.

In my opinion, for high-level gamers a state-of-the-art "bleeding edge" desktop is the way to go. For most other stuff an older laptop from a reputable manufacturer, loaded with MS Office and having had an SSD upgrade, is just the ticket.

 

[Vince Massi]

Mickey's back, with another low IQ intelligent tip. Do you want an optical drive (DVD drive) on your new laptop? Before you buy, make sure it has one, because many of them don't.

 

[yunior]

As BigFeet correctly points out, laptops are not good for playing high-end games. And now, on to Part 2:

Drivers are software programs that tell the parts of your computer how to work. When you install an operating system (OS), the installation disk will include lots of drivers, so hopefully, you will be all right. But laptops are very specific; an installation disk usually does not have all the drivers.

The tech forums were full of complaints from people who tried to upgrade their laptops from Windows 7 to Windows 8. Somewhere in the process, their laptop would reject the new OS because it didn't have the necessary drivers. Sometimes you can download the drivers from the manufacturer, but then they still won't work because they're designed for Win 7, not Win 8. Some people upgrade smoothly, but then find that their laptop doesn't run as well. And some people have no problems.

I have successfully upgraded three cheap Windows 8 laptops to Windows 10. But laptops designed for Windows 7 do not upgrade as well. Yes, it can be done, and it has been done--but I advise against it.

what dou you mean when you say laptops are not good for gamming
i have an ASUS ROG G752 and it's pretty good, in fact that machine is intended to be used for gamming
so......????

 

[Vince Massi]

Yunior, you didn't post the specific model number, so I'll have to give the generics for your rig. You spent about $1600 for an 8 gig rig. The insides are about 1/6 the size of the insides of a desktop, with only one cooling vent; the greater heat from intensive game-playing will make your laptop wear out a lot sooner than a desktop will wear out.

 

[Trouble]

Vince... you need to realize that many higher end laptops come equipped to better deal with heat dissipation.
I just took one of these apart the other day to do a hard drive upgrade and it has quite an elaborate heatsink arrangement as well as dual fans and exhaust ports.

 

[Vince Massi]

You do realize that the title of this thread is "Cheap" laptops? Yes, expensive gaming laptops do work well'--for a while. And then they're awfully expensive to walk away from.

 

[yunior]

bro
here's my specs
and i have to admit that my model is the cheapest of the serie
my lap is
ASUS G752 VL
wich comes with an:
core i7 6700
16Gb DDR4 RAM
NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 965 2Gb VRAM
so like i said it is intended to be used for gaming and that's my point that you said NOOO.
my point is just that i did't understand why you say laptops are not for gaming when there are a lot of models that are built for that like ALIENWARE - ASUS the G series - MSI
of course that the interior of any lap is smaller than the interior of an desktop there's no question about it but like TROUBLE said that kind of laps come with a high tech equipment specific built to deal with the heat and intense gaming periods.

http://www.asus.com/Notebooks/ROG-G752VL/

http://www.asus.com/Notebooks/ROG-G752VL/specifications/

http://www.asus.com/Notebooks/ROG-G752VL/review/

thanksss.

 

[yunior]

yea i know the title is about CHEAP LAPS LOL
but it sound ugly the phrase that lap are not for gaming
sorry LOL

 

[Vince Massi]

Got a laptop so cheap that you can't find out much about your CPU? Type CPUID into a search engine and you can download a free tool that will give you detailed info on your CPU. You can't change anything, but it won't hurt your system.