Posts by skifiend

I just bought a 8X DVD burner from Dell Spare parts for $150, free shipping. Call 1-800-449-3355 (in the US), and press options 2, 3, 4, 2 to get through to Spare Parts for this drive. I'm waiting to see if it is a single or a dual...

EDIT: I figure it would be even more helpful to to have these links at the thread start - a la the modding thread. Here are my links for the NEC ND-6500a - one of the most popular DVD burners out there for notebooks. Firmware...

I was considering this issue myself having been recently burned with the purchase of the cheap 1Gb "Premium" memory stick from Outpost. That memory died within the week. I took a look at Anandtech and Kingmax is one of the...

Quote: Originally Posted by gmnstrunr37 And we college kids have to worry about it being stolen! By people who will see the silver plates in between the heatsink and GPU/VRAM as they're walking by the notebook?

Back in stock at Newegg for $156. Available for $148 shipped from atacom.com: NEC 6500a at Atacom

Keep in mind that if you hope to watch a DVD, you can't do that if you're running the modular battery as you can have either the DVD drive or the modular battery in the bay, not both. That's why I decided against the modular battery.

Thanks for a very nice review. I concur that the 8600 is pretty decent for gaming without having to put forth the big bucks needed for a higher model. I'll just add that I got the WSXGA+ screen which is fantastic for movies, word...

Quote: Originally Posted by surayne on a similar topic, what's a safe speed to overclock a MR9600PT in an Inspiron 8600c? I'm using the omega drivers as well. As it is, GPU temps are high when i run games... should i...

First off, stay away from the Premium memory. I bought it and it died within a week. There is a reason that the warranty is only for a year. I was lucky that it died within Outpost.com's 30-day return policy so that I was not stuck...

Lack of USB power has been an issue for me with my i8600. I cannot run a bus-powered external 2.5" hard-drive in an enclosure. It needs power from another USB port. Although the enclosure also has a Firewire connection, I can't...