[ltp] X60 - (bad) experience, others?
Martin Lorenz
linux-thinkpad@linux-thinkpad.org
Sat, 2 Feb 2008 21:33:53 +0100
just for the records: same model, same experience - thogh I don't boot
windoze on it...
On Sat, Feb 02, 2008 at 12:16:07PM -0800, Ari El wrote:
>
> I have an X60s (1702, Core Duo (not core2)) with and 8-cell battery pack.
>
> What I'd say is: the bad experience on the X60s is with Linux. The machine
> itself is awesome.
>
> I've had it for a year and a half; with WinXP it is really fast for most
> purposes, runs cold, and after all this time it is still giving me 8 to 9h
> of battery life when used for writing (word) and light surfing (wireless
> on), 30 or 40% brightness. Consumption averages an awesome 7.5W, and I've
> seen it going to 6W with wireless off. It wakes up from hibernation in 15
> seconds or so. And all this is with no SSD drive... yet!
>
> I installed dual-boot Linux in the x60s the day I bought it, and kept
> re-installing all new ubuntu releases. Everything basically works (save for
> the fingerprint reader, although I heard it is possible to make it work).
> Even after tweaking, power consumption averages 10 to 11W for the same usage
> pattern as above.
>
> I bought the machine to carry it around, so I'm still booting winxp on it. I
> can't wait for the day linux will give me a comparable battery life. I
> switched to linux in every other machine at the office and at home, but not
> in my x60s, yet.
>
> I'm sure powertop, the tickless kernel mode and other good work of intel
> and other folks will eventually trickle down the chain and we will
> eventually get there. I thought this was going to faster though.
>
>
>
>
> Nils Faerber wrote:
> >
> > Hi!
> > Finally after now almost half a year of experience with a X60 I thought
> > I should share my not so good exerience here. Probably it is all my fault?
> > I used to have a X31 with which I was completely satisfied until it
> > broke :( It had a decent battery life and kept being cool! The fan was
> > almost never spinning (at least not until I did bigger compile jobs). It
> > was great.
> >
> > Not so the X60.
> >
> > The standard battery that comes with it only lasts for 1.5h to max. 3h,
> > but 3h means almost no CPU activity, backlight at lowest possible
> > setting (almost unreadable) or off and all wireless turned off. If it
> > shall be halfway usable the maximum I can get is 2.5h. Disappointing for
> > a modern expensive mobile hardware - compare this to e.g. Apple's
> > notebooks.
> >
> > The EC default settings concerning charging threshold promised battery
> > wear-out within the first year: Recharge threshold 95%, great idea :(
> > Well, this was easy to lower to more reasonable 80% using SMAPI.
> >
> > The whole device is always quite warm, especially the region below the
> > right handrest - I suspect that WiFi is sitting there because it gets
> > even warmer when power saving on WiFi is not enabled or if it is used
> > more intensively.
> >
> > The warmth also results in an ever spinning fan which is additionally
> > also quite noisier than the ones in X23, X24 or X31 (which were almost
> > inaudible at their lowest speed).
> >
> > The situation with Wifi drivers is not improving over the last 1/2 year.
> > There is the IPW3945 driver which works quite fine but requires non open
> > source parts and is difficult to install. The newer open source IWL3945
> > does not work well (I have issues associating to APs) and I have the
> > impression that its power saving is not that good too resulting in even
> > less battery life. And since the release of 2.6.24 neither IPW nor IWL
> > compile out of the box - heck, what's going on there? IPW will not get
> > updated and there are third party projects to patch the latest IWL
> > drivers for 2.6.24 - the IWL driver in the stock kernel 2.6.24 is at
> > least three months old.
> >
> > And while we are talking about 2.6.24 instead of getting better battery
> > performance that was rumored to come with cpuidle I get up to 4W of
> > battery drain - additionally. The lowest I can get with dim backlight
> > and no Wifi on 2.6.22 is about 9.5W - with 2.6.24 it is about 13.5W. I
> > found, using powerop, that one of the reasons might be that 2.6.22
> > manages to keep the idle CPU in C3 for 95% of the time while 2.6.24 C3
> > is only used for maybe 20-30%.
> >
> > I hate to say it but I am not really satisfied with the device and if I
> > would have a choice I would buy a used X31 instead of the X60. But at
> > the time I bought it I had no choice and sellig it now would mean a very
> > high loss - so I have to stick with it.
> >
> > But there is also light ;) The CPU performance is quite nice! Big
> > compile jobs just fly by. But this is not my most used use-case -
> > especially for a sub-notebook.
> > When do you use a sub-notebook most? Hm?
> > When you are travelling or at least when you are on-the-go. And this is
> > exactly where you usually do not have power plugs around so my most
> > important feature request is a decent battery life - way before high CPU
> > throughput.
> > Intel (I am tempted to say "crap")... when does Intel finally learn how
> > to design low-power CPUs and chipsets without letting the software do
> > all the work of power saving? Why does an Intel Wifi chipset get *hot*
> > while most other modern 54MBit chipsets only get hand-warm? Why does it
> > seem to be impossible to get a possively cooled Intel CPU (modern mobile
> > CPUs, not older ones).
> > When I was at OLS last year the most important feature request of Intel
> > people there was thermal management in the kernel - for sure, because
> > their hardware is always over-heating! They presented a prototype
> > hardware in the form factor of a PDA with their newest and latest
> > low-power mobile CPU - wow. Guess what, it had a fan! Sorry, but this
> > cannot be honestly state of the art in low power CPU design. Anything
> > above passive cooling in a modern mobile device is IMHO a design fault
> > (and while I am bashing Intel: The famous Asus EeePC also uses an Intel
> > low power mobile ULV CPU. Even at 150MHz, the lowest it can get, it
> > needs a fan for cooling! What a ....)
> >
> > Oh well...
> > If you feel you have a great tip to save power and/or prevent heat
> > dissipation on the X60 I would be glad if we could share those tips here
> > ;)
> >
> > Cheers
> > nils faerber
> >
> > --
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> > --
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> >
> >
>
> --
> View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/X60---%28bad%29-experience%2C-others--tp15156764p15246749.html
> Sent from the Linux Thinkpad mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>
> --
> The linux-thinkpad mailing list home page is at:
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gruss
mlo
--
Dipl.-Ing. Martin Lorenz
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