I went out and got myself a new laptop and a new wireless mouse today. I also got a laptop for my friend too, but that's a whole other story.

Computers is a bit of a hobby of mine (Alongside automotive stuff and R/C racing), so my desktop PC is pretty good, too, but in deciding on a laptop, something made me decide to go with a store bought HP rather than a rig from IBuyPower or a similar online store. I always take pride in building my own desktops, but as all you PCers out there know... it's impossible to get components to build a laptop from the ground up. There really isn't any sort of standard form factor for laptop boards... so every motherboard is designed with a different layout when compared to the ATX/Micro ATX/BTX form factors of the larger desktop boards.

[/geek talk]

Now...

My laptop is an HP Pavillion Dv6040us Entertainment Notebook. It's got all the goodies.... 2 GB of DDR2 SDRAM, a 120 GB SATA hard drive, an Nvidia 7200 GO video chipset, an AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-52 processor, and anything else that anyone could want in a laptop. I am going to go back and get it either tomorrow or Tuesday, depending on whenever the CompUSA manager wants to go get it in person for me...

Until then, gawk at these specs...... http://reviews-zdnet.com.com/HP_Pavi...05.html?tag=ut

It's not bad, but not the greatest. I hope that it will be sufficient for gaming as well as other stuff. It took a long time to finish the paper work on 2 laptops (Both over $1,000), 2 extended warantee slips (Considering we get a free replacement battery, replacement screens, and replacement keyboards if they break, it's not a bad deal), and a couple wireless mobile mice. I also need to get a carrying case and a car charger, but after that I should be all set for a while.

Well what do you guys think? Good, bad... Lemme hear some opinions!!!!!

 

Nice notebook! You should have plenty of RAM to run with. I myself am not an AMD man, but you should have plenty of hoss (pun intended) with that one. Wireless of course is the only way to go, heck I'm sitting in my easy chair posting from my Sony Vaio right now



Plus look at it this way, at least your battery won't catch on fire.

 

I was looking at a Vaio, but they seemed a bit expensive. This is the first venture into notebooks that I've made, and I would love a rundown of what parts are standard and what are not. I am a big desktop guy who knows all the terminology (FSP, multiplier, pipelines, PCI-E, SATA, ect...) but until now I've never had any reason to go out and look into parts and accessories for laptops. Are hard drives made by companies like Seagate, Maxtor, Western Digital ect... or does each manufacturer use their own proprietart design? I know the drive in my new notebook is SATA, but what about the dimensions of it's casing? Is it the same size/mounting configuration as a laptop in a Vaio or an XPS? What about notebook memory? Are the size of DDR2 memory sticks the same from notebook to notebook? What about DVD/CD drives? Are they all the same size? One other thing noone seemed to understand at CompUSA was the question of upgrading the CPU. Is the CPU in a laptop upgradable? If you have an older Celeron notebook on the 800 FSB, can you install a P4 on the 800 FSB with a higher clock speed? Is it more than just popping open the case and swapping coolers?

I know I love to ask questions, but I was taught that if you don't ask questions you'll never know any answers.

 

Typically a notebook hard drive is a 2.5" drive, though there are some ultra slim models that use a 1.8" disk. The propietary portion is the caddy (the tray that the hard disk mounts to and slides into your notebook).

Again, the drive itself is usually a standard 2.5" hard disk, just like the 3.5" in your desktop, it's the caddy or tray that is a different dimension and has the pretty facing that matches the outside of your notebook.

'Back in the day', you saw the 144 pin in the older laptops (like mine) and the new stuff (like yours) is the 200 pin SO-DIMM memory.

Well, I have to admit, my knowledge is a little lacking on this. Granted the media is all the same size, but the chasis of the drive I 'think' changes across the makes. I don't believe the connector on the back is set to any standard for location so I think (for the most part) you're stuck with replacing it with the same brand.

This one is really up to the motherboard in your notebook. I don't follow the new, new stuff as much and all of my users are running intel based Dells. I know my Vaio will support it and its just as simple as you suggest.

 

Sounds like a fine deal to me. I am partial to my Toshiba just for the all out reliability and what I would call ruggedness. It has fallen off the bed about 5 or 6 times, the dog came through and laid down on the key board, while dripping wet from a bath. It didnt work all that night but in the morning it worked perfect and hasnt missed a beat since. Its 5 years old and is still ahead of some of them out there. 2.0ghz processor, 512mb ram and so on.

The tension adjusters for the screen did wear out to the point that they would not hold the screen up. No problem for me, after seeing how they worked and relizing there was no way to fix it, i just ran a couple screws into the side of the screen and housing and installed a prop rod. Yes,my laptop has a prop rod to hold the screen open. Not bad for 5 years old.

 

Nothing wrong with a little hodgepodging... Without resourceful people the world would fall apart and the people who make Duct Tape would go out of business! and we can't possibly have that!