Some Goodness Not Related To Linux

In my spare time, I game on my gaming PC.  Once upon a time, I had a gaming laptop.  It's not been used for close to 2 years, as the graphics card went bad.

This particular system is an Alienware M17x R3.  I was torn between getting the same graphics card (the GTX 580M, a dedicated mobile graphics card) or upgrading to something like the 680M or 780M.

It's taken me this long to decide.  I decided to stick with the 580M, knowing that this card will probably also go bad within 1-2 years (they are not long-in-the-tooth).  Why the 580M?  Because I didn't feel like hacking the laptop to get the 680M or above to work.  They aren't plug-n-play and require some effort to get to work.  I wanted no fuss.  Plus, the 580M is now a lot cheaper...I got this one for $125, whereas 2 years ago, they were running twice that.

The card I bought was still in it's original packaging, (ie, it was new).

It arrived last night and I spent most of my evening installing it and then struggling with the laptop.  There was another issue that I had issues fixing.  The damned battery was drained.  In this system, it appears that the system throttles down when the battery isn't working.  The system was very slow and at first I thought I had grounded something within the internals of the system when I had it open.

I studied up in my spare time at work tonight, got home, removed the battery from the system, rebooted the system and it acted like it was a NEW system!  Before then, it would refuse to install the many system patches waiting for it, as well as auto-updating programs such as Steam, Origin, and other programs.

I'm glad I decided to try that first, as I was almost ready to try to re-install the OS.

A new battery is on the way.

I will attempt to game on this system this weekend.  I've it tethered to my 27" iMac (using it as a extra monitor, a neat trick that Macs can do).

The card appears to be working well.  If it dies within a year, I'll consider upgrading, as some of the newer cards last longer.  If it lasts two years, I'll consider buying another 580M.

At some point, I should consider running Linux and using the Steam Linux client.