Yes does not even need a power connector 

external power connector 

Got myself a shiny new laptop recently, both for work and play (graphics card on the desktop melted, might actually play through recent releases now ;)

However, I have a problem. The graphics chip in it is an Intel X4500 with 128mb dedicated. This in itself isn't a problem, however, I do a lot of live music video mixing using fairly specialist software. The latest version of this software refuses to support the intel chipsets (since everything below the X4500 is complete arse, and I'll admit, the X4500 still isn't a great chip), however, I believe my chip is easily powerful to run the software.

Therefore (yes I ramble at 7am ;), does anyone know a good wrapper to convince the software my chip is a nvidia or ati chip? 

I just saw this note about the 4700, which suggests that the 4500 may not support all hardware video decoding.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Comparison-of-Graphic-Cards.130.0.html

<quote>
� Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 4700MHD small and light

Onboard (shared memory) graphics adapter that is integrated in the GM47 chipset. Technically a higher clocked 4500MHD and therefore a bit faster. The integrated video decoder can support the CPU in decoding HD videos (AVC/VC2/MPEG2).
</quote> 

Actually, maybe i misread that. It says a simliar thing about the 4500. 

I searched and searched for a laptop which didnt have an intel chipset graphics card of any kind. From what I have read they are all horrifically underpowered. Not for games..... Probably old games will run OK, but current titles I dont think are supported. S00ry :| 

Strangely it's not a gaming issue. Yeh, it struggles with very top end releases, but I have have a 360 for gaming tbh.

As I say, it's for video mixing. Version 3 of the software was developed for Macs with the PC port as a profitable afterthought. I just need to convince the OS that it's not an intel...

And yeh, finding a laptop without an intel chip for a good price was nigh on impossible, given it's more for image editing and video editing/mixing than gaming I just went for intel in the end. 

Okay, i've got some strange thing going on here.

After installing windows xp sp3, the system just spontanously reboots once in a while. like, 2-5 times a week. I ignore it, because it's not THAT annoying.

Now in the last few days i have been using gtkradiant (1.4 at first), and this seems to crash it like crazy. like, what feels like every few minutes. If it does that two or three times in a row, windows already starts to reboot during the loading screen. I can wait a while, or boot into safe mode once or so, then it works again.

So, i decided to install a clean xp. At first i tried a version with sp3 preinstalled. it kept crashing during the installation, at the 'installing devices' stage, im pretty sure always at the same stage, but sometimes it would get farther and then crash later. eventually, i got through the whole installation, so i had a running system... which spontanously rebooted when running gtkradiant. The problem was still there.

This all started with Service Pack 3, right? Next thing to do: install an xp with sp2. reboots/hangs during the install, reboots/hangs with gtkradiant.

gtkradiant 1.5 seems to be better, but still crashes after half an hour or so. q3map2 runs fine, photoshop runs fine, opera runs fine, memtest didn't show an error (1 pass only though, need to let it run when i'm away), quake3 runs fine, stalker runs fine. fine as in 'tested for about half an hour until i get the feeling nothing will happen'. Then again, i've had these reboots once in a while before.

I'm out of ideas. Anyone got a clue why this system might be so fucked up? 

...to test wether it's a hardware defect or not. 

and look at your heat-sink. If its covered with dust and stuff then it will be causing the processor to overheat, which would cause it to go off. I dont know if that would cause it to reboot though.... :| 

If it is overheating it will reboot. (At least, most CPUs and motherboards these days have protection built in that ensures the system will shut down if temperatures get too high, to prevent damage to the hardware).

Most likely suspects are overheating or failing/inadequate power supply, based on what you've said.

Another possibility is that perhaps some of the memory has gone bad - to test this, try running memtest86 or similar and if faults are detected, remove/swap the memory chips until you can isolate the problem piece. 

sorry, i forgot to mention: the temperatures look fine. All fans working, heatsinks clean. the only thing that might be hot without me noticing is the northbridge.

most voltages are a little low, but they have been since day 1. I tried increasing agp and cpu voltages slightly, so that they match the desired values.

I unplugged all unneeded components. Remaining: CPU, Board, Hd, RAM, floppy drive, GFX card.

Memory got through the first pass fine.

Linux: hmm, it's hard to reproduce the problem in windows already :(

I just tested stalker some more and it ran fine for an hour or so. Then, when i quit the game and it switched resolutions, it crashed :(

I think it's either the power supply or the gfx card, or the board, which has had problems with the ide controllers before. Guess i have to try to get my hands on other components and swap :( 

I experienced random reboots for a few months; it always seemed to be when the hard drives had gone to sleep and then tried to spin up. Then one day, instead of rebooting, my PCI-e got fried.

I'm fairly sure the problem was my power supply - I had a stock 300W, which was probably not adequate for extra HD's & cards. I've since replaced the PSU (with a 500W) and the mobo: no problems since then. 

To check the heat, simply open the case and touch the components after such reboot. 

I have a friend who has just offered me his old shuttle:

- Shuttle SN95G5 case + motherboard
- 2Gb RAM (can be upgraded to 4Gb)
- 500Gb HDD
- CD/DVD rewriter

Not sure what processor is in but I know it's dual core.

He says it will be a pretty cheap price second-hand.

Obviously this is quite an old spec machine, but currently I'm using: P4 2.8 G / 2Gb Ram / 120 GB HDD / CD writer only.

So if I can make a little step up at a cheap price, well, I'm pretty damn tempted. Saves me dicking around with components basically. The guy who had it is an uber geek, I'm trusting it's set-up well.

The main question being: He's only got an uber-basic GFX card in, and obviously I want a pretty damn good one for games. So, what is available for a shuttle like this, and what is recommended?? 

You probably want something single slot and fanless to fit in the case and not overheat it. Dunno what would be, exactly. 

Can one recommend me some good comparison sites or give me some ideas here?? It's ages since I looked into this sort of stuff... 

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/charts/gaming-graphics-charts-q3-2008/benchmarks,30.html 

Forgot about Tom's, that's quite useful.

Now, which one will fit in a shuttle and cope with it's power supply? 

Thats the million dollar question isn't it. Shuttles are not really designed as gaming pc's so I doubt you are going to be able to find anything that beefy that will work inside it.

Also there is the question of space, quite a few of the new graphics cards are quite large and barely fit inside a full size atx case. 

Being a barebone owner myself I strongly suggest you get a proper (tower) PC... 

sometimes, after playing the quake i got this in my pc
http://img90.imageshack.us/my.php?image=90561958.jpg

almost all icons look incorrectly
i'm sure this somehow alt-tab related, because
i'm using alt-tab frequently during playing
after rebooting the icons look correctly again
any solutions? 

Try running crap-cleaner registry cleaner. I've had that stuff before and I think its related to the registry (whatever the hell that is)

Brainy people will know more, but in the mean-time try this free program:

http://www.ccleaner.com/ 

i don't see anythig wrong with those icons. they're just monotonous. ;) 

Laptop recommendation please.

For general stuff not particularly gaming.

Must be reliable, cheap (below �400), decent processor and RAM. Not bothered about fancy trendy kid extras on it. Non-widescreen would be an unlikely preference. Smaller the better too.

Ta.