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The Laptop Support Community
Information shared to start under linux E-mail
Written by pradel didier   
Saturday, 01 September 2007 09:46
I am not a guru under Linux rather a beginner but I make a point of making share at the community some observations who can largely help in the first steps and the catch in hand of Linux.
 
 
  • Many users of Linux say Linux it is easy, and as it is better as Windows, it is more flexible more convivial, more configurable, more, more, more...
  • All that is not false, but Linux is not easy when one comes from Windows because one enters a different world, or much of things land and manage themselves differently.
  • Linux thus becomes easy when one approaches it with the state of mind and time necessary.
  • The keys of the world of linux pass by the comprehension of the importance and the power of the Command Line.

 



 
About Notebooks Graphics Cards E-mail
Written by Didier Pradel   
Monday, 26 March 2007 14:21

There are two type of graphics chipsets for notebook

- the Integrated Graphics Processing Units : it's the cheaper one

- the Dedicated GPU whish is powerful but expensive.

Basically, it is well know that integrated cards stand no chance against real graphics chips, but for example Mobility Radeon x1100 (the new x200M) IGP is one of the only integrated chip that can deliver acceptable frame rates with full DirectX 9 support.

Integrated Graphics Processing Units :

Integrated Graphics Processing Units are suffering from the necessity to share memory with the main system, and this result in slower performance all around, second problem is that most integrated GPU lack true support for actual 3D extensions such as Pixel Shader 2, Vertex Shader, and Hardware Transform and Lighting.The positive is that integrated GPU are producing no heat of their own and they are almost using very little power, and this allows to more comfortable use and longer battery life.

What game will run on my integrated GPU ?

there is a lot of questions about what can be played on integrated GPU, particularly the Intel GMA900/950 and the ATI x1100 (the new x200M) honestly, rather than list all of the games that will run, here are the ones that won't :

-Doom 3

-Quake 4

-Prey

-Anything else on the Doom 3 Engine

-Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

-Neverwinter Nights 2

-F.E.A.R.

-Condemned: Criminal Origins

Finally if we look at an S3 Unichrome (or any other AGP integrated part) the list becomes much, much larger - so much so that you should just suppose it won't run, no matter what it is. But many people can attest that a lot of games that are high-requirement (such as ; NFS: Most Wanted, Half-Life 2, and Painkiller) run just fine on an X200M. The Doom 3 engine falters just because ATi's OpenGL support is nonexistent. Otherwise you can not explain why HL2 is running fine at 1280x768 high detail while Doom 3 can not stay above 30 fps no matter what. Doom 3 might well be playable on nVidia's IGP, the Go6150, given nVidia's traditionally great support on OpenGL drivers.

Dedicated GPU :

Only two companies are currently manufacturing dedicated graphics chips : ATi and nVidia.

These card feature more hardware support for advanced DirectX 9 and OpenGL 1.5 functions. Most importantly, they get that name of dedicated graphics cards from the fact that they use exclusively dedicated Video Ram, ensuring smooth and snappy performance. The problem is that dedicated video cards use much more power than integrated chips, resulting in more heat and shorter battery life.



 
How To Preserve The Data Of Your Laptop E-mail
Written by Alan Bradock   
Sunday, 30 March 2008 20:00
The costs of notebook computers descending and performance ascending, it's get more easy for single users to equip themselves with notebooks.

But what is a notebook?

A notebook is a concentrate from technologies, the consequence of the "compression" of your desktop personal computer. Laptops are built to be movable, practical comfortable to use, easy to carry, but there is a dark side notebooks are the delicate little sidekicks of desktop personal computer.

The use of a laptop gives the room access to at minimum three risks :

1st trouble, you've to leave your laptop frequently or erstwhile from your home, and that return two great risks :

1 The Physical stroke (drop down)

2 notebook could be lost or sneaked,

2nd trouble attributable the concentration of the elements notebooks are hard to cool, this drive a eminent exposition to overheating, and from that consequences a weakening of the elements and a abbreviating of their lifetime.

3rd trouble the laptop hard disc is a miniaturisation of the PC hard disk, smaller and weaker than it is big brother, he's exposed to shock and/or shaking damage.

So once you take to a notebook you've to deal that the protection of your data will follow greatly vulnerable.

Mind you essential query yourselves around the value of your information :

-How bequeath it impact you whenever you lose your information?

-What will it cost you in dollars and time consuming to retrieve your data?

-Could you repair this information if you require to?

Therefore you must select from the starting a data backup answer quick and gentle to use, a few software suggest progressive backup, this is the finest answer for notebooks because progressive backup puts in all data files changed as the last total




 
About Cheap Laptop E-mail
Written by victor pradel   
Wednesday, 19 March 2008 11:14
There are many things to consider when choosing one right cheap laptop piece for you. We should take an informed choice when buying our next laptop computer.
Notebooks come in all sizes and shapes with a variety of features to suit almost any task, before we begin searching the internet for the lowest priced machine on the market, it is a good idea to think how it will be used because choosing the right one very much depends on its intended use.
Compile a list of features in order of preferences i.e.

1) must haves
2) would likes
1) bonus features.

Now you are ready to search within your budget for ideal cheap notebook. For example, Tim is a web developer, he spend lots of time playing with code, w4e use graphics packages to design sites and text editors to code them. So, he would require a wide screen, good graphics and a dual core processor for multi tasking, at least 1 GB of RAM, 80 GB minimum disk drive and Wi-Fi, so he can site and work in park on a nice summers day.
The general order of things would be CPU, Memory, Graphics, Screen size and type, Hard drive capacity aiming to get the best of each then looking to see what other bonus features we can fit within our budget.

Users of cheap laptops will have lot many problems. Most of the users buy cheap laptops get lesser GB drive than the originally stated GB. Where has the missing space gone for which amount was paid?
The answer to this question is perhaps that the operating system reports the capacity of the hard drive using the assumption that l MB is equal to 1,048,576 bytes. This is technically correct. But the hardware manufacturers compute the size a bit differently. They consider 1 MB to be equal to 1,000,000 bytes.
Therefore, we can see how this can cause confusion. If the drive is advertised as 20.00 GB i.e. 20,000,000,000 bytes, the operating system will see it as approximately 19.07 GB (20,000,000,0000 / 1,048m576 / 1000 = 19.07). The full 20,000,000,000 bytes are really there. Courtesy to them.

Laptop prices now start at a very lesser price. While reviewers cite a number of catches to bottom of the line notebook computers, you can get a fully functional laptop for less amounts. If your notebook will supplement a desktop PC or you need no applications more demanding than word processing, web browsing, or mail, a cheap notebook works just as well as one that costs twice as much.
But of course if you want to get some combination of better build quality, a longer warranty, an easier-on the eyes display, longer battery life, gaming capability and lighter weight you have to spend more.


 
The Acer D2D Erecovery 101 E-mail
Written by Alan Bradock   
Wednesday, 07 May 2008 14:43

Disclaimer: First of all backup your system before launching you in any hazardous operation, some of the operations to come can cause data loss. Any modification and/or damage done on your laptop will be under your responsibility.

As you know now the Acer laptops and those of other manufacturers are now delivered with a restoration system installed in a hidden partition (PQservice for Acer)on your hard disk. Normally this system launches out while pressing simultaneously keys ALT+F10, but sometimes that does not function.

What's the problem?

There are many possible causes, but most common are:

A The function D2D was disabled in the bios.

Solution : Enable the function by pressing F2 during the boot to access the bios menu and change the setting, then reboot and press keys ALT+F10 during the starting of the laptop.

Note : For all the following solutions take into account the Max advice, I quote Max now, a contributor in my site «But I want to mention the way I sorted out the thing, because it's very rarely mentioned on the web.

All the methods to repair the D2D Alt+f10 issue are knowledgeable and smart but all of them forget to say a fundamental thing:

first of all you have to rebuild with a partition soft the D:Acerdata FAT32 empty partition that almost everybody deletes cause is usually empty. Simply doing it, everything turned fine and the recovery worked perfectly. »

Yes much of attempts to restore fail because of this condition.

B An other common problem the Acer Master Boot Record (MBR)is damaged, or replaced by the MBR of another system. You can reinstall the Acer MBR if the partition PQservice is present or if you can have access to the necessary files.

Solutions :

FIRST

On a functional FAT32 Windows system the partition table values are OC or OB for installable FAT32 system files and 12 or 1B for Hidden FAT32 partition, for a NTFS system the known partition table values are O7 for installable NTFS files system and 27 for Acer custom hidden NTFS partition:

1/ Go in the bios and disable the D2D recovery option.

2/ Download partedit32.

3/ Identify the PQservice partition by its size (there is an information box at the bottom of the partedit window) it is the small sized partition approximately 4 to 9 Go.Once made change the type of your partition into 0C(FAT32) or 07(NTFS) and save. Reboot and now you should be able to navigate inside the PQservice partition.

Search for these two files:

mbrwrdos.exe

rtmbr.bin

(The name of these two files can be different sometimes)

When localized open a command prompt windows as an administrator and enter this command "mbrwrdos.exe install rtmbr.bin", to install the Acer MBR. Close the command prompt, reboot again your laptop, reactivate the D2D recovery in the bios. Now ALT+F10 should work and run the Acer Erecovery when the laptop start.

SECOND

Somebody who tried to follow the first method but did not succeed to find the 2 files found another solution to restore the partition.

Use partedit32(available at http://laptop-support.net) to locate the partition pqservice(on aspire 5920g,its the larger 9 gb partition)

Change the partition type to 07(Installable NTFS),reboot.

After reboot,go to the windows computer management and mark the PQservice partition as active then reboot again.

Voila!! You can now proceed to the road to recovery

THIRD

On a nonfunctional Windows system.

Download the Ultimate Boot CD(UBCD) run it choose in the menu:

-Filesystem Tools

-Boot Managers

-For me GAG functioned well, but you can choose any of the other boot loader, you will recognize the PQservice by it type(hidden).

Just install any boot loader and use it to boot into the PQservice to start the Erecovery restoring process.

C The last problem: You replaced your hard disc( in this case PQservice is not present any more) or your partition was erased or damaged.

Solution : I hope that you burned the Acer restoration CD/DVD when it had been asked to you at the time of the first use, cause if you did not previously make a backup of your laptop by making a disc image, it will not be possible to use the Acer Erecovery.

Let us give the last words to Max:

«Problem Sorted Alan.

And you're right that an external drive for data backup it's all important. Yes I have it and backed-up my data before starting messing up... »

 



 
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