Polishing my ASUS z70va: post your fav software

Hi folks! I finally decided to buy an ASUS z70va @ Geared2Play. I hope I'll be posting a review soon

I will pick my laptop up this Friday/Saturday, and I have read many posts about software for helping any laptop be more efficient, undervolting it, installing Centrino control, etc... what software add-ons would you suggest? I am currently thinking in:

* A fan speed monitor/controller?
* Omega graphics drivers?
* Undervolting my laptop?

[By the way, my laptop has no preinstalled OS: I'll install Windows XP w/SP 2 and Norton Corporate <-- (I just like it better) as soon as it arrives]

It'd be nice if you could post your suggestions as well as any cool SW you think would be a nice addition (in fact it's a good chance of making this thread a good place to start for new laptop owners). And yeah, you might just as well tell everyone which SW you would DEFINITELY NOT install! It's just as helpful

Happy posting! :

:asus: :centrino: AT LASTTTTT

 

Check out Hucsman's thread on free software, most of it is better then the paid software

 

just want to say congrats, i kinda envy ur picking up your z70va eddie should be shipping mine thursday at latest so ill have monday but anyways, like coriolis said the free software thread is very good, microsofts anti spyware and avg are very helpful

 

Thanks ceiph! Yeah, it'll be a HUGE blow of fresh air given that my current laptop is a Toshiba Satellite 1405-s151... celeron 1.2 says it all... hahah It's a miracle I can still work with Illustratot & Photoshop on that dinosaur hahaha...

What about MS's anti spyware? Is it so good? I use Ad Aware to remove it... though it's not like MS's, which I guess is some sort of firewall/active protection.

By the way, I tried using ZoneAlarm Internet Suite also, but I hated that everytime I tried to do anything a huge balloon appeared asking me to allow this and that... haha, that's why I returned to Norton

And what about undervolting, fan monitors, and the such? Is there some sort of walk-through in the site? I really don't know much about the topic...

 

MS's Spyware is actually quite useful. I use Adaware, MS's and SpyBot, usually flushes out everything

Notebook Hardware Control or RMClock for undervolting, SpeedFan to control fans

 

I used MS Antispyware for quite some time on my desktop. I found it to be buggy. The program itself was great (though it never once found anything...not that there was anything to find :-D) but it had an effect on startup order. Its tray icon apparently didn't like my computer (or maybe it didn't like my McAfee antivirus).

I use ZoneAlarm Pro along with McAfee virus scan and Ad Aware SE.

Picassa is a GREAT free picture management program.

 

I'll agree that Microsoft AntiSpy is useful, but do you ever get the feeling that running three spyware programs gets to be too much? I wouldn't be able to do it. I had SpySweeper and AntiSpy running at one time and it got so annoying. Now I just use one.

I suppose it is personal preference. I can see why people want to be secure and will run multiple programs to remain that way, but I cannot see myself going that far. I use AntiSpy in conjunction with Avast and a secure browser and have never had any problems. I don't do anything shady online, though, so I'm not as prone to attaining malware just from browsing. I suppose if I were doing shady stuff then I'd use more secure methods, but I'm not. It sure makes things a lot easier.

---

I suppose I cannot compare running AntiSpyware and SpySweeper at the same time to using AdAware, Spybot, and AntiSpyware. I haven't used AdAware or Spybot in a long time, but last I heard, they don't use any real-time protection agents, whereas SpySweeper and AntiSpyware do.

I guess there is no harm in that.

 

Yea, it gets annoying buy hey, I *feel* safer