You may have seen that my signature describes a laptop computer. You may remember that it's been there for a little while now.
I'm now finally going to tell everyone about it! But first, a little history.
I got my first laptop in 2007. Since it was a birthday present, I think it was in July. Yes, it was, because we ordered it in advance. It was an Acer Aspire 5103WLMi, and it cost roughly £550. Using the July 2007 exchange rates, it'd be an equivalent of $1100. Since then, our economy has taken somewhat of a nosedive. But that's a story for another day.
It had a 1.6GHz AMD Turion X2 Processor, an ATI Mobility Radeon X1300, 2GB of DDR2 533MHz RAM, and a 120GB 4?00rpm Hard Drive. It could run PS1 games, UT2004... everything I ever wanted. To me, it was the dog's bollocks.
Being a relatively (about a year) recent Linux convert at the time, I tried a variety of Linux distributions on it. In general, my first year with it was on Ubuntu, and my second year was on Arch. Hang on, that's not important. No-one cares about that.
(Realises this is dragging) Long story short, 'read only file-system' errors during my second year of ownership. Happened in Windows and Linux, no matter what I did. Replaced the Hard Drive; still did it (though the Hard Drive itself lives on to this day as one of my backup drives). Basically, I worked out it was the IDE controller on the motherboard (mainly because the CD/DVD drive began seeming to fail as well, even though the drive itself still functioned), and contacted Acer. They pretty much didn't want to know, or acknowledge that it was an intrinsic fault (found a few hundred people online with the same model laptop, and the same problems). So I decided to never buy an Acer product again.
So, in 2009, after my final A-Level examinations, I got my current laptop. Well, I got it in September, but that was due to some financial hiccups. It was from a relatively local Internet-based custom-build company, and it cost me £622. The specifications are in my signature; and for those who really care, using the September 2009 exchange rate, the equivalent cost would've been $1005.
It's amazing. Runs *everything*. Even plays Crysis at medium/high settings at ~45fps. I love it so much.
I had some problems with the Graphics card. For detail, check my post at The AMD Game Forums. Basically, when in a 2D environment, the system would occasionally freeze (with a pattern of vertical coloured stripes on-screen). After various experiments with temperature, and thermal interface material. The problem only occurred when PowerPlay was enabled. I disabled it. I do want to see if replacing the OEM Thermal Interface pads makes a difference, as currently I have some AS5 applied, which means some of the GPU RAM isn't in contact with the heat-sink plates (due to there being a gap which simple thermal grease cannot fill).
On a similar note, due to decisions regarding X.org by ATI, I can't really use Arch Linux *and* have optimum 3D support at the moment, so I'm temporarily having an "Ubuntu holiday". Until the time when the latest Catalyst supports the 'actual' latest X.org version.
Also, the wireless that came with it was a bit strange. After a few days of usage, the WiFi card would seemingly 'disappear' from the system (yes, Windows and Linux), and would only reappear after a completely cold reboot. As I recall, it was based on the Atheros 5007EG chipset.
So I replaced it. At first, I got hold of an Atheros 5008X-based card. I decided to stick with Atheros, because the card in my old laptop was Atheros-based, and that behaved wonderfully in Linux. It couldn't ever find any networks. I tried installing development versions of the drivers, to no avail.
I then tried my hand at an Intel-based card. Based on reviews from various Linux forums, I chose an Intel 4965AGN-based model. It found networks, sure. But it had the nasty habit of never actually finishing connecting to them. I tried enabling the back-ports repository, and installing some of the module packs from there. Didn't help the Intel card.
On a whim, I reinstalled the Atheros 5008X. To my surprise and wonder, it worked *perfectly* (as long as I replaced Network Manager with Wicd, which most people do anyway; and blacklisted the asus_laptop module). There must have been some magic in those back-ported modules.
So here I am today. Awesome laptop. Rubbish internet connection while at Home. Doing an awesome degree at an awesome University.
I need a shower, and I should *really* do some Physics today. TTFN.
I'm now finally going to tell everyone about it! But first, a little history.
I got my first laptop in 2007. Since it was a birthday present, I think it was in July. Yes, it was, because we ordered it in advance. It was an Acer Aspire 5103WLMi, and it cost roughly £550. Using the July 2007 exchange rates, it'd be an equivalent of $1100. Since then, our economy has taken somewhat of a nosedive. But that's a story for another day.
It had a 1.6GHz AMD Turion X2 Processor, an ATI Mobility Radeon X1300, 2GB of DDR2 533MHz RAM, and a 120GB 4?00rpm Hard Drive. It could run PS1 games, UT2004... everything I ever wanted. To me, it was the dog's bollocks.
Being a relatively (about a year) recent Linux convert at the time, I tried a variety of Linux distributions on it. In general, my first year with it was on Ubuntu, and my second year was on Arch. Hang on, that's not important. No-one cares about that.
(Realises this is dragging) Long story short, 'read only file-system' errors during my second year of ownership. Happened in Windows and Linux, no matter what I did. Replaced the Hard Drive; still did it (though the Hard Drive itself lives on to this day as one of my backup drives). Basically, I worked out it was the IDE controller on the motherboard (mainly because the CD/DVD drive began seeming to fail as well, even though the drive itself still functioned), and contacted Acer. They pretty much didn't want to know, or acknowledge that it was an intrinsic fault (found a few hundred people online with the same model laptop, and the same problems). So I decided to never buy an Acer product again.
So, in 2009, after my final A-Level examinations, I got my current laptop. Well, I got it in September, but that was due to some financial hiccups. It was from a relatively local Internet-based custom-build company, and it cost me £622. The specifications are in my signature; and for those who really care, using the September 2009 exchange rate, the equivalent cost would've been $1005.
It's amazing. Runs *everything*. Even plays Crysis at medium/high settings at ~45fps. I love it so much.
I had some problems with the Graphics card. For detail, check my post at The AMD Game Forums. Basically, when in a 2D environment, the system would occasionally freeze (with a pattern of vertical coloured stripes on-screen). After various experiments with temperature, and thermal interface material. The problem only occurred when PowerPlay was enabled. I disabled it. I do want to see if replacing the OEM Thermal Interface pads makes a difference, as currently I have some AS5 applied, which means some of the GPU RAM isn't in contact with the heat-sink plates (due to there being a gap which simple thermal grease cannot fill).
On a similar note, due to decisions regarding X.org by ATI, I can't really use Arch Linux *and* have optimum 3D support at the moment, so I'm temporarily having an "Ubuntu holiday". Until the time when the latest Catalyst supports the 'actual' latest X.org version.
Also, the wireless that came with it was a bit strange. After a few days of usage, the WiFi card would seemingly 'disappear' from the system (yes, Windows and Linux), and would only reappear after a completely cold reboot. As I recall, it was based on the Atheros 5007EG chipset.
So I replaced it. At first, I got hold of an Atheros 5008X-based card. I decided to stick with Atheros, because the card in my old laptop was Atheros-based, and that behaved wonderfully in Linux. It couldn't ever find any networks. I tried installing development versions of the drivers, to no avail.
I then tried my hand at an Intel-based card. Based on reviews from various Linux forums, I chose an Intel 4965AGN-based model. It found networks, sure. But it had the nasty habit of never actually finishing connecting to them. I tried enabling the back-ports repository, and installing some of the module packs from there. Didn't help the Intel card.
On a whim, I reinstalled the Atheros 5008X. To my surprise and wonder, it worked *perfectly* (as long as I replaced Network Manager with Wicd, which most people do anyway; and blacklisted the asus_laptop module). There must have been some magic in those back-ported modules.
So here I am today. Awesome laptop. Rubbish internet connection while at Home. Doing an awesome degree at an awesome University.
I need a shower, and I should *really* do some Physics today. TTFN.
