Laptop HDD upgrade

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francoislr

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I got myself a laptop 6 months ago. It's an HP i7 with 6GB of ram, 64-bit OS, ATI Graphics and 1tb HDD. Now that's a pretty good laptop by any standards, but I have had such issues with it. I can barely watch an HD video on it without it getting severely stuck or stuttering. Do you guys think getting a 7200rpm HDD will fix this problem? I also do a lot of multitrack mixing. Sometimes when I play my mixes the thing stutters and gets stuck badly.

Okay, so if the HDD upgrade will make a difference, what is the best (non-solid state) 2.5" HDD I can get? As long as it is 500GB or more it will be fine. I don't need to match my current 1tb drive in the need for speed.

Any tips or advice will be much appreciated!
 
Actually, WMP is probably the most stable of the lot, beaten only by XBMC. VLC and CCCP player's Media Player Classic stutters the worst, VLC being useless. I love VLC, so that is why I think it has to be the HDD. VLC works on the worst of PC's. I have SP1 my Windows 7 already. Seemed fine for a day or 3 after that, but then it started again.
 
there are a few things you can look at,

start with the running temp. Use the laptop a bit & then see what it is.

The harddrive - maybe

the graphics - maybe

the RAM - maybe
 
You really shouldn't be getting any stutter and even so your HDD shouldn't be causing it unless its faulty. Have you installed the correct codecs? Try the K-Lite Codec pack and/or make sure you're using DXVA/GPU acceleration. I used to watch HD stuff with very high bitrates on my laptop which also had a 5400rpm 2.5" drive with no problems. As for the stuttering when mixing, unless your 'streams' or whatever (I'm clueless when it comes to that stuff) are of an excessively high bitrate you shouldn't be having issues, unless of course the HDD is faulty.
 
The laptop does get very hot on the left side, around where my VGA connector is. After a few hours of Fallout 3 it can get pretty hot.(and Fallout almost always stutters in a funny way, except first thing after a format) The laptop has an aluminium casing so the heat is probably made worse by that. Could it perhaps be this causing the issues?
 
Tun@ said:
What ATI graphics is it? Mine does'nt blink at anything i throw at it & its an older DV6
Click to expand...
There have been more than a few of those that barely make it through the first year & very very few that lasted beyond, count yourself lucky.
 
I think your thinking of the older DV**** series not the DV4/DV5/DV6/DV7 which were later models
It was also to do with the Nivida GPU's not ATI's
 
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Tun@ said:
What ATI graphics is it? Mine does'nt blink at anything i throw at it & its an older DV6.
Have you checked drivers & CCC is the latest available??
Here - http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/Pages/index.aspx
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ATI Mobility Radeon HD5650 Switchable Graphics. That's what it says on the box. Also for interest sake, the laptop is a Pavilion DV7-4150si. Updated the drivers about 3 times for the graphics card, and it keeps on doing it. Upgrade all of the laptops drivers as soon as I see it updated.
 
Ok - are you sure its running on the 5650 & not the onboard? we've heard that here before - it should run sweet
 
I am fairly sure Fallout 3 would not run on medium to high graphics with onboard graphics. But do laptops have secondary onboard graphics?! I have never seen that?! I work on computers every single day of my life, fix them, reload them, get the drivers, the usual shmaz. If it is running on anything but the default setup(which is the graphics card) then I guess I should sue HP for plugging my laptop screen into the wrong port. It's not as if I can quickly plug it into the right one;-P
 
I will add, I am clueless when it comes to graphics and gaming as I do very little of that, and work requires very little of it as well. But I have tweaked Catalyst and upped the performance vs. quality, and it has changed a bit.
 
You can get a WD Scorpio Black 500GB for R700. 7,200 rpm, 16MB cache. Good drive. But the HDD is definitely not the problem in your case.
 
there is a diff between integrated & dedicated graphics
francoislr said:
I am fairly sure Fallout 3 would not run on medium to high graphics with onboard graphics. But do laptops have secondary onboard graphics?! I have never seen that?! I work on computers every single day of my life, fix them, reload them, get the drivers, the usual shmaz. If it is running on anything but the default setup(which is the graphics card) then I guess I should sue HP for plugging my laptop screen into the wrong port. It's not as if I can quickly plug it into the right one;-P
Click to expand...
 
Tun@ said:
I think your thinking of the older DV**** series not the DV4/DV5/DV6/DV7 which were later models
It was also to do with the Nivida GPU's not ATI's
Click to expand...
I've come accross more problems than just graphics in the last 3-4 years
 
Tun@ said:
I dunno i've never had switchable graphics before but see the pic in the 2nd post here.
http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebo...itchable-Graphics-on-a-DV7-4030ed/td-p/344302

I can run Crysis on the 4650 without trouble.


thats what switchable means
Click to expand...

I do not have Graphics properties or Configure Switchable Graphics on that selection, only Catalyst Control Center. Opened it up and searched long and wide, but there is no options of the sort. Display Adapters only have the ATI listed under it. I have installed and tried Far Cry 2 on the lowest graphics settings in the game itself, and it just loads and loads. With that game while loading the thing got extremely hot! That was a few months ago though.
 
Venomous said:
I've come accross more problems than just graphics in the last 3-4 years
Click to expand...
I'll count myself lucky,but haven't had 1 problem with this one,even with the mod's,touch wood.

Francoisir if its running on the right GPU & drivers from AMD not HP & still giving trouble try knocking back the Anti Aliasing(AA) setting in the game & see if it stops it.
 
I did all the AA settings messing around a few months ago, can't clearly remember what options there was, but it's the first thing I usually do. I think this laptop needs to be taken in for a warranty repair. Luckily I got it with a 3 year warranty. Maybe I should just bug them and send it in till the thing works right. Give them 3 years of hell! Or 2.5 years at least.
 
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