I purchased a new computer because I had to send my old laptop to a repair center and I didn't want to wait for it to get back. It's a Toshiba Satellite A215 7422 with Windows Vista Home Premier Edition installed. My immediate question is this: every now and then the screen goes blank and I'm faced with a blue-black nothing. No error or blue-screen-of-death, nothing. I reboot and everything is fine. I haven't had to deal with these problems in XP for a long time (don't remember which service pack fixed any issues), so I'm not really happy about this. Anyone know what's wrong?
Second, more generally is there a good site for tweaking the OS for optimal performance taking into account my needs? Since XP worked so well I haven't had to make recourse to such a site in a very long time. The main one I used to go to was Black Viper.
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If it isn't a hardware glitch, which shoud be covered by warranty, go to http://www.kubuntu.org/download.php for an upgrade.
(Hey, you begged for it by mentioning Vista...)
yeah. i know.
If you have less than 2 Gb Ram Vista can cause you problems.
Is this the case with your laptop?
yes. i have an order for a 2 kit in already, will install when it gets here later in the week.
A similar thing happens on my wife's Vista Home Edition laptop.
Suggesting that she buy Vista was a mistake. I've seen offered to pay for the downgrade to XP, which is a far better OS than Vista.
I would recommend XP as well, in case you really need Windows. Vista isn't mature yet. But get a Vista voucher as well. You have paid for Vista, so you have right to get it when Microsoft finally declares it stable (at SP2?), and kills all XP support.
The reason for hangups can be anywhere - defective motherboard, flukey memory chips, temperature sensitive hard disk, or something else. Or it could be Vista. One way to find out if it is hardware or software issue is to change the OS to something else. XP would do, but I have my reasons to use Linux.
I've run various Linux distros in my home PC for years without problems. First as dual boot, but lately as Linux only. I get done all that I need. I can even run nicely behaving Windows programs (i.e. ones that use the Win32 API) with WINE. "Upgrading" to Vista is not an option, because the box is far too old to run it.
As a computer engineer I feel pretty pissed when people off-handedly mention that they have to boot their machine every now and then. For any other product that would be enough to return it to the shop as defective. Why is it that computers are expected to behave that way?
I bought a Toshiba Satellite with Vista in April, and so far I don't have many complaints beyond the basic software incompatibilities. I'm not a gamer, so I didn't have a problem with not getting fancy programs to work, but it did annoy me that I can no longer use Groupwise for my school e-mail. The only recurring issue I've had is that it is fickle about going into "Hibernate" or "Sleep", sometimes it just plain refuses to. I know it probably has to do with some background programs, but it seems random enough that I am stumped at identifying what the factor in question is.
I bought a Toshiba Satellite with Vista about 6 weeks ago and I've had no problems with it at all, so I doubt the problem is with Vista itself. More likely you don't have enough ram (I had them install 2 gig) or you've got a hardware glitch somewhere (bad memory chip seems the first place to check).
Problems like yours are one of the reasons why my next laptop will be a Mac Book Pro. (The other is the ability to run both PC and MAC OS on one machine)
I bought a Dell, which has basic, not premium, Vista and it did the same thing. A MS video driver update did the trick for me. I updated all the drivers while I was at it, and it's been fine for 6 months now. I have 1 gb, not 2 BTW.
I used to work at IBM, and before that worked in information mgt at a large university. My answer, get a MAC.
just an fyi, i installd ubuntu and am running a dual boot now. i'll keep vista mostly cuz there are things like adobe products that it is necessary for. m$, converting the world to !m$ one pissed off user at a time ;-)
Welcome to the fold :-)
Many Adobe binaries for Windows can be run also in Linux with WINE. The compatibility list is at
http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?bIsQueue=false&bIsRejected=fa…
Note that the list may not be up to date. Googling can reveal additional tricks.
tx. i forgot about WINE. the main issue now are wireless drivers. i found one but now it crashes when i attempt to connect to networks. i figure i'll have to just make sure to get a linux ready card (my card happens not to have any linux driver from the vendor).