Im after buying a new laptop but limited to the choices here in Nz,

I'd like to use it for a bit of gaming as well as using Office 2010 and adobe photoshop.

Which would suit my needs better;

8gb RAM and dual processor or 4gb RAM and quad processor?

Photoshop prefers faster processors on the whole and if you're limited on the RAM, a decent hard drive will help.

Office 2010 is a bit irrelevant. Most smart phones can probably run it.

And games should be fine unless you want to play BF3 on Ultra settings or something.

Wasn't sure where to post this so I posted just about the same on the gaming thread.

Recently bought Halo 4 and Black Ops 2, but. When I play online, infact don't even have to be online gaming just have to be connected to Xbox Live. I regulary get disconnected from XL. Now I don't have the best internet connection and know next to nothing about download/upload speeds etc. I've tried wired and wireless but still always lose connection. Never lose connection via my laptop though.
I've spoken to my interent provider (Karoo, who are awful) and then seem to think I have a faulty phone line? If so is this fixable?
Could my router be the problem, seeing as I've had it for about 6 years maybe longer?
I'd heard of something called a gaming profile which I asked karoo about and they said they will put it on for me, which is something to do with interleaving?
Basically any suggestions would be brilliant and nothing stupid like move out of Hull

Cheers guys.

Have you looked into port forwarding? I did it on my router the other week. It's a bit of messing about if you don't know much about router settings and I.P addresses though. You first of all need to give the xbox a static I.P address and then if you look on google for the xbox live ports you need to then go into your router settings and forward those particular ports to your xbox. This might give you a better connection. worth a try anyway. Not got all the information to hand but if you google it there are plenty of guides to help with the port forwarding. also if you go onto www.speedtest.io you can test your broadband connection which will give you your speeds etc. and your ping, the lower the ping the better.

Have you looked into port forwarding? I did it on my router the other week. It's a bit of messing about if you don't know much about router settings and I.P addresses though. You first of all need to give the xbox a static I.P address and then if you look on google for the xbox live ports you need to then go into your router settings and forward those particular ports to your xbox. This might give you a better connection. worth a try anyway. Not got all the information to hand but if you google it there are plenty of guides to help with the port forwarding. also if you go onto www.speedtest.io you can test your broadband connection which will give you your speeds etc. and your ping, the lower the ping the better.

Robbo wrote:Have you looked into port forwarding? I did it on my router the other week. It's a bit of messing about if you don't know much about router settings and I.P addresses though. You first of all need to give the xbox a static I.P address and then if you look on google for the xbox live ports you need to then go into your router settings and forward those particular ports to your xbox. This might give you a better connection. worth a try anyway. Not got all the information to hand but if you google it there are plenty of guides to help with the port forwarding. also if you go onto http://www.speedtest.io you can test your broadband connection which will give you your speeds etc. and your ping, the lower the ping the better. How good at this stuff are you? I already have a PS3 that I have already forwarded a port for in the past following a set up I found online a few months back. Anyway, I've just got an Xbox and I'm trying to open the ports it needs, 53, 80, etc. but it appears the ports I have open for my PS3 are conflicting with the ones I need to open for my Xbox. Basically, the Xbox needs 1863 and 3074, but the PS3 already has from 443 to 3478 open. Now, the way I'm doing it with my Xbox seems to be different with the PS3, with the PS3 I just added one service with the start port 443 and end port 3478, with the Xbox I'm doing them individually, i.e. start 53, end 53. Do I go back and edit the PS3 one ad make them start 443 end 443 and start 3478 and end 3478? If you don't know, fair enough.

Robbo wrote:Have you looked into port forwarding? I did it on my router the other week. It's a bit of messing about if you don't know much about router settings and I.P addresses though. You first of all need to give the xbox a static I.P address and then if you look on google for the xbox live ports you need to then go into your router settings and forward those particular ports to your xbox. This might give you a better connection. worth a try anyway. Not got all the information to hand but if you google it there are plenty of guides to help with the port forwarding. also if you go onto http://www.speedtest.io you can test your broadband connection which will give you your speeds etc. and your ping, the lower the ping the better. How good at this stuff are you? I already have a PS3 that I have already forwarded a port for in the past following a set up I found online a few months back. Anyway, I've just got an Xbox and I'm trying to open the ports it needs, 53, 80, etc. but it appears the ports I have open for my PS3 are conflicting with the ones I need to open for my Xbox. Basically, the Xbox needs 1863 and 3074, but the PS3 already has from 443 to 3478 open. Now, the way I'm doing it with my Xbox seems to be different with the PS3, with the PS3 I just added one service with the start port 443 and end port 3478, with the Xbox I'm doing them individually, i.e. start 53, end 53. Do I go back and edit the PS3 one ad make them start 443 end 443 and start 3478 and end 3478? If you don't know, fair enough.

Yeh sounds like you've opened up too many ports there.

You do each one on its own so like you say, start and ending on the same number will open that port to it's assigned I.P. So open and end on 443 and again for 3478 as far as the ps3 concerned.


Now for the xbox you can enter the i.p addresses and gateways in manually going through your settings. When you get to the network section where the settings are obtained automatically you can press on manual. If you don't make it static, everytime you start the xbox it's I.P on the network could be different and you'll end up not always having the ports open.

If you don't know what all you're network details are, from the start window click on run, type cmd and load the command prompt. Then when that open's type in ipconfig/all and hit enter, You'll be given your dns servers and default gateways aswell as your pc's address which is usually along the lines of 192.168.0.?...


I'm not very good at explaining thing's but there are plenty of guides on google. once you've got a static ip on the xbox forward the ports
Port 88 (UDP)
Port 3074 (UDP and TCP)
Port 53 (UDP and TCP)
Port 80 (TCP)


do them all individually. It might not help if the issue is with your provider but you never know.



On another subject, anyone on here use sky player on the pc? I run it through my TV as an extended desktop and everytime I go back and click on anything on my pc's monitor it goes out of full screen. BBC I and anything else I watch doesn't do this and it's driving me potty!

can anyone help me with this, my lad wants a laptop and pvr for xmas but thats costing way to much so could i run a pvr of a netbook?
I dont know anything about pvr's and was just wondering if a netbook would support the running of one.
When you record stuff does it save to the pvr or your netbook (he is wanting to record cod live games).

Posted this in games thread incase some people use pvr without recording gameplay

As a technology Luddite can anyone help me with this.

My wife wants an iPad for Xmas and I have been looking at the new ones, but some are WiFi and others are WiFi & 3G. If I bought the latter I know I can use the WiFi bit through my system at home, but what does the 3G do and do you have to pay monthly fees as in a phone to use it out of the house.

Thanks (and explanation will need to be written for a 55 yr old, not a 15 yr old

Apart from one that comes with a HDD built in they record to the computer and take up a lot of space and on top of that to render it etc you need a good computer so a netbook would be pretty much useless for the job.



For the 3G you would need a sim card and data plan.

Cheers, I'll skip that one and get the WiFi only I think as its £100 dearer.