Vocal Voices

My laptop, which as you know is screamingly fast and VERY expensive, started becoming slower and slower. I knew I'd finally hit the limit of memory with my virtual machines and had to finally do the upgrade I always planned. My experience index (WEI) had dropped from 7.5 to 7.1 and I assumed it was down to the new drivers for the graphics card.

So I buy the newer, faster, memory for my laptop and fit it. Reset the WEI and tada, it's 4.7. WTF!!!!

After significant faffing around, I finally plugged in the original power adapter that came with the machine. Re ran the test and Hey Presto, back to a WEI of 7.5.

Now why did it do this?

A little known fact about Dell computers (Alienware is Dell), is that they put identifying chips in their power supply. The computer reads the chip on the power supply via the pin in the middle of the power plug and if it's not the one it wants it won't charge the battery. No real issue for me as I just run it at a lower charge. It still gives mains power and the battery doesn't discharge any more.

So far so good. Except that if the power is less than 100% and the laptop is not actively charging, then it starts to throttle back the CPU. As much as 45%. Killing performance and dropping the WEI.

I now have the original power supply in it again. But that weighs a good 3 kg and it's bigger than a house brick. Not very portable. Replacements are all the same size and weigh the same. Oh and they cost a minimum of £120 because Dell have a monopoly on the codes in the chips in the power supplies....

Not amused. I never wanted a Dell in the first place. The build quality is incredible but things like this just irritate the hell out of me.

Nice to have my machine report 9% memory usage when it starts up though. Instead of 40% or 50%. Of course with all the Virtual machines running that goes up to 45 - 50% but, still, that's fine.

SSD D drive next. But that's a different story. They are still £250 - £330.

I can understand your frustration. I've had a belly-full of it of late.

I think it would be a good idea if computer manufacturers were to close down for a few years and stop dreaming up new things for their systems. I still curse over Windows 7, and consider that Windows XP was far better - for my needs, anyway. Why complicate everything by adding things that only a small percentage of users require? Let those who need them just download the features.

Before I went on holiday last week, I was seriously considering dumping my blasted computer, and everything that goes with it, on to the local tip. We were quite happy without them in the past.

Hi Aggers,

Many of the features in Windows7 have been requested by the general computer population for decades. Some of them have been available in other operating systems and others have never been produced before.

When I changed over to Vista back in 2006, I found that it really was too painfully slow to use with confidence unless you had the latest and most expensive hardware. However the new file management features, taskbar previews and task switching cascade view, were so much improved on XP that I didn't want to go back. It drove me to use early beta software of Windows7 for my main machine. Something I have been used to avoiding for a long time.

Now Windows7 is my comfort zone and Windows8 is my pain threshold.

Over the last 15 years I have become used to switching to the new interfaces and using them to make myself get the most benefit out of the system. OK I'll switch a few things on which make it more like the previous version (quick launch for instance), but I will also encompass much of the new technology. Although with Windows7 and Vista I switched off jump lists. Something which they were at pains to try and push us at. It is not the way I use a computer, I have more structure in my life for computing, which is amazing as I am one of the most unstructured people you could meet.

So you can imagine how impossibly different the Windows 8 interface is. I do not use the start screen. NOT, NOT, NOT. I have re-created links for my frequently used applications and I work in a very restricted mode until I've got all of this worked out.

Believe me, Windows Vista and Windows7 were evolutionary. Windows8 is revolutionary. I must write to Microsoft some day and tell them that the 1 billion (and counting), PC's and laptops didn't just vanish and their OS dimply doesn't work for them. My laptop is not a mobile phone.

Try Winkey-Tab some day when you have several browser windows open and a mail client and a few other apps. It's interesting..... Hold down the winkey and keep pressing tab... BTW, it's gone in W8......