Just as a side note, my Asus gaming computer with a NVidia 9800 card gets barely two hours on battery, if I am lucky. My grandson tried watching a movie and it ran out before the movie was over and we had to switch to power. I play games on it, like Bioshock and leave it plugged in all the time. You can adjust the power consumption but you lose something in the process. I do not think you would be happy with one to take out and about. By the way my screen is a 15.6 and it is perfect.

My granddaughter has a little Dell netbook and battery time is quite long, it can stay on and on, but she just putts around the internet and plays little girl games.

My oldest daughter that I bought a Dell Studio for last Spring is very happy with hers, she also doesn't game and battery lasts about seven hours.

I agree that the Asus has very good machines, I have no problems with mine and it is Vista and so far plays everything I have put on it. No, I hardly ever play Adventure games and I don't play old games at all.

Regarding the battery life of this netbook I'm going out to get today (I'll have to go out myself, we got 1" - 2" inches of snow last night and Mom doesn't want to risk getting the car stuck in our snow-covered driveway) Mom says that I don't need more than 3 hours battery life b/c while at the mall, I'm not going to game more than 3 hrs., and for movie screenshot captures, I capture on a chapter-by-chapter basis - one chapter/mall outing.

The only games I'll be playing on it will be DOS and Win 95/98 games that don't require much hardware-wise.

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Just returned home with the Asus netbook - it was a chore lugging the unopened box with the netbook around in my backpack at the mall. My arms quickly got tired and achey, this made me realize that had I opted for a 15" laptop with a weight of 5 - 6 pounds, I would soon get tired of lugging it around the mall in my backback - I'm so glad that I decided to get this netbook instead and then start saving up for a desktop PC to get in several more month's time (probably May - June/July), since we weighed the unopened box with the netbook and it weighs 5 pounds. Thank you so much for telling me "like it is," Jenny100 and Drac!





3 cheers for Jenny100 and her fantastic advice! Yay! Yay! Yay!

Was reading Drac's latest post in the "Windows 7 and Games" thread here at GB - Drac has Win 7 on one hard drive on her PC, and XP on another hard drive of her new PC - I wonder if in May/June after I have the money saved up for it, if I can get a desktop PC tower that has an extra bay for a second hard drive and put my 120 GB hard drive (this is the spare HD I bought in Dec. 06 for the old Dell Dimension in addition to its main 80 GB main HD) into this new desktop PC or invest in a second 250 - 320 GB HD for the new desktop PC for in case some of my XP games simply won't work well in Windows 7?

(bump) Just bumping this thread up so it'll be more likely to be seen by Drac, Jenny, et al.

Hawka, the directions that came with my netbook I bought yesterday says not to use it on your lap b/c it'll get real hot and could burn you, it says to use it only on a table. Does your Asus gamer get real hot - "too hot for the lap" Hawka?

I just took the new netbook out of the box now, the directions say to insert the battery pack, plug in the power cord and charge it up for 8 hrs. before using it for the first time - I'm anxious to start transferring my stuff from the old netbook into this new one -

EDIT - The battery charge indicator light's now green, so I can start using it for the first time - Yay!

Most desktops have an extra bay for a second hard drive. The thing you may want to check is whether your old 120 GB hard drive is SATA or IDE. The new computer would have SATA connections for the hard drives. I forget what model your Dell Dimension is, but if it's old enough it would have IDE connections.


According to ***this review of Photoshop CS3***, the minimum system requirements for Windows are:

I think most netbooks, including the Eee PC, only have a 1024x600 monitor resolution (unless you plug them into an external monitor). So I don't know whether Photoshop is going to work on your netbook.

cruise02, it's a definite possibility to have a dual boot setup in a desktop. You could also do it on a single drive by partitioning it. You could get a 1 TB drive and have two large partitions, one for each OS. If it's set up properly, when you boot up, you are presented with the option of which drive you want to boot into. There are driver issues to consider, but I was able to install drivers for all the computer hardware on the XP drive. If you go with ecollege pc, I have a feeling they would set up everything for you.

My setup with two separate hard drives (actually 4 total) was a little tricky because my new drives are SATA and the old one is IDE or PATA. You need a motherboard that will support both. I had to do a bit of tweaking in the BIOS to get it to work.

Yes mine can get hot, especially when playing a demanding shooter or RPG, I bought a cooler pad (which I am very pleased with) before attempting to play. Personally I don't feel comfortable with it on my lap anyway, even just typing. Others have made do with something like a TV tray, like those you eat on. Fortunately on my Asus the heat blows out of the left side, but you have to have a place where the cool air can be drawn in.My house is rather cool at 68 so I am fine, but once I took it to our place on the other side of the island where it is hot and humid and the laptop shut down (no cooler pad then. I first bought these little half-round feet that stuck on with velcro, something like that might work for you when you are out and about. Sorry I don't remember what website I found them on, I will try to locate it later on.

Here's the video card specs and the monitor resolution of my new netbook as shown in Device Manager -
**Cruise02's new netbook video/monitor specs**

Don't know much about this (although I understand that my netbook's monitor resolution is adequate for PS CS 3), but this other info (display adapter) will Photoshop CS 3 and Bryce 5.5 (free d/l) work on my new netbook?

@Hawka - Thanks for mentioning the TV tray option - I'll take this over the half-balls.

@Drac - Thanks for mentioning the dual boot on that new desktop PC I'm going to continue saving up for. Now I feel a lot better taking a new computer that my nephew finds for me that has Windows 7. But if it's 64 bit Win 7, will I still be able to put 32 bit Win XP into it?

That's good. It looks like your resolution is high enough for Photoshop CS3. The 3D features may not work though.

The requirements for Bryce are listed ***here***

So it doesn't look like Bryce will work -- at least going by what they have listed.

The only way to know for sure how much will work is to install the software and test it.

@Hawka - Thanks for mentioning the TV tray option - I'll take this over the half-balls.

Even if you use a TV tray you should have the balls!
This will give your computer air flow under your computer to help keep it cool. You need to try and keep laptops- net or note books as cool as possible.

They are very cheap cruise, here is link to some on eBay. half balls for laptop cooling

Winfrey do you remember where we bought ours from, I think it was in China or UK, someplace odd.

No, I don't remember where- but you are right I think it was China....
I did happen to find these at a thrift shop for $3.00 I really like them they are larger and you can adjust them. Here's a link to some on ebay. I tried to find them directly with google but could not.

NB Heat Dispatcher
Here is their web site- I just don't know if you can order from them-

NU Simply Better

I still liked the "wine coolers!"

I had my new netbook on for about 2 - 3 half-hour - 45 minutes (just guessing) sessions today to move stuff from the netbook my nephew gave me onto the new netbook and also to copy & install the photoshop that I had backed up on a disc onto it, and the bottom stayed lukewarm.

I don't think I'm going to invest in these half balls, tho - just a TV tray will suffice when I'm using it on my lap, thanks.

Just keep this in mind--- a few dollars might save you a lot more in the long run.

Actually they make it easier to use too since the laptop/notebook/netbook will be at a slant.

A lot depends on whether the laptop (or netbook) has vents in the bottom and where they're placed. If the bottom of a netbook looks like ***this*** or ***this***, tilting the back up may make things worse for those vents in the front.

Netbooks may be thin, but they tend not to need additional cooling as much as regular laptops (especially not as much as gaming laptops) because they have low power processors and onboard graphics.

If you are worried about your Eee pc's temperatures, check ***this thread*** to see what temperatures are normal for an Eee pc.

I'll ask my nephew about this when he comes down.
btw, this morning I was debating with Mom about returning this netbook I got from Best Buy, and investing a few dollars more in that Asus Eee PC netbook that's on sale at Newegg for $319.99 but when I checked it's maximum screen resolution, I found it to be less (1024 x 600) than the screen resolution that I brought up my netbook to I got from Best Buy (1024 x 768), also that Asus Eee PC netbook I was looking at on Best Buy's website that's sold out has a lesser screen resolution (1024 x 600), so it looks like I might be able to run photoshop in the netbook that I bought, but not in these others had I got them instead - and being able to run photoshop for 2 -3 hrs at the mall means more to me (in addition to gaming/movies) than longer battery life.

Edit 2 - Our PC/mac-savvy neighbor, David, came by Tues. and I asked him about returning this new netbook for the one with the longer battery life and told him about the screen resolutions - David told me that "keep this new netbook that you got," because although it has a shorter battery life, it's a better computer than the others I saw with the longer battery life.


EDIT - Tested Bryce on my new netbook earlier today. It installed and ran very nicely, no problems!

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Having fun with my new netbook - I put photoshop on it this past Saturday/Sunday and yesterday I was doing movie screenshot captures and photo editing on it all day yesterday for a comic book project on the mac (will transfer these pics to my mac after they're completed) - kept me as quiet as a mouse, I'm happy, I'm in my glory, and Mom's happy.

Cheers!

Note to Jenny100 - I checked that thread that talks about the Asus Eee PC netbook temperatures you linked me to Jenny, but I'm not too worried as of now. However, on the last page of that thread someone mentioned playing Halo on an Asus Eee PC netbook.

- System requirements here -

CPU
"Halo" requires a central processing unit that runs 733 megahertz or higher; for the best performance, a CPU of 1.4 gigahertz or greater is recommended.
RAM
At least 128 MB of random access memory (RAM) is needed to play "Halo," but at least 512 MB may be required for good performance.
Hard Drive
Halo requires 1.2 gigabytes of free space on a hard drive to install all the necessary data to run the game. It is a good idea to have some extra space for patches and screen shots.
Video Card
"Halo" requires a display adapter or video card with 32 MB of memory, but more advanced video cards will result in better frame rates and performance.
Multiplayer
Multiplayer play on "Halo" for the PC requires a modem with at least 56.6 Kbps or a local area network. Faster Internet connections will result in a better online experience.

I thought Halo was one of the newer games that require a 3D card - not that I'm going to play Halo on my netbook, but this is "just for the record" - about what these netbooks are capable of gaming-wise.

Did you want to play Halo?
The ***first Halo game*** was released for PC back in 2003.
According to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_GMA
the Intel 945 has some 3D ability, but I wouldn't expect it to work very well with current games, or with every game that requires 3D. Intel 945 chipset is a GMA 950 type graphics (check the chart on the wikipedia page). The Wikipedia also says

No, I was just using it as a measuring stick for some of the XP AG's that I have in my collection. Will I have to do extensive googling into the system requirements of some of my older Win XP AG's (this sounds sort of overwhelming) dating from 2000 - 2003 - 05, or might there be a handy list of AG's that I can google from this time period that have similar system requirements as does Halo?

I understand that Halo is a shooter, and that shooters are more demanding hardware-wise than AG's.

I don't think you can directly compare the requirements of Halo with those of current (or even older) adventure games. Some of those older shooters were made so they could be run in software mode -- so as long as your computer was fast enough, and had enough RAM, the game didn't need much of a video card.

The main consideration with running older adventure games on your netbook is going to be whether they're compatible with Intel graphics drivers... and that's not something you're going to find on the specs. You'll just have to test the games themselves and see what works. You may even be able to find a few adventure games newer than 2003 that will work. Look for those that don't use many special effects and have low requirements for graphics. For example, games like Barrow Hill, Shadow of the Servants, or the Carol Reed games have a better chance of working on your netbook than the latest Sherlock Holmes or Ankh games.

My nephew came down today, I asked him about the netbook getting hot, and he said not to worry about it, and Mom said that they put warnings on all products, even stepladders.

Anyway, I think it's time to celebrate -

To sum it all up - I was actually I was thinking of buying 2 computers - a new netbook that has a bigger hard drive and a better keyboard plus a desktop PC tower. For the past 2 - 3 wks (as of last wk in January) it has been bugging me how I'm going to get these 2 new computers in Feb., but the problem solved itself - I went to a brick and mortar Best Buy and got myself the Asus Eee PC netbook that has the full sized keyboard and a 160 GB hard drive (the other netbook - a Dell Inspiron Mini has a skimpy keyboard with the F keys combined onto the regular keys, a left "alt" key only and a 16 GB hard drive which was filling up too fast.) So I took some of the money that I had in my savings towards a new desktop PC and I used this to buy that Asus Eee PC netbook with Windows XP on it, and come Feb., I'm going to continue saving towards that new desktop PC which I might get in May/June.

I'm planning on using this new netbook to run DOSbox, VPC, VMware Player to play my old DOS games and my Win 95/98 games at the mall, 3D modeling with Bryce and photo editing in Photoshop (until I get mac versions of Photoshop and Bryce).

That's 1 down, 1 more to go, folks!

For Photos see:

It's the Asus Eee, all right

Best Buy is discontinuing these with XP

Full sized keyboard


Glad I nabbed this before it slipped away into the past!

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**Latest update**

My 2 computer-savvy nephews came in today, we had a discussion about this new PC with Mom and one of the nephews got online on his mac, to Tiger Direct and he put together an order of all new PC hardware* -


New PC hardware to order in a few month's time - Yay!


right down to a new motherboard - but we're going to wait a few more months before the other nephew actually orders this hardware (which he's going to put inside the Dell Dimension's tower after cleaning out all the old hardware) since I'm getting a mac version of Photoshop for my mac this weekend.

Now that I'm getting this mac photoshop, I can let myself go, creating all kinds of projects with these screenshots I'm acquiring, as previously I had to restrain myself when using my Windows Photoshop in my new Asus Eee PC netbook to avoid a too-rapid filling up the hard drive.

*this screenshot only reveals part of the hardware we're
going to order.

The price of all this hardware will come to around $500 (and I can put Win XP on that new hard drive!), whereas buying a new PC (with Win 7 ) would come to about $1000.

Are you not ordering from eCollege then?
Your cost on that screenshot doesn't include XP. Or do you have a retail version of XP which is transferrable? If you have a Dell version of XP, it isn't made to work with non-Dell hardware and will probably refuse to install.

There's nothing wrong with building your own, but I'd suggest getting a new computer case.

Is your old Dell not working any more?

I agree with getting a different case - the airflow in those old cases can be very poor with tiny fans etc. A 700 watt power supply for a very basic computer? That's overkill by quite a large margin. Newegg has a good power supply calculator... Newegg PS Calculator With the components listed, it suggests a 274 watt power supply. So getting a 450 watt or something like that would still give you lots of extra power.

The old Dell just won't play new games, but I've never understood why she wouldn't keep that old Dell to play old games on - they tend to play better with the older hardware. Right now she's having numerous problems trying to get old games to run on new hardware - games which would play on the Dell.

As much fun as emulation is, I have to agree - playing on the original hardware can certainly make life easier.



Even more interesting is that the motherboard doesn't support SLI - so there's absolutely no need (so far as I can see) for such a large PSU. It's not going to hurt, but without SLI I just don't see the need.

Not unless she was thinking of upgrading a faster video card later on. I'm a little surprised she didn't choose a faster video card since she plays genres other than adventure games.

I think she wanted that motherboard/processor combination to save money, and didn't choose an SLI motherboard for that reason.