x120e Owner's Thread

Excellent! Thanks for posting that.

 

Can somebody make a Dummies Guide for this please? I don't want to learn everything there is to know about undervolting. I just want my fan to be quiet.

 

You shouldn't need to undervolt to keep your fan quiet. The methods described in that thread are for those of us who have to tweak everything. Changing fan speeds should be much simpler.

 

Undervolting keeps your system from generating as much heat in the first place, and also has the added benefit of additional battery life.

 

I just bought a X120e yesterday for $396 with the following specs (Mastercard Marketplace employee perks + 5%-off coupon code + free 4GB memory upgrade):



AMD Fusion Processor E-350 (1.6Ghz, 1MB L2, 1.0GHz FSB) 2.0GT/s
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64
11.6" HD (1366x768) AntiGlare - Midnight Black (Wireless Broadband Upgradeable )
AMD Radeon HD 6310 Graphics, AMD Fusion Processor E-350 (1.6Ghz, 1MB L2, 1.0GHz FSB) 2.0GT/s
4 GB DDR3 - 1333MHz (2 DIMM)
UltraNav (TrackPoint and TouchPad)
320 GB Hard Disk Drive, 7200rpm
6 cell Li-Ion Battery 57 Whr
No Bluetooth
ThinkPad b/g/n
Integrated Mobile Broadband - Upgradable
0596: 1 Year Transactional Mail-in Depot





Estimate ship date is 7/5/2011. I know several people have mentioned that they end up shipping before that.

Has anyone had any luck calling them up and asking them, due to the extremely long lead time, to at least upgrade to Next Day / 2-3 Day shipping instead of UPS ground? Or, maybe asking them to knock some $$$ off the price or throw in an accessory like a travel charger, a laptop case, or a laptop desk stand?

 

Yes: Lenovo Thinkpad X120e for $396 w/ Mastercard (free shipping + tax) - AMD Fusion E-350, 4GB DDR3 RAM, 320GB 7200 Drive, 6-cell battery, 2 yrs warranty (1yr Lenovo + 1yr Mastercard) - Slickdeals.net
(5% off coupon code USX5TWX0519 good on the Lenovo Corporate Perks site)

If you don't have a Mastercard, you can get the same deal and use the same coupon code through Lenovo student pricing for just $4 more.

If your're not a student, you can use the 10%-off coupon GOOGLESHOP on the regular site

 

Hello guys,

Thanks to everyone who takes part in this discussion. It's helped so much with my first Lenovo purchase. I love the x120e, but I have one question:

I did a clean install and got everything working fine. All my old computers had Intel chips and I always installed the Intel Rapid Storage Technology and Intel Chipset Updater programs. Does AMD have anything like this or am I good just installing the AMD Vision graphics drivers? (I'm not changing out the hard drive or anything, by the way.)

 

I actually want to undervolt this thing, particularly on the GPU side, if that's even possible. Ordinarily, I'd figure it out myself, but since other people have done the hard work in figuring it out, they'd be in the best position to teach other people how to get it done. Of course, that requires a benevolence and sense of charity that is neither warranted, nor required.

 

just out of curiosity...

does Lenovo throw on a ton of bloatware on the factory image?

do they include disk encryption software?
do they include the Windows 7 OS + driver discs?

 

Ha. I didn't even bother to login with the default Lenovo software. First thing I did was swap out the drive and put in my SSD. There's no Win 7 disc or driver discs. I'd recommend putting Win 7 on a USB stick and also the X120e wireless LAN driver (probably 1x1 and not 2x2).

 

I'm definitely interested in undervolting the CPU and GPU if possible. I looked at that other thread but it just made my head hurt. Only other undervolting I've done is installing an ultra low voltage kernel on my droid. =/

If there was a detailed instructions of what they did, I could probably follow it. What was in the thread seemed like they all had previously knowledge of doing all of that, so things were left unexplained and skipped over.

 

Another solution, IMO, would be to somehow get the fan speed down to half of minimum. The current lowest setting isn't super loud and seems less noisy than my VAIO YB, but it seems like needless noise.

I don't mind if fans are kicking the max speed if it's doing heavy processing. But the choice in TP Fan Control is between ZERO rpm and 500rpm. Why can't we get 250rpm? And if we can, please post.

 

I posted a quick step-by-step of how to undervolt the X120e's E-350 CPU in my X120e thread, here, based on discussion in the SPCR thread that soybean84 linked to. It should be simple enough to follow

 

Bless your sweet, sweet heart.

 

I did have to read the whole thread, but I felt like it was reasonably well explained. I've got it going on my x120e and it's working fine, but I do have some prior experience with undervolting.

If you have questions, maybe I can help you out?

Same here. I couldn't find any chipset drivers to install - I think it's pretty much good to go once you install the AMD Vision drivers. Since it's an "APU", the AMD drivers include settings for the CPU, so I think they've rolled it all into one. I also ran down the Lenovo support page and installed all the LAN, WiFi, audio, etc. drivers, which were pretty up to date. Windows Update detected the driver for the monitor and touchpad (it actually installed a Synaptics driver, not the generic mouse driver).

 

There are a few additional AMD drivers to install. From the AMD optional drivers page ( ATI Radeon? Video Card Drivers, you can install the AHCI drivers and the AMD south bridge driver.

 

Okay, how do you turn off this ridiculous automatic contrast switching? The screen brightness keeps changing on me and somehow thinks it knows what I want. It doesn't.

 

Turn off VariBright in Catalyst Control Center.

 

What are those drivers? I don't remember downloading those after doing a clean install so I want to make sure that I'm not missing any drivers.

 

Cool. Where is that? I have an AMD VISION Engine Control Center, and not CCC.
I don't see a VariBright option?
EDIT: Looks like the X120e doesn't give access to VariBright and it's making people mad. That does seem to be the issue, though. Registry hack anyone?


BTW, for anyone that wants to flip the CTRL and Fn keys, it's really easy. Pull from the top of the key. It'll pop right out. Then switch and snap it in.

 

It's the same thing, just renamed by AMD to be more in line with their current products and marketing.

Once you open up the CC, click on the Power Play link, and then uncheck "Enable Vari-Bright." Note that you'll have to disable it every time you update the AMD drivers, as it defaults to on for some reason.

Blasphemy!

One of the advantages of the X100e/X120e's version of the island keys: the Fn and Ctrl keys are the same size. Not the case for the other island keyboards, such as the one on the X1.

 

Both my desktop and notebook look like this:

 

Click on "Preferences," and then tick "Standard View," then follow the above instructions. I prefer the standard view anyway, since it's less cluttered and easier to navigate...

 

Yay! This is the best $470 I've ever spent. Congrats to folks who got it even cheaper.

 

Anyone runnig into using the whitelist-removed BIOS with a different wifi card? I have the 1.12 whitelist removed BIOS installed with an Intel 6300 card, and everytime I bring it out from sleep, it'll hard lock. Booting up and restarting works fine though.

 

I'll have one soon. Where did you get the Intel 6300? I've heard of people having issues if they get a fake...the fact that it boots up fine should indicate that the whitelist isn't the problem?

 

Anyone who ordered recently have a report on time from order to shipment on the X120e? Lenovo's reporting over 4 weeks, but I've seen plenty of times where they've shipped faster than that.

 

Placed an order for my x120e on Wednesday May 4th, on Lenovo's site and received it in the mail from UPS on Friday, May 13th.

Hope that helps.

 

My ship time was 6 weeks out in frickin June. Something simple like unchecking Bluetooth might delay your order for weeks. LLanos are coming soon, so if you can hold out, that's an option.

 

Speaking of Llanos, is the E-350 in the x120e in a socket or integrated to the motherboard? If socketed, what are the chances of swapping one out once LLanos are out, does anyone know if they work with the same chipset or not?

 

1.- The X120e uses soldered CPUs, so a CPU replacement is not possible. You cannot even switch from the E-240 to the E-350 and vice versa.

2.- The E-350 and E-240 are on the Zacate (Bobcat) platform, which is different from Llano. They will be refreshed in Q3/Q4 2011, with the E-450 replacing the E-350, I believe.

 

Right-o, thanks for the info.

 

The more than 4 weeks of processing is a bunch of crap. I ordered 20th of this month and today 25th it is shipped with track no. This is w/ bluetooth and E350 dual core.

 

Anyone think this would work to put an microSDHC card fixed inside the slot?

DIY Cheap MicroSD to RS-MMC converter in 15 minutes. - maemo.org - Talk

 

Is everyone happy with their purchase? How would this do for editing GoPro 1080p videos? I like the price / battery life / matte screen of this unit. I mainly just trim clips up so I can put them into a condensed version for youtube or vimeo. The files are normally huge and use mp4 format. I do not do a ton of editing, mostly for recreational car / dirtbike / snowmobile video fun.

Is the laptop too small for daily use? I love my girlfriends Edge 14" as far as size goes. If the screen is too small I could run a high quality monitor at home. Alot of use will be from tuning cars, hence why battery life and matte screen are important.

Thanks for any owners input as I've been debating for weeks over this.

 

Nitroused383,

I'll be honest with you. Out of the box I was like wow this looks good till I turned it on. It had a constant loud noise level and the display was terrible - colours completely washed out and it was so slow and sluggish. I thought did Engadget get paid off with their good review of this unit?

Since then I've installed a clean Windows 7 Ultimate. I've got an OCZ Agility 3 SSD and I've undervolted it. I'm also using a fan control and using ATIs control centre suite on the display.

Its a completely different machine. Silent, seriously fast, the display is vibrant and yes I'm very happy with it. There is a bit of tweaking to do, nothing overly serious but you will end up with a brilliant netbook.

 

Did anyone get the Samsung 11.6" panel?

 

How do you tell? I haven't heard of different panels.

 

I can also confirm that the 4+ week estimate is BS. Ordered 5/24 (a "stock" config but I added BT) and they said it shipped today (5/28). Their estimate put the shipping date out in early July!

 

Well, my estimate was 6 weeks out and I actually waited around 10 days befor I cancelled my order.

 

Can I ask if anyone knows how to change the display size to 120% permanently on Google Chrome? I've already set it to 125% on Windows.

 

Wrench icon on the top right; "Options", "Under the hood", "Web content", Page zoom

 

Hey thanks so much that worked I don't have to keep going to 120% manually

 

Thanks jw8725

So does this x120e not run quick with win pro 64? If i have to purchase windows ultimate this put the price out of what I would pay for this unit. Would this unit struggle editing 1080p GoPro videos? I do not mind tweaking this unit to get it running up to par. How does battery life improve when undervolting?

Thanks for your guy's help

 

I'm currently on 2 gig of RAM as I'm still waiting on my 2 X 4 gig G.Skill RAM but I can categorically say that Windows Home Premium 64 ran slower and more sluggish than Windows 64 Ultimate. I have no idea if its any good at editing video but the screen isn't optimum, if I was to edit video at 1080p I wouldnt use a netbook mate.

Battery life has improved a little for me, I normally have wifi on, bluetooth off and screen brightness on 13/14 with battery set for optimum performance. I do run an Agility 3 SSD which has also contributed however. Remember that this machine was already pretty low energy consuming in the first place. Finally, I do use the 6 cell battery.

 

Does anyone know how to disable the brightness setting from popping up every time I wake from sleep or touch the mouse with a dimmed display? Also, any tips regarding two-finger scrolling? I've made the changes in the settings but it still sucks.

 

All editions of 64-bit Windows share the same core--given an identical system, and an identical clean install, and an identical set of options (ie, Bitlocker off, etc), the two machines will run exactly the same and perform exactly the same.

The X120e does not struggle to run W7 64-bit. W7 runs very smoothly on it, particularly with an SSD. Editing 1080p videos, on the other hand, may be a bit much to do with a netbook, especially if you're doing heavy converting and other intensive tasks--it would work, but the CPU of the X120e (which is not particularly strong--the GPU is the strong suit, for the price) will definitely bottleneck you.

 

1080p video editing is a no go on this machine. Do not attempt. This of this as more of a consumer machine, not a producer machine, unless you only write papers for a living.

You need as much CPU as possible. Get a Sandy Bridge Core i5 or i7. I just bought a Phenom II x4 840 for my desktop to do video editing. I still only render in 720p because I don't want to wait that long. 1080p is just a completely different ball game.

You need to basically build a custom machine around video editing. I have an idea of what that would look like and it definitely does not involve netbooks.

 

Thanks for the coments guys, I don't do a lot of video editing. I just chop the long clips down and combine the action shots or what not. I used my parents toshiba with an I3 before and it handled the stuff I do fairly easily. I use windows movie maker which is really basic. I will probably go with the T420 but I was really attracted to this unit for its portability / battery life and matte screen for tuning cars on the street.

Maybe I just need 2 computers, this little guy and a decent desktop.

Here is the type of video stuff I'm talking about editing : http://vimeo.com/21867405

 

An i3 has a lot more processing power than the x120e. You might look at the X220 if you really want portability, or spend a little more and get a T420s if you like the bigger screen.