Hardware General Info Sticky Index **Read Before Posting**

This is an index of all major Hardware-related threads; the main ones are listed up top in large font and more minor ones at the bottom.

General Overviews/Knowledge Articles

The Ultimate CPU Guide
Can't make sense of the plethora of CPUs on the market? Look no further than this guide.

Intel Processor Family Guide
This guide by serg89 gives a general overview of how a processor works and then goes into detail about Intel processors only (for AMD processor information, see the above guide).


Upgrading Mobile Graphics Cards
Bottom line - you cannot upgrade your graphics card.


What Hard Drive Should I Buy?
A thread explaining everything you need to know about notebook Hard Drives.
Covers IDE/PATA, SATA, SSD, platter density, rotational speeds, etc.

Measure your Dual/Multi Core Notebook CPU Speed - Bye Bye to SuperPI
A great thread with benchmarks for all types of notebooks with different CPUs.
Run the benchmark and post your scores!

7200RPM vs.
5400RPM hard drives - how much of a difference?
General discussion thread about comparisons between 5400 and 7200RPM hard drives.
Definitely worth reading!

Notebook Battery Guide
A thorough guide by Chrisyano that addresses the most common battery questions.


Santa Rosa Supports Penryn
It is now a fact that the Santa Rosa platform supports Penryn.

Please post any links to threads which you think should get a mention in here as a minor thread.
Thanks for reading this index.

Minor Threads
Dual-Channel RAM Guide
All you wanted to know about dual-channel RAM.

The undervolting guide
A guide to undervolting using RMClock.

Changing optical drive
This thread includes some photos of the fascia mountings.

How much RAM do you have in your notebook? NEW POLL
So how much do you have? Vote and post here!

An Introduction to the Solid State Drive
Interested in SSDs? Visit this thread!

HD DVD vs.
Blu-ray: Battle of The Next Generation Storage Devices
A breakdown of the two competing formats - a must read for those interested in buying one or the other.


Measure your Notebook CPU Speed
This is an older but still fun benchmark for CPU - post how fast your notebook calculates digits of Pi out to 2M places.

The quick guide to cloning a hard disk
Getting a new hard disk but don't want to reinstall everything? Try cloning.