darkowl72 said:I don't know, until recently it was two years for individual consumers, and US regulations are pretty clear that all tech goods need to carry a two-year seller's warranty. I highly doubt retailers would take on that second year themselves—they’d go bankrupt overnight....
Look, it feels like all the info regarding these manufacturer warranties just vanished into thin air out of nowhere. Besides, Acer was one of the first companies to roll out a 3-year warranty years ago, and that's exactly how they built their massive market share in the laptop industry...
That’s what I read too, which is why I went to ask about it. I was really hoping it was just a mistake, but if you look at their site, every single Acer they have only shows a 1-year warranty :/
darkowl72 said:I don't know, until recently it was two years for individual consumers, and US regulations are pretty clear that all tech goods need to carry a two-year seller's warranty. I highly doubt retailers would take on that second year themselves—they’d go bankrupt overnight....
Look, it feels like all the info regarding these manufacturer warranties just vanished into thin air out of nowhere. Besides, Acer was one of the first companies to roll out a 3-year warranty years ago, and that's exactly how they built their massive market share in the laptop industry...
Man, if only it were still like that! I wouldn't even hesitate; I'd buy it right this second... But as it stands, they don't even offer a warranty extension on their webstore. The salesperson actually had to dig up an internal price list just to show me what an extension would cost.
I’ve been reading up on this G552, and apparently, they took some shortcuts with the build quality compared to the old G551 series—especially those models with the plastic lids. On the bright side, though, the cooling seems to be a bit better. I actually went to check on the Acer warranty situation. It turns out they offer one year of coverage for both individuals and businesses, but you can pay extra to bump it up to $100, two years for 700, or even three years for $333... So, maybe that Acer stays on my shortlist after all. Mainly because I really need that 17" screen. The Y700 caught my eye first, but honestly, I'm a little torn since it uses a weaker processor. Reviews say the cooling is fantastic, which is huge for me after all that trouble I had with my N551JM where the thermals were just mediocre. That's another reason why I'm feeling skeptical about the G552. I think I'll scratch the Y5070 off the list entirely. I couldn't even make sense of the resolution 😁 . Anyway, I know buying tech is basically a lottery. The laptop I had before was replaced within the very first week I bought it because the trackpad was defective. And then, after barely two years, this one died too...
Hey there, I ran into some issues with my laptop while it was still under warranty, and they've offered to swap it out for a different model by $2333. I'm actually willing to chip in an extra $667 if that helps. The catch is, I'm stuck using HG Spot... My main uses are gaming, programming (PHP/SQL/.NET), and just killing time 😁 I'd prefer a stronger GPU and processor. I already have a 500GB SSD at home, so no need for that. I'll need at least 8GB of RAM, and ideally a 17" screen, though 15.6" works too.
I've been browsing the options, and I've narrowed it down to about five laptops... Acer Aspire Nitro VN7-792G - this one really caught my eye because it seems like the best fit overall, except for the warranty. One year feels way too short, and from what I can see, there isn't an option to pay extra for more coverage 🤔
ASUS G552VW My old laptop that died was an Asus n551jm, so I'd honestly rather avoid Asus if I can help it—their service centers here are a total disaster. That said, this one offers the most powerful specs along with the longest warranty, plus the option to pay more for an extra year of coverage.
Lenovo Y700 If this had an i7 instead of an i5, I wouldn't even be hesitating. But now the question is: how much is it actually worth paying $333 more to get that i7? How do the Y700 and the G552 stack up against each other? What about build quality and cooling?
LENOVO Y5070 It has an older i7 and the GPU has less memory. How does the build quality compare to the Y700?
Honorable mention: ASUS N752VX Despite my bad experience with Asus, this would be my top pick if it had a 960M inside instead of a 950M...
Can anyone help me choose? Feel free to take a look if I missed anything else. The selection is pretty slim; nothing with a 970M shows up under $1,500. :/
I couldn't find a dedicated thread for upgrade advice, so I'll just drop this here if nobody minds...
I'm looking to upgrade a friend's rig with about $450 to spare. I need a motherboard, a CPU, and a CPU cooler. Honestly, anything goes since he's paying cash—I just want to get him the absolute best bang for his buck. We don't care about overclocking potential at all. His power supply is solid enough to handle whatever we throw at it. He's currently running an FM2 setup, so once this is all assembled, the old CPU and board will be up for sale. He’s already rocking a Radeon 270X, an XFX 550W PSU, and 8GB of RAM. He was originally leaning toward an fx8xxx, but would an Intel combo make more sense here? Which route would actually be better?
GeForce Experience is basically just like what AMD offers—it’s part of how gaming has evolved. It’s such a practical little tool for anyone who doesn't want to waste time messing around with individual settings for every single title. You just hit "optimize all" and you're good to go.
BTW, I’m with Anthony Jackson2 on this one; people aren't really moving away from synthetic oils much, especially with Nissan...
If he’s running it on 5 cores and everything is smooth, then what's the problem? It shouldn't hurt him at all. Honestly, I don't think you'll even notice the difference while gaming, let alone when you're actually working. Just leave it like that 😉 until you've saved up enough for a new graphics card.
The X1600 just doesn't have full hardware support for decoding the H.264 codec—or any of those other HD codecs, honestly, I can't even remember all their names 😁. That's going to be your constant bottleneck because the workload just shifts over to the CPU, and let me tell you, it isn't efficient at all. I dealt with this exact same headache about ten years ago on an old rig that was basically a twin to yours, except back then, even my HD movies were stuttering constantly when I pulled them from the web in mp4 or m4v formats... I'm pretty sure AMD didn't really get it right until the hd2xxx series came along. As for NVIDIA? I'm not entirely certain, but I think they stepped up around the gtx 6 xxx series.
Is it listed in the link or maybe at Best Buy? Does anyone know if Chipotle has a power supply rated up to $67 that isn't absolute garbage? I need something for this prehistoric computer—it doesn't even need more than 400W, but I really don't want to slap some bottom-of-the-barrel junk from Micro Center or something similar inside it...
It’s the exact same story with my buddy. He had the same chip and couldn't even touch 4.3 GHz, no matter how much voltage he pumped into it. Since he was running liquid cooling, he didn't hold back at all—he was using a ROG Maximus board too. In the end, he just gave up and settled for 4.1 GHz at 1.2V for 24/7 use. He just ended up with a bad batch, and there's nothing you can do about it...
edit: You didn't mention your PSU, which can definitely help or hurt here. But since your other components seem solid, it's probably not some random driver issue or something like that...
Timothy Kim60 said:Are you serious about a 750W minimum? The GPU pulls maybe 180W at full load during gaming, then you just add the CPU and that’s basically your whole PC's power draw right there. Honestly, you have to ignore those "minimum requirements" on official websites. They're useless! They just confuse everyone. I remember linking to an R9 280 once where they suggested anything from 500W to 750W as a "minimum" depending on which manufacturer made the card. Good grief. 🤣
Maybe they mean an industrial-grade 750W unit? 😁 Otherwise, these crazy numbers don't make any sense to me... but I see the Americans are pushing that wataza hard. You want SLI or Crossfire? Just grab a 1200W unit just to be safe. Better to have it and not need it. ☕
The motherboard has a PCIe slot, so it’ll work! Just make sure you completely wipe out those old ATI drivers first and install the NVIDIA ones instead. It really shouldn't be an issue...
Opera-more tools-clear browsing data, maybe if you clear out the cache and cookies it'll finally start working? Just make sure your date and time settings are actually correct first.
The graphics card isn't integrated into the CPU; it's soldered right onto the motherboard, so there's no swapping it out (and you can't swap the processor either). Usually, only high-end gaming laptops—we're talking $1,500 or more—feature a replaceable GPU via an MXM socket, though even those are becoming pretty rare lately...
I honestly think the processor is what's really messing with you here. From what I can see, it's running an i5, which is a fairly weak chip designed primarily to sip power, making it way slower than a full-throttle i7...
Look, you bought what you bought. Your best bet is probably to add some more RAM—I don't know exactly what software you're running, but maybe an extra 4GB would give it a bit of breathing room—and definitely grab an SSD. Other than that, there's nothing else you can change.
Maybe you don't even need to worry about it. Most computers these days have a dedicated function key you can tap to pick your boot device manually, so for Windows, you really only have to boot from the disc one single time. It usually tells you right there on the boot screen.
Honestly, I dealt with way more headaches in the single month I owned a laptop with an Nvidia GTX 860M and its drivers (though those issues were finally smoothed out with the last few updates, and now it runs like a dream) than I ever did with five different generations of Radeon cards in my desktop setup over the years...
And look, I don't buy into all that driver hype. Every single card has its own little quirks that eventually settle down... right now, it’s actually driving me crazy that a new driver revision pops up every single week (and GeForce Experience keeps pinging me about it constantly) just because they optimized it for some specific game so I can squeeze out maybe two extra FPS.🙂