Intel Turbo Memory on M1330

Got one from Ebay for 40 bucks shipped, installed, everything FEELS like it's working - Boots/shuts up/down pretty fast.

How do I know for SURE if it's at work??


Thanks!

 

Here is the article on Turbo Memory. It seems that it's not very easy to make it work because of lousy Intel driver
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc.aspx?i=3009

 

Yes, I've read this article before I bought it.

Doesn't really answer my question though!

Thanks!

 

I just asked my local XPS Tech Support (twice) if I could use any of the available Turbo Memory PCIe mini-cards on the market or if I had to order a dell-specific version (unlikely, but I thought I'd ask anyways) and their response was that the M1330 is "not compatible with FCM"...?!?

I thought about their response for a few nanoseconds and replied with my exact configuration (such as the facts that I have VISTA [still...] & an SATA HDD and not Hybrid or SSD, etc. - where Turbo Memory might be "useless") and asked them to please elaborate on the "why" aspect of this incompatibility.

They replied with the same exact statement, without any further elaboration...

So is there anyone with an M1330, Intel Turbo Memory (what Dell refers to as Flash Cache Module, or FCM) and visible results here? Achilles, when I used an external Flash Memory Card (Compact Flash, 2GB) and VISTA's Readyboost feature, my PCMark05 HDD tests improved by like 300%!!! I would think that you should also get a major difference in PCMark05 (or any other benchmark which includes HDD tests, for that matter) when using a Turbo Memory card (in ReadyBoost mode)...!

 

Trebuin will be doing real world tests on his m1330 in the next week or so. Wait for that.

There is alot of controversy over the effectiveness of Turbomemory with systems with 2Gb ram and above There is not a question as to its effectiveness below that.

If you want a bit of background, read here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=180815

We had a bit of a debate last night to which myself and another pulled in all kinds of outside and credible sources as to Turbos' effectiveness, or lack thereof.

The plain and simple truth is there is alot to negate effectiveness, including public statements by HP and other large companies, but no real world tests that support its claims.

The only real world source is the Anandtech article which believes its useless.

There are those that state that it does work then those that say its not possible with anyone having 2Gb of ram or more.

Wait a few days for Trebuins results; they wil be biased and honest.

 

Thx for all the info and links & yes, I'll wait on Trebuin's results, which will be quite interesting.

 

I've got it and notice the improvement, though others who don't have it, say i can't.

Call it biased, but for me it was definately worth it.

 

Raphie...thats twice you have jumped in with the quote of stating other who dont have it. I can only believe you are referring to me as I was the only one posting in the other thread with the other member.

Suggestion maybe here big guy...try and read more than picking out the parts you want to hear. I stated a number of times I had it, still do as a matter of fact, tried it in several scenarios (more/less ram) and there was no difference, just as all the more known sources keep saying.

The only, yes only, positive result one has heard is from users which, believe it or not may be entirely through the placebo effect as there are so few...but maybe its not which is why I discussed the tests that will be done by Trebuin.

Some very very simple tests for you. You state you have noticed a difference so just document the timing differences with and without the Turbo card.

 

I can only suggest for you to try it. I've noticed a noticeable improvement, especially when surfing and working with samples in Cubase SX.
That an AnandTech benchmark with an old driver does not reflect other usdage scenario's with current drivers just seems to be hard to accept by some. So don't take it personal, it's more against the general turbo Memory apathy here.

 

K wait... here we go...

I have tried it. I tried it with 1gb ram, 2 gb ram and 4 gb ram. It does show some improvement at 1Gb ram but nothing above that. This coincides to what, not just Anandtech has said but several others including HP.

All I am asking is that, if you are seeing improvement, document it by stating your timings. Thats all.

Conversely, I cant say its not working and display times because there is no relevant change in the times.

 

I agree there, i yet need to find the benchmark that captures the improved performance.

 

Thank you...

 

I think the bottom line is if Turbo Memory is value for money, for me it clearly is: € 30,00 for an improved user experience for me is a no brainer. If other don't notice any in their usage scenarios then i understand that it makes no sense for them.

I only thing i want to say is that no-one can make a generic "one statement fits all" as this is simply not the case.

 

Keep in mind that even though you may of had it installed in your laptop, without documenting how you installed it and that it was properly working you can't be sure that you were actually making use of it on your system. As was brought up in the Anandtech article they were required to reboot a number of times in order for it to start working properly and Intel made the statement that it takes the laptop a period of time to adapt and start using the flash memory properly. What that means for sure I don't know since I haven't ran tests yet. Also, like I said in the previous thread, the Anandtech review was rather inclusive of real world performance. The review was written back in early June or before and the only tests they ran were a few set limited benchmarks, namely PC Mark 2005. They made no mention of actual Vista boot times tested or actual application loading performance. You also have to keep in mind that Intel Turbo Memory may of not been properly implemented on the laptop they used. Things like BIOS support could negatively effect their results. Did they even mention what laptop they even tested it on? Also keep in mind that Intel has released an updated driver since then. Like I quoted in the previous discussion, there are a half a dozen users in just that one ThinkPad thread I linked stating they noticed a very real performance difference between having The Intel Turbo Memory enabled and disabled. One even stated that he could hardly stand the slower performance when he had it disabled. And these are users that had 2GB and 4GB of RAM installed. The performance advantage to having ReadyBoost probably is fairly small with 2GB+ RAM. There's no question about that simply because of the purpose ReadyBoost serves. But ReadyBoost and ReadyDrive are not the same technologies and system memory (RAM) cannot function the part of ReadyDrive.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=180815

 

Oh I give.... Im calling HP Chief CEO and he will address this.

Oh wait wait... And I have said previously that Readyboost and/or TurboMemory works great for those systems with less than 2Gb RAM. Its because most systems use above the 1Gb mark to work effectively. The problem, I believe, is when you have ram thats not being used. It is the fastest method for the system and is given priority over Readyboost and Turbomemory.

If you read about Turbomemory, a certain amount of even it is dictated as Readyboost served.

 

did you test with PCMark05? what mode do you run the card in (eg. ReadyBoost or one of the others?)

 

i have 4gb or ram. i do notice much faster loading of programs starting and pages loading etc... while i actually notice some things are also slower.. so its really hard to say

 

If you FEEL it causes an improvement, that's the most important thing. In fact it is the ONLY relevant thing. You are the only judge of what works for you.

If you need homeopathic remedies, or magnets to reduce deposits in your pipes, let me know. I have some excellent placebo products at very reasonable prices.

 

I've got the 1Gb card, it can only run in 50/50 mode (512mb Readyboost / 512mb Readydrive) it was also definately faster than my 2GB Readyboost Sandisk Extreme III in the xps-m1330 CFslot.

 

I love your pun

 

Only thing I've noticed was fast boot/shut down times.

When you install it for the first time, make sure to reboot few times - I think there's a process that HD loads some stuff to the turbo memory, and first few boot time was very slow due to this.

 

The fact is that it is a useful thing only for people with less than 2GB of RAM. It's the same thing as a dedicated flash memory. It's useless with more than 1GB of RAM. In fact, you'll see the biggest difference only with 512MB of RAM.

 

Oh... but I assume you mean SD card, right?

 

Yep, that's a SDcard

 

i just installed this a couple days ago (30 with shipping from amazon).

i've noticed an improvement, and i have 2gb ram, t7300, and the 250gb 7200rpm hdd.

boot time has been cut by about 6 seconds. Battery life has increased by about 10mins.

i was surprised about the battery life increase, because no one seemed to mention that about the turbo memory. Is this normal? has anyone else noticed it.

I havent done any benchmarks, so i cant say anything about other improvements, but by using a stopwatch I can notice these 2 improvements.

 

According to what tests? Please provide. There are a number of users with 2GB and even 4GB of RAM that say they notice a real difference when the Turbo Memory is enabled and disabled. The part about it only really being truly useful for people with less than 2GB RAM is only substantiated in part by the nature of ReadyBoost. Only half of the Turbo Memory is allocated for ReadyBoost. The other half is for ReadyDrive and no amount of system memory can function as ReadyDrive because system memory is volatile. ReadyDrive is what improves boot performance and battery time. Also those previous users I mentioned noted an improvement in application loading performance and that was with 2GB and 4GB of system memory. I've not seen any hard performance numbers to suggest that to be false. The Anandtech review is the only real review I've seen published on one of the major sites and it's nothing but a couple canned benchmarks.

 

According to some people that really tested the differences (meaning numbers). Until Vista SP1 is out Turbo Memory will not be working at it's best.

 

That may be true but who is some people? The logistics behind why manufacturers like HP and Sony aren't wanting to include the module with their systems doesn't make a lot of sense. This is what HP had to say for the reason as to why they chose to omit the Intel Turbo Memory currently:

I can personally order the module for $25 shipped so I know for a fact that the manufacturers are able to get the modules directly from Intel for even less than that. How much the OEM decides to charge for the upgrade is up to them but the module is not expensive at all. It costs no more than ordering a Bluetooth module or any other minor addon. HP charges all kinds of amounts of money for little rinky dink upgrades that are worthless yet they seem to think this small added cost is a huge imposition on customers for their valuable money. Truth of the matter is that it's more likely they just didn't want to have to provide support for it in their laptop designs.

Right here is your reason why Sony and likely HP didn't decide to include the option for the Turbo Memory.

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/0,1000000091,39287377,00.htm

They didn't want to have to go to the trouble of designing the laptop for an added Mini PCI slot. Sony's statements of Vista not currently supporting Turbo Memory or Hybrid hard drives is unsubstantiated.

 

I have a 1520 with an Intel Turbo Chip... and I already had 3 Gb of RAM installed. I can tell the difference. Using a USB flash drive was useless as far as I can tell so I bought the Turbo Chip.. I only paid $32 for it so no big deal if it didn' t work. Though you'd probably be better off getting rid of the Dell bloatware first.

 

It's quite reasonable, considering that the OS will move its Swap File as well as maybe all temp files (Internet pages, etc.) from the hard drive to the Turbo Memory card.

So after 2~4 hrs of surfing and/or having 3~10 Internet pages open simutaneously, your swap file will certainly come into play and of course, the turbo memory will save a lot of accesses to the HDD, extending battery life. :9

 

Which is the best place online to get the Turbo Memory from? Kindly post some direct links.

 

Amazon.com

 

Thanks. Anywhere else?

 

OK...I installed a 1GB one today, and it works somehow instantly (the loading time of control panel shorten about a second) But I have one question...as I want to use a 2GB SD card for Readyboost, is there anying can make Readydrives uses ALL of the 1GB memory?

 

No, you can't pick and choose (it seems like you can on the dumb panel though) . It's dedicated to 50-50 from what I've read.

 

Um...thanks...that means 512MB of it won't be used...:-/
by the way, my WEI increased from 4.0 to 4.1 after ITM is installed!

 

Just take out the sd card. I have 2 and 4gb sd cards I don't even use anymore because

1-sd was sticking out

2-was about same speed or felt the turbo memory alone was faster.

time to go back to sleep.

 

I got my ITM today and as Raphie wrote earlier it does spilt the TM in half allocating 512MB for Ready Boost and the other 512B for Ready Drive. I think that this can be changed though in the ITM control panel.

I already have 3GB of ram installed I have been thinking about giving the entire 1GB of the ITM over to RD as it appears that RD is what may increase battery life. I don't have a hybrid HD though but i clicked on the properties of my Samsung HD and i saw that my HD was effectively acting as a hybrid HD.

So what do some of you think should i give all the 1GB to RD or just leave it allocated as it is?
Thanks in advance.

 

According to AnandTech's article (which, quite frankly, is somewhat dated), ITM does not re-distribute the 1GB even though the options to do so are listed:

"If you follow all the instructions, reboot enough times and please the NAND Flash Gods, Intel's Turbo Memory will be enabled. You'll even have a nice little control panel you can use to confirm that it is enabled, but here is where things can go wrong once more.

The control panel has two check boxes that appear to be used to "select the cache policy you want to enable"

We originally made the mistake of trusting what the console said; don't touch these boxes and you'll be fine

By no means should you check or uncheck either of these boxes. According to Intel, they are not meant to be used to enable/disable Turbo Memory, and tinkering with them may enable or disable the technology with no way of confirming what has happened. Intel went as far as to say that if we touched anything on this page that we shouldn't trust what the control panel told us because it may not be correct; the control panel should simply be used as a visual tool to confirm that ReadyBoost and ReadyDrive are enabled. The control panel will tell you the truth about whether or not the RB/RD caches are enabled, so long as you don't touch any of the buttons."

Of course, it may be possible that Intel released new drivers and/ or ver of the setup utility... I just don't know how you could test it to be sure.

 

Does Intel Turbo Memory work on M1330 notebooks with WiFi AND Wireless Broadband cards installed? I opened the part of the notebook where the ITM goes and both slots were filled. Anyone have any input here? Thanks!

 

M1330 only has 1 slot for either Intel turbo memory, or wireless broadband.

I just use intel, and if I do need internet outside home, I use Treo's Bluetooth DUN, or USB DUN for free.

 

Now that you have discovered you can't use the ITM, how much are you willing to sell it for?

 

I found the Intel 1GB Turbo Memory module for sale on Dell for the first time here a week or so ago. I was going to snatch up a couple with the $50 EPP concession coupon I was given but can't find the item on the EPP site or even Dell Home or Small Business for that matter. I was only able to find it listed as a new item on the Dell Higher Education Store and since I found it it looks like they've started requiring login or I'm not finding the same way in that I managed to click to find it before. In other words I don't have Dell Premier access.

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=hied&cs=RC956904&sku=A1316176

 

Hi guys - my ITM chip which has been on my machine for a few weeks now caused my m1330 to not boot into any OS - and when I removed it (I had a hunch it was the problem) everything is fine now. Any comments?

 

Check the bios - SATA Operations or something (one that has something to do with Hard drive is all i remember)

 

I guess I don't follow the advise. What do I do now?

 

Load the BIOS setup (immediately after [re]booting your Notebook, check the boot screen which [shortly] indicates the proper key to press). Check that:

1. Flash Cache Module is enabled. If not, enable it.

2. SATA Operation shows AHCI mode (and not "ATA"). I believe this is what Achilles is referring to, but BE WARNED, I think that changing this may have an adverse affect on the OS and could lead to BSODs. See this thread and/or do a search on "AHCI". AHCI mode should be the default value anyways.

If the above two settings are as they should be, then I have no other suggestions and you may want to consider having Dell replace it - or, if you bought it elswhere, asking the vendor to test it for you, or perhaps a friend / school mate has a Santa Rosa-based Notebook and could test it for you...

Good luck, in any event

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

P.S. I found this in Dell's Service Manual (sorry, I downloaded it in August and don't remember the link, otherwise I'd be more than happy to post it ):

Troubleshooting

To properly use Intel Turbo Memory, the system must be running Windows Vista; the Windows Vista operating system is designed to look for and use these types of cards. The Intel Turbo Memory driver must also be installed for the card to work correctly. These cards do not work on systems with an AMD processor.

Problems that arise from using Intel Turbo Memory manifest as issues normally related to memory. This means random lockups, random errors, and BSODs (blue screens of death). A bad card could cause a no-POST issue. The most effective way to determine if the card is causing the problem is to remove it and see if the problems continue.

Included with the driver is the Intel Turbo Memory Console, as mentioned previously. It is automatically installed with the driver. If no options are available to enable either ReadyBoost or ReadyDrive in the interface, then the card is not working correctly. If the card is not listed here at all, then it is not detected by the system.

Conditions for a Working Card
For a Dell™ system to properly use Intel Turbo Memory, the following conditions must exist:

The system must have an Intel processor and have a Santa Rosa (Intel GM965 or PM965) or newer chipset.
The SATA Operation option in the BIOS must be set to AHCI.
RAID must be disabled, or else the card does not work.
The Intel Flash Cache setting in the BIOS must be enabled.
The card must be installed either in the dedicated Intel Flash Cache Logic Chip Mini-Card (FCM) slot or the WWAN / FCM Mini-Card slot.
The system must be running Windows Vista.
The drivers for the card must be installed.
This includes the driver for the card as well as the IMSM driver. If either of these drivers is missing, you can reinstall both by installing the latest Intel Turbo Memory driver from support.dell.com since this file contains both drivers.
The Intel Turbo Memory Console has been configured to correctly use ReadyDrive or ReadyBoost.
The system does not have a hybrid hard drive (Intel Turbo Memory automatically disables the ReadyDrive feature).

Conditions That Cause a Card Not to Work
If any of these conditions exist, Intel Turbo Memory cannot work correctly on a Dell system:

The system has an AMD processor.
The system chipset is not Intel or is an older model (such as the Intel 945G / 945P).
The Intel Flash Cache Logic Chip Mini-Card is installed in the WLAN Mini-Card slot.
The system has RAID enabled or the SATA Operation option is set to something other than AHCI. The Intel Flash Cache option in the BIOS is disabled.
The system is running Windows XP or some operating system other than Windows Vista.
The Intel Turbo Memory driver or the IMSM driver is not installed.
The Intel Turbo Memory Console has not been configured for ReadyBoost or ReadyDrive.
The system has a hybrid hard drive (Intel Turbo Memory automatically disables the ReadyDrive feature).