Hardware Discussion Thread

ATM I have Skyrim minimised, steam is downloading Dead Space (which has an epic trailer, I hope the game is as good ) and firefox opened. The fan is running pretty hard I assume because of Skyrim and using an app on my phone it measures about 40dB the same app measures the most silence I can find at about 30dB. While I was watching those videos on youtube yesterday I was surprised to notice that the fan was almost completely off and I could feel almost no heat coming out the side vent, very impressed I was, it probably spun up from time to time, but I wouldn't notice since I was wearing head phones.

Don't take my views too serious since I'm not really that much into these things and I usually wouldn't notice a lot of what other people complain about. IMO with the exception of gaming I never notice any noise or heat from this laptop.
Just switched Skyrim off, took about 20 seconds for the fan to spin down, now for me to hear it I have to put my ear up to that corner of the laptop and then it's still pretty quiet. Compared to my brothers Lenovo Z570 (i3-2330M) sitting beside me, mine is actually inaudible. Just after typing that the fan spun up again, I guess if you were sensitive to noise it could be a little annoying. I have seen others complain that the fan gets loud for a few seconds once every five mins but this is the first time I have noticed the behaviour. Probably because like I said I'm not really bothered by that kind of thing, once it doesn't take over an entire room I won't notice.

The one thing I don't like about the laptop is the lack of a dedicated Context Menu key that's on almost every other computer, it's even on the XPS 15!!! I actually hate Dell for doing this to me. But I just mapped my Right Ctrl key to be the "Application" key in the registry and all is right with the world once again
Sorry for the very technical post :P

Serephucus wrote: »

I can confess I've never, ever, used the context menu key, and I'm not sure my GF even knows it exists, but thanks for the noise info!

Your obviously not a big keyboard only fan, or your just a very inefficient one :P
I can't spell so I use it constantly while typing, I hate mouses, so slow!

I think it's a very quiet laptop anyway. In-fact I love it, but I'm a little strange like that anyway. If you've got any other enquires about it just hit me up on pm so am I might notice it and I'll try my best to convince you to buy it

Serephucus wrote: »

Well there ya go, I can. :P

And will do. Hopefully should be ordering the GF's one next week.

I kind of feel obliged to tell you there is one issue that might put someone off buying one.

The power cord seems to be very poorly designed and for many people (including me) falls out waaaaaaaaaay to easy. I don't find it too annoying as I just stick my hand to the charger every now and then and I loop the chord over the jack which helps out a lot as it reduces the stress. Plus the screen will usually change brightness if does happen, but it is probably the only real flaw with the machine.

There's a few threads about it over on notebookreview forums and Dell hasn't come up with a solution yet. I'm hoping to get a free upgrade to a L703x in a few months if they don't fix it :P IvyBridge here I come

Having said that, I would still buy it.

I don't find it too bad, but it is very loose. When I loop the chord over the jack it holds much better so I don't need to worry about it unless I want to move the laptop about.

And yeah if your gaming you will notice the frame rate drop a good bit, so it helps too

I hate you. I want three U2711s!

if we keep this on topic:

do you need all same brand monitors for eyefinity?

i got 2 different monitors, but i cant get any of them these days as they both quite old. buying 3x new monitors and having 2 spare does not sound very good for me.

ShadowHearth wrote: »

if we keep this on topic:

do you need all same brand monitors for eyefinity?

i got 2 different monitors, but i cant get any of them these days as they both quite old. buying 3x new monitors and having 2 spare does not sound very good for me.

You don't need the same monitors, but it certainly helps if they are the same size and resolution (AFAIK they must be the same resolution)

Serephucus wrote: »

If you do end up selling the 27, let me know. Might be interested. If I can sell my 2410 for a decent price, I might go for it.

If I do end up selling it, I'll be posting in the "personal gear for sale" topic, so watch out for it there, if I do go for the 23" monitors it'll be in the next few months.


I've been looking at what monitors I'd get but I'm not sure, I've been thinking the U2312HM, but I'm wondering if there are any equivalent IPS panels for less, especially those with thinner bezels (they must have DisplayPort, so I don't have to buy an active adapter).

ShadowHearth wrote: »

27 is still very massive thought... what resolution you playing on?

2560x1440

ShadowHearth wrote: »

eyefinity is grand, but i would prefer huge monitor, then 3 smaller ones, unless we are talking about racing games/sims. the edges between screens would drive me mad!

Yeah, it's something I'd like to do (especially if I was able to go with 3xu2711 with my current graphics cards), but I'm not entirely set on going down the eyefinity route just yet, I'm going to give myself at least 2 weeks to think about it.

just looked at youtube and BF3 on 3xmonitors look savage!

i am liking idea, but on the other side i am not sure i will enjoy it... looks like extra stress on eyes.


when i get second 570 i will go just for bigger monitor + 1 of my old ones for extra crap instead of 3xmonitors. unless they will make some new monitor with very thin edges. i am surprised there are no such monitors for mortals. they would really sell!

Trevor451 wrote: »

Just got the 4GB of ram from my friend yesterday and it seems like the BIOS auto configured the RAM timings to match my other (slower) kit

thats what it does.

if you got 2 different ram speeds, then bios will make them bouth work on lower speed RAM.

i would do few tests to make sure ram works properly as i have seen good few setups where ram starts acting out on bigger load.

So recently I've been interested in getting dual monitor, I already need one but I thought two would be cool so if I'm getting one I might get two at the same time.

Is it possible to have two different things happening on each monitor? As in lets say playing a game on one monitor and browsing the internet on the second?
I would assume the answer is no but I'll ask anyway.

FlyingIrishMan wrote: »

So recently I've been interested in getting dual monitor, I already need one but I thought two would be cool so if I'm getting one I might get two at the same time.

Is it possible to have two different things happening on each monitor? As in lets say playing a game on one monitor and browsing the internet on the second?
I would assume the answer is no but I'll ask anyway.

to answer your question:

i am reading/replying you on boards.ie, it is on my main screen. on my second screen i got south park on, vent.

when i play games i usually put on my southpark/family guy/dara o'briain on my second monitor. on some games i will have wiki pages or other information i need for the game.

usual setup is to have your main monitor as desktop and then have your second monitor as extenction in to which you can drag and drop anything you want.

after 5 years with dual monitors i just cant get back to single monitor setup! i remember when one of the monitors died and i needed to get along with one monitor... those were horrible and dark times...

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

I occasionally have to go back to one monitor whenever I need to use the second monitor for testing or fixing another computer. It really is a pain in the ass not having that second monitor.

its so damn frustrating, right?

i lasted only one day after my second monitor died! ordered monitor ASAP!

I'd recommend disabling fragmentation, and system restore, but that's about it.

Serephucus wrote: »

I'd recommend disabling fragmentation, and system restore, but that's about it.

Thanks, system restore is one of the first things I disable after a fresh install, defragging a SSD is obviously unnecessary, so is there any merit in moving the pagefile?