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Old 05-10-2006, 10:27 PM   #1
ZfrkS62
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Default i think i killed my laptop (Got the new one today!)

My AC jack was coming loose again so i took it apart like i did last time and resoldered it to the motherboard. Only this time, about 30 seconds after booting up, my touchpad takes a shit, which forced me to go and by a USB mouse Now, the AC jack is fixed, but the power type indicator LED isnt lighting up anymore, nor is the power LED. all the others are on except for these.

Time to hunt for a new laptop i guess :bah:
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Old 05-10-2006, 11:47 PM   #2
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Sorry to hear that, i'd love to help but I can't.
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Old 05-11-2006, 12:59 AM   #3
ZfrkS62
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anyone have any suggestions? I have an HP Pavillion ze4300 series now, and while i liked it in the beginning, the AC jack bullshit has kind of put me off of them.

I looked at Sony and Toshiba in the store today, and while the Vaio is impressive, it's battery life is not.

I'm looking for something below $1000 with fairly good battery life. Prefereably a 60gig or more hdd since i am kind of a vid whore. I've got all 8 Hellraiser movies plus a bunch of vids from JW stashed on my disk right now, along with all my CDs.

The Acers look promising with 3.5hrs battery life. I would like to use the hard drive from my HP as an external if possible. HDD's should be able to be swapped right?

>dammit, as i type this i keep catching myself moving for my non-functioning touchpad <

The only gaming i do is flash games so i don't need something that would be ideal for World of Warcraft or something insane like that.

any help would be appreciated
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Old 05-11-2006, 01:11 AM   #4
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My company used to get Sony laptops for a year or so but we had a lot of them failing due to varied issues - screen, battery. IMO don't buy it.

I think for the money the Toshiba laptops are awesome - very, very reliable and pretty cheap too. I currently use a Dell D610 for work and I pretty happy with it.
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Old 05-11-2006, 01:21 AM   #5
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my Powerbook can go depending on what i am doing up near 5 hours on battery life. now if i am playing in PS then its like 2 hours but i have a G4 at 1.67ghz with 256mb of ram and i have no problem running large PS files or 3d video. but get the Ferrari Laptop
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Old 05-11-2006, 01:27 AM   #6
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Originally Posted by SWT
my Powerbook can go depending on what i am doing up near 5 hours on battery life. now if i am playing in PS then its like 2 hours but i have a G4 at 1.67ghz with 256mb of ram and i have no problem running large PS files or 3d video. but get the Ferrari Laptop
Aren't those things astronomically expensive?
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Old 05-11-2006, 01:31 AM   #7
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nah i got mine for under 3K, but the ferrari laptops are closer to 4K, US.

edit: i have 512MB of RAM on my laptop.

my laptop


15.2" TFT Display with 1440x960 resolution
1.67GHz PowerPC G4
512MB memory (DDR2 PC2-4200 SDRAM)
80GB 5400 rpm hard drive
Slot-load 8x SuperDrive (DVD+/-RW/CD-RW)
ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 graphics card with 128MB DDR memory
Full size, backlit keyboard
Gigabit Ethernet
USB 2.0 and FireWire 400 & 800


Ferrari Laptop

Ferrari 4006WLMi Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional x64 Edition ; AMD Turion™ 64 Mobile Technology ML-40 (1MB L2 cache, 2.2GHz ); 1GB (512/512) DDR333 SDRAM; 100GB hard drive; integrated DVD-Super Multi double-layer drive; 5-in-1 card reader; 15.4" WSXGA+ (1680 x 1050) TFT display; ATI® MOBILITY™ RADEON® X700 graphics; 802.11b/g WLAN, gigabit LAN, V.92 modem

[ http://us.acer.com/acereuro/page4.do...&crc=256486494 ]
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Old 05-11-2006, 02:09 AM   #9
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my friend bouht a samsung and he's vey happy with it. good price too.

don't buy vaio, ihave one and its not as robust as other sony products. plus their recovery dscs are full of useless software unless you're a video or sound editor
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Old 05-11-2006, 09:53 AM   #10
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Hey Z, if you are looking for something under 1k then I recommend DELL. Those peeps have tons of coupon codes available online. All you have to do is add a coupon (www.xpbargains.com) and you get discounted up to 750. As for the battery life, they offer an 80w battery which gives my brother (according to him) 4 hours.

All you need to do is go to xpbargain and put "dell _model type_" and youll get coupons. If you have a hard time looking for them or getting the coupon to add correclty, gimme a shout.
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Old 05-11-2006, 10:34 AM   #11
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Don't go Dell, although there prices are very cheap and quite inviting.


HP has the best build quality IMO. They've gotten much better since your current(dead) laptop. They have VERY good deals too if you check out hpshopping.com too. You can pick up a laptop with very nice specs for around 600-700 bucks.

I work in IT for a Raytheon(a major defense engineering company for the US and the rest of the world with $). We have Dells, HP's and IBM(lenovo). IBM's are nice because of all of the extra gadgets and features (finger print scanning, hd movement sensors) but the build quality is NOT like HP's buisness laptops.

Check out an HP NC6220 and that line of laptops (business not pavilion).

I actually just bought a Pavilion L2000 (special edition Lance Armstrong laptop) but it JUST got stolen yesturday from my apartment. The pavilions do not have as good of build quality as the buisness laptop line up from HP.


Hope I was helpful..
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Old 05-11-2006, 10:48 AM   #12
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I have a Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop for school, and although it has served me pretty well, it does have it's occasional problems(doesn't want to boot w/ the power chord plugged in, I used to get the blue screen of death when I first bought it). Not only that, this is the second Inspirson 6000 I had to get, the first one would die on my after a couple minutes of use. About Dell's customer service, I once e-mailed them about a problem I had with my computer, and they never e-mailed me back! I probably won't go back to Dell for a while. A friend in my dorm recently bought an Acer and it seems to be running pretty well without any problems so far. Not only that, but the Acer's are fairly cheap considering what you get. Best of luck!
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Old 05-13-2006, 01:09 AM   #13
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Well if you're considering the Ferrari notebook, then I'll suggest something by Panasonic or Samsung. The really thin and light ones have an insanely long battery life, they claim 10+ hrs on the Panasonic one, and they look pretty good. The problem is that it costs 1700+ and they have slow processors to ensure a longer battery life. The Panasonic R5 or W5, if you feel like spending more, are both really nice.

Almost forgot, IBM or lenovo laptops aren't that bad. Not the greatest battery life, but nothing a secondary batteries can fix, and they're also compact!

Or if you want one of those tablet things a Motion LE1600 is apparently really good, though most people I know have one of those HP ones.
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Old 05-14-2006, 04:18 AM   #14
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Get an Alienware.
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Old 05-14-2006, 01:00 PM   #15
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thanks for the input guys. I think the Ferrari laptop is a bit ludicrous for what i need, it's also 3000 dollars over my budget, at least.

i'll let you know what i decide. I might sell this one to me co-worker so he can use it to tune EFI systems.
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