MGP: New Laptop?

[MGP]

Ok - so I found what seems to be a very nice review of the P4 EE, P M, and the AMD Athlon chips at:

GamePC - Mobile CPU Showdown P4 vs. P4EE vs. P-M. vs. Athlon64

Based on the reviews, it seems that the P4 EE and Athlon 3700+ are very comparable in most respects with the advantage being toward the 3700+ for science/math calculations (e.g. my CA).

According to the review, the 3700+ processor runs a little bit cooler than the P4 on average and has better default adjustments based for notebooks. It also seems to be cheaper.

One extra bonus is that it seems you can underclock the processor and get more battery life out of it when you need it, e.g. when traveling:

NotebookReview.com Notebook Forums - Compaq R3000Z

from a site that looks like it has free software:

ClockGen

This to me seems like a good compromise for maximal performance when plugged in and slowing down with a decent battery life when unplugged. Is this too optimistic or should it really work?

The best priced systems I could find were nearly identical systems from Compaq (R3000z) and HP (zv5000z), but apparently they are very heavy. They do have everything I'm looking for though and they're available, even customized, through Costco which has a 6 mo return policy. The Compaq has a switch for the wireless card so that can save even more battery life. The main drawback it seems is that they're very heavy - and I'm used to my tiny little Fujitsu Lifebook P - oh well - I can't have everything

By the way I'm planning on getting 1 GB memory, but is it worth $825 for an upgrade to 2 GB of memory (the system is about $1700 with 1 MB)? Does it really make that much of a difference?

Thank you both very much for your help - now I just have to clear it with the wife - wish me luck !!

Sincerely,
MGP

[Parker]

> According to the review, the 3700+ processor
> runs a little bit cooler than the P4 on
> average and has better default adjustments
> based for notebooks. It also seems to be
> cheaper.

You don't have to sell this AMD fan on the virtues of Althons. :-)

> One extra bonus is that it seems you can
> underclock the processor and get more
> battery life out of it when you need it,
> e.g. when traveling:

Most laptops can be configured to do this to some extent. Of course, if you plan on using it on battery a lot, and you're going to underclock the processor to save battery life, you may as well save some money and buy a slower CPU.

> NotebookReview.com Notebook Forums - Compaq
> R3000Z from a site that looks like it has
> free software:

> ClockGen This to me seems like a good
> compromise for maximal performance when
> plugged in and slowing down with a decent
> battery life when unplugged. Is this too
> optimistic or should it really work?

It will work. How well is another matter. You're not going to get anything close to the 6 hr you mentioned in your original post.

BTW, most Linux distros come with power management software that will throttle back the CPU, among other things, to conserve battery life when running on battery. Just thought I'd mention that.

> The best priced systems I could find were
> nearly identical systems from Compaq
> (R3000z) and HP (zv5000z), but apparently
> they are very heavy. They do have everything
> I'm looking for though and they're
> available, even customized, through Costco
> which has a 6 mo return policy. The Compaq
> has a switch for the wireless card so that
> can save even more battery life. The main
> drawback it seems is that they're very heavy
> - and I'm used to my tiny little Fujitsu
> Lifebook P - oh well - I can't have
> everything

Yep, big and heavy. These are the "desktop replacement" systems that I mentioned in my earlier post. I would also have concerns about durability, but then, not everyone is as rough on laptops as I am.

BTW, my own idea of an ideal laptop is something like a Toshiba Portege R100 (link below).

> By the way I'm planning on getting 1 GB
> memory, but is it worth $825 for an upgrade
> to 2 GB of memory (the system is about $1700
> with 1 MB)? Does it really make that much of
> a difference?

Absolutely not. These days, 256 MB is a minimum, 512 MB is adequate for most purposes, and 1 GB is more than you really need, even if you like to run several aps at once. 2 GB is overkill and a waste of money.

You can see this yourself. Start every ap you can think of on the system you're using now, then right-click on the taskbar, open the Task Manager, and select the "Performance" tab. You'll probably find that you're not using more than 200 MB or so of memory.

> Thank you both very much for your help - now
> I just have to clear it with the wife - wish
> me luck !!

You're on your own here. :-)

Toshiba Portege R100

[MGP]

Thanks Parker and Magician,

> Most laptops can be configured to do this to
> some extent. Of course, if you plan on using
> it on battery a lot, and you're going to
> underclock the processor to save battery
> life, you may as well save some money and
> buy a slower CPU.

> It will work. How well is another matter.
> You're not going to get anything close to
> the 6 hr you mentioned in your original
> post.

> Yep, big and heavy. These are the
> "desktop replacement" systems that
> I mentioned in my earlier post. I would also
> have concerns about durability, but then,
> not everyone is as rough on laptops as I am.

After your initial reply I thought about it a bit and decided I wanted to make the processor the priority. My Fujitsu lasts 8 hrs on it's battery and is great for plane rides. It's also only 10" so it fits easily on the tray table and the kids can play on it and watch a movie for an entire cross-country trip.

My main motivation for wanted to move on is because it's processor is only an 800Mhz Crusoe. It literally takes me over 1 minute (I times it once to emphasize the pain) just to load my CA (a 1.5 MB Excel spreadsheet). It takes about 10s to switch from one application to another if more than 3-4 are running. I tried running sim software and found out it's just too slow. I just can't take the pain much longer!

I'm sure it's going to be a very hard adjustment to the 15.4" 8-11 lbs, but most of the time I use it it's plugged in (at work and on my recliner). I really like the flexibility though for long trips, which are not infrequent - so my compromise will be to use the Fujitsu at those times.

> BTW, most Linux distros come with power
> management software that will throttle back
> the CPU, among other things, to conserve
> battery life when running on battery. Just
> thought I'd mention that.

Thanks, but I'm not ready to take the Linux plunge yet.

> BTW, my own idea of an ideal laptop is
> something like a Toshiba Portege R100 (link
> below).

Thanks for the link - it looks like a nice computer but see above about my processor decision.

> Absolutely not. These days, 256 MB is a
> minimum, 512 MB is adequate for most
> purposes, and 1 GB is more than you really
> need, even if you like to run several aps at
> once. 2 GB is overkill and a waste of money.

> You can see this yourself. Start every ap
> you can think of on the system you're using
> now, then right-click on the taskbar, open
> the Task Manager, and select the
> "Performance" tab. You'll probably
> find that you're not using more than 200 MB
> or so of memory.

I tried that and you're right, but it's weird. When I have a couple of spreadsheets open and 6-7 explorer windows open - Excel won't run any macroes and says "Out of Memory". It's very frustrating because I end up having to reboot when it does that. But I'll stick to just 1 GB then.

Thank you guys for your help.

Sincerely,
MGP

[MGP]

Thank you everyone for all of your input.

After further researching the matter I found out that AMD had released an Athlon 3700+ DTR (desk-top-replacement) about 2 months ago. It turns out that the performance is actually almost exactly the same as the desk-top 3700+ but with better power-management. I was happy to learn after board-browsing that even though the HP customer service reps had no idea, HP is actually using the DTR chip and people are getting about 3-4 hours of battery life with the 12-cell. No other notebook with that kind of processing power exists with that kind of battery life that I could find, and definitely not at that price. The notebook also has 2 antennaes for the wireless card and stereo speakers as well as other nice things like S-video, built-in 5-in-1 card reader, bluetooth, etc.

So after talking to the wife - who said, "Merry Christmas," I took the plunge and ordered the HP zv5000z from Costco, which has a 6 mo return policy - just in case something better comes out. I also got the smallest hard disk and smallest memory chip since I found out I can get a much faster hard drive (7200) and more memory (1G and 256MB) for the same price as 1G if I replace the disk and add a 1G chip myself. The biggest adjustment is going to be the huge size. I also found out Costco has the student/teacher Office addition cheaper than the Microsoft site and so I'm getting Powerpoint for $30 more than the Basic Office from HP.

Anyways, thank you everyone again for all the advice/feedback and I'll let you know how it is when I get it.

Thanks,
MGP

[MGP]

So I returned my HP after spending hours rebooting and reloading the HD and sending it back and forth multiple times on a problem that HP was unable to fix on my brand new notebook. The repair people were morons even though the customer service people were very nice.

Now I just have to find a similar computer that doesn't cost >$4000.

Don't buy HP - it's not worth the hassle!!!

Sincereley,
MGP

[Robert]

Ya, I got An HP Laptop About 4 years ago and its been giving me problems sence day one. I've have the floppy drive, HDD, MoBo, RAM, 6 Fans, 4 CD-RW/DVD drives, and 3 screens replaced in the system. I really haven't complaned about it a whole lot because I was covered by warrenty by the retailer that i perchased it through. So, for the past 4 years I've gonthrough about 3 or so thousand dollars of repairs for free. Now, however the warrenty is up and i couldn't renew it so now i'm screewed. By the way the techs won't even fix what is really wrong with the system, because mine needs new connectors but they never installed them.

rln

[Ed Mcclen]

I've had the same problems with HP. They really do suck. I am making it apersonal project of mine now to destroy there sales. They remind me of the American auto mfgs. who were making terrible cars and resented the fact that the Japanese cars were selling better here than theres. If you sell garbage as HP does you will pay the price eventually.

> So I returned my HP after spending hours rebooting and
> reloading the HD and sending it back and forth
> multiple times on a problem that HP was unable to fix
> on my brand new notebook. The repair people were
> morons even though the customer service people were
> very nice.

> Now I just have to find a similar computer that
> doesn't cost >$4000.

> Don't buy HP - it's not worth the hassle!!!

> Sincereley,
> MGP

[MGP]

> I've had the same problems with HP. They really do
> suck. I am making it apersonal project of mine now to
> destroy there sales. They remind me of the American
> auto mfgs. who were making terrible cars and resented
> the fact that the Japanese cars were selling better
> here than theres. If you sell garbage as HP does you
> will pay the price eventually.

I'm not surprised unfortunately. I had forgotten about this thread but if anyone cares I finally gave up on AMD as I had 3 different AMD laptops with different manufacturers that all had to be returned, one was the above, and 2 others failed to have working cpu power throttling.

I ended up getting the perfect computer for me from Sager which is unfortunately no longer on the market. It's the 4881 which is a Pentium M770, 1GB dual channel 533MHz ram, 60GB 7200 rpm drive, 15" (not 15.4") screen, and 12-cell battery which lasts easily 4-5 hours typing and about 3-4 hours playing DVD's, and it has an ATI x700 256MB video card which plays Doom 3, GTA easily. It improved the speed of my CA about by about 7x and I'm now actually in the process of converting it to VB from VBA (this is extremely painful btw and I'm taking huge breaks in time due to the pain).

Anyways, I was very happy with Sager and Discountlaptops (it's the same computer but cheaper from the latter).
Good luck with your computer search.

[melissa]

Yes , HP sucks! They have the worst customer service, they refuse to honor their warrenty on computers still clearly under warrenty and their solution to all computer troubles or issues is to wipe it out and start fresh again. They refuse to look at your system to make a diagnosis and they basically just want you off the phone. Oh, another thing, don't bother asking for their managers, they dont have them. Not one person we spoke to including their QA dept. has a manager. Another crappy company who doesn't care about the consumers who bought their product.

The long and short of this story is my 7 month old computer won't boot. It's in a loop. No safe mode, no any mode, it just wont boot. This all happened one lovely day in October 2005 when I decided to start my computer so that I could use it. Crazy, I know, hitting the "on" button can certainly stress out a machine, but I did it anyway. So it starts to boot and them "whamo" it freezes up. Huh, thats weird. So I do what most people do, I hit "ctrl,alt,delete" to get it to reboot. Yah, well that was the beginning and the end of it. It's now stuck in this loop that won't boot in any mode.
We called HP Tech Support. We've spoken to 5 people now. All of them say just wipe it out. That's all the warrenty covers. Nobody wants to look at it to see if they can fix it without losing my data, that's way out of the question. They have no trouble with us taking it to one of their "authorized service centers" - Best Buy - and paying out the nose for them to look at it but they themselves at HP have no interest in the customer, service or holding up their warrenty. They happily offered us the option to buy a warrenty upgrade which we promply asked "Why in gods name would I pay anymore money to you people when you cant honor the warrenty we have now"???

Here's something you guys will love too, the QA guy, Darren, said he didn't even own an HP, he built his own computer. What does that tell you? Their own employees don't buy their crap, So why should we??

Another side note: eMachines has ranked higher in Customer Support in Consumers Reports than HP. eMachines??? Can you believe that?

[Parker]

I gave up on most telephone tech support a long time ago, when I realized that I was almost always more knowledgeable than the person on the other end, who would usually waste my time walking me through everything I had already tried.

When I run into a problem I cannot figure out myself, I turn to the various online forums. I have had far greater success solving technical problems in this manner than I have ever had with any tech support helpline.

If you still haven't resolved the problem, I suggest that you get hold of a Knoppix disk, boot it, and attempt to recover your data files. Knoppix is a "live" CD that boots a Linux system directly off the CDROM into your computer's RAM. You then use the tools on the Knoppix disk to transfer your data files to a USB pen drive, another hard drive, etc.

Once you have done this, you can then "wipe it out" and reinstall Windows.

You do not have to be a computer geek to do this. Below is a link to a website describing the procedure in great detail in non-technical language.

Computer First Aid Using Knoppix

[Magician]

> The long and short of this story is my 7 month old
> computer won't boot. It's in a loop. No safe mode, no
> any mode, it just wont boot.

I found myself in just this situation last weekend. I generally leave my Dell on all the time but some installation or update required a reboot and when it did I got a Blue Screen of Death. I tried the last known good configuration and safe mode with the same result.

You might try what I did next, which was to hunt down my Windows XP SP2 disc and boot off that. This gave me the option to do a repair of my existing installation. About 45 minutes later I was up and running again. No data lost.

A word of warning. If you do this make sure you are properly firewalled before you connect to the internet. If you have SP2 you can enable the Windows Firewall. If not, you'll need to install something like Zone Alarm or Sygate Personal Firewall. Once you have a firewall running go to Windows Update and get all those patches again. Once they're installed you should be good to go.

Best of all, I never had to place a support call!

[Greg]

I have replaced the black cartridge in my psc-1315 twice in one day. Both times, I get the "something's wrong with the cartridge" error light and msgbox.
78 minutes of HP online support later, and the technician I was instant-messaging came to the conclusion that I need to replace the black cartridge. I copied and pasted the first line of the conversation, where I had explained that I already had replaced it twice, (I had to repeat most of what I typed during the conversation; "norman"s english was pretty poor), and he instantly came back with "perhaps there is a problem with the printer."

Norman informed me that the warranty is expired, so he would be unable to assist me further, but I could solve the problem by purchasing a NEW printer. gave him the information off of my receipt which clearly showed that the printer is still under warranty, but he insisted that their database shows the printer as being out of warranty. I scanned the receipt and emailed it to him. He continued to tell me that the warranty (a one year warranty; the receipt is dated 4/27/05!) had already expired, then he closed the chat window. (I have a log of the conversation to confirm this.)

I emailed HP several times to find out if they had actually looked at the receipt; I ultimately received an email telling me NOT to continue emailing them, but never confirming the receipt (email also available as a confirmation of this). I called HP, and was re-directed to several different call centers before finding a number that would give me the support I was looking for.
I asked, but was not able, to be connected with "Norman". I was told that HP cannot connect calls to specific technicians.

I asked to speak with Norman's supervisor. Again, I was told that HP cannot connect calls to specific people.
I asked to speak with the customer service person's supervisor. (This resulted in a five-minute question-and-answer session before I finally resorted to "Tell me how to spell your name, then connect me with your supervisor, or I will go to the BBB with your name.") I got the supervisor.

The supervisor explained several times (I could barely understand him; he had a rather thick accent) that the warranty was expired because the printer was already very old when I bought it, even though it was new in a sealed box when I purchased it. Further, according to the sticker on the printer, it was only manufactured in August of last year! He then told me that I should have faxed the receipt instead of emailing it. He gave me a case number to reference if I should wish to contact the company further about this matter. He then connected me with a technician who spent the next ten minutes of the call telling me how to clear a paper jam (there never was a paper jam to begin with!)

He eventually came to the conclusion that there must be a problem with the printer, and that I would have to mail it to HP (I believe he meant I should ship it; his English was very poor as well), and they would send me one that they had repaired. And, if I wanted, he could request that they test it before sending it to me. And, this should take no longer that ten to fourteen business days. But, since their system says that the printer is out of warranty, I would have to pay for the repairs.
He then gave me a case number that was completely different than the one given to me by the supervisor.

1. English! I realize that outsourced technical support is cheap, but it is also ineffective!
2. I have a receipt that clearly shows an in-warranty product. Why is there any question about the age of the printer at the time of purchase?
3. I have a receipt that clearly shows an in-warranty product. Why is there any question about the status of the warranty?
4. If an emailed receipt isn't good enough, why would a faxed receipt be any different?
5. There's a difference between "customer service" and "technical support".
6. Why should I have to request the replacement merchandise be tested before it is sent to me? Does this mean that it normally is NOT tested after it is repaired?
7. Three weeks... are you kidding?

Come on, HP. Get on the ball.

Greg
Dayton, Ohio
U.S.A.

[MGP]

Typical nightmare, sorry to hear you're going through it. I would go to this site:

http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/execteam/email/hurd/index.html

and email him (ignore the part about going to Contact HP). I would explain exactly what's happening and make a suggestion e.g. "HP should have a better system for maintining their customer warranty information and that they should be able to update it when direct evidence is presented to them that the information they have is wrong."

I would make it less of a complaint and more of a statement of facts and minimize the English comments since they clear don't care or they wouldn't be outsourcing. I would also keep it short and to the point about the printer being under warranty and that the company refuses to acknowledge it. Offer to email/fax the receipt as proof and see what happens, but again, make sure it's phrased as a suggestion for an improvement to their support system and keep it polite.

The worst that can happen is that they ignore you as they have been. In my case they had someone near the top of the support ladder contact me directly and he gave me a way to contact him directly (I was fed up enough by that point that I just gave up on it anyway though).

The other thing is - have you tried going back to the store you bought it at and talk to them? They may be able to help as well.

Good luck.

MGP