Optimizing A Windows 8.1 Laptop For Gaming

Got it very recently for my Windows 8.1 laptop and have only been using it for a few days. Overall my experience has been pretty good. The port on the IR sensor is a mini USB B and there is a slight overhang with the supplied cable since I connect the sensor to a USB on the same side as my laptop. The driver that it came with cannot calibrate this pen at all; I just used the built-in calibration tool. You need to reset the calibration if you want to re-calibrate. The pen is plug-and-play, but you may need to reload any existing browsers to get it working right. I prefer a pretty high resolution, so using the trackpad or trackpoint to move the pointer can be pretty time consuming compared to tapping with the pen. It's also very useful if you don't have enough room to properly use a mouse. Swiping left/right to go back/forward in a web browser is also pretty useful.

I use windows 8.1 quite often. On this mac, all drives (except the internal flash drive) are external. Windows runs great off Thunderbolt connected drives. You can have multiple window drives and select the one you want on boot by holding down the option key.

This is an internal drive, plain and simple. Starts up fast, extra thin (half the thickness of a normal 3.5 drive), runs cool (thinness allows for more heat dissapation). But... I had bought this to put in an external USB 3.0 enclosure to use with my Dell XPS 8700 which has Windows 8.1. Unfortunately, after hooking it up, it would perpetually disconnect itself during file transfers, especially with files upwards of 1gb. Thinking the drive was defective, I took the internal drive of my Dell, which was the same brand, model and capacity, and put that into the enclosure. Same disconnects occurred. Then I replaced the cable between the drive and computer with a USB 2.0 cable, and the disconnects stopped, although file transfers took 10x longer. This proved that the drives were fine, but they did not work in a USB 3.0 enclosure. I could live with that, until... After a week or so, my computer developed the same symptoms (constant disconnects) for other USB storage devices. Since it was USB 3.0, I blamed the USB 3.0 drivers which Windows 8.1 seems to have implemented so poorly. BUT THEN I STARTED GETTING READ ERRORS ON MY SYTEM DRIVE. I could not back up files without drives disconnecting every few seconds. In short, THIS HAD SCREWED UP MY OPERATING SYSTEM. After a complete reinstall of Windows, everything was back to normal and all my drives (except the Barracuda in external enclosure) could read and write properly. The next day I bought a WD Black and put that in the enclosure... BOOM ... 100gb of files transferred seamlessly. So, to summarize... DO NOT PUT THIS DRIVE IN A USB 3.0 ENCLOSURE OR IT WILL WRECK THE WINDOWS 8.1 OPERATING SYSTEM. 1 month of my life wasted, I can't return the drive since it isn't actually defective, thought I'd at least write about my experience.

I use a Windows Pro 7 laptop gaming machine for hobby-based audio fun. It has been difficult to get a clean audio signal from multiple sound sources (tape, cassette, CD) into my laptop using the laptop's Audio In jack. After purchasing the SoundCraft Signature 10 for mic testing and mixing reasons, I discovered that the USB input/output port can deliver a pristine CD-quality audio signal right into my recording application (usually Total Recorder). This makes life so simple! Everything else is frosting on the cake.

I use this with a Windows VM on my laptop (Fedora), where I passed the dedicated GPU through to the Windows guest for gaming, and the screen streams back to the host with an application called Looking Glass. The dongle is exactly what I needed to make the whole thing work.

Bought this monitor to hook up to my laptop that I use for both gaming and work. With the 27inch monitor I'm able to pull up two windows while working and still see what I am working on. With the 144hz my monitor can keep pace with the output of my laptops gpu. Overall I am happy with purchase.

I've been able to connect four Windows PCs (XP, 7, 8.1, 10) to an Epson all-in-one printer. Although my printer is wireless capable, I find USB connectivity more reliable and less frustrating. The packaged software (CD), as well as the included Installation Guide, are antiquated (Windows XP/Vista; Mac OS X) but were still useful for one of my connected PCs. Accessing the product manufacturer's website is required to obtain an up-to-date User Manual and to install applicable drivers for PCs with newer operating systems. This applies to Windows (7, 8.1, 10) and Mac (10.6 and above) with an available USB Type-A port. One 6-foot USB A-B cable is also included. Each of my PCs printed successfully to the one printer as intended.

Works ok load the software. If you have windows 8.1 go the pinnacle support go dazzle for 8.1 & reinstall the software after that works fine

Plug and Play! Amazing. For Windows 8.1, the device was automatically loaded and ready to use. Noise cancellation works phenomenal. The Clarity of the the voice is Top Notch! I would recommend this microphone for anyone on a tight budget! Our business is just around the corner from being able to start recording high quality, professional sound quality in our videos, thanks to Blue Microphones!

I bought this on the recommendation of Thom Hogan's public wish list on B&H in which he suggests the Sony G series XQD cards for use with the Nikon D500. It works well with that camera and has been 100% reliable. I have not experienced any issues of the kind reported with other brands/types of XQD cards. I like the fact that the card came with an XQD card reader, -so you know that you have a reader that works with this type of card. The reader is USB 3.0 and comes in the form of a wide dongle that can plug directly into your computer's or laptop's USB port. But it also comes with a 1 foot USB 3.0 extension cord that you can use between the reader and your computer, which is a nice touch. The reader comes with a snap-on plastic cover for its USB connector. The only complaint I have about the reader is that it doesn't have an activity LED, but this is not a big deal. The inclusion of a card reader also saved me some money as otherwise I would have had to buy one separately. A note on the kinds of transfer speeds you may get between the reader and your computer over USB 3.0: The read speeds appear to be OS dependent. I can boot Windows 7 SP1, 8.1, and 10 on the same computer. Under Win 7 I only get read speeds of around 140 to 150 MB/second. Not sluggish, but not particularly fast either. Windows 8.1 is the speed champion at around 230 - 235 MB/second. Win 10 is a little slower at around 220 MB/sec. I've confirmed the Windows 8.1 read speed on my laptop, which only has 8.1 installed. My theory is that the USB storage driver for Windows 7 is not optimized for this kind of reader and media, while the driver for the later versions of Windows is. As always, your mileage may vary....