Bought a New Laptop...

[High_Plains_Drifter]

It was time. I had to retire my Sony VAIO. It was just about 8 years old, the trackpad was acting all funny, the sound was so quiet I could barely hear it, and the 15" display was getting hard to see with the old eyes. So I got a monster DELL INSPIRON SERIES 5770. 8th Gen i7 Intel, 256SSD, 2TB HD, 16G of RAM, 4GB AMD Radeon 530 Graphics, 17.3" display, backlit keyboard, dang is this thing nice. Great price on Amazon, and a comparable HP was at least another $400-500.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07BRD86VH/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[jimnyc]

Damn, nice, the I7 kicks ass and is what I want to upgrade to in my main machine! I have one with one, but long story. My main machine in use now has an I5 in it.

If not clear already, use that SSD to boot from, as it'll boot 20x faster than a regular drive. Then use that 2tb sucker to store everything. And of course when installing new programs, you can simply change the destination to the secondary drive. It likely came like this.

16gig is likely all you'll ever need. a 4gig Radeon is sweet! I have a Radeon too, a 2 gig sucker from years back. I don't do none of that gaming so it's more than enough.

Looks like a lot of good options on there and a nice laptop all the way around. Good luck with 'er!!

[STTAB]

Damn, nice, the I7 kicks ass and is what I want to upgrade to in my main machine! I have one with one, but long story. My main machine in use now has an I5 in it.

If not clear already, use that SSD to boot from, as it'll boot 20x faster than a regular drive. Then use that 2tb sucker to store everything. And of course when installing new programs, you can simply change the destination to the secondary drive. It likely came like this.

16gig is likely all you'll ever need. a 4gig Radeon is sweet! I have a Radeon too, a 2 gig sucker from years back. I don't do none of that gaming so it's more than enough.

Looks like a lot of good options on there and a nice laptop all the way around. Good luck with 'er!!

In use I don't think there is much discernible difference between an I5 and an I7. It's more about as you say having a solid state drive, and about RAM. But damn that's a nice setup he bought himself.

[jimnyc]

In use I don't think there is much discernible difference between an I5 and an I7. It's more about as you say having a solid state drive, and about RAM. But damn that's a nice setup he bought himself.

Oh, I had 2 machines that were basically identical, but one an I5 and the other the I7. With the SSD you will see a lot of noticable differences, starting at bootup. But once up and running, trying opening 4-7 applications at once, and then see how things operate. THAT is where you will see the maximum advantage, IMO.

For example, my Dad does a lot of photography and videos. When he converts and makes files, it KILLS the CPU's and it would drag and hang and take forever. But since he got the I7, he says it's night and day. He can run those operations and still work in the background. But yeah, I guess if you aren't hitting it hard, you may not feel a huge difference.

[STTAB]

Oh, I had 2 machines that were basically identical, but one an I5 and the other the I7. With the SSD you will see a lot of noticable differences, starting at bootup. But once up and running, trying opening 4-7 applications at once, and then see how things operate. THAT is where you will see the maximum advantage, IMO.

For example, my Dad does a lot of photography and videos. When he converts and makes files, it KILLS the CPU's and it would drag and hang and take forever. But since he got the I7, he says it's night and day. He can run those operations and still work in the background. But yeah, I guess if you aren't hitting it hard, you may not feel a huge difference.

My older son is pretty serious into gaming. Not just playing video games but he's getting into making video tutorials and stuff of gaming. So he bought himself an Alienware Alpha. He loves that computer but yeah it had the I3 and a standard hard drive when he first bought it, along with 2GB of RAM. He'd absolutely kill that machine when trying to play video games and run video editing software at the same time. Installed an I5 because the computer guy we use told him he wouldn't get much more out of the I7 for the price, installed a SSD and quadrupled the RAM , he says its like a totally different machine.

[High_Plains_Drifter]

Yeah it boots at lightening speed. Never seen anything so fast. I suppose I didn't need one with some much in it, but I always figure buy the extra and then not regret NOT getting it, and make it last well into the future.

That little VAIO has been a damn good computer. Never had a bit of trouble with it really. If Sony still made the VAIO or a laptop, I'd have been tempted to get another one. Definitely wanted the 17.3" display though, it looks so much bigger than the 15. I've watched youtube vids with it in 4K nary a glitch. I upgraded my Mediacom to 100M too, and it clocks over that.

I upgraded my shop computer too. One my son threw together awhile ago, but I installed 8G of ram and an NVidia GForce 1050i graphics card with 2G of ram. That runs real nice now too. The backroom desktop is new too, an HP that also has a 256M SSD, so I'm pretty well set for computers.

I'll probably keep the little old VAIO. Even 8 years old, that has an Intel i7 Core processor, 8G of ram, a 1T HD, a 1920x1080 display, 3.0 USBx2, and even a bluray drive. So even that, 8 years old is no slouch. The HDMI on that is kinda screwed up too though among other things. You can't even bump it or it loses it's connection. The power cord isn't tight anymore either. It just falls out.

New computers are just FUN... :laugh:

https://i.ibb.co/P5rjLPT/20190517-141705.jpg

[High_Plains_Drifter]

https://i.ibb.co/GcFZCqv/speed.jpg

[Elessar]

Yeah it boots at lightening speed. Never seen anything so fast. I suppose I didn't need one with some much in it, but I always figure buy the extra and then not regret NOT getting it, and make it last well into the future.



Nice Hogwarts picture!

[Elessar]

I replaced my old PC with a newer one in January. I am not a tech like some of you folks,
but it has 16 GB RAM and 1 TB hard rive, and is built for gaming.

It runs like a scalded cat when I am on Firestorm and building things.

[High_Plains_Drifter]

Just noticed on the new DELL laptop that the 2TB HDD wasn't showing up in File Explorer under This PC, only the 256GB SSD was. I was mad enough to send it back, and had already started a return on Amazon, but called DELL this morning and they were able to fix it. It really is an extra nice, monster of a laptop and I love it. I really didn't want to send it back, and I have canceled the return.

[jimnyc]

Just noticed on the new DELL laptop that the 2TB HDD wasn't showing up in File Explorer under This PC, only the 256GB SSD was. I was mad enough to send it back, and had already started a return on Amazon, but called DELL this morning and they were able to fix it. It really is an extra nice, monster of a laptop and I love it. I really didn't want to send it back, and I have canceled the return.

What did they do? Was it somehow there but not allocated properly? A setting in the bios?

[High_Plains_Drifter]

What did they do? Was it somehow there but not allocated properly? A setting in the bios?
Actually, it showed up in Disk Management but not in File Explorer, This PC. My son said try reformatting it but make sure your OS is on the SSD, and it is so I reformatted it, and when I did that I renamed it Drive D. Well, even though it's showing "healthy" and "working properly" in Disk Management, it still didn't show under This PC. So I thought maybe I should rename it D:, so tried that, didn't work. Then this morning it hit me while mister COULDN'T UNDERSTAND the INDIA TALKING ACCENT dude, it hit me while he screwed with it for 45 minutes, that C: drive is in parenthesize, like (C:) and so it my external, (F:), so I told the guy, hey, maybe you should redo the drive name with parenthesize, because he had remoted in, but he blew me off and screwed off for awhile some more until I was ready to end the session, but he got into a menu kinda fast and I didn't follow, but he redesignated the drive with parenthesis around it and bam, there it is in File Explorer under This PC. Initially it said Drive 0, and I think that was screwed up, and it did need to be formatted, but if I'd put (D:) in "rename drive" when I formatted it, I'd have fixed it myself.... I think. It may have needed to be redesignated though. IDK... it shows up now, but now it's called D,: (, D, :, ). Comas used to board codec doesn't display a smilie.

Well shit, the page codec is screwing up how I need to write the drive name... won't let me do it... (, D, :, ).

[jimnyc]

Actually, it showed up in Disk Management but not in File Explorer, This PC. My son said try reformatting it but make sure your OS is on the SSD, and it is so I reformatted it, and when I did that I renamed it Drive D. Well, even though it's showing "healthy" and "working properly" in Disk Management, it still didn't show under This PC. So I thought maybe I should rename it D:, so tried that, didn't work. Then this morning it hit me while mister COULDN'T UNDERSTAND the INDIA TALKING ACCENT dude, it hit me while he screwed with it for 45 minutes, that C: drive is in parenthesize, like (C:) and so it my external, (F:), so I told the guy, hey, maybe you should redo the drive name with parenthesize, because he had remoted in, but he blew me off and screwed off for awhile some more until I was ready to end the session, but he got into a menu kinda fast and I didn't follow, but he redesignated the drive with parenthesis around it and bam, there it is in File Explorer under This PC. Initially it said Drive 0, and I think that was screwed up, and it did need to be formatted, but if I'd put (D:) in "rename drive" when I formatted it, I'd have fixed it myself.... I think. It may have needed to be redesignated though. IDK... it shows up now, but now it's called D,: (, D, :, ). Comas used to board codec doesn't display a smilie.

Well shit, the page codec is screwing up how I need to write the drive name... won't let me do it... (, D, :, ).

Make sure in disk management, that not only is it listed there, but that to the right of it, the graph if you will, make sure it's an active partition as well. I've had "new" drives before that would show up but only there until it was formatted and listed there with an active partition of some sort.

[High_Plains_Drifter]

Make sure in disk management, that not only is it listed there, but that to the right of it, the graph if you will, make sure it's an active partition as well. I've had "new" drives before that would show up but only there until it was formatted and listed there with an active partition of some sort.
Yup, oddly enough, from the beginning, the 2TB HDD showed up in Disk Management as "healthy" and "working properly," with the proper partition, as well as the 256GB SSD. Thing is, it was named Disk 0, with no letter designation, and I think that's the only reason it wasn't showing up in File Explorer under This PC. As soon as it was renamed (D:,) [coma added only so board doesn't show a smilie], it showed up. I think it needs to be designated with a letter and colon, (anything but A or B), and the letter and colon HAVE to be in parenthesize.