A Dinosaur Needs Input

[gReddysaurus rEx]

Some of you guys know how awesome my Dhell XPS is when I complain about it in game. Well, three days ago it turned off by itself and never turned on again. It's not a battery/charger issue because it tries to turn on, but shuts right back off a second/two after you press the power button. So it only leads me to suspect its an issue with the motherboard or cpu. Since I'm out of warranty, I don't want to pay $430 to fix the pos, so I've decided on buying a new laptop. Yes... another laptop because I can't buy a desktop just yet. I need a laptop that can run school related software such as LabVIEW because I need a computer to bring to class for the final exam.

 

Anyways, the two laptops I've been researching is a Sager 8150 from powernotebooks and an Apple Macbook Pro 15" with the AMD 6750M video card. Both computers in question will have the same i7 processor that runs on 2.2GHz constantly and will rise to 3.3GHz when needed. I'm leaning more towards the MBP and I can get it for about the same price as the customized Sager with employee discount. (It pays to have friends) Before I make the purchase, I would like to know how Wolfenstein ET performs on Snow Leopard. If it cannot run on Leopard, is there anyone using Windows 7 on boot camp? How does ET and other games perform on it?

 

Thank you for your help. I know on paper Sager has the advantage but I've been using my friend's 4 year old MBP with a broken screen and I got to say, OSX is pretty nice. Pretty nice indeed. And yes Sager is an awesome computer with quality parts as well. That's why it's a tough decision for me.

[Krauersaut]

Silent mod runs pretty good on Snow Leopard.

[vke]

Yeah, silent works on snow leopard. Jaymod and Etpro work too. But really.... Just triple boot, run ubuntu or fedora, snow leopard and win7.

 

Use snow leopard for activities you don't wanna get viruses from, game on linux, and use windows for school. It's a triple win situation

[gReddysaurus rEx]

I like that triple win solution!

[vke]

I like that triple win solution!

 

It's the best! Been running it for over a year now, the only downside is having to reboot 2-3 times a day haha

[Krauersaut]

Why don't you virtualize instead of triple-booting? ET runs like a charm in Parallels 6 and I doubt you would get any problems with your school software. Saves a lot of time and trouble and allows easy file transfer between the operating systems.

[gReddysaurus rEx]

Is that like running windows in an application window? Forgive the noobness, I'm like a completely new OSX user.

[KevinBacon]

Just blast the motherboard off with piss and you'll be fine.

[daredevil]

Just blast the motherboard off with piss and you'll be fine.

 

He is asking for advice. Not sure why you want to show off your noob mindset and that even in bold.. It's like saying, hey see this, I am dumb ass and this is the proof of it.

 

Sorry, if it's too offensive but it's just that how I see it. Sometimes I am blatant outright.

[stabak]

Why don't you virtualize instead of triple-booting? ET runs like a charm in Parallels 6 and I doubt you would get any problems with your school software. Saves a lot of time and trouble and allows easy file transfer between the operating systems.

 

 

Is that like running windows in an application window? Forgive the noobness, I'm like a completely new OSX user.

 

 

yes

[Krauersaut]

Is that like running windows in an application window? Forgive the noobness, I'm like a completely new OSX user.

http://www.parallels.com/products/desktop/

[gReddysaurus rEx]

w00t! I ordered the MacBook Pro yesterday! Can't wait to get it

[Antichrist]

AHHHH don't scrap your Laptop bro. (I've never seen the inside of a laptop, so this is all guesswork troubleshooting)

Did you remove sound card and try to power on? Also remove video card and try to power on? Remove network card etc.. remove only 1 card at a time until it powers on, or you run out of cards..

 

Sometimes a bad card will cause a no boot.

 

Memory can cause the same thing, pull 1 RAM stick at a time, swap them (#2 stick in #2 slot etc..)

 

I see you've already ordered yourself a new Laptop, but there's no reason to toss this one if you can still get some use out if it, or even sell it off to someone who can.

[gReddysaurus rEx]

Nah I won't throw it away. I'm gonna try to fix it once this semester is over and give it to my parents. I'll try that method out.

[Chuckun]

Do you know if you have diagnostics lights in your laptop (most dell desktops have them but never bothered to look in my laptops much apart from cleaning)? If so, do any of them flash when you hit the power button? (colours, and sequence is vital)..

 

Other than that, do as Antichrist mentioned (good post bro) - problem solving is key here.

 

You might also want to sniff certain components.. This sounds silly, but you CAN smell burning on a burnt out component. Smell your MoBo in various places, and all your cards / components. Check your PSU for burning smell specifically.. You might be able to just replace that if something has shorted it but I've experienced in the past, replacing PSU and having it blow up on first attempt due to f*cked MoBo..