Alright ma peepz, help me spend $500 +/-

**Hellfire** · Moderator Joined: 05 Aug 2003 Posts: 2968

Congrats on the nice lappy...

If you have questions or issues with Vista let me know. I've been using Vista for about 2 years now (through many betas) and use it as my only OS now.

If you have issues with a program, make sure you go into the properties of it and try compatibility mode (and making sure you have the latest version if possible). Many people forget about compatibility mode and just get upset. You can also tell the app to run as administrator if you have issues, which helps sometimes.

I've not run into many apps that I've had to do that, at least not after I updated to the latest version...

knight0334 · Posted: Mon, 14 Apr 2008 22:58:02 Post Subject:

definitely not a fan of Vista.. too sluggish and convoluted. *{looks at XP volume license edition CD and ponders}*

**Hellfire** · Moderator Joined: 05 Aug 2003 Posts: 2968

Yea, I can see that, especially with all the "extra value added" software the vendors tend to toss on there. I really hate that they put all that crap on there and have it tied so closely to the other programs.

If you can do it, a fresh install of Vista would make it run much smoother (or put XP on there as you are thinking). Vista is a resource hog, without a doubt...

knight0334 · Posted: Tue, 15 Apr 2008 08:01:08 Post Subject:

I'm slowly working on stripping it. I have XP down to 80mb of used ram after bootup and things settle.

I'll see how far I can strip Vista before I do anything about changing the OS.

**Hellfire** · Moderator Joined: 05 Aug 2003 Posts: 2968

Well, one word of advice on reimaging it to XP...

REALLY check for drivers for XP. I've seen several new laptops that there are no working drivers for XP as it was designed only for Vista.

Buddy of mind just mentioned it because he rebuilt a HP laptop from Vista to XP this weekend and had issues with drivers, specifically network and sound drivers.

He got it to work, but with 4 year old drivers that weren't designed for his hardware.

**BeerCheeze** · Posted: Tue, 15 Apr 2008 09:26:24 Post Subject:

knight0334 · Posted: Tue, 15 Apr 2008 10:42:03 Post Subject:

gonna hold off on the XP thing til I know for sure.. I have gut feeling that I can strip Vista down to 3-400mb of used ram.

edvallie · Posted: Tue, 15 Apr 2008 14:04:08 Post Subject:

knight0334 · Posted: Tue, 29 Apr 2008 10:06:56 Post Subject:

Well... heres my two week review:

Am quite happy with new HP DV6810US.

Turion X2 TL-60 2.0ghz
3GB DDRII PC5300
GeForce Go7150M shared graphics. (set at 128mb in BIOS)

Even though Vista is a RAM w#0R3 - it runs quite fine if you keep your applications to a minimum. Of the 3GB of RAM equipped, about 700mb is left after Vista settles to the desktop. Granted, there are about 100-200MB of HP and other programs running that I haven't trimmed yet - it still has yet to justify the over 2GB that Vista uses. ...plain and simple - no operating system needs to use anything more than 100mb of RAM.

Display: The onboard nVidia graphics perform quite well. Better than I expected really.. I downloaded and installed Guild Wars and then logged into a busy town that usually makes my desktop studder some. I was ready for some laggy 4-20fps movements - but to my surprise nearly all movements were fluid and smooth(couple exceptions). I didn't play around much further due to not having a mouse handy.

Sound: For a laptop - its rather decent. The Altec Lansing speakers sound good. One thing that does concern me is - the volume max's out rather low. Sometimes with all settings set to max, its difficult to hear the lappy over typical TV volumes.

The touchpad is relatively large and easy to get an extra finger on it - which messes with cursor movements.

**BeerCheeze** · Posted: Tue, 29 Apr 2008 10:39:11 Post Subject:

Cool. Glad it's working out for you!