Yeah I prefer a clean install, I don't need the extra ASUS or Acer crap, and if I do, I can download and install them separately.

I once tried to download Windows 7 ISO from that MS site, but when I entered my Win7 key (that site required it before letting me download it), it complained the ability to download the ISOs are only for retail keys. Fjuck MS.

So, instead I downloaded the Win7 ISO elsewhere (not validated, just the vanilla installation media), and then successfully validated it with my existing Windows 7 key. Not sure if I broke any laws, but at least I don't feel I did morally anything wrong.

With Windows 8 and 10 MS doesn't seem to have similar reservations, you can freely download Windows 8.1 or 10 installation media with MS Media Creation Tool (either to an ISO image or a bootable USB memory stick), and then after installation you can validate it normally. EDIT: With the exception of Windows 10 Enterprise, which can't be downloaded freely...

With me I got a gaming laptop for portable gaming since I can't lug around my desktop everywhere I want to take a computer to. I have been gaming on MSI GL62VR 7RFX and it has been a solid laptop. The only downside of any MSI laptops these days is the user friendliness of being able to take them apart to do upgrades to them.

I got this Laptop in 2017
i7 7700HQ
16GB of RAM (1x16GB stick Yeah I know that is bad but at the time I might have wanted to upgrade the thing to 32GB but never did in the close to 3 years of ownership)
GTX 1060 6GB.
It even has an optical drive which is rare in laptops these days,

I have been happy with it, Never had any overheating problems and it also has a dual fan configuration one for CPU and the other for GPU. I would recommend anyone who wants to get a gaming laptop to make sure it has two fans for optimal cooling.
I got a very good deal on this Laptop vs others with similar specs that costed a $100-200 bucks more. Also it is a very solid built laptop as well I don't see a way for the hinges on the screen to break off or even crack for that matter.

You must have had an install disc/ license key mismatch. M$ got retarded with activation around the time of XP. Win XP/ Vista/ 7 have a number of different types of install media and you need the correct one for your key. IIRC it was Retail, OEM, Royalty OEM, and VLK. I actually fled to the Linux world around 2005 over this mess. Not being able to reinstall your OS without jumping through hoops is intolerable.

Microsoft changed their system again with Windows 8 and I think that's still the one they use today. I haven't explored this system but I think there are now actual license keys in the BIOS of PCs from big OEMs. Hopefully it's not such a PITA.

It was not that the Windows 7 installation or activation failed, but I wasn't allowed to download the Windows 7 installation media from Microsoft site, because my Windows 7 key (that is on the sticker of my laptop) wasn't a retail key, but OEM (I guess). The Microsoft site at least back then required you to enter the key, before even allowing to download the installation media. I don't recall there being any option "go here if you have a retail key, or go here if you have an OEM key". Microsoft just does not allow downloading of Windows 7 installation media if you have an OEM key, period. Might even be that the site said I was supposed to contact the PC vendor (ASUS) to get (=buy?) Windows 7 installation media for my system?

I did not get any Win7 installation media (DVD or anything) with my laptop, Win7 was preloaded on the system, and in order to make installation media, I was supposed to run an ASUS utility on the laptop that makes a bootable USB recovery media. So if I have to "reinstall" Windows 7, I was supposed to use that recovery media. (Also that "recovery media creation tool" had some stupid restriction that you were able to run it only once. So what happens if I misplace that USB stick?)

However, when I obtained the Windows 7 installation media (DVD ISO image) elsewhere, I could install Windows 7 clean and then activate it with my legit OEM key.

With Windows 8.x and 10, Microsoft wisened up and lets anyone download the installation media with the MS Media Creation Tool, and install it. Activation is separate from that. (The only exception is Windows 10 Enterprise which can't be downloaded with the MS Media Creation Tool; I learned this last week when at work I was supposed to create two identical Windows 10 Enterprise virtual workstations for our client; sysprep still gives me nightmares, yikes).

I have been gaming with a laptop for almost 8 years now. All I can say is that an extra cooling (a pad with the one with the fans below) is always a must. This is due to the fact that component temperatures can reach up to 90 Degree Celsius which is an oof for me to touch.

Even gaming laptops with a decent cooling system need one. I had a friend who has one but the temperatures get high.

You were supposed to make a snapshot of your system, when brand new and still unused, for backup purposes if you ever needed to wipe your storage. That way you would still have all those adware and shareware and freeware and utilities and whatnot that the manufacturer added.

Can you not make one system and take a snapshot and copy that over then just change the product key?

Whether cooling pad helps any and how much depends on many things on the laptop's design. If e.g. the bottom (and rest of the) laptop is plastic, then the cooling pad doesn't help much at all as plastic doesn't dissipate heat much at all from the system. Pretty much the only advantage then is that if the ventilation holes are at the bottom, the pad makes sure there is nothing obstructing airflow to them (compared to if you had the laptop on top of a soft pillow or something).

I've seen quite many "laptop thermal performance" tests on e.g. Youtube where using a cooling pad helped cool e.g. the CPU down only by one Celsius degree, or not even that.

However, if the bottom is metal (e.g. aluminum or magnesium alloy) and is partly used as a "heatsink" to dissipate heat from the system, then a cooling pad probably helps more, to add airflow near the heat-conductive metal parts. Like XMG Core 15 AMD that I've been looking for, it has a metal bottom which is used as a heatsink to cool down at least the SSD.

Definitely have to agree with the laptop design and the cooler design, being factors. Plastics after all are known for low thermal conductivity or heat transfer. For me, as I do use my laptop a lot for long periods of time, and even play games that are a bit above my laptop specifications, it is a utility for cooling.

Oh, that makes sense. I was actually surprised to hear Microsoft was offering those again. Maybe 7 or 8 years ago anyone could download disc images of at least Vista and Win7 directly from Microsoft. Probably retail media. I think they might have had something to do with the old technet subscriptions but were available to all. I was really annoyed when those disappeared without warning. If a user is going to go to the expense and trouble of using legitimate licenses, make it easy to use legitimate media. Idiots.

I'm glad you were able to find a Win 7 image that works with your key.

I have something very similar, which I bought around 2 years ago for $1000 USD (before minor shipping costs, since it was on sale at that price - at half-price).

SC15 laptop - i7 7700HQ; 16 GB RAM (can expand up to 32GB if I decide to); 256 GB SSD (OS drive); 1TB HDD (2nd drive); GTX 1060 6GB; Thunderbolt 3 port; 120hz G-Sync supported screen at 15.6''; W10 x64.

But yeah - most games I toss at it, don't have much problems with. 1080p60fps, in most cases.

aming laptops now have come a long way.
pctechtest.com/14-best-gaming-laptops
I bought a decent 800$ windows gaming laptop - acer Nitro 5 last year which runs butter smooth and does everything i want, however its heavy and has a shitty battery life.

I was worried at first, but apparently my RTX 3080 laptop has 16GB VRAM, if I read dxdiag right. Phew!

My work laptop has mere 4GB VRAM (NVidia Quadro P600), but I don't think it could run those games anyway...

I have a Thinkpad P50, with i-7-6820hq, M2000M, and 32 GB Ram (user upgradable to 64 gb).
The weak spot is the soldered-in graphics card. I'm not good enough at soldering to think about replacing it.
I've upgraded the RAM from a factory-default 16GB.
I can run most games, though the latest graphics-heavy games run on low. But I ran Mafia DE on medium without issues.
It weighs a few pounds, but I don't notice it.
With dual fans (one for CPU, the other for GPU), and a heatpipe between them, it never gets really warm.
The second-worst part is the keyboard controller, which cannot process 5 keys being pushed at once. I don't recall if it can process 4 keys at once.
It came with a 512 GB NVMe and a 500GB spinner, but now has 6.5GB of SSDs. Installation was easy.
I use the backlit keyboard when gaming at night. The Numpad is crucial for some games.
For when it totally borks, i can easy pull the removable battery.

Overall, I'm very happy.