Thinkpads Forum

My W700 just arrived this morning, ordered 2 months ago.

Everything looking good so far.

I just booted my WinPE 2.0 based CD, and it couldn't find the Intel gigabit NIC, so looks like I need to add that driver when I get a chance, so it's sufficiently different from a T61p that my usual routines will need to change. For now, will just clone to eSATA drive attached to docking station, no problem, cloning of factory preload underway now...

tinkererguy, I assume you're using Acronis for imaging.

A lot of people have had problems resizing Vista 64 system partitions. If you resize yours, it would be interesting to hear what you used and how it went.

It looks like you ordered a single drive. If so, does the empty hard drive bay contain any rubber rails, etc., or is it just plain empty?

From what I've seen so far, Lenovo sells you a caddy and rubber rails for the second drive bay for about $65, although I've heard that third parties sell them for less.

Thanks, and congratulations!

Some pictures, first shows unboxing, that's exactly how it looked when first unboxing. The other pix are screenshots:
http://tinkererguy2.blogspot.com/

QFoam wrote:tinkererguy, I assume you're using Acronis for imaging.

A lot of people have had problems resizing Vista 64 system partitions. If you resize yours, it would be interesting to hear what you used and how it went.

It looks like you ordered a singe drive. If so, does the empty hard drive bay contain any rubber rails, etc., or is it just plain empty?

From what I've seen so far, Lenovo sells you a caddy and rubber rails for the second drive bay for about $65, although I've heard that third parties sell them for less.

Thanks, and congratulations!

Actually, using Ghost 11, to clone from 250GB to 100GB in UltraBay, using ghost32.exe -ib clone options, and AHCI mode in the BIOS. Then used Vista 64 (non-SP1) boot CD to do a repair, then it worked, booting preload and beginning to play with it now, it does have SP1.

The other tricky thing with cloning was the boot order: any change in the BIOS like turning on AHCI mode, resets the boot order, dropping the drive in the UltraBay HDD down out of the boot devices list. That threw me for a bit. Also had to stay in AHCI mode and remove all other HDDs to get the clone going right (from eSATA image I had made of unbooted preload).

So, next project is to Ghost 11 clone my entire T61p C: and D: drive tonight. I'll then restore C: drive to a Intel X25-M SSD C in W700 UltraBay, and D: to RAID0 600GB volume, made from a combination of 2 Seagate 7200.3 320GB drives in the drive bays. If I'm able to boot without BSOD, will clean out all Thinkvantage stuff, and reinstall all W700 Thinkvantage stuff (and drivers). If that attempt to keep my existing install doesn't work out, I'll then revisit preload, or install from scratch using my own 64 bit Vista media that has SP1 built in.

That reminds me, as you wisely pointed out, I forgot to order the rubber sleds, so just slipped the drives in loosely for now, taking care to not jossle the docked laptop. Prices for the rubber boots were crazy, and wanted metal cage, screws, and rubber sled, so went with
http://cgi.ebay.com/IBM-Thinkpad-Hard-D ... dZViewItem

Oops, scratch that, preload is scrogged, C: and D: swapped, so lots of shortcuts and programs complaining (although Huey calibration thing worked fine, impressive improvement), amazing Vista handled this at all. Yeah, I guess I should buy Acronis.

No problem, will just set aside 100GB preload hard drive for now. Clonezilla failed as well as a cloning tool fyi, as it couldn't resize like I need it to, to step down to smaller drive like I was attempting. But to like-size or larger drives, having both Clonezilla and Ghost 11 backups ought to keep me covered, although those need test restores someday (to 250GB or larger drive)...

OK, put 7200rpm 100GB drive in the middle bay, leaving DVD reader in UltraBay, and did another Ghost 11 restore, and tada, no issues, preload coming up fine.

But, as expected, the preload takes a while to boot all that stuff. Even after using msconfig to disable camera and scheduler proxy from autostarting, it takes Vista 64 Ultimate preload:
0:00 power on
0:20 HDD activity begins
1:10 login screen appears
2:50 sidebar appears

Other apps seem to be working fine, integrated camera works well enough in Live Messenger, screen brightness is very good.

Now for the ongoing migration of 1/2 terabyte of data from my T61p...

Thanks for the link to the caddy & rails!

tinkererguy, since you're in the midst of cloning the system partition, resizing it, etc., perhaps you can tell me if what you're seeing seems to confirm the following. Pardon me if I'm saying something stupid, as I'm just getting up to speed with Vista's issues -- many people will have to deal with the following when their W700 arrives.

I get the impression -- and I'd love for someone to show me I'm wrong -- that, during installation, Vista 64 puts a digital signature in the master boot record. This signature is computed, in part, based on the size of the system partition. Thereafter, upon bootup, Vista 64 recomputes the signature based on the current hardware/system partition size (perhaps even what bay the drive is in), etc., then compares that with the signature already stored in the MBR. If the two signatures are different, Vista then barfs and won't boot (as a form of copy protection).

So any third-party utility that resizes the system partition, or just clones it to a different-sized partition on another drive, will hence make that Vista 64 installation on the resulting partition unbootable. The only time this doesn't seem to happen is if you resize your system partition within Vista itself. But the problem with that is that Vista puts various system-related files at mid-partition and at the end of the partition, and can't always seem to move them to shrink the partition (thanks, Microsoft).

But, apparently, after resizing (via third-party utils) you can always boot to an original Vista CD, enter your Windows serial number, then have Vista repair the signature in the MBR. (The only problem being that Lenovo doesn't give you an original Vista disk, and the recovery disks that you make can't perform the MBR repair.) Does this seem consistent with your experience, tinkererguy?

As an aside, Lenovo sales told me that the reason why the SSD option on their configuration page disappears when you order Turbo Memory, is that Turbo Memory slows down SSDs. I noticed that you ordered Turbo Memory (as have I). Given that you're going to install an SSD (as will I, eventually), you'll be a good test-case for this.

Thanks!

Learned a few things here:
1) Repair is finicky about which media to use, for repairing the preload on one of my restore attempts (which I wasn't supposed to have to do since moving from Ghost 8.2 to 11), it said the Vista 64 with SP1 integrated was the wrong media, put in Vista 64 without SP1 and it then did it's thing.

2) these questions aren't at all stupid, I'm going way out on a limb here and trying so much new with new gear

3) I'm able to boot my restored-C:-from-T61p drive no problem in the UltraBay, but only in AHCI mode. As soon as I turn on RAID mode for the 2 320GB RAID0 I've made for D:, I bluescreen.

Then stumbled upon this URL, in the readme for the Intel Matrix driver for the integrated ICH9M (which I shouldn't need since boot drive is not RAIDed):
ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/pc/pccbbs/mo ... ir03ww.txt
note the sentence in the readme:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTES

If your ThinkPad W700 is set to AHCI by default, when migrating to RAID,
please detach the Intel(R) Turbo Memory Controller device in your
machine or you will experience bluescreen.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

so out came the Turbo Memory (pretty major surgery, a lot of screws, but similar enough to T61p that it was no big deal). But still, BSOD when in RAID mode with C: in UltraBay, 00007 something, will have to turn off autoreboot back in AHCI mode and check into this BSOD further.

Plan B might be to
a) clone my C: 100GB drive to just-arrived Intel X-25M (SSD that outperformas all other somewhat affordable consumer SSDs)
b) stay in AHCI mode, create a striped set with the 2 320GB drives in Vista for D: drive, but only if Windows Home Server and/or Ghost 11 can back up such volumes, haven't researched that yet. I realize that'd be a performance hit for sure, over hardware based RAID (with software based driver).

Putting the 100GB in bay0, then 320GB in bay1 and 320GB in Ultrabay bay2 doesn't work, ICH9M Intel RAID won't let you mix internal and external for RAID membership.

I should also be clear that I'm well aware that I'm destined to never eject my UltraBay, sticking with external DVDROM via USB for now.

Here's my Blue Screen of Death error
"A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer"

{it recommends CHKDSK /F}
Technical information:

*** STOP: 0x0000007B

Well, luck would have it, it now works. Turning on AHCI, strangely, leaves the RAID volume (~600GB) visible in my booted-from-UltraBay system, with the ICH9M driver loaded. I say strangely, because I wasn't aware that the controller was still doing it's RAID0 thing, even when the BIOS setting was moved back from RAID to AHCI mode. So, it's really the boot drive that the setting is about, and to get the Ctrl+I Intel RAID setup to show for initial configuration.

Now onward, to cloning 100GB C: to just-arrived Intel SSD drive, which should make all those reboots and tweaks I've yet to do to clean up Device Manager a whole lot faster (since this data is from T61p).

My migration technique is anything but conventional, and that preload users who get RAID configured at the factory won't encounter any of this stuff.

But this is a happy ending I'm finally headed toward without any likely showstoppers, getting hopefully a lot of bang for my buck, with roughly 2 fold increases in disk I/O versus my T61p, on both C: and D:. Time and testing will tell if this is really the case, of course.

Thanks for the dialogue QFoam, I really appreciate it, as I'm tired and making mistakes, and trying to juggle doing my real job. Having other's fresher brains to pick, here on this forum, is always helpful, and I hope benefits other early adopters of the W700 as well.

tinkererguy wrote:Here's my Blue Screen of Death error
"A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer"

{it recommends CHKDSK /F}
Technical information:

*** STOP: 0x0000007B

Turning off RAID and going back to AHCI mode, and it now boots fine (since C: drive in UltraBay and not RAID'd anyhow).

QFoam wrote: But, apparently, after resizing (via third-party utils) you can always boot to an original Vista CD, enter your Windows serial number, then have Vista repair the signature in the MBR. (The only problem being that Lenovo doesn't give you an original Vista disk, and the recovery disks that you make can't perform the MBR repair.) Does this seem consistent with your experience, tinkererguy?
Thanks!

I think you logic sounds fine, and based on some vague recollections of some research I did back when Vista betas were around, and I tried Ghost 8.2 restores that needed Vista repair. I didn't need the license key for the repair though.

In my case, that is, using Ghost 11 to move C: drive data from one drive to another, then installing in W700, I really didn't need a repair likely, but I don't recall exactly at this point. Had I used Ghost 8.2, I would most definitely need a repair, and I think the resizing/signature comments sound like what Ghost 11 addresses with its claimed Vista support.

Well, always a new twist. This time, cloned from 100GB Seagate to 80GB Intel SSD based drive, with about 62GB of data in that simple single C: drive partition.

Afterward, hung on boot. Tried repair, it said it didn't find anything it could repair.

Then used the same WinPe 2.0 boot CD to drop to command prompt, and did a
chkdsk c: /f

and it forced a dismount, it fixed some stuff (I have a screengrab via camera), then rebooted without incident. Wow, just noticed, far far faster boot than I've ever witnessed, this is a very good sign, will report back later, turning off this T61p image for the last time now (to rebuild it for my brother this weekend).

Too bad Lenovo didn't go with UEFI BIOS on this new beast though, would shave another 15 seconds off boot time potentially, and especially useful for resuming 6GB machine from hibernate (32 bit instead of legacy 16 bit DOS based BIOS was my understanding).

QFoam wrote:Thanks for the link to the caddy & rails!
You're welcome! The eBay shipper already sent it out, we'll see how long it takes.
...
As an aside, Lenovo sales told me that the reason why the SSD option on their configuration page disappears when you order Turbo Memory, is that Turbo Memory slows down SSDs. I noticed that you ordered Turbo Memory (as have I). Given that you're going to install an SSD (as will I, eventually), you'll be a good test-case for this.

Thanks!

I'm afraid I won't be able to, in the short term, be able to install from scratch, nor test with Turbo memory, which I removed when I read about the previously mentioned Turbo memory plus RAID related BSOD. Turns out, it may not have been necessary after all, since I'm back in AHCI mode now for good.

I was thinking about trying to get my Verizion EVDO mini card working in the W700's vacated Turbo memory socket, the only socket where it'd fit. However, Device Manager doesn't even see it there so far, so it would appear they've hard coded something to perhaps only look for Turbo memory in that slot. Too bad really, as the wireless usb antenna lead actually fits and reaches the EVDO, and who knows, might have actually had decent performance.

I may also put the Turbo memory in the my T61p that I'm preparing for my brother, I think it's the same design, only larger than the T61p standar FRU, if I'm not mistaken.

Please keep us updated. This is a great thread for me.

Since I plan to stick with RAID 1, I'm glad Lenovo guided me to not purchase the Turbo Memory. Also, it looks like I at least saved a penny or so getting Lenovo to send me rails and adapters in my pre-configured by Lenovo, RAID.

Erik was close that RAID is just a BIOS setting. Lenovo configured RAID is a BIOS setting plus included drive rails plus not permitting Turbo Memory to be ordered.

How about some more comments or pictures on the W700 WUXGA screen vs. the T610 WUXGA screen. My T61p screen is fine in darker indoor environments, but not so good at my brightly lit office.

Wow, over 350 viewers of this thread! I'm hoping I'm doing some good here, and not confusing or worrying potential buyers excessively, this is a great machine.

It's a bit embarassing to admit, but I made a grave mistake not ordering the rubber rails, and not using felt pads or something to keep the drives in place. Turns out, unlike a T61p, where you can apparently temporarily install a drive without the rubber rails, and jiggle the drive around without worry of damage., with the W700, you can't. Here's what happened. I went ahead and left the HDD cover off, and undocked, and unfortunately, managed to slightly lift one of the 2 320GB drives (HDD0) about 1mm, and it immediately turned off the system. Sure wish I had wedged felt in there or something, prior to undocking. Couldn't power back on, nothing. Ejected both drives, ejected battery, re-inserted battery and drives, then it booted. But upon next shutdown, couldn't power on again. Then tried removing main battery, Lithium battery, all drives, the MC5725 EVDO adapter, and the mini pci slot. Waited a few minutes, reconnected Lithum and rearranged DIMM, but now a new error, the dreaded beep code "DIMM or System Board" 1, 3, 3, 1 sequence, see page
44 of Hardware Maintenance Manual here:
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-70385

I called support 8pm eastern, to mail me the shipping container for service, sure hope they have mainboards in stock to do the repair quickly. At least I still have my T61p, to keep on getting work done this week. And both of the Seagate 320GB 7200.3 drives tested just fine (used USB to SATA adapter), it's just the mainboard that somehow suffered.

So, after you're done laughing at my dumb error, and get over being glad I've been humbled, consider that I'm posting my mistake here, to help others avoid this same mistake. And keep in mind the speed boost that I noted during my 5 hours of operation (spent uninstalling then reinstall essential ThinkVantage stuff) was very impressive, mostly due to the SSD drive of course. The system seemed to be on its knees way less than my heavily taxed T61p, with all 4 CPU cores keep up with my juggling multiple VMware Workstation 6.5 VMs. Didn't have time to get decent benchmarks before this self-induced failure (glad I have full warrantee coverage), but I will say that everything I did, from opening Outlook (on the SSD), to booting virtual machines (on the RAID0), felt 2x-3x as fast as on my T61p, a very obvious improvement.

So once I get the repaired unit back, I'll be very productive pretty much right away, since I had finished all tweaking/driver installs, with the exception of the fingerprint reader, prior to the failure. No unknown crud left in Device Manager, and system had no faults or issues noted (although hibernate/hybrid sleep still very slow, due to BIOS limitation rather an UEFI).

I've left the below original early draft here, but newer more accurate information since updated in new thread here:
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?p=462112

============================================

"Moral of the story, aka, Summary of above thread"

This is the kind of detailed summary I always wish for when quickly trying to make sense of a complex/long thread. This is a first draft, done in absence of W700 (from memory). I'm very happy about how this upgrade is working out, with excellent speed, about 2-3x faster than T61p. And I'm so relieved I got it working at all really (until my mistake, read above). For about 12 hours of hair-pulling, I couldn't seem to get any RAID combination booted and functional. By reading onward, you can benefit from my learning the hard way, without having to slog thru this entire above thread.

FYI, despite my ~8pm eastern Oct 21st service call, the DHL box just arrived for my W700, 11am eastern Oct 22nd. So will be sending it out today. When I get the unit back, I can better proofread my own documentation.

But all feedback appreciated, please post here!
======================================

EXTREMELY FAST W700 COOKBOOK: by tinkererguy@pobox.com
If you need both space AND speed, this document is for you!

If you consider yourself a do it yourselfer, and you don't mind these compromises:
---always using external DVD drive like the self-powered DVD burner 41N556502 (or perhaps Blu-ray drive)
---you have something like Windows Home Server for daily backups (since RAID0 is twice as likely to have data loss due to inevitable drive failure)
---you don't mind placing multiple orders for all the parts
---you don't mind mildly diminished battery life (3 drives total)
---you don't mind being in potentially an unsupported configuration, as if you need service to system, you'll likely not want to ship any of the 3 HDDs, and need to be able to reconstruct above steps upon receipt of a new mainboard

Then by all means, build yourself an extremely fast W700 system, perhaps with the following now-tested parts. I chose to scrimp on the discreet graphics memory, since it could technically be upgraded later, and I felt the hundreds saved, coupled with more hundreds saved buying better drives elsewhere, outweighed the benefits of a preconfigured system. My intended use of this system is primarily for work, which involves occasional travel, with laptop use on AC power 95% of the time. I'm not a gamer, but am a bit of a photographer.

So, still interested in learning more? Read onward...

HERE'S THE SHOPPING LIST FOR SUPER FAST STORAGE:
$650+$50+$20+$160=$880 TOTAL ESTIMATED COST
(External Optical Drive extra)

0) One ThinkPad W700 (all have RAID ability built in)
Choose the cheapest drive option, since you'll be setting it aside!

1) Qty 1 Intel X-25M SSD in UltraBay, ~$650
Price:
http://www.pricegrabber.com/intel+x-25m ... ntel+X-25M
Review:
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/in ... spx?i=3403
(you'll likely change your mind about Lenovo-bundled SSD after reading article above)

2) Qty 1 "THINKPAD SERIAL ATA HARD DRIVE BAY ADAPTER II" part # 43R1980, ~$50
Probably makes sense to order straight from Lenovo with your W700 order, as it'll ship in advance, and at no additional shipping charge

3) Qty 1 rubber rail kit (2 pieces, plus metal sled for mounting the 2nd drive), ~$20
(I'm using the 250GB my system came with for other projects)
Here's exploded parts diagram, the rubber rail kit is FRU 41V9756, but not sure how to also order the metal sled:
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... R-70561#18
Here's a slow-to-ship option that includes rails and the little metal sled:
http://cgi.ebay.com/IBM-Thinkpad-Hard-D ... dZViewItem

4) Qty 2 fast 7200rpm drives, ~$160 total (for 2 Seagate 7200.3 320GB drives)
OEM version of drive packaging will do, as you don't need big fancy box and manuals & screws & such
You probably want both the same size, though a mismatch will work, but you only double the capacity of the smaller drive, a restriction in the integrated Intel ICH9M RAID0.
Also note, you can't mix internal HDD0 (bay0) or HDD1 (bay1) with UltraBay (HDD2) for the RAID array, the ICH9M wizard prevents this. This explains my exact instructions, that I learned the hard way.
I chose Seagate self-parking (no software needed) 7200 320GB drives, see review:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/not ... 006-6.html
see pricing (about $80 per drive)
http://computers.pricegrabber.com/hard- ... sv=button/

5) Optionally, External USB Optical Drive
(if you don't already have one)
"Lenovo USB 2.0 Super Multi-Burner Drive with LightScribe", ~$225
Here's the currently available model:
Here's the model # 41N5565 currently available:
http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/cont ... 4EDF98188B

I have the older/cheaper "Lenovo USB 2.0 Super Multi-Burner Drive - Disk drive - DVD±RW (±R DL) / DVD-RAM - 8x/8x/5x - Hi-Speed USB - external - business black - LightScribe - Lenovo 41N556502 (41N5565-02)"
http://www.pricegrabber.com/search_geto ... ightScribe

HERE'S THE ASSEMBLY OVERVIEW:
1) Set aside original hdd (I'd recommend backing it up prior to ever booting it, with something like free Clonezilla, or Ghost 11 or Acronis)

2) borrow metal cage and rubber rails from the original hdd, and install on one of the two purchased 7200rpm drives

3) install 2nd metal cage and rubber rails (from purchased kit) onto the 2nd purchased 7200rpm drive

4) insert both drives in internal drive bays in the W700, screw down cover (see page 76 of pdf, which printed shows page 67 at bottom)
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-70385
DO NOT POWER ON without rubber sleds in place, as shorting and mainboard failure can occur if you skip this step (plus metal clips kind of get caught on naked drive anyhow)

5) Power on boot system, press F1 at ThinkPad splash screen

6) Go into Configuration of Storage, change from AHCI to RAID mode, save changes and exit

7) Reboot, press Ctrl+I when prompted by Intel ICH9M utility during boot, to configure RAID0 (VERY quick and easy, since only 2 blank drives are present), save and exit, reboot,
watch Ctrl+I splash screen to confirm a healthy volume approximately double the size of your drive, then (upon error in finding OS), reboot again

8 ) Press F1 at ThinkPad splash screen, go into Configuration of Storage, change from RAID back to AHCI mode, save changes and exit, power off (the RAID volume will still be visible to SSD C: drive where you'll install your OS, it's just not boot-from-RAID)

9 ) Install Intel X-25M SSD
install Intel X-25M SSD in UltraBay adapter
eject DVD drive unit that came with system aside, keep it, as some firmware flash utilities from Lenovo won't work in external USB DVD readers
insert UltraBay with SSD
Note: never eject it while powered on (which would crash OS). There appears to be an optional lock-down screw on the W700 underside to prevent accidental ejection, anybody have that part#?

10) Power on, press F1 at ThinkPad splash screen

11) Go into startup sequence, ensure that the Intel SSD shows in the boot device list, and you should exclude the RAID volume

12) Install Vista Ultimate 64
This part is trickiest of all. You need to have the media, which you can order for an extra fee from Lenovo. Or you need to have Window Home Server recovery media, but it won't restore to smaller drive. So, it'd seem that cloning the preload to the new Intel SSD would be the way to go, Ghost 11 boot CD, or Acronis, should do nicely. I personally already had a Ghost 11 backup of my T61p C: drive with 65GB or data, cloned it to SSD and it resized automatically, then I booted off WinPE 2.0 CD and had to run "chkdsk c: /f" on the resized C: drive on my Intel SSD, it then booted, and worked flawlessly. Added ICH9M driver from Lenovo Support. Then restored my T61p D: drive to the new 600GB RAID0 Volume, could then see the data no problem. But this whole cloning topic is really another whole 'nother discussion.

Hope I've helped others, and sure wish Lenovo would offer a preconfigured system configured this way (I suspect they don't, although I'm not sure, since I ordered so long ago).

barrywohl wrote: How about some more comments or pictures on the W700 WUXGA screen vs. the T610 WUXGA screen. My T61p screen is fine in darker indoor environments, but not so good at my brightly lit office.

I don't have side by side photos of my T61p and my W700, but will take some next week. Sure wish this forum had direct place to attach photos, without having to upload elsewhere first.

I will say, subjectively, that the side-to-side sensitivity to viewing angle seemed very much like the T61p, that is, not that great. Group huddles around laptop not ideal still. Yeah, it's brighter and bigger, but not really a much better monitor that IPS would be. Frankly, for me though, not a big deal. About 75% of the time I'm not travelling and use it docked anyway, with an external 24" screen (at same 1920x1200 resolution) on DVI, and another 19" 4:3 screen for KVM switching, using VGA.

The Huey calibrator thing is cool though, takes under a minute, and fleshtones really do look better before and after, and I don't need to do anything fancy to get colors right with it.

Hope this helps!

tinkererguy wrote:I don't have side by side photos of my T61p and my W700, but will take some next week. Sure wish this forum had direct place to attach photos, without having to upload elsewhere first.

the extra bandwidth required for this feature would cost a lot more.   we'd like to keep this place free-of-charge for our users.

just use tinypic.com for image uploads.   it's free and doesn't need any registration.

tinkererguy wrote:unfortunately, managed to slightly lift one of the 2 320GB drives (HDD0) about 1mm, and...

So sorry to hear that, tinkererguy. I'm an EE, and that was one of my concerns. I've been sort of awestruck by all the stuff you've been adding. I hope you get everything patched up without too much difficulty. Let us know what happens.

And thanks for your feedback on the resizing/cloning issues. I've garnered much useful information from your intrepid adventures in this thread.

And if anyone's interested, one of the things I'm planning to do with my W700, if it ever arrives, is to use NVidia's CUDA language extensions for C++ to program the W700's GPU. People don't realize it, but you can use the GPU to do a lot more than just graphics. And the 128 cores of the Quadro FX 3700M option for the W700 represent an incredible amount of CPU power (which will sit largely unused much of the time). Just to give you an idea, here's one of the first real-world applications that utilizes CUDA, with some impressive results (for comparison purposes, the Quadro FX 3700M is roughly 10% faster than the GeForce 8800M GTX listed in the article):

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20 ... urity.html

I'll bet you didn't know you had that capability sitting in your new laptop. And the W700 is one of very few laptops (three, actually) on the market that offer the 3700M. Anyway, I would think that every new W700 owner would want to be aware of this, even if you instead have the 2700M. So you can either program using CUDA yourself, or buy some extremely high-performance applications that make use of it. I'm not connected in any way with it -- I'm just an excited geek. One's GPU is a terrible thing to waste.

Glad you appreciate my typing this all up. And thank you for sharing what you're doing with your W700!

FYI, here's a cut and paste from the Lenovo website tonight, pertaining to the graphics:

NVIDIA Quadro FX 2700M 48-core CUDA parallel computing processor 512MB (dedicated)

NVIDIA Quadro FX 3700M 128-core CUDA parallel computing processor 1GB (dedicated) [add $340.00]

erik wrote:

tinkererguy wrote:I don't have side by side photos of my T61p and my W700, but will take some next week. Sure wish this forum had direct place to attach photos, without having to upload elsewhere first.

the extra bandwidth required for this feature would cost a lot more.   we'd like to keep this place free-of-charge for our users.

just use tinypic.com for image uploads.   it's free and doesn't need any registration.

Thanks for the tip! I checked it out, but wanted to keep my Picasa captions, so this worked out to be the least effort.

See 1600x1067 pix uploaded here, including the guts inside. I also have one of the W700 next to my T61p (that I had forgotten about).
http://picasaweb.google.com/tinkererguy/W700#

QFoam wrote:

tinkererguy wrote:unfortunately, managed to slightly lift one of the 2 320GB drives (HDD0) about 1mm, and...

So sorry to hear that, tinkererguy. I'm an EE, and that was one of my concerns. I've been sort of awestruck by all the stuff you've been adding. I hope you get everything patched up without too much difficulty. Let us know what happens.

Yeah, I need to clarify a few things:
a) I doubt it had to do with warm undocking, as that was several minutes before the incident
b) the instant the metal of the HDD made contact with the magnesium roll cage inerds is when the power abruptly turned off
c) I really doubt putting the EVDO into the mini-PCI slot that the Turbo card was in had anything to do with anything, but yeah, pulled it (and Turbo memory) out now. FYI, I had placed the order, including Turbo Memory, back before SSDs were sort of decently priced, but I agree, using it makes little or no sense for SSD HDD users.

Glad I can reuse the Turbo Memory in my T61p (I think)...

tinkererguy wrote:"
3) Qty 1 rubber rail kit (2 pieces, plus metal sled for mounting the 2nd drive), ~$20
(I'm using the 250GB my system came with for other projects)
Here's exploded parts diagram, the rubber rail kit is FRU 41V9756, but not sure how to also order the metal sled:
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... R-70561#18
Here's a slow-to-ship option that includes rails and the little metal sled:
http://cgi.ebay.com/IBM-Thinkpad-Hard-D ... dZViewItem

I'm actually happy to click on an ad I just spotted right here on thinkpads.com, for New Mode Hard Drive Caddy, see:
http://newmodeus.com/shop/index.php?mai ... ucts_id=36

This part is a little worrisome, from above site:
"This is not an original IBM/ Lenovo part. We manufacture this product to meet or exceed OEM quality specifications."
but the price is so much better, as is the location (US instead of Hong Kong). Here's one buyer's experience:
http://www.resellerratings.com/store/Ne ... lectronics

Anybody out there find a place to buy Lenovo branded parts affordably, with the needed drive caddy, screws, and rubber rails?

tinkererguy

My primary plan is to use the 64 GB SSD from Samsung and the 200 GB from Hitachi

or two 64 GB SSD in RAID 0, 200 GB in Ultra Bay (don't know if this work)

or two 200 GB Hitachi in RAID 0 (maybe slower than the primary plan, maybe faster)

Do you think any of this will work and which do you think will be faster.

This is of course when my W700 finally ships, still waiting.

Thanks
MTWIZARD

You gave these 3 options:

1) use the 64 GB SSD from Samsung and the 200 GB from Hitachi (I'm assuming boot from 64GB in bay0 internal, and 200GB Hitachi D: drive in bay1 internal)
SLOWEST/MODERATE COST

2) two 64 GB SSD in RAID 0, 200 GB in Ultra Bay
FASTEST/PRICEY

3) two 200 GB Hitachi in RAID 0
FAST/CHEAPEST

Well, the first option should work, but will be the slowest. The second will be the fastest, and should work, but I haven't tested of course. The 3rd option you give will likely work as well, as it's essentially the same as what I outlined above, search on "EXTREMELY FAST W700 COOKBOOK"

Hmm, perhaps it's time I start a new thread for that cookbook, given it seems to be fairly well baked at this point, and it'd be easier to find...

OK, cookbook portion of this thread moved over here:
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=68936

tinkererguy wrote:...
So once I get the repaired unit back, I'll be very productive pretty much right away, since I had finished all tweaking/driver installs, with the exception of the fingerprint reader, prior to the failure....

Well, ezserv
http://www-03.ibm.com/support/ezserv
has had the unit for Th/Fr/Mo now, and still not fixed, web site says very little. I called today, and was told there's currently a 5-7 business day repair backlog, but that my particular repair wasn't showing any parts shortages (which could make repairs take longer). This is the longest turn-around I've ever experienced in about 10 years of 1 or 2 repairs a year (on about a dozen TPads I help maintain). I called the problem in, Tuesday Oct 21st, shipped it Wednesday 22nd, and work began Th Oct 2rd. From that intial call-in, until it's return, as late as Monday, Nov 3rd, that's 13 days, ouch. But working with sales, and getting an entirely new unit (since the W700 was <20 days old) would take even longer, I was told by my salesperson.

Oh well...

Turns out, there's a log entry in the repair depot's service log, from Monday the 27th, that "system board is not in the system," and that Friday, the 7th day of repair attempt, I can escalate. Meanwhile, they recommended I talk to sales, which I did, will know more about my resolution this Friday, Oct 31st.

Well I have only myself to blame. Well, sort of. Didn't know my mistake would be quite so painful. It'd be good if Lenovo's service agreement somewhere specified how long repairs can take, but it turns out, it's all subject to parts availability.

I'm on the 9th business day of the repair attempt (which has been escalated and a complaint# assigned), and here's the status:
"Hold for Parts - Service call is on hold until parts arrive, estimated at: None provided"
Service dept agrees, no ETA estimated yet, and the planar part wasn't even in the "system" for the repair technician to order until Oct 29.

So I had little choice, if I want to see a W700 soon. Worked with sales and ordered a new unit on Oct 29th, with ship estimate of Nov 10th. Which all means I've experienced a ~4 week delay in having a functional machine, despite having placed my original order on the day of announce, I believe back on Aug 20th. This is because the parts depot doesn't yet have all replacement parts in stock, such as the planar. Of course, they'll be no restocking fee, and an extension to the normal 21 day RMA process for asking for a full refund.

So it's good to know that when a Lenovo machine first comes out, this W700 anyway, be very careful, to avoid service as best you can. Still, if I had to do it all over again (let's hope not), I'd still do it, as I constantly require all the CPU horsepower and memory I can get, with reasonable portability. I don't see any reasonable alternative, and I'm also frankly somewhat married to having a Trackpoint. Yes, an expensive marriage I realize.