Acer Aspire 5920G



Specks:

Intel(R) Core(TM) 2 Duo Processor T8100 (2.1 GHz, 800MHx FSB, 3 MB L2 Cache)
15.4" WXGA Acer CrystalBrite(TM) LCD (8 ms / 220-nit)
NVIDIA(R) Geforce(TM) 8600M GT TurboCache(TM) 512 MB dedicated up to 1280 MB
3 GB DDR2
250 GB HDD
DVD Super Multi DL
802.11a/b/g/Draft-N WLAN




It looks pretty nice although the different colors on the inside and outside are not really all that great. It has various ports and things here are some pictures from the left side of the notebook:





Here is the front:



Here is the right side:



There are also some extra buttons on the side: wifi switch, internet, email, and half assed blue tooth:



The blue tooth is half assed on the matter of being only compatible with certain acer branded headsets and such.

The other side of the laptop has all the media keys, >/||, [], >>|, |<<, O and the wierd acer/person button thing:



Here is the thing on the vista logon screen:



Here is the webcam / microphone:



Here is what it looks like when logged on and my desktop:



Its preaty decent for the price I got it for as I can play CS: Source with Maxed Graphics NO AA with ~100FPS, Warcraft 3: Frozen Throne DotA 60FPS(Maxed), Dawn of War up to Soulstorm Maxed settings with no slowdown ~60-80FPS. It got a 3dMark06 score of 3870(basic Free Tests), It has a battery life of 2-4 hours depending on the performance settings, wifi, aero, and screen brightness/contrast.

PROS:
- Price/Performance
-- Penryn
-- 8600GT
- Outside Case
- Draft N Wifi

Cons
- Inside of case colour
- Speakers - higher volumes lead to distortion as well garbling
- Half-Assed Blue Tooth
- Acer Support Website, Laggy beyond belief lucky if page actually loads without getting a time out error.
-- Not much in tearms of Driver/Downloads, Only original display drivers as far as I know on the NA website could not ever load the driver page had to check European FTP page.



Based on my experiences with it so far I give it an overall 8 /10

The quest for the Shark


It all began at the end of my grade 11 school year, the summer was hot and I was in need of a gaming rig capable of handling any game out. My friend was working at an assembly line like place for the summer, I was working at a food processing plant that made bread, I was doing various things there like working with dough that was sent through the line and later baked. This lasted about a week and then my friend called me and said there were some possible work opening and got me in.

This was a good way for me to make money as the pas was $10/hour compared to $8 at my old work. It was not easy though I had to work as part of the shipping team. As a team we would get IBM cash registers from from testing and we would dis-assemble them so they could be shipped in cube like boxes. Having no AC and hauling the register from spot to spot in order to box them was not a very pleasant thing to do but in the end it all worked out.

the supervisor was very lenient as was evident by some people doing absolutely nothing and all that was said, "Hows it going guys? OK!" This fueled my anger as I had to bust my ass while these Jackasses did nothing. I had no more of it so me and my friend decided to extend out breaks by a couple of minutes every day and near the last couple of days that I worked there our break, due to a scheduling error, was almost 2 and a half hours. The following week I had gone on vacation.

The vacation was great but that is when I began to think about the possible components I would need to quench my thirst for a gaming rig. The vacation in Maine was great it allowed me to recall the recent games that were out and their specks. As well I had though about some good components that could last for a couple of years without having to upgrade.

Upon my return me and my friend collaborated on the components we would need. We found a small shop that had the best prices for the things we needed as well as having to pay no labor fees if bought two of the same PCs and paid in cash. This was then followed by the list of specks what we had decided on after deliberation with the shop owner, and there it was:

___________________________________________________________________________
Case: Thermaltake Shark Black
Motherboard: Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+
Memory: Corsair XMS2 TWIN2X2048-6400C4 2GB DDR2-800 CL 4-4-4-12
GPU: BFG Geforce 7950 GX2 1GB
PSU: OCZ Game Extreme 600w
DVD: Pioneer 111D
HDD: Western Digital Caviar 16mb cache 250gb x 2
Sound Card: Creative SB Audigy 4
___________________________________________________________________________

Little did we know a storm was brewing. Having ordered the PCs in August getting ready for the school year to begin we called the store and received the news, delay! being crushed by this we wanted to know what was the problem apparently they had not received the ram yet from their supplier so we had to wait a week. We made a call a week later and then again more delays! the CPU was no where to be found the internet sent a blaze with massive shortage everywhere and prices going up to $600+ for the ones that were available. The wait was not bearable with AMD saying little to nothing on supply to any retailers we had to downgrade to the 4600. We then went on to purchase the machines a week before September and on arrival only to be disappointed, the memory was still MIA, we got replacement stick for the time being until a moth later with no memory in site I demanded the money paid for the ram to be refunded for the junk value ram installed on my PC. I was then forced to buy the memory separately from NCIX which took all of 4 days to process my order and get it to my front steps.

At last it was complete! The shark was born!
___________________________________________________________________________
Case: Thermaltake Shark Black
Motherboard: Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+
Memory: Corsair XMS2 TWIN2X2048-6400C4 2GB DDR2-800 CL 4-4-4-12
GPU: BFG Geforce 7950 GX2 1GB
PSU: OCZ Game Extreme 600w
DVD: Pioneer 111D
HDD: Western Digital Caviar 16mb cache 250gb x 2
Sound Card: Creative SB Audigy 4
___________________________________________________________________________

Now about one and a half years later it shows its age with the CPU being the bottleneck in most new games like Call of Duty 4, Crysis(XD), Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts, World in Conflict and Universe at War.

Now I leave you with the shark underneath my desk waiting for its monthly dusting.


In the dark, crappy phone camera grrr...

Well I decided to start a weekly or so blog so my first entry will be about myself.

I Live in Canada and I am currently attending Seneca College for the CPA( Computer Programming and Analysis) advanced diploma. From there I will either try to get a Job in the gaming industry or continue my education at a University to get a degree in Computer Sciences.

I am in my second semester and currently learning C++, xHTML/CSS/Javascript, SQL, as well as learning CL programming for the iSeries or AS/400.

My favorite games are Role Playing Games and Shooters. I also like the occasional fighter like Soul Calibur or Mortal Kombat. I mostly play Gran Turismo for my racing fix or the Need for Speed series. Also my new favorite genre is RTS games with Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War being my favorite.

My top 10 RPGs from top are:

1. Final Fantasy IX (First RPG got me hooked on the series as well the RPG games)
2. Final Fantasy X
3. Final Fantasy VII
4. Final Fantasy XII
5. Legend of Dragoon
6. Diablo II
7. Final Fantasy VIII
8. TES4: Oblivion
9. Jade Empire
10. Champions of Norath: Return to Arms (Its not a good game but a fun hack and slash to play against friends)

Favorite First Person Shooters( No Particular Order ):

Killzone (Even for its glitches I like it because of the environment and the setting)
Half Life Series As well as CS
Unreal Series
Crysis (When it doesn't lag on my PC)
Halo Series (Lan MP is the best)
Call of Duty 4 (Currently Playing it on the PC)


And some other of my favorite games and series:

Devil May Cry Series
Ratchet and Clank Series
Jak Series
Spyro (Old school PS1 games)
Crash Bandicoot (Old School PS1 games, CTR as well as Crash Bash, great clones of their respective Mario counterparts)
Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War ( Most Favorite RTS game)
Company of Heroes (Second favorite RTS game)
Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne (DotA im noob at it but still its fun)
Tactical Ops

And many more I cant name at the top of my head.

Thanks A lot for reading my first Blog!

If you want to know more stuff about me just leave a comment or PM me!