Anyone have a Lifebook P770?

I'm looking at laptops to replace my current one and saw the P770, but I'm having a hard time finding reviews of it. Anyone own one or know of any reviews of the laptop? And is it hard to change out the hard drive on it or is that something that is pretty easy to access (if I got one, I'd probably upgrade the RAM and the hard drive on my own due to the high cost Fujitsu charges for customizing)?

Thanks.

 

I take that as a no? Or are Fujitsu laptops just not that popular?

 

When I first started coming to this board the Fujitsu S series and ThinkPad T were probably the most popular business notebooks, though that probably did not mirror the real world. It was just a matter of whether you wanted a glossy screen, the Fujitsu, or a matte, the ThinkPad. In the meantime, ThinkPad prices have fallen quite a bit while Fujitsus have not, which is probably why they are not as popular. The ThinkPad X201, probably the P770s closest competitor, can be had for less than $1k. I doubt the same could be said for the P770.

 

The latter is definitely true. With no real reviews of the P770 and the higher cost of ownership for it, I'm leaning heavily towards the X201.

 

The P770 does have some things going for it. It's 6-cell battery fits flush, for those who care about that sort of thing (and not at the expense of skimping on wattage capacity). The i7 UM CPU probably translates into better battery performance. It's got an HDMI port to go along with the VGA. And, for those folks who still look for one, there's the optical drive.

I still think the X201 offers more bang for the buck. But I can see how the P770's different feature set will appeal to some folks.

 

HDMI on the notebook itself was somewhat appealing to me, as then I could skip out on a dock for digital video; but it looks like I could get a better equipped X201 with the ultrabase for less than the P770 (expressbuy one). And after some reading on the Core i processors and just my general usage of my existing laptop, I'm not in dire need of a ULV processor and would probably benefit from the higher clock speed of the integrated graphics on the normal Core i processors.

 

Then your choice is probably clear

I don't think the 12" Latitude has been refreshed yet, and spec-for-spec I'm not sure that the 12" Elitebook can compete on price, either.

That said, all of these are sweet machines. Whichever one you land on, you'll probably be happy. My $.02

 

I just got my P770 from newegg.com

generally happy but a few items of concern:

The keyboard gives a little when typing.

the touchpad sucks. very erratic behavior. hoping for a driver update. synaptics would have been better than alps.

last night it froze up solid. had to do a hard power off.

generally i do not read manuals. so far i have not been able to figure out how to remove the battery.

other than that i love it. much nicer in appearance than the thinkpads

 

Nice. Not too many folks on NBR have an i7 ULV yet. Let us know what you think of the cpu performance.

Yep. Fujitsu is not Lenovo in the keyboard department. My machine had a fair amount of keyboard flex right out of the box. It hasn't gone away completely, but it's gotten better. Part of it is that the keyboard probably has 'set' a little. I'm sure part of it is that I've gotten used to the keyboard.

You might try applying careful, but firm, pressure to the corners of the keyboard when the notebook is powered off. Might help it set a little.

 

Congratulations on your new laptop....

Could you put some CPU Benchmark Scores....

Cheers

 

Last post here was April.

Can those with a P770 please give their impressions? I am considering either a Fujitsu P770 or HP 2540P, and the Fujitsu will better meet my needs if the i7 640UM processor is not a dog.....

 

Some benchmarks from a NBR reader would be nice. I haven't seen anything on the web re: tests of the 640um.

There is a review of the machine on the UK website TechRadar.
Fujitsu Lifebook P770 review from TechRadar UK's expert reviews of Laptops and netbooks

Edit: TR doesn't offer much in the way of specifics, but their general description of the cpu was

Their chief complaint was that the notebook has only the onboard Intel HD graphics. That's hardly a surprise, though.

 

Well, just got one - quite mixed feeling though.. I looked at P770 and Lenovo x201s and ended up with P770 mainly because of the price - I got factory refurbished via eBay for about $850 delivered.

Keyboard and touchpad are definitely worse than Lenovo. Flex, page up/down/home/end keys available only via Fn, etc. Build quality is not bad although plastic feels strange - it's obvious Fujitsu tried to save on weight but material looks "interesting" - either very expensive or very cheap based on point of view. Top lid is glossy and picks up fingerprints.

I think for $850 - I'm OK. But for $1500 I would rather get x201s.

Biggest disappointment is missing bluetooth. I don't understand why it's optional. So my question is - if anybody knows if it's upgradeable - what card should I buy?

Benchmarks with factory image restored, 32bit w7 and all crapware loaded.

Passmark: 1425

Crystal Mark: CPU: 22400; FPU: 20500

 

If you're lucky owner of P770 with bluetooth, can you please provide some details from the device manager? I'm trying to find original manufacturer and possibly part number. Any details would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you very much

 

I have had my Fujitsu P770 for a few weeks, and would have to say that this one falls into the NOT RECOMMENDED column! Unfortunately, I kept it too long before deciding that it is rubbish, so I could not realistically send it back....

Flex in the keyboard and the lid are beyond what I would have accepted. However, the killer is the anemic CPU. It is what you would expect from a 1.2Ghz CPU. Faster than my Gateway with Centrinio 1.73Ghz, and faster than my Acer Aspire One netbook - which really is NOT saying a lot!

Got a half decent price through price matching, but even so I wish I had gone for the HP unit. Living without an optical drive would have been OK.......

I have run Passmark 7, and find that this laptop runs faster with hyperthreading enabled. Some of the CPU scores are higher with HT turned on, but overall system rating and many other scores are lower with HT turned on. The system also feels faster with HT turned off.

I can't post the Passmark files here, so will put them onto my web site and post links if anyone is interested.

Mine came with BlueTooth installed, and with 2Gb RAM and a 160Gb hard drive. For the price, the RAM and hard drive are a joke, bordering on a rip-off.

I have upgraded the hard drive twice. First to a Seagate 500Gb 7200RPM, but it did not work well in this system. Then again, that drive would not even boot in my Acer netbook (AOD250), and I have found other reports of issues with those drives.

In my case, the P770 is used on a large DJ Rack, and it sits on an angle. When the system is not sitting flag, the drive would crap out and not boot. Photos of my rack are older - the P770 sits on top, where the old Gateway was:
DJ Rack

The second upgrade was to a WDC 750Gb 5400rpm drive. Really nice! Quiet, cool, and even faster than the 500Gb 7200rpm drive ever was!!!

A 4Gb memory module was ordered today. Hope to have it before this weekend. I had to roll back to XP since my software (DJPower 2008) does not run under Vista or Windows 7, so it won't see all of the extra memory, but at least it will be there when I figure out how to dual-boot into a Win7 partition.

What would you like to know about BlueTooth?

 

The manual for this thing seems to leave a lot out. Really not what you would expect, given the cost of the laptop.

I can't find out how to upgrade the bios! Downloaded a newer file, but there does not seem to be a way to boot into a bios loader, and can't find any reference to this in the manual.

Can someone please point me in the correct direction?

Thanks!

 

Rfielder, I believe you can download bios in ISO format so you just need to burn a CD and boot from it. I did it without any problems.

A couple other notes if you want to have the good performance. First of all, consider to upgrade to SSD. I'm using 60Gb OCZ Vertex - it's the huge improvement in terms of performance as well as does not suffer from any vibration. Obviously 60Gb is not much, but you can always use external usb hdd when needed.

Second, when you memory arrive (don't forget, you'll need 64Bit OS), disable page file.

As for bluetooth - thank you very much! I will send you the message tonight.

 

Thanks - I think I have that, but didn't realize it would be bootable.

The primary use of this laptop is DJing. I have just over 30,000 songs loaded. SSDs top out around 256Gb, which would be barely sufficient - if I could afford it.

The secondary use of this laptop - which is severely restricted thanks to the pathetic CPU - is to carry and play HD movies and TV shows. Mostly in mkv format, which is a major challenge for this system to play smoothly. Blu-Ray actually play better.

An SSD is not an option at this time. External hard drives are OK, but comprimise both reliability and security when used for critical applications.

That is interesting.....I am running XP, so will see only 3.2Gb. Just did not see the point in spending $$$ on a 2Gb module that would only be replaced before too long....

 

3.2Gb would be more than enough for XP without page file. It should speed up the system a little bit.

By the way, did you consider to use virtualization if your software is not compatible with W7? You can try to use W7 XP mode (pro/ultimate) and/or some freeware virtual machine solutions like Virtual Box. I'm pretty sure W7 x64 with 6Gb of RAM would perform better than XP 32 bit.

As for bluetooth - can you please go to bluetooth adapter properties in device manager and details tab there and email me the screenshots of the various properties from there. Hardware Ids, Compatible Ids, Manufacturer, etc. I'm trying to find ANY information which can help me to locate part and model number of the adapter so I'll be able to buy it somewhere..

For some reasons external adapter does not work well with the laptop. It froze during my presentation in front of 100+ people..

I'll send you my email in PM. Again, thank you very much! Really appreciate your help!

 

Checked the device manage, and no joy beyond the fact that the bluetooth driver is listed as a "USB Bluetooth Driver".

Will look further.....

 

I have never used virtualization, but that is an interesting idea.

Given the disk space free on this system, setting up a Win7 partition to dual boot from should be easy. That idea is worth considering.....thanks!

 

Went back to the Fujitsu web site to find the download in ISO format.

Must have done something different - ended up on totally different support pages. The BIOS update is a Windows executable file. Works fine, and my P770 is now running BIOS 1.11.

Fujitsu, or their lawyers, are rather concerned about people using this utility. There are seven pages of warnings before it runs, and then you have to check off seperately for each page to verify that you have read them and understand! The warnings are standard - close all programs, run on AC only, do not use the computer while the BIOS is being upgraded, system will reboot at the end. They must have had a lot of bad support calls to feel this is required!

 

Rfielder, can you please turn on bluetooth adapter, next select driver on the device manager and go to properties (right mouse btn popup menu). It should open property window with multiple tabs. Details is one of them - it should have the list of the properties in the drop down. Each property shows several details in the list box below. If you can simply take a few screen shots of the various properties and email it to me, it would be fantastic.

Thank you very much!

 

I'm using Virtual Box ( VirtualBox) for my tasks although I'm not sure if your software requires something special to access DJ hardware. Possibly W7 XP Mode would be better if this is the case.

Oh - don't forget to turn on CPU virtualization support in BIOS. It's disabled by default and would speed up the things

 

And two other notes if you decide to do clean install of W7 x64.

1. Actually there are 2 support sites - one is from regular Fujitsu site. Another one is ts.fujitsu.com. Some drivers are newer on the first site, some - on the second.
2. Make sure you install drivers in the sequence specified for 32 bit windows even if you install x64 version. Drivers for x64 version listed out of order. I was not able to make my laptop fully functional until I installed it in the correct order (another stone to Fujitsu).

 

I will try installing Windows 7, but in a dual boot setup.

One question - will it have any effect on XP if the CPU virtualization is turned on?

The P770 came with Win7 preinstalled, but that was a 32 bit version. I will be going to 64 bit.

Will use the DVDs that came with it, if possible, in which case I would assume that most of the drivers would be included. Otherwise will install from one of my own discs, which means that your advice on the order to install drivers will be of value!

 

No. It would not affect it at all. This setting just improve the performance for the virtual OS.

Another tip Even if the key is compatible with both editions, it's better to go with OEM key instead. Just in case

You would not be able to do that. Drivers are outdated and some of the drivers and applications do not include 64 bit version. I can send you specific order you have to use, if you need to.

Oh, and yes, there is no 64 bit version of Omni fingerprint software included. You can use native W7 biometric support - there are some crappy steps need to be done to make it work. Check out this thread:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/fujitsu/497376-p7230-clean-install-w7-32bit-p7230-softex-omnipass-fingerprint-problems.html

 

Thanks for all the tips!

The key from the bottom of the computer did not work. I may have to use the key from the version of Win7 Pro I purchased.

I installed Win7 64bit, then updated the drivers in the order shows for Win7 32 bit. There are a couple of issues.

Not having a fingerprint reader is OK for me.

However, both the wifi and camera drivers will not load. Windows blocks them both, saying they are unsigned drivers.

Also, when I plug in my iPhone, it also says the driver is unsigned.

When I get home and can attach to my network, I will see if the laptop can find other drivers online. Not having the camera is OK, but I would like the wifi and the iPhone to work. I am sure there are a lot of Win7 updates to install as well, which may also help the situation.

I was able to put Win7 on a seperate partition, and it provides a menu to select which OS to boot into.

BlueTooth works fine. I have not installed SnagIt, will try to get that done and the screen shots sent.

 

No luck finding signed 64bit drivers for Wifi or the camera, or my iPhone. Which is strange, since my iPhone works perfectly with my desktop running Win7 64bit.

Now using Acronis to restore to a backup of 32 bit Win7 I did before installing XP. We shall see if that is smoother.

Until I get this thing running, I won't be able to do any screen shots. I did look at a lot of the configuration pages for BlueTooth, and did not see anything that looked like it would help identify hardware.

I also pulled the cover off the bottom - #25 on page 10 of the manual, listed as for "26 = Minicard module, e.g. UMTS". Don't see anyplace to plug in anything, and what is visible under that panel is either part of the motherboard, or too large to install though the opening. Rather a strange thing to have a removable cover panel for - seems pretty pointless.

 

RFielder, if you need WiFi driver which will work with x64 - I can send it to you. I have my laptop running this edition without any issues. Email me (I PMed you my email) if you need it.

 

On a semi-related note, I have been unable to remove the battery from my P770. The release button (#2 on page 32 of the manual) is all but impossible to move. If you force it over, and try to hold it while pushing the other release button (#1), you have no hands free to pry the battery up.

Even with assistance, I have not been able to remove the battery.

Anyone else tried to remove the battery? Was it easy?

 

Thanks! Where did you get it? I got mine from the Fujitsu web site.

Trying to upgrade the WiFi or Camera drivers results in the message that the latest are installed. However, when you check the properties, it says they can't run because they are not digitally signed.

Since I am restoring to 32bit Win7, getting the 64bit drivers is not needed right now, but I am curious how come Fujitsu has put unsigned 64 bit drivers up for download.

 

What is the overall opinion for the P770 - run 32bit Win7, or 64bit?

I can't see anyone running such a heavy load that the extra memory from 64bit is much assistance. You would run out of CPU long before you got to much swapping, as far as I can see.

 

I downloaded drivers from Downloads - Support - Fujitsu and from FUJITSU: Fujitsu America - Support
Next I kept the latest one (the drivers are different)

 

It really depends. I'm using x64 because I need memory. I currently have (and utilize) all 6Gb because of virtualization and a couple other memory intensive applications. I'm also having ram drive (1Gb) and don't have page file. This improves performance and 3Gb is simply not enough for that

If you don't need > 3Gb, it does not really matter..

 

I am going to experiment with virtualizing one application, but that should not be too intensive.

Given everything, I am going to give Win7 64bit another shot. It seems to be a bit faster in some ways, as in using the hardware more efficiently. If I can get past the issues with installing all drivers. Given your experience and pointers, I think I can.

Also, I am unable to get past an issue with Windows Update and Windows Defender. Research has found suggestions that there are virii and other baddies that screw with these two first. Other issues I am encountering make these suggestions plasuible. Going the route of a format and clean install is appealing from this angle as well.

Besides, I have a good backup that I can restore to if the full install can't be made to work. Acronis to the rescue!

 

The drivers I sent you are in the sequence I've installed it. I'm using Ultimate although I don't think it would affect it. Email me if you have any issues - I'm not constantly monitoring this forum

 

The P770 came with Win7 Pro, so I am trying to keep it legal. Not sure if the license is specific to 32bit or 64bit, but I am going to retry the 64bit version of Pro using the stuff you sent me.

Also, I am going to leave it unplugged from my network until I also have AVG installed and running. Just in case.....

 

Took 20 minutes before I figured it out. The key is that battery is not sliding out - it's inside some sort of compartment - don't try to slide it out but raise the side at the angle near #2

If you press #1 hard enough, #2 should be free and moved/locked without any efforts.

 

It sounds like yours popped up a bit once you unlocked it.

Mine does not, and moving the slider is so stiff I have to use something to press against it.

 

Has anyone cracked one of these puppies open to upgrade the memory?

Is it easy? Does it void your waranttee?

I suspect that 6Gb is enough for now, but memory is like money, always seems to run short sooner than you wanted.....

 

Are you sure you pressed #1 hard enough? Mine #2 was stiff too until I put a lot force to #1

 

More SATA fun and games... NOT!

Have the P770 running well, and used it a lot on the weekend for modifying and viewing photos and videos from our Eco Tour/Ziplineing in Collingwood, ON. Highly recommended day - 3-4 hours for $95 per person, but very entertaining. Two ziplines, one 300' and one 1,000', plus a treetop walk and exploring some of the caves. All with talks by guides who know the history of the region.

PassMark performance tests show that the drive subsystem is still much slower than it was under XP. At this time, I am attributing this to running without the SATA drivers, using only the stock generic drivers that come with Windows 7 64bit.

Therefore, I installed the latest SATA drivers I could find. Of course, this was AFTER setting a restore point, so that it would be easy to roll back should there be any issues.

Everything looked good with the SATA drivers installed, until I tried to use Acronis to do a backup. Acronis failed every time, no matter what I did. Nothing in the log to indicate exactly what the problem was - it happened either when Acronic tried to lock the partition, or whatever the next step might be. No indication of issues in the Windows system logs.

Rolled back to pre-SATA drivers, and Acronis is happy again. That makes it pretty clear where the problem is.

Next step - ensure I have a good, complete backup of this system, then run the Western Digital Align routine that they say may be needed when using one of their latest and greatest hard driver (750Gb 2.5"). If that goes OK, then try the PassMark tests again, to see if drive performance has changed. Then, try the SATA drivers again.

If that does not work, remove the SATA drivers with a roll back, and try the set from the other Fujitsu support site.

If that does not work, see if I can find a driver on the Intel web site.

If that does not work, live with it. (sigh)

 

At least you have a lot of fun, have not you?

 

Yes, the Eco Tour was great, and the ziplineing was something to never forget!

As to the laptop - this is the field I work in. Patience and a methological approach are a part of life. Getting things to work well is a reward unto itself. In this case, a good 5lb hammer may be the most appropriate final solution.

I really wish I had gone for the HP 2540p. Faster i5 CPU, no DVD drive but an external DVD drive is cheap, small, and light, far more solid construction, and several hundred dollars cheaper. Then again, I wish I had won the lottery last Friday as well, and I wish I had been born rich, and I wish.....well, you get the idea! A guy's gotta work with what he's got, and the hooker said to the sailor!!

 

You are absolutely right! Works well now.

Thanks!

 

Tried running Microsoft's virtual XP. It seems restricted - but it may not have installed properly, since I was unable to find any setup options.

Biggest problem was that it could not see the second partition on the hard drive. Right now, I have the following set up on a WD 750Gb drive:
First partition: XP boot
Second partition: D: for music
Third partition: extra space for video, etc
Fourth partition: Window 7 boot

The virtual XP would see the Windows 7 boot drive. I could not find a way for it to see the second partition, which must be mapped to D: drive for my DJ application to work.

I have uninstalled this, and am trying the Sun virtualization environment. It is installed, and I need to dig up one of my XP discs to install an xp environment.

Last Saturday, I DJ'd an event in Toronto. The laptop was booted into XP and ran steady from about 5:15PM to midnight, and worked beautifully. The hardware is sound, and works well.

 

Good to hear it! At least it finally worked.

As for XP mode - I have not tried it by myself but maybe you will find info in internet.

With VirtualBox you will be able to do that with "shared folders" feature. It's kind of emulation of network shares working on one pc. Make sure virtualization is enabled in BIOS, btw - it would improve the performance