New Toshiba Laptop

toco123

I bought a refurbished Toshiba laptop on ebay in November which was not intended to be opened till Christmas day for €590.

http://cgi.ebay.ie/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=170167417543&ssPageName=STRK:MEWN:IT&ih=007

Intel Core Duo T5500 1.66GHz CPU
2 GB DDR2 RAM
120 GB SATA hard Drive
CD & DVD+RW Double Layer
17" Widescreen LCD Display
nVidia GeForce 7600 graphics
Integrated wireless 802.11
4 x USB
VGA, DVI, S-Video outputs
Windows Vista Home Premium installed

I taught it was a bargain till Sam and Max was loaded onto the laptop.
The game lagged ridiculously! This is obviously not due to a lack of graphical grunt as Sam and Max Season 1 runs on most computers from the last 7 years. Also the game suffered from some sound problems.

I also tried the movie Hitch, where the advertisments before the intro would'nt run smoothly.

Later I tried CS:S. I got an fps of 120 beating my XPS by 30fps but again it visually lagged.

I tried installing the latest nvidia drivers for Vista but it seemed up to date.

Later I installed Crysis and it set the optimal settings to Medium rather than Low as my XPS was reccomended ( ATI x1300). Though it lagged again so I changed the optimal settings to low and it still suffered.

It couldn't ( I believe) be the refresh rate on the monitor as Sam and Max suffered.
I didn't think the processor was that lacking in quality but obviously I don't know what to believe!
Could it be I am missing the latest drivers for Vista?

the_syco

toco123 wrote: »

I bought a refurbished Toshiba laptop on ebay in November which was not intended to be opened till Christmas day for €590.

I'd bet that the lag was the reason it was taken back. Sure, they tested it, but I doubt they played any games on it.

Best bet is to call Toshiba and see can you get it repaired, as there may be a fault with it.

Deliverance XXV

No offense, but are you certain the laptop you received came with a 7600?
Check Device Manager.

toco123

Yes, I am sure!
I checked first day. Also if it didn't how would Crysis recommend medium as the optimal setting? Why is Sam & Max not working as full fps?

thefinalstage

toco123 wrote: »

Yes, I am sure!
I checked first day. Also if it didn't how would Crysis recommend medium as the optimal setting? Why is Sam & Max not working as full fps?

Did you check what rpm the hard drive is?

toco123

5400rpm... but its hardly th problem, games play on my OLD laptop at this speed? However it is a good analysis.

coldfire1x

^^ How do you check the hard disk rpm speed?

thefinalstage

Maybe it has some kind of limiter in it? I have a laptop here thats advertised at 1.6 ghz and 256mb of ram but only reads at 800mhz and 128mb of ram when idle. It only gets the advetised specs under load.

AlmightyCushion

toco123 wrote: »

Yes, I am sure!
I checked first day. Also if it didn't how would Crysis recommend medium as the optimal setting?

Are you sure it recommended medium? I could only get the crysis demo running at meddium on my laptop and it has a 7900gs in it.

Go into task manager and see what your cpu is running at.

AlmightyCushion

thelastangryman wrote: »

Maybe it has some kind of limiter in it? I have a laptop here thats advertised at 1.6 ghz and 256mb of ram but only reads at 800mhz and 128mb of ram when idle. It only gets the advetised specs under load.

That's a power saving feature. It powers down the cpu when it's not needed to save power. It shouldn't affect the ram though.

toco123

It recomends medium. I'll check it in a minute