The Mess Hall

My laptop is getting pretty unreliable these days, it overheats regularly (100 celcius and it shuts down) with the average temp being around 65c.

It's struggling to playback video, the temp gets to about 90c and it throttles the CPU right back to cool it down... which makes watching video on it nigh on impossible.
It's struggling to playback audio files within subsonic too, but thats JS based and slightly higher overheads, but thats what Winamp is for ... numpty.

It's a known problem with this laptop, acer 5535 google it and overheating. Just sitting in the bios screen for a minute or two and it shuts down. Though I've no idea why the CPU should run at 100% in the bios.

But it's served me well.

So I've got a couple of hundred quid in the bank, and a laptop I can put on ebay, plus another £200 next week.

does anyone know where I can get a pretty decent desktop PC (monitor required, I can add that later) for less than £500.

If I could add water cooling to the laptop I would, but I need a CPU block that fits an AMD QL-62 638pin Socket S1 CPU.
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K8/AMD-At ... M22GG.html

Erm am not sure if you can buy in singles from them,
But computer plus Do new and Recond units.

I normaly pickup a weekly email from them with 2nd hand PC and Laptop.
and at good price with High specs.

Computer Plus.

Failing that i get all my parts from ebuyer and Novatech

You could push your luck and drop them a call tomorrow and see if they would send you a email with all there units.
They dont put them online, Ill check my inbox in work see if i have an upto date email from them

Cheers Dave, novatech looks promising.
Computer plus looks worse than CCLonline.com

I think I'll leave it another week or two until I've got some more dosh.

Yer dont be put of by the site.
Am not sure how they operate, i know one of our suppliers we have by CHANCE got an account with them, And there a massive supplier to all Schools, dont trade to anyone else,

Am not sure if that was computer plus.

Not too sure on prices, from what they list on the site to what we get at trade is always different, So in regards to price i have never paid any attention

Novatech has always been my Main personal supplier. Never had an issue with them.
Never had any faulty stuff from them, And even there own branded gear is as good as the top branded stuff
they get a 9/10 from me, Support and gear is perfect. Just some times there prices are a little more expensive, but on other things there cheaper, same as everywhere really

I might be tempted with this, for now at least.
from www.cclonline.com

AMD Athlon II X4 640 Quad-Core 3.0GHz Processor
4GB Corsair Desktop 1333MHz DDR3 Memory Kit
Gigabyte M68MT-S2 Socket AM3 Motherboard
Cooler Master Hyper TX3 CPU Cooler
500GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 3.5" Hard Disk Drive
Pioneer BDR-206DBK 12x BDRW Drive
Galaxy III Black
1 Year Return to Base Warranty
Sparkle NVIDIA GeForce GT 220 1GB Graphics Card


£406.36 inc VAT

fully assembled and tested
allow 3-4 days build time

No monitor keyboard or mouse, I have keyb and mouse, and a 1080p TV, I can buy a monitor later.

@Symonator got any BFBC2 PC screenshots?

yeah for the price thats good.
The graphics card is quite a low end if not cheap cheap - but it would handle hd very easily and run most games on a medium setting.

Cpu isn't bad either.

The price is just over a cost price so they are making very little profit themselves unless they buy in bulk of course.

p.s

screenshots from ps3? no mate i havent.

Yeah I'm not looking for a machine to play BF3 ... YET!
BFBC2 and general PC duties is fine.

When it gets nearer to BF3 time, I'll upgrade the GPU to something much meatier.

I might use it for video encoding so the CPU will come in very handy. I'm also getting a blu-ray writer so I can finally backup my photo's and music collection on just a few disks instead of around 50 dvd's, and also watch movies too.

the cpu alone will eat through encoding, lots of cores to spare.

It really annoys me how this laptop has got plenty of power (for it's age)
4gig DDR ram
dual core AMD 2.0ghz

but the problem is cooling... it's sat idling at 66c
If I try and watch a 2 minute youtube video in HD it throttles back the CPU and kicks the fan up to high speed. Playback then looks horrible.

It's capable, just not cool enough.

I've even had to disable smilies when posting... it runs the CPU to near 95c.

Ordered the PC, delivery date the 9th june.

The specs:
Galaxy III Black 450W + USB2 + Audio (case)

Coolermaster Hyper TX3 CPU Cooler (heatsink and fan)

Custom Configured WEB System (pre-built system with custom config)

4GB Corsair Desktop 1333MHz DDR3 Memory Kit

1yr Return to Base Warranty (like I wont fix it myself!)

AMD Athlon II X4 Quad-Cor e (640) 3.0GHz Processor

KFA2 GeForce GTS 450 OC Ltd Edition 1024MB

Gigabyte M68MT-S2 Socket AM3 Motherboard

Seagate Barracuda SATA 6Gb/s 500GB Hard Drive

Pioneer BDR-206DBK 12x BDRW Drive

I went for a better VGA in the end. Should be fine for BF2/2142, it'll keep me occupied for a little while, that and inFamous 2.

you'll be able to play most games on there anyway.
Get yaself some C&C's and we'll play, since u said u like K&M lol .
Daves got C&C tib wars for mac.

I might just do have to do that.

shame u didnt grab the ea deal from steam £3.45 for each C&C

I didn't look tbh.
But yep, it's a shame.