Dell XPS M1530/1330... no Turbo Memory?

I got to thinking after ordering mine... there is no option in either XPS M1530 or 1330 (i haven't looked at 1730) for Intel Turbo Memory... does anyone know why it is not included in these systems? I remember seeing some expansion slots, but those were only for WWLAN and WUSB...

 

it wasnt an option when i ordered my M1330 either, i ended up buying it from amazon i believe it was around 27 bucks shipped. I've read a lot of "snake oil" type remarks about it, but i definitely notice the speed boost, mostly on boot up (and i have 4 gigs of ram).

 

There really isn't a good use for it anyway, so don't worry about it and save yourself the money and trouble.

 

I think I may get it down the line... when I get my laptop and after a while if I feel that it is not speedy enough. What confuses me is that Intel's description is that it "learns" your most freq programs to cache. So, for people to say that it does nothing for performance, have they tested it extensively to give it adequate time to "learn" ?

 

Turbo memory doesn't do diddly squat, just use readyboost or something. Plus, superfetch "learns" your most frequent programs as well.

 

The fact that turbomemory was one of the biggest snowjobs has been discussed over and over. To this day, there hasnt been a shred of documented proof that it speeds up any system with 2Gb ram or more.

You can find thread after thread and tons of validity all over the internet which show that it does nothing.

 

blah, okay. I guess I'll save the $30 and buy a really nice dinner for myself tonight instead

 

My friend had an Alienware lappy and had Turbo Memory installed. I saw it, it wasn't really that "fast" as I expected it to work. That amount money spent could buy yourself a Flash drive for readyboost and works as good as it is too. Mine is an Inspiron 1720 and uses an MMC card for readyboost. It seems as fast as it is too.

 

Yea, Turbo Memory is a scam.

 

well when i boot on my xps the yellow lines go past about 8 times, and when i installed the turbo memory now its 5, it also boots to the "glowing orb" a lot faster with the turbo memory installed...

I was messing around with the laptop about a month ago and decided to really see what it did and took the turbo memory out. With it out the boot time was obviously slower by about 10 - 15 seconds slower overall. So yes, it is doing something.

 

They need to at least tell us about the options our computer has, if I hadn't chanced across this thread I wouldn't even know about Turbo Memory! Sounds good enough to try to me. The cost isn't that much of an issue, it tucks away inside using an otherwise unused slot in my notebook, and would definitely do SOMETHING for the notebook in terms of speed and power usage... all sounds good to me. I mean there doesn't seem to be any down side, so I think I'll pick up a module up and try it out.

Now if they just had an internal USB port, so we could tuck away inside a keyboard/mouse dongle and or flash memory thumb drive...

 

Just wanted to add that I've had my 1Gb Intel Turbo Memory module installed for a week now. I can't speak highly enough of it. Speeds not only booting into Vista, but also applications and opening files. More than I would have thought possible to be honest.

Its not all good in a funny way. I am a software developer and have recently been working on a dialog to visually browse/select images. The Intel Turbo module has made THIS much more difficult. Last week I could test the dialog easily, but you just can't test a progress bar when loading time is instantaneous even for hundreds of images. I'm constantly trying to find another big folder of images so I get that intitial slower loading. Second time forget about it, ITM has it cached! I plan to try creating an image library on a disc next, ITM might not cache off the DVD drive (not sure). It makes me wonder why Windows doesn't cache this well when you have plenty of RAM left!

Also booting is much quicker. I turn on my desktop and laptop at the same time each morning, and they used to get there at the same time, but now the laptop gets there much quicker.

Mostly I just wanted to let other who might be considering one know what my experience was. Overall installing one has made a significant difference to performance on my system. My system is an Ispiron 1720 w/ T9300 2.5 GHz processor, 4Gb RAM, 2 x 250GB hard drives, GeForce 8600M GT.

Now my big question: I have ANOTHER available mini PCI slot in there that can take an ITM module. Are two of them possible?

 

i second that. i have a m1530 with 4 gig ram and it has made a big difference in boot times.

but the most impressive change is how quick it opens programs i use alot.
photoshop cs3 extended, for example.
from clicking on it in the start menu to being fully loaded and ready to roll in 4 - 5 seconds depending on backgorund processes.

and to those that say its better to spend the money on ram. DUH.
this was never supposed to be a replacement to ram. more of a way to augment it, its good for me as i have already reached the 4 gig limit so any extra perfomance is a bonus.

also i think the new beta divers for it have changed the fact that when you disable readyboost it will still only use half a gig for readydrive, cause after a few tests when i turn readyboost off i get a perfomance increace and the hdd thrashes even less. oh i love contacts in intel

the fastest i have got it to go yet is to disable readyboost on the card and use my san disk extreem III sd card.
if anyone can beat that setup for speed without using a SSD or hybrid HDD then hats off to you.

 

Are the beta drivers publicly available?

 

Kudos to all the posts above. Couldn't agree more.

Anyway for my personal experience, put it simply; If your laptop has 3 - 4GB of RAM, save your USB slot for something else because readyboost ain't gonna help at all. It's not going to be fully utilized. My 1720 has a startup time of just 22 secs from the push of the power button to a fully loaded GUI desktop and every program is ready to be launched without any form of delay or short system freeze at all - Yes, without the use of readyboost.

Tried and tested, if you are budget guy, or if you think getting RAM is expensive, then getting a memory stick for readyboost or for those systems with less than 2 or 1GB of RAM is recommend. - Than you can see the notable increase. I've seen it in my own 2 eyes and it's the fact.

If I were you, I'd suggest paying a bit more for a new RAM and make it work for you. Readyboost and Turbo Memory is still quite questionable at this point of time. Try and google around and see for yourself what others are saying too.

 

Since my m1530 had a slot for it I got one just to fill the void. Instead of using an SD card for Readyboost and Prefetching the Turbo Memory is more 'clean'. I have 4gb RAM on a 32bit Vista and it runs fine. Programs do seem to start faster but what's a millisecs. The laptop also has a wwan slot so went ahead and ordered one to use with my SIM card since I have a data plan with my cell phone carrier, crossing fingers hoping it'll work.

 

Did you notice any slowdowns when hibernating?
http://www.anandtech.com/mobile/showdoc.aspx?i=3009
anandtech investigated the technology and said that it slows the system down, especially the time it takes to hibernate.
But that review is almost a year old of cours...

 

I wanted to ask those of you that bought the TM seperately and installed it into your laptop. How many reboots did it take before the console showed it as active? How long did you wait in between reboots for idle time? I have rebooted for 5 times with 5 minutes of idle time in between and it still shows up as disabled! Help anyone ?

 

The Turbo Memory isn't really useful at all. Research has shown it to actually may cause your computer to perform slower or even worse. Its really hit or miss. I'm glad Dell doesn't use it.

 

I think you're getting the placebo effect. Flash memory isn't nearly as fast as regular DRAM so it doesn't make physical sense that Turbo Memory would speed up a system with 4 GB of RAM.

Without quantification I'm going to remain skeptical. You may think it's faster but there are so many variables... it could just be SuperFetch getting better over time.