sgogeta4

I bought a bunch of Lego.

Hi all, I am looking for a portable wireless speaker set that I plan on using with my Windows laptop and my Android phone for under $150 (if possible). Let me know if I need to extend my budget (within reason) to find speakers that have decent quality. Number 1 for me is the sound quality, prefer accurate sounds for voices and music and do not need crazy bass, though I'd like to watch the occasional movie. I don't need to fill large rooms so loudness isn't that much of a concern.

I plan on using it indoors only but I'll be moving around fairly often and in within different small room setups (all times the speakers will be in relatively close proximity to laptop or phone but some locations, I'd prefer to have no wires to the source), which is why I prefer a portable wireless set. I'd say 25% of time I will connect speakers directly to source via 3.5mm connection, but will mainly use it wirelessly.

I don't mind if I have to plug in the speakers to an outlet since I can extend the power to the wall (speakers will tend to be close to wall, while laptop in middle of room), but batteries or having a rechargeable battery in the speakers would be useful (though not necessary a definite plus, with rechargeable batteries being the preferred option). Weight definitely plays a role though as I will be moving these around often.

I've seen a lot of different ways for wireless speakers to connect (bluetooth+-NFC, wifi) and don't know much about them, but I'm all for easy setup with lossless audio. I usually have access to wifi too. USB to charge speakers would be a nice touch in some situations but not necessary.

Please let me know what you guys recommend and if you require any more information to give me a good recommendation. I hope my requirements aren't too stringent either. Thanks, everyone!

Vibram FiveFingers - Running Shoes Men – KomodoSport LS Barefoot Fitness Shoe | Vibram FiveFingers

In green.

Haha, one year later, what do I purchase? This exact pair of shoes again in grey. I'm still using my green pair but could always use another.

AAAHH, I forgot about that issue with Lenovos. No idea then.

Yeah, separate issue. I never used Setup 1.x anyways. Oh well

Have you remade your devcon file after changing your RAM? V:\devcon\mkdevcon.bat (pretty sure it's this file to remake it).

Not really following what this does, how to find this file, or how to remake it lol...

Has anyone figured out a way to get Lenovo Thinkpads to work with 16GB and eGPU? Or if I've missed a post, please refer me to where to look. Thus far eGPU only working with 8GB or less.

I've had numerous WD external portable drives now and they've all worked flawless. Bought from Costco, in case of any problems, you can always return it (but I never have). Had their 1TB USB 2.0 drive, gave that to my brother when I got a new 1TB USB 3.0. Just gave that to my gf since I got a new 2TB USB 3.0 drive. Only $115 at Costco and it has a soft neoprene case. Very fast transfers - large movies easily copied at 50-60 MB/s.

I haven't had any luck with 16GB in my W520. I'm hoping someone has figured out a work around or if Lenovo will release a new BIOS that won't have this issue.

Almost every 660 Ti was under $200 at Newegg a little while ago if you paid with a Visa. A lot has changed since the OP posted in the summer of 2011 though...

Personally, I found the LOTR novels and movies pretty dry. I just saw Jack Reacher, was pretty entertaining.

Fair enough. I was just thinking of my (really) old Dell Inspiron laptop and how it used a modular bay battery. The problem was it only started draining after the main one was done and when you swapped in the new main battery, it stopped draining the modular bay one. I'd have preferred that it would keep drain the modular battery then when I took out the modular battery, it would switch back to the main battery.

Alternatively, maybe just have a small built in battery that is used when switching out the one main battery?

I really liked the concept of the Dell Latitude Z600.

My ideal yet realistic notebook would be similar to the Z600 but in a 15.4" (16:10 aspect ratio) form factor that could turn into a tablet PC. Hardware wise, I'd want:

- regular Intel quad core CPU with their small form factor chipset

- 4 SODIMM slots (4x8GB)

- 2 mSATA RAID0 SSDs (2x 512GB)

- Thunderbolt connection to a switchable nVidia GTX Titan eGPU enclosure

- 8-bit IPS panel with capacitive multitouch and adaptive transflective screen on a thin bezel

- 2 slim removable batteries (similar to above, needs intelligent switch so that it alternates which battery drains)

- slice battery for long trips, every battery should have a LED indicator with battery level

- thin high wattage power brick

I know the feeling. I haven't gotten around to housing my eGPU.

GTX650Ti (110W TDP)

GTX660 (140W TDP)

GTX660Ti (150W TDP)

GTX560-1GB (150W TDP)

GTX460-768MB (150W TDP)

GTX460-1GB (160W TDP)

GTX560TI (170W TDP)

A GTX650Ti is great if you need a low power GPU. However if you'd be running an eGPU with a standard 12V/18W ATX PSU typically thrown out by businesses then you could run any of the above GPUs. They could also be powered by a modded xbox360 203W AC adapter if need more portability.

A GTX560Ti is a great s/h bargain one that I rate above a GTX460-1GB since it has 384 cuda cores (vs 336). It's also faster than a GTX650Ti per techpowerup. If you are looking at Keplar then for a few dollars more a GTX660Ti offers a substantial performance upgrade over a GTX660.

The GTX 650 is more than enough for my SC2 at max settings and does not require a separate 6-pin connector. I only got the GTX 650 Ti since it had a MIR that made it the same price as the former.

Mean if I buy a 200w PSU will be ok? Inside my case there will be only the GPU to power.

The total wattage is not that useful. You need to check the specs and see if a single 12V rail can deliver enough amperage to meet the demands of the GPU's TDP.

Wreck-It Ralph. 2 thumbs up.

I was going to coat my jacket and boots.

If you can't run the benchmark tests (scores listed on the first page) at 1280x1024 (my resolution maxes out at 1600x900), what would the next best resolution be for comparable results? I'm going to format my computer in March and hopefully be able to get my eGPU working with 16GB.

Now that I'm back in one location and have managed to get my eGPU working on a regular basis with 16GB (though my system is temperamental at times), I've decided to add to the leaderboard! Since my resolution maxes out at 1600x900, I cannot do 1280x1024. Should I run the tests at 1440x900, which has 99% of the amount of pixels as SXGA? I hope the results are comparable. If not, what resolution should I use?

edit: back to 8GB. weird that with 16GB, my system freezes when my eGPU is connected and nVidia Optimus is enabled. 16GB works just fine w/o eGPU. also, does anyone notice that eGPU slows Windows start up noticeably?

edit2: ok now I've disabled eGPU completely. not sure why system keeps freezing now. the last few days have had no problems and have been running great, today it's frozen 3 times in the last few hours. argh!! frustrated. really messing me up since I'm playing multiplayer in SC2.

You'll know if the bios is configured correctly for eGPU use when only the Intel HD3000 and GTX650Ti are listed in Device Manager. THe FX2000M shouldn't appear. In addition I found the eGPU needed to be on the pci-e bus prior to booting Windows for the internal LCD functionality to work. The way you could do that is halt Windows loading with the F8 key, hotplug the EC2C end of your PE4L/PE4H into the expresscard slot, then select Windows to load it. If still have no success then suggest remove the NVidia and Intel HD drivers and reinstall. Ensure you do a 'clean' NVidia driver install.

It is configured correctly, I only see HD3000 and GTX 650 Ti, which are both fully functional according to Device Manager. What do you mean the eGPU is on the PCIe bus? Does Win 8 halt on F8 because it doesn't seem to do anything as the Windows logo continues to load.

edit: ok, somehow got it to work. I turned off computer. Unplugged everything. Plugged it in again and powered up. Went to BIOS and made sure settings were ok then booted up. Windows 8 had some error and actually crashed when I booted up, but it rebooted and it is working as of right now lol. No idea what the deal was...

2nd edit: I think Lenovo automatically changes the BIOS setting of GPU from iGPU to nVidia Optimus sometimes when I power off everything and reboot. With nVidia Optimus, it shows the FX 2000M as well and you get the errors. Win 8 also does not like hotplugging or turning off the eGPU when the computer is running. I have found that best thing to do is press F1 every time you boot up to check that GPU is set to iGPU (not dGPU or nVidia Optimus) and that nVidia Optimus detection is enabled. Then boot up Win 8 normally and it should work.

Your W520 needs it's FX2000M disabled either in the bios or using Setup 1.1x. That then will allow your GTX650Ti eGPU to be given Optimus internal LCD functionality.

It is disabled. I have it set to GPU: integrated, nVidia Optimus: detect. The internal LCD runs off the iGPU but does not switch to the eGPU when I play games.

I've had similar issues on my x220t (i7-2620m, 8gb ram, Windows 8 pro 64 bit UEFI) with my GTX 460. It worked totally fine when I had Windows 7 but since upgrading to Win 8 it's not worked. The weird thing is that I've got Win 8 installed on a new SSD, and when I put the old hard drive which has got a Win 7 install which was previously working with the eGPU it still doesn't work. I've downgraded the BIOS which didn't help then reflashed the latest UEFI/BIOS too, it's still not working. Do you use BIOS or UEFI?

You say your eGPU is detected by device manager, but with what combination of switches? In all BIOS and Windows combinations the eGPU isn't detected unless I force detection by putting SW1 into position 2 (x2-x16 PCIe mode), and SW2 doesn't make any difference. Then I get it detected in device manager and can install drivers but have the same message of you of no display attached to an NVidia GPU, either on the internal or external screen. In Win 7 I get error 12 and in Win 8 I get 'no drivers are installed for this device' even after a successful driver install, then manually selected one doesn't work. I think I'm right in saying this indicates a TOLUD issue? I've not got any spare RAM sticks to test with <4gb, but as I say it was all working fine before.

Is this a problem common to Lenovos on Win 8? Has anyone got a Lenovo running Windows 8 working with an eGPU?

I believe my system still uses BIOS, even though I have UEFI mode also enabled, since when I press F1, it's still all text based. I originally installed my eGPU with Win 8 and did get it to work briefly but once I removed the expresscard, I haven't been able to get it working again. In device manager, it shows my eGPU fully operational when it's plugged in but I cannot get my internal screen to run off the eGPU.

Anyone with a Lenovo laptop, can you give a step by step of how do you consistently get your eGPU to work? I installed mine a few weeks ago without issue but haven't used it in a while and now it does not work. I changed my memory so that it's only 2x4GB SODIMMs (since there seems to be an issue with 16GB).

What I do: I plug my ExpressCard in and power up my eGPU before booting my laptop up. In the BIOS, it's configured for iGPU only but with nVidia Optimus detection. When Win 8 loads, device manager detects my GTX 650 Ti but when I click on nVidia control panel, I get an error saying no display attached to nVidia GPU (only have internal screen). It does not switch to my nVidia GPU when I'm playing games. I have also tried pressing F8 when windows loads up (but I can't get it to do anything), then powering on the eGPU via the ATX switch, without any success either. Drivers are up to date with the latest ones from nVidia's website.

Did you try installing the drivers under Windows 7 compatibility mode?

For myself, custom built rig (main components: Intel CPU, Tuniq CPU cooler, Corsair RAM, Asus mobo, Antec case, Seasonic PSU, WD HDD, Samsung SSD, eVGA nVidia GPU, Arctic Cooling GPU cooler, Klipsch speakers, Dell monitor, APC UPS). For those that want what I want but don't want to build it yourself, Puget - Serenity. For my business due to price and service, Dell - Small Business.

^ agreed. WC3 DotA is awesome. I'm still trying to find a SC2 map that compares to it. I'm not a fan of AoS and Hero Attack x3 is a bit too simplistic (but pretty fun).