The quality of this Notebook.

[sylverin]

I am looking for a new notebook, and I am wondering if this should hopefully fit my standards, which are 40-80 FPS, and (Hopefully) no disconnections.

Also, one thing I noticed is a massive jump in game quality if it was charging, and I was wondering, will charging affect how smooth your connections is?

Anyways, here is the notebook I was talking about.
http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/HP-Pavilion-17-Widescreen-Notebook-PC-DV-9429-US/sem/rpsm/oid/185624/catOid/-12963/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do

It seems to be a high quality notebook, with 2 gigs of ram, 2.20 GigaHertz processor, and a 559 MB graphics card, and pretty cheap.

[Kalos]

You see, when a laptop is free and unplugged from the mains, it activates powersaving features, essentially slowing itself down as to not burn through it's battery. When it's plugged in, there's no need to run at a reduced power mode. It's not so much in that the battery is charging, it's that it knows that the power lead is in and it can go a full throttle without worrying about energy conservation on its own limited power reserves. The connection isn't being smoothed out, the CPU cycles increase, as does the graphics performance. It all kicks into a higher gear and hence yeilds better performance in the rendering of the game. The data isn't being recieved faster, but is getting through the processing stage much quicker.

As an FYI, the graphics card doesn't actually have 559MB of graphical memory, it has absolutely no memory of its own at all.. It uses shared memory, broken off the main system banks, 2 gig of ram. And as it's not proper graphical memory, it's much slower and not purpose built for what the graphical system is demanding. It's a cheap onboard solution.

This is a bad laptop. Onboard graphics is a basic no. It's a low quality design.

[WatcherZero]

Unless battery technology has improved over the last couple of years you shouldnt leave your laptop permanently charging as it will dmg the battery.

You can also manually disable most Power saving mechanisms to improve performance, of course at the cost of reduced play time on the batterys.

[sylverin]

Umm, then what is the best laptop I can get for under 1,000, and can I just get a different video card on this computer and it will be fine?

[aspkin]

Isn't it true when a battery is either overheating or set to consume lower battery, the performance is affected? Why not keep your laptop plugged in at all times? I know I've had to do that not just because of performance, but because of a dead battery. My take anyway.

[Tetamesh]

i'm pretty sure changing the video card in laptops is hard...i've never actually tried though. As far as a good gaming comp for under 1000, that might be hard. I got a new laptop a while ago I would check that out. Its a bit more than 1k but not a lot. I have had no problems with it (or with vista for that matter).

hm...that link isnt right and i cant find the edit button :$. Heres the specs.
------------------
System Information
------------------
Time of this report: 9/4/2007, 17:58:10

Operating System: Windows Vista™ Home Premium (6.0, Build 6000)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: Hewlett-Packard
System Model: HP Pavilion dv6000 (RV212UA#ABA)
BIOS: Ver 1.00PARTTBLv
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU T7200 @ 2.00GHz (2 CPUs), ~2.0GHz
Memory: 2046MB RAM
i'm not even sure if you can get it anymore. But i would look at some HPs

[sylverin]

hm...that link isnt right and i cant find the edit button :$. Heres the specs.
------------------
System Information
------------------
Time of this report: 9/4/2007, 17:58:10

Operating System: Windows Vista™ Home Premium (6.0, Build 6000)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: Hewlett-Packard
System Model: HP Pavilion dv6000 (RV212UA#ABA)
BIOS: Ver 1.00PARTTBLv
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU T7200 @ 2.00GHz (2 CPUs), ~2.0GHz
Memory: 2046MB RAM
i'm not even sure if you can get it anymore. But i would look at some HPs

I may get that one, it seems pretty good, although I would like some other people's input on that computer.

[Kalos]

I may get that one, it seems pretty good, although I would like some other people's input on that computer.
There's no mention of what graphics system it has.

As another FYI, it's impossible on nearly every laptop to change the components like the graphics card. There's no standard sizes or shared dimensions, hence impossible to get parts that fit. Not to mention the vast majority aren't designed to be accessable. And next to no stores actually stock laptop graphics cards.

[Tetamesh]

---------------
Display Devices
---------------
Card name: NVIDIA GeForce Go 7400
Manufacturer: NVIDIA
Chip type: GeForce Go 7400
Sorry, i was half asleep when i posted that