bmichaels556

Oh, no I meant I tried plugging the laptop into the router just to see if that would help for some reason, but it didn't. My main computer (with the USB drive) is wired though. I'll check that out.

Shoot... Didn't seem to make any difference. Actually, it's weird because I was able to share as a media device for some reason, and the settings in firewall and wherever else seem to match for sharing files, but no luck.

Man, this is extremely annoying. Just got a Thinkpad T440s and so my sort of "home server" setup is a simple shared 4TB USB HDD and it's worked pretty well overall. I've noticed transfer speeds can be fairly low, but I'm not sure if it's my crappy ISP-supplied router, or if there's some kind of additional overhead that makes a USB drive slower over a network the way I have it set up. I'm not really sure. Even still, when it works, it functions well! Even if it can be pretty slow... It still is totally sufficient for streaming 1080p movies and things like that. One problem I've noticed is that some machines, namely one of my older laptops as well as this T440s, REFUSE to see the shared folder over the network. One of my old laptops did totally fine with it. Also, my two phones, both with ES File Manager work perfectly as well. Likewise, my T440s is able to be seen by the main computer, as well as my phone(s). It's extremely frustrating... Anyone have this problem before? Were you able to fix it? I even decided to wire up the laptop just for curiosity but that didn't help either. Would appreciate any help you could give me. Also, any tips on speeding everything up would be great, but not the critical problem at the moment.

Ha same. I was surprised how good my RX 480 is at folding than my CPU. Kinda' like mining I guess. Out of curiosity, what kind of points per day are you seeing with the 5700? I lowered power limit on my RX 480 to not heat up my room too much, but at full power it seems to be getting well over 400,000. Right now it's showing ~360,000 at -40% power. Only thing is, it spends quite a bit of time trying to get new work units rather than actually folding..

Well... It depends. 1440p supersampled should still look quite good on your TV. Now, if the panel looks like crap and is preventing you from being more immersed, then I could kind of understand replacing it. A 1070 or Vega 56 would still benefit your current setup. If I were going 5700XT, I probably would change monitors as well, but you wouldn't need to. If the input lag is quite that bad, you'd notice it. He's likely exaggerating. But if he has a much better display, it will be easier for him to notice the input lag. Okay, the latter part of that makes me wonder about his credibility now lmao. I mean like, there could be some truth to it. Like, you're probably begging for something bad to happen if you're running a 3950X on the cheapest board you can find lmao. But that doesn't sound like the case here, so he's mostly bullshitting or just messing with you or whatever.

Not really... I've found it more to depend on the drive that the games are stored on. One game that was REALLY bad about storage speed was Fallout 4. If it wasn't on an SSD, the whole game would slow to a crawl, and often. Your setup is fine. Don't sweat it.

Would have loved to help with my main system, but the damn client doesn't work on it... But hey, I'll participate on my laptop! Even if I don't win anything, it's the least I could do.

TLDR: I mostly like my T440s w/ i7-4600U but the battery life and potential inability to get new/extended batteries on the cheap kind of sucks. I need enough performance for basic 1080p30 and sometimes 1080p60 edits (no color correction or any other extensive visual effects), Good battery life, and ability to game, even if at the very low end. The HD 4400 is mostly okay for the types of games I expect to play on a laptop, but better is better of course. Original choice was an Acer Swift 3 w/ 8th Gen i5 and maybe an MX150, but I figured I would be better off waiting to see what AMD's Renoir would bring to the mobile space, so I opted to go for something cheap until either Renoir comes out, or until they start putting Navi on mobile. But maybe this T440s isn't right for me? Mostly along the lines of battery life, I don't have a whole lot of complaints about anything else... The X220 and X230 seemed nice too with good CPU performance, but graphics are significantly worse than the HD 4400. Battery life does seem impressive though, and 12.5" doesn't really scream out as being the sort of "jack of all trades, master of none" laptop that I'd be looking for... What do you guys think? ------------------------------------------------ Out the door, it all came out to about $160. It's in great shape, has an i7-4600U, 8GB RAM, and I already had a 240GB SSD lying around. Oh, and I had to install the batteries myself, as the laptop was sold alone. Came w/ IPS 1080p display which is really nice to look at. Despite being heavy and pretty thick on paper, it still feels handy in the real world and seems thinner and lighter than it sounds. As far as normal usage, I'm impressed at how this old thing does and how snappy it feels. Although it's not that surprising since it still has decent clock speeds. But it puts my last laptop (a cheapo Dell w/ i3-1010U) to shame in every way. Screen, build quality, performance (even in the light gaming I've tested on it). The keyboard is also really nice as well! Much better than other laptops I've used. One area I've been disappointed is battery life. I'm hearing figures of like 7-8 hours. Laptopmag seemed to put the i5 version at about 7.5 hours which is still great, and a massive 14+ hours with the extended battery. I did notice that my internal battery is showing about 11% wear in hwmonitor. And a much larger 26% on the back detachable battery. Real-world battery run time seems to be more like 3.5 hours or in that ballpark under normal browsing conditions. Now, I do figure that the i7 model will get a bit less battery life than the i5. So doing the math, let's just ballpark at 6.5 hours. It could be more, but I'm being conservative. That's 390 minutes. Let's subtract 36% of that battery life to wear. So that's 390 - 140. So that's 250 minites, or 4.16 hours. Okay, so then that sort of seems to make sense, right? I have a good amount of wear on these batteries, so I think that match is at least in the ballpark. Problem is, how would one source a battery that is new(er) and less used? I think it would be much better with the massive extended battery especially one that's degraded less. Even if it starts to get a little clunky, 10 hours or more from this thing would be awesome! I was messing around with XTU but quickly realized that lowering voltage and clock speeds was really only going to extend battery life under load by limiting load. But under normal use, power usage seems to be pretty low anyway, so the results don't seem to be too different in that case... I also messed with maxing out the multiplier and increasing power limit, but it instantly thermal throttled lmao. I'm curious what others have achieved though. Might look around for my own curiosity. I'm just not sure where I'm going to get a handier package with still decent performance. I will say that the X220 and X230 seem to have amazing battery life and have higher TDP CPU's, but graphics performance does suffer... Is my best bet maybe to just try to track down better batteries? Maybe I just expect a bit too much. Afterall, this annihilates anything you'll get at Walmart for the same price. Though one benefit you to tend to get for crappy performance is nice battery life. I liked my Asus X205 which got amazing battery life but was a tiny quad core Atom but everyday browsing was more than acceptable. I had an Asus 403SA as well, but it performed worse, mostly due to ridiculously slow storage speeds... Anything else I should be looking at? My problem is that I need enough performance for basic 1080p30 video editing (very simple edits, no color correction etc) while also getting nice battery life and ability to play older games. The T440s fits all of that (sort of)...

Do many variables like contrast ratio like others have said. And panel quality can be MASSIVE. I remember I had this old Gateway laptop from 2008 that overheated to hell. But that's besides the point. It was a 15.4" display at (I believe) 1280 x 800? Would that work out to a 16:10 aspect ratio? I think so. Point being, it was absolutely gorgeous to look at. One of the laptops I eventually replaced it with, was clearly a much worse panel and you could visibly see the little breaks between pixels despite it being a 14" screen at 1080p, that's more than double the PPI! So these are things to keep in mind for sure. It's why I'm generally skeptical to just buy any kind of TV or monitor without good reviews of it, or seeing it in person. Because resolution and PPI just ain't all that matters..

Extremely informative. Will be an awesome place to start, thanks!

Mind if I message you for some questions? You have me curious ha.

How would one go about coming across these auctions? Yeah I remember some friends of mine upstate NY were literally only one of three people to show up to an auction for a piece of land. They paid like $12,000 and sold it for like $45,000 a year later, just like that. They flipped a house this way too but the husband did all the work over several years and the actual profits came out to like $35,000 a year, but man, if you can get that work done as fast as possible and hire people, that's a good chunk of change, especially if you wait a year for capital gains 20% tax... I think this is going to be a good bet for all kinds of deals as long as you know what you're looking for. I guess that's where experience and expertise comes in. Yeah... I gotta' get out to a few.

Ideal for reasonable shipping prices when selling 'em too... Those are probably the idea type of desktops one could go for. Have one myself that I use as a cheapo file server and it does more than I need it to.

Yeah, I'm well aware that there are a ton of people doing this. Otherwise, these places wouldn't tell me they "have people for it" already. Another issue is that depending on what hardware I come across, I could need many hundreds of units a year to make a full living, and I just don't see how I'd source that.

Yeah, but the problem is that I'm mostly looking for a decent-paying side hustle outside of my current full time job, which is where this kind of gig (doing it on my own) would be good from what I could tell. The other thing is that per hour worked, I'll be making easily 2-3x more and still be able to do it on top of my current job.. I'm 100% going to see what's around in my local school district(s) and universities. Maybe something comes up that's good enough to replace my current job.

I'm no computer genius, but I'm fairly knowledgeable have fixed many of my own computer issues, as well as those of friends. I've built several and know my way around them well enough to be able to properly diagnose and fix problems. So of course the question to myself was, "Why not try to find old computers from those who pretty much do nothing with them, pay them x-amount (or pay them x-percentage of the profits to lower my risk) and flip them on Ebay?" But sourcing any has been WAY easier said than done. I called every single school in my area for example, including multiple universities. Either they don't have any on hand, have people who already handle this for them, don't pick up the phone, or completely ignore me and don't call back. My final option that I haven't tried yet is my local scrapyard which said they get a fair amount of computers coming in but their condition is all across the spectrum from trashed to like-new. The manager said he'd be fine with working something out for me. I'm maybe going to stop there on Saturday. The only thing that sucks about that is that there will probably be quite a mix of hardware. One thing that is going to be great is that in a school, a lot of the machines you're going to obtain from them will be similar or even the same, other hand maybe a few variations, so you could stick them into a single Ebay listing for example. Not really the case with a huge mix of different stuff. Still, it's one of my last options. I haven't called any of those other places in several months because I got so incredibly fed up with their antics (not the people who already have partners for this, but the ones who ignore you or never answer) that I gave up for the time being. Jesus, if I could somehow get a single medium to large business / institution to supply me, I'd be in REALLY good shape. Hell, I'd love to fix their computer issues as well if the pay is even a quarter decent. I think it comes down to this: I'm willing to hustle, but it's getting the opportunity that's been tough. For those of you who did this kind of thing, what tips you could give me on sourcing hardware or even repair jobs / clientele? Thanks!

Seems like the older "LE" series processors actually sell for decent money on ebay. I have like 9 or 10 of 'em sitting around. Problem is, I don't know how to actually identify/price them. I figured it would be faster to just scrap them, but of course I'll get less. ALL are Semprons. I guess I have the same question for 754 socket as well as... 939 was it? I have a bunch of those as well and I'm figuring they're probably worth scrapping. Any experience with offloading CPU's from these sockets? Then again, upon further inspection, even 754 and 939 are selling for decent prices, which I did NOT expect. Maybe worth it to just sell? Anyone happen to want 'em? Thanks so much for your help!

Can't Vega 56's and 1070's be had for around 200? They're still a smokin' deal, maybe even more so the Vega 56 but it depends on the game.

Looks like based on the others' information, this won't quite work. I wonder if you could go with something like a golf cart battery, charge it using the outlet during driving, and then be able to run the PS4 off of it lmao. Weird idea, but one that might possibly work if you're willing.

Originally I was thinking of going with laptop that was sort of a "do-all" solution. That I could properly game on, get work done, and whatever else. But I realized that to get the mobile gaming performance I wanted, I'd at LEAST have to go with a 1050, and even that's lacking. So I figured, "why not just go for something used under $200?" I've mostly given up on a gaming laptop because I need something nice and portable and that gets good battery life, but as I've learned, gaming laptops usually don't hold up well in either category. Right now I've really been looking at going with something like a 5th or 6th gen i5. One particular laptop I've been eyeing is the Lenovo T460 which I think I could snag for around the $200 price range if I send out a good number of offers. Going to be worlds better than my Asus E403SA. Hell, I swear my old AMD Turion laptop was faster than this thing. Seems like what the T460 sacrifices in terms of weight and thickness, it makes up for in battery life and sheer ruggedness. But maybe there are less "brand name" options that will fit my needs? Like I said, primarily battery life and responsiveness. Maybe that supports NVMe also, but a SATA III SSD is fine by me as well. My main uses: General stuff, writing content for my multiple sites, watching YouTube videos, pretty usual stuff. I also occasionally edit videos on the go (usually 1080p60 at the top end, but will sometimes mess around with 4K30). I don't need it to handle video editing perfectly, just good enough that it works and can be done. And from what I can tell, even a 5th or 6th gen i5 should do the trick in my case. I think that about covers it. Thanks for your help!

Appreciate that info, it's been extremely helpful!

Great suggestions, thanks! I'll have to look up some reviews on these models. Yeah, I think I'll stay away from 1440p. I'm willing to buy most things used, but for some reason used monitors irk me. I also think at this point, I have to keep it at 27" since I sit about 2.5-3 feet away from my display. My old setup, even if a little small at 21", I was still sitting closer, so it wasn't as bad. That Acer Nitro looks pretty decent tbh... P.S., I think 144fps is going to be higher than my current CPU and GPU will handle. Am I able to easily set different refresh rates either through the display or Windows? Probably a noob question, but it's one that hasn't come up for me until now.

lmao "you should go to jail" that made my night.

I mean it's what, like 25% increase? I used to run on an Asus 1080p 21.5" monitor. Now I realize how small that thing was. For the last year or so, I've been using a crappy Vizio 28" TV, if only for the increased size for a monitor. It's been "okay", but low resolution definitely shows out here. I don't sit right on top of my monitor, but you can definitely tell a difference. I mean it's half the pixels, stretched another 6.5". So I've been looking to upgrade for something reasonable priced. Originally I was going to go with a 1440p monitor, but I'm only running an RX 480 8GB right now, and for recent games, it's not quite where I need it to be for nice 1440p 60fps gaming. So I'm leaning towards 1080p with a bump in refresh rate and using AA, which I think I'll be more than satisfied with. Right now I'm eyeing this guy: https://www.amazon.com/BenQ-GL2760H-Technology-ZeroFlicker-Certified/dp/B00IZBIMLK/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=1080p+27"&qid=1576029253&sr=8-3 It claims 75 hz but others in that series seem to be 60. Does it seem like the 75 Hz versions are "pre-overclocked" and just sort of binned to be able to do it? Or do you think I'd be able to hit 90 Hz on it? If this won't fit my needs, what would be my best bet under $200 for higher than 60fps, as well as a decent display, decent blacks, decent response time. Nothing has to be best-in-class, but just be a really nice bang for my buck for a bit of everything. Content creation, gaming, and just generally being nice to use. Thanks so much!!

Yeah overall then, I think I'm leaning towards the Alienware rig in this case. But that's just me. Ultimately it's up to you to decide, but when I hear "256GB SSD" on the CyberPower, my mind is perceiving that as a SATA SSD, where as "PCIe SSD" implies (in my mind) an M.2 NVMe SSD. Keep in mind though... In real world use, most people would never really notice the major difference. If you think you'll need the extra CPU horsepower of the Ryzen 7 3700X, I would 100% go with that instead. The Ryzen gains far more as a general workstation CPU, compared to the small decrease in gaming performance, and only at 1080p with high framerates. If you plan on gaming at 1440p or more, it'll never matter. Although it is the non-K version, so it still may be dead even in gaming, but you gain so much more with all those extra threads on the Ryzen 7.. Like I said, I can only help you understand the strengths and weaknesses of each system, but it'll be up to you how that fits into your plans for using the system you pick. But ultimately? If you don't cancel your order and just go with the CyberPower rig, I think you'll really like it and will have absolutely ZERO regrets once you actually use it. So for the sake of simplicity, I would probably stick with your order. Trust me, you'll dig it.