My First Post (6860 Guide)

I have been reading posts on this forum for a few months now, but never registered. I felt it was overdue. So my first post will hopefully be a good one.

My setup...


Clean Install of Vista Ultimate x64

2 WD Scorpio 320GB HDDs in RAID Array 0. 5400RPMs

Now I noticed some of you thinking you should upgrade your HDD to a 7200RPM drive. But you wouldn't notice much of an Upgrade if any. This is the BEST 5400RPM HDD on the market that I could find.

Spins at 5400 RPM for fast performance but has power specs similar to slower 4200 RPM drives. Low power consumption yields increased reliability.

WD's exclusive WhisperDrive technology with SoftSeek algorithms make this the quietest 2.5-inch hard drive, regardless of spin speed.

WD's ShockGuard technology protects the drive mechanics and platter surfaces from shocks. WD's DuraStep Ramp locks the heads in a secure position away from the disk to provide another layer of protection when the drive is not in use. Utilizing the most technologically advanced material available, the drive can perform a minimum of 600,000 load/unload cycles without contamination - up to twice the performance of its competitors.

WD Scorpio's rigid stainless steel top cover withstands more than 5 pounds of pressure - nearly 1.5 times the industry average - without pinching vital internal components.

Here are some Specs of my drives run in RAID 0 (Striped)

Pretty **** good.

That will get you a Whoopdie Do 5.9 on the Vista Scale


This is where I bought mine. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136197 Best price I could find (including ebay) and it got here in 3 business days.

Next...

T9300 Processor - I love this thing. It's temps are amazing for its speed. It's a bit pricey but this is the first upgrade you should have on this laptop. Others are going with the extreme core 2 Duo's but I don't see much of a difference between this one and those. They run pretty **** hot also.

If your looking at upgrading your RAM don't bother. We got about the best we can get. 667 is the max. But if you want to bump your rating from a 4.5 to a 5.1 on the Vista benchmark grab a T9300 or better.

I was easily able to install this processor thanks to this guys post here. http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=256839 which was a sweet guide.

If you want to buy the T9300 here's the link http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819111001 again best price I found and 3 day shipping.

8800M GTS Driver 177.79 I tried 89 and 83 and I felt they weren't as good as this one. I got a few crashes from the others versions when I was OCing my card. everything is smooth now with the .79 Make sure to get the latest physx drivers Since they are now enabled on the 8800M GTS

I overclocked my 8800M GTS With NVTune which is extremely easy to use.


I'm sure you could go more but don't push it.

Oh yea turn that digital vibrance on. It kicks arse.


Here are some games I tested.



You can max Devil May Cry out with DX10 and have 0 problems. Great game.


Here's a list of some of my other games. post if you want me to test any of them.

Here are my favorite software programs out to date.

Spyware and Viruses...
Kaspersky gets #1 every year. It also comes with a sweet gaming option.

There is a free version of SuperANTIspyware you can download here. http://www.superantispyware.com/ This is the top dog for spyware. It will kill EVERYTHING.


PC Optimizers
Tune Up Utilities 2008 This is your one stop shop for all your PC optimization definately check this guy out.


CCleaner is freeware and can be downloaded here http://www.ccleaner.com/. This is a great piece of software to remove unused files and registry blocks.


Webroot Window Washer removes all of the files left behind after a succesful install. It's a great tool.


Others

HWMonitor is a great freeware program to monitor your temps.


ImgBurn is one of the best ISO programs out there


Daemon Tools Pro
Mount those ISOs and install your favorite games and software.

Driver Sweeper should be used before installing any new drivers. This will clean it out for you.


Acronis Disk Director is the #1 disk management program out. It's great for partitioning and reformating external HDDs.


VMWare is a virtual machine management program. You can run any other type of Operating System inside your current.


Now once you've got all your programs installed that you want. Your going to want to do the following.

Type Msconfig in the search bar of the start menu.

then you can click enter, and a window will pop up. Select the Startup Tab.

Uncheck ALL programs that you don't want starting up when your computer boots up. I unchecked them all except my anti virus and nvidia drivers. You will notice another tab called Services. You never want to edit your services through msconfig, it's just the wrong way to do it. After you click ok a window will say restart. Select exit without restart.

Now type services in the search bar of the startup menu and press enter.

A new window will open up that looks like this.

Select the services you want to set to manual or disable and double click them. Another window will pop-up.

I ended up setting that one to manual.

Automatic = Will start when windows starts.
Manual = Will start if it needs to
Disable = Not coming on.

BE CAREFUL! There are guides on the net on which services to set to Automatic, Manual, and disable. Doing the wrong ones could leave you with no internet, no printer, ect. Just double check everything. Good luck.

Misc.
I use a cooling fan to help cool down my laptop. They work wonders. Check this one out. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834997340

I use a XBOX 360 wireless controller for gaming. all you need is this. http://www.gamestop.com/Catalog/ProductDetails.aspx?product_id=61049

Wireless Bluetooth Mouse

Bose headsets. These things sound like a car system. The bass is sick for headsets. http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage...=bose&lp=3&type=product&cp=1&id=1082742915065

I hope this post helped everyone. I'll keep updating it.

 

well ill look into it before i buy it

but the 7200 rpm versions are only 150$ now

seems to make more sense particularly if you are going to raid 0 it.

Im pretty sure those are the fastest hds available too. The hitachi 7200 rpm hd is faster than the samsung 500 gb 5400 rpm hd.

 

w00ts! new CD key for me!

great work!

 

Tim you should remove that CD key hahahaha

Other than that, great work compiling all those useful programs (I use some of those myself, quite awesome).

 

Yea if you want to buy two. you cant RAID a 5400 with a 7200

 

thanks lol.

 

Nice work man. Very easy to read and understand.


A small tip: When taking screenshots of open windows, press Alt + Prt Scr. It will allow you to take the screen shot of the open window only, thus allowing a 'cleaner' look on your screenshots.

 

if you have tuneup utilities why would you need ccleaner and windowasher ?
as to vmware, vt is not enabled by the gateway bios (can be hacked).
lastly the daemon tools free version is more than good enough.

good post

 

This is the best review of the 6860 FX. The other reviews just post some benchmarks and don't show any useful screenshots.

+1 rep

/Off topic
How loud is your cooler when it's set to the highest setting?

 

can u test GRID??
i have tried to install it in my lap, but i can't.
thanks man.

 

my 6831 ran grid maxed out.

 

You never want just one thing. At least I don't I find tune up with the registry defrag works great but CCleaner finds stuff it doesnt. Not sure what you mean about VMWare. Yea daemon free is good enough unless yo find other ways of getting the software

to masked My cooler is silent.

and GRID is run MAXXED 16xQ and everything

 

Updated with a msconfig and services.msc how to

 

i always want just one thing
new daemon4301-lite come with that yasu (spell?) not an iso in the world it cant mount.

as to vmware, the cpu virtualization feature is turned off (t5450 doesnt have vt but more advanced chips...)so for example you cant run an x64 os on a x86 host.

 

Awesome post tim2963!

This is a very informative read, with well thought out execution +1 rep.

 

yea daemon light for flash drives is pretty nice. but the t 5450 isn't in the 6860. You can run x64 with VMWare ESX, which offers x64 version of workstation.

 

thanks kobe

 

if a cpu or the bios dont have the vt feature you will not be able to virtualise an x64 guest on an x32 host (the t5550 does not support vt either)

 

Hey tim how does crysis run on your laptop, can you include some screens please? thanks

 

I can confirm the recommendation for ImgBurn.

Do registry cleaners really provide any benefit? Last I recall using one, it caused more problems than it fixed. In fact, I haven't found any optimization software that works better then the MS included programs, which is bewildering to me considering how much room for improvement there is.

I've seen alot of people who use RAID 0, but before going RAID 1 with my two Hitachi 7k200's, I had both the stock Toshiba and one of the Hitachi's and my HDD temps hit 60 after extended use -- that's way too high, and one of the reasons I went with the Hitachi's instead of Toshiba's since surprizingly enough the 7k200 actually ran cooler than the Scorpio.

 

I got a lot of updates coming to this post soon. I installed windows XP SP2 x64... It's worse than Ultimate x64. I get lower framerate and a it took me a full day to get drivers to work. I'm either going to make a workstation out of Server 08 or go back to ultimate.

Crysis Ran at 40 FPS in 1280x1024 2xAA VSYNC. Direct X9.0c

The microsoft tools suck...

 

Vista Premium 64 FTW...

 

I got it working im going to make another topic showing both improvements and walkthroughs on dual booting x64 XP its waaaay better

 

Looking forward to the information...

 

Can't wait to see this!

Make sure you dot all the i's and cross all the t's.

 

I just did an XP 64 install on my 6860. Im enjoying it thoroughly compared to my 5 months on vista 64. Some drivers points Im looking to clean up are optimal sound (i have a working one now, but my vista 64 sounds was a little better i think, so a better driver is the key here), optimal modem (vista 64 drivers worked for the install but havent tested), and if anyone has found a working xp64 driver for the 3 devices or media keys on this laptop that would be great too.

Is this guide still in the works or coming tim ?

Thanks.