Sorry, everyone, more bitching about the Gateway.
I've been having issues with it freezing the mouse cursor or just plain freezing or glitching if I have more than a couple of programs running. The only way to fix it is a reboot. I wasn't sure what might be causing it, but after what happened the other night, my guess is the power supply.
I was ripping some CDs to Windows Media to load to my MP3 player, which was charging. While it was running, I was online visiting some of my saved sites. The cursor froze. I couldn't get it to navigate so I rebooted. After it restarted, I checked the charge level on my MP3. I was surprised. The first time I ever charged it out of the box, I charged it on the laptop and it took about two hours. When I had recharged it at work, it also charged fairly quickly. I calculated that at the rate it was charging on the Gateway, it would take nearly 8 hours to charge from dead (which is wasn't).
This, of course, go the gears turning in my old school head. I had contacted Gateway support a few weeks before about information for upgrading the video card. (OMG, are they worse than useless. At Dell, I could put in my computer's ID online and find out what upgrades and replacement parts I could use on my configuration.) The completely unhelpful email stated the type of card (because in all the hardware info (several pages I printed out) it didn't state the type of video card), then didn't specify how large a card I could install, but said that I might have to up the power supply if I install a larger card.
If you've managed to stick with me so far, thank you. As the gears turned, I thought about Gateway's lack of quality. It would not surprise me in the least to find out that the absolute minimum power supply was installed for the computer.
I'm still planning to upgrade the video card, but I'm thinking that upgrading the power supply might do more for the performance than just support a new card.
What do you think?
I've been having issues with it freezing the mouse cursor or just plain freezing or glitching if I have more than a couple of programs running. The only way to fix it is a reboot. I wasn't sure what might be causing it, but after what happened the other night, my guess is the power supply.
I was ripping some CDs to Windows Media to load to my MP3 player, which was charging. While it was running, I was online visiting some of my saved sites. The cursor froze. I couldn't get it to navigate so I rebooted. After it restarted, I checked the charge level on my MP3. I was surprised. The first time I ever charged it out of the box, I charged it on the laptop and it took about two hours. When I had recharged it at work, it also charged fairly quickly. I calculated that at the rate it was charging on the Gateway, it would take nearly 8 hours to charge from dead (which is wasn't).
This, of course, go the gears turning in my old school head. I had contacted Gateway support a few weeks before about information for upgrading the video card. (OMG, are they worse than useless. At Dell, I could put in my computer's ID online and find out what upgrades and replacement parts I could use on my configuration.) The completely unhelpful email stated the type of card (because in all the hardware info (several pages I printed out) it didn't state the type of video card), then didn't specify how large a card I could install, but said that I might have to up the power supply if I install a larger card.
If you've managed to stick with me so far, thank you. As the gears turned, I thought about Gateway's lack of quality. It would not surprise me in the least to find out that the absolute minimum power supply was installed for the computer.
I'm still planning to upgrade the video card, but I'm thinking that upgrading the power supply might do more for the performance than just support a new card.
What do you think?
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