Posts by George Sanders37

Regarding that card reader that won't pick up the SD card—have you maybe tried testing it with a different one just to see if the reader itself is actually working?

What does it say when you go into the Properties for that yellow exclamation mark?
That yellow warning icon doesn't always mean it's a driver issue—it could be pointing to all sorts of other errors, I guess.

Sure. It can't hurt. If the computer is powered down, the connection drops and everything just disconnects.

Unless there's some kind of daily automatic backup running—in which case you might have to remember to reconnect it.

Unless you’re using the drive every single day, I'd say it’s probably best to just unplug it. It might help minimize any potential damage if there happens to be a power surge.

The drive itself will likely be fine—it’s more probable that the electronics will take the hit, maybe the power adapter, the USB interface, or the internal circuitry of the drive.

Go with the 64-bit version—if you stick with 32-bit, you'll only be able to use about 3.2 GB of that 4 GB total. The 64-bit setup lets you actually use all 4 GB of RAM, and maybe even more if you ever decide to upgrade the memory down the road.

If that Celeron is just a single-core processor—meaning it only has one core—I don't think there's much point in putting Windows 7 on that machine.
If you had a Pentium 4 running at maybe 2.4+ GHz, it might be okay, but with this setup, I guess your CPU is just going to be pegged at 100% all the time.

If you're looking at how to create proper airflow—I guess there’s some logic to it—I’d probably keep the side panel set to intake.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/w...#1TC=windows-7

I think we can definitely fit a GPU in there—though, full disclosure, I’m not exactly a hardware expert, so I’ll probably need to wait for someone to suggest a solid low-profile card.

Just a heads-up again—if you're planning on swapping out the power supply, be careful. It's hard to tell for sure from the photos and videos, but I don't think that's a standard ATX unit. This specific PC model comes in three different sizes, and two of them are small form factor.

Edit: Moving everything over to a "normal" sized mini or midi tower shouldn't be an issue, I guess.
The only thing is—again, maybe—the current power supply might not line up with the mounting holes in a different case.

Jerry Morgan3 said:If the power supply ends up being too weak, I can always just pick up a better one later—though I'm not entirely sure what my budget looks like right now. Anyway, from what I've read, those two cards seem like solid deals for the price.

Since this is a pre-built desktop, there's a pretty good chance a standard ATX power supply won't actually fit inside the case.

Edit: looking at the manuals now, it seems like the card will fit and there is a dedicated slot on the motherboard for it.

You’ve got a few different limiting factors here:

1. Case form factor—if we're looking at the desktop case in the photo, it likely only fits low-profile cards, so standard-sized graphics cards probably won't fit inside
2. Power supply capacity—since this is primarily an office PC, there's the question of whether the PSU has enough wattage or quality to actually handle a gaming card
3. Motherboard compatibility—you'd need to check if the motherboard even has a dedicated slot available, and then see if there's enough physical clearance in the chassis itself

Turn off those extra toolbars you've got enabled.
Just right-click on the toolbar and check under the toolbars menu to see what's active.

The stand lets you rotate the monitor 90 degrees—so you can flip it from landscape to portrait mode whenever you need.
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf-JAVA.../c01451601.jpg

I'm guessing you're using the touchscreen—if you aren't, maybe just disable it and those circles should disappear.
If you actually need the touch functionality, when this happens, try gently tilting the screen at different angles or positions to see if that clears it up.

What you're seeing are phantom touches, where the screen thinks you're clicking when you aren't. It could be a hardware issue—like the connection cable or the digitizer—though software glitches happen occasionally, I guess.
I could probably just list a bunch of fixes you'd find yourself on Google anyway.
Honestly, if the laptop is still under warranty, the best bet is to let a service center figure out what's actually causing it.

P.S. here's an extreme example of what you're dealing with

Can someone recommend a specific laptop model?

In that case, you should definitely go with the 3TB drive—it fits right within your budget. As for the brand, I guess you'll have to decide that yourself, though you really can't go wrong either way.

You really need to set a budget first—if you don't have one, then just look for the best price-to-capacity ratio. Personally, I think 3TB drives are the sweet spot right now. Since you're mostly just using this for data storage, you probably don't need anything high-performance.

http://www.nabava.net/cvrsti-diskovi...-sata__1250191
or maybe
http://www.nabava.net/cvrsti-diskovi...d-3tb__5132051

Look, the Windows Experience Index still doesn't really give you anything concrete.
Based on your example, he gets info saying his processor is the weakest link. Okay, sure, but then what?
If he walks into a Best Buy and tells them his Windows Experience Index for the CPU is 3.4, the clerk is just going to stare at him blankly and ask which processor he actually has and what the rest of his specs look like.
It’s the same story if he asks for advice on a forum, from some expert, or even just a friend.
Everyone is going to ask for the specific component names—and once they know those, they'll be looking at benchmark results from the programs Eric Patel7 mentioned.

Here's a screenshot of my rig:
View on imgur
My configuration:

So, according to the Windows Experience Index, I can't really do much better—the processor lags a little behind, but everything else hit the max scores. An average user seeing a result like that might jump to the conclusion, "Well, I should be able to run The Witcher 3 on max settings." And we all know that's not how it works.

Are you running the installation using an account with admin privileges?
Maybe try right-clicking the setup file and selecting Run as administrator?

Standalone benchmark programs and tests are way more relevant than the Windows Experience Index—especially since you don't really know what's being factored in or how the math actually works behind the scenes.
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/e7/archive/2...nce-index.aspx
Besides, if that number were actually a meaningful metric, software developers would have started including it in their system requirements a long time ago.

It's also probably more important to compare one component against other available options out there.