[RAMChYLD]

Better. It's an AMD Kaveri FX-7600P machine with a secondary AMD Radeon R9 M280X CPU for Enduro mode (AMD's take on Optimus). I just beefed it up with 8GB of 2133Mhz RAM. Now I am trying to find out if the 280 is perched on a MxM (aka Mobile PCIe) slot so I can upgrade it to a M290x (my original plan was to get an MSI GX60-5CD which had a FX-7600P and a R9-M290X dGPU, but MSI won't sell that model in Malaysia and then quickly discontinued it in markets where it does sell the model), and replace the hard disk with a faster WD Black 7200rpm disk (currently it has a Hitachi 5400rpm, and I dislike Hitachi, latest incident owing to a new server at my workplace suffering hard drive failure just two days after deploying. Unsurprisingly the hard drives were Hitachi. But thankfully, it was set up in RAID-5 and the data was recovered the moment the faulty disks were swapped out (6 disks, two died. Thankfully the two weren't adjacent or the data would've been done for), but yeah, it added to my already low view of Hitachi disks.

And no, I don't know why a reliability-oriented company like IBM would be sourcing their drives from Hitachi, you'd think they'd have caught on to Hitachi's questionable QC by now.

As for Violette III, I'm going to retire her for a few months while I work out what to do with her. Her keyboard needs replacing as some of the keys have to be practically smashed on to get it to register now. After that I may consider turning her into a Linux laptop as an experiment.

[cpd2009]

Better. It's an AMD Kaveri FX-7600P machine with a secondary AMD Radeon R9 M280X CPU for Enduro mode (AMD's take on Optimus). I just beefed it up with 8GB of 2133Mhz RAM. Now I am trying to find out if the 280 is perched on a MxM (aka Mobile PCIe) slot so I can upgrade it to a M290x (my original plan was to get an MSI GX60-5CD which had a FX-7600P and a R9-M290X dGPU, but MSI won't sell that model in Malaysia and then quickly discontinued it in markets where it does sell the model), and replace the hard disk with a faster WD Black 7200rpm disk (currently it has a Hitachi 5400rpm, and I dislike Hitachi, latest incident owing to a new server at my workplace suffering hard drive failure just two days after deploying. Unsurprisingly the hard drives were Hitachi. But thankfully, it was set up in RAID-5 and the data was recovered the moment the faulty disks were swapped out (6 disks, two died. Thankfully the two weren't adjacent or the data would've been done for), but yeah, it added to my already low view of Hitachi disks.

Sounds like you should be good to go for the next few years with this beefed up ASUS laptop. As for Violette III, one of the things you could try is a keyboard cleaning before ordering a replacement keyboard. Unless the switch is worn or broken, dirt or other gunk may have got below the keys that hardly register.

Full disclosure... Timothy contains a Hitachi HDD. 40gb model to be exact. I am aware of Hitachi's questionable reliability, but Timothy did pull in heavy duty before arriving home, being a former library PC and all. The HDD still works for now. I may eventually seek a slightly larger HDD in the future. 80gb would be nice... but not until the six-month XP activation window passes.


Here is Timothy sitting next to Audrey. He looks kind of like a mini server rack as his case is designed to be stacked with other E-2600s. He can also be stood up vertically with the DVD drive sideways, but it's very easy to have a DVD/CD fall out from the tray as you try to insert it. Instead, I sat an old tape/record/radio receiver that is connected to Audrey for music transfer. He does run rather cool as his internal fan only kicks in under heavy CPU load.

[huckleberrypie]

Mentlegen, BEHOLD!

Operation: Fist of the South Moon: The 6r3y5n0w Project: The Silver Cyborg Pejorative!



Andrew. No number, because time machine.

That's a 'swell rig you got there dude. If you ask me, for as long as it can run GTA V on it, it'll be golden.

[RAMChYLD]

Yes, but it was too soon. The disk failure happened just two weeks ago (as I said, new server. Very cutting edge one. Dual hex-core Xeon machine (with two hyperthreads per core, resulting in a 24-core virtual CPU) with 32GB of RAM, and 6 terabytes of storage, but only a crappy Matrox 200 GPU (you can install Quadros or FireGLs in them, but those cannot be used for graphics output). The fact that the hard disk failed meant I had to go in to work on a Saturday AND a Sunday. And I hate Hitachi for destroying my weekend.

[RAMChYLD]

Well, I think I change my mind on the GPU- I'll stay with the R9 M280X. I checked out the specs and the specs are just slightly better than Dongwa (Dongwa has two 450s, which means 392 shaders (2 x 192 on both 450s, plus 8 on the onboard 8200). Andrew has 896 (plus 512 on the onboard R7, totaling 1408, but it can't be roped into helping the R9. Maybe if I can convince it to do physics on the R7 and render on the R9...). However, Edison has 1544 (2 x 768 on both 650 Ti Boosts, plus 8 on the onboard 8200). I did a test run with both Left4Dead2 and Team Fortress 2 and it cut through both games flawlessly. However it's still having speed issues with SpaceBase-DF9, and according to NotebookCheck, it also won't run The Sims 4 with "Ultimate" settings at 1920x1080. Also, apparently I can forget about playing GTA V at 1920x1080 (this will be a problem, Asus fitted the laptop with a 1920x1080 panel. Playing a game at non-native res is an invitation for bluriness and lag). However this may well be a graphics driver issue, ATI purportedly has a "GTA V optimized" driver coming soon.

[cpd2009]

I got lucky at the bingo hall tonight.

Come tomorrow, I shall order a Tiger Game.com off eBay. I just hope the particular lot I want is still available.

[huckleberrypie]

I got lucky at the bingo hall tonight.

Come tomorrow, I shall order a Tiger Game.com off eBay. I just hope the particular lot I want is still available.

You should get a copy of Duke 3D as well. Now that'll be something.

[cpd2009]

I got lucky at the bingo hall tonight.

Come tomorrow, I shall order a Tiger Game.com off eBay. I just hope the particular lot I want is still available.

You should get a copy of Duke 3D as well. Now that'll be something.

BTW, one of the Game.com lots I'm looking at contains Duke 3d, but the other one has the infamous Sonic Jam but no Duke 3D. Lucky enough, Duke 3d is somewhat affordable on it's own, and there was even one seller offering a lot of six new sealed copies of Resident Evil 2 Game.com for around $25 USD. :p

I may go for Frogger or Centipede instead.

[RAMChYLD]

Good luck playing Centipede or Frogger on that blurfest screen!

[cpd2009]

Good luck playing Centipede or Frogger on that blurfest screen!

No luck will be needed. Centipede appears to be playable. It's more playable than the GameBoy version, which I have in a 2-in-1 "Arcade Classic" pak.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fu8sbduFnjk[/youtube]
Don't know about Frogger yet... could be playable but if it's too fast the blurry screen could ruin it.

Oh, and Greta has more room to think now. Her WEI RAM score went from 5.9 to 7.6 too!