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Ferrari 4000

I am forced to admit that this is one damn fine notebook. Thanks to the helpful instructions on Volker's blog (http://blogs.msdn.com/volkerw/) I was able to get it up and running with 32-bit and 64-bit OSes very quickly. I'm currently trying to live with the 64-bit OS for a while before I fully commit to it. I've been fully 64-bit on my dev machines at work for over a year now and most everything works seamlessly. I feel like it's the smart however to give it a bit of a test run before fully committing to 64-bit on a laptop. I'll keep you updated. Also, once I kill the 32-bit install I'll have room for 64-bit Longhorn (whoops, I mean Vista).

My only complaint about the laptop is it's size. Generally I'm more of a ThinkPad X series form factor type of guy. I like my laptops small and light. This is neither, though at 6lbs and change isn't bad given the size. The screen is great, battery life seems reasonable, having a CD/DVD burner is cool and the DVI out on the back has me contemplacing ditching my desktop machine at home and just keeping an extra LCD around to do dual-monitor with the laptop for when I'm working from home.

Here's to the 64-bit future of computing. Now all I yearn for is a quad core laptop so that I can do all my builds quickly on the run!

 

p.s. Does anyone have any suggestions for a low-power/quiet case that I can stuff my old desktop P4 into to turn it into a media server hidden in the closet? The current power supply sucks way to much juice to leave it on all the time...

Published Sunday, July 24, 2005 10:42 AM by joshwil

Comments

# re: Ferrari 4000

Sunday, July 24, 2005 5:24 PM by Ed
Not sure I could use a "Ferrari" branded laptop with a straight face, but it sounds good hardware. The biggest problem I have with running x64 is the default VS2005 target of "any cpu" often makes stuff that isn't tested on x64 break. Old 32 bit stuff is great - amazing compatibility job. I'm really looking forward to seeing Vista Beta 1 on our dual Xeon - lets just hope future Intel and AMD stay compatible :)

I've got some good stuff off Zalman in the UK before. Looks like they do stuff in the US too...
http://www.zalmanusa.com/
These guys are also good if you're more into DIY...
http://www.linitx.com/

# re: Ferrari 4000

Sunday, July 24, 2005 5:57 PM by joshwil
Ed -- what type of stuff do you see breaking on 64-bit? Presumably P/Invoke to native DLLs that don't have 64-bit versions?

-josh

# re: Ferrari 4000

Sunday, July 24, 2005 6:24 PM by Mike Dimmick
The rating on the PSU is the _maximum_ power it can drive into a specified load on the DC side. The _actual_ amount of power used depends on the load. A 420W PSU won't use any more power than a 200W PSU, assuming they have approximately the same efficiency.

To use less power on the AC side, and therefore less cooling in the PSU (heat generated is generally proportional to the amount of power converted), you need to reduce the load on the DC side. So, scrap any device you don't need. Particularly, junk the video card - replace it with something that doesn't require active cooling, like a GeForce 2 MX or something like it. Heck, you don't even need an AGP card, although from what I can see cheap AGP cards are now cheaper than the equivalent PCI cards.

# re: Ferrari 4000

Monday, July 25, 2005 5:40 AM by Ed
> P/Invoke to native DLLs that don't have 64-bit versions?

Yes, exactly that - maybe COM interop too. I guess as x64 becomes more popular in dev and test environments it'll go away. It's just testing the whole "any CPU" thing I'm worried about - it's something new for people like me who are used to straight x86/Win32. Still, looks a lot better than the move from Win16 to Win32 was.

# re: Ferrari 4000

Sunday, August 07, 2005 6:46 AM by mine
I suggest Enermax PSU.
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