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New computer/laptop advice thread

Started by Barry Admin, January 18, 2020, 10:39:27 PM

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BeardFaceMan

OK, this will be my last question, honest. I've done the clone, everything seems to have gone well (though there does seem to be a 7 gig difference in file size, but all the folders look like they are there), how do I swap this new one for the old one? It's got the letter I: at the moment, how do I change it to C: while I still have the C: drive in there?

Wilbur

Just swap it with the old drive. The drive letters are virtual so that one will be C: when you swap the drive out.

BeardFaceMan

Lovely job, all done, working like a dream. Thanks everyone.

Neomod

What's the state of play with graphics cards these days. Are the prices still ridiculously inflated?

I only want it to play euro truck simulator.

olliebean

Quote from: Neomod on October 24, 2021, 12:35:55 PM
What's the state of play with graphics cards these days. Are the prices still ridiculously inflated?

I only want it to play euro truck simulator.

Just learn to drive a real truck. Apparently there's a demand for it these days.

Neomod

Quote from: olliebean on October 24, 2021, 04:03:48 PM
Just learn to drive a real truck. Apparently there's a demand for it these days.

That is not helpful olliebean, if that is in fact your real name. Not helpful. at. all.

Cold Meat Platter

Quote from: Neomod on October 24, 2021, 05:33:36 PM
That is not helpful olliebean, if that is in fact your real name. Not helpful. at. all.

I used to play Euro Truck Simulator on a GTX960 with everything on high years ago so it doesn't need to be brand new if that's all you're after, but yeah the prices are still high.

BeardFaceMan

I've installed a program and can't find the location of it to get rid of it, the Windows 10 file explorer is obviously dogshit, what are some good search tools I can use to find something on my hard drive?

olliebean

Quote from: BeardFaceMan on November 25, 2021, 08:38:04 AMI've installed a program and can't find the location of it to get rid of it, the Windows 10 file explorer is obviously dogshit, what are some good search tools I can use to find something on my hard drive?

Everything is probably the best. WizFile is also good. Both have portable versions if you don't want to install anything.

BeardFaceMan


Jasha

Hello nerds it's about time I replaced my Dell 2400 with windows xp for something that doesn't take longer than the kettle to boil before it fires up, so after having a trawl around and not wanting to shell out silly money any recommendations for a simple basic fannying around online and watching a bit of the youtubes laptop*? Lots of black Friday nonsense these last couple of weeks or am I better waiting for the January sales, also some are offering an update to Windows 11 but is the Windows 10 going mouldy any time soon? Is this any good?


https://www.laptopoutlet.co.uk/lenovo-ideapad-5-15are05-15-6-full-hd-laptop-amd-ryzen-5-4500u-8gb-ram-256gb-ssd-windows-10-s-graphite-grey-81yq0015uk.html?amp=1




















*absolutely not for wanking in bed

canadagoose

Quote from: Jasha on December 09, 2021, 04:35:30 PMHello nerds it's about time I replaced my Dell 2400 with windows xp for something that doesn't take longer than the kettle to boil before it fires up, so after having a trawl around and not wanting to shell out silly money any recommendations for a simple basic fannying around online and watching a bit of the youtubes laptop*? Lots of black Friday nonsense these last couple of weeks or am I better waiting for the January sales, also some are offering an update to Windows 11 but is the Windows 10 going mouldy any time soon? Is this any good?


https://www.laptopoutlet.co.uk/lenovo-ideapad-5-15are05-15-6-full-hd-laptop-amd-ryzen-5-4500u-8gb-ram-256gb-ssd-windows-10-s-graphite-grey-81yq0015uk.html?amp=1




















*absolutely not for wanking in bed
Blimey! That's an old one.



I'm sure that laptop will be fine for what you're wanting it for. I'd be tempted to go for more RAM but 8GB is sufficient, tbh. And it should upgrade fine to W11 should you want it to. I did notice it says it comes with Windows 10 S, so you might want to take it out of "S mode" to install apps not in the MS Store.

Zetetic

I'd suggest keeping an eye on currys_clearance stuff.

Someone there seems to really like throwing Lenovo laptops around just hard enough to damage the boxes but not the computers and it seems you can save a couple of £100.

I share @canadagoose's reservations about 8GB RAM but it does seem weirdly difficult to find 16GB versions of a lot of otherwise decent laptops at this price-point?

Jasha

Is 8GB not enough then? the spread seems to be between 4 and 16 so thought 8 would be the middle of the price road compromise. As with the old Dell my biggest criteria is having something that will last a good while before it's out of date

Zetetic

I think it's absolutely fine for for "basic fannying around online and watching a bit of the youtubes", and probably will be for the next decade and a bit.

However if you get into playing computer games on it, or editing films, or maybe programming of some kind, or making music, or whatever then you might end up finding it frustrating quite a bit sooner.

(For what it's worth, my laptop for the last decade has been 2009-2011 MacBook Pros with 8GB RAM and I've had no real problem using them for fannying about + programming + data analysis, until I started trying to do country-sized transport network analysis and even then it could mostly cope. Other parts of those laptops have simply worn or fried themselves long before lack of RAM became a problem.

I've just sort-of upgraded to this refurbished Lenovo - still with 8GB RAM, and that seems to be coping fine with some extremely inefficient stuff that I'm doing on it.)

the Fallen

Quote from: Jasha on December 09, 2021, 04:35:30 PMHello nerds it's about time I replaced my Dell 2400 with windows xp for something that doesn't take longer than the kettle to boil before it fires up, so after having a trawl around and not wanting to shell out silly money any recommendations for a simple basic fannying around online and watching a bit of the youtubes laptop*? Lots of black Friday nonsense these last couple of weeks or am I better waiting for the January sales, also some are offering an update to Windows 11 but is the Windows 10 going mouldy any time soon? Is this any good?


https://www.laptopoutlet.co.uk/lenovo-ideapad-5-15are05-15-6-full-hd-laptop-amd-ryzen-5-4500u-8gb-ram-256gb-ssd-windows-10-s-graphite-grey-81yq0015uk.html?amp=1



Oh that's fine long as you don't wanna game. It's not underpowered, and Lenovo do good stuff. Ideapads can be solid and last a while.

I'd get a Windows 10 one that CAN be pushed onto Windows 11 but you might pay for that (I mean that's why you have to have TPM and all that to be able to get Windows 11 - total racket to shift hardware).

If you've been happy with Windows Xp, really, Windows 10 is fine. Well, it's ... it'll do, I suppose is a better way of putting it, and you don't sound like the kind of user who needs LOADS OF CONSTANT OS SUPPORT anyway and 10 has years of support left

Black Friday is a bit of a scam. January Sales can be the same way. Maybe pick one or two you like and follow the prices online for a bit. Lest they get slapped with NEW SAVING SALE ITEM and like it doesn't change

The rule for me though is 1) if you're happy paying for it and 2) it gives you value then 3) it IS value and you shouldn't go looking up the price of stuff after you have it generally cause that's miseryville

There's a mistake frequently made with PC hardware and that's overbuying for your actual use needs...

BeardFaceMan

Seems as good a place as any to put this, but why am I suddenly blocked from seeing reddit on Firefox? If i use any other browser I can log in and go about my business just fine, but all of a sudden when I try on Firefox I just get a blank page with the word "Blocked" in small type, on my desktop and on my tablet. If I use Chrome or Edge everything is fine so I'm not banned or anything, it looks like it's a Firefox problem, is there a setting I need to change?

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: BeardFaceMan on January 14, 2022, 07:00:29 PMSeems as good a place as any to put this, but why am I suddenly blocked from seeing reddit on Firefox? If i use any other browser I can log in and go about my business just fine, but all of a sudden when I try on Firefox I just get a blank page with the word "Blocked" in small type, on my desktop and on my tablet. If I use Chrome or Edge everything is fine so I'm not banned or anything, it looks like it's a Firefox problem, is there a setting I need to change?

You're not the only one, looks like an issue on the reddit side:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29938544

It'll be no solace to you, but I tried with the version of firefox lingering on my machine (ESR 91.something) and it did load ok there.

BeardFaceMan


Mister Six

I got a gaming laptop from Dell (Inspiron 7000, I think) about six or seven years ago, but the fans are knackered and it's doing that 100% disk usage thing that grinds it all to a halt, so I'm thinking of tossing in the towel and getting a new one.

I don't need it to be that fancy - I wouldn't play anything more taxing than Disco Elysium on it. Would like one of those screens where the colours don't go weird when you hold it at an angle though. Will mostly just be for web, writing, audio editing and film usage, but the occasional RPG will get thrown up on there too. Any recs? Ideally going for sub $500.

BeardFaceMan

I've installed Snapchat on a Samsung Galaxy Tab 6 Lite and everything has been going well for a week and all of a sudden I'm not getting any noises when I get a notification so I'm missing all my messages. I still get a notification if someone sends me a message but the audio noise is gone so unless I'm using my tablet at the time I'm not going to notice said notification. Any way to get the sound back (all other sounds, noises and apps on the tablet still work fine)?

Funcrusher

So, my cheap shitty laptop has started not connecting to my home wi-fi on a fairly regular basis. Just says 'can't connect to network'. Meanwhile my phone's connection to wi-fi is totally fine, so it's the laptop not the router. The solution each time is to reboot the router, which is a pain and probably also pisses off other people who live here. I tried forgetting the network and then putting the router password in manually but that didn't work so had to reboot the router as usual. Any suggestions?

seepage

Quote from: Funcrusher on February 18, 2022, 09:47:46 AMSo, my cheap shitty laptop has started not connecting to my home wi-fi on a fairly regular basis.

Have you tried restarting the laptop? Disabling and then enabling the wi-fi network adapter?

Funcrusher

Quote from: seepage on February 18, 2022, 03:18:43 PMHave you tried restarting the laptop? Disabling and then enabling the wi-fi network adapter?

I've tried restarting but that never seems to work. Will try the network adapter, cheers for the advice.

Dex Sawash


Need a new desktop for work that will essentially be data entry to a cloud-based app that I use 5 minutes/hour so I just need something durable.
 There are like 1000s to choose. Is Ryzen better/worse than i5/i7? Pretty low stakes since my spend is $2-300.
They all seem to have pretty equal stuff apart from the processor.

Lenovo>Dell>everything else?

I assume avoid the tiny ones?

Zetetic

Quote from: Dex Sawash on March 11, 2022, 12:18:56 PMI assume avoid the tiny ones?
Not necessarily - particularly if you'd be better off getting one without any real airflow.

On that note - would a Chromebook be worth considering, given the spend and purpose? (Or is this one of those 'cloud apps' that needs the computer to access it from a Netscape Navigator beta running on a particular version of Windows 95?)

Dex Sawash

Quote from: Zetetic on March 11, 2022, 02:39:16 PMNot necessarily - particularly if you'd be better off getting one without any real airflow.

On that note - would a Chromebook be worth considering, given the spend and purpose? (Or is this one of those 'cloud apps' that needs the computer to access it from a Netscape Navigator beta running on a particular version of Windows 95?)


Would dearly love to keep my XP Mode running on W7 but I am mostly ready to release that, I reckon.

Chromebook would work but I do like to make backup copies of people's CD collections from their car when there is time for that and occasionally have to manipulate files for software so windows platform and token hard drive would be ideal.

It is filthy as fuck here and may be some value in one of those sealed up ones, hadn't thought of that.

aunt mildred

Quote from: Dex Sawash on March 11, 2022, 12:18:56 PMNeed a new desktop for work that will essentially be data entry to a cloud-based app that I use 5 minutes/hour so I just need something durable.
 There are like 1000s to choose. Is Ryzen better/worse than i5/i7? Pretty low stakes since my spend is $2-300.
They all seem to have pretty equal stuff apart from the processor.

Lenovo>Dell>everything else?

I assume avoid the tiny ones?

Don't worry too much about brand names, just get the cheapest for your needs in the workshop. Ryzens have better integrated graphics but I doubt you need that for your usage.

Dex Sawash


aunt mildred

That looks fine for your needs, spend the extra $15 for 16GB RAM, it's worth it.

Bear in mind it doesn't come with a monitor and is quite an old CPU but not a bad one and should still be quite zippy. The CPU won't work with win11 out the box but will be fine on win10 and there are workarounds to get win11 working if you ever plan on using it.