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Welcome to the NotebookReview Forum Spotlight, a biweekly series where we highlight the hottest and most important topics in our forum. The NotebookReview forum is the largest Internet forum dedicated to the discussion of notebook computers, including Macs and tablets. You can sign up for free by clicking here.
How To Fix SSD Performance
Solid-state drives (SSDs) have been the rage in PCs since their early days at the end of the last decade. Even the least-expensive PCs nowadays typically have some form of flash-assisted storage. But while they’re fast, SSDs can wear and slow down over time.
One way to restore the performance of your SSD is to do a secure erase, which doesn’t add excess wear to your SSD like a low-level format. If you have a Samsung-brand SSD, you may be able to use the Samsung Magician software to do it; otherwise, an $11 license for Parted Magic may well be worth the effort to get your SSD to run at its finest, according to our forum members.
Note that a secure erase will completely erase the contents of your drive, so you’ll need to back up all your data in advance. Strongly consider doing a clean install of Windows 10 afterward using our guide.
You Can Upgrade Your Wireless Card
The wireless card isn’t always the culprit when it comes to poor wireless connectivity, but it certainly can be. Most newer notebooks have a special PCI Express card slot for the wireless card, which means it can be changed.
This thread is a good example of a wireless card upgrade done right. After experiencing slow networking speeds, a forum member upgraded the basic Qualcomm Atheros wireless card in a Toshiba Satellite notebook to a newer, faster Intel 9260AC card supporting the 5GHz band with the help of our networking gurus.
For help improving the wireless network performance of your notebook, you’re more than welcome to create a thread in our Networking and Wireless forum.
New Clevo-Based Gaming Notebooks
Clevo is a Taiwan-based producer of gaming notebooks; you may have seen them sold under the brands Sager, ProStar, and Eurocom in North America. They’re also sold under numerous other brands worldwide.
Nvidia’s announcement of its notebook-bound GeForce RTX 20-series graphics cards, like the GeForce RTX 2080 Max-Q, has spawned an onslaught of new gaming notebooks. Clevo has so many new models that I lost count, but our forum members haven’t.
If you’re looking for a new Clevo-based gaming notebook, look no further than our Sager and Clevo forum. Here’s a sampling of the new owner’s lounge-style threads. These are great places to learn about real-world experiences with these notebooks, and you’re more than welcome to chime in and ask questions.
For buying advice on a new gaming notebook, create a thread in our What Notebook Should I Buy forum for truly personalized advice!
Upgrading Your Notebook’s Screen Is Possible!
Notebooks may seem proprietary, but they’re put together from smaller parts like everything else. The screen is typically upgradeable, outside of isolated scenarios. Forum member @Casowen did a thorough job of describing the upgrade to a 120Hz gaming-ready panel from one that looked much worse.
In fact, if you want to upgrade your notebook’s screen, have a read of our screen upgrade guide, maintained by forum member @sicily428.
What Is Your Favorite Internet Browser?
Does one web browser or another help you like the Internet better? The big browsers like Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and Mozilla Firefox tend to hog the media attention, but the number of choices in our poll goes well beyond that. Firefox has taken the most votes amongst our member base, followed closely by Chrome. The others are in a far-distant third place, or have no votes.
So, what’s your favorite? Cast your vote and tell us why.