Laptop questions

speedyink

speedyink

VIP Member
I just got my first (real) laptop, and so far I love it! I just wanted to ask a couple questions about laptops, just to get to know them better:)

1. Is it bad to leave the battery charging if it's full? I've heard that in some laptops when they are fully charged will loop a drain/recharge cycle as you use your laptop, which is very bad for the battery, leaving it useless within a couple years. Does that still happen? For now when my battery's charged and I'm using my laptop, I'll take the battery out and just use the AC power. Is it worth it to do that, or is leaving the battery in not gonna do anything?

2. The videocard gets cut back to something like half power when on battery power. Is that due to battery limitations or is it just a powersaving feature? If the latter, can it be turned off?

Thats all I can think of for now, but if I think of anymore I'll post them here:)
 
I dont think the newer laptops have that problem, I believe once it's charged, it just stops charging it. But if you plan on leaving it plugged in for a while, I would take out the battery.

And the video card cutting back is called PowerPlay, where it does it to save power. You can change the settings by going to the display properties, settings, advanced, catalyst control, and then click powerplay.
 
Ok, another question. Is there any way to change the Hyper Memory size for the video card in Vista? Right now it's at 763mb:eek:
 
I don't think that's correct... I thought most hyper memory ATI cards only supported up to 512MB. If I'm not mistaking, the process is dynamic and it only takes the memory as needed. How much physical ram does your system say you have through device manager?
 
I couldn't figure out how to view it in device manager, but in the task manager it says I have 1556mb free (or "cached"). In my display settings under advanced it says 767mb shared system memory for the video card, and in ATI CCC it says I have 128mb of hyper memory (though before I updated my video driver it said 512mb of Hyper Memory).

How much system memory is actually being used as Hyper memory is uncertain, but it should be 128mb (Dell advertised 256mb with HM, and the card has 128mb dedicated).
 
Thats not correct, I had the same issue when I had Vista on my laptop. I believe it's just a driver issue.

The x1400 comes with 128MB dedicated and up to 256MB total w/HM. Although unlike integrated video, you cant change the size of HM. And also with the x1400, it doesnt set aside that extra RAM only for itself, so if it doesnt need that extra RAM, you can use it as system RAM. Which is why if you have 1024MB of RAM, it shows that, and not 768 or something.
 
Oh, I see. Thats pretty damn cool.

Another question, for some reason my music takes long to open up, like 5 seconds when it should be pretty much instant. Also when I make a playlist, the song will skip near the end as it loads the next song. What would cause this? I've tried Registry Mechanic, but it didn't fix it (it didn't fix 100 problems though:confused:).
 
Thanks for clarifying that omega... I've worked with Turbocache but never really with Hypermemory :P

As for the music problem, what takes so long? The program opening or the actual file loading? What software are you using? Have you tried something else?
 
The program loads right away, but it just sits there for a couple seconds before the song starts playing. It's does this with every program I've tried.
 
You know, I'm not suprised at all... That's why I asked you to try other programs; I figured it may be related to Windows Media Player...
 
Haha, well it's no big deal now, I'll just use winamp:)

Another question, registry mechanic doesn't repair 100 of the problems for whatever reason. Would it be safe for me to go into regedit and manually delete the keys?
 
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