Just Ordered W5F..What to do When I recieve it?

I just ordered a W5F... Check it out!

Once I recieve the laptop, what are the first things that I need to do?

 

Congrats!


Well, it's a computer, and to be used, so there isn't much and up to you - but load everything you want on it, MSN, FireFox, etc. Oh, but remember to remove Norton Anti-virus for sure.

 

And get somthing like Avast! or an equivalent (in terms of quality) for anti-virus. And unless you want to keep your fat32 formatted partitions, convert them to ntfs

 

what does converting fat32 formatted partititons to ntfs do?

 

First thing I would do is a clean format. That is, after I charge it up fully.

 

Charging up the battery for a few hours is good since the battery might've been unused for a long time.

 

Open the box! :laugh:

 

Jump for joy!

 

Congratz! It truely is a looker!

Here's what I suggest, use the notebook as is, ofcourse remove Nortan and install AVG Free. Overall if you feel a little unsatisfied wtih performance, boot times, load times. I recommend a clean start.

So, get used to the notebook, figure things out, then start working on making it the perfect notebook for you.

You can start with Partitioning the hard drives, using Partition Magic. Then you can reformat and do a clean install of Windows, or u can do that first and then re-partition, doesn't matter.

Here's a guide that will help you as you do this,
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=81828

 

it's not used ...its new in box.
What is partitioning hard drives do? && why no Norton?
and what's a clean sweep?
sorry. not really tech savvy.

 

Hmm, I can explain them, however its ok to leave the laptop as is for the most part.

Partitioning the hard drives means to take the current hard drive sizes, and change them using a program, or u can even use the Windows CD to do so.
People do this because they like to organize their files a certain way.

No Norton because it is a resource hog, meaning it will literally slow down your computer. So instead use AVG Free, you can google it and download it.

Clean sweep/ clean install, ocne again most people like to start their computers from scratch and reinstall everything their way, I suggest you just keeps things the way they are.

 

haha okay thanks! oh and how do you make a recovery cd?

 

You don't make one you get one, in the box.

About partitioning: If you don't know what it is, don't do it. This advice works for almost anything, really, but all the more in dealing with computers.

About NTFS conversion: yes, definitely do it. See the guide for how to do it properly. I've had some new practical experience with this over the weekend... check disks and defragmenting work one order of magnitude faster on NTFS than on FAT32. And I'm not exagerating; when a defrag on a FAT32 takes 1 hour, it will take less than 10 minutes on NTFS.

 

First you open the door and sign the paper from the delivery guy.

 

huh? what's NTFS? lol. I have nooo clue!

 

Ok then I have doubts whether you should do it. NTFS is a file system. You can google a little and see what it's about. Conversion is easy, basically you can click an icon on the desktop, but to maximize efficiency there's a more involved procedure that is described in my guide, linked to by MilestonePC above. This procedure ensures an optimal cluster size for the partition, as opposed to the default 512 bytes per cluster.

However, given your discomfort with all these concepts, I would just convert using the desktop icon and not worry about the cluster size. The performance drop is not so significant.

 

oh gosh. I'm so sorry. I have several friends that know tons of information about computers. Hopefully they can help me out!

 

NTFS stands for New Technology File System

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS

 

No need to be sorry we don't have all to be specialists in computers.

 

Okay so do you think I should update the BIOS and other stuff that I see on support.asus.com?

 

Not really, unless you see something in the list of changes that is important (likebug fixes etc.)

 

you don't think it's wise to update it? why not??

 

Well, in one sentence the answer is simple: Don't fix what ain't broken.

More technically: Windows doesn't like uninstalls and reinstalls, drivers and applications alike. Combined with an unexperienced user that doesn't know how to eliminate the negative effects of these reinstalls, this leads to a significant worsening of system performance over time.

Second, I'm against indiscriminate updates of the kind "hey here's a newer version let's update". If there's an updated BIOS which say fixes Merom support for the notebook, but you don't have a Merom processor, what's the point? If it's a touchpad driver but your touchpad works just fine with the stock driver and you need no new features, what's the point?

Now, back to your case:
I would say update the video drivers if you are gaming; that might give you an increase in performance. Also install any newer versions of hotfixes (like ACPI battery and CPU hotfixes). Those are important on a laptop. But first check if the same fix is not already installed.

Also do update the BIOS but only if you can use the new features, or if a bug that might affect you is fixed (e.g. fan doesn't stop in certain conditions etc.).

Hope this clarifies my position.

 

Alright! Thanks soo much for all of your help! You're the best!