Call Me Awesome

Well, first off I'd suggest the following:

Get a can of compressed air
Turn off the machine
Open the side panel

Using something to prevent the fan from spinning (finger, pencil or whatnot blow out the dust bunnies from the CPU heat sink.

Repeat the above on the GPU heat sink making sure not to let the fan spin.

Check and make sure no wires are touching any fans.

*Note - make sure you hold the can upright or you'll get some VERY cold liquid spraying out*

That's good preventive maintenance in any case; I'd guess that COH is pushing the machine a bit and it's having to ramp up the RPM's on the fans. If the problem continues you'll need to figure out which fan is the loud one and replace it. Fortunately fans are pretty cheap.

Many laptops run COH just fine... it does take a fairly beefy one to run Ultra Mode but standard graphics is a different story.

Case in point, I have a basic Asus I bought 2 years ago for roughly $500 with an Nvidia 8400M graphics card; it runs non-UM COH at around 40fps on it's 1440x900 15" screen. I also have a workstation class laptop I bought 3 years ago with an Nvidia 7950M graphics card and it runs non-UM COH at 50-60fps on it's 1600x1050 monitor and limited Ultra Mode at around 30-40fps.

I also have an Alienware MX11 with an Nvidia 330 that runs a 1300x768 screen at around 50fps but isn't UM capable.

My understanding from reading the forums is that while the Intel graphics can be problematic most people are able to get decent performance out of them on non-ultra mode graphics settings without having to turn off everything for performance.

Like everything else you tend to get what you pay for and a more powerful laptop will give you a better experience. However a decent machine will run the game, just not with all the eye candy turned on.

Thanks guys, I'm rolling up one of each, Dark/Elec and Ice/Elec. I'm planning on leveling each into the 20's and then evaluating from there. Obviously inf isn't a big issue although I'm not looking for anything REALLY silly like the Glad Armor.

I'll certainly be looking over your thoughts on DA; it's a set I haven't played anything similar to. I'm on a bit more familiar territory with Ice as I've played several defense based characters and I do have some idea how to soft cap one

Some of my favorites.

The Flux arc in the Hollows is fun, but you'll find many vets have burned out on the Hollows in general as it was THE place to level from 5-15 back in the day and we ran those arcs dozens of times. The final mission is still one of the best low level missions in the blueside game.

As you've discovered the new Faultline arcs are pretty good and certainly worth running.

The Strigga Island series of arcs is worth doing; there's some nice temp powers and fun missions but the overall story may be a bit weak. It does open up one of the more fun TF's around, the Hess TF (25-30)

Croatoa from 25-35 is a fun zone with some pretty challenging enemies and the storyline is decent. Not on par with Freakolympics but it's fun.

Of course you don't want to miss the aforementioned Freakolympics arc, it's a lot of fun.

In the 30's there's the Doctor's Ally arc in Brickstown and several other fun Crey arcs. Also the Terra arc with Devouring Earth in Founder's Falls (I forget who gives these arcs, sorry) is well worth doing.

In the 40-45 range don't miss Tina MacIntyre in Portal Corporation (Peregrine Island) for the Praetorian War arc.

45-50 it's time for Maria Jenkins and the Hero's Hero arc, a continuation of Tina's 40-45 arc. Unai (forget his last name, he's next to Castle in the courtyard of Portal Corp) and his To save a thousand worlds arc is good as well.

Crimson has a nice arc that many hate to play since it's all Malta Group, one of the nastiest villain groups out there. Be prepared for massive end drains (Sappers, they can drain you dry in one shot), stuns (maybe that should be STUNS since they last frickin' forever) and mobs highly resistant to several damage types.

The Madam of Mystery (Carnies) arc is well worth doing and nicely written.. I believe it's 40-45.

There's others that are fun to do but those are the ones that stick out in my mind. Don't forget about Task Forces either; the revamped Positron is good to run, although a bit tough at 10-15, Synapse at 15-20 still is a grind fest. Sister Psyche is one of my favorites at 20-25 and Citadel from 25-30 can be fun. Manticore from 30-35 is a nice, relatively short, TF and Numina is... interesting at 35-40.

Although the rewards are severely nerfed the Eden Trial is something that everyone should do at least once; it's an awesome map and a lot of fun.

The Imperious Task Force (ITF) in Cimerora (requires the Midnight Club badge to get access... the access arc starts in the Steel University at 20+) is probably the most run TF in the game from 35-50.

My favorite TF is the Statesman TF (STF) for 45-50 characters... it's one of THE most challenging TF's in the entire game.

Hmm, good suggestions all, I think I'm narrowing it down to:
Ice/Elec
Ice/Dark
Dark/Elec
Dark/Dark

I think I've a pretty good idea of what to expect from Dark Melee but I'm uncertain about Electric Melee, specifically Jacob's Ladder and Chain Induction. On paper both look decent; how do they perform in game? In my back of the envelope build it looks like there's room for only 6 powers from the secondary.

I guess my decision on Dark Melee or Elec Melee comes down to Single Target or AOE. At some point I'll undoubtedly try both Ice and Dark armor; it's a question of which to roll now... decisions.

I've been looking at Electric Melee and it certainly is different than I've played before. What's the verdict on Chain Induction? How about Jacob's Ladder? Those are the two powers I'm unsure about; it seems that Lightning Clap is a Hand Clap clone and equally worthless... everything else is fairly obvious. I'm looking at figuring out what to leave out of a tight build (heck, most all my builds are fairly tight).

I'm fairly unimpressed with Kinetic Melee... at least on a scrapper it was very unimpressive in it's performance.

In playing around with Mid's it seems fairly trivial to get ~47% S/L/E/N defense on an Ice without using EA although the resists are pretty low for when the RNG takes a dislike to you. Still, there is Dull Pain er, Hoarfrost and Hibernate to fall back on.

Since my latest tanker, a Shield/Fire, is approaching 50 I'm looking toward a new tanker to roll up. I'm thinking of rolling something I haven't played before.

I've played Inv/Stone, Stone/EM, Stone/Fire and Shield/Fire to 50 (well, almost on the Shielder) and Fire/Fire to the upper 30's. I have played a tank-spec'd Fire/WP brute to 50 that I was... unimpressed with. Anyway, leaving out those primaries and secondaries I'm debating yet another tank, I'm just trying to decide on what.

For the primary Inv, Stone, Shield and Fire are out since I've already done those and WP is out due to poor aggro and my experience with that 50 Fire/WP brute.

For the secondary Stone, Fire and EM are out as I've done them and Dual Blades doesn't fit my idea of a tanker... too much focus on getting combination attacks off instead of managing aggro.

I'm kind of intrigued by both Dark Armor and Ice, I can also see a lot of IO potential in Electric but it's base level with SO's seemed lacking in limited testing during issue 17 closed beta.

So guys, of those three primaries which would you choose for a true aggro holding tanker and what secondary would you pair up?

Never had one drop for me either although I'm not really in need of one... I almost always have a freespec on a character I'm considering modifying since I generally don't make changes all that often.

I've had purples drop in bunches and then long dry periods. I recall one mission where I got 2 (Hecatomb and an Unbreakable Constraint) and then periods of a month or more with nothing.

The market seems to have about the typical supply it's had all along so obviously they're still dropping, they're just not dropping to ME right now.

All bellyaching aside it seems fairly normal to me judging by the market supply and I've hit long dry spells on any number of occasions. Of course when I finally get one it'll be a Fortunata Hypnosis or something equally low value... the RNG definitely has a disliking to me.

If you want to really lay waste to things you could do a lot worse than a Shield/Fire tanker and Fire/Dark corrupter. That would offer a huge amount of AOE damage, excellent aggro ability and excellent durability. Having played both of those sets they're both quite capable alone and better together.

An alternative to the Fire/Dark corrupter might be a Fire/EM or Fire blaster for a bit more damage. Once the corrupter matures though it could well be superior thanks to the debuff in Tar Patch.

I would not suggest a Stone tanker for a duo team; the durability is way overkill and as a duo the tanker's damage output is more important. Offhand I don't know of any tanker combo that will deal more damage than Shield/Fire... I know that mine at 45 is now at mediocre scrapper level in kill speed and extremely durable.

I've played a level-bumped 50 Elec/SS tanker during the issue 17 closed beta... it was ok but nothing wonderful. On the other hand it WAS an "instant 50" and only slotted with SO's so it was a long way from what it could be with IO slotting. At it's base level it had more issues with Carnies set to +2/8 than an old, SO only copy of CMA (Inv/Stone) at the same difficulty.

It's entirely possible that I hadn't figured out an optimal build or approach yet of course; it was the first time I'd ever tried either of those sets and I know CMA, even on SO's, extremely well. I can certainly see a lot of potential to be unlocked there with IO sets in the mix.

I'm in the same boat myself with my Shield/Fire approaching 50 and looking for a new tanker. Shield/SS could be a really good pairing for you; Shield's amazingly tough with just a modicum of IO slotting. In fact if you're willing to maximize your power selection you can get to roughly 42% def to all positions on SO's. So far I haven't found anything really threatening to my Shield/Fire since I softcapped him at 41.

Hmm, I've never truly played SS (the level bumped Elec/SS doesn't count), what to pair with it... this is kind of unusual but I keep coming up with Dark Armor. I've never played either set but it kind of intrigues me.