Alienware Notebook

It is extremely late to be writing this post, but, I have tried to reference it on a few occasions only to find that it didn't exist. In August of 2006, I made my first major purchase (read: over $1000.) I had amassed a non-trivial amount of savings, a large portion of which I wanted to spend on a laptop computer.

Planning

After looking at some of the available options, I had formed several requirements. First, the new computer had to have a high-resolution screen, preferably 1920x1200. Second, it had to be more powerful than my existing system, which was an AMD-based desktop (that I still have and use today.) My third requirement was formed later in the game -- I wanted my keyboard to have a full numeric keypad. These requirements ruled out most of my options. Initially, I wanted to buy a bare-bones notebook which I could build myself, but there weren't many of these, and none of them met my requirements.

Purchase

The numeric keypad requirement limited me to 17-inch models. The hardest requirement to fulfill was that of the high-resolution display. The only notebooks that seemed to have this were Alienware's. I priced out an Alienware, and found that they charged way too much to upgrade the processor or memory compared to how much it would cost to do so myself. I priced out and purchased a system with the upgrades in place that I wouldn't be able to perform myself; the system came out to just over $2000. The two major limitations of this configuration were the processor and memory. The system I bought had the bare minimum in terms of memory: two 256-MB sticks for a total of 512 MB. My processor was the Core Duo, T2300 clocked at 1.66 GHz. Ironically, three days after my system shipped, four days before I received it, Alienware started selling my system with the Core 2 Duo chips. The most obvious advantage of the Core 2 over the Core is its 64-bit capability. Needless to say, I wished I had waited several days before ordering.

Performance and Upgrades

I got the machine with Windows XP Media Center Edition, but, shortly after receiving it, I over-wrote XP with the release candidate of Windows Vista. Having only 512 MB of memory meant that Vista didn't run too well. I did make use of the new ReadyBoost, which made a noticeable albeit minimal improvement in responsiveness. About two months after buying the system, I got around to upgrading the memory to 2 GB. The system ran much more smoothly after that.

The machine played machines decently well; it could play Half-Life 2 at full resolution at a very playable frame rate. The video card in the system was the high-end ATI Mobility Radeon X1800. I actually didn't play too many games on it due to school and other things occupying my time, though it did play them well when given the chance.

In June of 2007, I again upgraded the memory, this time to 4 GB. Some of this was wasted potential as Vista only recognized about 3.5 GB. I upgraded my mom's newish laptop with the old 2 GB from my system as I had no other use for it. In July, I did another upgrade; I upgraded my processor to the Core 2 Duo T7200 clocked at 2.0 GHz. Again, I upgraded my mom's laptop with the older processor, bringing her to a dual core from a single core system. This left my hard drive as the least capable piece of hardware in my system; it only held 60 GB of data, and was only a 5400 RPM drive. I never got around to upgrading this part of the system.

Current Status

This leaves my system specifications as follows:

• Alienware Area 51 m5750
• WUXGA (1920x1200) TFT "Clearview" 17" display
• Intel Core 2 Duo T7200
• 4GB DDR2 667MHz RAM
• ATI Mobility Radeon X1800 (256MB) Graphics Card
• 60 GB 5400 RPM Hard Drive

This system currently serves as my secondary system, and is my Windows machine. My Rensselaer-issued Laptop currently serves as my main machine and runs Fedora 8. My two servers run Windows Vista and Fedora 8, each serving its purpose. Perhaps this summer, I will have time to play Half-Life 2: Episode 2 and Portal to make use of this once cutting-edge, but now aging technology. In total, I have spent a little over $2600 on my Alienware, including the initial system and subsequent upgrades.

nVidia Quadro 140M

When trying to play a 720p video file on my ThinkPad this afternoon, I found out how bad the graphics card inside really is. It would not play the file well. It would play with a very low frame rate, and the sound was jittery because of trying to stay synced with the video.

I really wish that they had included a better video card (as well as higher screen resolution, i.e. 1920x1200). I haven't yet played any notable video games on my ThinkPad.

Hardware

Speakers

Ever since I have been up here at Rensselaer, I have not had a proper pair of speakers. I did not have the time, nor the space in the car to bring them when my dad drove me up here in August. All music that I have listened to has been via the speakers on my laptops, or through headphones. I should mention that the speakers on my Alienware notebook are much better than average for a notebook.

When my mom came up to visit for parents weekend, she brought my set of speakers that I had left at her house. It is amazing how good they sound after only hearing notebook speakers for a few months. They aren't even very powerful speakers; they're nothing compared to the speakers in my dad's home theatre system, for instance. (I think they're like 21 watt speakers.)

Alienware Notebook

Recently, my Alienware notebook has been running very hot -- I mean to the point where I was getting stability problems. It got so bad that I couldn't even watch an entire episode of a TV show without my system crashing.

I the first thing that came to mind was that I might have applied the thermal grease incorrectly or after I replaced my processor shortly before coming up to RPI. On Friday, I decided to take it apart. Everything looked good as far as I could tell. I decided that while the computer was open, I would clean it out.

Armed with a few cotton swabs (Q-tips), some isopropyl rubbing alcohol, and some canned air (complements of my aunt and uncle), I started cleaning out the area where the fan was. I was quite surprised at the large amount of dust that came out. I started up the computer again, and low and behold: it ran much cooler.

I decided that if there were any way to test it out, it would be to run a graphic-intensive game. This was the perfect excuse for me to buy Steam's Orange Box, which includes Half-Life 2: Episode 2. I played that for about an hour at full resolution (1920x1200), and almost full settings. There were no longer any stability issues with my machine. It will probably be a long time before I get a chance to actually play and finish the game.

Because of this experience, if anyone ever has stability issues with a notebook computer, I will first recommend that he take it apart, and get all of the dust out.

Connecting to RPI's Wireless Network from Fedora

One problem that plagued me for several months was that I couldn't get my Rensselaer-issued laptop (hereafter, "ThinkPad") to connect to the wireless network here. I first tried with the GUI network tools that come with Fedora, but there was not a way to do it that way (that I could find). My next approach was to use wpa_supplicant, and connect via 802.1X PEAP-GTC. I thought this was my solution for nearly a month, but never could figure out how to do it -- a fact I attribute to the lack of documentation for configuring wpa_supplicant.

One day, I decided to post on the Facebook "Wall" of the RPI network asking if anyone was able to get it working, as I know that many people here run Linux. A few days later, I got a reply suggesting that I try the Cisco VPN client for Linux. I tried to do this, but is couldn't compile a kernel module, or some other non-sense that was way over my head. After researching this problem, I came across the mention of a program called vpnc. There were clear instructions on how to take a Cisco client configuration file, and extract the information necessary to get vpnc to connect to the VPN. At Last, I finally was able to connect to the wireless network from Fedora! The solution was to use vpnc, if I didn't make that obvious.

In other news, in my experimentation with Fedora, I got the original Half-Life to run with the proprietary nVidia driver through WINE, a Windows emulator for Linux. I was not, however, able to get any of the other games working. One day when I have some time, I may look into this further.

Desktop Computer

My desktop is once again, nearly out of disk space. In reality I have around 120 gigabytes left, but it is not continuous; it is spread over 9 disk partitions, which is not very useful for moving and saving DVD images. I have many linux images, and other large files on my desktop (which is I am basically using as a server).

As a result of this free space being fragmented across many partitions, I have been wanting to build a RAID-5 server with several terabytes of storage in one continuous blob. The main thing precluding my from doing so at this time is funding. Additionally, I don't know which controller I would get. I need one that is reliable, fast, and cheap. (I know that the saying is usually "choose any 2".) I would end up getting some large disks from NewEgg. I would also need an inexpensive case to house the whole thing.

I would probably set it up as a Linux server, and make the space available to Windows clients via the samba protocol. I have never set up such a server before, so it would be very interesting.

Gamer KO

A friend of mine runs a site where people can buy, sell, and trade new or used video games. He told me that he gets about 40 visitors per month, which I found difficult to believe until I attempted to find him on Google. I typed in many keywords, and never found him in the first 500 results. Short of typing his site name of "GamerKO" or "Gamer KO," or typing his site description verbatim, he was no where to be found. I even tried modifying his description slightly, and he virtually disappeared from the results.

There are many reasons that he does not show up on Google. The first of which is that there is virtually no one linking to him. I am helping him out in this area by linking to him from my sites.

Another reason that he is not ranking very high is that his site uses HTML tables and frames for layout. Tables are difficult for search engines to process, and frames are nearly opaque to search engines. I would add that the site is inaccessible to people with disabilities, but that is not his target demographic anyway. As a general rule, though, making a site accessbile to people with disabilities also makes it accessible to search engines.

Anyway, I'll stop with the harsh criticisms, and mention the good things about his site. Gamer KO (his site) is good for anyone who wants to get video games for reduced prices, sometimes as inexpensive as $2.75. One can also sell his games through the site, receiving 60% commission on whatever the sale price is.

I can personally vouch for the authenticity and integrity of the people running the site. Additionally, they have a nearly perfect feedback rating on eBay and half.com, which speaks much to their customer satisfaction.