Selecting a X20, X30, X32, X40, X41 Thinkpads **Pix**

[sjthinkpader]

That would be a much better AP than my Linksys WRT51AB. Now I am using a b/n AP, just a cheap Airlink101 AR680W.

Here is the revised chart with X31 test data added.



If I make that Samsung HS122JC in the X41 stop spinning, it would drop 2 watts. It's another 2 watts between full bright and lowest brightness. With a good battery, these computers can go 3-4 hours.

[tomh009]

If I make that Samsung HS122JC in the X41 stop spinning, it would drop 2 watts. It's another 2 watts between full bright and lowest brightness. With a good battery, these computers can go 3-4 hours.

Thanks for the update. Did you get most of the readings with the disk spun down?

With new disks, like the 5K500.B in my X200s, the active idle power (disk still spinning, but not being accessed) is now down to 0.8W. Very impressive, really in the range of SSDs with much less capacity ...

[sjthinkpader]

No, my HDD spin down timer is typically set for 10 minutes. So readings are all with disk spinning.

I was curious to see how much it was so I set the X41 to 30 seconds last night. Both the Transcend SSD and CF has the page file size set to zero.

There are 3600 RPM versions of the 1.8 inch HDDs that are very low power. May be I should find one and try it.

[tomh009]

There are 3600 RPM versions of the 1.8 inch HDDs that are very low power. May be I should find one and try it.

3600 rpm? Oi! You could go for lunch while Windows starts up ...

[sjthinkpader]

Was that you asking someone how frequently they boot? I don't boot much either. At the most Resume.

Intention is just to see how low power they are.

It would be interesting to use one of these super low power HDDs, then attach a small SSD for Readyboost.

[tomh009]

Touche!

Yes, that could work ... but I think the only practical option for ReadyBoost would be a CardBus adapter for CF or SD cards. Was that what you were thinking?

[sjthinkpader]

Yes, I tried some older non-Cardbus CF adapter and they don't work as ReadyBoost. I don't have a Cardbus CF adapter. SD cards in X40/X41 work.

I have a Sandisk 8GB ZIF SSD from a HP Mini 1000 and it worked via a USB-ZIF adapter. With cable and dangling adapter, this is not a X series solution. I am using it with a T43 with a not so fast HDD and it does improve boot/resume some.

There are some 100GB+ 1.8 inch 3600rpm HDD made for iPods. I think pairing these with a flash Readyboost device would be a good setup for Win7 on X series; good speed, good capacity and low power. Candidates would be Class 6 SD card or CF with Cardbus adapter. Since I am a camera person, it is better to reserve the SD slot for off loading pictures.

I checked the CF slots in X24, X30, X32 with a 233x flash card and Hitachi Microdrive. All of them operate in PIO mode under XPP SP3 so they would not work for Readyboost. There are some talk about using a different driver and I have to investigate that.

[p78]

Using the linux powertop utility I can read the "wattage consumption" of my X40 (idle with wifi enabled) :
about 7.4W with screen brightness to a minimum
about 12.1W with screen brightness to a maximum (but this number may vary down to like 9W ... so powertop is maybe not so reliable)
(tweaks : phc_intel, laptop mode & the ones given by powertop)

(about 39 wakeups from idle per second without hpet=force , about 2.5 wakeups from idle per second with hpet=force)

[sjthinkpader]

I had not seen 7.4W on any X2x/X3x/X4x platform running Windows yet. Although I like full brightness screen settings.

[p78]

actually these numbers were lower (I don't remember : 0.7 watt maybe ?) when I set the wifi on "power save" mode
and here :
http://www.lesswatts.org/projects/powertop/faq.php
they say I could save a little bit more by disabling ibm_acpi (thinkpad_acpi actually) ... but I needed it to run fan control ...
( I guess I need snd_intel8x0m & ipw* ;o) )

[p78]

For completeness sake I've enabled wifi power save mode :
about 11.0W with screen brightness to a maximum
about 6.4W with screen brightness to a minimum