What Laptop Should I Buy? (Volume 24897534)

[Lamrock]

My current laptop's hinges have broken and it has lost it's portability/aesthetic appeal (it's taped open), and I now need a new laptop for college. My budget is $600, and I primarily care about performance (though I don't care about PC gaming) and reliability. I am currently leaning towards a Toshiba Satellite L655D-S5159 but I'm interested in input.

[JaoSming]

well, as an owner of that exact laptop, I can say that it is pretty good, reliable (love toshibas), you can use resource hogging photoshop and lightroom at the same time, and it multitasks pretty well too.

It doesn't game very well, I mean it plays Super Meat Boy well, but I could play DiRT 2 on low settings at 30 fps. I just play Onlive with it. But it multitasks really well. My only real complaint is that it isn't a 1080p resolution, I just get spoiled by my desktop though.

[Lamrock]

Awesome. My bad for putting it in this section (just noticed that). I don't mind it not gaming very well, since I only play like the first 2 Fallouts and last-gen GTA's.

[JaoSming]

yea i didnt catch it either, if you got any questions or anything you want me to test on it, by all means, ask

[shadowgrin]

Does it make toast when you put the bread on the keyboard and then close it?
Does it still work after you microwave it for 30 minutes?

[JaoSming]

It runs really cool, I've never had it warm up on me. Actually, its a really quiet laptop most of the time, but when the fan turns on it can get a bit loud....

[Lamrock]

So I ended up getting it. Been a good laptop except for one exception: I can't get wireless to work on it! The ethernet works fine but after trying everything, it still says "Investigate router or access point issues" and gives me three suggestions (unplug, reset, etc.) that have been done to death.

Any suggestions? It could be the router, but it was an expensive one, and it connects to the other computers in the house.

[Andrew]

Is it unable to detect the network or can you connect but just not get Internet access?

[rise]

I just bought a Satellite p755- s5125( ?) a month ago and it's been great. The battery life is amazing, it's never been noticeably hot, and it's so quiet (unless you pop in a CD/DVD; the disk drive is loud). I've never had wireless issues related to the computer, but the wi-fi here in college sucks and it's extremely slow, which makes online gaming impossible. Therefore I've just been going ethernet basically the whole time I've been here. I love the Satellite and so does everyone else I know that has one.

You'll have to tell us what happens when your wireless doesn't connect.

Another question: Did you buy it from Best Buy?

[Oznogrd]

I think a better other question: How did you have time to post from college?

On topic: god i hope he didnt buy it from best buy. They boned the fuck out of me with that warranty/geek squad shit before undergrad.

[rise]

I denied that Geek Squad crap. What I did do that was retarded, was buy Microsoft Office from Best Buy, when the next week my mom came home telling me that she got Office for $20 that she could put on FIVE computers. Was screwed out of 80 bucks.

[benji]

Going wired is better for gaming anyway. Especially if there aren't enough WAPs for the population.

As as student never buy any Microsoft software without checking their (Microsoft's) student discounts first. Also sign up for Amazon Student already. It's free for two years. Stop wasting your time and money on the schools likely local bookstore monopoly. Plus it applies to everything. And you can stream movies and TV shows at varying and questionable quality.

[Lamrock]

Andrew, It detects the network but it won't connect to it.

z02, I attempt to connect and it says "connecting" for about 20 seconds before saying it couldn't connect to the router. It then tells me that it couldn't connect to my "hidden network" and the troubleshooting didn't offer any advice.

I got my laptop from Amazon

[rise]

I attempt to connect and it says "connecting" for about 20 seconds before saying it couldn't connect to the router. It then tells me that it couldn't connect to my "hidden network" and the troubleshooting didn't offer any advice.

Hidden network? I never seen that before. I'm not sure exactly what shows up, but you could try looking at this...

I assume you got Windows 7, right.

[Andrew]

That does sound like it could be the problem, I'd definitely give that a try.

[Lamrock]

Got it working. Appreciate the help, guys. z02's post didn't answer the problem exactly, but got me on the right track. It was the network security key that wasn't matching. I went on my old laptop as admin to see what the code was and saw it was just the router's default one (123456789ABCDEF123456789AB), and the codes I had been trying were to other things.

[shadowgrin]

That bitch happened to me recently too.
Try a wired connection to the router first. Have your laptop detect the connection/internet, see the router's manual for specifics on what you need to do. If you can connect to the internet via a wired connection to the router, try the wireless next and hope that fixes it.

[Andrew]

Got it working. Appreciate the help, guys. z02's post didn't answer the problem exactly, but got me on the right track. It was the network security key that wasn't matching. I went on my old laptop as admin to see what the code was and saw it was just the router's default one (123456789ABCDEF123456789AB), and the codes I had been trying were to other things.

Good to hear it was something simple in the end, but I would've thought the error message it spat out would've been a bit more specific and mention the network key, either in the initial message or as one of the troubleshooting steps.

[rise]

Awesome, you got it working. I'm glad I was able to help a little.

[Lamrock]

What up guys! L-Train again!

So... anyone got any ideas as to why I must connect to the wireless every time I open this laptop (issue doesn't occur on the other computers)? I have it set to always connect and it always does end up connecting, but it takes a couple minutes every time.

[Andrew]

Does this help?
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/wind ... 4fd1825dd8

[Lamrock]

That fixed it. Thanks!

[Andrew]

No problem.