X32 still usable?

[sysbox27]

Hi,
Firstly thanks for taking the time to read this (and I hope you can help by responding).

I have an X32 that I bought 2nd hand a while ago to use for internet access, checking mail, typing up some ideas etc. without having to lug a big machine about.

2 things that concern me though:

1. machine gets hot. I have been checking temp and often in high 60s (celcius). I understand these processors where from an era before we all became more concerned with power consumption and longer battery life.
Any suggestions for reducing the temp?

2. and this is my primary issue. I can't watch video (avi's etc) on this machine using vlc or other player. It seems the graphics card is not up to the challenge?
Is there any way I can resolve this?

If I can get the graphics to display films decently then I would be thrilled as great for when travelling.


I have Win7 installed and have been generally happy with performance (barring video).
I am wondering whether I would be better off installing XP (I chose Win7 as had better sleep reliability) and then adding the thinkpad utilities as maybe that might apply some additional drivers that would improve the grapgics playback, but before doing this I wanted to hear from anybody else on their experiences as this would take time and I would lose all my existing setup naturally.

Thanks again for your time.

Best regards,
G.

[emeraldgirl08]

I'm pretty sure that W7 is not going to be a choice OS for your machine. Your graphics card is out of date and doesn't support the latest WDDM that W7 uses. I've run W7 on my T30/R40 which isn't that far off from the X32 and can say that XP Pro would be the choice Microsoft OS.

There is Linux if you are daring as it is fairly good with Thinkpads and great with older hardware. As a matter of fact I would suggest keeping at least a Livedisc of a Linux distribution around for emergencies if you develop Windows problems. It's a good tool and best of all it's free.

You may want to download the Harware Maintenance Manual from here. The direct link is in the middle of the page. I'd also bookmark the Thinkwiki page for future reference. I'd venture to say that your Thermal Compound and/or fan could use some servicing. The hardware maintenance manual can help you as far as disassembly. Do a search on applying Thermal Compound here on the forum search engine if you are not sure how to apply it. Good luck

[Tasurinchi]

In addition to what emeraldgirl08 said I would try undervolting your machine using NHC. How old is your X32? Thermal compound should last a couple of years but it doesn't hurt to renew it.

I'm surprised that you cannot watch videos using VLC with your X32, I have a X31 using Win7 ultimate that is working without problems and I can watch videos either in youtube or via VLC. Granted, FullHD videos won't work...

How much RAM do you have?

Setting up the video to work was a little bit tricky, you'll find here how I made it work...

My 0.02 cents...

[sysbox27]

Thanks Tasurinchi.

I have followed similar instruction to get graphics driver installed (prior to that I couldn't get sleep to work) and that now all works.

But still I can't get decent graphics working.

What resolutions are you able to set? I noticed that text is maybe a bit bigger than I would prefer (text display off screen in FireFox as example and I have to scroll across).

[sysbox27]

Thanks emeraldgirl08.

I may just give Linux a try - what Linux distro do you recommend for installation? Is ubuntu ok?

Thanks again for your help - much appreciated.

[Tasurinchi]

What resolutions are you able to set?

I'm using the standard 1024x768, mine is not capable of more...

I used Ubuntu 9.04 for a short while, Ubuntu 9.x will have only standard VESA support for the graphics card of my X31, so I went back to Windows. If I recall correctly, your X32 has the same graphic card, so I personally would not recommend Ubuntu in these machines...

[PizzaandWine]

I've personally really enjoyed Linux on my x31 (though I haven't even installed Windows to compare it with.)

Personally I run #! ( crunchbang linux) on the x31. It is based off of ubuntu so you get access to its repositories, and most of the online-help is equally applicable to #!. #! however uses a number of packages (i.e. applications etc.) that are less resource intensive than Ubuntu. It uses Openbox instead of GNOME, pcmanfm instead of nautilus, abiword/gnumeric instead of openoffice (and so on and so forth.) This has proved a perfect fit for the older hardware. Personally i like it so much that it is installed on all my boxes. Not to mention #! has a very friendly set of forums.

If you're going to try linux out, I highly suggest http://www.thinkwiki.org. It is an invaluable source.

G'luck and let us know what you choose.

[mini_g]

If you do choose Ubuntu, I'd personally go with 8.10. Even though both of the 9.xx releases are by far polished with their small issues, they never faired very well on my 2 Ghz X32. #! would likely be a better option than Ubuntu though...

Recently, I personally have had excellent luck with Arch Linux on it, but it's not exactly the easiest flavor of Linux to start with. They do have an excellent wiki for getting it set up though.

On this subject line, the Arch Linux wiki can be helpful for answering many questions that Thinkwiki might not answer, no matter which flavor that you might choose. I might add that the X31 has much of the same system configuration requirements as the X32.

I'm not sure as to how prepared the Ubuntu kernel is for undervolting, as I never really put much thought into it, but I do know that the kernel in Arch is set up for it from the get go.

----

All in all, the X32 is still quite usable if you don't desire to game these days. If you desire a quick and easy setup, I'd go with Windows XP. I'd also max out the ram to 2 GB, no matter which OS you use, as it'll help your system in the long run.

[miggy]

I'll refer to WinXP, not Win7. I'm a big fan of Win7, but I decided to stick with XP on X32.

Hi,
1. machine gets hot. I have been checking temp and often in high 60s (celcius). I understand these processors where from an era before we all became more concerned with power consumption and longer battery life.
Any suggestions for reducing the temp?

I mainly use my machine underclocked and undervolted (600MHz @0.764V, but the CPU is stable even at 0.700V) and the machine is passively cooled (I use "tpfancontrol" app to turn the fan off). The temperatures are not higher than 40-45C at 600MHz passive and not higher than 48-58C when at 1,8GHz full-load (archive unpacking, emulation - automatic fan control).

I'm using:
- NHC for underclocking/undervolting: http://www.pbus-167.com/
- Tpfancontrol for fan control: http://www.staff.uni-marburg.de/~schmitzr/donate.html

If you're not happy with temperatures, you should open your X32 ( http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... 44018.html ) to clean the fan an to re-apply the thermal grease. It helped me once.
This machine definitely can be cool & quiet ;)

[charles.atcher]

My 1.8 X32 runs flawless, with all videos. Full on HD video stutters, but there is nothing I can do about that.

I'm running XP Pro, and NHC, undervolted. My temps at the moment is 49C, and I'm just running Firefox.