Laptops.com

For a site that is named overclockers.com, is it not odd that there are so many articles on computers that generally aren't overclocked, even by overclockers?

Heh. You got a point there. The title of this thread threw me off a little, but I see what you are saying. We have had a rash of laptop articles lately (and some very old ones, in fact), I think there's a redesign of the site going on behind the scenes and we need some filler articles in the meantime.

I actually kind of like the laptop reviews, but not many people are overclocking theirs... I wanna see how some of these do actually overclock!

Hit right on the problem 9mm, many people are not even overclocking these laptops - so if you aren't interested in seeing a laptop review, there is nothing in these articles that could otherwise be of interest to our audience. I read them anyways, just because, but I don't enjoy them - they rarely if ever even have any originality that many other overclockers articles have.

Perhaps there is something taking their time which makes it easier to post these laptop reviews than write up something else, or maybe its just what Joe is interested in right now. The site redesign should not have anything to do with it AFAIK, because the people working on the redesign are not regular contributors to the frontpage. And at this stage atleast, I don't expect that anything is required of Ed and Joe really.

Thing I would like to see Laptop reviews:
- If its old, it should be readily availible. Reviewing a laptop that is hard to find will have a limited audience, try to get the maximum audience in all articles. Getting a laptop from a scrap heap is great for you. But if I cant find it, to do what you did, its not useful for me.
- Mention of cooling, and BIOS options are great. Tweaks to make it run better are part of overclocking. "Overclocking" is getting maximum preformance, not just raising the FSB or multi. So talk about any BIOS tweaks that helped. Any upgrades that are done to make it run faster.
- With laptops it seems the easiest things to upgrade are harddrives, ram and CPU. Cooling can be modded to be more effcient. One thing that it seems that people are overlooking is software. Bust of the software tweaks, and pick the right software for the hardware. XP is great. But I dont think its suited for a sub 500Mhz CPU with 128MBs of RAM. 98SE would be great for that, or evene Windows 2KPro.

[O]verclockers.com has been a site with articles containing daily articles would tend to be of interest to an overclocker or PC enthusiast.

I believe the laptop review articles are used to take up space when nothing else can be thought of to write. Reliance on that practice is being a bit excessive.

I do agree with dark_15 that the tiltle to this thread is misleading.

Maybe I'll type up a little article on overclocking the dv1000 durring spring break...

id like to see LESS laptop articles...i mean im just a teenager and i dont need a laptop, so i dont care about them really lol.

Ok, ok... I guess I will have to OC my old 386 Compaq laptop!!

I'm starting to miss Ed's daily rant. I need my fix!

Yucky.
I mean...it would be okay if they put up a review of the ASUS S5N FEATHERWEIGHT NOTEBOOK that I've been wanting to buy...but gah, it's just old laptops that nobody can really "duplicate" the scenario of.

Now, I could understand it if we got into performance tweeks for these for NEW laptops, or Dothans, or something interesting like Mobile A64s, but we simply haven't had any.

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Voodoo Rufus said:

I'm starting to miss Ed's daily rant. I need my fix!

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I'm not. I was getting rather tired of the same old:

"AMD just announced/released something. This therefore means that AMD sucks though and here's why..."
or
"Intel just announced something. Here's what it is. No further comment about Intel sucking or whatever"
or
"Somebody just released something. It's a waste of money though. Don't even think about upgrading that Celeron 300A/Voodoo1 system yet 'cos the manufacturers are just taking you for a ride..."

Sure my examples may contain some poetic license, but that's the impression that I personally get whenever I read Ed's rants.

I personally consider myself neither Intel nor AMD biased, but I have to admit that I'm was getting pretty damn tired of the near constant anti-AMD sentiment that was displayed in Ed's rants. Ed can explain it however he wants, about wanting AMD to lift their public relations game, and I do agree, but FFS, when AMD do actually release or announce something would it really hurt to at least give a small nod of acknowledgement for positive progress?

Ed reminds me of a forum user over at FutureMark. Said user owns an AMD system but yet is contantly bagging them out for being crap. Ever the eternal pessimist, and quite frankly, it just gets boring and tedious after the 50th time.

Then we have this recent spate of Laptop articles, one after the other, that have almost nothing at all to do with overclocking.

Right now the front page seems more about quantity than quality. I'd rather have two good thoughful level and unbiased reads a week, rather than two depressing and pessimistic rants a day, or articles that have little if anything to do with the core user base of the site.

I like the rants. If you want fluff, hit google, and type "computer hardware review" Nothing but gigles, rainbows, and flowers for miles.

That being said, I would like to see more on stuff actually involved in overclocking. Like say a series on basic understanding on power circuitry, leading into volt mods. Knowing Ed though, anything that could be considered in some way dangerous, won't ever make it there.

man_utd said:

I like the rants. If you want fluff, hit google, and type "computer hardware review" Nothing but gigles, rainbows, and flowers for miles.

That being said, I would like to see more on stuff actually involved in overclocking. Like say a series on basic understanding on power circuitry, leading into volt mods. Knowing Ed though, anything that could be considered in some way dangerous, won't ever make it there.

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If you write it, it will show up on the frontpage. Other than that, I haven't seen much first hand overclocking information from Ed lately - he mostly talks about developments in the industry, which is important perspective for component selection which directly pertains to success with overclocking results. I like what I get from the OC frontpage.

Cathar: While yes...I must agree with you about some points, lets also remember Overclockers.com almost relies on their users for content. With a bit of an incentive ($100 USD), it seemed like laptops became the hot topic on OC.com and topics like watercooling fell by the wayside.

Rather...got kicked into a gutter and left for dead.

I realized mid-typing iduring this post that ther had been NO waterblock/watercooling reviews since before 2005 started. What?!

For an overclocking site, it's pathetic we don't even have any reviews on ANY watercooling blocks that have come out recently. Koolance came out with a "700W" watercooling system and I haven't seen it chewed up and spit out by Joe yet? Come on...

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Yeah, never ending pessimism (realism?) can get rather.....monotonous, but Ed still remains right more than he's wrong. Maybe one AMD/Intel article a week, one RIAA/MPAA thing a month or so. I would love to see more OCing and water cooling, maybe even some extreme cooling articles. Forums don't have to be the resting place for all work logs.

I sure hope Joe is working on some new heatsinks and water cooling systems. There's a few out there that he hasn't caught yet and I'd like his unbiased evaluation on them.

you know what is funny, i read the articles about used laptops and thought to myself that i had a couple of bucks lying around and i would like one for wireless connectivity at work and to assist in trouble shooting our network here, so I ebayed one for $266 for a Insperion CPX750GT, with a new battery. I thought writting about recycling computer parts was a good thing, but...

I too wonder what this has to do with overclocking, I remember reading a waterblock or heatsink test and checking it against the databases. I also thought that the design put into coming up with a method to test water blocks was phenonminal, and it would transform this website beyond the standard hardware review, I guess I was wrong.

I would like to hear and read more about extreme cooling systems such as someone who built a waterchiller or direct die unit out of an air-conditioner.

I remember reading an article on cracking a Dell Bios for overclocking because as the scene evolves and more of Joe's Sixpack machines exist, maybe Joe thinks he made a mistake or wants some more performance and would like to modify his/ her rig.

Finally, I have never seen or read an article comparing stable overclocks and OS's I know that Unix/Linux operate differently themselves and from Windows. Do these stress use or allow for more or less overclocking?

Edit- I got to thinking I know that we have seen laptops.com, why not get some articles about servers, etc. I would like to know more about blade servers, long term overclocking, etc.

fUzZ bUnNy said:

Edit- I got to thinking I know that we have seen laptops.com, why not get some articles about servers, etc. I would like to know more about blade servers, long term overclocking, etc.

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Now we are talking.

You all know almost all articles are USER submisions correct?
I think OC'rs did a few then otehrs thought, hey i can do that too.
If you dont want to see laptops one the front page get out thier and start writing your own articles.

I know 9mm and I have sent a few things before... I emailed Ed about tieing the front page discussions in closer with the frontpage, possibly linking to a thread here for each article that is posted. I am waiting to hear back. Hoping that this will generate more article submission from the forums.

The fontpage link to this thread is a REALLY good idea.
I like that, as myself i dont enjoy answering the same question over and over again with e-mail....
If i wasnt so lazy (gaming) i would write a few more myself.