PC crashed

[Nilsen]

During a flight today my screen got lots of colored dots and looked wierd. I logged out of AH and rebooted. Now its like that all the time and i get a bluescreen with some error message that goes away far too soon for me to see. I caved after trying to reboot several times and decided to reinstall. Problem remains so im fearing my lappy has been killed

Any tips?

[Nwbie]

did you try to delete the video.cfg file and restart?

[Nilsen]

Thing is that the artifacts are there before windws loads and after ive reinstalled too.

[Nwbie]

Sounds like a video card issue - could be taking a crap - or overheating -

[Nilsen]

Yeah its prolly a fried vid card.

This HP has one of the dumbest designs ever. The fan under the machine blows air INTO the machine unlike any of the other 10 or so lappys ive had that sucks the air out. This means that the stupid thing is blowing all sorts of dust and crap into the machine. 

[Nilsen]

Yup fried gpu

Ive mailed support and asked them for a price. If its more than i feel its worth spending on it ill dump the machine and its no more AH for me for awhile.

On the upside it doesnt look like the He111 or me410 will come during the next release so i have a few months to find a new lappy

[Denholm]

I'm not a fan of laptops or the companies that make them. However at the time being Dell would be the way to go if you want a laptop designed just for you.

[The Fugitive]

ALL computers need cleaning. If a fan is blowing out, its sucking in air someplace else as well as dust. Otherwise it would create a vacum inside your laptop 

Half dozen screws and a vacum with a brush on the end is all you need. I clean ours out every few months just to keep them running cool. 

[Nilsen]

I'm not a fan of laptops or the companies that make them. However at the time being Dell would be the way to go if you want a laptop designed just for you.

Ive had 14 laptops since i got my first one back in 96, and i have not owned a desktop since 96 so its safe to say that laptops are the way to go for me I had Dell one time and that was such a lousy experience that the threshhold for getting one again has been pretty high. The Inspiron 3700 was of such poor quality that i have saved it just as a reminder of how bad something can be designed. Ive read reviews and tested newer Latitudes though and im glad to see that they may have gotten their act together since then . I may some day get myself a Latitude. The best laptops i have ever owned has been Thinkpads, and now that the chinese have taken over it seems they have not only kept the quality but have also raised the bar and are also building some more consumer oriented machines for gaming.

As gaming (exept for AH) is of no interest to me it is not something i will give high priority when looking for a new laptop. It is just a great bonus when they are able to run AH, and with the fairly moderate system requirements AH has most have been able to run it great.