A.E. Pendell

I haven't dealt with many modern laptop UEFI's. So, if I were to get something like the Dell G7 (which I'm really considering getting the 4k model because it'll probably have slightly better color, and if I really need crazy color accuracy I can always get an external monitor later down the road), would I be able to underclock its CPU in the UEFI settings? Because every computer I've ever messed with doesn't have voltage settings and stuff like that in its BIOS or UEFI. Also, thanks for the recommendations! The Omen does seem nice, though I didn't consider it because aesthetically, it's a bit... "loud"? The MSI's and Asus seem interesting! Alienwares are hardly laptops, I would probably break out the old terminology and call them "luggables" tbh, they should have handles on them. I've never heard of Clevo, and from the looks of it it's some sort of Chinese laptop? And I don't need the power of a desktop CPU in a laptop anyways, and from what little I know, that probably honestly sucks power and cooling-wise. I wouldn't even mind something like the XPS 15's thermal throttling so long as it still got the job done. I mean, the only taxing thing it would be doing that might make it throttle would be rendering 1080p videos? And I usually leave my laptop plugged in and sitting on a desk while it's rendering. Tbh an 8th gen Core i7 throttling itself would still probably be faster than my current 3rd gen low power i7. But I'll take a look at some Asus and MSI laptops now, thanks!

Why do they need undervolting? And for cooling issues, I was thinking it wouldn't be too much to bring around a cooling mat if I plan to do taxing stuff when I get there with it. Don't most people with gaming laptops use cooling mats anyways?

I mean, I'm going to be saving up either way, but I would like it to be under $2,500. I can go higher than that, it'll just take a while longer and I'll be more anxious about breaking it lol. I'm in Texas. I don't really have a preferred weight. I've never been a fan of super light laptops, they always feel incredibly cheap with almost no weight to them. I'm used to lugging around very chunky laptops, so in today's laptop market, I guess I really don't have a limit. And yes, I'd like the display to be 1080p, 1440p, or 2160p, preferrably IPS, and have at least decent color accuracy and Adobe RGB coverage over 60%.

The laptop I currently have is fine enough for video editing, but the panel is HD+ and very washed out feeling, and the graphics chip is a low-end Nvidia GT 630M, which leaves most of the rendering up to the CPU. That, along with it just being quite out of date (Windows 10 crashes randomly for no reason because the hardware just wasn't made for it I guess) and falling apart in general (the left screen hinge is only held in place by the cables running through it), I've decided I'm going to save up for a nice new video editing laptop. It needs to be a laptop, I know desktops are cheaper for better performance and much easier to maintain, but in my current situation I simply need a portable workstation if I want to get things done in a reasonable time frame. It doesn't need to have great battery life. I understand that if I want a somewhat powerful laptop with dedicated graphics and a powerful CPU, I must sacrifice battery life, but it would be nice if it lasted at least 4 hours or so in casual use. I would prefer a 17-inch laptop, since that's what I have right now and I really enjoy the large display. I don't know if having a 15-inch display could affect my ability to edit as well or not. Probably not, but it would be satisfying to have a 17-inch nonetheless. I don't have anything that can shoot in 4k, nor raw 1080p video. I'll be working mostly with AVCHD Progressive and H.264-compressed videos coming from my camcorder, phone, and Canon T3i. Files I'm working with likely won't exceed 50mbps, so I don't need a beastly laptop. A 1050, hell, a 980 would probably be perfectly fine for handling my video renders. I also wouldn't need a crazy modern CPU. An i9 would be way overkill. I could work with a 6th or 7th gen Core i5 or i7, quad-core or higher. I'd like at least 16GB of RAM, but I'm thinking 32GB would be the sweet spot for a laptop I want to use for a long time to potentially edit very long videos. The memory's speed isn't too much of a concern to me, any DDR4 memory should be fast enough. Since I'll have Windows 10, the Adobe CC Suite, and some other useful programs, I would like a 500GB SSD for all the programs, and a 1-2TB 7200rpm HDD for storing my files and projects on. It's also fine if the laptop only has a 500GB SSD option and no extra drive, so long as it has a high-speed USB port, I can buy a Samsung T5 Portable SSD to use. I don't know if I want to buy a laptop with a 4k screen or not. It'll only be 17 inches at most, and I won't be editing 4k files, but 4k would look so pretty! But if I'm being realistic, if I want somewhat nice battery life, I should stick with a 1080p panel. If it has a high quality dedicated graphics card, I could just use an external 4k monitor in the future anyways. With these basic requirements, I've made a small list of potential laptops for me to strive for, but my online window shopping abilities are not the best, so I could be accidentally missing great options. Origin PC EVO-17S - I configured this one on Origin's website with an i7, 1080p panel, 32GB 2666MHz RAM, a 500GB NVMe SSD, and a 2TB Seagate FireCuda HDD, and it came out to roughly $3,200. So, definitely not a cheap option, but Origin is a boutique PC builder, so I would hope I'm paying extra for superb build quality and customer service. HP Omen 17-an188nr - This is a pre-configured build from HP, but a very good one. It does look pretty bulky, but it houses an i7-8750H, a GTX 1070, a 4k anti-glare G-Sync display, 32GB RAM, a 256GB SSD and 2TB HDD, and an 86WHr battery rated to last at least 4.5 hours on casual use. This one is FAR cheaper than the Origin laptop, coming in at $1,900. Dell XPS 15 9570 - The second model up from the cheapest model listed, but with the OS changed to Windows 10 Pro and the SSD changed to a 512GB one. Otherwise comes with a 15.6" 1080p display, 1050Ti, Core i7-8750H, 16GB DDR4 RAM, and a 97WHr battery, which it is my understanding that if your model has the 97WHr battery, there is no space for an extra 2.5" hard disk. If I were to purchase this laptop I would also purchase the Samsung T5 1TB SSD, so that brings the overall cost up to $2,060. Dell G3 17" 3779 - Another Dell. The second most expensive model listed under the G3 17", with the only option changed being up from Windows 10 Home to Pro. This one has 16GB RAM, same CPU at the the others, a 128GB SSD and 1TB 5400rpm HDD (I could upgrade the SSD and hard drives myself later on, but I can make a 128GB SSD work for a while, if I'm stingy about what programs I install), a 1050Ti, and a 1080p IPS panel. This is the cheapest of the options, at $1,160. These are the options I'm mainly looking at right now, if anybody else has a good recommendation, I'd be glad to check it out. Or if any of the above options has a major flaw I should know about, I would appreciate someone informing me. I haven't really checked out many other brands, like Lenovo, Acer, or Asus. I've kind of just stuck with HP, Origin, and Dell for some reason.

After installing the new logic board and installing Windows, I've come to an unfortunate discovery. I was somewhat scammed. I bought the board off a Chinese seller on eBay for 80 bucks. The listing clearly said in the title that it was the board for an HP Pavilion DV7T-7000, with the original Nvidia GeForce GT 650M. However, what I ended up receiving was the motherboard for an HP Envy DV7-7230sw with an Nvidia GeForce GT 630M. I contacted the seller and they gave me ten dollars back. Beyond the slightly degraded GPU (which is unfortunate since this laptop is supposed to be my video editing machine), everything else is functionally the same as the DV7T-7000 board would be.

I made this thread a while back and the ultimate solution was to simply buy a new motherboard for my laptop. Well, it's finally arrived in the mail along with some thermal paste. I ordered it new from a Chinese manufacturer. The boards look mostly the same, however I noticed that there were some definite differences between them, beyond simply the new one being much cleaner. I've attached an image. On the left is the dead motherboard, still inside my machine. On the right is the new one, ready to be swapped out. But there are some noticeable differences. Mainly the placement of the Mini PCIE slot and the extra metal spring on the new one, and the smaller, rectangular shape of the chips on the board. This gives me some anxiety that this board might not be the one I want for some reason, despite them having the same model numbers and everything else seeming to be perfectly fitted. Could this just be minor updates made to the board as newer tech came out, or could I have the wrong board somehow?

What tools would those be? I occasionally do computer repair for friends and family on the side and it would be useful to know this since I wouldn't want to ever make this kind of mistake with someone else's machine and just have to be like "yeah whoops I broke it you'll have to buy a new one".

Thank you, @JoostinOnline, @Droidbot, @WereCatf, and @emosun for your help. I'll buy a new mobo soon and from now on be 500% more careful when dealing with the BIOS.

I'm gonna have to wait a while to save up the money for a new whole motherboard. This a very good lesson though on making damn sure you're on the page for the right model before you install a BIOS update lol. Could a motherboard with a corrupt BIOS sell for scraps?

I'm on mobile and it kept glitching the upload so I posted an imgur link instead. I'm on faster home wifi now so it'll work.

I found these stickers underneath the SODIMM slots when I opened it up. The HP Spare part number looks like the kind of number listed in those eBay listings, so is that what I should be looking for? https://i.imgur.com/pAaKYux_d.jpg

I also just tried the method in this video from HP about making a BIOS recovery USB drive then doing some extra steps, but it still produced the same results.

I selected the option to copy the BIOS files, and it produced a .bin file that PowerISO couldn't open.

It's extremely frustrating that such a simple and easy-to-make mistake can cost me so much time and money to fix.

How can I tell if it's an encrypted file or a raw dump of the code?