Received my Vostro 1500 - A few questions

Hey NBR. I received my Vostro 1500 and I love it so far. I have a few questions as this is my first notebook purchase in 6 years and I am totally out of the loop in how to maintain my Vostro. A few questions:

1) I am using Mozilla Firefox as I heard it is more secure then IE. Are there any good recommended free antivirus/antispyware programs out there?

2) I am using a XGA 1200x800 truelife display. I received the dreaded AUO screen but from what I can see...it doesn't look that bad although I have no way of comparing to the LG. Is there a dramatic difference betweeen the two on the standard XGA displays?

3) I ordered my Vostro with XP Pro service pack 2. I want to get the latest video card drivers but I am at a loss of which ones to get and I have no idea how to check if mine is 32 bit or 64 bit.

Thanks NBR. Please excuse my questions, I did attempt to research this.

Also, any other advice on prolonging the life of the laptop would be greatly appreciated. I have heard about not always keeping the battery plugged in or something to that effect. Not sure if that is true or not.

Thanks

Arebus

 

1. Mozilla Firefox. It's merely more secure than IE is because MS does not update it as frequently. And open source (Okay so not "exactly open source but more-so than IE) = bugs found, fixed more quickly. Main reason people use it? Extensions. Download Adblock and Adblock filterset G (get the latest update once you install it in firefox) to get rid of Ads. PDF download is a great one toornatively if you don't care for those features? Opera. Has many of its own features, (Adblock on that though is...much more difficult to implement).

2. If you don't see any problems with the screen, then you're fine. Not much else to say.

3. Most likely 32 bit. 32-bit is standard and you have to get 64-bit specifically.

 

1) I use AVG but it's probably not the best free one, I never actually use it anyway except for the random scan every months or 2

2) If you think it's fine don't search for bad things about it.. I think most everyone with an XGA screen didn't have any problems

3) http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/
And I'm sure Dell doesn't offer 64bit XP so you have 32

About the prolonging the life of the battery, you shouldn't keep it plugged in if the battery is at 100%, either unplug it and drain it for a little while or just take the battery out.

 

Thanks for the quick replies, they helped me out extensively.

A couple of follow-ups:

1) I will be running a 3dmark 06 test but first I want to update the drivers. Now I know the website to get them is www.laptopvideo2go.com. However I do not know which drivers to get. The latest ones are 163.44 but are those just for Bioshock? I will not be playing Bioshock so would those still be the best option.

2) As for the AUO screen, I was mad that I got it since I have heard so much complaining on the forums about this screen. Now that I have used the laptop a bit more, I do not notice any graininess or bleeding but the viewing angles are terrible. Does the LG have much better viewing angles?

Thanks again NBR.

 

1) No driver version is made specific to a game, 163.44 driver may have some fixes and performance enhancements for Bioshock, but that doesn’t mean it is not good for others. nVidia put game specifc optimizations in all of their drivers along with other fixes.

2) If you are satisfied then don’t listen to what others say. According to most threads LG seems to be the better screen, but there is no guarantee that you'll get a LG screen in return if you ask for a replacement. A lot depends on luck.

 

imo the auo had the best viewing angles of all the xga screens i recieved. the picture was horrid... but the viewing angles were almost as good as my 22" wsxga desktop screen..whites were almost yellow, it looked kinda dirty or hazey sorta.. and it had bad light bleeding the other one they sent (auo also) was no better, my first was a cpt.. awesome screen but it had tremendous light bleed i mean it was really bad.. nothing looked black at any point it was all sorta grey from the excess light

 

1) It's a common myth that Firefox is more secure than IE; there's the same amount of if not more working exploits for Firefox now than IE7. IE7 on Vista is arguably the most secure browser (I noticed you're running XP SP2, so this doesn't really apply) due to sand box support.

As for Anti-virus software, Avast! is the best free anti-virus software out there (not an opinion, a fact that's backed by many professional anti-virus software tests and reviews).

2) I have no idea what AUO screens are .

3) You are running a 32bit Windows XP SP2 OS. If you're looking for an overclockable driver, try this one.

4) The Lithium Ion batteries within Laptops (and many other mobile platforms) are not subject to the same flaws as Nickel Cadmium batteries; most prominently the "memory" flaw. Unfortunately, Lithium Ion batteries degrade on their own, even when not in use. So, there's actually no tangible benefits from keeping the battery out of the laptop. The common myth is that the battery life will be longer if it's not constantly used--and it's simply not true with Lithium Ion batteries.

 

I'd disagree that there is no tangible effect to keeping the battery out of the laptop when not in use. Depending on how often you use your battery it would make the most sense to keep it out of the machine. A laptop battery is usually rated to last a certain number of charge and discharge cycles and all batteries have a natural discharge rate. If you keep you machine plugged into a wall all day for, say, 2 months and your battery looses 1% charge per month (a hypothetical amount) the battery would have used 2 charge/discharge cycles while you had it doing nothing. If you just left it out of the comp you'd only be using 1 since it would only have suffered its natural discharge and a charge when you popped it back in.

Not in use, stored in a closet type place, the battery would last a good number of years if used every so often.

 

Right... But that defeats the entire purpose of a mobile platform .

That said, I already stated that Lithium Ion batteries degrade on their own--this is a fact. The speed they degrade may be be slower than your occasional use, but most likely it's around the same speed or even faster. Sure, you'll get a wee bit longer battery life, but I personally don't like shuffling the battery in and out of my notebooks. Just a personal opinion .

Also, as for charge cycles degrading the battery, that's mostly a Nickel Cadmium property. Lithium Ions degrade much slower via charge cycles since it goes through 3 or 4 distinct charge states to maximize charge and reduce wear and tear.

But, if you rarely bring your notebook outside (or into an environment where you'd need the battery), then you could store it in some cool place in your house. But that's sort of unlikely and, again, defeats the purpose of a mobile platform.

Oh, another little known fact is that you shouldn't steal a minute here and a minute there (even though they don't have the "memory" problem nor charge degradation) even with Li-Io batteries because with time, the battery gauge becomes extremely inaccurate and even when you have 90% charge, it may only report 46%, and vice versa (when you have 20%, it may report 52% or such).

 

Thanks for the replies guys. I have been using the Vostro all night and playing games and watching movies and such. I am completely torn here because I have no comparison as this is my first laptop in 6 years.

There is light leakage on the bottom and top left portions of the screen. The viewing angles seem bad to me but I am not sure if it is the same with all laptops.

As for the performance of the laptop it is phenomenal. It doesn't get too hot, it is quiet, and I don't mind the bulky look.

However I am not sure I can ignore the screen problem. If I was to ask Dell for a replacement would I have to send this model back. Furthermore, would I have to pay a restocking fee or anything?

I just want to make sure I am getting my money's worth.

 

The rate the battery degrades will increase with improper care by a LOT. So using your methods its degredation rate will be faster than you can keep up with...

The battery should be stored in a cool environment at around 40% charged. Higher charge rates when stored put extra strain on the battery and lower rates can lead to the battery killing itself. For that reason you shouldn't "store" you battery in your laptop if you're not using it regularly. As the heat alone will probably wear the battery out fast, but if it doesn't you have to contend with the problem I mentioned earlier with the natural discharge rate.

It is prerfectly fine to "steal" a minute here and there as long as you're doing it by using your battery up enough to make a charge worthwhile. Remember Li-Ion batteries live on charge/discharge cycles. So if you were to use 10% then immedialty through the machine on the charger you're doing your battery more harm than if you took it out and put it back in later when you also used an additional 40%. But at the same time you don't want to always be draining the battery to zero as that also stresses the battery.

If managed properly your battery can last you a long long time . I thought that mattered a lot in mobility

 

Hmm? I don't quite get what you're talking about. Degradation rates aren't meant to be "kept up with"... You use a Li-Io battery, it degrades. You don't use it, it degrades. What's there to keep up with?

Yes, cool environment is a must for storing batteries, and heat is a killer of batteries. The charge rate should be moderate, I wouldn't stick with a solid figure like "40%", though. But nothing wrong with a guideline .

It's fine in terms of battery life (as in, it won't harm the battery life), but it simply affects the gauge that reports the battery charge. This is only in the long run.

If you just leave your battery sitting there... Sure. But most of us actually have to use the notebook, and thus the battery, when we're on the go .

 

Here are some general tips by Gophn on how to maintain a notebook.

And always use protection(anti virus and anti-spyware-search the forum for other threads about what people use for protection)

 

Thanks for that...I've got an anti-virus and a anti-spyware loaded on.

Final thing before I start gaming

I updated the drivers to the 163.44. However I just read that you should uninstall the old drivers before installing the new ones. Does this mean I should start all over.

Also, how do I check the drivers on the graphics card to make sure it upgraded to 163.44 successfully.

Sorry for all the questions, I have been doing alot of searching and have figured alot of stuff out, some things I just can't find

 

I would just uninstall the "old" video card drivers via Add/remove programs in the Control Panel or you could also use the device manager(under display adapters-properties) to uninstall video card drivers. If you are having problems with the video card drivers then you might need to use a "driver cleaner".

You can find the driver version in the Device Manager or in dxdiag(start-run-"dxdiag"(without parenthesis)