T500 undervolting and other questions

I was wondering if it is possible to undervolt the T500 via the bios so I don't have to run RM CPU every time. Also can you undervolt more with the P9500 CPU than the T9400 CPU? How much extra battery life you can get out of an undervolted 9500 CPU vs an undervolted T9400 CPU? Also, if I'm getting an Intel SSD, would it be a good idea to turn off page file with 4GB ram because it sounds like it will cause more defrag and use more write cycles if I keep it. Lastly, if I do a clean install, do I need the MBR partition?

Thanks!

EDIT: I forgot to ask, if I get the WSXGA+ screen, I can change the resolution down to 1280x800 right?

 

I don't know if you can undervolt it in the BIOS, but my guess would be no. You can turn down the resolution, but it will be blurry. You're best off bumping up the DPI.

 

Thanks for help! But why is your guess no? So there is no way to undervolt without constantly running RM CPU?

 

They tend to be conservative in these matters. I'm not an undervolter. I just set the CPU to lowest when running on battery. It's good enough for me. Perhaps someone else can help here.

 

I don't undervolt, but I don't believe it's possible in the BIOS. This is generally only possible on motherboards that allow for directly adjusting voltages and multipliers (e.g. gaming oriented desktop boards).

I keep the pagefile turned on with my SSD. However, I do set the base pagefile to be quite small (256MB I think) and let it grow dynamically to 4GB as needed. Fragmentation is generally not a problem with SSDs; your concern really has more to do with write combining and is more specific to the Intel drive (I also think it's very hard to achieve with normal usage patterns).

You may want to read this Q&A for Solid State Drives, from the Engineering Windows 7 Blog. It covers a variety of issues with SSDs and states that " In fact, given typical pagefile reference patterns and the favorable performance characteristics SSDs have on those patterns, there are few files better than the pagefile to place on an SSD".

You can run at a lower resolution, but I would strongly advise against it. Adjust the DPI or zooming inside of applications (Ctrl +).

 

Thanks again! I read the FAQ. But T500 doesn't come with windows 7 RC1. Is there a legal way to get it now? Does the hybrid graphics work with windows 7 RC1 atm? Lastly, does MS plan on a direct RC to official version upgrade. Last time I heard, it was a no. Thanks!

 

You can download the Windows 7 RC from MS through July ( link). The RC will start bi-hourly shutdowns in March 2010. I am unaware of a direct upgrade, I belive you will need to format your machine and start again once Win 7 is officially released.

I do not believe that switchable graphics works at present on Windows 7 (nor in XP/Linux). However, Lenovo is supposed to release some Win7 beta drivers towards the end of May and this may include a proper switchable graphics driver.

 

Hey, last question before I pull the trigger. Should I get the 4 year warranty since I'm going to a 4 year university? It's an extra $322.15...which isn't cheap.

 

That seems a tad excessive considering the base price of the machine.

I have the 3 year depot on mine and would recommend the same (it's usually a reasonably priced upgrade). You can consider on-site as well if having to mail off your notebook and being without one for a week would cause you serious problems.

If you have a major catastrophe with your system after the 3rd year it is usually just better to buy a new machine than have it repaired (the pace of technology is quite fast). In addition, with the exception of the motherboard and possibly GPU/display it's usually cheaper to just replace the faulty part yourself (HDD, RAM, keyboard, etc.) than pay for the overpriced 4th year of the warranty.

 

My one question is why get a wsxga+ screen if your just going to turn the res to wxga?

Other then that I prefer to ride on the 1 year factory warranty, as most issues present them selves within the first year. As jon stated after 2-3 years its just not worth it sometimes to replace parts and most you can replace yourself for pretty cheap.

 

@liquidit2
I don't know if I will like the WSXGA+ screen or not since I've never seen/use one before. I THINK I will like it. It's a safety precaution.

@jonlumpkin
Thanks for the help!

 

You can always increase the DPI or zoom your application (works in Firefox, Word, and most others) to make text larger. However, it is impossible to make things look sharper if you only have 1280x800 on a 15.4" display.

The main issue is that you should NEVER run a fixed pixel display (i.e. an LCD) at anything other than the native resolution. You can sometimes get away with this on televisions and desktop monitors with good quality internal scalers (interpolate pixels to remap the lower resolution), but it almost always looks very bad on a laptop.

 

Yeah in my opinion and experience I find wxga to be quite annoying in a 14in and up environment. But then again Im a resolution junky.

 

But allow me to give some real-life exanples ,John.

An example might be the tip panel. Lenovo gave me a screw kit and it had screws that were slightly too long and they penetrted the front (top) panel. Lenovo fixed those in an instant and lenovo was the only one with them. I recomend any one buy a warranty with their computer that lasts as long as the computer does or five years.

 

One other thing to remember. If you purchase your computer with a credit card, the credit card company may extend your warranty. I know my visa will only extend a 1 year warranty one year, to two years. If I purchased a 2 year warranty it would not extend it. However my American Express will extend the warranty one year up to 5 years, so if I purchased a 3 year warranty, the AMEX card would extend it to 4 years. If you live near a Costco, you can easily get one of their American Express cards if you don't have one.