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Just bought a laptop: a few general and technical questions.
Sparrow
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
With all the back to school deals going on in the computer industry this time of year I recently managed to purchase a fairly decent laptop without breaking the bank. Now having never had a job that required me to be in constant computer contact I've never owned one of these newfangled portable computer things and thus, am left with a few questions I'm hoping someone may be able to answer.
Cooling suggestions?
I always knew laptops got hot, but wow. After running my laptop for only an hour I'm pretty sure I could cook eggs off the thing. Now I'm guessing its safe to assume that having a computer that you can cook food off of is not a good thing and looking around on Google there seems to be only a few options in this area. You can buy a stand that elevates your computer and thus creates more airflow. Or you can buy a fan that pumps air directly into the vents, however seeing as this thing sucks power from a USB port I have to wonder if its actually doing any good. Has anyone heard of/found any viable solutions? And more specifically what products would you recommend?
Battery Life?
I know battery life for laptops is not the best. My friend told me on average the battery is going to go dry after a year or so. Is there anything I should be aware of in this area? IE: Tips/Tricks to prolong your battery or some special kind I can purchase that will last longer?
And finally my technical problem:
Gaming?
My laptop runs games great, actually it runs them much better than my home PC. The trouble is it doesn't run them for very long. For example say I start playing TF2. The game looks/runs fantastic and by default everything is at max settings, much better than my home PC. However after about a half an hour or so the game starts to sputter. My FPS goes to hell and the video gets all jumpy. Has anyone ever experienced something like this? Is there anything I can do to remedy it?
Cooling suggestions?
I always knew laptops got hot, but wow. After running my laptop for only an hour I'm pretty sure I could cook eggs off the thing. Now I'm guessing its safe to assume that having a computer that you can cook food off of is not a good thing and looking around on Google there seems to be only a few options in this area. You can buy a stand that elevates your computer and thus creates more airflow. Or you can buy a fan that pumps air directly into the vents, however seeing as this thing sucks power from a USB port I have to wonder if its actually doing any good. Has anyone heard of/found any viable solutions? And more specifically what products would you recommend?
Battery Life?
I know battery life for laptops is not the best. My friend told me on average the battery is going to go dry after a year or so. Is there anything I should be aware of in this area? IE: Tips/Tricks to prolong your battery or some special kind I can purchase that will last longer?
And finally my technical problem:
Gaming?
My laptop runs games great, actually it runs them much better than my home PC. The trouble is it doesn't run them for very long. For example say I start playing TF2. The game looks/runs fantastic and by default everything is at max settings, much better than my home PC. However after about a half an hour or so the game starts to sputter. My FPS goes to hell and the video gets all jumpy. Has anyone ever experienced something like this? Is there anything I can do to remedy it?
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Sparrow on
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Battery life - I'd say a year is very pessimistic. About 2 years you'll have a definite noticeable reduction in battery life. Off brand replacements can be found online for a reasonable price.
Gaming - Are you sure it isn't something running in the background? Virus checker, spyware checker, windows updates or other stuff can bog down both an internet connection and cause the hdd to thrash if they try and access it while gaming. Otherwise try the usual, update your drivers and minimize what is running in the background.
I keep mine plugged into AC at almost all times, though.
It doesn't last all day, just like, an hour or two.
I'm asking because batteries degrading and loosing their charge is proven, so to hear a case where it hasn't really happened is shocking.
If I had to guess, I'd say anywhere between 1-4 hours, depending on the use. Seems pretty much the same to me.
Shit, now you've got me wanting to actually time how long it takes my battery to discharge.
OP: what are your laptop's specs specifically CPU and GPU)?
I'm sure the heat can't be worse than the the P4 laptop my brother bought because when he called me up to ask for advice I told him the CPU he got wouldn't matter for doing e-mail/word/etc.
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
Your going to have to tell me how to find that. I've never used Vista before in my life everything is in crazy places.
EDIT: Ah! Here we go.
-Intel Core 2 Duo CPU T955 @ 2.66GHz 2.67GHz
-4.00 GB DDR3 Ram
-ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4670
-Windows vista 64bit
Edit: Open the run dialogue and type "dxdiag," that'll tell you a lot of crap.
Playing games requires a lot more power than surfing or doing work-related stuff. The slideshow may be from the CPU throttling down to lower the temperature or save power when the battery is getting low. See if you get the same slowdown with the laptop plugged into an outlet.
Nope.
I can cook eggs off my laptop if that gives you any idea temperature wise. As for power, I never play games without it plugged in. Eats up so much energy.
You may end up having to get a laptop cooling pad and using that to play games, or just tune settings down. I've tried both the vent coolers and the cooling pads; the vent coolers tend not to work. Most of the benefit of the cooling pad just derives from elevating the laptop vent, too; the fans are pretty nominal.
Temperature: download and install speedfan. It will show you your CPU temps. A more precise number will allow you to distinguish between "it just runs this hot, normally" and "something's gonna melt soon".
Laptop is just shy of 16inches. As for cooling pads, they all seem to suck power from a USB port. Now my technical knowledge is lacking, but would that not heat it up even more?
Give me a min. Ill install this speedfan thing and run some tests.
Well, of course it'll generate a little more heat. But the idea is to push even more cool air past the hot parts, so the whole thing cools down on net.
A 15.6" laptop with a 4670 can be expected to run quite hot, but it shouldn't be excessively so.
But if you computer is getting cook an egg hot in 30 minutes, there might be a bad fan or something on that graphics card because I know I don't get that close on any of the laptops I use. Even when playing Half Life 2 or TF2 at full settings on mine.
Oh and using it on a flat surface really will help you a lot. Also when you are plugged in check your power settings, they may still be on throttle back mode still unless you manually change it. I know I had to do this on my laptop.
When playing The Witcher, I notice a few snags every once in awhile but nothing like TF2.
Perhaps I'm just used to seeing figures from built-it-myself desktop systems that have proper cooling and thermal paste, but AFAIK, 60-80C is pretty damn hot, and is likely the cause of the problem. Someone earlier mentioned that TF2 isn't exactly Crysis in terms of graphics, but it is well known that it is a fairly CPU-intensive game. In my experience, over 65C is "danger Will Robinson", over about 70 is "killing brain cells" (you are likely shortening the life of the CPU), and in the 80's level is when you are going to be seeing errors, bluescreens, etc.
I'd definitely give a cooling pad or some other extra cooling apparatus a try.
LiPo batteries have a moderate shelf life regardless of usage. They will decline to basically useless about 5-6 years after manufacture, even if they just sit on a shelf.
They also decline based on charge cycles. That is, the number of times you drain them and charge them back up. Draining to "0%" and charging back to 100% is one charge cycle. Draining to 75% and charging back to 100% four times is also one charge cycle. It's not better to drain them all the way, it's pretty much the same. Most batteries will go through about 300 charge cycles before they only hold 80% of their original charge. After about 500 cycles, the battery will hold less than half and you'll want to replace it.
If you don't plan on using the laptop much off its power cord, make sure you go through at least one charge cycle a week to keep the battery in working order. Again, that's not necessarily a full drain all at once. It could be draining it to 86% every day and charging overnight.
If you plan on using the laptop heavily off of the power cord, don't worry about it. You'll burn through your 500 charge cycle life in about 2 and a half years. At that point, suck it up and buy a new $100 battery. They're not THAT big of an expense.
For moderate usage, just be sure to plug the thing in whenever possible to minimize charge cycles. But don't think that alone will save you. After 5 years or so, it's toast anyway, so unless you're quickly approaching the limits I outlined above, don't worry and become obsessive about it.
Edit: Here are some usage scenarios...
Minimum Usage (keep battery working properly):
1 Charge Cycle per Week
Estimated Lifespan: 5 Years
Optimal Usage (use battery to its fullest before time kills it anyway):
2 Charge Cycles per Week
Estimated Lifespan: 5 Years
Typical Usage (take to meetings regularly, use in library)
4 Charge Cycles per Week
Estimated Lifespan: 3 years
Heavy Usage (take to all classes, meetings, etc)
8 Charge Cycles per Week
Estimated Lifespan: 2 years