Laptop support
Cameo
both within and beyond the warranty period? In "beyond" I mean such
things as periodic firmware and driver upgrades that are specific to the
laptop model.
the wharf rat
I've worked with dozens of these guys, and IMHO the big Japanese
manufacturers like Fujitsu and Sony make good laptops but their support
isn't great and the units are very difficult to get parts for and repair.
Dell sometimes has quality problems these days but gives great support. Until
they decide the unit's been end of lifed. It's difficult to get support
for "obsolete" products but drivers are available and you can find lots of
parts on the used market. They're easy to work on, too.
Lenovo not only has great support but you can find drivers, patches,
software, and parts for units they made a decade or more ago. There's a
good used market too. And they're designed to be repairable. For instance,
the dc power jack is a separate unit so if you break it you don't need a
whole new motherboard.
I've had unpleasant experiences with HP and Gateway.
Barry Watzman
with HP/Compaq have not been good, but others have different stories
(there is some level of inconsistency among all of the vendors).
Cameo
news:hhjg8d$fki$1...@reader1.panix.com...
> Lenovo or Dell.
>
> I've worked with dozens of these guys, and IMHO the big Japanese
> manufacturers like Fujitsu and Sony make good laptops but their
> support
> isn't great and the units are very difficult to get parts for and
> repair.
> Dell sometimes has quality problems these days but gives great
> support. Until
> they decide the unit's been end of lifed. It's difficult to get
> support
> for "obsolete" products but drivers are available and you can find
> lots of
> parts on the used market. They're easy to work on, too.
>
> Lenovo not only has great support but you can find drivers, patches,
> software, and parts for units they made a decade or more ago. There's
> a
> good used market too. And they're designed to be repairable. For
> instance,
> the dc power jack is a separate unit so if you break it you don't need
> a
> whole new motherboard.
>
> I've had unpleasant experiences with HP and Gateway.
I sure can testify to the HP part. I almost bought a Lenovo but my
irresistable urge for instant gratification drove me to HP as they were
readily available in local stores. Lenovos were only available online.
Now I am paying for it, though from what I read from other HP users I
seem to be luckier than many others as my notebook has been working
mostly OK. It's just the lack of Win7 drivers that I am pissed off
about. And my notebook is not even 2 years old.
Ryan P.
> I sure can testify to the HP part. I almost bought a Lenovo but my
> irresistable urge for instant gratification drove me to HP as they were
> readily available in local stores. Lenovos were only available online.
> Now I am paying for it, though from what I read from other HP users I
> seem to be luckier than many others as my notebook has been working
> mostly OK. It's just the lack of Win7 drivers that I am pissed off
> about. And my notebook is not even 2 years old.
I've been putting off attempting to upgrade my DV6308 to Win7 for that
exact same reason. I know I can force a lot of the Vista driver to run,
but that's not the most stable thing in the world to do. I'm already
using an XP graphics driver on my Vista system so that I have the
ability to have a full screen command prompt.
Have you made the switch yet?
Cameo
news:hhlba3$8r4$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
> I've been putting off attempting to upgrade my DV6308 to Win7 for
> that exact same reason. I know I can force a lot of the Vista driver
> to run, but that's not the most stable thing in the world to do. I'm
> already using an XP graphics driver on my Vista system so that I have
> the ability to have a full screen command prompt.
>
> Have you made the switch yet?
Yes, I did and Win7 itself mostly works fine -- thanks to Microsoft's
thorough support in this case. The problem is the HP support because
they decided not to support this originally Vista model with Win7
drivers. I am using the 64-bit Win7 and some of the 64-bit Vista drivers
do work more or less with it but still, models this recent should not be
abandoned by HP on a new OS that came out in the last few months.
To play safe with the Win7 install, I used a partitioning software to
reduce the 32-bit Vista partition on the 250 GB HD to about 80 GB, in
essence making the small recovery partition take up the rest of the HD.
Then I *custom installed* the *upgrade version* of 64-bit Win7 in the
recovery partition. At the end of the process I got a dual boot
situation, allowing me to boot into either of the old 32-bit Vista
partition or the new 64-bit Win7. The process worked pretty smoothly and
when something does not work in the new one, I can still go back to the
old Vista. This is a pretty safe upgrade and that's what I would
recommend for you to try as well. Once everything is working in Win7, I
can delete the Vista partition and allocate it's space to Win7.
Have you run the MS upgrade advisor software? That would tell you what
would work for you and what would not in Win7.
~misfit~
> Cameo wrote:
>> Is there a clearly superior laptop manufacturer in its support
>> function both within and beyond the warranty period? In "beyond" I
>> mean such things as periodic firmware and driver upgrades that are
>> specific to the laptop model.
>
> Lenovo, Dell, Toshiba. MAYBE Gateway. Avoid Sony. My own
> experiences with HP/Compaq have not been good, but others have
> different stories (there is some level of inconsistency among all of
> the vendors).
I can third the Lenovo report. Using ThinkVantage Update I'm seeing Windows
7 compatible drivers being offered for 5 year old laptops. I reckon that's
pretty good. My three year old T60 gets regular driver updates and patches.
--
Shaun.
"Give a man a fire and he's warm for the day. But set fire to him and he's
warm for the rest of his life." Terry Pratchet, 'Jingo'.
Cameo
news:hhmlvc$2fh$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
> I can third the Lenovo report. Using ThinkVantage Update I'm seeing
> Windows 7 compatible drivers being offered for 5 year old laptops. I
> reckon that's pretty good. My three year old T60 gets regular driver
> updates and patches.
Who would have thought that this long after the Chinese bought Lenovo
from IBM.
Barry Watzman
power in the world by mid-Century.
Cameo
news:hho5i9$qad$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
> Do not underestimate the Chinese. They, not the US, will be the
> leading power in the world by mid-Century.
That may be, but we are far from that time yet.
olfart
"Cameo" <ca...@cameo.invalid> wrote in message
news:hho79m$fbf$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
they already have more US dollars than we do
~misfit~
Indeed. In fact it could be said that to a certain extent they own your ass.
Or at least part-own it.
Cameo
news:7q9lp4...@mid.individual.net...
> they already have more US dollars than we do
But they still can't produce quality products. Lenovo is an exception as
they didn't have enough time to screw what IBM sold them.
Mike Blake-Knox
> Have you run the MS upgrade advisor software? That would tell you what
> would work for you and what would not in Win7.
You need to treat its findings with a grain of salt. I was trying to
upgrade an Inspiron 8600 with an NVIDIA GeForce FX GO5200. I have run it
several times using the RC and RTM versions of Win 7. Until the last time
I ran the adviser (in December), I was told the video driver was fine but
might need a visit to Windows Update. I did find a Vista driver that
"worked" after a few .INF edits but left me with an unstable system. As a
result, I put Win7 on another computer.
Incidentally, in the December report, the upgrade advisor now reports no
compatibility information on the video adapter!
Mike
the wharf rat
Cameo <ca...@cameo.invalid> wrote:
>But they still can't produce quality products. Lenovo is an exception as
>they didn't have enough time to screw what IBM sold them.
Lenovoe ALWAYS made Thunkpads. Even when IBM sold them.
>
Dabbler
> In article <hhomlp$rbp$1...@news.eternal-september.org>,
> Lenovoe ALWAYS made Thunkpads. Even when IBM sold them.
Yes, but IBM controlled the quality then. Who does now?
Barry Watzman
Lenovo is a far more recent entity than IBM Thinkpad laptops.
Cameo
> No, originally IBM made Thinkpads and Lenovo didn't exist.
>
> Lenovo is a far more recent entity than IBM Thinkpad laptops.
That's how I knew it, too.
the wharf rat
Dabbler <dab...@nospam.invalid> wrote:
>
>Yes, but IBM controlled the quality then. Who does now?
>
Ok, I wasn't quite correct when I said that Lenovo always made
thinkpads. They were originally made by another Chinese company, "Great Wall".
That factory, along with the entire Thinkpad engineering team, went to
Lenovo in 2005.
I've noticed some design decisions that appear aimed at cost
recuctions such as less fully backed keybaords (resulting in more flex)
but IMHO thinkpads have retained most of the quality design and production
standards they had when they were made by a different Chinese firm :-)
the wharf rat
Barry Watzman <Watzma...@neo.rr.com> wrote:
>No, originally IBM made Thinkpads and Lenovo didn't exist.
>
>Lenovo is a far more recent entity than IBM Thinkpad laptops.
Well, no, thinkpads were always made in China. Lenovo is the same
as Legend and the comapny's been around since the mid 80's.
Adrian C
> In article <hhrslm$8vn$3...@news.eternal-september.org>,
> Barry Watzman <Watzma...@neo.rr.com> wrote:
>> No, originally IBM made Thinkpads and Lenovo didn't exist.
>>
>> Lenovo is a far more recent entity than IBM Thinkpad laptops.
> Well, no, thinkpads were always made in China.
Wrong.
IBM had a laptop manufacturing plant in Greenock, Scotland, UK - and
other places including Mexico.
--
Adrian C
the wharf rat
Adrian C <em...@here.invalid> wrote:
>
>IBM had a laptop manufacturing plant in Greenock, Scotland, UK - and
>other places including Mexico.
They had assembly plants in other places (perhaps). The parts
were always made in China. Mexico and Greenock do not have PCB fabs.
Ryan P.
>> Have you made the switch yet?
>
> Yes, I did and Win7 itself mostly works fine -- thanks to Microsoft's
> thorough support in this case. The problem is the HP support because
> they decided not to support this originally Vista model with Win7
> drivers. I am using the 64-bit Win7 and some of the 64-bit Vista drivers
> do work more or less with it but still, models this recent should not be
> abandoned by HP on a new OS that came out in the last few months.
>
> To play safe with the Win7 install, I used a partitioning software to
> reduce the 32-bit Vista partition on the 250 GB HD to about 80 GB, in
> essence making the small recovery partition take up the rest of the HD.
> Then I *custom installed* the *upgrade version* of 64-bit Win7 in the
> recovery partition. At the end of the process I got a dual boot
> situation, allowing me to boot into either of the old 32-bit Vista
> partition or the new 64-bit Win7. The process worked pretty smoothly and
> when something does not work in the new one, I can still go back to the
> old Vista. This is a pretty safe upgrade and that's what I would
> recommend for you to try as well. Once everything is working in Win7, I
> can delete the Vista partition and allocate it's space to Win7.
>
> Have you run the MS upgrade advisor software? That would tell you what
> would work for you and what would not in Win7.
So, I took your advice and resized my partitions as you did, and
installed Win7 on the second partition. Amazingly, everything feels a
bit snappier, even with the default "Windows Knows Best" graphical
settings. With Vista, I had to set everything for "best performance" in
order to get smooth DVD playback.
Other than the Quickplay buttons not turning orange when I hit mute, I
haven't noticed any other issues. The card reader, wireless, graphics
and audio all worked without me having to install the drivers I
downloaded from HP.
There are some pieces of software that I still have to test before I
make the full switch, though.
Cameo
> So, I took your advice and resized my partitions as you did, and
> installed Win7 on the second partition. Amazingly, everything feels a
> bit snappier, even with the default "Windows Knows Best" graphical
> settings. With Vista, I had to set everything for "best performance"
> in order to get smooth DVD playback.
>
> Other than the Quickplay buttons not turning orange when I hit mute,
> I haven't noticed any other issues. The card reader, wireless,
> graphics and audio all worked without me having to install the drivers
> I downloaded from HP.
>
> There are some pieces of software that I still have to test before I
> make the full switch, though.
That's great! I'm glad you like it. For me the move over Win7 fixed even
my Bluetooth problem that had developed under Vista. I thought maybe the
BT hardware was toast, but when I saw it working under Win7, I knew it
was some Vista driver update that had screwed it up. Does the dual boot
work for you, too?
Ryan P.
> "Ryan P." <rdelet...@wi.rr.comm> wrote in message
>> Other than the Quickplay buttons not turning orange when I hit mute, I
>> haven't noticed any other issues. The card reader, wireless, graphics
>> and audio all worked without me having to install the drivers I
>> downloaded from HP.
>>
>> There are some pieces of software that I still have to test before I
>> make the full switch, though.
>
> That's great! I'm glad you like it. For me the move over Win7 fixed even
> my Bluetooth problem that had developed under Vista. I thought maybe the
> BT hardware was toast, but when I saw it working under Win7, I knew it
> was some Vista driver update that had screwed it up. Does the dual boot
> work for you, too?
No issues with the dual boot. I'm more worried about when I decide to
migrate completely to Win7. I'm a little leery about about merging the
partitions into one without messing up the MBR. I wonder if it'd be
safer just to shrink down the first partition to a couple gigs, and just
leaving the dual boot with a 2 second delay.
Or maybe just buy a new hard drive... I wonder if MS would have a
problem with two installs in two weeks!
Barry Watzman
messing up the MBR."
Be aware that Vista and Windows 7 do not use the MBR boot scheme
originally introduced with MS-DOS 2.0 and used in very OS until Vista
(e.g. through XP). Instead, both Vista and Windows 7 use the "BCD" boot
scheme (BCD = boot configuration data). It's a whole different system
for booting.
I have XP and Windows 7 dual boot on this machine. If you do that, you
will lose system restore on both OS', and there are some other issues
(incompatibilities) as well, although they are not major. But I'm not
sure that you could ever combine the XP and 7 partitions; I think if you
wanted to truly get rid of XP, you would have to start over.
Ryan P.
> Re: "I'm more worried about when I decide to migrate completely to Win7.
> I'm a little leery about about merging the partitions into one without
> messing up the MBR."
>
> Be aware that Vista and Windows 7 do not use the MBR boot scheme
> originally introduced with MS-DOS 2.0 and used in very OS until Vista
> (e.g. through XP). Instead, both Vista and Windows 7 use the "BCD" boot
> scheme (BCD = boot configuration data). It's a whole different system
> for booting.
>
> I have XP and Windows 7 dual boot on this machine. If you do that, you
> will lose system restore on both OS', and there are some other issues
> (incompatibilities) as well, although they are not major. But I'm not
> sure that you could ever combine the XP and 7 partitions; I think if you
> wanted to truly get rid of XP, you would have to start over.
That is an interesting bit of information... thanks! I learned my new
thing for the day!
The laptop, however, is dual boot with Vista and Win7. Does that make
it less dangerous to join the partitions? I would still be leery about
doing it, though, with my preferred OS on the 2nd partition, that's the
one that seems more likely to be corrupted.
Although, as I said, the safest option would be simply getting a new
hard drive. I wouldn't mind upgrading from the 120GB this thing came with!
BillW50
> Re: "I'm more worried about when I decide to migrate completely to Win7.
> I'm a little leery about about merging the partitions into one without
> messing up the MBR."
>
> Be aware that Vista and Windows 7 do not use the MBR boot scheme
> originally introduced with MS-DOS 2.0 and used in very OS until Vista
> (e.g. through XP). Instead, both Vista and Windows 7 use the "BCD" boot
> scheme (BCD = boot configuration data). It's a whole different system
> for booting.
>
> I have XP and Windows 7 dual boot on this machine. If you do that, you
> will lose system restore on both OS', and there are some other issues
> (incompatibilities) as well, although they are not major. But I'm not
> sure that you could ever combine the XP and 7 partitions; I think if you
> wanted to truly get rid of XP, you would have to start over.
Actually it is very easy to remove another Windows and keep Windows 7.
Super Easy Method:
------------------
If you are a super chicken and say XP is on the first partition. Delete
everything except:
Boot (folder)
boot.ini
bootmgr
ntdetect.com
ntldr
Now resize the first partition small enough to hold the little bit is left.
Another Easy Method:
--------------------
Use the Windows 7 install disc after you deleted the old Windows install
partition. And I forget the prompts, but it will take you to repairing
Windows 7 boot.
Warning: If you have other OS on this drive (even XP), they will be
unbootable except for Windows 7. Easy to fix if you know what you are
doing though.
Advanced User Method:
---------------------
Use the free BCDEdit program. You can fix any MBR or BCD boot problems.
You must have at least one Windows version bootable. I don't know if it
will work underr BartPE CD, I think it would.
--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Windows 7 (build 7100)
BillW50
> Advanced User Method:
> ---------------------
>
> Use the free BCDEdit program. You can fix any MBR or BCD boot problems.
> You must have at least one Windows version bootable. I don't know if it
> will work underr BartPE CD, I think it would.
Oh sorry! It is called EasyBCD.
Cameo
> No issues with the dual boot. I'm more worried about when I decide
> to migrate completely to Win7. I'm a little leery about about merging
> the partitions into one without messing up the MBR. I wonder if it'd
> be safer just to shrink down the first partition to a couple gigs, and
> just leaving the dual boot with a 2 second delay.
That crossed my mind too, and to make it easier, I made sure that Win7
was on the 1st partition and the later to be deleted Vista on the 2nd. I
also figured that before the time comes to remove the Vista partition
and add it to Win7, I'll know how to do it safely. Actually, I just
might reuse the Vista partition for Linux.
> Or maybe just buy a new hard drive... I wonder if MS would have a
> problem with two installs in two weeks!
Well, if you have the update version of Windows 7, I don't see how you
could install it on a new HD because it will be looking for a
pre-existing windows.
BillW50
> Well, if you have the update version of Windows 7, I don't see how you
> could install it on a new HD because it will be looking for a
> pre-existing windows.
There is a trick to get around the problem. Just Google:
windows 7 upgrade clean install
the wharf rat
Ryan P. <rdelet...@wi.rr.comm> wrote:
>
> The laptop, however, is dual boot with Vista and Win7. Does that make
>it less dangerous to join the partitions?
Just don't cross the streams.
Barry Watzman
Yes, actually it does. I'm still skeptical about your ability to do
this without a reinstall. But there are fewer risks with a Vista/7 dual
boot than with an XP/7 dual boot. The two OS' are more similar, and
some known actual incompatibilities and conflicts don't exist.