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Phenom X2 955 + 8GB PC2-8500 = Win

By In Technology0 Comments2,285 Views

Well I decided to get an upgrade for my current AMD Phenom 9600 setup, and that upgrade was a new Phenom X2 955 processor, 8GB of OCZ Reaper PC2-8500 memory, and ASUS M4A79 Deluxe motherboard. Now I’m currently actually using my old ASUS M3A32-MVP motherboard because the new M4A79 needs to be sent back for RMA (which made me sad). I also ordered a new printer and case for this setup so I can’t wait for that to get here as well.

But so far I’m very impressed with the results compared to the 9600. As an example, in WoW while in Dalaran my screen would stutter and freeze with an FPS 12-20 at any GFX setting. This was common through a lot of my games, where I could set the GFX settings pretty much as high or as low as they’d go and I’d still get the same FPS. This was caused by the fix for the error in the translation lookaside buffer (TLB) and L3 cache of the processor which made it suffer huge performance losses. But now with this new X2 processor I can easily fly through Dalaran with 40-70 FPS and no lag and that’s with only one of my two ATI 3870’s in the rig.

Can’t wait to see what else I can easily do.

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Toshiba M200 and Dual Displays

By In Technology0 Comments5,872 Views

Like me, most of you who have the infamous Toshiba M200 tablet have probably upgraded that outdated XP installation to either Windows Vista or Windows 7. And you probably upgraded the video drivers from the old 64 Forceware to the 97 or 98 Forceware off of LaptopVideo2Go. But you’ve probably also noticed a few things in regards to the display no longer work, such as Dual Displays. Fortunately there’s a solution for enabling Dual Displays in the BIOS.

Reboot your computer and hold down the ESC key before the TOSHIBA logo appears. The laptop will prompt you with an error message “Check system. Then press [F1] key.”  Press the F1 key. Once in the BIOS setup, navigate using the directional keys to get all the way over to the right side where it says Power On Display in the DISPLAY box. Press the Space key until it changes to LCD+Analog RGB. Press the End key followed by the Y key to save your changes.

And that’s it! You can now plug in your monitor to the VGA output of the tablet and enable dual displays in Windows using the mobility center. I was actually quite surprised when I could run my main monitor at 1920×1080 and the laptop LCD at 1400×1050 with out any issues.

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Toshiba M200 + Vista Ultimate = ?

By In Technology0 Comments2,411 Views

Well they don’t have a word for it yet.

But anyway, I did indeed install Vista on my lowly Toshiba M200 (exact specs except I have 1GB of DDR, soon to be 2GB). So far, I’m quite impressed at the overall performance of the machine, the system lags a bit more then XP did but the functionality and ease of use went up. I’m thoroughly impressed with the Vista Tablet functionality vs XP Tablet.  Surprisingly enough, my frame rate in World of Warcraft (yes it can play on the M200) is pretty much the same as it was in XP.

One thing I noticed right away was the responsiveness of the Tablet Pen, it seems to have increased quite a lot. I also combined that with OneNote 2007 which with the improvements from 2003 has made my note taking a lot more easier.

Would I recommend upgrading to Vista on the M200?

Sure. Make sure that you have at least 1GB of memory however, and I’d recommend installing Vista from a folder on lets say a network or USB drive. The reason for this is the 24x External Toshiba drive sucks for transferring files, if you go that route be read to spend a good 1-2 hours getting to the “Installing” screen. I installed Vista from XP from a folder on my network storage. Took about 1 1/2 hours to install from the time I first ran the installer to when I could first login to the machine.

I will say that anyone who wants to upgrade will need 2 things:

And that’s it, Vista will take care of the rest. If you download/install anything else from Toshiba, you’re installing too much redundant/old software. I say you should download Toshiba Tablet PC Button Driver because it contains the drivers needed to change the Display Brightness and Rotate the screen. Once installed you can use the Vista Mobility Center (press Windows Key + X) to rotate the screen and change the Display Brightness depending on your power status.
Mobility Center
Mobility Center