Thanks all, I have ordered from both TigerDirect (mostly in my days of build your own from motherboard up) and Newegg. They have always delivered on component parts, may have even purchased some systems). I don't travel much anymore, still I like the idea of downsizing to no more than a 14" screen... the 13.3 looks attractive too. Then when at home, I use a Samsung SyncMaster LCD and full keyboard. My driving reason for looking continues. I am still using the troubled Gateway - subject of another post that I haven't visited lately - and last night when I shut down I first noticed I couldn't access my "Maxtor USB HDD" to do a data backup, I gave the shut down command anyway. The computer again hung up, but rather than force a manual power down I went to bed. This morning when I got to the Computer it had shut down. I hit the power button and it started what looked like a normal boot then hung with the (light) "blue screen of death". I decided to just ignore and go about some other work, but did put the Gateway recovery CD in the bay. I noticed the CD indicator come of briefly, but nothing more happened. Then, perhaps 3 to 5 minutes later, the computer booted.. and I am now using. Does this behavior suggest other than hardware problems? I had concluded the computer has an intermittent problem with the the internal HDD. Sorry for changing the direction of this thread, but it all hangs together in my mind.

New bios may be in preperation to avoid win7 problems or some know hardware limitation or problems. I usually update bios's. I don't know for sure but Dell 'should' have a simple failsafe install method for it. That realtech driver update is very popular. My 1.5 yr old toshiba - toshiba just offered a dozen or more hardware driver updates, mostly dealing in advance for Win7 updates. Which by the way the amazon's and other big software sellers are offering upgrade pre-orders till July 11th or while supply lasts ... 50% off sale... $50 home premium and $100 dollars pro versions.

Here's the results i got with Secunia. If I do these three downloads will that correct the seven applications? Results of scan: Detection Statistics: 7 Applications Detected in Total 3 Insecure Versions Detected 4 Patched Versions Detected Running For: 4 Minutes, 15 Seconds Errors with the scan: 0 Errors Detected, scan result should be correct Scan Options: Enable thorough system inspection Display only insecure programs Status / Currently Processing: Detection completed successfully Programs / Result Version Detected Status Adobe Reader 8.x 8.1.4.200 This installation of Adobe Reader 8.x is insecure and potentially exposes your system to security threats! The detected version installed on your system is 8.1.4.200, however, the latest patched version released by the vendor, fixing one or more vulnerabilities, is 8.3.0. Update Instructions: Download Installed on Your System in: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Reader 8.0\Reader\AcroRd32.exe Apple QuickTime 7.x 7.69.80.9 This installation of Apple QuickTime 7.x is insecure and potentially exposes your system to security threats! The detected version installed on your system is 7.69.80.9, however, the latest patched version released by the vendor, fixing one or more vulnerabilities, is 7.7. Update Instructions: Download Installed on Your System in: C:\Program Files\QuickTime\QuickTimePlayer.exe Adobe Flash Player 10.x 10.3.181.23 (ActiveX) This installation of Adobe Flash Player 10.x is insecure and potentially exposes your system to security threats! The detected version installed on your system is 10.3.181.23 (ActiveX), however, the latest patched version released by the vendor, fixing one or more vulnerabilities, is 10.3.183.5 (ActiveX). Update Instructions: Download Installed on Your System in: C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\Macromed\Flash\Flash10s.ocx

As expected, trouble. On the first attempt to update the BIOS the computer froze-up, no display updates (clock continued to show the start time) or response to keyboard or mouse, including keyboard on the notebook itself. The installation seems to have done the checks on the new and old BIOS, but froze when it started to "flash" the BIOS. I called Toshiba TS, I'll give them a passing grade as it took only about 5 minutes of voice prompted filtering to get to a person, who had to transfer me to a specialist on the BIOS update. After some discussion of the situation he told me to hold the power button down for 10 seconds (it takes about 5 second) so that the computer would reboot. The computer did reboot with the old BIOS. He said try again, and after dinner I did. This time there were some error messages on the screen, but the process continued forward with blow-by-blow reporting to me on the installation dialog box. When all done the new BIOS was as wanted (F2 pushed during boot to get to BIOS setup) and I hit F9 to set defaults and F10 to save changes - as instructed by Toshiba. All seems well, for now. Related, how can I see what version of BIOS is being used without going through a reboot and F2 trigger? I thought that information was available on the device manager or on the properties of my computer. I couldn't find the BIOS version using those facilities. I have Windows 7 Home Premium.