That is a good deal. 

Hey, does anyone here do any laptop component replacement?

I have an oldish HP 4520s with a regular 2.5" HDD and I want to replace it with an SSD. (and probably replace with more ram while I'm in there).

Am I right in assuming that apart from the hardware and case differences, there should be no problem with hardware compatibility and such with laptops?

Any words of advice? 

I've swapped out the stock HDD for my HP 4520s for an intel 530 SSD. When in any operating system, it performs perfectly. The bios was already set for ahci so I didn't need to do the registry key trick to get it going.

There's only one problem: every *other* time I boot up, the drive is not detected at all. It does this consistently:
Drive detected
Reboot
Drive not detected.
Power off, Power on, (note, won't detect if I Ctrl+Alt+Delete to restart)
Drive detected

This happens no matter what OS I boot into, Windows 7 or Ubuntu (from a flash drive).

I transferred the old data from my HDD (500gb) onto the SSD (180gb) using the dd command on linux.
I had to shuffle some partitions around (as well as shrink one) to get it to fit on my SSD.

Here are the paritions:
[300mb system partition]
[400~gb C: Windows partition]
[15gb HP recovery crap]
[2gb HP tools crap]

Because the C: partition was in the middle, i had to do these steps:
Using windows disk management, shrunk C: partition to 95gb.
Booted into Ubuntu
With GParted, Moved HP recovery and tools partition adjacent to the end of the C: partition
Used dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb to clone entire HDD to SSD

Any ideas? 

btw: I did get an error from dd saying something about no space left, but by the time that error occured, it would have been writing unallocated sectors anyway. 

I am no expert. I recently installed a SSD in my desktop and will never go back to HDD for the OS drive.
Does the drive show on the POST screen? Then does it get lost to the OS or is it hardware not found in bios? If you boot from a USB stick is it the same?
A quick google search shows you are not alone with the problem.
https://www.google.com/#q=intel%20530%20ssd%20not%20recognized

I found this
https://communities.intel.com/message/217160
Firmware might be the fix.
I'd suggest you have a good backup until you can trust the drive. 

When it happens, the drive is completely undetected and doesn't show up in the BIOS.

When booting to a USB Ubuntu, if the SSD was not detected, then Ubuntu bootup would usually hang right at the start right after the GUI is loaded, otherwise it boots up normally (and the SSD shows up normally).

I suspected it might be something firmware related, but I really wanted to confirm that somehow before trying to update that. Unfortunately, whenever I find a post about it, it doesn't seem to match exactly what I see myself. 

PC gaming is dying. And calling developers names or calling them lazy or whatever isn't going to prolong it's life. It's dead, Jim.

watch out for that meteor guys. It's going to get real cold for you soon.

This happened. 

PC gaming has never been better! Also I don't like control pads. So I don't see me (or any other PC gamers who dislike control pads for that matter) moving over any time soon. 

I've just been playing Two Worlds II. I've got at least 33 keys on the keyboard mapped out and are keys I use, probably several others I haven't needed so maybe 40 in total. OH plus the mouse buttons.

How the FUCK would I map 40 keys to a gamepad? I'm looking at the ps4 gamepad and it has 14 buttons, no mouse. How on earth do people prefer this to a keyboard when you have all these shortcuts you can press?

Plus the fact that real gamers will play the game at the optimal quality, which will always be on PC.

So I don't really see PC gaming ever dying, as long as people still buy desktop computers. 

I prefer to play on pc.

But if the game needs more than 20 keys (including directions) then I'm prejudiced. 

Very hot here today (34 degrees). Giving my 2011 macbook pro 15" a little work, i noticed a single vertical line on the display. No system crash and it's cooled down now and line has gone.
At the time, cooling was going fine - about 6000 rpm - and GPU never got above 60, though CPU was at times up to 85.

Is it likely to be an LCD or GPU anomoly. 

will only get worse 

Console gaming is pretty much dead since PS4/Xbone did fuck all to be interesting gaming platforms. 

Re my screen hardware fault - Yah... Most of the summer i had a screen line. So i've been looking out for a 2011 display for <= $200 (I can do it myself). But it's turned cold tonight and it's disappeared. :)

Has anyone checked out the new 12" Macbooks ? It has one freaking port. 1! Even by apple's standards, that's pretty amazing for a whole thirteen hundred US bucks. Some new USB thing for power and usb and video. Also has a retina display, a new keyboard getting mixed reviews, and a super low power Intel Core M with a decent turbo speed of >2.4GHz
http://www.apple.com/macbook/ 

Well, it is time for me to build up a new rig to catch up on 5+ years of PC gaming. What I can't decide on is what LCD to buy. I'm opting for 1920x1080 ones, preferably a 120/144Hz one. The thing is, no matter which one I'll choose it looks like I won't get the clarity and contrast of a high-end CRT (which I still use one way or another). It's clear that the newer tech has still its shortcomings. Still, no other options on the market so the step must be taken. So, do you guys have any recommendations? 

the Asus VG248QE on Daz's recommendation. It's a great monitor, it's 144hz and will make it impossible for me to go back to 60hz. For gaming I cannot recommend it enough, it may be even more true for older games since they don't tend to limit their frame-rate to 60hz.

Truly it is the best monitor I have ever bought, in a lot of ways it's superior to the 4k TV that I own.

The monitor isn't without it's faults though. The default settings are terrible, you will spend 20-30 minutes trying to get the brightness/contrast etc perfect. I have no idea how people without a monitor already do this, I used my tablet as a reference to get the colours right.

Also the monitor appears to have a very bizarre dithering problem. I don't have a clue why it uses colour dithering in some circumstances as it clearly has an excellent range on it. You will see it on some games more than others. After a while you won't notice or mind it but it is jarring at first. 

Check qw.nu threads 

erc what'd you decide on for your build? My computer is also 5 years old so I'm about to build a new computer too. Trying to keep it below NZ$3000 (USD$2000), which it's right on now. Anyone else just got a new computer?

Intel Skylake Core i7 6700K 4.0Ghz 8MB LGA 1151

Asus (Z170 PRO GAMING) Intel� Z170 ATX Motherboard

SAMSUNG (MZ-N5E500BW) 500GB 850 Evo Series Solid State Drive, M.2

Asus (STRIX-GTX970-DC2OC-4GD5) Overclocked STRIX GTX 970 DirectCU II 4GB GDDR5 SLI,

G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4 2666Mhz

Corsair Carbide 500R White Mid-Tower Case

Microsoft Windows 10 Home, 32/64-Bit USB

EVGA SuperNOVA 650 G1 650W 80+ Gold Full Modular Power supply

Corsair Hydro Series� H110i GT 280mm Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler

Plus install/build is only $80 so I reckon I'll get the shop to do it for me.

Already got the mouse, kb, extra hdds and monitor. I went and bought a cheap LG 27". Maybe should have looked into one of these 4k ones if they're that much better. 

I would seriously recommend looking at getting a 144hz monitor. Especially for games, the difference in smoothness is unreal. 

Looks like a great machine there Kona. You'll definitely be able to run ad_swampy at 30-40fps on that rig. ;)

Also, DaZ is right. Get a high refresh rate monitor. They're incredible. 

Never cared about refresh rate after going lcd, but I do have a 27" @ 1920x1080 and I find it very low res. 

Screen size is everything for me. I agree with Necros, I've never noticed refresh rate after switching to LCD. Makes no difference to me.

I have a 30" Apple screen and it's fucking phenomenal ... I've had it for, like, 4 years now and it's still my favorite monitor ever. 

Actually, probably closer to 6 years ... this thing is a tank. 

For me the refresh rate was just to avoid the annoying flickering @ 60hz on CRT.

I did play games at 120hz back in the day of CRT and it was OK, but it wasn't a top priority for me.

You can get high refresh but it costs you. I'd rather spend that cash on monitor size or resolution. 

"For me the refresh rate was just to avoid the annoying flickering @ 60hz on CRT."

Yes! Exactly. 60hz or lower and my file explorer window would be flickering constantly.