Recent content by vagrantsoul

getting a high end soundcard and budget headphones is pointless... just like budget soundcard with expensive headphones... l would maybe look into getting the soundcard, and suggest the following as a budget stopgap...

i've gotten response improvements with ccleaner and the like for free, just (half blindly) trust KIS for actual virus protection more than most other options. https://usa.kaspersky.com/products-services/home-computer-security/internet-security/

i personally have had nothing but great results with kaspersky internet security (not antivirus)... never really had any issues where it slowed my system down, and nothing has ever seemed to get through it. the newer norton offerings have gotten a lot better, i just still prefer KIS... that's...

here are two shots in a dimly lit room: customizable option 1: http://www.xoticpc.com/msi-ge70-apache-pro681-p-8067.html (keyboard also has the added bonus of you being able to color code command keys in adobe software), decent size, battery life, processor and gpu (customizable as well)...

I would reach out to Vizio, they've always been more than helpful, especially when dealing with the seller was less than pleasant.

I've honestly had mixed experiences with acer, but that was last experienced around 2011... very all over the place QC... would suggest looking for as many reviews of the model as possible.

solve the overall storage issue later with an external or upgrade the hdd later. Most inclusions of office will be a trial period vs a full release. advise looking at asus, lenovo, samsung from personal experience. May want to try over at reddit: www.reddit.com/r/suggestalaptop i believe...

you're going to want to visually do a scan of the board to see if any of the capacitors popped /blew. also be aware of smells from teh board and or the psu.

http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/332/AMD_A8-Series_for_Notebooks_A8-6410_vs_Intel_Core_i3_Mobile_i3-4010U.html

would lean more towards the i3 for reliability/longevity vs the amd, unless you need the raw speed increase.

what os and how much ram is there? how many processes are running in the background? have you defragmented the drive at all? are there extensions/toolbars installed? are you comparing wireless vs physical connections? are you getting a strong wireless signal?

yeah, Sager/Clevos tend to allow you to do this, they're usually at a price premium though. good call on that.

you can look at sites such as xoticpc.com and such which allows you to build out customized builds...as for cpu, ram, hdd's - those are all pretty much upgradable with most laptops (cpu and ram limited by mb), screen is a bit harder... possibly if you can find a panel that fits in the framing...

does it show up in device manager? you may have to go into windows' audio properties.. here's for windows 7 : http://www.7tutorials.com/how-change-default-playback-recording-audio-device