SLUniverse Forums

reeneebob Birmingham · 02-29-2008, 09:35 PM

Okay, I went and bought a new laptop yesterday (my first). I got a hella deal on it to be fair, I got it for $599 ( I really didn't need it, but as a backup computer and once I don't have to share, the price was too good to pass up). I got it because it was the display model that spent it's life in the case for 2 whole months (the rep is a friend who told me about it). Anyway I need some advice on running SL and what, if anything, I need to watch for.

Here's the specs:
HP Pavilion dv2620ca
AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-58 (1.9 GHz, 2x 512k L2 Cache)
2GB DDR2-667 RAM
160GB Hitachi TravelStar Hard Disk (5400rpm)
Nvidia GeForce 7150M video card

Bear with me, I'm computer savvy but new to notebooks.

Huns Valens · 02-29-2008, 09:51 PM

step #1: install SL
step #2: run SL
step #3: SL informs you it has set your settings per its idea of how fast your shit is

done

reeneebob Birmingham · 02-29-2008, 09:57 PM

LOL well I already had THAT idea, but should I watch for heating? I have heard the horror stories about SL and killing laptops

derevaun · 03-01-2008, 12:08 AM

There's thread in the tech section about stuff you can do for a new computer, including Decrapifier. It worked fine for me, though using the Windows remover thing was necessary anyway.

Be careful about drivers for the video card. I tried to remove and reinstall the ATI drivers on my newish laptop and discovered that Toshiba (and from what I've read, HP also) modify the drivers for their hardware and thus ATI doesn't support their own GPUs on laptops. NVidia might be better about that. Until you find out, don't clean out the original drivers--in my case, it made the card disappear and I had to roll back to a restore point.

I'm curious to hear about heat issues. I don't SL much on the new laptop, but it'd be nice to do so now and then.

Cubey Terra · 03-01-2008, 02:17 PM

I occasionally try to run SL on my Dell Inspiron laptop. It's fine for about 10 minutes, then the fans switch to full-on afterburner mode. If I ignore that, after a while it shuts itself off due to overheating.

LeenaSerevi · 03-01-2008, 03:06 PM

I've got a three year old Acer Laptop ( not top spec!! ) which works suprisingly well with SL. Not had any overheating problems so far.

FlipperPA Peregrine · 03-01-2008, 04:58 PM

Definitely watch for overheating. Cristiano and I have burned out close to 10 laptops thanks to SL! One thing you can do is modify your shortcut if you find your fans kicking into high gear, or the laptop getting two hot, and use the "yield" command to make it suck less power.

To do this, right click the shortcut you use to open Second Life and go to PROPERTIES (I'm assuming Windoze here). In target, add "-yield ###" at the end of your current statement. For example:

“C:\Program Files\SecondLife\SecondLife.exe” -yield ###

Replace ### with the number of milliseconds to pause after each frame rendered. Start with 50 and tweak until your computer doesn't get hot.

Regards,

-Flip

Huns Valens · 03-01-2008, 07:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by reeneebob Birmingham

LOL well I already had THAT idea, but should I watch for heating? I have heard the horror stories about SL and killing laptops

I can tell you my laptop has shut itself off quite a few times while running SL.

Ten · 03-01-2008, 07:38 PM

Laptops don't work well with Second Life because of how thin they're making them now. The thinner the better, but that doesn't count for cooling your poor overworked video card. So, it doesn't surprise me that the older Acer runs SL fine.

Of course, that depends on your definition of "fine".

Ten · 03-01-2008, 07:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FlipperPA Peregrine

Definitely watch for overheating. Cristiano and I have burned out close to 10 laptops thanks to SL! One thing you can do is modify your shortcut if you find your fans kicking into high gear, or the laptop getting two hot, and use the "yield" command to make it suck less power.

To do this, right click the shortcut you use to open Second Life and go to PROPERTIES (I'm assuming Windoze here). In target, add "-yield ###" at the end of your current statement. For example:

“C

rogram FilesSecondLifeSecondLife.exe” -yield ###

Replace ### with the number of milliseconds to pause after each frame rendered. Start with 50 and tweak until your computer doesn't get hot.

Regards,

-Flip

Sobriquet Kryakutnoy · 03-01-2008, 07:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ten

Laptops don't work well with Second Life because of how thin they're making them now. The thinner the better, but that doesn't count for cooling your poor overworked video card.

Mine's just under 1" thick, and so far I haven't managed to toast the video card. (Knock on wood) I'm guessing I either haven't been trying hard enough, or this laptop just has great heat piping/fan placement.

I did toast the X1600XT in my old desktop that I replaced with this laptop though. Twice.

Gotta love warranties

, SL is a monster.

Briana Dawson · 03-01-2008, 08:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FlipperPA Peregrine

Definitely watch for overheating. Cristiano and I have burned out close to 10 laptops thanks to SL! One thing you can do is modify your shortcut if you find your fans kicking into high gear, or the laptop getting two hot, and use the "yield" command to make it suck less power.

To do this, right click the shortcut you use to open Second Life and go to PROPERTIES (I'm assuming Windoze here). In target, add "-yield ###" at the end of your current statement. For example:

“C

rogram FilesSecondLifeSecondLife.exe” -yield ###

Replace ### with the number of milliseconds to pause after each frame rendered. Start with 50 and tweak until your computer doesn't get hot.

Regards,

-Flip

what exactly does this to your SL experience? And how does it stop your laptop from overheating?

Ten · 03-01-2008, 11:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Briana Dawson

what exactly does this to your SL experience? And how does it stop your laptop from overheating?

Basically what you'll be looking at after performing that little trick is a fun slideshow of Second Life. Not the nice, smooth framerates you may be used to.

Tary Allen · 03-02-2008, 08:35 AM

I run SL in a laptop and runs great, I'm in love with Windlight now that the harsh colors are gone, and never had a problem with overheating.

Specs:
HP pavillion dv 9575

Windows Vista
Intel core duo T7300 2.00Ghz

2 GB RAM
NVIDIA Gforce8600

prinţesă nină · 03-02-2008, 08:42 AM

ten stop trolling and nitpicking.

Sobriquet Kryakutnoy · 03-02-2008, 08:45 AM

Be nice to Ten!

She makes pants you can moon people with

FlipperPA Peregrine · 03-02-2008, 10:24 AM

Tenshi's got it right - it slows down your FPS slightly to avoid melting the silicon in your GPU chip.

I've had my Vigor Gaming laptop for about a year now - 1" thick, incredibly light for a 17" laptop, 1920x1200 resolution, 512 meg nVidia 7950 GTX... it runs great. It is constructed incredibly smartly on the inside - the entire enside is a giant heat sink, which routes to one fan. It never gets nearly as hot as my old Sager laptop. Have a looksie:

Vigor Gaming Computer: The Gaming PC with Extreme Vigor™

Ten · 03-02-2008, 12:13 PM

I've just decided Flipper is way hot.

reeneebob Birmingham · 03-06-2008, 03:57 PM

Thanks guys!

I am not in world alot anymore, so it's not often I'll run it on the laptop. I may look at getting a cooling pad for when I do though.

The few times I have run SL on the laptop it's been surprisingly smooth. As good as the desktop, which is more powerful than the laptop but the laptop have a better video card.

Ayu Sura · 03-06-2008, 04:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FlipperPA Peregrine

Tenshi's got it right - it slows down your FPS slightly to avoid melting the silicon in your GPU chip.

I've had my Vigor Gaming laptop for about a year now - 1" thick, incredibly light for a 17" laptop, 1920x1200 resolution, 512 meg nVidia 7950 GTX... it runs great. It is constructed incredibly smartly on the inside - the entire enside is a giant heat sink, which routes to one fan. It never gets nearly as hot as my old Sager laptop. Have a looksie:

Vigor Gaming Computer: The Gaming PC with Extreme Vigor™

Hm! That price isn't too bad!

I wonder how it compares to ASUS gaming laptops...

And is it worth the extra 500+ bucks to get the higher end graphics card?

Ayu Sura · 03-06-2008, 05:23 PM

/hijacks thread

How's this look?

Newegg.com - ASUS G Series G2Sg-A1 NoteBook Intel Core 2 Duo T9300(2.50GHz) 17.0" Wide UXGA 4GB 320GB 5400rpm DVD Super Multi NVIDIA GeForce 8700M GT - Retail

Sobriquet Kryakutnoy · 03-06-2008, 07:25 PM

I would recommend looking into a 7200 RPM hard drive, maybe as a separate upgrade, if that doesn't void the warranty.

Mecha Dinosaur · 03-07-2008, 02:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by reeneebob Birmingham

Here's the specs:
HP Pavilion dv2620ca
AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-58 (1.9 GHz, 2x 512k L2 Cache)
2GB DDR2-667 RAM
160GB Hitachi TravelStar Hard Disk (5400rpm)
Nvidia GeForce 7150M video card

Quote:

Originally Posted by reeneebob Birmingham

160GB Hitachi TravelStar Hard Disk (5400rpm)
Nvidia GeForce 7150M video card

Quote:

Originally Posted by reeneebob Birmingham

Nvidia GeForce 7150M

Ready for solitaire.

02-29-2008, 09:35 PM	#1 (permalink)
reeneebob Birmingham FUCKCHOP! FUUUUUUCKCHOP! Goodbye horses. Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Ontario, Canada - COMMIE SOCIALIST COUNTRY WHOOOO! WHOOOOOOOO! Posts: 408 SL Join Date: August 7, 2006 Business: I support others business My Mood:	Need some laptop information Okay, I went and bought a new laptop yesterday (my first). I got a hella deal on it to be fair, I got it for $599 ( I really didn't need it, but as a backup computer and once I don't have to share, the price was too good to pass up). I got it because it was the display model that spent it's life in the case for 2 whole months (the rep is a friend who told me about it). Anyway I need some advice on running SL and what, if anything, I need to watch for. Here's the specs: HP Pavilion dv2620ca AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-58 (1.9 GHz, 2x 512k L2 Cache) 2GB DDR2-667 RAM 160GB Hitachi TravelStar Hard Disk (5400rpm) Nvidia GeForce 7150M video card Bear with me, I'm computer savvy but new to notebooks.

02-29-2008, 09:51 PM	#2 (permalink)
Huns Valens FIC AS FUCK EUALEUARUARUL Join Date: Sep 2007 Posts: 190 SL Join Date: 5-3-2003 Blog Entries: 1 My Mood:	step #1: install SL step #2: run SL step #3: SL informs you it has set your settings per its idea of how fast your shit is done __________________ __________________________ Aircraft with Realistic Physics from Valen Heavy Industries Video on YouTube \| SLExchange Store \| OnRez store Proposal to allow easy detection of parcels that have scripts that eject or teleport.

03-01-2008, 02:17 PM	#5 (permalink)
Cubey Terra aircraft manufacturer in the clouds Join Date: Aug 2007 Posts: 295 SL Join Date: September 2003 SLShopper Ads: 9	I occasionally try to run SL on my Dell Inspiron laptop. It's fine for about 10 minutes, then the fans switch to full-on afterburner mode. If I ignore that, after a while it shuts itself off due to overheating. __________________ . . . . . Cubey Terra Terra Aeronautics @ Abbotts Aerodrome www.cubeyterra.com

03-01-2008, 04:58 PM	#7 (permalink)
FlipperPA Peregrine Evil Incarnate! Recursion is beautiful! Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Philadelphia, PA Posts: 5,204 SL Join Date: 2003-11-14 Business: Peregrine Salon SLShopper Ads: 1 My Mood:	Definitely watch for overheating. Cristiano and I have burned out close to 10 laptops thanks to SL! One thing you can do is modify your shortcut if you find your fans kicking into high gear, or the laptop getting two hot, and use the "yield" command to make it suck less power. To do this, right click the shortcut you use to open Second Life and go to PROPERTIES (I'm assuming Windoze here). In target, add "-yield ###" at the end of your current statement. For example: “C:\Program Files\SecondLife\SecondLife.exe” -yield ### Replace ### with the number of milliseconds to pause after each frame rendered. Start with 50 and tweak until your computer doesn't get hot. Regards, -Flip __________________ Peregrine Salon: Flip & Jenn's thang.

03-06-2008, 05:23 PM	#21 (permalink)
Ayu Sura nom nom nom is about to num on some cherries Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: under the sea Posts: 2,919 My Mood:	/hijacks thread How's this look? Newegg.com - ASUS G Series G2Sg-A1 NoteBook Intel Core 2 Duo T9300(2.50GHz) 17.0" Wide UXGA 4GB 320GB 5400rpm DVD Super Multi NVIDIA GeForce 8700M GT - Retail Last edited by Ayu Sura; 03-06-2008 at 08:19 PM.

02-29-2008, 09:57 PM	#3 (permalink)
reeneebob Birmingham FUCKCHOP! FUUUUUUCKCHOP! Goodbye horses. Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Ontario, Canada - COMMIE SOCIALIST COUNTRY WHOOOO! WHOOOOOOOO! Posts: 408 SL Join Date: August 7, 2006 Business: I support others business My Mood:	LOL well I already had THAT idea, but should I watch for heating? I have heard the horror stories about SL and killing laptops

03-01-2008, 12:08 AM	#4 (permalink)
derevaun My shit is fucked up Edit Join Date: Nov 2007 Posts: 94 SL Join Date: February 2007 My Mood:	There's thread in the tech section about stuff you can do for a new computer, including Decrapifier. It worked fine for me, though using the Windows remover thing was necessary anyway. Be careful about drivers for the video card. I tried to remove and reinstall the ATI drivers on my newish laptop and discovered that Toshiba (and from what I've read, HP also) modify the drivers for their hardware and thus ATI doesn't support their own GPUs on laptops. NVidia might be better about that. Until you find out, don't clean out the original drivers--in my case, it made the card disappear and I had to roll back to a restore point. I'm curious to hear about heat issues. I don't SL much on the new laptop, but it'd be nice to do so now and then.

03-01-2008, 03:06 PM	#6 (permalink)
LeenaSerevi Junior Member I'm Watching You! Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: UK Posts: 1,897 SL Join Date: 2nd January 08 My Mood:	I've got a three year old Acer Laptop ( not top spec!! ) which works suprisingly well with SL. Not had any overheating problems so far.

03-02-2008, 08:35 AM	#14 (permalink)
Tary Allen Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Portugal Posts: 255 SL Join Date: 2007-03-27 My Mood:	I run SL in a laptop and runs great, I'm in love with Windlight now that the harsh colors are gone, and never had a problem with overheating. Specs: HP pavillion dv 9575 Windows Vista Intel core duo T7300 2.00Ghz 2 GB RAM NVIDIA Gforce8600

03-02-2008, 08:42 AM	#15 (permalink)
prinţesă nină Banned adores her psycho Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: melbourne Posts: 4,360 SLShopper Ads: 1 My Mood:	ten stop trolling and nitpicking.

03-02-2008, 08:45 AM	#16 (permalink)
Sobriquet Kryakutnoy Foul Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Ohio Posts: 2,960 Business: Smock-huffing My Mood: Awards: 1	Be nice to Ten! She makes pants you can moon people with

03-02-2008, 10:24 AM	#17 (permalink)
FlipperPA Peregrine Evil Incarnate! Recursion is beautiful! Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Philadelphia, PA Posts: 5,204 SL Join Date: 2003-11-14 Business: Peregrine Salon SLShopper Ads: 1 My Mood:	Tenshi's got it right - it slows down your FPS slightly to avoid melting the silicon in your GPU chip. I've had my Vigor Gaming laptop for about a year now - 1" thick, incredibly light for a 17" laptop, 1920x1200 resolution, 512 meg nVidia 7950 GTX... it runs great. It is constructed incredibly smartly on the inside - the entire enside is a giant heat sink, which routes to one fan. It never gets nearly as hot as my old Sager laptop. Have a looksie: Vigor Gaming Computer: The Gaming PC with Extreme Vigor™

03-02-2008, 12:13 PM	#18 (permalink)
Ten Baby FIC WAR IS PEACE FREEDOM IS SLAVERY IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH. Join Date: Jun 2007 Posts: 6,233 SL Join Date: 10/7/2006 My Mood: Awards: 1	I've just decided Flipper is way hot.

03-06-2008, 03:57 PM	#19 (permalink)
reeneebob Birmingham FUCKCHOP! FUUUUUUCKCHOP! Goodbye horses. Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Ontario, Canada - COMMIE SOCIALIST COUNTRY WHOOOO! WHOOOOOOOO! Posts: 408 SL Join Date: August 7, 2006 Business: I support others business My Mood:	Thanks guys! I am not in world alot anymore, so it's not often I'll run it on the laptop. I may look at getting a cooling pad for when I do though. The few times I have run SL on the laptop it's been surprisingly smooth. As good as the desktop, which is more powerful than the laptop but the laptop have a better video card.

03-06-2008, 07:25 PM	#22 (permalink)
Sobriquet Kryakutnoy Foul Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Ohio Posts: 2,960 Business: Smock-huffing My Mood: Awards: 1	I would recommend looking into a 7200 RPM hard drive, maybe as a separate upgrade, if that doesn't void the warranty.