Some Laptop Recommendations

The info below is outdated will "refresh" when i have the time.

If you guys want to buy laptops but don't know anything, don't care about anything. I happen to have a list of "Not so Bad" recommendation (Someone asked me what laptops do I recommend).
Note they are all cheap or rather value for money systems because personally I don't recommend paying a lot for a laptop since they are all powerful enough to perform daily task.
I consider 15" a bit large for a laptop so I will only list 14" at most.

Disclaimer: When I meant Virtualisation in this article I meant Hardware Virtualisation


Dell:

Dell Vostro V13

Why it is great:
Looks good, long battery life, Light and highly portable Alumium Casing like Macbooks (Although I see no point, personally I prefer magnesium casing like HP Probook)

Why it is not so great:
Lousy Intel Graphics.
1 RAM slot only limited expansion
If you need to game look somewhere else otherwise this laptop is actually quite good.

Tips:
Try to look for Dual Core(SU7300) version as Core Solo is slightly underpowered, however this increase the price point so weight your pros and cons.
Only the SU3500 and SU7300 supports Virtualisation.


HP:

HP Probook 4415S

Why it is great:
Look awesome (Design very similar to Macbooks but Black is cooler)
It has a nice rubbery plastic palm rest very ergonomic.
Has decent entry level graphics for gaming Radeon 4200HD.
Decent Mobility.
Virtualisation support.

Why it isn't so great:
AMD Turion II Processor may not be up to par to Intel Low Voltage Processors in terms of batterylife but rather decent processing power.
Uses BroadCom Wireless which isn't so good compared to Atheros

Tips:
Try and get the M5XX Processor +35 dollars but it is Turion instead of Athlon which is more power optimized.

HP Pavilion dv4-2140us

Why it is great:
It is actually the HP equivalent of the Acer Aspire 4540 (No G)
If you hate Acer for whatever reason you can consider this

Why it isn't so great:
It is slightly more expensive than Acer for the same specification.

Acer Aspire 4540G

Why it is great:
Like all Acers this is cheap
Great Graphics Radeon 4570HD the slightly lower end version(4540) comes with Radeon 4200HD.
Looks decent but more like a entertainment laptop instead of a serious look like the Probook.
Support Virtualisation.

Why it isn't so great:
AMD Turion II Processor may not be up to par to Intel Low Voltage Processors in terms of batterylife but rather decent processing power.

Tips:
Try and get the M5XX/M6XX Processor but it is Turion instead of Athlon which is more power optimized.

Acer Timeline

There is a lot of Timeline offering different specification options.
Travelmate Timeline: TravelMate 8X71 (X is the inch of the screen 13(3), 14(4), 15(5))
Aspire Timeline: Aspire X810 (X is the inch of the screen 13(3), 14(4), 15(5))
For Aspire Timeline there is TZ, TG, TZG
G means there is better graphics Radeon 4330HD with switchable Intel 4500MHD graphics.

Why they are great:
Cheap as usual, Light Portable and great batterylife
The TG version has entry level graphics for a bit of gaming.

Why they are not so great:
The TG is slightly costly.

Tips:
Pick the one that fits your needs.

ASUS:

ASUS UL80

Why it is great:
Low Voltage Intel Processor with Nvidia Graphics (You seldom see this combination for a low Price).
It is said to switch graphics automatically according to your needs in Windows conserving more power. How bug-free is this implementation I seriously don't know.

Why it isn't so great:
Some people said the keyboard and casing isn't exactly good(Solid) enough.
Slightly more expensive than Timeline if you are not fond of ATi Graphics you can consider this.

Other Laptops
These are the following laptop with a Generic Intel Processor and Entry Level Nvidia Graphics (G105M/9300M GS/Radeon 4330 HD/Radeon 4200) (Not too special not too bad either)
-Compaq Presario CQ35 (Nvidia)
--Compaq Presario CQ45 (Nvidia)
-Acer Aspire 4736G (Nvidia)
-Dell Inspiron 1440 (ATi)
-Dell Inspiron 1470 (With Low Voltage Processor SU7300)(ATi)
-Toshiba M300 (Nvidia)
-Lenovo IdeaPad Y450 (Above Average Nvidia Graphics solution G130M quite a powerhouse)

The rest of the laptop are
1)Too expensive
2)Has Generic set up Intel graphics + Normal Intel SKU Processor (T6600) (Not good enough for me) normal sized not as portable.
The rest of the value segment is probably:
Intel Mainstream Processor (T6600)
And Intel Graphics 4500MHD
Nothing especially interesting.

If you want to ask my opinion on certain models post below.
I will pick out the pro and cons of the specific model for you to have a better understanding.

Nvidia Driver Release

3D Mode

2D Mode

Windows Desktop Default Mode

Nvidia WHQL Notebook Driver version 195.62 is released.

Download them from Nvidia Website here

Please note that the new Nvidia Driver fixes the issue of not being able to throttle to default clock in Windows Desktop so please use this driver instead of the Acer Download (187.XX) which has the problem.
This driver is recommended.

OverClocking Nvidia Graphics

For you guys who own Nvidia Graphics on PC or Laptop

EVGA Precision is a great Overclocking utility.

I don't really overclock my Nvidia 9100M G as it is a bad idea to overclock lousy GPUs.

You may end up destroying it over a measly few frames per second.

This tool's friendly interface doesn't need introduction.

Word of Warning:

Do not happily push the bars and press apply without thinking,especially the memory clock bar.

I am not responsible for the destruction of your GFX.

Looking At Graphics Memory

I took a look at some Graphics Information regarding different Graphics Adapters

NVIDIA GeForce 9100M G

Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 950

NVIDIA GeForce 6600GT (Desktop)

So actually 9100M G does contain "Dedicated Memory" of 256MB taken from the Main System RAM.

Shared System Memory refers to the TurboCache Technology from Nvidia (ATi Calls it HyperMemory) to use System RAM for Graphics

I myself is not too sure that System Video Memory is but it seems it is Zero for old Cards (6600GT) and 64MB for new Graphics Adapters.

Game Benchmark on Aspire 4530

The benchmark of the game someone asked for.

The resolution playable at this framerate is 640X480 Fullscreen. 

Nvidia Beta Driver VS Acer Vendor Driver

Recently Acer released a new Nvidia Driver 179.52.

I took this opportunity to test this vendor released driver against the awesome Nvidia Beta Driver 185.20 I have been using until now.

The download size of the Acer Released Drivers is much smaller than the Nvidia Beta Driver.

First I used Windows Experience Index to gauge their performance as I am too lazy to run an actual benchmark =P

Performance
____________________________________________________________________

It is a disappointing 3.7 Aero Performance for the Acer Release Driver.

The Nvidia Beta Driver scored a much better 4.0 Aero Performance

(I didn't know what happened to the 0.1 after the reformat)

Supported Features

_______________________________________________________________________

I tried running a Sample CUDA Program from Nvidia CUDA SDK using both drivers

The Acer Released Drivers failed to render anything at all

While the Nvidia Beta Drivers rendered it excellently

Note: The Acer Release Drivers have yet to support PhysX while the Nvidia Beta Driver supported it

Additionally the Nvidia Beta Driver support new features yet to be seen in the Acer Released ones

For PowerMizer both Drivers supported it except you have to manually enable it in Nvidia Released Drivers sometimes but Vendor released Drivers always come with PowerMizer autoenabled.

Conclusion
_________________________________________________________________

Well it is obvious that those Acer Release Drivers have a long way to go before being able to catch up to Nvidia Beta Releases. (I am not sure about other Vendors but Acer Released Drivers simply cannot make the mark)

Nvidia is right about providing OEM Driver support because Vendors cannot be trusted to release decent drivers.

We can see the same situation happening in ATi except ATi do not bother to release OEM drivers as such ATi drivers suffer from bad reputation in Windows Operating System compared to Nvidia generally.

For those people who own an Nvidia Card in their Laptop please get Nvidia Released Drivers
Continuing to run Vendors Release Driver is almost like crippling yourself on purpose, even though you have spent good money on it in the case of Acer.

So please do yourself a favour and use Nvidia Release Driver instead
(Check if your Hardware is supported by the newer drivers before installing them & try to update all drivers to the latest version to make sure intercompatibility exist)

Edit:

182.20 is no longer the latest Nvidia Released Driver

For the latest Nvidia Released Driver click here

Intel Chipset Drivers

Here is a link containing All Intel Chipset Drivers.

Some Translation:
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 4700MHD = GM47 chipset
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 4500MHD = GM45 chipset
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) X3100 = 965GM & 960GM chipset
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 950 = 945GM chipset
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 900 = 915GM chipset

The list is in descending order of performance.
(Note the list above only includes Intel Integrated Graphics for other Chipsets, use CPUZ to find the model)

You can also view the chipset model using CPUZ.

Nvidia PowerMizer

PLEASE NOTE:
Since Nvidia driver Geforce version 185.XX, perflevelsrc is no longer used for controlling GPU throttling.
In Driver Version 19X.XX the GPU performance control is in the control panel.

If your graphics card is running overheating frequently when monitored using HWMonitor and you happen to be using Nvidia Graphics this post is for you

Note:
PowerMizer is a feature created by Nvidia to save power and reduce heat on Graphics Card
PowerMizer is built into all the graphics card
It is optional for Desktops because Desktops have infinite power from Wall Sockets and manage heat well
However it is very essential for Notebooks as they have to conserve power and produce less heat when no intense graphical application is running

Run “Regedit”

Go HKEY_Local_Machine\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Video\{ Your graphics adapter}000 and 0001

To locate the registry entry expand all the entries until you see one with lots of registry setting That will be the the registry containing your Graphics Options

Right click on the right Window to create a new DWORD 32bit value
The value name change to “PowerMizerEnable” value select “1″ in hexidecimal
Repeat
The value name change to “PerfLevelSrc” value data “3333″ in hexidecimal

Reboot
Verified using GPUZ and HWMonitor

The Result

After PowerMizer is activated successfully you should see the GPU Clock drop below default clock at idle

Optional:

If you want finer control over PowerMizer change “PerfLevelSrc” values to achieve desired effect

• PerfLevelSrc=0×2222 - fixed PowerMizer mode (and appropriate fixed frequency) is used for battery power source and fixed PowerMizer mode is used for AC power source, these PowerMizer modes may be the same or different

• PerfLevelSrc=0×2233 - fixed PowerMizer mode is used for battery power source and adaptive clock frequency strategy is used for AC power source

• PerfLevelSrc=0×3322 - fixed adaptive clock frequency strategy is used for battery power source and PowerMizer mode is used for AC power source

• PerfLevelSrc=0×3333 - adaptive clock frequency strategy is used for battery and AC power sources