cpu upgrade to a x20 / watch divx?

[dogpile]

hi,

im about to buy a x20 with a built in pIII 600. on ebay are several auctions, that offer mobile cpu`s in the pga- form-factor.
my question is: is there a possibilty to change the cpu of this notebook in the way like i described?

thnx

christian

ps: are there any experiences with this cpu and 192 mb ram and win2k or xp? i dont know what its able to handle...
i want to use it for office/surf(opera) and to watch divx-movies, but i`m not sure if there is enough power inside:)

[monty cantsin]

is there a possibilty to change the cpu of this notebook in the way like i described?

No, it's soldered onto the mainboard.

Hardware Maintenance Manual:
http://www-1.ibm.com/support/docview.ws ... &loc=en_US

ps: are there any experiences with this cpu and 192 mb ram and win2k

The more the better, as always. Provided that this machine will only be used for the low-end tasks you mentioned below (including watching the ordinary DivX videos floating around, certainly not the high definition stuff some aficionados are into), a P3-600 with 192 MB will be ok for Windows 2000 and perhaps even XP.

or xp? i dont know what its able to handle...
i want to use it for office/surf(opera) and to watch divx-movies, but i`m not sure if there is enough power inside:)

Depends on your standards. For many people (me included), such a processor completely suits their average needs. But with XP, you might want to consider upgrading the memory to the maximum of 320MB. This will result in a system that feels a lot more responsive. As a matter of fact, you are able to do anything you described above even with as little as 128MB under XP, but it will be quite sluggish and doesn't make much fun.

Please notice that the 256MB stick you'll need for an upgrade has to be of the PC100 "low density" kind, that means: it must be suited for computers with the i440BX chipset. Usually this memory type is quite rare and expensive, but good deals may be found on ebay.

[kleung21]

I'm watching DivX on the thinkpax x20 p3-600 right now;

you won't need any cpu upgrades

[richarddd]

I can watch divx on a 333mhz TP 570 with color depth set at 16bit. 99% of the time it's fine.

[Voodle]

I can watch divx on a 333mhz TP 570 with color depth set at 16bit. 99% of the time it's fine.

This is a good point with the older laptops, setting the desktop colour depth to 16 bit from 32 bit will help video playing because they've got stuff like the 2.5mb neomagic chipset (Blargh) or in the X20's case, the ATI Mobility M1 4mb (also Blargh).

Another thing is that you should try out defilerpak: http://hellninjacommando.com/defilerpak/
because it contains ffdshow which decodes video more efficiently and with less cpu usage than with the proper xvid/divx codecs. That and it includes all the codecs you'll ever need to play divx videos.

The X20 runs okay with 192mb of ram and XP, with some unnecessary services disabled, although I wouldn't want to push it too much with only 192, it does benefit a lot from having the full 320mb of ram.

[richarddd]

because it contains ffdshow which decodes video more efficiently and with less cpu usage than with the proper xvid/divx codecs.

I'll add another vote for ffdshow. Also media player classic. http://www.doom9.org/software.htm Zoom player has a good setup guide http://www.inmatrix.com/articles/mediasetup.shtml

[monty cantsin]

This is a good point with the older laptops, setting the desktop colour depth to 16 bit from 32 bit will help video playing because they've got stuff like the 2.5mb neomagic chipset (Blargh)

Yes, and my TP570 (333Mhz, 128MB, Windows XP Pro) will even play DVDs smoothly when I set the resolution to SVGA, enable the HV expansion, and, most importantly, turn down the color depth to only 8bit when playing the video (the low color depth doesn't make a difference to the video itself as it is being projected into an overlay). Then the processor load continuously remains between 60 and 80 percent, with only some few intermittent peaks.

[hhy2k]

192 MB is enough for XP if you don't open too many windows in the same time.... 348 is better though. Watching divix I advice you to find GDIVIX player. it takes half the resources than Windows Media or the official divx player. Divx are many kind and many sizes though. a 320x240 divix is easier to play than a 720x404...

Get Gdivx, go easy on the CPU! If you want to make that laptop absolutly amazing, buy a 7200 rpm HDD!

[dogpile]

hi,

first:thnx for the many replies...

i finally bought the x20 in the described configuration, and im very pleased about this small and light notebook...

but my problem is, that i have no good video performance. a file with a 720x576 resolution has only 11 frames per second. (avi)
vcds work, but svcd`s also have dropped frames...
i use the zoomplayer and the fdd-filters under windows server 2003.

anybody ideas how to speed up the performance???

christian

[dogpile]

up....