Optimizing performance on the x230

So I just finished my clean install on my brand new Crucial mSATA 128GB and re-formatted the OEM 500GB HDD to use as storage. Surprisingly, I've already used up 60GB of my mSATA (after installing all of Lenovo software, Microsoft office, etc.). I'm only putting software and the OS on the mSATA, only thing left to put on there is my Adobe programs (photoshop, illustrator, etc.). On my HDD I put all my documents, pictures, hd movies and my downloads. Only used up about 200GB so far.

I know the thinkpads are very customizable as far as performance goes, which is largely due to the software that Lenovo provides, like the Power Manager. I noticed a lot of other Lenovo software too like Rapidboot shield, communications utility, solution center and a lot of other thinkvantage software. I think that is largely due to why I have already used 60GB on my mSATA. I also have a ton of Intel drivers installed (not sure why? lol).

So far I'm satisfied with the speed, but I have noticed that it can be noticeably slower than my old Acer TimelineX that I paired with a 256GB Samsung SSD (also only has 4GB RAM as opposed to 12GB on my x230). Surprisingly, I'm only using 40GB on that for the OS and software, compared to the 60GB on my x230. I noticed that my Acer wakes up noticeably faster from sleep and also boots faster as well. I think the slower booting time on my x230 also has to do with the fingerprint reader. I was wondering if there's anyway I can get my x230 to be a little faster?

My question is, what have most of you guys done to ensure optimum performance on the x230? Maybe you got rid of some useless programs (like so of the lenovo software maybe?), or tuned up a few things on msconfig? play around with the power manager? I thought this would be a cool thread to share settings to see how we can get the most out of this great machine.

 

Congrats on your new X230 with mSATA. That's one of the best little machines you can get today, and the mSATA+HDD combination is very nice. I just got my X230 yesterday. It's also equipped with a Crucial M4 256 GB SSD, but 2.5". I installed Windows 8 and the drivers from Lenovo. Installed Office 2010 and my engineering apps, and only used 55 GB, including 11 GB pagefile and hibernation file.

It boots very quick, so fast that I can't really think of more optimizations done to improve the speed.

If you stay with Windows 7, I'd consider removing the Lenovo Solution Center. I can't really see any benefit to that app, other than Lenovo having a bigger presence on your laptop.

 

Thanks for the reply. Yeah I'm surprised I've used up 60GB already I'm not sure what it is. I think it's because I have 64bit and Windows 7 automatically makes system files for 32bit as well right?

Also, I think that the slower boot time might have to do with the Legacy Boot up. I tried to look at what boot my Acer uses but it didn't say in the BIOS.

 

I agree with not having any other Lenovo additions other than the necessary drivers, System Update, and Power Manager. I love the ability to max out my fan speed when playing games and disable that feature when I'm not using intensive tasks. System Update provided necessary updates which Windows Update was missing.

 

Disable hibernate:

How to disable and re-enable hibernation on a computer that is running Windows

Just run the fixit.exe to disable.

Saves a little over a gig. Who uses Hibernate anyway?

 

Clean installed. Then only installed the essential drivers and Power Manager through System Update. I have an X220T and I have 71 processes running in Task Manager, with no other programs running; about 5 of which are due to the tablet drivers and software. With an X230 you should have even less, but using the default Lenovo Windows image will probably have above 80 processes running. There's no golden standard for how many should be running, but the number will usually be less with a clean installation than without.

 

thanks for the replies fellas. I went ahead and removed:
Rapidboot Shield
Thinkvantage Access Connections
Thinkvantage Active Protection System
Rescue and Recovery

 

You have a bunch of junk somewhere if you already used up 60 GB. I used to have a 64GB SSD, and Windows install + all of my programs were about 40-45GB (that's including lots of stuff such as Adobe CS5 suite, Office, MATLAB, Mathematica, COMSOL Multiphysics,....). The only Lenovo software I use is their Power Manager since it has a nice battery bar + shows you battery statistics. I never used any of the other stuff. Right now I have 58GB used up on my 120GB drive, which includes a 15GB Dropbox folder, a League of Legends instalation. I think you need to clean up your disk.

After a clean install I usually disable Windows Services I don't use, and go through every scheduled task in Task Scheduler (I remove most of them) and run a CCLeaner (this is what I'd recommend since its easy to use and does everything automatically) to get rid of other junk like temporary files.

 

Yeah I have no idea how I ended up using 60GB after my clean install. But the crazy thing is, after removing those programs that I listed, I am now down to 47GB. I got 13GB free I would never of imagined!

 

hey so I thought I'd post my msconfig on here as well to see what we can disable. I just don't want unnecessary programs slowing me down.

 

Isn't McAfee one of the slowest Antivirus softwares? I used to use Kaspersky, but then switched to Norton recently. Notron AV 2012 is surprisingly light weight.

All I did on mine is disable Defrag schedule, and then adjust the page file to a pre-set value of 128MB.

I like to keep hibernate function on, so that takes up about the same size on the SSD of the size your RAM. I have 8GB RAM. Since you have 12GB, it's probably taking that much more space on the SSD. If you don't use hibernate, then you can get that space back by disabling it. Just open cmd as admin, then type "powercfg -h off".

I leave superfetch/prefetch on since I don't have that much need for the RAM for other purposes, and RAM is still faster than a SSD.


To get more space back from the SSD, you can also delete c:/drivers and c:/swtools. That's where the drivers and utility installation files are extracted when you install something from Lenovo.

 

thanks for the tips. yeah i'm not sure why McAfee is still showing up there as I have uninstalled it. I'm currently using Windows Defender. I also just disabled the Defrag scheduler, and I used this video to change by page file size: Windows 7 - Adjust the Vitual Memory Pagefile Setting - Increase Performance - YouTube and this link: Set virtual memory paging default | Windows 7, Vista to choose the size of my page file.

And good call on deleting the c:/drivers and c:/swtools. I can save a little over 1GB by deleting those folders. I noticed that I have another folder called "readyapps" in by c:/swtools folder, is it ok if I delete that?

 

Yes, all those files are temporaly files just for installing only, so go ahead delete those. Some people keep drivers and swtools folder in another drive just in case a Windows reinstall. I just keep the install files that I directly downloaded from Lenovo.

 

Unbelievable!!! Just disabled hibernation and also made my page file min value of 256 and max value of 1024 MB (since I have 12GB RAM anyways) and I am now only using 30GB on my mSATA SSD (down from 60GB)!! Thanks for all the help.

I think all that is left is just tweaking my msconfig to try and get a faster boot time. Which isn't much of a problem to begin with but would be nice.

 

You can safely disable all of the Intel Startup programs you have listed, though I am not sure about the USB 3.0 Monitor. I disabled my Reneseas USB 3.0 Monitor, but I'm not sure about the functions of the Intel version.

 

thanks for the reply! i'll apply those changes