maybe because my 3770k is running at 4.4ghz... Which is sad because normally with my cooler they're good to 4.5 without heat problems.

 

Parallels 9 or Bootcamp? I just picked up a new Macbook Air 13" w/ 8GB RAM as my general purpose computing machine and I'm thinking about installing Windows to make teleworking 1-2 days a week easier. Normally I would use VMWare View client to access my work desktop remotely. I haven't tried it yet on the Mac but I know VMWare has a client for Mac. Additionally, I'd like my wife to be able to use my Mac on occasion to access her corporate resources (mostly Lotus Notes) for when she doesn't have her work laptop with her. She's had trouble connecting to Lotus Notes with her Mac before but my old Windows machine always worked. Since I have a free license for Windows 7 Pro I figured why not have the option.

I don't do software development or IT management that requires access to multiple operating systems at the same time. For personal use I don't need any Windows-only applications. Virtual machines seems needlessly complicated and slow to me. I'm okay with needing to reboot to launch Windows. So Bootcamp, right?

 

Most modern games are being programmed for multithreads so I'd say everything released since last year Nov should have better performance on the i7.

That benchmark is more definitely single threaded too, the massacre AMD is receiving

 

Because of the IT security policies on my work PC (i5-2520M, a fairly slow machine by modern desktop standards), I run VMWare Player with another Win7-64 install inside it on top of my main Win7-64 machine.

Within this VM, I run numerous heavy applications including AutoCAD 2010. You need a lot of RAM to do this smoothly (16 GB is enough), but aside from that it's neither slow nor complicated. I can access the drives (both local and network) of the "real" machine from within the virtual one, print to its printers, etc.

 

i5 still has 4 threads, maybe some of the newest **** may use 8 threads, but Im struggling to think of any new games worth playing.
For most things you only see a few FPS increase. The money is better spent on GPU, IMO.

Of course here Im sitting on a GTX770 Classified 4GB with zero games capable of challenging it. So its all really of no consequence.

What is awesome is that I just upgraded to 16GB of RAM and combined with my new i5 can can render HD video way faster. I used to wait several hours to compile a 30 minute 1080p video.

 

Computer still running and not exploded and am not dead as a result. Sometimes it wakes itself up and sometimes it restarts when I put it in hibernate....oh well. Still works.


Anyway, got something new I need help with. Over the weekend I was helping the gf clear out her recently deceased father's house. Close to the end of the strenuous ordeal (guy was a major hoarder) I was helping some locals gather some wood and aluminum panels from the dumpster when I saw this sitting in the pile.
All in all I'd rate it a 6/10 on condition but a 10/10 in form. After picking up a ps/2-usb adapter I was absolutely stunned at how nice this thing is to type on and how much real estate I reacquired on my desk.

I want to keep it, but it does have some issues.
-sticking keys (currently using pocket knife to dig out keys, lol)
-old switches (slow keys? Space bar is the worst)

Also, how do I safely remove the key caps? I saw some of the plastic starting to crack when I was just yanking it out.

Can I save this thing?

 

Hipster alert. Lol.

I snagged a Samsung SSD for super duper cheap last monday. I spent 4 hours today making it work. Because I was trying to maintain a raid array of my platter drives. I should bench mark the drive and see if its actually coming out slower than being in ACHI since I guess I can always just use the platter drives with an extended partition with everything in AHCI mode.

 

Viper, if that's a model M, you can easily save it.

As an FYI, I paid $200 off eBay for a lightly used model SpaceSaver model M (What that is). If you can confirm it is a model M, it is worth $$$ to the right market as that model is kind of rare and rather desired.

 

Hipster? No way. Old mechanical keyboards are a dream to type on.
It's SIIG, not IBM. I really, really wish it was a Model M. It's a MiniTouch. Asking price on ebay is around 40-60 bucks. Nothing spectacular, but omfg, does it type well. Just needs some TLC.

The advice I've gotten so far for cleaning the switches is isopropyl alcohol.

 

Hey, smart people. Any interest in these? I thought it might a cool project or something fun to try out.

/r/elctronics said it was gimmicky and stupid, but I'm practically choking on my own spit when it comes to electronics.

http://imgur.com/a/MClNd

http://www.pi-top.com/

 

I just don't see the point. $300+shipping for a super underpowered laptop.

The only reason I bought a raspberry pi was to use as a CHEAP ($45) media center computer.

For $300, you could buy a much more decent laptop, and an arduino.

I just don't see the appeal I guess.

 

My thoughts exactly, you can get a much more powerful machine, with a warranty, new, for somewhat less money than that.

Some people love building weird ****, and for them, the money and functionality are secondary to the fun of building the thing. I have no quarrel with that. But as a matter of pure practicality, building a laptop from scratch, using a processor architecture that's basically useless for modern application-based computing, is pointless.

 

Well that answers my questions, haha.

 

newegg open box / refurbished and dell outlet is a gold mine of $300-500 laptops that retail for $750+

 

I think it would be neat if you were teaching people computer engineering. Like your class project is to build a parallel port expansion card and write the driver to run this dot matrix printer form the early 90s.

But for another $50 over that price you could buy the c720 i3 chromeboox I have and get an 11" screen i3 computer with 8+ hours of battery life and a wicked shitty screen.