May 2006 - Posts
As you probably have figured out I have recently purchased a Toshiba M400. I also went out and purchased a few accessories, slice battery, hard drive media adapter.
One thing about this experience is that unless you really want to throw away money, don't bother with the accessories. First of all the slice battery is $199 for an extra two hours of life (It is rated only at 4000mah vs. the 6700mah of the standard battery), the size of the battery made it almost impossible to use. I think I am going to just get an extra main battery and just swap the batteries in the evening for charging. (BTW, charging on the Toshiba M400 takes a really long time, 2-3 hours for a full charge, this is probably due to the underpowered adapter)
So it seems that the FAN issue is not going to go away anytime soon. It seems that if the temp of the notebook reaches 40C it will start running the fan really hard. This is without a doubt sucking some of my battery life. From what I understand is that the CPU can go to 100C, so Toshiba please fix your power management software.
Finally the last thing is Toshiba parts. Since I had purchased an additional 100GB 7200RPM SATA drive (Toshiba wants $479 for the drive kit), I needed the mounting hardware for the new drive. The parts dept sells the kit for $50+ dollars, it is out right highway robbery if you ask me. And to top it off, they don't even give you the screws to screw the drive to the bracket. Can you believe they want $5-$7 a screw. I only have one thing to say after this experience of highway robbery.
Just say NO to Toshiba accessories!
There is one redeeming thing with the parts dept, you can buy the battery for $20 less than on the web site.
I have finally got Vista Beta 2 running on my M400. It seems really stable. I do miss the weather gadget that was present in previous builds.
All of the hardware buttons do not work out of the box. However you can use the Intel driver to rotate the screen.
Alas, no Aero glass. It seems that Intel has really messed this one up. (I am kinda wishing that Toshiba continued with the Nvidia) On the Intel site they say that they are Vista ready and there are a number of people who seem to have gotten glass to work. But unfortunately I am not one of them. If someone cares to give me some tips I would appreciate it.
Well lets see, I have a whole lot of beta stuff going on here. Vista Beta, Office Beta, Virtual Server R2 SP1 beta, Office SharePoint Beta...
For the most part Vista is very nice. Compatibility seems good except for all those system utilities, and driver support is just not there yet.
Office 2007 is amazing. The beta is significantly more stable and much more polished.
I do have an issue with some of the defaults in the ribbon, one example is that when you open a previously sent email, the option to resend the message shouldn't be buried. It seems that all the crashing in Outlook with the preview pane on when viewing a html message has gone away.
One other thing I have an issue with is the RSS feeds. It seems that the configuration for this is burried in the Send Receive menu item. Also, you don't have the ability to modify the RSS feed url from Outlook. You can only enable and disable. I haven't spent the time, but I think there is an xml file that controls the feeds somewhere in your profile.
There is another annoyance that I hope it has been fixed, and that has to do with OneNote auto-repair functionality. It seems in Beta-1 TR I had a file that I was using to take notes for the entire day go corrupt. Although I could see all the data, OneNote notified me that I should click on the message for me to repair the file. Let me just sum it up, DONOT click on this message w/o backing up the .one file that you are working on. It seems that OneNote decided to DELETE my notes for the entire day. It really pissed me off, but I realize that I am using Beta product so I have no one to blame but myself...=).
The other thing I hope is fixed in OneNote, it the auto import feature from my WM5 phone. In Beta-1 TR it would hang OneNote after syncing.
I do have one warning with Vista. It seems that if you get into a high disk activity mode, as with Virtual Machines, and suspend or hibernate without first pausing the VM, you will be prone to the blue screen of death.
When I am done configuring SharePoint I will post some more =)
Well this is going to be a quick update.
I finally figured out what the issue with the fan is. It looks to me it is due to me installing a 100GB 7200 RPM drive. The drive runs hot. It seems that there probably is a temperature sensor somewhere near the internal hard-disk bay that seems to be causing the problem.
I also bought the drive bay hard disk adapter (Toshiba doesn't provide the drive cage so I had to improvise). I put the hot drive in the adapter and boot off it. With the 5400 stock drive in the internal bay there is no fan racing.
Well, I am waiting for either Notebook Hardware Control or speedfan to come out with fan support for the Core Duo. Until then I will have the 5400 rpm drive in the internal drive bay.
The one thing that really bothers me is I have to switch drives physically to use the CDROM, I guess I could install xp on the 5400 RPM drive. But the 7200 RPM drive is so much faster. Additionally if the second SATA drive is not present during boot, you will have to restart your machine before it is recognized. |
It has been over a week with my M400. So far so good, with a few exception.
If you are like me, I prefer negative comments vs. positive ones. There are many devices out there that can fit some needs but not others. For example, my primary use for this tablet is a replacement for my primary notebook that I carry around with me everywhere, I need to run Virtual Machines, do some development in visual Studio, and do some Photo retouching work. (btw, I used to carry around the 700m 1.8Ghz, 2 GB RAM, 100 GB). Although it is about 1/2 pound heavier and a bit on the chunky side as compared to the 700m, this notebook has so far delivered on my primary needs.
The latest build on Windows Vista works really well. It now has the drivers for the integrated video card (Although you have to get them by running an update on the device). I haven't gotten Aero Glass working but that is my next task. The new side bar is really nice.
For those interested in a screen protector, I purchased a screen protector from Strong Engineering. For the most part it seems to do the job. It does look a bit on the ugly side with the transparent double-sided tape that is used to adhere the screen at the sides to the tablet screen. I do wish they made the screen protector a bit wider, granted the screen is an exact fit for the tablet panel (tape overlaps viewing area by a few mm on top and bottom), I think they could have made it so that it completely fits on the black border around the screen. The only other complaint is that if you don't get the screen absolutely flat, you might see some slight rainbows on the screen. The positives are cost ($10), writing surface (very paper-like and it is relatively impervious to my sons iron pen grip. I can now sleep with ease =) ). I wish the InvisibleShield people would make a tablet screen protector.
Some other accessories I have ordered are the Hard Drive Adapter for the CDROM bay, and a extra battery.
This will enable me to get another hard disk and easily swap in and out additional storage. For the second battery, I opted for the slice version, this will let me use the Laptop for much longer periods of time disconnected, I thought of the replacement battery, but the external charger is just as expensive as the slice battery. The one thing Toshiba doesn't disappoint is the options, there also is a battery that can fit in the CDROM bay. In any case Toshiba's 3 hour standard battery life is just fine for most trips unplugged, but the long meetings, trips to the park, conferences One other thing, the slice battery seems to have a lower power rating that the default battery. What gives? Oh well.
Finally the really annoying issue is the fan. The fan is always running even when it is in an idle state, C3 as indicated in Perfmon. Granted I don't have any instruments to go an measure the sound, but compared to my Dell 700m (1.86 GHz Pentium M), the fan is VERY noticeable. My Dell has always been silent. The problem occurs after about 5 minutes after you power up or resume after sleeping. I've tested it in both in Windows Vista , Windows XP (Toshiba build), Windows XP (clean build only with Toshiba Power Management), btw (I am up to 6 builds on this laptop). There is a fan utility that can turn off your fan. I am not sure if this is a good idea, but in a meeting or a quite place, when all you are doing is writing, then this is probably a good idea. I will give it a try and post the results later. I would really like to see SpeedFan support for slowing down the fan.
Well there is a service center near me an I will be dropping by to see what the techs have to say. At least I would like to see another M400 and judge that the fan is at lease as loud as my M400. I am beginning to think I should have went with the 1.8 GHz model of the Core Duo. I suspect that version doesn't run as hot as the 2 GHz version.
To be continued…