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Wireless USB and Turbo Memory?

T400/T410/T420 and T500/T510/T520 Series
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MikalE
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Wireless USB and Turbo Memory?

#1 Post by MikalE » Thu Nov 30, 2017 8:42 am

Would someone explain to me what each of these items are in the T500?

I know that wireless USB is not the same as using say, a wireless keyboard or wireless mouse, but I don't know what it is.

Same question with Turbo Memory. What is this and does it supplement on-board memory in the usual slots or is it some kind of extra cache or paging file memory? What does it do or what is it used for?

I ask these questions because the slot where these devices are supposed to be is empty on my machine and I want to install one or the other.
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axur-delmeria
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Re: Wireless USB and Turbo Memory?

#2 Post by axur-delmeria » Thu Nov 30, 2017 4:25 pm

Turbo memory is a mini PCIe card that contains a small amount of flash memory (1-4GB) that can be used with Windows Vista's Readyboost caching feature.
Basically, often-read data is copied to the flash cache, where it can be accessed much faster than the hard drive. It can be used to improve Windows boot and application loading times. The card itself identifies as a PCIe device, uses proprietary drivers, and is not accessible to end-users unlike other devices used with Readyboost, like small-capacity SSDs, USB flash disks, and SD cards.

However, performance gains were minimal. and I remember a comment in an older thread here about experiencing BSODs on laptops with Turbo Memory cards installed (possibly a driver issue); removing said cards fixed the problem.

Don't know much about Wreless USB, other than it's frequency range is between 3.1 and 10.6GHz, and designed to have full USB 2.0 bandwidth (480Mbps) at 3 meters.
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Re: Wireless USB and Turbo Memory?

#3 Post by MikalE » Thu Nov 30, 2017 6:54 pm

Thanks for the detailed reply.

I guess I wasted $7 if this won't work with Win 7 Pro.
A31p P-IV 2Ghz, 2MB, 2653-R6U
T500 T9600 2055-BE9
T510 i5 4384-DV7
T510 i7 4349-A64
T520 i7QM 4242-4UU Highly Modified
T16 i7 1260P 21BV000SUS

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Re: Wireless USB and Turbo Memory?

#4 Post by axur-delmeria » Fri Dec 01, 2017 5:29 am

There are Windows 7 drivers for the Turbo Memory card, though I doubt you'll get much improvement using it.
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Re: Wireless USB and Turbo Memory?

#5 Post by MikalE » Fri Dec 01, 2017 10:27 am

Probably not with the Samsung SSD I just bought for it.

It's not worth sending back for $7. I'll just install it anyway and see what happens.

Anyone know what wireless USB was/is used for or what peripherals are available or compatible? I might look for one of those cards and install it instead if there is any use for it.

I really like maxing out my Thinkpads when I can afford to do so.
A31p P-IV 2Ghz, 2MB, 2653-R6U
T500 T9600 2055-BE9
T510 i5 4384-DV7
T510 i7 4349-A64
T520 i7QM 4242-4UU Highly Modified
T16 i7 1260P 21BV000SUS

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Re: Wireless USB and Turbo Memory?

#6 Post by jaspen-meyer » Fri Dec 01, 2017 1:02 pm

MikalE wrote:
Fri Dec 01, 2017 10:27 am
I really like maxing out my Thinkpads when I can afford to do so.
The Q9100 mod is a huge performance boost for the T500.
T420 i7 3612QM seabios; T420 i7 3630QM; T400 Q9100 seabios; T61 P9600; T60 libreboot; x62; x60s libreboot, led; x24 xiphmont led

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Re: Wireless USB and Turbo Memory?

#7 Post by MikalE » Mon Dec 04, 2017 5:00 pm

I installed this Turbo Boost Memory card while installing the SSD.

Windows couldn't find the drivers, but the Lenovo updater found it within seconds of running the updater.

Can't tell if it makes a difference or not with the SSD installed. The boot time is very fast now.
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T510 i5 4384-DV7
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Re: Wireless USB and Turbo Memory?

#8 Post by Dekks » Tue May 15, 2018 6:44 am

it's bad practice to run a Robson TM unit with a SSD. Best off removing the module.
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Re: Wireless USB and Turbo Memory?

#9 Post by MikalE » Tue May 15, 2018 1:07 pm

Dekks wrote:
Tue May 15, 2018 6:44 am
it's bad practice to run a Robson TM unit with a SSD. Best off removing the module.
Why is that?
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T510 i5 4384-DV7
T510 i7 4349-A64
T520 i7QM 4242-4UU Highly Modified
T16 i7 1260P 21BV000SUS

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Re: Wireless USB and Turbo Memory?

#10 Post by MikalE » Tue May 15, 2018 1:25 pm

Annecy wrote:
Tue May 15, 2018 9:54 am
MikalE wrote:
Thu Nov 30, 2017 8:42 am
"~~~
Same question with Turbo Memory. What is this ...
"
Here's a (detailed) "TurboMemory" review from 11 years ago:
For those who really REALLY wanna know ... about Intel's (so-called) "TurboMemory"
Thanks for posting that. It was interesting, but in my system it basically does nothing.
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T500 T9600 2055-BE9
T510 i5 4384-DV7
T510 i7 4349-A64
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Re: Wireless USB and Turbo Memory?

#11 Post by TPFanatic » Tue May 15, 2018 2:04 pm

Turbo Memory I find causes a few second delay in POSTing that negates any boot time improvement.

Just keeping your system lean will give you better performance than the Turbo Mem hopes to achieve. Bloated system + Turbo Mem is slower than a lean system, and this only applies to HDDs. An SSD will make any bloated system lean.

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Re: Wireless USB and Turbo Memory?

#12 Post by Dekks » Tue May 15, 2018 4:10 pm

MikalE wrote:
Tue May 15, 2018 1:07 pm
Dekks wrote:
Tue May 15, 2018 6:44 am
it's bad practice to run a Robson TM unit with a SSD. Best off removing the module.
Why is that?
SSD is so much faster than the slow HDD Robson was designed for, effectively your doing double the work leading to negative performance. It also doesn't allow one to use the optimal schedulers for a SSD.
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Re: Wireless USB and Turbo Memory?

#13 Post by TonyJZX » Tue May 22, 2018 10:11 pm

This Robson thing has been assigned to the annals (or anals) of Intel's marketing over actual innovation.

I seem to recall that the T400 was the sole unit that had the Turbo Memory option.

I think Dell also used it but HP said they wouldnt and they were smart butt enough to release a white paper that said it did nothing so why would they stick it in their Elitebooks.

I have about half a dozen T400s and a few have it but I found it does nothing except pull a driver off WU.

I felt it did nothing good or bad even with an SSD but I used fair low end consumer ssds.

I find there's a lot of vestigal cards in this age of laptop including sub 3g cards and in Dell's, a few wireless hdmi type things.

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Re: Wireless USB and Turbo Memory?

#14 Post by TonyJZX » Tue May 22, 2018 11:26 pm

I seem to recall the early days of Win7 pre Sp1 say 2010/11 when there was a lot of discussion about Win7 in the enterprise being slow on marginal PCs.

eg. Win7 starter was supposed to run on 1Gb so there was some companies running Win7 on say 2gb C2D desktops w/ 120Gb slow hdd etc. and they werent getting good performance.

In that day, 10 yrs ago, 4gb was an avg. workable machine and SSDs had not been invented or at least not hit mass market.

So with some big name laptops like a T400 w/4gb & turbo mem and say a 7,200rpm 250gb hdd then people thought they could use Readyboost with a USB Stick or an SD card to boost speeds.

Readyboost is sort of like Microsoft's stop gap solution/non-solution to low memory just like Turbo Memory was Intel's own solution/non=solution.

To give you some idea, my machine machine was a 4gb Elitebook 6930p and I remeber I had a very new i7 920 desktop w/ only 6Gb of ram and some 7,200rpm hdds and an ATI 3800/4800 type card.

That's what Win7 was like 10yrs ago. Now all disappeared into the history books.

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Re: Wireless USB and Turbo Memory?

#15 Post by Dekks » Wed May 23, 2018 4:25 am

TonyJZX wrote:
Tue May 22, 2018 11:26 pm
Readyboost is sort of like Microsoft's stop gap solution/non-solution to low memory just like Turbo Memory was Intel's own solution/non=solution.
See this is a common misconception, Readyboost is not about low memory. It's about nothing more than the MS PR dept fixation with reducing windows boot times, you can see the ideas learned over the years since vista's introduction in the current default win10 hybrid hibernation/shutdown/quickstart mode.
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Re: Wireless USB and Turbo Memory?

#16 Post by shawross » Wed May 23, 2018 6:09 pm

I wondered if "Turbo Memory" was an attempt to deflect emphasis away from Intel ME on boot times and this was more relevant for HDs.

Yes keeping your system lean and removing any driver or program feature that is not required is the better option.
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