x100e performance issues and tips

[NK0d3R]

Hello once again. I have the MV-40, 1 GB RAM, 160 GB Hdd, Radeon 2200, Windows XP x100e, most likely the cheapest of the bunch. I have two main problems with it, both being somewhat connected.
The first would be the CPU performance. While it's true that, while running on charger at full speed, the MV-40 probably kills the Intel Atom 450 my Sony Vaio netbook had equipped, when running on battery - and that's what mobility's all about - the MV-40 seems to struggle a lot worse than the Atom (I use the "Power Source Optimized" scheme, so on battery it's running on its lowest frequency). Adobe Flash pages are atrocious, stumbling over a web page having embedded more than two YouTube movies is an instant killer. Oh, and 720p YouTube movies are actually slideshows with occasional sound.
The second issue would be battery life. I have the 3 cell version, with updated firmware and all, and it barely gives me 1 hour of wifi browsing using the power scheme mentioned above, and it's only one month old or so. The most obvious thing to do would be to buy a 6-cell battery (which in Romania costs about 40-50% of this model's price) so I'm not very enthusiastic about this course of action. I was also thinking that adding a few gigs of memory (adding a 2 GB module or replacing the one I have with two 2 GB Kingston HyperX'es) would help - the hard drive is being currently used a lot due to memory swapping caused by insufficient memory and the disk drive is, probably, the third most important power hungry component, after the CPU and the LCD screen, so more memory - less usage of the HDD - less battery consumption - better performance overall.
Do you have any suggestion about this issues ?

Also, scrolling with two fingers rarely works, most of the time I end up using directional keys for scrolling.

[The Solutor]

Adding (at least ) a GB of ram is "mandatory"

Then uou must upgrade the ati drivers from the original 9.6 to the current 10.11 and flash plugin and flash activex to the current version to have gratly improved performances.

The battery is also a mandatory gift if you want to use tath notebook for about 3/4 h, but as you said the batteryes aren't cheap. so start with the te first two upgrades then think about the battery..

[jvarszegi]

I also have an MV-40. I get acceptable performance on battery by setting the processor in Windows 7 power/performance settings to go to 66 or 80% of maximum on battery; it makes a big difference compared to 50%.

I have an SSD installed which increases the battery life by about a half hour, but even without that was getting about 4:30 with a six-cell. I'm hoping that your battery life greatly increases with the RAM upgrade.

[yhp2009]

@jvarszegi

Hi, can you elaborate on the cpu power management step youre applying in WIN7? Do you mean to go into the COntrolPanel-> SystemSecurity->PowerOptions->EditPlanSettings and click on the "ChangeAdvancedPowerSettings"?? And finally change the "MaximumProcessorState" level in the "ProcessorPowerManagement" tree?
I'm really trying to make tweek this baby to optimal levels
Thanks

[NK0d3R]

Mine came with Windows XP installed, I don't think I'll upgrade to 7 because it's a more resource demanding OS and the device is struggling as it is. I did order a 2 x 2 GB Kingston HyperX kit (CL4), and even though I won't be able to use more than about 3 GB of them (my work PC running a 32bit XP and having 4GB of memory is reporting 3.49 GB so it's not that big of a loss), I feel that installing Win7 in order to be able to use the remainder of the RAM will be a performance hit rather than an improvement. I'll let you know about how the device behaves after the upgrade.

[The Solutor]

Mine came with Windows XP installed, I don't think I'll upgrade to 7 because it's a more resource demanding OS and the device is struggling as it is. I did order a 2 x 2 GB Kingston HyperX kit (CL4), and even though I won't be able to use more than about 3 GB of them (my work PC running a 32bit XP and having 4GB of memory is reporting 3.49 GB so it's not that big of a loss), I feel that installing Win7 in order to be able to use the remainder of the RAM will be a performance hit rather than an improvement. I'll let you know about how the device behaves after the upgrade.

You don't need seven to get 4GB (4GB - 256 MB of shared video memory), you need a 64bit os, so you can use xp 64 (with the same license/serial number used for xp32).

Another option is to use the unused ram to get a ramdisk (gavotte can do this) with a ramdisk you can do some nice things, just google a bit to undersand "what things"

[jvarszegi]

@jvarszegi

Hi, can you elaborate on the cpu power management step youre applying in WIN7? Do you mean to go into the COntrolPanel-> SystemSecurity->PowerOptions->EditPlanSettings and click on the "ChangeAdvancedPowerSettings"?? And finally change the "MaximumProcessorState" level in the "ProcessorPowerManagement" tree?
I'm really trying to make tweek this baby to optimal levels
Thanks

Yep, that's what I did. Merely bumping it up to 66% should give roughly a 1/3 boost in processor performance, and the difference is huge.

[yhp2009]

Hope you all are enjoying some turkey

So I finally got my Intel x25-m 80gig gen2 SSD and this thing is just lightning fast.
I can now reboot my x100e and be fully up and functional in 45 seconds flat... thats all it takes for the system to turn itself off and turn back on and fully ready.
One very impressive observation: With the HDD, the CPU would run at 50-100% for awhile when it boots up into windows. So I would have to wait for the CPU load to settle down to be able to do anything productive(anywhere from ~30seconds to ~2 minutes) Now all that is gone. With the SSD, all necessary processes are instantly activated and the CPU immediately goes into idle state at 5-10% and is ready to open any apps or programs. Very impressive and time saving: time=$$$$

The only thing that was of concern was making sure that indexing was turned off along with superfetch. And of course the headache of having to reinstall all updates and software since I used the recovery disk instead of imaging.

Caution: After I installed the SSD, the CPU load was constantly at ~50%. I checked it out and found that the indexing function was running non stop for some reason. The fix is to disable indexing in Win7(which you should do anyway with an SSD) and all is good. Not quite sure why this becomes a problem when I install the SSD??? My HDD was behaving completely fine with the same exact settings (index On).

Overall I believe I've reached x100e nirvana... until I update to Win7 64-bit when it becomes more reliable IMO

Enjoy your Thanksgiving all

[The Solutor]

Hope you all are enjoying some turkey

So I finally got my Intel x25-m 80gig gen2 SSD and this thing is just lightning fast.
I can now reboot my x100e and be fully up and functional in 45 seconds flat... thats all it takes for the system to turn itself off and turn back on and fully ready.
One very impressive observation: With the HDD, the CPU would run at 50-100% for awhile when it boots up into windows. So I would have to wait for the CPU load to settle down to be able to do anything productive(anywhere from ~30seconds to ~2 minutes) Now all that is gone. With the SSD, all necessary processes are instantly activated and the CPU immediately goes into idle state at 5-10% and is ready to open any apps or programs. Very impressive and time saving: time=$$$$

The only thing that was of concern was making sure that indexing was turned off along with superfetch. And of course the headache of having to reinstall all updates and software since I used the recovery disk instead of imaging.

Caution: After I installed the SSD, the CPU load was constantly at ~50%. I checked it out and found that the indexing function was running non stop for some reason. The fix is to disable indexing in Win7(which you should do anyway with an SSD) and all is good. Not quite sure why this becomes a problem when I install the SSD??? My HDD was behaving completely fine with the same exact settings (index On).

Overall I believe I've reached x100e nirvana... until I update to Win7 64-bit when it becomes more reliable IMO

Enjoy your Thanksgiving all

Just download ssd tweaker it will set, with a single click of mouse, almost all the useful ssd related tweaks

[Colonel O'Neill]

Weird. My X100e reboots in about a minute on a crappy 5400RPM Seagate. I wonder what would happen if I crammed a Scorpio Black in it.

Also, my X100e runs Windows 7 32-bit just fine on 2GB of RAM. It does about the same on a 64-bit dual-boot.

[NK0d3R]

I managed to install 2 x 2 GB Kingston HyperX CL4 memory modules on my X100e. The performance boost isn't out of this world, but it's obviously a lot better than with just 1 GB of memory. Some impressions while doing surgery on the x100e : the plastic is really cheap, I wasn't expecting Macbook Unibody quality on something costing 0.25 of the price, but still, it feels too cheap. The lid is kept in place by 7 screws as well as some plastic 'claws' (I'm not a native english speaker so I'm sorry for being unable to find a better term) and some small plastic bits that act as seals and must be broken (much like the small plastic 'seals' on some deodorants). Some light force is necessary after unscrewing in order to remove the lid. The memory and HDD are really easy to access, there's also a plastic slot for a SIMM card, similar to those found on some Nokia phones, but I wasn't able to open its small cover and the plastic felt so cheap I didn't want to insist and break it. After installing the modules, everything went as expected, no issue whatsoever.
Due to the fact I'm using the 32 bit Windows XP my laptop came with, I had to use a little trick : I installed SuperSpeed RamDisk Plus and created a 1.2 GB ramdrive in the unmanaged (unaccessable by Win32) area of the memory and used it as the only drive for the Windows swap file. This seems a very good technique to access more memory on a 32 bit OS.
Battery-wise, the difference isn't remarkable so far, but I didn't test it too much. I still get a some HDD activity when the computer is idleing, even after disabling the Indexing Service and a lot more others, but it's much, much better than before.

[The Solutor]

I installed SuperSpeed RamDisk Plus

Gavotte, the ramdisk I suggested above, does basically the some things but it's free.

[NK0d3R]

Just tried playing Torchlight for about one hour. While the game runs flawlessly at somewhat average detail levels (not on Netbook mode), the device gets _really_ hot. After exiting the application, CPU Thermometer was showing 81 deg C. If it hadn't been for my Logitech Lapdesk I would have smelt like burnt bacon right now. The MV40 is one hot little chip, literally. Plants vs Zombies was the same : really high temperatures and nice performance.

[clinesr]

I own the L625 and have it set to Adaptive and see no difference in battery life. This gives me 100% power when I need it on battery and doesn't seem to effect battery life much at all. I don't know about the other CPU's in the x100e but, I do know that the L625 has the most power states and battery saving functions.

Just thought I'd post that bit of info for those that might need it.
Just be sure to set the cooling to active instead of passive.