The (new) Official PC building thread!

oh he has vista on it now. he dont want it..lol he wants XP, so would running the upgrade advisor be needed?

 

@cincyrob,
DOES he want Vista at all? IF NOT then just format and install XP. That simple and much better IMO. If they want to keep Vista you should be able to run partitions but I HIGHLY recommend against Vista. TO much DRM for me.

....gm

btw I would only recommend XP Pro.

 

Oh, sorry, I mis read your post.

Yes, he should have no problem going to XP.

 

can he reformat it without another HDD??? i know the laptop aint much differnet than a desktop but i have only formated1 drive and thats my new one..lol seeing that its a new laptop i doubt he has much on it that he wouldnt mind losing if he reformated it

 

Rob,
If the CD/DVD drive is a writable then he can just copy any files that he feels he needs to keep on a re-writable disc for safe keeping. Then you just format the drive stick in the FULL INSTALL disc of XP and go from there. Any more questions just keep them coming. Heck we can make up answers if you want. hehehe.

....gm

 

Not sure what you mean, "another HDD", but he should be able to re-format the Vista drive with no problems.

 

cincyrob

a harddrive is a harddrive, regardless of whether it's on a desktop platform, a laptop, in an external enclosure, etc...

the same rules apply to format a laptop harddrive as that of a desktop hd that you are familiar with.

one thing i would suggest though before doing so, is have your friend backup what little important data (i am using the word "little" only because you said it's brand new and he more than likely has not filled that HD up thus far) that he may need/use in the future onto a thumb drive (usb stick/memory stick) prior to the format so he can keep/retain the programs/documents he feels worthwhile keeping

good luck~

 

lol i hear ya greensman..lol thats what i jus ttold him he said he only has some pic sof his kids on ther eright now so i just told him to back them up onto a disc then go from there.

 

hey docTY how are you buddy???
gonna have me a C2D here soon.. as you can see all my questions in here..lol

i told him all he needs to do is just get his XP disc and insert it and just follow step by step from the disc and he wont have any problems... he said he has about 200 pics of the famil on it right now and he wll get them off of it tonight

 

congrats buddy! ya got a PM ~

docTY

 

when i have reformated a drive(only been 1) i put the new hard drive in my system as a slave drive then installed OS then took it out and put in the tower i was useing it in

 

got your pm doc. you got a reply..lol

i know there is alot of junk attached to vista, but is there anythng good about it? i havent heard alot (good that is) about vista... but from waht little i have seen i like the 3d pages it has...lol just me thats all

 

cincyrob,

he will need to download the XP drivers for whatever hardware is on his laptop from the toshiba website eg: onboard sound or sound card drivers, onboard video or video card drivers, XP drivers for his wifi, XP drivers for his mobo etc, I would then save them on a cd.

toshiba tech support should be able to tell him what drivers he will need.

 

Ok so I'm Planning on buying this computer from Dell, no matter what you guys say I know dell is terrible to buy from but id like if i could do the best with what I've got so far. there is no way i can get a computer that isn't from dell since my parents just wont listen no arguments there. My question is just how will a computer like this (below) be able to run world of warcraft. Buying this for my college bound brother who is a WoW player. I felt really bad for him seeing him on his old rig which is a piece of junk from like 2003 or so. Its Running on 256 RAM nuff said, anyway It would be wonderful if i could hear back soon as i must order tonight. :

PROCESSOR Mobile AMD Sempron™ 3500+ (1.8GHz/512KB)
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows Vista™ Home Basic
LCD PANEL 15.4 inch Wide Screen XGA Display with TrueLife™(glossy) edit
MEMORY 1GB DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz, 2 Dimm edit
HARD DRIVE Size: 60GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)
OPTICAL DRIVE 24X CD Burner/DVD Combo Drive edit
VIDEO CARD ATI RADEON® Xpress1150 256MB HyperMemory™ (Integrated) edit
SOUND OPTIONS Integrated Audio edit
BATTERY OPTIONS 29 WHr 4-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery
WIRELESS CARDS Dell Wireless 1390 802.11g Mini Card (54Mbps)

 

WOW will be able to run on basic settings.
That configuration honestly looks like it needed an upgrade 2 years ago and must be Dells bargain of the month. Putting Vista on that will suck all the power from it, rendering it about as good probably as the old one you want to replace.
I'd almost buy new RAM for the old one from 2003 than buy that with Dell and Vista.
Many Dells have new Intel core 2 chips which are the best, or if buying older, less expensive, I thought I seen AMD X2(dual core) a while back. Try to find a 3800+ X2 or better, not a Sempron.

 

so your saying only thing thats holding it back is the processor? and that makes a big difference i assume so which should i go with?


AMD Turion™ 64 X2 Mobile Technology TL-60 (2.0GHz/1MB)
AMD Turion™ 64 X2 Dual-Core Mobile Technology TL-56
Mobile AMD Sempron™ 3500+ (1.8GHz/512KB)
AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 Dual-Core Mobile Technology TK-53

 

AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 Dual-Core Mobile Technology TK-53
Genuine Windows Vista™ Home Basic
15.4 inch Wide Screen XGA Display with TrueLife™(glossy)
1GB DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz, 2 Dimm
Size: 60GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)
24X CD Burner/DVD Combo Drive
ATI RADEON® Xpress1150 256MB HyperMemory™ (Integrated)
Integrated Audio
29 WHr 4-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery
Dell Wireless 1390 802.11g Mini Card (54Mbps)

This is the best I can Do any more suggestions? I know that only the processor is different.

 

I just got an Acer laptop yesterday with nothing on it yet, and on the ram usage meter it says it has already used 766 MB of ram as soon as I boot it up. My desktop has Vista installed as a dual boot with XP. Both my desktop and my laptop have 2 gigs of ram, and my desktop having a clean install of vista on it's own portion of the HDD still uses up around 600 MB of ram at startup without any other programs installed. I wouldn't have Vista without atleast 2 gigs of ram (I would prefer 4). My laptop has a 160 GB HDD at 5400 RPM, Core 2 Duo at 1.86 GHz, and 2 gigs of ram. And it still seems slow to me, and I still can't play any games on it. Mostly because any of the games it will run with integrated graphics are incompatible with Vista.

Bottom line is I hate Vista and am now trying to install XP on it as we speak. I have ran into many problems doing this though, because partition Magic isn't compatible with Vista and I can't dual boot. If I install XP from scratch I won't have any drivers for anything because they are all for Vista.

For the most part I got an excellent deal on my laptop, I told you the specs and I only paid $750 for it.

Sorry I kind of got off topic since this is the Official PC Building Thread. But I saw his problem and figured I'd let him know what I though of my new decently powerful laptop running Vista. Basically I wouldn't recommend it at all, but then again, I don't see a way around it.

 

I won't pretend to know anything about Vista cause I don't but I WILL NOT run it on my puter until there is ZERO choice otherwise.

I talked to my step-mom yesterday, she's a computer programmer and deals with AS/400 IBM's most of the time but she does dabble in Micro PC's every once in a while. She said she wouldn't even work on a PC with Vista , it's that bad. She had a client call her the other day about a problem with Vista and she just formated the HDD and installed XP without thinking twice. OK enough of that.

@CHEESEPIE,
Can't you order a PC with XP installed from DELL? Something to look at if possible.

@Spenman91,
I'll look and see what I can find for drivers and such. I think that Mort81 said something but I can't remember and I'm lazy. btw what is the specs and make of your laptop?

....gm

 

Spenman91,

I can't stand vista. I bought a new dell laptop about 4 or 5 months ago and vista is all that was available for OS. I went to the dell website on my desktop pc and downloaded all the necessary XP drivers for my laptop and saved them to a cd. I then reformated my laptop with XP and then loaded all the drivers from the cd. no more vista for me. you should be able to do the same with your acer.