New laptop advice

So there you have it.
Although I'd ask around a bit more, do a  little Google search, catch my drift?

Well, unless you intend on spending more than you said,
 you're probably not going to find any great performing graphics card on a laptop.

James wrote: Because I prefer AMD.  All my machines, except my very old 386, have been AMD and they've never let me down, so I want to stick with them. Besides, I've found a laptop that has an nVidea graphics card and an AMD chipset. I would wait for the quadcore AMD for laptops, but that could be a while yet.

That doesn't make much sense to me. AMD on a laptop ... that's a bit experimental. Intel Core 2 Duo is the way to go IMO.

^ the 150g partition issue with XP has been fixed - the Maxtor website has the patch.

James wrote: That's what I'm going to go for (Intel Core 2 Duo), Mike.  I've been convinced. I've been reading about dual booting from a Vista pre-install and it's not straight forward at all! I might actually be better off sticking with an XP installation and avoiding Vista for ages.  Dual booting is possible though, but it's fraught with issues, especially as early XP doesn't recognise SATA drives and my new laptop will likely have a SATA drive in it.   There's also the issue with XP only being able to recognise a 150 gb partition. So I'm not sure what to do. I also have a sneaky suspicion the XP disc I have access to is an update disc, rather than a full install, so I might not be able to dual boot.

One thing you could do ist to use Vista 64 and 4GB of RAM. Then you can install VMWare Server (it's free) and install your old copy of WinXP in a virtual machine. It's relatively straight forward to set up and use. You can also run most apps in Vista if you configure the compatibility mode correctly.


Edited by MikeEnRegalia - April 23 2008 at 11:00

I've read that not all apps work in VMWare though when using XP under Vista.  A dual boot would be the best way of doing it.

Anyhow, I'm slowly going off the idea and I think I'll end up getting an XP machine.

Only problem is, the ones I am looking at only have 120 Gb drives, which I guess is big enough for my requirements, but I'd prefer a 250 Gb.   I will of course have an external drive (most likely 1 Tb -- if XP doesn't have issues with it, of course), but I don't want that plugged in all the time and of course, the main applications should be on the C:

I'm also sure they have Intel GMA cards in and as I said, I'd rather an nVidia or an ATI.

I don't think I have a full XP install anyhow.  I'm completely frustrated now.

I'm at a loss.


Edited by James - April 23 2008 at 16:04

I have a lot of applications as well as computer games that individually take up over a gigabyte without the expansions and other bits and bobs.

Neverwinter Nights is a huge game and I plan to get Neverwinter Nights 2 in the future, so I'm going to need internal space.  I really don't fancy running software from an external drive.

My current machine has:

C: 28.6 Gb (only 2.03 Gb left, with Neverwinter Nights installed)
D: 3.90 Gb (with 1.72 Gb left) - this is a partition of C: I think
F: 17.1 Gb (with 2.01 Gb left) - this is a separate drive

As you can see, this current setup pushes my system fully.  A 120 Gb drive would be sufficient for all this software, but do bear in mind I've uninstalled a lot of stuff to make space.  XP may well take up more space than 2000 too, so I think a 120 Gb. would be almost full.... I will need a bigger drive.

You're potentially a lifesaver!  These look much better.  Thanks!

I'm just hoping XP and SATA will work together, I'm sure they will.  I'm still worried about a high specification machine like this running XP without issues.... I don't know if nVidia even do drivers for XP in that range, I guess they do, otherwise Dell wouldn't be offering it.

I have a lot of choices too... hmm, a better graphics card would be nice, just in case I ever do decide to buy graphics intensive games

Those XPS' are really cool, one of my teachers has it.
The only problem, he says is battery life.

king of Siam wrote: Those XPS' are really cool, one of my teachers has it. The only problem, he says is battery life.

That's not a huge issue for me, because I don't get out much.   There's a few circumstances where I may require it though, such as at Family History Centres and such like.