go to best buy. My brother upped his laptop to 8 gigs from 4 for about $30. if you buy really massive amounts of memory, yea, it'll be expensive, but just getting to a baseline gaming level isn't expensive.

Going back a while, but about the Linux thing, you can also make a LiveUSB, which is a bit more flexible than a LiveCD, and if you do your gaming on Steam, odds are that at least some of your games have a Linux version, which thanks to Steam, you already own by virtue of buying the Windows version.

OK, since I'm trying to avoid rookie mistakes by reading up in advance...

Static straps. What's the best place to hook them up to when handling PCBs?

To the case itself, IIRC.

That seems to be what I've seen a lot, but there seems to be some some disagreement between having the PSU connected but switched off at both ends (which still seems like too much of a shock risk to me), and having it disconnected.

How do you upgrade a laptop? It doesn't seem meant to be upgradeable like a desktop is.

Usually there's areas on the baseplate you can remove to access things like the hard drive, battery and memory.

It'll depend on the laptop. Find a copy of the owner's manual, it should tell you which parts are User Servicable vs which parts should be done by a pro, and even a lot of the parts that should be done by a pro can still be done by the owner if he has the right screwdriver and knows where to use it.

Also, I've noticed a lot of laptops will have little icons on the underside showing you what is located under which parts of the base (hard drive, memory, etc.) This is important because usually laptops have little screw-shut panels to get at the innards rather than having the entire case come off or open up like a desktop.

It's still possible to remove the casing entirely (sometimes) to get at stuff deeper inside, but the process get a lot more involved. On my laptop, it involves removing the battery, removing the center base panel, removing the memory modules so I can get at a screw that I need to remove which screws into the underside of the keyboard so that I can use a different tool to pry under the keyboard and pop it loose from the catches holding it in place.

Once the keyboard is out, almost everything in my laptop (a somewhat pricy Lenovo T420s) can theoretically be replaced in my kitchen if I know which fiddly bits do what and how to get at them (and if I have replacement parts, natch).

So, to make a long story short (too late), find the manual for your laptop and see what it says about upgrading memory. It should say if you can, how to get at it, and how much of what kind you can use.

Unless you have a Macbook like me in which case the entire underside is a single panel screwed around the edge.

But then Apple is very big on the whole "no user serviceable parts inside" thing so that you have to pay a Genius Bar tech to do anything to your stuff.

edited 30th Jan '14 3:54:52 PM by Deadbeatloser22

Remember how that company started by selling hobby kits?

And Steve Jobs was the one who made the "end user can't fix it" decision....

Remember how Steve had massive anger problems, and treated his employes like shit, yet is seen as a hero of the IT industry.

Yet Gates, who even as a CEO worked on the floor, helping is coders code, and donates BILLIONS of his dollars to charity is seen as an aggressive businessman?

Who ever is in charge of apples brain wash.... I mean Public Relations/Sales departments, I would want to hire them if I ever ran a company.

The wonders of a Reality Distortion Field.

The bad decisions were mostly Balmer. Yeah Gates was behind the sweet sweet bundling deals that cemented MS Office as "the standard" and Powerpoint (and death by powerpoint) are words now.

But Gates became The Atoner. Xbox One? He would've tried it, but been less of a d_k about it. When Gates left, Windows 98 and Windows XP were loved OSes. Balmer let Microsoft's Dork Age flower.

And even he knows that his moment has passed.

Jobs let his ego run things. If he was more humble, MS would never have had to bail them out. He got lucky with the Ipod, iMac and Iphone. If they had failed things would be different. And no, not one was cutting edge, they were just trendy.

I think that is best exemplified if you cmpare the specs of an Ipad, and an HP PDA from 2002, want to guess which one has better hardware?

Better in what way? Cause I'm pretty sure the 2002 tablet will have more raw horsepower, but will also be much heavier and run much hotter (I used a Fujitsu Windows XP tablet in 2008, it was not entirely unlike cradling a laptop in your arm, sans keyboard). Most modern mobile hardware seems to be focused on low power consumption and heat output, compare to a quad-core desktop processor with a heatsink that's heavier than the entire iPad.

Ideally, I'd like to have a tablet in the size/weight range of my Thinkpad T420, with a desktop mode and a tablet mode, depending on how you are using it. You may have a different selection of programs for each mode (this is probably me describing Windows 8). Basically something with a GUI/program selection that lets it do well in both modes, rather than just one or the other. It'd be heavier than a Nexus or an iPad, but really, if you can hold a baby, you can hold a much lighter tablet computer.

edited 31st Jan '14 3:03:18 PM by AFP

Okay I was off by a year◊

Here's my config:

• Intel Core i3 4130
• Corsair 8 GB RAM
• Radeon HD 7790
• Gigabyte Motherboard
• Toshiba 1TB HDD
• Samsung 256 SSD
• Still can't run Crysis 3 at high

At what resolution? Benchmarks I've seen suggest that the 7790 cannot hold up Crysis 3 on high at 1920X1080, but could do so at substantially lower resolutions (depending on what framerate you require).

AFP, you forget that most people and afford a droid tablet, when it comes to the Windows RT or Ipad, Crack is Cheaper. $400-700 US for a tablet without a case? YGBSM...

Imca: Bet the HP tablet weighed about ten times as much though. The difference in hard drive size is most likely a case of the first tablet using a spinning-platter HDD, rather than solid-state memory like most modern tablets. And it says nothing about battery life, which is one of the more important specs on anything that you intend to walk away from the wall outlet with.

1440x990. It may have something to do with my case's lack of ventilation. It doesn't lag, my PC overheats and crashes.

edited 1st Feb '14 3:43:06 AM by Logograph

If you have ventilation problems, fix them now.

I'd need to get a new case, but payday's still a week away.