[ltp] X60 - (bad) experience, others?
Dieter Jurzitza
linux-thinkpad@linux-thinkpad.org
Tue, 29 Jan 2008 14:09:23 +0100
Hi Nils,
why so much moanin'? I used to have the very same x60 you seem to have - an=
d I=20
used it with the high capacity battery pack - not that expensive, but keepi=
ng=20
me up around 7h - what do I want more?
I got everything functional and working, and, yes, the loss numbers are=20
similar to yours (9.5-11 Watts). Since a LCD backlight is a LCD backlight -=
=20
wheter using M$ or linux, you won't change very much with regard to the=20
losses whether you run M$ or linux. And the WIFI interface is up and runnin=
g=20
here.
I listed my experiences on the thinkwiki=20
(http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Installing_openSUSE_10.2_on_a_ThinkPad_X60),=
I=20
got everything up and running - except the internal modem which needs=20
proprietary drivers I did not want to use. I can hardly imagine that what i=
s=20
possible with openSUSE should not work with gentoo. However, mileage may=20
vary.
So, what are you heading for? What are you complaining about? Add an=20
apropriate battery pack and the operational-time performace is highly=20
satisfying (IMHO). This laptop is one of the few ones I know that offers=20
_full_ functionality (all FN-FX keys usuable, s2disk, s2ram, all=20
peripherals ...) at a decent price and a small size.
But these are just my 2 cents here ... :-)
If you need some help getting something into operation - just let me know.
Have fun .....
Dieter Jurzitza
=2D-=20
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if you really want to see the pictures above - use some font
with constant spacing like courier! :-)
=2D----------------------------------------------------------Am Dienstag, 2=
9.=20
Januar 2008 11:41:00 schrieb Nils Faerber:
> 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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