Windows 7 on x40, any one?

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ribbonfish · #1 Post by **ribbonfish** » Sat Mar 07, 2009 1:01 pm

I am wondering how windows 7 runs on a x40. Aero won't work, that's for sure. But how about the speed? Is 1 Gig ram enough etc. ?

I wonder if I should get a nice x40 cheap to play with it. I personally think x40 is the peak in terms beauty in all x series thinkpads.

Marin85 · #2 Post by **Marin85** » Sat Mar 07, 2009 1:22 pm

I can´t give you a direct answer to your question, but you may also want to check out our Win 7 subforum. There you will find some folks running Win 7 on older systems, probably similar to yours in hardware resources.

Marin

ssd_thinkpad · #3 Post by **ssd_thinkpad** » Sat Mar 07, 2009 1:25 pm

Vista without aero runs great on x40 with 1,5 gb ram and standard hdd. It has either 256 or 512 mb ram build in and you can upgrade it with another 256, 512 or 1025 mb ram. The x40 is really nice and cheap to buy, although very expensive compared to other used models if you want to upgrade hdd and battery. If you want it cheap, consider if you want to stay with shipped hdd and battery.

godling · #4 Post by **godling** » Tue Mar 10, 2009 10:07 am

Win 7 ran on my x31 well enough (for what it can handle) which I more than I can say for Vista. That was with my old, default Hitachi 40gb drive. I'm thinking about re-installing now that I've got an SSD for my boot disk, as the OS load and response time is significantly improved.

-godling

miggy · #5 Post by **miggy** » Tue Mar 10, 2009 11:00 am

godling wrote:Win 7 ran on my x31 well enough (for what it can handle)

I thought that there are no Vista/Windows7 drivers for Mobility Radeon 7000, and only a bare (unaccelerated) framebuffer SVGA driver exists. I'm not talking about Aero stuff, but about basic 2D/overlay acceleration.

sojourner · #6 Post by **sojourner** » Tue Mar 10, 2009 12:47 pm

godling wrote:Win 7 ran on my x31 well enough (for what it can handle)

miggy wrote:I thought that there are no Vista/Windows7 drivers for Mobility Radeon 7000, and only a bare (unaccelerated) framebuffer SVGA driver exists. I'm not talking about Aero stuff, but about basic 2D/overlay acceleration.

I'm interested in Win7 on the X31 as well, and understand there could be a problem with Radeon 7000. Hopefully godling will come back and tell us about this.

Can add this, somewhere on the web I read Vista could be installed on Radeon 7000 systems with a work around, and in fact a later ATI driver package could be hacked so Vista accepted the video drivers with NO problems ... how I wish it was saved as a bookmark!

godling · #7 Post by **godling** » Wed Mar 11, 2009 9:28 am

I'm interested in Win7 on the X31 as well, and understand there could be a problem with Radeon 7000. Hopefully godling will come back and tell us about this.

To be honest, I simply installed Win7 ... no special drivers or anything. There was no option for advanced display capabilities, and I didn't expect any (the specs specifically state requirement of a 128MB dedicated video RAM for the advanced visualizations). Win7 ran slow, but it ran. I was impressed that it ran at all, as Vista was a friggin' bog. Win7 ran faster. Video acceleration of any kind would be nice. I'll see if I can dig around. (see update below)

Can add this, somewhere on the web I read Vista could be installed on Radeon 7000 systems with a work around, and in fact a later ATI driver package could be hacked so Vista accepted the video drivers with NO problems ... how I wish it was saved as a bookmark!

A great thread I read at 7Forums http://www.sevenforums.com/graphic-card ... 0-a-7.html. Note that I linked to the last page. These guys have been working trying to run Win7 on Mobility 7500 and 9000 cards for a couple months. Looks like Win7 build 7048 has resolved a few problems with XDDM drivers, and there are a few ways to install the Mobility 9000 drivers (into 7500 cards ... not sure about 7000's, but I might give it a try if I can find the Win7 7048 build and make an ISO ... give me a few days).

miggy · #8 Post by **miggy** » Wed Mar 11, 2009 10:05 am

godling wrote: Win7 ran slow, but it ran. I was impressed that it ran at all, as Vista was a friggin' bog.

It ran very slow just because of the lack of proper video drivers. I have experienced the same thing.
Windows 7 is way more responsive and faster than Vista. On my old 2GBs A64 1.8GHz underclocked to 800MHz w/ onboard GF6100 (DX9 card, but with a 3D performance of R7500

) it works like charm with Aero and all the stuff running in the backround (indexing, shadow copy, prefetch), with resource hogging apps like Eclipse or NetBeans. It seems to be even snappier than XP SP3, the revamped UI guidelines are clever, there is a lot of usability tweaks, and certainly this OS looks good

For me, Aero is a core component of this OS and running Windows 7 without Aero doesn't make much sense, but MS is planning to include a some kind of 'software rendering' mode, with Aero and DX9, 10 apps running on a CPU, not GPU. Probably it refers to older Intel GMA GPUs (GMA915, 940).
http://gizmodo.com/5100247/windows-7-wi ... m-your-cpu
http://games.slashdot.org/games/08/11/29/2058259.shtml

sojourner · #9 Post by **sojourner** » Wed Mar 11, 2009 12:38 pm

godling, miggy, great information, exciting news both! Hope you'll keep us updated.

godling · #10 Post by **godling** » Thu Mar 12, 2009 12:21 pm

miggy wrote:
It ran very slow just because of the lack of proper video drivers. I have experienced the same thing.
Windows 7 is way more responsive and faster than Vista. On my old 2GBs A64 1.8GHz underclocked to 800MHz w/ onboard GF6100 (DX9 card, but with a 3D performance of R7500 ) it works like charm with Aero and all the stuff running in the backround (indexing, shadow copy, prefetch), with resource hogging apps like Eclipse or NetBeans. It seems to be even snappier than XP SP3, the revamped UI guidelines are clever, there is a lot of usability tweaks, and certainly this OS looks good

What drivers did you use to install in Win7? Did nVidia put out Vista drivers for that GPU? ATi (and the laptop builders) stopped supporting drivers for the R7000 series a while back, which has been my biggest issue with upgrading from XP. I'm definitely looking forward to the 7048 build allowing me to leverage the R9000 drivers.

-Jon

miggy · #11 Post by **miggy** » Fri Mar 13, 2009 9:08 am

godling wrote: What drivers did you use to install in Win7? Did nVidia put out Vista drivers for that GPU? ATi (and the laptop builders) stopped supporting drivers for the R7000 series a while back, which has been my biggest issue with upgrading from XP. I'm definitely looking forward to the 7048 build allowing me to leverage the R9000 drivers.

-Jon

GF6100 is a 2004/2005 GPU, DX9.0c/Shader Model 3.0 capable, although painfully slow (probably even slower than GMA950)

Both onboard GF6100 and PCI-E 7600GT are recognized during Win7 installation. New drivers are downloaded in the background by Windows Update and installed without restarting Windows. GF6xxx and GF7xxx cards are fully supported by Aero, but the driver model is still WDM1.0 (Vista). Drivers for GF8xxx cards and newer use WDM1.1 (Win7) driver model, which is apparently a lot better in terms of memory usage and performance http://we.pcinlife.com/thread-1037895-1-1.html
I know that R300 (Radeon 9500,9600, 9700, 9800) is fully suported by Vista/Aero. R200 (Radeon9000, 9200) are only DX8/Shader Model 1.0 cards so there's no Aero available.
AFAIK, WDM1.1 Catalyst Beta drivers are not available for R300, only WDM1.0 ("same as Vista").

godling · #12 Post by **godling** » Fri Mar 13, 2009 4:28 pm

Unfortunately, the x31's use the Mobility Radeon M6, which is an RV100 based chip, not even R200. So ... our graphics will have to take advantage of Win7's cpu-based software rendering mode. Still ... might be interesting. Omega drivers might also help. I've also seen forums where folks have flashed their 7000 chip to the 9000 series, but this can also go horribly wrong ... I'm loathe to try it myself.

-j

tim S · #13 Post by **tim S** » Sat Mar 14, 2009 10:42 am

While I’m not big on conspiracy theories it seems to me that any current Windows OS upgrade has the hidden agenda of forcing everyone to upgrade their hardware. Starting with XP, then Vista and finally Window 7 hardware upgrading was the only way to maximize the OS.
It is certainly true with desktops and peripherals. But with the lack of upgrading capability in laptops, one is pretty much forced to get a new, or at least a newer machine, if one wants the ‘latest and greatest!’ Then of course there is the driver issue with manufacturers not wanting the expense of re-writing drivers for the newest OS. A classic example is Vista on the X41; there are no video drivers! They are supposed to magically arrive via a Vista update but I can’t find them, not that I particularly want to!
I do understand the OP’s question was about ‘just getting it to work’ but trying to ‘force’ a new OS onto an old machine and
expecting 100% compliance is pretty much a waste of time. In my experience it's the same with Linux.
Tim S

ssd_thinkpad · #14 Post by **ssd_thinkpad** » Sat Mar 14, 2009 10:49 am

I run Vista on my old machines and it works very great, all drivers, windows and security updates are downloaded and installed automaticely. Aero does not work but is not necessary.

pxa270 · #15 Post by **pxa270** » Sun Mar 15, 2009 10:39 am

Well, I actually went ahead and installed Win7 beta on an X40 (768MB Ram). It did run, but was pretty sluggish, since there are NO drivers at all for the 8555GME graphics in the X40, not even XDDM drivers (as I gather Vista does have). I've even tried some hacks to get import Vista XDDM drivers to no avail. Also, with 768MB Ram, disk activity was heavier than XP, which is of course killer on the slow X40 HDD. My advice: stick with XP or a lightweight linux distro.

sjthinkpader · #16 Post by **sjthinkpader** » Sun Mar 15, 2009 1:18 pm

pxa270 wrote:Well, I actually went ahead and installed Win7 beta on an X40 (768MB Ram). It did run, but was pretty sluggish, since there are NO drivers at all for the 8555GME graphics in the X40, not even XDDM drivers (as I gather Vista does have). I've even tried some hacks to get import Vista XDDM drivers to no avail. Also, with 768MB Ram, disk activity was heavier than XP, which is of course killer on the slow X40 HDD. My advice: stick with XP or a lightweight linux distro.

I have Win7b running on the T43p in my signature and it runs fine. Vista drivers were used for missing drivers. Here is the subscores of my system:

Processor: 3.4 (1.87Ghz)
Memory: 4.4 (2GB PC2-4200 DDR2)
Graphics: 4.0 (Aero)
Gaming graphics: 3.7 (3D performance)
HDD: 2.0 (Hitachi HTS541210H9AT00)

The Hitachi 5400 HDD was the weakest item and got a 2.0 subscore. I think a X41 with SSD will be better for running Windows7.

To get these scores on your system running Win7b:

Right click on Computer in the Start Menu, select Properties, then click Windows Experience Index.

miggy · #17 Post by **miggy** » Sun Mar 15, 2009 6:39 pm

pxa270 wrote:My advice: stick with XP or a lightweight linux distro.

I second that. There is no point in running Win7 on X3xs/x4xs as a primary OS - I think that even if this WARP software rendering mode will be available, it will require special video drivers that ATI or Intel won't provide for a 8 yo. DX7-era GPUs. And of course, it will eat up battery life, which is the least necessary thing for us.
For me, a dream machine (x-series) for running Windows 7 for the next 5 years could be X61s or X61tablet (64-bit) or X60t, maybe with a SSD drive

But the topic itself is very interesting, I'll certainly try Win7 beta on my X32 if any (even 2D-only) accelerated video drivers will appear

By the way, there are some Aero-capable, low-profile (or semi-low-profile) PCI cards - GeForce FX5200, Radeon 9550 PCI, some fanless GF6xxx-series cards, even a Radeon x1300 (R520 chip) that fit in http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/ThinkPad_Dock_II PCI slot, but according to http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 9&start=30 they will not work with Aero - or rather they will not work at all.

pxa270 · #18 Post by **pxa270** » Mon Mar 16, 2009 9:23 am

sjthinkpader wrote: I have Win7b running on the T43p in my signature and it runs fine. Vista drivers were used for missing drivers. Here is the subscores of my system:
...

I don't see how that is relevant to the topic, or to what I wrote and that you quoted. Your T43p has Aero graphics. The X40 has no graphics acceleration at all, not even 2D (XDDM). It only has Standard VGA / VESA.

godling · #19 Post by **godling** » Mon Mar 16, 2009 11:07 am

SJ,

you've got a x40 w/ an 8GB CF SSD ... care to load Win7 on that and test it out?

I'm waiting on the official RC (April, I believe) before I try my x31 w/ SSD.

-J

sjthinkpader · #20 Post by **sjthinkpader** » Mon Mar 16, 2009 3:04 pm

The X40 is in use now but I have a X41 Tablet on the way. Knowing the results from the T43p, I'll like to test the X41 Tablet.

It would be nice to have a 1.8 inch SSD but I only have a 20GB 1.8 inch Hitachi drive. So it will be slow running the Win7b.

K0LO · #21 Post by **K0LO** » Mon Mar 16, 2009 10:27 pm

sjthinkpadder:

You might be pleasantly surprised. I've been running Win7 on an X41 Tablet for about 2 months now. Other than the known issues with Intel 915 graphics, it's been a good experience, even with the 1.8" HDD. Definitely faster than WinXP.

sjthinkpader · #22 Post by **sjthinkpader** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 2:15 am

k0lo wrote:sjthinkpadder:

You might be pleasantly surprised. I've been running Win7 on an X41 Tablet for about 2 months now. Other than the known issues with Intel 915 graphics, it's been a good experience, even with the 1.8" HDD. Definitely faster than WinXP.

I like Win7 a lot. Bummer that beta version will be turned off in August. I will be interesting to see what actually happens.

So far what I've tried to install eventually worked, such as an old version of TrendMicro.

The photo viewer I use XnView handles thumbnails a lot faster in Win7. Loading up large jpgs from the NAS still takes a while over 11g. I will try it later over GE.

SaberX · #23 Post by **SaberX** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 5:33 pm

godling wrote:Win 7 ran on my x31 well enough (for what it can handle) which I more than I can say for Vista. That was with my old, default Hitachi 40gb drive. I'm thinking about re-installing now that I've got an SSD for my boot disk, as the OS load and response time is significantly improved.

-godling

I dont have Win7 so cant try that.
But on my X31(see sig) i have installed Vista on it.My X31 has the 1.6Ghz,new 160gig 5400rpm ,and only 1 gig ram.Soon will have 2 gigs ram when it shows up in the mail.
Everything runs great.The video driver is the big problem.At first , like others have said.They use the "std XGA driver" that Vista uses from start. I went and looked for other drivers under the video tab.When i said display all hardware in the list.I found a bunch of windows drivers.The closes one i could fine is "mobile Radeon 7200 family XDDM" from the list.Everything seems to work fine with this driver.
The Vista performance score is still 1 but i dont think it will go higher then this with only 16 megs ram.
Everything else in the Vista score if fine.
CPU---1.6Ghz----3.4
RAM---1 GB------4.0
Graphics--7200 radeon driver--- 1.0
gameing graphics-------1.0
HDD---160GB-------5.5

xiaotian7076 · #24 Post by **xiaotian7076** » Tue Apr 14, 2009 10:03 am

It's lack of proper video drivers for 855GME now

globalkiwi · #25 Post by **globalkiwi** » Mon May 04, 2009 9:08 am

Can anyone suggest which video drivers to use on an X41 T - for either Vista or Win7?

j-dawg · #26 Post by **j-dawg** » Mon May 04, 2009 11:17 am

I know Win7 runs on an X24 about the same as did XP. The scaling capabilities of the OS are pretty fantastic.

merlindb · #27 Post by **merlindb** » Sun Jun 28, 2009 1:42 am

I Currently have Windows 7 Running on an X40 and it runs extremely well. The only thing i have been running into trouble with is getting bluetooth to work. If anyone has been able to get this to work that would be great to know how. I just used the windows xp video drivers from the Lenovo website to get the video to work right.

The machine is a 1.2ghz, 1gb ram, 64gb Kingspec SSD and the scores are below.
Processor 2.2
Memory 3.4
Graphics 1.0
Gaming 1.0
Primary HardDisk 5.9

The kingspec drives on these machines are quite nice check out www.kingspec.com for more info. You may be able to purchase them directly from Kingspec since they do not have north american distribution yet.

sjthinkpader · #28 Post by **sjthinkpader** » Sun Jun 28, 2009 10:24 am

Welcome to the Forum.

Your WEI is fairly typical of this setup. How did you get the XP intel Video driver to work? A Win7 Std Video driver will give WEI of 1.0.

I have Win7 running on two X40's, 32GB and 8GB CF cards.

pianowizard · #29 Post by **pianowizard** » Sun Jun 28, 2009 10:49 am

sjthinkpader wrote:I like Win7 a lot. Bummer that beta version will be turned off in August.

Just reinstall with the Release Candidate, which will work until June 1st 2010.

dsvochak · #30 Post by **dsvochak** » Sun Jun 28, 2009 11:35 am

How did you get the XP intel Video driver to work?

The method that works seems to be updating the driver through device manager instead of running "setup" for the driver. Browse for an updated driver and navigate to where the .inf file is located.

Windows 7 on x40, any one?

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