X60plus & Powerplay & bios

Hi everybody.
First of all, please excuse my English. I'm German and not too good at writing in this language. I'm an owner of the X60plus and I'm annoyed about the missing Powerplay-option. I called Samsung-support and they told me that they will see what they can do. I thnik, it is necessary that everyone owning a X60plus calls Samsung and complains about this fault.
So did the owners of the X60 and they got their Bios-update.

 

Welcome. I agree that the the lack of PowerPlay is the biggest problem with the X60 plus. I phoned them before the end of 2006 about this and I'm still waiting to see the result. I also took the matter up with ATI who just referred me to Samsung. However, as far as I know, Asus users with the X1700 don't have PowerPlay either, which points suspicion towards ATI, although there may also need to be BIOS update once ATI have defined the parameters.

A Google for "X1700 PowerPlay" leads straight to the ATI web page. This states "PowerPlay™ 6.0
ATI’s Mobility™ Radeon® X1700 enables high performance-per-watt operation and longer battery life with mobile-specific features for notebook PCs. ATI’s PowerPlay™ 6.0 power management technology features Power-On-Demand™ clock gating, dynamic voltage control, and x16-to-x1 PCIe lane control, and includes user-selected Performance, Balanced, and Battery power modes to deliver flexible control of AC/DC power."

My own suspicion is that the ATI developers have been too busy working on the Vista driver to sort out the details of PowerPlay 6 which probably contains enhancements over the existing PowerPlay.

I'll send Samsung an email enquiry. Unfortunately, I can never remember my support ID number.

John

 

OK. I sent off a reminder abut PowerPlay for the X60plus to Samsung support through their ERMS and I have already received a reply.

Thank you for contacting SamsungElectronics.

[Solution]
Your reference no. 2101324266

Thank you for your email
The powerplay feature according to the AMD website is not supported on this particular graphics card.

the only suggestion wecould make is to use a utility, such as "ATiTooL" to underclock the core or the memory, this we do not support or recommend as this may causedamage to your equipment and any choice of doing so is in the understanding that this may cause damage and samsung
can not be held liable. any other issues regarding the support of the powerplay software in your catclyst drivers please contact ATi on this as we do not support this feature as it is not used in our product.

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

I hope this has been of some assistance to you. If you do have any further queries, please do not hesitate to contact us.

This suggests that Samsung don't have an answer. I will respond to Samsung giving a link to the ATI website relating to the X1700.

The ultimate solution would be to request Samsung to replace the X1700 with the X1600, which is what they still advertise as being in the X60. While the X1700 was launched as being a lower power version of the X1600, if no one is interested to make the PowerPlay work, then lets all have the X1600 instead because it does have working PowerPlay.

John

 

This would be a solution. The samsung support is bad. Do u think they will exchange the x1700 against the x1600?

 

The x1700 also has something called hdcp which will come into play if you play blue ray or hd dvd movies on your laptop ( I know, you dont have a blue ray player on your laptop but you may someday)

 

More from Samsung support (a different person):

Whilst PowerPlay is a possible feature of the card when installed with supporting features, it is not something which the laptop supports as standard. This is also true of the other features of internal components, for example whilst the graphics card has a HD-DVD feature, but it not a feature that can be used on this laptop. Further support for PowerPlay should be directed to ATI.

This would strongly suggest that Samsung don't want to make the effort to enable PowerPlay support.

Can anyone out there with the X1600 in their X60 check whether they have PowerPlay working?

ATI state that they do not provide direct support.

I will put a post in the graphics forum to ask whether anyone has working PowerPlay with the X1700. Last time I checked, Asus users with the X1700 didn't have PowerPlay either.

John

 

Here in Germany, they told me they are working on a solution. The more you ask Samsung the more they will see, that powerplay is a needed feature.

 

I got excited this morning when I saw there was a new BIOS for the NP-X60plus. However, my brain work up just before I tried to replace the old BIOS. This version, 10XA, is one step up from the old X60 BIOS (09XA), but my X60 plus currently uses BIOS 03XD, so it may be completely different.

So I held back from seeing whether this BIOS holds the key to getting PowerPlay working with the X1700 and sent an email to Samsung support instead asking confirmation that 10XA is safe for the X60 plus.

John

 

I have installed 10XA for my X60. I haven't noticed any differences though. Is there a changelog somewhere?

 

I got a reply from Samsung support:

" With regards to your email, the 10XA BIOS is compatible with both the X60 and X60plus."

I then tried to run the update but it immediately stopped with a fail message:

The BIOS/MICOM model to be updated is different.

Check the program.

Current Model (BIOS Part Number) : X60P(036)

New Model (BIOS Part Number) : X60S(016)

As I thought, The X60 and the X60 plus are not the same.

Back to Samsung support......

John

 

The same with me. I also tried this update but i got the same fail-message. I hope samsung support is going to answer to my mail.

 

Good to hear that my X60 plus is not unique. Samsung support already replied to my message and provided some additional comment on the PowerPlay issue (except that it does not mention the X1700):

The more of us who chase Samsung over this, the greater the likelyhood that they will push the problem up their list of priorities.

John

 

Another update: Samsung UK support suggested that the jump in BIOS version was too much and suggested I try an intermediate version. I tried the X60 08XA BIOS and this wouldn't install because it detected a newer BIOS already installed.

The reply also indicated that the PowerPlay problem was being pursued:

I hope we do not have to wait too long for an update to the 03XD BIOS which also supports PowerPlay, although I fear that Vista support is probably diverting resources.

John

 

Today I got an answer from the German Samsung-support. They told me, that there will be no Bios-Update. Here is the answer:
"wir haben Antwort aus unserer Entwicklung aus Korea bekommen.

Die Powerplayfunktion der ATI x1700 ist im X60 nicht implemtiert worden und wird auch nicht durch ein BIOS Update ermoeglicht werden.
Der Grund hierfuer ist, das wenn Powerplay aktiviert und die Karte heruntergetaktet wird, bei dem X60 es zu Systeminstabilitaeten kommt. Da die Stromersparnis durch das Powerplay sehr gering ist (maximal 15 min laengere Akkulaufzeit), wurde dieses Feature entfernt."

They said, that there will be no update because the system gets unstable. I can't believe this... This can't be the whole truth.

 

What I can't understand is why the put the X1700 into the X60 plus without being sure it would work. Samsung continued to list the X1600 as the GPU even after the computers had reached the customers and we would have been happy to receive the X1600. What is unclear is whether the X1700 is failing to deliver on its promise of X1600 performance using less power or just has some unexpected incompatibilities.

If the GPU is a modular unit it could be easily swapped for something which does work. I, for one, ordered the X60 plus thinking it had the X1600 GPU and accepted the changing thinking it was an improvement. I would be happy to have the X1400 or its current equivalent since I don't need the 3D power. However, while they have the heat sink off I would suggest that they find an L7400 and drop into the CPU socket. The effect of the combined change should be another hour on the battery life.

I am continuing to correspond with Samsung UK support and I suggest you do the same in Germany. Ask a slightly different question and see if you get a completely different answer from a different person.

John

 

Have you ever tried to underclock with tools like "ati tool" or something? It didn't work on my card...

 

I tried it again. And it worked. I got core: 121, memory: 117. And there were no bluescreens or anything. Very strange... because Samsung told me, the system gets unstable if you underclock it.

 

Hey John. Tell me, how du you cool down your notebook now? The temperature of my X60plus ist always about 50-57 degrees. Then the fan starts until it's on 50 degrees. It's always the same :-(
Is this normal? I mean, my old X20 was always on 36 degrees, no fan.

 

I've just tried ATI Tray Tools plus January's Omega driver. I couldn't get stability at 121/117 and, while the display looked OK at slightly higher settings, it would go fuzzy (for example, I could see three mouse pointers) if I ran the benchmark in ATT. This persisted up to 141.75/157.5 (65% underclocking), but the display seems stable at 162/180 (60% underclocking). I don't think ATT drops the voltage, which should be a benefit of dropping the frequency and my best estimate of reduction in power drain, by looking at Mobilemeter while running on battery, is about 2W. I would expect that PowerPlay shuts down parts of the GPU in order to save more power.

Which software are you using to read the temperature? MobileMeter reads the ACPI temperature. RMclock reads the CPU temperatures. The Intel Thermal Analysis Tool reads both. I am usually seeing the MobileMeter temperature in the 50-55C range. The CPU fan cuts in at about 55C and cuts out at about 48C (etiquette mode will raise this slightly). I find the temperature to be reasonable. The front left palm rest gets a little warm (useful in winter).

I have difficulty in believing a CPU temperature of 36C and I wonder whether the temperature sensor being read was not in or fixed to the CPU itself (it is only the newer CPUs which have built-in sensors to avoid the risk of thermal damage).

John

 

Hey, I use NHC to get the temperature. I have to say... the more I use this Book, the more I'm getting angry about the fan. For me, a notebook shouldn't get louder than the X60 with fan off. I think I have to sell it, if Samsung-Support doesn't tell me, that Powerplay will be supported. Do you have any news, John?
It's hard, but I often have to work on quiet places... Is there any Notebook, that can be compared with the X60, but with less noise? What about Sony Fe-41?
Greetings...

 

The fans on all three of the Samsung notebooks I have used during the past year have been the quietest of any of the notebooks I have used since fans became standard equipment about 10 years ago. You need to be in a quiet room to hear the fan running. The clattery Hitachi HDD on my Q35 is much noisier than the fan ( the Samsung HDD that I put in my X60 plus is commendably quiet).

The only way that you will get the fan to stay off completely is to have a low voltage CPU and an integrated GPU and/or sit in a very cold room.I find that a fan which switches on and off is more noticeable than a fan which runs continuously.

Before I go further, I must ask whether you have explored the options of Fn+F8, particularly the "silent" mode. What this does is raise the fan trigger temperature by about 3°C and means that the fan doesn't cut in until the CPU core temperature gets to about 63°C and the fan cuts out when the temperature drops to about 59°C.

At the moment I am doing a test run (on battery) in a room at around 27°C and what I would call light usage (on line with some pages open in fireFox). I've got the GPU underclocked by 50% (to 202/225MHz) using ATT + Omega Driver and RMclock managing the CPU (it is running at minimum speed for 99% of the time, so the undervolting isn't significant).

I am attaching the graph from MobileMeter. If my memory is correct the vertical bars represent 5 or 6 minutes. MobileMeter reports the ACPI temperature which tends to be a bit lower than the CPU core but provides a very good indication of what is happening. For the first part of the plot I was using the "silent" mode. You can see the fan comes on for relatively short periods. Then, in the centre part of the graph the fan is on the normal setting. You will see that the fan runs for a long time before reaching the trigger temperature to turn it off. The last part is in "silent" mode again. The difference in fan operating time is significant. In "silent" mode it is about 2 minutes out of 6 while in normal mode it is 25 minutes out of 30. Maybe, if the room temperature is a bit cooler then the fan would not come on under light usage.

It is difficult to be sure what power reduction I am achieving by underclocking the GPU. I would guess around 2W. I would expect PowerPlay to be more effective. I remember my old X60 with the T2300 + X1400 would get down to around 18W power drain, today I can't get below 22W. I would expect that hardware, with the current "silent" mode would probably stay silent.

For a comparison, I have been running my Q35 (T5600 + Intel graphics). I warmed it up doing a virus scan and it has been sitting silently (in the "etiquette" mode) with the ACPI temperature at 45°C and the core temperature at 43°C I've just connected it to the internet and started firefox to generate some more activity. The fan briefly came on but the CPU core temperature didn't go above 44°C.

Time to get to some conclusions.

The powerful hardware in the X60 plus generates too much heat to make passive cooling easy. I have my suspicion that the T7200 draws much more power than the T5600 an account of the bigger on-chip cache, but the Intel datasheet only gives overall numbers for the family. The X1700 does use more power than the old X1400, although if PowerPlay worked then the power gap should close when running on battery.

Have you looked at your CPU activity under light usage? I also attach a plot from perfmon which shows that my CPU is in the C3 low power state for between 70 and 90% of the time when running on battery (the Q35, with fewer things running is in the 80 to 95% range). I have enabled FlashBlock to stop flash ads from guzzling CPU time.

I think you will be struggling to find another similar notebook with less fan noise unless it has a low voltage CPU and integrated graphics. You may want to look at the Apples. I believe they rely more on passive cooling (ie allow the whole computer to heat up). For the fan to be less noisy that the X60 series, you will need something which is bigger and spins more slowly. I don't know about the Sony FE, but I believe the SZ series are quite noisy.

Would it be worth thinking about a notebook cooler? Something which quietly blows cold air over the bottom of the computer might keep the heatsink below the fan trigger temperature, particularly if combined with the etiquette mode. But would a cooler be quieter than the X60's fan?

John

PS: Something I observed after the post is that while my Q35 drops into the C3 state on both battery and mains, my X60 plus only goes into the C3 state when it is on battery. This means that when on mains the CPU is always generating a bit more heat. Google turned up this long thread about a similar problem with HP and one of the statements was that Intel's recommendation is that the CPUs do not go into C3 state while on mains power. Samsung must have gone against this advice for thev Q35, perhaps to keep the smaller chassis a bit cooler. Or maybe having a separate GPU makes the management of power states more difficult.

 

Hi John!
Many thanks for this long answer. First of all, Samsung told me, that there will never be a bios-update activating powerplay. The System wouldn't run stable. But I have to say that I think they didn't try enough. I can't believe it. I called Samsung several times and they always told me that I could use the 10XA bios for X60plus, but this wasn't correct. I don't know, but I think the Support doesn't know anything about deeper technical questions.

Now I don't know what to do. Should I stay or should I sell it...

I keep on trying to cool it down. Maybe... one day, we'll find a solution.

 

I got the impression from my recent correspondence with Samsung UK support that they have been slow to realise there is an unacceptable problem and have now passed it along the line. I suspect that the cause of the PowerPlay issue is ATI not giving Samsung the right information. I will leave it for a week or two before asking about progress.

By all means look around for something else, but you may have difficulty in satisfying yourself that the alternatives would be better in the areas where you find the X60 plus to have shortcomings. Are LG notebooks available in your area? I liked the look of their models. And the prices of existing hardware should move down a bit when the Santa Rosa platform arrives. I don't know if that new platform will actually include power saving (which applies even on mains operation). The faster FSB could mean more power. I've yet to see any machines with the L7200 or L7400 CPU. These, with a lower power GPU, should run quieter.

John

 

I just saw this about the new Nvidia GPUs not downclocking properly. Sounds familiar to us with the X1700 without PowerPlay. I wonder whether what we need is transplants to a 2nd generation X1700?

John