"Wow, what type of "shop" buys quantities from different manufactures? Seems it would be better (read cheaper) to buy all from the same brand, large volume discount comes to mind." A shop in the midst of several different purchasing orgs, each buying 2-10,000 machines on a variety of budgets and with a variety of different requirement sets and installation schedules. "I have found a 1-5 fps difference just in Mobo's from different makers with similar parts, ram, hd size,cpu speed." I must confess I have no idea what a "1-5 fps difference" has to do with laptop reliability. "Ho