(10-13-2014, 08:25 PM)MaJoR Wrote: [ -> ]Well, my laptop troubles are over! Or at least, they will be after 5-7 business days... After five years with the craptop, I'm finally replacing it.
http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/edge-series/e540/
Specs that I got:
CPU: Core i5-4200M
GPU: Intel HD4600
Ram: 4GB DDR3L (I'll probably add more later)
Storage: 500GB 7200RPM HDD (probably plop in an SSD later)
Purchase Price: $540
While this ThinkPad may not be able to fit into a manilla envelope or have all day battery life, it has parts that would cost three times as much in an ultrabook, giving it enough horsepower to last a nice loooong time! And unlike the craptop, it won't be a dud from day one and suck the whole time I have it.
The craptop is still around (as long as the fan holds up between now and when the new one gets here) for hilarious dolphin testing. 
The worst computer with full Dolphin capability is alive and groaning yet!
As a fellow craptop user who has also been using his also for 5 years, i feel happy for you.
Not to rain on your parade but I REALLY despise the touchpads on recent lenovo laptops. We'll see how you like it but I think you should probably run your choice by us first next time.
I don't use touchpads very often. But yea, I heard some complaints about it. How would you describe them?
Within 5 minutes of trying to use one I wanted to throw it out the window while screaming as loud as possible. And for the record I don't believe I've ever had any issues in the past with any other touchpads on any laptop that I have ever used. It's extremely finicky.
USB wireless mouse is the way to go
Hmm, I wonder if you used a "Syntellic" whatever it's called? It was a lower quality touchpad that various brands experimented with in 2012 or so. JMC was subjected to one once, and it wasn't pretty. He eventually got Asus to replace the touchpad on his laptop with a proper Synaptic.
Anyway, I was aware of some whining about the touchpad on this model, but it centered on the lack of discrete buttons. The reviews I read said the touchpad itself is very accurate however. Regardless, I usually use a wireless mouse with my laptop anyway, and it's a thinkpad, so it has the eraser.
There was also a lot of whining about placing the Fn key on the farthest left bottom corner, with the ctrl key to the right of it. That... would be annoying, especially for blender. But that whine is common enough that Lenovo has put a bios control in place to swap the two keys. I'm good.
Anyway, I dug around at a loooot of reviews for models in this price range. Thank the gods for those weird niche sites that review weird laptops! All of the laptops in this range are a blend of crapbooks and ultrabooks, with some parts on crapbook level and others on ultrabook level. They are weeeeird beasts, so it's all about picking your poison. But it means saving like $500-$1000 for the same base hardware. It's a budget warrior's dream come true! There was a Dell I was interested in, but Dell stopped selling it, and all products in this range in fact. HP had a few... but I got some weird vibes from the reviews. The Lenovo E540 obviously got a mixed review - there was a lot of whining about the 1366x768 screen, and rightly so. If I was willing to spend more, I could have built it with a 1080p screen on Lenovo.com, but meh, my budget was $450, I was already going out of it to get the better CPU and GPU anyway. The reviews also whined about the battery life, and again, that's fair (it's a hell of a processor, even an ultrabook would struggle with battery life on it!). But road warrior is a secondary use for me, so I didn't mind. I don't really think mentioning it here would have changed my thoughts after my research. Besides, after the last time this came up... I didn't feel like it.
This is sort of software too, so not entirely on topic, but what do I do if I have a USB3 <-> SATA adapter that works fine under Windows 8.1 and uBuntu on my new laptop, but isn't given drivers and doesn't work at all under Windows 7 on my desktop? It shouldn't be a power issue, as USB3 offers more than enough for a 2.5" drive and nothing else is plugged into USB3.
Wait, since when can android run on x86?
@MaJoR
All I know is it was a 2014 model, so I doubt it. And it seemed like a hardware issue.
@AON3
Google it.
(10-14-2014, 11:43 PM)AnyOldName3 Wrote: [ -> ]This is sort of software too, so not entirely on topic, but what do I do if I have a USB3 <-> SATA adapter that works fine under Windows 8.1 and uBuntu on my new laptop, but isn't given drivers and doesn't work at all under Windows 7 on my desktop? It shouldn't be a power issue, as USB3 offers more than enough for a 2.5" drive and nothing else is plugged into USB3.
I did. It didn't help, as everyone else I could find with the same symptoms under Win7 had them under Win8 too, and got an RMA. Then I remembered I technically didn't need my desktop to do what I was doing, and after lots of messing around ended up with everything working fine, probably.