Thinkpads Forum

After changing the OS to Vista my x60s gets very hot, about 122F.
I will use the x60s as GPS (Delorme Streetatlas). So the x60s wil run whole the time in our car (Death Valley, southern CA, NV).
Is there any problem to let run the x60s in our hot car?

Kind regards

Thomy

x60s, 2 GB RAM, 100GB/7200

Vista OS has more hard drive activities than XP,
it even drain more power when using battery.

gunston wrote:Vista OS has more hard drive activities than XP,
it even drain more power when using battery.

Actually, no. Some users have reported that Vista offered them better battery life than XP. The first couple days after installing Vista, your hard drive activity light will be blinking a lot. Windows Vista is constantly indexing your hard drive so it can search for files quicker. After it is done, your notebook should run cooler.

spune wrote:

gunston wrote:Vista OS has more hard drive activities than XP,
it even drain more power when using battery.

Actually, no. Some users have reported that Vista offered them better battery life than XP. The first couple days after installing Vista, your hard drive activity light will be blinking a lot. Windows Vista is constantly indexing your hard drive so it can search for files quicker. After it is done, your notebook should run cooler.

I agree with you on this point. I have read many reviews stating that battery life is worse with Vista compared to XP. CNET's review of the X61s for example states that the X61s gets worse battery life compared with the X60s.

The problem is that most reviewers do their evaluation during the first day that they receive the brand new laptop with Vista. At this time the OS is indexing the hard drive like mad which of course will decrease battery life. Also, I think most reviewers aren't very smart when it comes to modifying the default battery settings with Vista! Vista is very powerful when it comes to tinkering with battery settings.

My X61s is much cooler running, and dare I say, gets more battery life than my X60s.

To the OP: something is not right with either your hardware or your Vista installation. I don't know how hot 122F is in Celcius, but since you say it is "very hot" I assume you mean it. Try adjusting the Vista / Thinkvantage power manager to adjust how your fan runs and any other power saving/heat saving settings.

Jackboot wrote:

spune wrote: Actually, no. Some users have reported that Vista offered them better battery life than XP. The first couple days after installing Vista, your hard drive activity light will be blinking a lot. Windows Vista is constantly indexing your hard drive so it can search for files quicker. After it is done, your notebook should run cooler.

I agree with you on this point. I have read many reviews stating that battery life is worse with Vista compared to XP. CNET's review of the X61s for example states that the X61s gets worse battery life compared with the X60s.

The problem is that most reviewers do their evaluation during the first day that they receive the brand new laptop with Vista. At this time the OS is indexing the hard drive like mad which of course will decrease battery life. Also, I think most reviewers aren't very smart when it comes to modifying the default battery settings with Vista! Vista is very powerful when it comes to tinkering with battery settings.

My X61s is much cooler running, and dare I say, gets more battery life than my X60s.

To the OP: something is not right with either your hardware or your Vista installation. I don't know how hot 122F is in Celcius, but since you say it is "very hot" I assume you mean it. Try adjusting the Vista / Thinkvantage power manager to adjust how your fan runs and any other power saving/heat saving settings.

Hot will mean 122F or 50C. When I change to XP (changing the HD) temperatur is 10 to 15C lower.
I removed now the extendend battery, maybe this will help (air circulation).

well, looks like CNET reviewer is "stupid" when evaluating the battery life under vista for the first run.

So, typically, how many days does it take for Vista to "index" the harddisk?

Jackboot, what batterylife do you get with your x61s? I haven't seen any thread discussing the battery life on the new x61/s models compared to the x60/s. I posted a thread a while ago that I was under the impression the battery life is worse with the new x61/s models. At least the x61 might have taken a step backwards... I'm just curious to know from user experiences, not Lenovo's numbers.

Under light use and Internet browsing the battery manager bounces between 8 - 10.5 hours and uses between 8 - 10W of power. I have no doubt that in real life scenario of taking notes, light browsing, and reading documents (*my* real life use at least! YMMV!) that 10 hours is feasible.

Again, I can definitely say that nothing in my experience leads me to believe that the X61s is worse than my X60s for battery life.

@phongdt: The drive indexing period will vary *greatly* depending on the size of HDD and the number, size, and types of files that are being indexed. Personally, I have a 60GB HDD (small!) and almost no data files stored on my X61s ( I have a HTPC that all my data/media/backup files are stored on) so the indexing period seems to be very short on the 5-ish installs that I've done as I've been experimenting.

phongdt wrote:So, typically, how many days does it take for Vista to "index" the harddisk?

The indexing typically stops while you use the system, so the best thing is to leave it on overnight. One or two nights should be enough to index even a large number of documents.

After a week, my X61s is now running Vista very, very nicely.

Jackboot wrote:Under light use and Internet browsing the battery manager bounces between 8 - 10.5 hours and uses between 8 - 10W of power. I have no doubt that in real life scenario of taking notes, light browsing, and reading documents (*my* real life use at least! YMMV!) that 10 hours is feasible.

Additional info -- which disk option and how much memory?

My X61 (2.0 GHz, 3 GB, 7K200, 8-cell) typically shows 6-7 hours of battery life and 11-13W of power consumption with light usage on Vista Business.

tomh009 wrote:

Jackboot wrote:Under light use and Internet browsing the battery manager bounces between 8 - 10.5 hours and uses between 8 - 10W of power. I have no doubt that in real life scenario of taking notes, light browsing, and reading documents (*my* real life use at least! YMMV!) that 10 hours is feasible.

Additional info -- which disk option and how much memory?

My X61 (2.0 GHz, 3 GB, 7K200, 8-cell) typically shows 6-7 hours of battery life and 11-13W of power consumption with light usage on Vista Business.

I have 2 x 1GB memory and 60GB 5400RPM HDD. I have also made a custom power profile with the Thinkvantage Power Manager to maximise battery efficiency.

Jackboot wrote:Again, I can definitely say that nothing in my experience leads me to believe that the X61s is worse than my X60s for battery life.

That's because the x61 supposedly is more power-efficient than x60. There's also "BatteryStretch" feature in the x61 Power Manager that's not in x60.

I know you're probably trying to compare XP vs. Vista and I agree that it's possible to lower power usage to 8-10W by turning off Aero and some minor tweaks. It's pretty important especally for me with the x60 tablet

Jackboot wrote:

tomh009 wrote: Additional info -- which disk option and how much memory?

My X61 (2.0 GHz, 3 GB, 7K200, 8-cell) typically shows 6-7 hours of battery life and 11-13W of power consumption with light usage on Vista Business.

I have 2 x 1GB memory and 60GB 5400RPM HDD. I have also made a custom power profile with the Thinkvantage Power Manager to maximise battery efficiency.

For some reason, even if i have everything set to the lowest, the estimated battery life is still greater with the "Maximum Battery Life" profile.

spune wrote:For some reason, even if i have everything set to the lowest, the estimated battery life is still greater with the "Maximum Battery Life" profile.

That is very interesting...is it possible that the default 'max battery life' profile has some super-saving settings that are not user configurable?

fyliu wrote: I know you're probably trying to compare XP vs. Vista and I agree that it's possible to lower power usage to 8-10W by turning off Aero and some minor tweaks. It's pretty important especally for me with the x60 tablet

If you have a X6x Tablet, does that mean you can't turn of Aero? Isn't aero more or less just the "viewing" experience and not functional?

You can turn off Aero.

What he means is that by turning off Aero you will save energy. Why? Aero uses your graphics processor to compute the visual effects. This computation uses energy as the graphics processor cannot idle. So, by disabling the Aero effects the graphics processor can idle and not use extra energy.

This is the reason why in order to get the "full Vista experience" (as Microsoft calls it) you need to upgrade your computer.

Temperatures:

Vista x60s, 80 GB/5400, 2 GB RAM, CPU=60C, HD=44C
Vista X31, 100GB/7200, 784 MB RAM, CPU=59, HD=40
XP x60s, 160GB/7200, 2 GB RAM, CPU=60, HD=44

Results from Notebook Hardware Controll, transfering 10GB of
data from external USB-HD to the internal.

1. Temeratur ist not depending from the HD
2. Core temperatur of the CPU seems to be a little higher with Vista then with with XP without load.

Thomy

Larger HDs (More platters) are slightly hotter. Just thought I'd put that out there.