sundance-communications.com/forum Forums Computers & Programming Computers, Software, Accessories Cheap Laptop

Just got a brand new Toshiba for $399 from Best Buy (not advertised online.)
Good specs and it's a lot faster than the Celerons I remember...
Be warned however that getting XP loaded on these new machines may not be supported or may not be too easy (mine would not recognize the installed hard drive.)
I had to slipstream the chipset drivers into the install disk using nLite.
PM me if you have any questions, or google it. You'll need the drivers from the chip manufacture (i.e. Intel.)

Overall it was definately worth the purchase price even tho it took some work. It seem to run Vista good, but I can't use it w/Vista.

No kidding...whoa. So was the drive recognized by the BIOS? If so, I can't imagine why XP would have such a problem with it. Except...

...this machine had Vista pre-loaded on it and you wanted XP instead. Man, there is real weirdness going on out there with Vista and some of the new hardware. It's becoming clear that somebody is in somebody elses pockets, and that the incompatability is by design.

It's also beginning to look a look like a Mac Pro for me.

Yup... solution = buy a Mac

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That's one thing that stinks, is that for our admin software, we must have 2000, XP or Vista... so a company bought Mac is out of the question.

Ironically enough (as a "Mac person" myself), I have not had one single issue with the Lenovo that my boss has, with Vista Home Premium... we have all our admin software loaded on it and working fantastically.

Our 2000 and XP laptops are another story.

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Back to the topic at hand... what are the specs on that sucker?

With an Intel powered Mac you can run XP on it by using Boot Camp or Parallels Desktop. Works fine.

Yup, very aware of that.

Have not tried to use our admin software with boot camp though.

As I said... the company isn't into Mac's, and I am not risking any foul up with my Mac(s), for the sake of the company.

Thanks for the suggestion(s) though.

BTW, I have only used boot camp and not Parallels, how smooth is it?

MacOSX PM sent

I hear Macs run windows better than many new PCs. I had to have XP for some of my programs. Also, I couldn't find a new Mac notebook for less than $400... otherwise I prolly would have tried it.

It has a Celeron 540 (1.86 GHz,) 1 GB RAM, 120 GB SATA hard drive.
It has the Intel GL965 Express chipset.

I don't know why the SATA hard drive wasn't recognized with the install disk, but once you find the right drivers, nLite works awesome... You can totally customize your install and tweak windows before it's installed. You can also make it an unattended install so once you start the install you don't have to touch it untill everything is done (it even clicks the ok buttons for you and auto enters the install key.)

You have the same problem with most SCSI controllers, Winblows doesn't include the drivers by default. Used to be able to hit F6 (I believe) to load a controller driver, but most of the new ones won't work that way.