D4nt3

That's true. Even though a corporation has a legal personality distinct from the natural persons that comprises the company, it acts trough it's senior officers and board of directors. Without an authority to provide governance, the corporation may rule the country in the same way that a dictator would. Sorry, but not really. The British East India Company was given a royal charter that gave them direct control over territories in India from 1757 to 1858. It was only after the Indian Rebellion of 1857 that the British Empire took this privilege away and instituted direct control. Appointed Governor-Generals ruled over other parts of India but are often powerless to interfere with the Company. Charles Cornwallis was one of the few exceptions. I've given the East India Company as an example because I feel it was historically close to the issue. It was meant to serve as a possible predictor of what could happen if a corporation ruled a country. @asus killer also made a good point about King Leopold and his reign over the Congo which I personally consider one of the darkest points in human history.

That's correct. I did not use it as an example because King Leopold exercised it in his capacity as an absolute monarch. The sadder part of that history is that, as an absolute monarch, every Congolese is is considered his personal property.

If you mean "buy a country and rule it," yes that's possible. It's not that far fetched as long as we realize that government is different from land ownership. What will take place is not a purchase of all available lands and waters, but rather, a voluntary secession of sovereignty and transfer of the right to govern by the existing government to a corporation for whatever consideration both parties agrees on. This is no different from one country telling another country it's relinquishing itself to that country, another country invading another country, a person hiring mercenaries to overthrow an existing government and name himself President, Supreme Leader, Dictator, or whatever he wants to call himself. Before this can be done, that country's legislature may need to exercise some form of legal remedy that would grant a juridical person, such as that corporation, the right to rule. This may not be necessary but it does give a semblance of legitimacy to the transaction. I would presume that the corporation will govern the country in a style similar to either absolute monarchy, totalitarian regime. or dictatorship. Whatever form it takes, it will be unique. Private ownership and businesses may continue to exist, or the corporation may choose to expropriate them in it's favor. It would be interesting to see how it would behave towards the public domain -- all bodies of lands and waters within it's territory and the animals, plants, minerals, oil, ores, etc. contained therein. The state owns everything in the public domain, but the dominion it exercises over them is not akin to ownership in the traditional sense, but rather, it exercises patrimony over the public domain in favor of it's people and future generations. Whether a corporation would exercise the same obligation remains to be seen. A company ruling over a country in not unprecedented in history. The British East India Company when it seized control of India is one example. The Dutch East Indies Company also ruled territories in favor of their government. Arguably they may not have exercised absolute control but acted as representative of their government, but what transpired is close to a corporation owning a country. Corporations don't go to this extent because there are cheaper ways to accomplish the same goal. Instead they would bribe corrupt officials, destabilize an unfriendly government, and even sponsor a coup. Some methods are not that hostile. Many corporations, with the aid of their own government, simply exercise a sphere of influence over a country, Japan might offer assistance to less developed nations to develop it's infrastructures so long as the contract is awarded to a Japanese company. This is a typical first world nation practice that's been adopted by China as well. The US normally gives aid and favorable loans to countries in exchange for US nationals and corporations to be given rights to own property and exploit resources in that country but the privilege is not always reciprocal. This is politely referred to as a parity rights agreement, but the locals call it rape. In the example of Samsung buying South Korea, if that happens, do we start calling Koreans ... Samsunites ?

Yeah, knowing the context would be great. He could be threatening someone and we end up being accessories.

You're probably overreacting. He probably had his hands in his pocket because it's cold.

I don't hate Apple Inc., and by extension, the people who work there and the people who buy Apple products. I simply don't buy them because: I like choice. I refuse to allow myself be trapped by a company in its own ecosystem. I'm practical with my money. I get better technology for half the price. I'm not a child and I refuse to surrender my freedom to decide for myself to a corporation. I place more value on function over form. They look nice but that's it. I don't find real value in what they're selling.

In the strictest sense of the word, there's really no "fake" NVIDIA or AMD graphics card because the GPU needs to licensed and sourced from them directly. It's not economically feasible for counterfeiters to produce fake cards because the GPU takes up majority of the cost and there's no cheaper alternative. NVIDIA and AMD furthers their protection by controlling the driver that runs these cards. Remember, the licensee (e.g. Asus, Gigabyte, Palit, etc,) doesn't provide the driver, it's NVIDIA and AMD that does that. However, what you got there is an example of how counterfeiters managed to get around this. It is fake in the sense that it's being misrepresented. Obviously it's not a GTX960, the VGA connector is the dead giveaway. most probably a 6xx or a 7xx series card if you're lucky. While the counterfeiter will not have access to legit GPUs and a license to make cards, he does have access to overruns and excess inventory primarily from Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM). The worse part is it may be one of the units that failed quality control testing. Notice that the packaging does not follow NVIDIA's design. The licensee's name or logo (i.e. Asus, Gigabyte, etc) should be on the upper left quadrant, the right upper quadrant usually show's the licensee's branding (i.e. Strix, Windforce, Frozr, etc.). The GPU family should be on the lower right corner bounded by a green highlight that extends to the side of the box. The actual GPU model should be indicated, it cannot simply say "GeForce Series". The only thing they got right was the feature set that's on the lower left quadrant of the box. By omitting the branding, the counterfeiter has circumvented most copyright and trademark laws, specially China's mediocre copyright laws. Think about it, you can't say it's a fake because it's not a copy of any legit manufacturer. It's a fake of what brand? They never placed any brand on the box. All they said on the box was NVIDIA, and it does have a genuine NVIDIA GPU. But you're a person of reasonable intelligence and point to that sticker on the card that says NVIDIA GTX960. The response would go something like this, "Oh, NVIDIA means the brand of GPU, and the GTX960 is our internal model number. Thousand apologies for the confusion." Followed by hypocritical bowing pretending to save face as if he had honor in the first place. They would even argue that there's no misrepresentation because they never said on the box that it's a GTX960. All they said was "NVIDIA GeSeries" which is true and more disturbing because it goes beyond the GTX line and includes all consumer oriented NVIDIA GPUs released from 1999 onwards. In many legal jurisdictions, the box, and what's printed on it, is what advertises the product to the consumer. The serial number sticker does not form part of product representation to the customer because it's a device for product identification designed and for use by the manufacturer. That's assuming you know who the manufacturer is. I doubt if the maker listed on the box is legit. Actually, you're lucky if there's a manufacturer name on the box at all.

Based on the pictures I'm confident it is 100% legit. Don't be concerned if the price seems low. The price of GTX9XX series cards have fallen in response to the GTX1050 and GTX1060 who took over the price point previously held by these cards. In SE Asia where I live, the price of GTX9XX have fallen even lower as distributors dispose of old inventory. I would suggest going for a GTX1050 if you can find one within your budget. It will give about 10% better overall performance plus it's more power efficient because it does not require any external power, instead, it draws all it's power from the motherboard. Notice that the Gigabyte GTX960 needs to be powered by 2 external PCI power connectors and that's on top of the power it draws from the motherboard. That's one of the reasons why the GTX960 wasn't very popular with users opting to skip it and go with the 950 for cooler operation or either going with the 970 or 980 for faster operation. The 1050 also runs cooler and one fan is enough which means less possibility of noise.

I use to remove them after a while and toss my head like those girls in them shampoo commercials. Until I realized I'm getting weird looks from other people because I'm bald.

Sadly EVGA PSUs are available but hard to find in the Philippines. Very few stores stock them. Mid and top tier PSUs from Thermaltake, Corsair, and Seasonic are available in PC Hub. They also carry 20 variants of EVGA PSUs. You can check their prices here: https://awesome-table.com/-KrkkVbKZR_HZ2x8lsHk/view You can contact them here: https://www.facebook.com/pchub/ Even with the small delivery charge you'd still be hard pressed to find prices lower lower than theirs. Also, they have the best return policy I've experienced. Actually, the fact that they follow the law and honor returns already puts them ahead of 99% of local computer stores.

Memory is bit tricky and for best results you'll need to run your memory diagnostics multiple times. Undervolting won't really help at this point, we'd like to keep your laptop as close as possible to the manufacturer's specs because it might mask the true problem. It would also be possible that the power supply is the problem. There's no easy way for your test the internal VRMs, but you can try using another power brick. If none is available, I would suggest getting a universal power brick (90W at least). They come with multiple adapters for various brands and some are even smaller than original bricks. But do this last as it involves some cost.

This is a locked processor and can't be overclocked or underclocked. The only way to accomplish this on a 6th gen locked processor is to have BIOS and motherboard support, which I doubt this laptop would have. Undervolting and overvolting are halfway measures to achieve a semblance of overclocking. There's no harm in trying but I would exercise extreme caution in overvolting though. This CPU is very sensitive to higher voltages. A little tndervolting is preferred and it actually improves CPU performance. Again, I strongly urge you exercise extreme caution with the CPU. Unlike desktops, a laptop's CPU is typically soldered on the motherboard and non-replaceable.

Yes it will run CS GO but you won't be happy with the result. If you buy that unit, your actual cost would be over $200 because you need to add a hard drive. Even if it comes with a hard drive you're already paying too much for a first generation i5 at $160. Here's the most practical advice I can give you if you're on a very tight budget: DOTA will run on virtually anything released in the past 7 years, it's CS GO that requires more. Try looking for a laptop with a GT6xx series or better graphics card. The GT640M is the most common. It will be able to run CS GO at around 38 frames per second (FPS) at low settings. It won't be buttery smooth but it's playable. The GT6xx is your minimum with GTX9xx as the ideal if you can find a good deal. For the processor, avoid Dual Core and Celeron completely. Stick with i5 and i7 and set the minimum to 3rd generation CPU. They're called Ivy Bridge and will have model numbers like i5-3xx0M, i53xx7U, i5-3xxSY, i7-36x0QM, i7-37xxXM, Look for i5-33xxM and i7-3630QM. These CPUs perform at 2GHz and comes with improved integrated graphics. Ideal would be an i7-3630QM + GT640M + 4GB RAM + 500GB hard drive unit at around $200.

Random shutdowns and reboots can also be caused by failing memory. For now, let's assume what you encountered with the battery is a separate and unrelated issue. You can try running the memory diagnostic that came with Windows, or search for a better diagnostic app. Removing the DRAM would help in isolating the problem. But, we can't obviously do that with the soldered RAM, let's hope the problem isn't here. Total shot in the dark advice: see if there's an option in the BIOS to disable the built-in memory. I'm hoping that if Asus decided to solder the RAM, then they would have foreseen the possibility that the user would want to disable it because either the memory goes bad or the user want to upgrade using a higher capacity RAM. Failing hard drives don't normally crash systems. More often Windows is able to catch this and exit gracefully. If you suspect the hard drive, an easier way to check would be to remove it, connect it to another computer and run diagnostics there.

During the course of my professional life, the companies I've worked for have exclusively used Thinkpads and a Dell Latitude in one company. We're not stupid. We know full well that these machines are worth far more less than the sum of their parts. I remember the Thinkpad when they were still made by IBM. They were clunky, heavy, boring matte black, but hold one and you'll feel like they could stop a bullet, You walk into a client meeting and it commands attention. It gives you instant credibility whether you deserve or not. The IBM badge means a pedigree anchored on reliability, innovation, and quality. But that's in the past. The laptops that Lenovo are currently churning out are a far cry from the Thinkpads I remember. Reliability and quality were the first to go. It's not unusual for us to see components fail within the first few months because there's always something that goes wrong with each iteration. Lenovo took an icon and demolished everything special about it. Thinkpads today are simply on the same league with everything else. Which makes me wonder, if the Thinkpad branding is removed, would the laptop sell on Lenovo's name alone?