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Yet another old computer
| Article created:- | August 12, 2021 5:52 pm |
| Last modified:- | June 28, 2026 10:47 am |
Written by:- MJS
Well, that was a fun old month! (July 2021.)
During the last (long forgotten) lockdown, and during the intense heat of that last (long forgotten) month: I was in the garden typing away on my super-‘fast’ super-‘fast’-revamped Toshiba from an online company called the cheaplaptopcompany.
Who, in my own humble opinion, are a (shit) UK firm to deal with, and yes, you get what you pay for, but that still doesn’t explain why I’ve been removed from their mailing list. I never even gave them any grief over flogging me a machine with only 6GB of RAM when they advertised it as having 8. I just bit the bullet on that one.
Rider: From here on in, I have to admit that this fascinating posting on Hardware Rim reviews is basically for my great many UK readers, but those found overseas might find it useful nonetheless, and might I even add, amusing to some degree?
Now, I have (had) nothing but praise for that old Toshiba Portege Z930 machine, but my dog jumping on it from the shed roof (a distance of about five feet) did very little good for the keyboard, resulting in a great many stuck and missing keys. It must also be said that the impact did nothing good for the laptop’s loose chassis either. A framework that constantly dropped USB connections, especially if you accidentally knocked it, was something early on that I’d rather quickly learn not to do.
But! — Being as the keyboard layout is [key], and being as it was buggered somewhat, it hampered my writing and coding work, (with using a bolt-on USB keyboard being out of the question.)
Been there, done that: got well and truly pissed off with the trailing cables and/or draining batteries, and all that fine build was built right inside a fine-looking wooden box, and yet the entire setup still miffed me off somewhat. The laptop-style PCs work, and they work well.
So yet another new laptop machine was actively sought.
Couldn’t afford an i7 chip (of any flavour), so I went looking for an i5 setup with lots of memory and storage RAM and, of course, that right-hand column HOME, PGUP, PGDN, END, and big cursor key combo.
After lots and lots and yet more lots of looking, I literally stumbled across a gaming machine from MCI called a GF63. I wouldn’t bother with that link if I were you. It’s a CEO-driven company bullshit advert, containing lots of clever glitz and glamour animation, selling something that’s not even real.
The picture below is real, however, and was photographed in real lighting conditions: it isn’t as bright as it’s made out to be.
** Currently as of Aug 2021, the GF63 is being sold at the ridiculously cheap price of £550.00 by a UK company called Laptops Direct. My limited review of them is that they deliver (and have done so in a timely manner in delivering my machine), but I have not tried to contact them about anything technical, though.
** The keyboard overlay you see above was originally sold by an Amazon reseller (out of stock), but a quick Google search found this keyboard cover supplied by a company called JWewgroups.
Unfortunately (for me), that most amazing laptop deal above wasn’t available when I was doing my (lots of looking). Nevertheless, paying £699 for a returned refurbished unit was a bargain at the time, and I don’t regret my purchase, but that new price does actually reflect the machine’s usefulness as a gaming console; it’s apparently considered an unpowered low-end player.
But I’m just running it as a basic word processor.
The first thing that I did with the new gaming unit was disable the useless Dragon Center software. Good for gamers (apparently), but not so good for us mere wordsmith mortals futilely trying to run the laptop on a WiFi-enabled network setup. The program is also malware in my considered opinion, as it constantly tries to sell (rent) me games to play, and don’t even get me started on the bloody useless, long-winded updates. With everyone attempting to install yet more and more (featured) rubbish inside the operating system itself.
Killing off the evil Red Dragon…
1.) Inside the MSI Center Program, the Windows key can be enabled with a switch found in (Home) -> (General Settings).
2.) The horrid vicious snapping thing can actually be disabled from ‘starting on powerup’ under the (COG) settings option at the bottom of the main screen, … and with that, the hamstrung dragon dies a software death of blissful ignorance, never to rear its ugly head ever again.
Birthing a new pure Black Guardian…
The gaming laptop’s Win10 operating system is actually missing the Menu Key (ALT GR) combination, but it was relatively easily restored with a program called “SharpKeys”, constructed by a chap who refers to himself online as Randy Rants. The software works, and it works very well.
**As a running footnote here: I also personally think that SharpKeys is much easier to use than AutoHotkey, but as they constantly say in the ever-forward, fast-thinking software trade, it’s horses for courses.**
Click on the picture below for a better resolution of the key values used.
Click on the picture above for a better resolution of the key values used.
For us normal PC users, and especially us madcap wild-eyed laptop warriors (Ye-Haw!), This modest machine does everything that a wild woods person/wordsmith adventurer will ever want… (or need.)
Case in point, Local by Flywheel absolutely crippled my old HP laptop (colloquially called the dirty old man) with the chugging fans constantly running in the background, done so to compensate for the hammering that the memory and onboard chips were experiencing from the demanding software. **It’s the same development server setup on the MSI, and I can honestly say that I don’t even know if this new machine has cooling fans; I’ve never heard them running.**
(Same development server setup)—that statement sounds so innocent, doesn’t it? – But that naive declaration above is, in actual fact, Satan’s cleverly selected set of cursing constructs, all constructed from below the sanity belt. A set of words that burns cripples and maims your soul beyond repair because it has taken me over a cyclical month to get everything, and I do mean absolutely everything—from one machine to another.
Normally, I’d just let the old girl retire to a nice quiet set of drawers somewhere and then inspect her underwear now and again for something in her nether regions that I need, as I’ve done with my dirty old HP man, but this i7 machine is far too powerful for that sort of retirement plan. An action plan, which then necessitated a full backup: not only of the data but of the numerous software settings as well, which is an aspect that’s often overlooked when moving house… (Grin!)
As a result, the detailed backup took the best part of my life to complete, with me constantly referring to the old girl’s messy underwear before eventually fitting some sort of new software padding support to the new kid’s undergarments.
** My baby child got old, well before her time, but her time came about when the umbilical cord was finally cut, whereby the old woman was then packed up and promptly sent off to her new home as a photo-editing tool. With the new owner (Callie), fixing her in place and then running everything from a powered USB hub.
The entire exercise left me a little sad in saying goodbye to the old girl; it also surprised me at what was left behind because my entire sorry excuse of a life is now encapsulated in a 128GB pen drive and one solitary 60GB flash drive.
In looking at them innocently lying there, I now realise how transient and temporary our pitiful existence really is, living as we all are on this small, insignificant little planet.
Should I die tomorrow, then practically no one will remember me in five years from now, and what about a hundred years?
Proof of that statement comes from this argument…
What was your grandmother’s mother’s name? – What sort of woman was she? – What were her dreams and aspirations? – How did she go about them? – You are a result of her dreaming actions, so she must have done something right and well in her own life, but these facts are now all forgotten in time. So use your (now) time well.
I am… I am working once again on this wretched website, and once finished, I’ll then start on my (long-forgotten) books once more.
Thanks for reading, Jessica: Praise be the ORI.
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My books -- Gennaro's Children, Underworld's Children and now the Unintentional Aquanaut series are projects in time and space, but not the newly unearthed Scrolls: they are an issue concerning deep antiquity.
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Currently, as of the 10th July 2022: I’m in the process of going mobile with this word-processing wee-beastie.
Going mobile involves getting a 12 volt car adapter, but — it’s not that easy, and also not being cost effective at the same time.
There are adapters out there that will do the Job from eBay (£49) and from this page ..
https://diycamperconversion.com/12v-laptop-car-charger-powering-laptop-without-inverter/
Another link to an Amazon product (£49) with lots of multiple computer plugs on, and all the reviews were complaining of the plugs not fitting their own machines,
After half an hour of futile DuckDuck and Google searches, I then stumbled upon a MSI 12volt adapter from Alibaba.
This is the full link.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32721127386.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.0.0.6a1e2644W88WwM&algo_pvid=0ceb35b4-897c-4f25-9d24-462a837e2e33&algo_exp_id=0ceb35b4-897c-4f25-9d24-462a837e2e33-0&pdp_ext_f=%7B%22sku_id%22%3A%2261163280282%22%7D&pdp_npi=2%40dis%21GBP%21%2113.65%21%21%211.8%21%21%402100bdd516574475832192351ed90e%2161163280282%21sea
And this is the search string that finally put me on the right track.
“Alibaba MSI GF63 Thin Core i5 12 volt power +watts”
Being as the adapter is coming from China, then it’s also gonna be a few weeks till it turns up.
Hope this helps in your own search, because why else are you here?
Many thanks for reading, Jessica: Praise be the ORI