Laptops - Page 2

blazey · 28-08-2008, 20:37

OK guys after 3 long hours in PC world I opted for an Advent after all the fuss because it seemed to be good value for my money.

Basically I got the Advent 4401 for £399. I didn't read any reviews before I got it and it seemed like a nice enough laptop, ideal for my purposes.

It is 12" widescreen, 2gb RAM, 160gb hard disk, Intel Core 2 Duo T5550 1.83Ghz.

It was in the sale and the last one, and i've got it home and it seems to have a bit of a rattly fan, either that or it is scraping against something inside... though it quietens down when I am just doing something like typing but it was quite noisy when I first powered it up and sorted out all the settings.

Do you think I should be worried? People have wrote about a noisy fan but I can't be certain that they are complaining about the same problem as me. Currently I dont hear the scraping/rattling noise.

It is a nice laptop though and I don't really want to have to take it back and swap it for something else. I settled for vista though and I am just ignoring it lol.

Other than that I am quite smiley. Prepares for groans

entwisi · 28-08-2008, 20:50

when you first start Vista it has to work hard to lots of indexing etc on teh disk, this can make them a bit slow and noisy as it does stress the machines.

if it continues take it back within a couple of weeks and get it sorted quickly

blazey · 28-08-2008, 21:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by entwisi

when you first start Vista it has to work hard to lots of indexing etc on teh disk, this can make them a bit slow and noisy as it does stress the machines.

if it continues take it back within a couple of weeks and get it sorted quickly

Ah it has been a little slow as well and I did wonder why with it being better than my last laptop. Well I have a few weeks of being annoyed by it before I go back to uni. My ex is going to take a look at it tomorrow. It isn't actually bothering me too much now that I have got used to it. Just know it'll annoy anyone that decides to study in the library whilst I am there!

entwisi · 29-08-2008, 06:45

It will be slower than XP anyway as 2 gig is teh minimum RAM to run vista in any real form. If you can afford and it has space, uppping this to 3 or 4 gig will help dramatically. there are a lot of other tweaks that you can do to stop it anoyying the hell out of you.

UAC - this is the pain in the backside thing that keeps asking you if you are sure you wnat to do this that and teh other. it was designed to stop newbies doing things they shouldn't but in reality just gets in teh way of doing a lot of things.

Superfetch - another thing desigened to 'speed up' your work but has the exact opposite effect

Aero - teh wizzy interface uses loads of RAM and CPU to do pretty pictures, unless you have decent graphics chip turn it off.

There are a load more but as I really don't want to spend any longer than necessary in Vista I'll leave it to teh windows boys and girls(accyman? onlyme? etc) to help you further.

If you want Linux installed to have a play with give me a shout. it won't affect the vista install apart from grabbing a bit of disk space ( 10 gig max)

onlyme · 29-08-2008, 09:31

I now the Pentium D chip has a problem with over heating which means the fan has to work overtime. Not dangerous but bloody annoying. This did get replaced though, but might be worth checking

blazey · 29-08-2008, 18:06

The laptop has been brilliant in regards to heat. Had it on til 6am yesterday from buying it, in which i did the naughty thing of using it in bed and slightly making it go hotter than normal, and it was still what I would class as cool.

It is definitely the hard drive were the noise is coming from, it just reads it a bit noisily, but other than that it is absolutely fine and it has quietened down dramatically since first using it.

I haven't really pushed it much yet because I haven't transferred all my old stuff over from the other laptop.

Also on the RAM issue, I can't really afford to put more in it at the moment even if it doesnt have space but I will consider it in future once I start using it for my work and stuff. Fortunately all my work is on paper at the moment so I'm not really having to do too much.

Quick question though. Would I be able to wipe the Vista off and put XP on myself? Or will the laptop not support it?

entwisi · 29-08-2008, 18:20

Posted via Mobile Device

You can but you may have fun chasing drivers down. Before you doit get a list of all hardwazre and download xp drivers before trying to install xp. You can install xp in a dual boot mode so you don't have to remove vista first

blazey · 29-08-2008, 18:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by entwisi

Posted via Mobile Device

You can but you may have fun chasing drivers down. Before you doit get a list of all hardwazre and download xp drivers before trying to install xp. You can install xp in a dual boot mode so you don't have to remove vista first

Sounds like a lot of hassle!