[ltp] [OT] Replacement for T43p

[Pedro Ribeiro]

On Sun, Dec 20, 2009 at 9:50 PM, Rory Campbell-Lange
<rory@campbell-lange.net> wrote:
> On 20/12/09, Pedro Ribeiro (pedrib@gmail.com) wrote:
>> On Sun, Dec 20, 2009 at 9:54 AM, Rory Campbell-Lange
>> <rory@campbell-lange.net> wrote:
>> > Please let me know, if you have the opportunity, what the battery
>> > runtime is for a T400 under Linux.
>
>> with a few tweaks (bluetooth off, ultrabay cd drive off, pccard and
>> expresscard modules disabled, touchpad disabled in bios, fingerprint
>> reader disabled, sata alpm on min_power, usb suspend on) I'm able to
>> get 4 hours with wireless on and light websurfing load, and 4h30 hours
>> with wireless off, reading pdf's.
>>
>> For my normal work - 2 VM's running, Eclipse, Chrome with 30 tabs,
>> Firefox with 5 tabs, lots of gnome-terminals open, music through
>> speakers or headphone output, the average CPU load is around 20% (yes,
>> these new core 2 are that powerful) and the battery lasts around than
>> 3 hours.
>>
>> This is on my T400 with a 6-cell battery, P8400 processor, LED screen
>> at minimum acceptable brightness and Intel integrated graphics.
>>
>> Also, I'm using the latest 2.6.32.2 kernel, it really makes a
>> difference - with the setup above and wireless on, I was able to bring
>> power consumption down from 18 watts in 2.6.30 to 16w in 2.6.31 and to
>> 13w in 2.6.32.
>>
>> With a 9-cell, I reckon you can get more than 6 hours battery life,
>> with wireless on and a light load. If you're crazy enough, 9-cell +
>> ultrabay should go for 9 hours.
>>
>> In conclusion, I'm very happy with battery life, and I expect it to
>> increase over time with newer kernel releases.
>
> Hi Pedro
>
> This is great feedback. Thanks very much. Could you confirm which screen
> you have exactly? At the moment I see the following options on the
> Lenovo site:
>
> * 14.1 WXGA TFT, w/ CCFL Backlight =A0(1280x800)
> * 14.1 WXGA+ TFT, w/ CCFL Backlight (1440x900)
> * 14.1 WXGA+ TFT, w/ LED Backlight =A0(1440x900)
>
> I take it from your comments that you have the last one?
>
> Thanks also for your comments about power use and recent kernels. That
> is seriously interesting and not something I knew about.
>
> I would also be grateful for any comments about the 5100 or 5300 Intel
> Wifi card (i.e. which is preferable), whether a 7200 rpm or 5200 rpm
> disk is preferable or whether "Turbo Memory" is worth including.
>
> On the subject of disk drives I've become very interested in SSDs. We've
> started using them as the boot drives on some of our servers and they
> work well. SSD for a new Thinkpad is enticing, and I assume it would
> also produce some power savings? Interestingly the T400S has no SSD
> option.
>
> I note that the Lenovo price for an SSD is quite good. The well-regarded
> OCZ/Patriot Torqx 128GB SSD comes in about GBP 300. To add an SSD to a
> Thinkpad is about GBP 245 on top of about 60(?) for a 5400 rpm 160GB
> standard drive. Any comments about the Lenovo supplied SSD?
> (http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2009/07/08/review_storage_ssd_patriot_torqx=
/)
>
> Thanks for all the excellent advice
> Rory
>
>
> --
> Rory Campbell-Lange
> rory@campbell-lange.net
>
> Campbell-Lange Workshop
> www.campbell-lange.net
> 0207 6311 555
> 3 Tottenham Street London W1T 2AF
> Registered in England No. 04551928
> --
> The linux-thinkpad mailing list home page is at:
> http://mailman.linux-thinkpad.org/mailman/listinfo/linux-thinkpad
>

Hi Rory,

I bought mine in the US. I have a 1280x800 LED screen (I have poor
eyesight and enjoy the lower resolution).

My wireless is an Intel 5100, it works much better than my previous
one (2200BG) but I don't know the difference to the 5300, I suppose
the latter has better reception and transmission. I have no issues
with 5100.

If you want speed above everything, go for the 7200rpm hard disk. If
you want battery life, go for the 5400. On my previous computer I had
a 7200 PATA and now I have a 5400 SATA - between the two I didn't
notice any speed difference.

Turbo memory is crap, especially on Linux. Ditch it.

As for SSD's, it is a matter of personal opinion, but I never touch
the first few iterations of each technology. I am very excited about
them, but I'll wait a couple of years before buying one so that some
issues are ironed out - and price/capacity drops to an acceptable
level.
Specifically, SSD drives start performing poorly as they get filled up
with data. There is a new ATA instruction (TRIM) which puts
performance back on track but it hasn't been implemented in Linux yet
(maybe in .33). Also, there are some firmware issues still, and there
is a new SSD technology lurking (MLC).

Regards,
Pedro