Brought a laptop

[Friend_Bear]

I won a semi decent laptop from ebay, here are the specs:

Amd Athlon XP 2200 (ex Compaq Presario model)
512 Mb ram
64 Mb Radeon Mobility (unsure exactly on the model)
Onboard Sound
Onboard Lan with wifi

It cost $599, I checked the other sites for deals like dell and gateway but they all sucked, I want the laptop to take to San Diego next month, plus I can use it to backup my hd. For and extra $100 more I could have gotten A64 model instead, but that didn't come with a battery and the whole point of a laptop is mobility lol

I think I got a good price, it didn't come with a carry case though, so I'm going to try to search for one at a local thift store or pick up a cheap one from ebay.

[E.T.]

Batteries are expen$ive for laptops. I bought a backup for mine @ $130.
Mobile gaming eats up power, I get maybe an hour on mine [ AMD 64 3200/ ATI Mobility Radeon 9600/512MB DDR]. I use it more for docs & wireless networking, which more than tripples the battery life. Its been a blast having a laptop around for ripping/burning DVD's & file transfers in general.

Check out local office supply stores for laptop cases. I didnt want a softcase & had to search for more secure luminum lockable one. I found a nice unit thats been very reliable for travel @ Office Max. Though not a Halliburton, its attractive & cost less than $50.

Btw, how do your hinges look?

[Mochan]

That laptop looks almost as powerful as my desktop!

[Friend_Bear]

I don't have it yet, Its enroute to me lol So far, its in a lightly used state according to the auction, who I trust since I got my A64 from them lol

I'm not really going to be using it from serious mobile gaming, even though i'll have some games on there, I don't expect it to be able to play that much.

[Friend_Bear]

Well, my laptop arrived today and after 4 hours of updating and installing sp2 etc....its finally protected and has some basic stuff installed, I still can't believe it didn't come with even any security patches lol As I used to the wireless stuff to go online almost imediately started to get attacked by trojans and pop-ups, so that took a while to fix, its funny that these days spyware supposed to be illegal, yet its getting more and more nasty. Already I'm expecting to take it into get more cooling on since it runs very hot, especially after running nearly 6 hours solid of updates.

[E.T.]

A certain amount of heat is expected from laptop use, especially when running drives.
Laptop chassis are just too compact, plus nowadays consumers demand upper end hardware which increases temps further!
USB powered cooling devices can reduce heat:
http://www.hardwarecooling.com/default.php/cPath/33
Other [obvious] things to keep cool are not blocking cooling vents on lappy, keep on solid surface when in use, as opposed to placing on your lap or upholstered furniture.

You can check you CPU temp here: http://users.erols.com/chare/elec.htm

Re: malware, Ive had no problems at all since installing & keeping current Webroot Spyware aprox 8 months ago. It was $30 well spent [on sale @ CompUSA for $19 this week btw].