wee bit o' help

[werdna35]

OK, let me start off by saying, I am not good with computers in the least, however, I have some questions and all that. I want to get some better stuff for my school laptop. So, I guess I'll just list my questions here...

1) I see everyone has these stats of their computers, I know the size of my hard drive and that kind of stuff, but how do I find out like what kind of video card and motherboard or anything else not easily listed is in my computer?
2) I kind of just started playing games and stuff like that. I can play some games like Call of Duty without any problems, but others, like Half-Life 2 won't work, so I want to get a new video card, or whatever else I may need to make my computer be able to run games. What kind of video card, and other upgrades would you all recommend for a laptop? Would I need to get a new fan, too? Would you recommend that I get an external hard drive?
3)I kind of want to be able to run two monitors with one mouse and keyboard. How does that work precisely?
4)Are all these questions elsewhere and I just completely missed them? If so, I'm sorry. I did read, however maybe not as thoroughly as I should have. Thanks!

 

[The General]

2) You can't upgrade laptops beyond adding ram and changing the harddrive if you're lucky.

4) There is a search feature, I'm sure these are somewhere but yeah.

 

[werdna35]

Really? I can't put in a new video card at all or any of that?

 

[The General]

Nope. Sorry.

 

[Pepsiboy700]

Not neccesarily true. I remember alienware has that option that you can upgrade video cards. But doubtful in his case he has a laptop like that.

You can upgrade ram and hd though for sure.

 

[The General]

Yeah I mean there are some crazy laptops out there with exchangable video cards, but in general laptops don't have that capability.

To answer number one, you could download Everest Home Edition, and run it. It will tell you all you need to know about your computer.


And number three should be handled by someone who knows more about windows ... I think you plug both in and right click on the desktop and go to properties, settings and choose the second monitor and check "extend my desktop onto this screen." But I might be wrong.

Anyway, yeah having two monitors and one mouse and keyboard isn't uncommon at all. All new video cards have dual monitor support, unless they are onboard video.

 

[Ken11235]

1. If you have windows xp, Control Panel -> Performance and Maintenance -> System, other windows versions, Control Panel -> System, linux, good luck.

2. Laptops have video card chips built right into the motherboard, usually, which means you cannot upgrade them. Although, many laptops share the computer's RAM instead of using their own. These you can upgrade by selecting the amount of RAM to share in the computer's BIOS.

3. First, you will need two monitors plugged in. Next, right click on the desktop and selct "properties". Click on the "Display" tab and you should be able to figure it out from there.

 

[Pepsiboy700]

My bad General I just wasnt paying attention like always and didnt catch your drift. Lol. Reminds me of someone who once said "If I have two monitors, do I need two mice?

 

[massacreinfallx]

1) control panel> performance and maintanance>system> hardware>device manager. Then a list of everything in your computer will come up.

2) you canrt upgrade laptops other then ram and harddrive..get a desktop.

3) to run dualmonitors you neeed a video card with 2 dvi inputs and then you can plug 2 monitors into there, but if your lapptop dosnt have this then sorry. you cant.

4) the site has a search feature

 

[werdna35]

2. Laptops have video card chips built right into the motherboard, usually, which means you cannot upgrade them. Although, many laptops share the computer's RAM instead of using their own. These you can upgrade by selecting the amount of RAM to share in the computer's BIOS.

So your saying that if I get more RAM, my video card will run better because it's shared? How would I change the BIOS so that the video card can use more (if that's even the right question that I should be asking)? What would be a good setting for it?

Also what kind of hard drive and RAM would you suggest for an HP 4000 notebook?