7811FX Arrives!...Observations & Checkout

Refurb 7811FX arrived today, with Vista install disk. Looks brand new. No cosmetic deformities apparent.

Step 1: dumped the Norton Memory Hog program or is it an anti-virus program? Either way, its gone. In its place: ESET NOD32.

Screen: on initial bootup noticed the ghostly white fog against the black startup screen, initially occupying nearly the entire left half of the display. From my reading here, seems to be a not uncommon issue. Judicious use of a microfiber cloth seemed to reduce the ghosting. Not a show stopper for me. The display compares favorably to my 17" Fujitsu N series laptop which has a very highly regarded 1440x900 display.

Had some trouble connecting to my wireless router, but when that was solved downloaded HWMonitor and 64bit Passmark burn-in test (30day free trial). Plan to run both overnight.

So far, very little fan activity, an infrequent high speed burst, then quiet again. Temps seem to be running relatively cool so far. Assuming overnight testing is OK, plan to run Crysis Warhead and COD5 tomorrow.

Power brick isn't hot as some have reported.

Any other suggestions for "break-in"?

Still weighing option to slipstream XP32 or perhaps I'll leave Vista and use XP in Virtualbox.

 

Congrats on the lappy bro. Running 3dmark in a loop along with passmark gets her nice and hot. I suggest leaving the Vista 64 on it and installing XP-32 in a VM if you need it for some kind of software compatibility. Keep us posted on how she does.

 

Thx! It passed the first Passmark run through. I'm going to reset some of the tests to increase stress and, as you suggest, run 3dmark in parallel.

Yea, I'm leaning toward Vista with XP in a box. Just got to where I was reasonably proficient on XP Pro...oh well.

 

I'd recommend doing a totally fresh install since there's still a ton of crap in the registry and other places that will still slow your system.

 

I have done it both ways, fresh install and using The Pc Decrapifier, no difference what so ever, except the loss of hours reinstalling the os, drivers, and searching for drivers doing a fresh install. Don't get me wrong, a fresh install is always a good way to make sure everything is off your system, but the other way is pretty close without all the trouble. If a fresh install is you option, please backup you drivers, and system, your owners manual shows you how (it's in the little black book called page 21 "Starter Guide" this will save you much time looking for divers, it's easy, you will need some blank DVD's. You can get The Pc Decrapifier here;

http://pcdecrapifier.com/node/159

 

I'm getting set to run 3dmark on this guy. Have run passmark a couple times, general hard drive cleaning, surfing, etc. Computer has been on for about 24hrs now. No issues as yet. Attached is HWMonitor snapshot. Do these temps look OK to you guys?

 

Temps look fine. Be sure to post pics of your 3dMark score.

 

OK noob question here, how do you run XP while in vista? Doesn't an emulator slow things way down, especially for gaming?

Sorry if I misread the above posts about VM.

 

Ran one 3dmark test. Results below. Only temp that changed was GPU which went from 59C to 64C. All other temps were constant. Fans came up but not high. What think ye goodspeed?

 

*voice of the giant killer cockroach in one of the family guy episodes* GOOD ... GOOD ... ...

 

If you want to run in xp compatibility mode right click on the game or program you want to run and select properties, then compatibly tab, check the top box, and pick xp sp2, hit apply, you should not need to do this unless you are having alot of crashes.

 

Agree, first second I got mine went and formatted my C Drive. Far as programs are installed, I can list 500, just install what you want, I would suggest something like AVG (free virus scanner) that does the trick while your downloading drivers and programs so you dont accidently screw it up like me.

Forgot the anti virus part and had to re-format yesterday/