buying a x100e

[adityeah]

Hi people,

I am planning to buy a Thinkpad x100e. There are a few reasons I am going for this particular model/Thinkpad:

1. The size is small. 11.1 is great for me.
2. Thinkpad's trackpoint and no glare screen.

Now there is this newly launched x100e model which is based on AMD Turion Neo X2 Dual-Core L625 and has 4 GB RAM. I have tried to get reviews of this but have not got any online. Do you have any idea about this configuration?

Also, I would be using this machine for web browsing, email, video chat, movies/music AND do a dual boot with Ubuntu on this and use it for programming (nothing too heavy though). Do you think this would suffice? I am mostly scared of the AMD processor because I have heard mixed reviews about it.

Please let me have your views on this. This is my first post here so I'd love to get your feedback, if any, about this Dual core version. I know a lot of people have been waiting for the dual core thing on the x100e.

Thanks!

Aditya

[control]

I have the single core one, and I use it for pretty much the same reasons you list, so much so that it's kinda creepy. I even dual boot with ubuntu and I use it to program class assignments with Eclipse and Netbeans. I would say that for 90% of everything I try, it performs very well. There is a weird bug under Win7 that causes a long pause seemingly at random since it isn't really reproducible. And this is a really hard pause, mouse doesn't move, alt+ctrl+del does nothing, only thing working is the off button. This lasts roughly 5-10 secs, at which point everything that I did suddenly starts going. This doesn't happen at all under linux so I'm assuming its something running in windows. So, other than that one weird bug it performs like a champ.

[hmmwv]

I've had my L625 equipped x100e for three days now and I have to say that I absolutely love it. I only have 2Gb of RAM in it but I upgraded the HDD to a SSD. I think the dual core Turion Neo is quite powerful as a low voltage processor, the performance is the same as a Core 2 Duo T5300 which I have in my work laptop. Lenovo didn't ship the x100e with the latest graphics driver, so you'll have to manually install the new driver for HD3200 to take full advantage of it. With the updated driver and Flash 10.1, I can watch 1080p Youtube clips smoothly, and the CPU utilization is only around 50%. Hulu and Netflix both work well too.

I think due to the fact that L625 doesn't always have to work as hard as MV-40, it'll idel for longer thus reduce power consumption. So even though L625's TDW is 3W higher than MV-40 (18W vs 15W), the new processor didn't reduce battery life at all, at least I haven't felt it. I hope I can find some time tomorrow to do more testing and write a mini review about it.

[ZaZ]

How's the heat? That's always the question with AMD. It'll be interesting to see how the new low watt AMD CPU do that are coming out soon.

There's a user review of the dual core x100e over at notebook review here.

[hmmwv]

Heat varies with CPU/GPU load, if I'm doing web browsing or word processing and select power save mode then heat is acceptable, around 55C if I use it on my lap, even lower if it's on a flat surface. But when you push the CPU a little bit, the machine will get hot really fast, my CPU temperature hit 78C after playing Need For Speed Most Wanted for about 5 minutes. At that point you definitely don't want to leave the computer on your lap, only a flat surface can ensure adquate air intake for the fan (all x100e's intake vents are located at the bottom cover). I also feel that the WiFi module is actually just as hot as the CPU/GPU area. Also note that no matter how hot the machine gets, the top side will always stay cool so your hand will barely notice the heat.

[The Solutor]

Also, I would be using this machine for web browsing, email, video chat, movies/music AND do a dual boot with Ubuntu on this and use it for programming (nothing too heavy though). Do you think this would suffice? I am mostly scared of the AMD processor because I have heard mixed reviews about it.

Ubuntu works almost out of the box, only few additional steps are needded: as recompiling the qcserial module to gain access to the GOBI 2000 wwan modem.

Is also strongly suggested to patch the thinkpad acpi module and to build the new realtek wifi module to gain a good wifi functionality.

Other than that, ubuntu work almost perfectly.

Fedora 13 is already patched on the qcserial side, but hangs on the first boot because the unpatched thinkpad acpi module (so is mandatory to do the first boot with the acpi=off option, patch and recompile the module and reboot normally).

[adityeah]

Hi guys, thanks for your response.

I ordered my model yesterday (same thing - dual core Neo with 4 GB RAM). So now, I have to wait for nearly 2 weeks to get it delivered.

The battery life of 3+ hours seems okay to me since I don't run around with my machine. I'd probably be spending 3-4 hours on this, per day, max.

I don't understand one thing -- as hmmwv said, the air intakes are located at the bottom of the machine? Is that usual with Thinkpads/laptops? Do you think a docking bay would help? Do we need to go for external/any-other cooling options to cool it down?

For those guys who have installed Ubuntu (with Dual boot on it), I would like to know how they divided the HDD space between the partitions.

I would love to write my thoughts once I get my machine. Keep writing guys!

[control]

For those guys who have installed Ubuntu (with Dual boot on it), I would like to know how they divided the HDD space between the partitions.

I would love to write my thoughts once I get my machine. Keep writing guys!

Congrats on the purchase, hope it works out for you.
Anyways, I have a 160GB hdd that I split into 5 parts after making my recovery disks and removing that partition.
1 - System_DRV - standard win7 partition, came with it so I'm not touching it.
2 - Win7Os - Shrank it down to 40GB, pretty standard size that I do on all my systems.
3 - Storage - 106GB - shared storage space between win and linux
4 - Linux part - 10GB or so, never needed much space for this
5 - Swap - 2 gb, just enough for me to hibernate, you might need 4 gb

[hmmwv]

Hi guys, thanks for your response.
I don't understand one thing -- as hmmwv said, the air intakes are located at the bottom of the machine? Is that usual with Thinkpads/laptops? Do you think a docking bay would help? Do we need to go for external/any-other cooling options to cool it down?

I think the design is quite common, the problem is x100e has a small foot print as well as internal space. That makes thermal dissipation design a challenge, if the laptop sits on a soft surface, more than likely the intakes will be blocked, and the internal space won't hold enough air to go through the heatsink fins. The problem with laptop cooler is that you have to buy the ones designed for netbooks, otherwise the rubber feet that elevate the laptop will be too far apart to hold the x100e. Coming from using Atom/ULV equipped ultraportables, I get nervous when I see temperature go above 70C, but I believe the 65nm L625 should be fine. What I'm really concerned about is the wifi card, mine gets extremely hot, it actually melted a vinyl sticker which happens to be sitting under the laptop.

[The Solutor]

For those guys who have installed Ubuntu (with Dual boot on it), I would like to know how they divided the HDD space between the partitions.

I have multiple version of the stock configuration (recovery disks, recovery usbstick, a copy of the raw S: an Q:) partitions, so I partitioned my HDD in four primary partition, used for win7 32, win 7 64, xp 32, and a linux partition (atm used by fedora 64). The swap partition is almost useless with the ram present on the PCs todays, so I don't use it

But. after a bit of experiments, what I use more is a customized installation installed on a 2 GB RS-MMC, which fully fits in the card reader slot.

Although there are also some 4Gb sized RS-MMC (mmc-mobile) they are very difficult to find, so I decided to experiment with the 2GB one.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Firstly tried the plain approach: linux installed ad usual with the card formatted as ext2, this works but even with light sw, like LXDE, the space left is not too much, and all is not too fast, because the performance of rs-mmc is not on par with the latest uSD.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Then I tried Knoppix 6.2, it stars from a read only compressed iso, so some 2+ GB of sw fits on 700MB of space, you can also use a permanent overlay file (1,2GB, in this case) to install additional sw and to sore personal data and settings.

All is done transparently from the user point of view, and the system is very fast because the compression (fast processor/slow disk).

This is the approach suggested for the newbies, because is really a child play getting all working (you need just a blank card, the knoppix iso, and unetbootin to write the system on it).

Remember that you can't do a full upgrade because the new files are written on the 1.2 GB rw file and the old ones are still on the 700MB one, so you can waste your space very quickly, so just install the additiona sw you need and live happy.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

At the end I tried a third approach: the new btrfs filesystem, it supports a ton of features, compression, ssd optimized writing, snapshots and so on, and is meant to be highly resilient to the system crashes. But is still not widely availiable becouse is very young.

So I installed a mini ubuntu on a different place, I installed the , I did the patches needed to fit the X100 configuration, recompiled the kernel, then I divided the RS-MMC in two partitions: /boot (a 50MB ext2 one), and the remaining space formatted with BTRFS for the / filesystem.

Then I copied my system tho the rs-mmc, I installed grub (not grub2) in the card's MBR, and voilà

The system is very fast, because the compression and the SSD option, and because btrfs is fast itself.

I have some 2,5GB of sw installed and 1GB of free space (which is still compressed space, so it can accept way more than 1GB of data), the filesystem is completely rw so no space wasted when upgrading a sw

The platter HDD is sleeping until I need to use large files as movies, or ISOs, and this helps the battery life, so I think I can't do better.

If you are interested in some details you have just to ask.

[random]

I picked up the L625. 4gb seems plenty for me. I haven't gotten around to installing linux on it yet. So far, I don't think the CPU has really been limiting. I've seen similar pauses to the ones control mentioned -- except mine, I can switch tasks with the trackpoint, and type into putty windows, but aero seems locked up, as well as some apps. I was going to guess graphics, acpi/hdaps first but haven't gotten around to investigating yet.

The heat... it gets a LOT warmer than its predecessor with me (x32, which has a pentium m). The top stays cool, but on my bed, the x32 would do ok (if I wasn't running the cpu hard), but even near idle, the x100e gets *hot* without having its airflow from underneath. If you use it on a flat surface, you should be fine. The metal pad I have is sitting under the gen1 macbook on my flat desk, as it needs it more than the x100e does....

[The Solutor]

I picked up the L625. 4gb seems plenty for me. I haven't gotten around to installing linux on it yet. So far, I don't think the CPU has really been limiting. I've seen similar pauses to the ones control mentioned -- except mine, I can switch tasks with the trackpoint, and type into putty windows, but aero seems locked up, as well as some apps. I was going to guess graphics, acpi/hdaps first but haven't gotten around to investigating yet.

Be sure to lower the airbag sw sensitivity or a little vibration/movement will block the pc for some seconds.

[benjs]

(...) There is a weird bug under Win7 that causes a long pause seemingly at random since it isn't really reproducible. And this is a really hard pause, mouse doesn't move, alt+ctrl+del does nothing, only thing working is the off button. This lasts roughly 5-10 secs, at which point everything that I did suddenly starts going. This doesn't happen at all under linux so I'm assuming its something running in windows. So, other than that one weird bug it performs like a champ.

Sorry for hijacking this thread, but I'm suffering from the same issue and it's not APS-related.
(This happens when my x100e is on my desk and I'm working... it just locks up for a few seconds, although I'm able to use my mousepointer, nothing reacts to any interaction.)
... I'll do more research on this though and if time permits open a new thread with a better description.

[adityeah]

There is a weird bug under Win7 that causes a long pause seemingly at random since it isn't really reproducible.

(And similar quotes)

What Windows 7 is it? 32 or 64? I know the 64 bit has some issues, I think I have heard about it.

Also, you guys reckon I could go with the full fledged Ubuntu 10 install on this? No need for the toned down netbook version, right?

Much thanks!

[hmmwv]

I have Win 7 Home 32bit and so far I haven't noticed any pauses. I booted Lucid Lynx from a thumb drive and it works great, the performance is enough to run the desktop version, if you want the intuitive interface you can always download Netbook Remix.

[GrandMasterKhan]

BTW there are absolutely no issues with 64-bit W7. I've been running it flawlessly since it was released. The fastest most stable OS Bill and Steve ever released.

[control]

What Windows 7 is it? 32 or 64?

I'm running win 7 32 home premium that shipped with the laptop, and I have the Active Protection System utility off. I guess I can turn it on and see what happens.

[candlerb]

Ubuntu works almost out of the box, only few additional steps are needded: as recompiling the qcserial module to gain access to the GOBI 2000 wwan modem.

Is also strongly suggested to patch the thinkpad acpi module and to build the new realtek wifi module to gain a good wifi functionality.

Other than that, ubuntu work almost perfectly.

I have the dual-core L625 (NTS5EUK) which came with the WWAN card, which was a bit of a bonus as I wasn't expecting it.

I've got it all working with Ubuntu now, bar the wifi, but the biggest headache was the machine locking up whenever the display was blanked and network traffic in progress. This is very repeatable, both i386 and amd64, and I've reported it at https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... bug/591699

The workaround is turning off everything to do with screen blanking (in xorg.conf and power preferences). A screen *saver* is OK, it's the turning off the display which causes the problem.

This wasted me a couple of nights debugging, and at one point I was wishing I'd bought a MacBook instead.

Now I'm happy enough (but might still buy a MacBook next time - I'm getting too old for this hassle with new products). The screen is crisp and bright but has smaller pixels than my older Thinkpad X30; a ctrl-+ in the web browser fixes that. For compiling code it's as fast or marginally faster than my desktop (a Dell Zino HD, also dual-core AMD 1.6GHz). The keyboard's great, and I don't care too much about battery life. Heat is a bit annoying, but it's OK on a desk, and it keeps your hands warm.

It's a true 64 bit processor, and the BIOS says you can turn on AMD Virtualisation extensions, not that I expect to do too much virtualisation with 2GB.

I shrunk the windows partition using the built-in partition utility from the control panel without problems. From experience, I recommend you do this *as soon as* you've logged in. On my Zino I played with Win7 for a bit first, and then found it had put some immovable files in the middle of my 500GB hard drive, which made it extremely hard to shrink below 250GB.

The Thinkpad uses three partitions already: after shrinking the Win7 one I got
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 154 1228800 7 HPFS/NTFS
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2 154 4984 38797312 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3 37639 38914 10240000 7 HPFS/NTFS

(the one at the end is the recovery partition). I was able to install Linux purely into extended partitions.

I bought mine through laptopsdirect.co.uk and got it within a couple of days. There's a 0.95% credit card fee (waived for debit card), but f you go via topcashback you get 2% back.

And if you join topcashback via the following link then I get a quid as well
http://www.topcashback.co.uk/ref/candlerb

[The Solutor]

I have the dual-core L625 (NTS5EUK) which came with the WWAN card, which was a bit of a bonus as I wasn't expecting it.

I've got it all working with Ubuntu now, bar the wifi, but the biggest headache was the machine locking up whenever the display was blanked and network traffic in progress. This is very repeatable, both i386 and amd64, and I've reported it at https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... bug/591699

Haven't noticed this particular behavior, but I'm sure that most of the annoying glitches are fixed in kernel 2.6.35.rc2.

Thinkpad acpi works, qcserial works w/o patches on the code (still need the two lenovo's custom PID), radeon works, (no more freezes plugging the power, no more needs to disable kvm), try that kernel hopefully your problem is gone also.

[adityeah]

I shrunk the windows partition using the built-in partition utility from the control panel without problems. From experience, I recommend you do this *as soon as* you've logged in.

Candlerb, when you say this, I am assuming it would be advisable to create a new partition (D:) in Windows 7 as soon as I get it and then use that very partition to install Ubuntu on it, right? (Aside: Ubuntu would then create the swap within that)

[The Solutor]

Candlerb, when you say this, I am assuming it would be advisable to create a new partition (D:) in Windows 7 as soon as I get it and then use that very partition to install Ubuntu on it, right? (Aside: Ubuntu would then create the swap within that)

With 2 or more gigabyte of ram the swap partition is really useless, at least with the normal usage.

Can be handy only if you plan a very memory hungry application, like an entire os installed inside a virtual machine.

That said, you can't have more than 4 partition (4 primary, or 3 primary +1 logical), the x100 comes with already 3 primary partition S,C,Q so if you resize the C partiton with the win seven's disk manager, you will get an hole between C and Q.

You can fill that hole with a single primary partition (which is fine), or you can put a logical partition and then use a one or more of different partition inside the logichal one. And that scheme is not suggested because some os and utilities are assuming that the logical partition have to occupy the last part of the disk.

So, if you want to use more than one partition to install linux, you can:

#1 Using acronis/paragon/whatever: resize C:, then move Q to the left, letting the last part of the disk free (then partition it as you want)

#2 Using the windows disk manager: resize C:, create a new primary partition with the same size as Q:, copy the Q contents inside the new partition, remove Q, use the empty space as you want

#3 Backup the Q partition on a safe place and simply remove the Q partition (and if you want resize C:) then partition as you want the free space.

#4 Use wubi to instal ubuntu, no partitioning involved at all

Whatever option You choose you must create your recover media set, before you do something related to partitions and/or bootloader, becous it's easy that your F11 option will not work anymore after any operation, even if linux is not involved.

[candlerb]

Candlerb, when you say this, I am assuming it would be advisable to create a new partition (D:) in Windows 7 as soon as I get it and then use that very partition to install Ubuntu on it, right? (Aside: Ubuntu would then create the swap within that)

I just shrunk the C partition, and then created new extended partitions using the Ubuntu installer - "specify partitions manually" I think it said.

FWIW, here's what I went with:

Code: Select all

# fdisk /dev/sda

WARNING: DOS-compatible mode is deprecated. It's strongly recommended to
         switch off the mode (command 'c') and change display units to
         sectors (command 'u').

Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/sda: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x281cc31f

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1         154     1228800    7  HPFS/NTFS
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2             154        4984    38797312    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3           37639       38914    10240000    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda4            4984       31843   215748609    5  Extended
/dev/sda5            4984        7972    23999488   83  Linux
/dev/sda6            7972        8470     4002816   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda7            8470       13145    37548032   83  Linux
/dev/sda8           13145       22494    75097088   83  Linux
/dev/sda9           22494       31843    75097088   83  Linux

Partition table entries are not in disk order

sda5 is root, sda6 is swap, sda7-9 are mounted on /u /v and /w, and I still have about 40GB free to create a new partition should I want to later.

By the way:
* the wireless works once you've upgraded all packages after installation (gives you the 2.6.32-22-generic kernel)
* To compile a newer thinkpad_acpi module for this kernel see
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... bug/557736
* To compile qcserial/usb_wwan modules for this kernel see
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... bug/554099
* There's a workaround for the headphone jack not muting sound here (haven't tested it yet)
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... bug/549289

Regards,

Brian.

[The Solutor]

I just shrunk the C partition, and then created new extended partitions using the Ubuntu installer - "specify partitions manually" I think it said.

This is exactly the partition scheme that should be avoided, it obviously works, but further partition management can be dangerous.

eg: removing sda9, and creating a ntfs volume on the empty space through the win7 disk manager.

Partitioning is still not an exact science and the little differences on how different OSes or different programs can lead to unexpected results when uncommon partition schemes are used.

[adityeah]

Can someone please tell me how much is the size of each partition as per factory for x100e? As I understand there would be three partitions, S, C and Q. C is of course the partition that has Windows on it. Is Q the system backup partition here? What is S then?

I would just like to keep it simple, as I used to keep with my desktop (Well there it was MUCH simpler - one HDD for Windows, another for Linux!). So here, ideally I would like to create some empty space using Windows Disk Manager and let Ubuntu have it while installing. The third partition would be NTFS and should hold the non-OS data (media files, music etc) so that I can access it via any OS I boot in. That is the scheme I am looking for. Any ideas?

Thanks for all your replies guys Btw, my system has reached AK, so should be soon here!

[The Solutor]

Can someone please tell me how much is the size of each partition as per factory for x100e? As I understand there would be three partitions, S, C and Q. C is of course the partition that has Windows on it. Is Q the system backup partition here? What is S then?

S partition is the first, is usually hidden, and is small, it contains the restore sw and a small diagnostic environment.

Q is at the end of the disk and contains the data to be restored ( the images of the 3 partitions) is around 10 GB

The remaining space is obliviously C:

I would just like to keep it simple

So, make the recovery media[s] ( check if it boots), delete Q, resize C, create a D partition if you need it and install Linux in the empty space. This is the simplest approach.

You can also want to remove S but in that case you need a 3rd party sw to resize C: (I think is not worth, unless you want to use 4 primary partition to install 4 operating system, I did it but I'm a desperate case )

[adityeah]

So, make the recovery media[s] ( check if it boots), delete Q, resize C, create a D partition if you need it and install Linux in the empty space. This is the simplest approach.

Do I really need to delete Q? Is it advisable to install the second OS at the far end of the HD? Cant I create two partitions between C and Q and then install Ubuntu on one of them?

[The Solutor]

Do I really need to delete Q? Is it advisable to install the second OS at the far end of the HD? Cant I create two partitions between C and Q and then install Ubuntu on one of them?

You don't "need" but is strongly suggested if you plan to install ubuntu in one or more logical partition, if you plan to use only one primary partition is safe to just use the empty space between C and Q.

BTW Q:, unlike S: has nothing of special,it is just a bunch of files, just copy them in a temporary folder, delete Q: recreate it at the end of C: partition, and copy the files back.

It's just matter of minutes and then you can use safely any logical partition scheme to install ubuntu.