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Cheap Laptop

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    #122
    gymnipities
    Registered Users Posts: 122 ✭✭gymnipities


    Has anyone tried to use bluetooth on the Asus? It was listed on the specs on Argos but it doesn't seem to be showing up for me anywhere in devices or settings.


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    #123
    The_Conductor
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 32,279 Mod ✭✭✭✭The_Conductor


    gymnipities wrote: »
    Has anyone tried to use bluetooth on the Asus? It was listed on the specs on Argos but it doesn't seem to be showing up for me anywhere in devices or settings.

    Check in Device Manager whether or not a bluetooth card is detected. (Note- its under the hardware and sound tab in the control panel in Windows 8)


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    #124
    gymnipities
    Registered Users Posts: 122 ✭✭gymnipities


    The_Conductor wrote: »
    Check in Device Manager whether or not a bluetooth card is detected. (Note- its under the hardware and sound tab in the control panel in Windows 8)

    No there's no sign of a Bluetooth card in Device Manager. I was just wondering if anyone else who bought the Asus had it. As I say, it's listed in the specs and the Argos.co.uk website goes as far as specifically stating that the laptop has bluetooth in their questions and answers section for the laptop.


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    #125
    carrigy
    Closed Accounts Posts: 42 ✭carrigy


    i got the asus laptop in argos and i cant find Bluetooth either, im not sure it it was there before i updated to windows 8.1 but its definitely not there now. maybe it was never there.


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    #126
    branners69
    Registered Users Posts: 2,695 ✭✭✭branners69


    gymnipities wrote: »
    Has anyone tried to use bluetooth on the Asus? It was listed on the specs on Argos but it doesn't seem to be showing up for me anywhere in devices or settings.

    If you look on the Asus website they have bluetooth drivers available? It might worth installing the most recent drivers to see if it picks the bluetooth device up?


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    #127
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,651 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    Its not mentioned in the specs on the box. Is it in the bios?

    Does it have software to make recovery disks? Or have any of you made a disk image?


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    #128
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,651 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    I'm messing with one now. While it has the drivers on the hd for bluetooth. Installing them doesn't get BT working. Its not on the box so I assume it doesn't have it.

    Its a UEFI bios so I got in through the W8 settings. Theres no settings in the bios for BT that I could see. That said most of the settings are about security rather than features.


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    #129
    whiteshorts
    Site Banned Posts: 880 ✭✭✭whiteshorts


    Back up to €499 now.
    Also mentions Bluetooth on the description though.


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    #130
    branners69
    Registered Users Posts: 2,695 ✭✭✭branners69


    whiteshorts wrote: »
    Back up to €499 now.
    Also mentions Bluetooth on the description though.

    I wonder if it is one of the differences between the F551 and the X551? One has bluetooth the other doesnt?


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    #131
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,651 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    X551? Whats that got to do with it?

    I don't think this F551 has bluetooth. That said a cheap USB adapter will give you that. But that's one of your two ports gone.


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    #132
    The_Conductor
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 32,279 Mod ✭✭✭✭The_Conductor


    beauf wrote: »
    X551? Whats that got to do with it?

    I don't think this F551 has bluetooth. That said a cheap USB adapter will give you that. But that's one of your two ports gone.

    20 quid- and swap out the wireless card for a dual band card- with bluetooth?


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    #133
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,651 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    Nono Toure wrote: »
    This above is now happening on my laptop. Its the Asus F-series, brand new. I was just browsing earlier and then turned off my pc, when it was shutting down up popped a note saying "laptop configurating, do not turn off" but it was already turning off before the note popped up!

    2 hours later I turned it back on, and its saying "failure configuring windows update, reverting changes, do not turn off". I didn't request a Windows 8.1 update! It's been on an hour now!! I also transferred loads of files over from my old laptop earlier which took ages, I hope I don't lose all them?!

    yeah I'm also having this problem now. I followed this advice
    branners69 wrote: »
    When you turn on the laptop hold in F9 (someone else has said F12) then you get the windows logo and eventually this screen loads.

    I selected the middle option and refreshed it!

    Which has got it out of the loop.

    I'm going to try again, and do a the updates in smaller batches.

    MS seems to have gone crazy with all the patches lately. its a joke really. I've never seen so many before. They really need to chuck all these into a service patch.


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    #134
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,651 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    The_Conductor wrote: »
    20 quid- and swap out the wireless card for a dual band card- with bluetooth?

    That sounds like a much better plan. Any links to a possible card? Or someone doing this.


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    #135
    branners69
    Registered Users Posts: 2,695 ✭✭✭branners69


    beauf wrote: »
    X551? Whats that got to do with it?

    I don't think this F551 has bluetooth. That said a cheap USB adapter will give you that. But that's one of your two ports gone.

    Did your desktop not say X551 when you first booted it up? Mine did, so for some reason the desktop says X551 but underneath says F551. I find this strange so I wonder if the F551 is a cheaper model some less features like bluetooth?


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    #136
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,651 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    From what I can see the X551 is the same machine with a slower atom based CPU. Which they've relabled a Celeron. It also does not have bluetooth.

    http://www.tesco.com/direct/asus-x551ma-156-intel-celeron-dual-core-4gb-500gb-black-laptop/755-5927.prd

    If you look on Argos all the Asus X machines are atom/celerons.

    The description for the this F551 is simply wrong on the Argos sight. I quess you could return it on that basis.


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    #137
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,651 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    Did anyone get all the updates installed.

    I installed 300mb of them. Then it got to about 60~70% of the next 300mb when its gone back to the update failure for the 2nd time.

    I've a good few W8 machines. I've never had this problem before. never mind twice. I'm doing it through high speed ethernet too so thats not an issue.


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    #138
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,651 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    next plan reset and uninstall every app/utility that comes with it. Then try it.


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    #139
    gymnipities
    Registered Users Posts: 122 ✭✭gymnipities


    beauf wrote: »
    Did anyone get all the updates installed.

    I installed 300mb of them. Then it got to about 60~70% of the next 300mb when its gone back to the update failure for the 2nd time.

    I've a good few W8 machines. I've never had this problem before. never mind twice. I'm doing it through high speed ethernet too so thats not an issue.

    I took the approach suggested earlier of doing them in smaller batches. I did them over a few days in batches of around 10 of the same update type (system update/security update etc). One of the updates failed and caused the other updates in that batch to fail so it's likely that something like this is happening when you try and do 300mb at a time. In that case I just retried that batch a few at a time and it worked ok and I had no further problems. I also had no problems with the update to 8.1.

    (A couple of other things that may or may not be relevant: I uninstalled McAfee before updating to 8.1; and I installed batches of updates picked according to when they were issued (so 2013 ones before 2014 ones but I'd like to think that this wasn't necessary).)


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    #140
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,651 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    I was doing the small batches but when it failed it never got back out of the fail loop.

    I had to refresh the laptop two times. Uninstall pretty much all the pre-installed apps. Then the updates worked but it still took about two days over a 70mb connection. Its now on 8.1.

    I assume most people would just hand it back as broken.


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    #141
    jimmyjim11
    Registered Users Posts: 256 ✭✭jimmyjim11


    price drop again !!
    not many around though


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    #142
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,651 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    I can only find one in stock, but its in wexford


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    #143
    branners69
    Registered Users Posts: 2,695 ✭✭✭branners69


    jimmyjim11 wrote: »
    price drop again !!
    not many around though

    I would say these are returns, because there are so few!


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    #144
    degzs
    Registered Users Posts: 263 ✭✭degzs


    Hey guys,

    Looking for a basic laptop around €300 to €350 price.

    Any recommendation would be much appreciated.

    Thanks


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    #145
    Akrasia
    Registered Users Posts: 22,243 ✭✭✭✭Akrasia


    degzs wrote: »
    Hey guys,

    Looking for a basic laptop around €300 to €350 price.

    Any recommendation would be much appreciated.

    Thanks

    This laptop is 304 euros delivered to Ireland. I have a very similar one for the last year and it works great. Obviously no laptop at this price range will play modern 3d accellerated games, but this laptop will run loads of indie and older games perfectly fine (games like Prison Architect, Don't Starve, Kerbal Space Program etc

    You can spend a bit more and get an I3 or a bit more ram, but I don't see the point. There are very few tasks an I3 will do that the Celeron 1000m won't do just as well and 4gb of ram is adequate for 99% of tasks other than high performance gaming and video editing (which this laptop is not suitable for regardless of installed RAM) and allows multitasking on most everyday tasks.

    http://www.simplyasus.com/X55A-SX203H-ASUS-X55A-SX203H_1352814.html


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    #146
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,651 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    You can get a i3 for 370 from dell (and probably others). You can get a Celeron/Atom based one for 220~270. So in the middle are Celeron 1000m/Pentium models.


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    #147
    smellmepower
    Closed Accounts Posts: 829 ✭✭✭smellmepower


    Got this for a few people in work looking for budget i3's. Bout €380 or so delivered. Very nice machine for the money.


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    #148
    branners69
    Registered Users Posts: 2,695 ✭✭✭branners69


    smellmepower wrote: »
    Got this for a few people in work looking for budget i3's. Bout €380 or so delivered. Very nice machine for the money.

    Powercity have the same one for €20 more, €399. It was €380 for last few weeks so keep an eye on it!

    http://www.powercity.ie/?par=10-30-573852


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    #149
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,651 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    smellmepower wrote: »
    Got this for a few people in work looking for budget i3's. Bout €380 or so delivered. Very nice machine for the money.

    Thats the one this thread was started with. When it was 320 in Argos.


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    #150
    smellmepower
    Closed Accounts Posts: 829 ✭✭✭smellmepower


    Come full circle then so haha!


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    #151
    RosieJoe
    Registered Users Posts: 3,483 ✭✭✭RosieJoe


    Quick question for you. Argos are doing the following 2 Toshiba laptops:
    Intel Pentium with 2.16GHz processor, reduced from €524 to €330
    Intel Core i3 with 1.7GHz Processor, reduced from €570 to €385.

    The first has a 1TB Hard drive as opposed to a 750GB hard drive and the rest of the spec look the same. For a young lad to browse the web, play minecraft/terraria/Sims which would be the better one?

    I know the i3 would be a better chip than the Pentium but would the bigger processor be better?


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