cheeky16

^ Haha nice, finally some honesty. I'd like to add that I've run VGA on my 24" monitor and it looks fine. Obvisouly not as good as the DVI but still fine for most computer tasks.

Hello

I'm in Canada so I know the prices are a bit different there and products are different as well. I'm not familiar with the game myself either but if you want to upgrade a laptop in the future it's almost impossible for most. And the ones you can are very expensive. Did you try the number? :P

If you can find some smaller computer shops instead of the Big Box Stores they often have simple builds in nice towers. Just as if you had built it yourself. I'm not a fan of buying a prebuilt desktop now that I've finally put one together I wouldn't do it any other way. While looking inside a Dell XPS desktop yesterday it's all jammed in there and unorganized. Just makes it difficult to upgrade just the video card or other parts without removing a lot of the plastic pieces they add for some reason. But for the Desktop I have around $1500 in I'd say the laptop would be somewhere between $3000-3500, if it's even possible, which I don't think it is with an AMD Athlon X6 1090t. So if you can handle a desktop and it will work for you then I would get a desktop. You can also get a nice large 24" monitor now fairly cheap if you shop at the right place. :thumbsup:

Glad to hear it worked out for you. Although the cleaning you did while in his computer was probably beneficial for him. :)

Overheating sounds about right. If it's idling near 70 than it will be getting very high after some gaming. I use BitDefender for an antivirus. Partially because it was one of the top a couple years back and I really do like it now that I use it. Now it's rated #1.

Canada: Memory Express

Ya, I can play all day and some facebook for around 100-150MB, the facebook, youtube and random google searches burn through data way faster.

It's really low, something like 5Mb. After all runescape does work on dial up connections. I use my iPhone sometimes when I'm away from home and I only get 1Gb on there and never worry about data usage.

I'm pretty sure all SATA are backwards compatible.

What good is that comment? Don't like macs... macs are really good computers, but not necessarily for computer science majors. If you've spend much time on a University Campus lately it seems macs are slowly taking over a large portion of the market. Great for school, everyone with windows seem to run for the plug ins as soon as they can get into the lecture hall, while most people with macs could care less. :P

Those seem like nice set ups. I'm also not certain about the Dell's past issues, but they still seem to be rated lower for break downs than other brands. We do have a Dell XPS desktop upstairs that seems to have ran fine for 2-3 years. There are other brands you may want to consider and take a look at. A fellow student of mine was using an ASUS laptop and said he was very happy with it. His brother also had one similar and they both had great luck. Last I checked they were rated #2 for reliability and overall value right behind Apple Macbook Pro. For a computer science major I definitely don't recommend Apple though. I'm certain you'll be doing programming which isn't supported on OSX without dual boot. So you have two great systems it seems, but it would be worth checking into the ASUS laptops also.

I would use BitDefender. I've been using it on my windows machine for a couple years now with no issues. They released a mac version about a year ago. The windows version is now rated #1 just ahead of kaspersky. I think it would be a solid choice if you feel the need to run an AV. That being said, I never worry about getting a virus on my mac. I don't have AV on it but I still choose to do all my downloading and random searches on it rather than my windows that has AV. You do seem quite convinced to get it, so it was $40 USD. Hope you decide on something good, if you do and it works great post back. Its always nice knowing what is out there that works good.

I realize that, but you can't. It's a sad reality.

You can't install them into an iMac...

Ya, almost everyone that knows anything about computers thinks Norton sucks. It takes up too much of your processor power. Kaspersky is one of the best. Couple years ago I did some research and chose BitDefender because it was a little cheaper. I've been very happy with it and won't likely change anytime soon. First off just try removing Norton and see how it runs. Another note, I don't recommend Dell computers either. Hopefully it works for you.

With it being an iMac I'm pretty sure you're stuck with the Firewire being your fastest. No eSata or USB 3.0 available. These are only available in the Mac Pro towers. One of the major downfalls of Mac in my opinion. So stuck to the Firewire. should still be decently fast for what you want though.

Pretty sure the best they got for a connection is Firewire 800.

When did you get it? What connections does it have?

What Specific macbook do you own?

You're basically going to get any drive to work for you. Just find one you like. If you want to run it in combination with windows computers you can get a mac add on that will allow it to read and write ntfs.

Ya, Unless it's an Apple specific product that can't be bought elsewhere. Apple's hard drives are so over priced. I can build a 1Tb desktop for like $110 with USB 3.0, but since macbooks don't support 3 you can shave like $15 off.

I've seen 1TB Western Digital Passports for $120. They do exist now. :)

To be honest with a macbook I'd get a portable drive. I only wish I had gotten one myself. There are also other options from getting a portable drive. You could put one together with an external case and HDD or buy one premade. I prefer making one with an enclosure and the drive. That way you know exactly what you've got inside. If you go with a desktop drive like this and leave it at home you can buy 8Gb jump drives for like $25, just got one the other day at Walmart. Or check out some portable drives. Western Digital has some nice ones too. It's easier to steer you in the right direction if we know the exact uses of the drive.

This is also my biggest frustration with using mac and windows. I would suggest buying another 1TB external and putting a simple driver on your macbook that allows it to read and write to ntfs drives. I found it on the Apple website: NTFS on Mac If you're concerned with how it would work I can try it out if you'd like. Unless someone else has a better solution this is what I would do if you're going to end up spending $50 on macdrive.