2014 Toshiba Portégé Z30-A Haswell with FullHD IPS panel

Toshiba has finally upgraded some members of their business 13" Portégé Z30 family (known as Dynabook R634 in Japan) with FullHD IPS panels



Key features:

• 13.3" 1920x1080 IPS panel (formerly 1366 x 768 TN panels only)

• Intel i5-U / i7-U Dual Core with HD4400 iGPU

• 128GB / 256GB / 512GB SSD mSATA

• 4GB / 8GB / 12GB / 16GB RAM (2 slots upto 16GB)

• WiFi /BT Intel Wireless-AC 3160 / 7260 M.2

• WWAN 4G Sierra Wireless M.2 (optional)

• USB 3.0 (3x), SD Card, HDMI, VGA, RJ-45

• SIM Card, Smart Card, Finger Print Sensor, Docking Port, Backlit Keyboard

• 31.6 x 22.7 x 1.39 (1.79 max) cm

• 1.20kg Magnesium

Reviews (earlier HD only model):
Review Toshiba Portege Z30-A | NotebookCheck.net
Light, fast ... and pricey: now THIS is an Ultrabook | TheRegister.co.uk

Review (Z30T-A touch version):
Review Toshiba Portege Z30T-A | NotebookCheck.net

 

where you get information about IPS?
it says FHD, but no information that these is IPS.

 

From notebookcheck.com:
Business-Notebooks: Toshiba präsentiert neue Portege Z30 und Tecra Z40 | notebookcheck.com

 

I called Toshiba and they insist this is not an IPS. I have my doubts now.

 

So what did they say it is then? PLS, VA, AFFS? I can't remember ever having heard of a 13.3" FHD TN panel.

 

On the German Toshiba HP it says, that the new Toshiba Portege z30 models have an IPS display.
See the press release: Toshiba

 

first impression - yeah,thats true IPS.really good.
and overall product worth his money.

 

Owner? We have an owner!
Looking forward for your observations.

 

if somebody interested what type of IPS,just tell me where i can check these.
i will post in next 3 days my impressions.

 

I believe HWiNFO64 is able to get the model number of the screen.
Also could you please post a screenshot of HWiNFOs summary page?

 

here you go

 

Umm no, that looks like a generic Toshiba number. It's definitely not produced in 2006
Maybe this tool will help: MonitorInfoView - View Monitor Information (EDID)

Can you also please post a screenshot of HWiNFO - System Summary? (it looks like this)

 

Sorry Oled but i cant find any where mention of wwan?

 

WWAN is an optional feature, not provided by all models. The same goes for the display.
Here is a model with both the new FHD panel and WWAN: Portégé Z30-A-17D | Toshiba.eu

 

hi oled, yes I forgot to mention to Toshiba, but I knew of it of course.
The findings under "emissions" in the NBC review to not seem to point to a better fan behavior that that of the NEC. fan coming on when HD videos are running. That's not OK! The NEC is superior in a few aspects (screen, weight, keyboard, imho design) but inferior in RAM and battery life. So I would say this is a tie. Note that the toshibas keyboard is unpleasently loud while the nec is extremely silent.

 

I just bought the 2014 touch version (Z30t-A) which is quite similar, so if you have any questions welcome to ask them here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/toshiba/751814-toshiba-z30t-touch-thread.html

 

Hi there,

thats great that I have finally found someone that owns it.

I am really curious how is the fan noise with this laptop. Under which conditions are the fans completely off? When does it kick in? For example 5 min. Full HD video on youtube? Installing some program? How much time does it take to switch the fans off again? I have only read one review of Protege Z50 where the fans kick in with CPU over 60 degrees and turn back off only when the CPU temperature reaches 45 degrees.
Many thanks for your reply. I really want a laptop that is cooled down passively (except gaming and similar of course).

Also how is the Full HD panel? What is the battery life with this panel (wifi web usage)?

 

I am typing this from a just-purchased derivative - the Toshiba Satellite Z30-A.

This seems to be a rather special SKU, with the following changes relative to the Portege version mentioned here:
- no support for a docking station
- no SIM card slot
- no fingerprint print
- no smartcard slot
- no accupoint (trackpoint)

So, I have a heavily stripped down version here. The base package matches, though, and it is only this base package that I care about.

Regarding the screen - this is definitely an IPS FHD screen; the HWINFO64 data is generic (and obviously wrong). The other monitor EDD tool mentioned here reports

NotebookPanel No 14 / 2006 62289 (0xF351) 20623 (0x508F) 1920 X 1080 66 - 67 KHz 60 - 61 Hz Yes No No Yes Yes 3.55 1 (0x00000001) 1.3 TOS508F\1&8713bca&0&UID0 25.04.2014 16:00:29

which does not seem all that useful.

The screen can be tuned to be extremely bright and downtuned to not be blinding in total darkness, too. I like it so far (after about four hours of use).

The HDMI port works extremely well with my Asus PB278Q at its native 2560x1440 resolution, with the high-speed HDMI ethernet cable supplied with the monitor. My research on HDMI beyond 1080p had made me worry, in particular since Toshiba only declare support for 1080p over HDMI, but the Intel drivers immediately offered 2560x1440@59 Hz upon connecting the Asus to the notebook. Manually increasing this to 60 Hz refresh worked as well.

Most reviews on the net mention that this ultrabook comes with a Toshiba SSD - well, I have a SAMSUNG MZMTE256HMHP in mine. As well as 8GB Samsung memory in the first slot (plus Kingston memory as an add-on to fill that second, empty memory slot for a total of 16 GB of memory capacity)

I am happy with the build quality and the haptics of the material.Under (light) load, only a stripe immediately in front of the screen gets lukewarm to touch. At all other times, I do not notice anything going above ambient temperature.

The fan has remained silent while I was composing this posting on battery; when I was configuring plenty of software, it ramped up quite a bit, but (to my ears) noise remained at an acceptable level and was never a nuisance as emissions were of relatively low frequency.

Sound output, considering the size of the speakers, works really well, Do not expect any useful bass, but do expect clarity. I tried test calls with the echo services of Skype and a near-by Microsoft Lync server, with excellent results,

The only item that I am undecided on so far is the keyboard. The back-lighting exists (good), but is only on/off (hmmm, ok?), The light seeps through underneath the keys; sitting "properly" in front of the ultrabook, this is barely noticeable; chill-out and look into slits of light, Acceptable, I'd say.

The feel of the keyboard I still need to get used to. Initially it felt very plasticky, but now things are progressing towards "humm, the click is a bit odd". I much prefer the Thinkpad T61 keyboard, the keyboard of an HP 8570p is different (and I hate that), This Toshiba goes into the direction of these fancy chiclet keyboards, but I believe falls a bit short of it. Right now I believe that the keyboard is quite OK.

It night be interesting to compare this ultrabook to the Sony Vaio Pro and NEC LaVie Z which I had the chance to touch for a few minutes a few weeks ago. The Sony's haptics I was not too happy with, and it is only about 200g lighter. The NEC is massively lighter than this Toshiba (at about 800g only about two-thirds of the weight!), but the screen resolution is too high for its size. Both the NEC and the Sony do not feel as sturdy as the Toshiba (but they would probably survive some abuse, still).

All in all, and for now, I think I made the right choice. This is a very light-weight high-resolution notebook with a nice matte IPS display, with exactly the ports I need / want, with nothing built-in (and paid-for) which I would not need.

Over the course of time, I might be able to provide some additional feedback for my use cases - communication, audio and video consumption, office work, running things in virtual machines for work.

 

Hi all,

I just bought a PORTÉGÉ Z30-A-17D (i7 4500U, FHD display, 512 GB SSD, 16 GB RAM, WWAN, etc.). Here are my first thoughts:

I was very apprehensive about buying this laptop, having seen the (IMHO) disappointing 1366x768 matte screen on a colleague's "lesser" version. After reading that Toshiba now equips an FHD IPS panel, I was somewhat sold, although the lack of reviews on these newer models meant I still wasn't sure about the quality. Having now received the laptop, I can honestly say that the display is really, really good and can basically confirm what daffy99 already stated. There is really no comparison to my colleague's WXGA screen that had washed-out colors and terrible viewing angles.

I also ran the monitor info tool and got the same result as daffy99, except for one particular oddity: In addition to the 'internal LCD' reported by the tool (TOS598F - presumably indicating it is Toshiba-made), there is another panel in the results list (inactive- see attached pic). From my other laptop, I know the info tool reports every display ever connected to it (in that case, several external monitors that are, of course, labeled as inactive). I am puzzled as to why the additional panel is being reported... Particularly because it seems to be a Sharp display made in 2014 (google gives no results on the exact model number). Now, I know a few years back Sharp and Toshiba worked together on LCD TV displays, so could it be that they are jointly making laptop panels?

I was also looking at the Sony Vaio Pro 13 and had played around with it in a sony store. The Toshiba seems more solid to me, in terms of build quality. The Sony is incredibly thin and light (just 1 kg!) and to me that makes it seem more flimsy (the lid, for example, seems very bendy). The particular model I saw had a matte touch-screen, which I thought was stellar (probably better than the toshiba, but I can't say for sure without a side-by-side comparison).

Other points:

- The keyboard lighting works great (just like it's supposed to, same as on my old Vaio F12). My only issue here is that the function text on the F keys (i.e. brightness control, wifi on/off, etc.) do not light up and cannot be seen at night. Thankfully, an OSD appears as soon as you press the FN button, telling you which F key does what- not as convenient as if it was on the keyboard, but useful nonetheless. The keyboard does take time to get used to- I attribute this to the fact that I always had large-screen laptops with full-sized keyboards. Typing on an ultrabook is challenging My Vaio F12's keyboard feels much more solid though.

- I'm missing the 'backlighting off/on' hardware key that my Vaio F12 has. Very useful when I left the laptop run something time-consuming on its own, and wanted to save battery immeddiately.

- Fan noise is very low so far (I have been mostly installing software).

Final verdict is that it is a great laptop for the price- It cost me 1600 euros, which I consider a bargain (for proper context, that's 300 euros lower than the RRP in Greece). No other ultrabook came even close to this price, at these specs (not in Greece, anyway).

That's all I can think of for now. If anyone has any other questions, let me know

 

Thanks Snowb100 for the quick review.

Where did you buy this particular model, I can't seem to find it nowhere!? You mention Greece, is it from there? Is the keyboard layout English or Greek?

 

Yes, I bought it in Greece. There's a price comparison site where you can see all Greek shops that sell it online: Toshiba Portege Z30-A-17D (i7-4500U/16GB/512GB SSD) | Skroutz.gr (in Greek only).

The keyboard layout is English, however, there are also Greek letters printed on some of the keys (for when you want to switch and type in Greek). This used to annoy me as it clutters it a bit, but now I'm so used to it, I hardly notice them. Have a look at the attached photo:



I've seen this particular model in other markets, including in Bulgaria, Romania and Italy:
Серия Portégé Z30-A - Toshiba
http://www.toshiba.com.ro/contents/ro_RO/PRODUCT_DESC/files/1170008.pdf
Portege z30-a-17d, confronta prezzi e offerte portege z30-a-17d su Trova Prezzi

You'd have to go through Toshiba's individual country websites to see all the countries where it's being sold.

 

The panel made by Sharp ussually get a very high contrast .So I think your panel may be made from Toshiba . )
The Vaio Pro has a very wide color gamut panel , 95% sRGB . Very good and bright panel but the black not deep.

 

Would you happen to know how to (de)activate this feature? On mine, I do not see this (useful) behaviour.

FWIW, for my consumer unit I paid about EUR 1000; add EUR 80 for the 8 GB of memory ( https://shop.digitec.ch/en/s1/produ...7-4500u-8gb-win-81-notebook-2727547?pcscpId=1).

A price-competitive product could be the Asus UX32LN or the UX303LN - at least they are in Germany and Switzerland.

 

After some more time, some more experience to be shared:

* the keyboard sounds indeed plasticky, when being typed on; haptics are ok; typing itself (speed, error rate) is very satisfying

* I have had issues with WiFi waking up properly / reassociating with an access point; this is typically not a hardware problem, but most often a software problem. Candidates in my case are Windows 8.1, the Intel WiFi drivers, my AP, and VMware Workstation. All is good after a reboot.

* Bluetooth works well (headset); WLAN itself works very well

* The fan starts surprisingly early; constant 25% CPU load will get it to spin up quite a bit. I suppose this is simply Toshiba being aggressive on protecting the hardware. There is actually diagnostic software for everything related to temperature. Noise emissions are in the lower frequency range and not really obnoxious, although noticeable in a dead silent environment.

* The layout of the trackpad, with the two buttons integrated into the pad, takes a bit of getting used to. Not perfect, but not bad, either.

All in all, and given the price I paid, I am still very satisfied.

 

Is there a silent mode or anything similar provided by firmware or Toshiba software that changes fan thresholds / speeds under certain conditions?

 

I am not aware of anything built-in which would offer direct control over the fan. (And I have not yet had a look at third-party notebook fan control software)

The notebook comes equipped with an "eco mode", though. As far as I can tell, this simply implements a dedicated "Toshiba-optimized" power plan with throttling and various other power-saving mechanisms activated.

 

More experience, this time with Bluetooth:

Nice performance over a considerable range with a Plantronics Legend headset in a complex Bluetooth and WiFi heavy area.

A Microsoft Arc Touch Mouse (Surface Edition) - i.e. native Bluetooth 4.0 - paired immediately, operates reliably in a less signal-stressed environment (so far)

One thing that I am not entirely happy with at the moment is WiFi and notebook wake-up behaviour. It has happened a number of times now that the WiFi is unable to associate with my access point after very deep sleep. While this is almost certainly somewhere in the software stack somewhere, it is still a nuisance. I hope that over the course of time this will be improved by Intel (WiFi module, WiFi and rapid start drivers) / Microsoft (Windows 8.1) / Asus (access point)

 

Hi Snowb, thanks for first impression.
Can you tell me please how is wwan signal compering to your smartphone?
Also few words about battery life while surfing over wwan or wifi?
And now question for everybody that read this post, is there Tecra z thread in forum and do we have a owner of Tecra Z40.
Thanks in advance.

 

I bought the same model, pretty happy right now. 4G works awesome, battery life is up to 9-10 hours. Extremely light and comfortable. Love it!

 

I bought Toshiba Satellite Z30-A-1DJ which is consumer model from Portege i guess? what i've learned it's exactly same than Portege, but excluding some of the business features like NFC(not really a business feature?), SC-reader, docking port, fingerprint reader, 3G/4G modem and trackpointer.

- i5-4210U
- 8gb RAM
- FullHD screen
- 120gb SSD

Paid 790€ in Finland. Been loving the laptop since i got it about week ago. Really good workmanship, awesome battery life, very light. Some small complaints comes from the screen, i'm not sure is it IPS, it doesn't have as good viewing angels than lets say some Zenbooks what i've seen, but still decent ones and another small complaint is the fan noise when doing some very processor intesive work like gaming. Though i've just have tried Asphalt 8 and that's the only time when it got annoyingly loud, but on my use doesn't really matter cos i don't really play any games. Overall very good value for the money!!

 

Are you sure you have done the right brightness/?

 

I am beginning to get nervous about the wireless module - the Intel AC 3160.

WiFi is not always coming back from sleep. And now I am beginning to see ran drops of the wireless connection, too. (And while it is mostly working, it delivers rather decent performance)

I attribute this to the notebook (software or hardware) rather than the wireless infrastructure because the latter has always been rock solid.

It might be an interesting idea to reset to factory state and avoid upgrading Intel drivers (staying exactly on what Toshiba rolled out).

 

Hope you have the latest Intel driver from June, because I had similar probs with February's version.

 

I have the same module and haven't got any problems with it. Haven't updated drivers though.

Version: 16.6.0.8 dated 14.10.2013

 

The notebook has been reset to factory defaults now - and already refreshed with all the update fun in Windows and as suggested by the Toshiba updater (which included a very fresh BIOS upgrade).

The only item that I installed manually on top of the automated updating is an updated Intel Bluetooth Filter Driver (1414_03) from the US support site. This is due to my Bluetooth mouse not reliably reconnecting when the notebook returns from deep sleep. Intel have released these recent drivers to deal exactly with this kind of (apparently intermittent) problem.

I have not uninstalled anything (despite neither wanting nor needing Intel Smart Connect, Intel Rapid Start)

Lets see whether the minimalistic approach to driver management creates a more robust system.

 

... and also with the most recent Intel WiFI drivers in upgrade mode.

Well, so far this system has become a marvel of stability, with various sleep and hibernation modes apparently exercised. The Microsoft Arc Touch Surface Edition (i.e. Bluetooth 4.0 edition) very occasionally does not reconnect immediately when it was awake and the notebook not. That is very easily fixable, though.

If it stays that way, I have very little to complain about.

 

Anybody running linux?
Could you please post the output of the following commands regarding

1) toshiba driver

Code:

find /sys/devices/platform/toshiba*

2) thermal trip points

Code:

for attr in /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/trip_point_*; do printf $(basename $attr)":\t"; cat $attr; done

3) cpu throttling

NotebookCheck has reported pretty intense cpu throttling. I'm wondering whether this occurs on linux too.
The following command loads up all cores and shows you cpu clock & temperatures. The instruction looks even more complex than 2) but for easy copy & paste I put everything in a one liner.

Code:

for i in 1 2 3 4; do while :; do :; done & done; watch -n 1 "grep Hz /proc/cpuinfo; printf '\nTemp:\t'; cat /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/temp"; kill %4 %3 %2 %1; clear

Explanation:
for/while loop: creates 4 background processes with endless null instructions ":"
watch: ongoing output of cpu clock and temperature
kill: terminates the 4 background processes
clear: clears the terminal

2,3) requires thermal driver loaded (modprobe -v thermal)

 

I just installed 64-bit Ubuntu 14.04 so it is completely vanilla. Here's the output:

Code:

find /sys/devices/platform/toshiba*

find: `/sys/devices/platform/toshiba*': No such file or directory

Code:

for attr in /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/trip_point_*; do printf $(basename $attr)":\t"; cat $attr; done

trip_point_0_temp: 102000
trip_point_0_type: critical

Code:

for i in 1 2 3 4; do while :; do :; done & done; watch -n 1 "grep Hz /proc/cpuinfo; printf '\nTemp:\t'; cat /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/temp"; kill %4 %3 %2 %1; clear

I ran this for ten minutes and it keeps showing the same cpu frequencies:

Every 1,0s: grep Hz /proc/cpuinfo; printf '\nTemp:\... Sat Aug 23 15:54:11 2014
model name : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4500U CPU @ 1.80GHz
cpu MHz : 1800.000
model name : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4500U CPU @ 1.80GHz
cpu MHz : 1800.000
model name : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4500U CPU @ 1.80GHz
cpu MHz : 1800.000
model name : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4500U CPU @ 1.80GHz
cpu MHz : 1800.000
Temp: 16000

 

Thanks mikewse!

1)

Is a toshiba driver loaded?

Code:

lsmod | grep toshiba

The modules name is either toshiba_acpi or toshiba-acpi



2)

From the temperature output of 3) it seems like this is not the correct sensor. Let's see the output of all of them instead:

Code:

for attr in /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone*/trip_point_*; do printf $(dirname $attr)/$(basename $attr)":\t"; cat $attr; done

3)

Good news is it does not throttle: cpu MHz 1800.000. On the other hand it neither runs on turbo. Were the frequencies higher in the beginning of the test?

Check if turbo is activated:

Code:

cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/intel_pstate/no_turbo

To enable turbo (if not blocked by driver/firmware)

Code:

sudo echo 0 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/intel_pstate/no_turbo

Like I said above 16°C is impossible, so thermal_zone0 likely does not belong to the CPU. Lets see the new output of 2) and then adjust.

You are running this test while plugged on AC, right?

 

1)

Code:

lsmod | grep toshiba

toshiba_acpi 22901 0
sparse_keymap 13948 1 toshiba_acpi
toshiba_bluetooth 12852 0
wmi 19177 1 toshiba_acpi

UEFI:
Not sure, I just popped the Ubuntu installation in on a USB CD and never had to make any choice about UEFI.

2)

Code:

for attr in /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone*/trip_point_*; do printf $(dirname $attr)/$(basename $attr)":\t"; cat $attr; done

/sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/trip_point_0_temp: 102000
/sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/trip_point_0_type: critical
/sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone1/trip_point_0_temp: 0
/sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone1/trip_point_0_type: passive
/sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone1/trip_point_1_temp: 0
/sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone1/trip_point_1_type: passive

3)

No it was 1800MHz from the start so no turbo.

Code:

cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/intel_pstate/no_turbo

cat: /sys/devices/system/cpu/intel_pstate/no_turbo: No such file or directory

Code:

sudo echo 0 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/intel_pstate/no_turbo

bash: /sys/devices/system/cpu/intel_pstate/no_turbo: No such file or directory

Yes, running on AC.

 

Ok, the driver is loaded. So there must be something in /sys. What's the output of

Code:

find /sys | grep toshiba

thermal_zone1 doesn't look right either. Do you have acpi or lm-sensors installed?

Code:

sudo apt-get install lm-sensors acpi

Then run:

Code:

acpi -V

Code:

sensors

What does the following say:

Code:

find /sys | grep turbo

Code:

dmesg | grep turbo

 

This is turning into rsh over forum

Code:

find /sys | grep toshiba

/sys/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/device:00/TOS6208:00/leds/toshiba::illumination
/sys/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/device:00/TOS6208:00/leds/toshiba::illumination/brightness
/sys/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/device:00/TOS6208:00/leds/toshiba::illumination/power
/sys/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/device:00/TOS6208:00/leds/toshiba::illumination/power/control
/sys/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/device:00/TOS6208:00/leds/toshiba::illumination/power/async
/sys/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/device:00/TOS6208:00/leds/toshiba::illumination/power/runtime_enabled
/sys/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/device:00/TOS6208:00/leds/toshiba::illumination/power/runtime_active_kids
/sys/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/device:00/TOS6208:00/leds/toshiba::illumination/power/runtime_active_time
/sys/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/device:00/TOS6208:00/leds/toshiba::illumination/power/autosuspend_delay_ms
/sys/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/device:00/TOS6208:00/leds/toshiba::illumination/power/runtime_status
/sys/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/device:00/TOS6208:00/leds/toshiba::illumination/power/runtime_usage
/sys/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/device:00/TOS6208:00/leds/toshiba::illumination/power/runtime_suspended_time
/sys/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/device:00/TOS6208:00/leds/toshiba::illumination/max_brightness
/sys/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/device:00/TOS6208:00/leds/toshiba::illumination/device
/sys/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/device:00/TOS6208:00/leds/toshiba::illumination/subsystem
/sys/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/device:00/TOS6208:00/leds/toshiba::illumination/trigger
/sys/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/device:00/TOS6208:00/leds/toshiba::illumination/uevent
/sys/class/leds/toshiba::illumination
find: `/sys/kernel/debug': Permission denied
/sys/module/wmi/holders/toshiba_acpi
/sys/module/toshiba_acpi
/sys/module/toshiba_acpi/srcversion
/sys/module/toshiba_acpi/notes
/sys/module/toshiba_acpi/notes/.note.gnu.build-id
/sys/module/toshiba_acpi/taint
/sys/module/toshiba_acpi/drivers
/sys/module/toshiba_acpi/drivers/acpi:Toshiba ACPI driver
/sys/module/toshiba_acpi/initstate
/sys/module/toshiba_acpi/coresize
/sys/module/toshiba_acpi/sections
/sys/module/toshiba_acpi/sections/.bss
/sys/module/toshiba_acpi/sections/.init.text
/sys/module/toshiba_acpi/sections/.data
/sys/module/toshiba_acpi/sections/.text
/sys/module/toshiba_acpi/sections/__mcount_loc
/sys/module/toshiba_acpi/sections/.rodata
/sys/module/toshiba_acpi/sections/__verbose
/sys/module/toshiba_acpi/sections/.strtab
/sys/module/toshiba_acpi/sections/.symtab
/sys/module/toshiba_acpi/sections/.text.unlikely
/sys/module/toshiba_acpi/sections/.gnu.linkonce.this_module
/sys/module/toshiba_acpi/sections/.rodata.str1.1
/sys/module/toshiba_acpi/sections/.rodata.str1.8
/sys/module/toshiba_acpi/sections/.note.gnu.build-id
/sys/module/toshiba_acpi/sections/.exit.text
/sys/module/toshiba_acpi/refcnt
/sys/module/toshiba_acpi/uevent
/sys/module/toshiba_acpi/holders
/sys/module/toshiba_acpi/initsize
/sys/module/toshiba_bluetooth
/sys/module/toshiba_bluetooth/srcversion
/sys/module/toshiba_bluetooth/notes
/sys/module/toshiba_bluetooth/notes/.note.gnu.build-id
/sys/module/toshiba_bluetooth/taint
/sys/module/toshiba_bluetooth/drivers
/sys/module/toshiba_bluetooth/drivers/acpi:Toshiba BT
/sys/module/toshiba_bluetooth/initstate
/sys/module/toshiba_bluetooth/coresize
/sys/module/toshiba_bluetooth/sections
/sys/module/toshiba_bluetooth/sections/.init.text
/sys/module/toshiba_bluetooth/sections/.data
/sys/module/toshiba_bluetooth/sections/.text
/sys/module/toshiba_bluetooth/sections/__mcount_loc
/sys/module/toshiba_bluetooth/sections/.rodata
/sys/module/toshiba_bluetooth/sections/.strtab
/sys/module/toshiba_bluetooth/sections/.symtab
/sys/module/toshiba_bluetooth/sections/.gnu.linkonce.this_module
/sys/module/toshiba_bluetooth/sections/.rodata.str1.1
/sys/module/toshiba_bluetooth/sections/.rodata.str1.8
/sys/module/toshiba_bluetooth/sections/.note.gnu.build-id
/sys/module/toshiba_bluetooth/sections/.exit.text
/sys/module/toshiba_bluetooth/refcnt
/sys/module/toshiba_bluetooth/uevent
/sys/module/toshiba_bluetooth/holders
/sys/module/toshiba_bluetooth/initsize
/sys/module/sparse_keymap/holders/toshiba_acpi

Code:

sudo apt-get install lm-sensors acpi

I now installed this + fancontrol and some other stuff.

Code:

acpi -V

Battery 0: Unknown, 79%
Battery 0: design capacity 3480 mAh, last full capacity 3320 mAh = 95%
Adapter 0: on-line
Thermal 0: ok, 16.0 degrees C
Thermal 0: trip point 0 switches to mode critical at temperature 102.0 degrees C
Cooling 0: pkg-temp-0 no state information available
Cooling 1: LCD 0 of 100
Cooling 2: intel_powerclamp no state information available
Cooling 3: Processor 0 of 10
Cooling 4: Processor 0 of 10
Cooling 5: Processor 0 of 10
Cooling 6: Processor 0 of 10

Code:

sensors

acpitz-virtual-0
Adapter: Virtual device
temp1: +16.0°C (crit = +102.0°C)

coretemp-isa-0000
Adapter: ISA adapter
Physical id 0: +44.0°C (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 0: +41.0°C (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 1: +42.0°C (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)

Code:

find /sys | grep turbo

(nothing)

Code:

dmesg | grep turbo

(nothing)

 

Just type rshd stop when you have enough

Damn, that's a small battery

Finally lm-sensors is our hero.

How about doing the test with temperatures one more time?

Code:

for i in 1 2 3 4; do while :; do :; done & done; watch -n 1 "grep Hz /proc/cpuinfo; sensors | grep coretemp -A 4 -B 1"; kill %4 %3 %2 %1; clear

If you don't have enough already one might also further investigate the turbo issue

 

No probs, just hit me with the turbo stuff ;-) I guess you would really like to check throttling behaviour in turbo mode.
It'd be great if you could summarize your findings about how to best configure Ubuntu on this laptop, would be useful for me and I'm sure others too.

Code:

for i in 1 2 3 4; do while :; do :; done & done; watch -n 1 "grep Hz /proc/cpuinfo; sensors | grep coretemp -A 4 -B 1"; kill %4 %3 %2 %1; clear

Here's just after starting:
Every 1,0s: grep Hz /proc/cpuinfo; sensors | grep c... Sun Aug 24 01:52:10 2014
model name : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4500U CPU @ 1.80GHz
cpu MHz : 1800.000
model name : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4500U CPU @ 1.80GHz
cpu MHz : 1800.000
model name : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4500U CPU @ 1.80GHz
cpu MHz : 1800.000
model name : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4500U CPU @ 1.80GHz
cpu MHz : 1800.000
coretemp-isa-0000
Adapter: ISA adapter
Physical id 0: +60.0°C (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 0: +57.0°C (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 1: +59.0°C (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)

And here's ten minutes later:
Every 1,0s: grep Hz /proc/cpuinfo; sensors | grep c... Sun Aug 24 02:02:05 2014
model name : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4500U CPU @ 1.80GHz
cpu MHz : 1800.000
model name : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4500U CPU @ 1.80GHz
cpu MHz : 1800.000
model name : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4500U CPU @ 1.80GHz
cpu MHz : 1800.000
model name : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4500U CPU @ 1.80GHz
cpu MHz : 1800.000
coretemp-isa-0000
Adapter: ISA adapter
Physical id 0: +69.0°C (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 0: +65.0°C (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 1: +69.0°C (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)

 

Temperatures are still pretty low. Maybe it'll help to produce some I/O by copying a large sum of small files while running the test.


About turbo:
Are there any options regarding the CPU in the BIOS?
What kernel are you running?

Code:

$ uname -a

What's the output of (do that when idle):

Code:

$ ls -al /sys/devices/system/cpu
$ ls -al /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/
$ cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/cpuinfo_min_freq
$ sudo cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/cpuinfo_cur_freq
$ cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/cpuinfo_max_freq
$ cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_driver
$ cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_max_freq
$ cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/bios_limit

 

Code:

$ uname -a
Linux mikenote 3.13.0-34-generic #60-Ubuntu SMP Wed Aug 13 15:45:27 UTC 2014 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
$ ls -al /sys/devices/system/cpu
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 10 root root    0 aug 24 03:50 .
drwxr-xr-x  8 root root    0 aug 24 03:50 ..
drwxr-xr-x  8 root root    0 aug 24 03:50 cpu0
drwxr-xr-x  8 root root    0 aug 24 03:50 cpu1
drwxr-xr-x  8 root root    0 aug 24 03:50 cpu2
drwxr-xr-x  8 root root    0 aug 24 03:50 cpu3
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root    0 aug 24 01:51 cpufreq
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root    0 aug 24 01:51 cpuidle
-r--r--r--  1 root root 4096 aug 24 19:43 kernel_max
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root    0 aug 24 19:43 microcode
-r--r--r--  1 root root 4096 aug 24 19:43 modalias
-r--r--r--  1 root root 4096 aug 24 19:43 offline
-r--r--r--  1 root root 4096 aug 24 01:50 online
-r--r--r--  1 root root 4096 aug 24 19:43 possible
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root    0 aug 24 19:43 power
-r--r--r--  1 root root 4096 aug 24 01:50 present
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 4096 aug 24 01:50 uevent
$ ls -al /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/
total 0
drwxr-xr-x  8 root root    0 aug 24 03:50 .
drwxr-xr-x 10 root root    0 aug 24 03:50 ..
drwxr-xr-x  6 root root    0 aug 24 01:50 cache
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root    0 aug 24 01:51 cpufreq
drwxr-xr-x 12 root root    0 aug 24 19:44 cpuidle
-r--------  1 root root 4096 aug 24 19:44 crash_notes
-r--------  1 root root 4096 aug 24 19:44 crash_notes_size
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root    0 aug 24 19:44 driver -> ../../../../bus/cpu/drivers/processor
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root    0 aug 24 19:44 firmware_node -> ../../../LNXSYSTM:00/LNXCPU:00
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root    0 aug 24 19:44 microcode
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root    0 aug 24 19:44 node0 -> ../../node/node0
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root    0 aug 24 19:44 power
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root    0 aug 24 19:44 subsystem -> ../../../../bus/cpu
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root    0 aug 24 01:50 topology
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 4096 aug 24 03:50 uevent
$ cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/cpuinfo_min_freq
768000
$ sudo cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/cpuinfo_cur_freq
1800000
$ cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/cpuinfo_max_freq
2401000
$ cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_driver
acpi-cpufreq
$ cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_max_freq
1800000
$ cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/bios_limit
1800000

 

I'm assuming you did those commands when idle!? If so the CPU doesn't seem to scale at all, and is stuck at 1.8GHz all the time


I forgot to ask you the output of

Code:

$ cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor
$ cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_available_governors

If not already selected, choose,one of this governors (if available): conservative ondemand powersave

Code:

sudo echo [i]governor_name[/i] > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor

This BIOS limit might be overcome, see https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/CPU_frequency_scaling#BIOS_frequency_limitation

Code:

sudo echo 1 > /sys/module/processor/parameters/ignore_ppc

If the BIOS limit was succesfully unlocked change scaling_max to cpuinfo_max_freq (turbo)

Code:

sudo cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/cpuinfo_max_freq > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_max_freq

You can verify applied settings by running the commands from last post again. Then run the test again.
If that didn't help I'd try to change the old acpi-cpufreq driver with the newer intel_pstate.

 

No, the CPU lowers freq when idle. Here's when I change your script to only load two cores:

Code:

Every 1,0s: grep Hz /proc/cpuinfo; sensors | grep c...  Mon Aug 25 18:41:16 2014
model name      : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4500U CPU @ 1.80GHz
cpu MHz         : 768.000
model name      : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4500U CPU @ 1.80GHz
cpu MHz         : 1800.000
model name      : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4500U CPU @ 1.80GHz
cpu MHz         : 1800.000
model name      : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4500U CPU @ 1.80GHz
cpu MHz         : 768.000

Code:

$ cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor
ondemand
$ cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_available_governors 
conservative ondemand userspace powersave performance 

Code:

sudo echo 1 > /sys/module/processor/parameters/ignore_ppc

Ok

Code:

$ sudo bash
# echo 1 > /sys/module/processor/parameters/ignore_ppc
# cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/cpuinfo_max_freq > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_max_freq
# cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/cpuinfo_cur_freq
2401000
# cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_max_freq
2401000
# cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/bios_limit
1800000

Now we have turbo speed on one core:

Code:

Every 1,0s: grep Hz /proc/cpuinfo; sensors | grep c...  Mon Aug 25 18:51:25 2014
model name      : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4500U CPU @ 1.80GHz
cpu MHz         : 2401.000
model name      : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4500U CPU @ 1.80GHz
cpu MHz         : 1800.000
model name      : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4500U CPU @ 1.80GHz
cpu MHz         : 1800.000
model name      : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4500U CPU @ 1.80GHz
cpu MHz         : 1800.000
coretemp-isa-0000
Adapter: ISA adapter
Physical id 0:  +63.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 0:         +59.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 1:         +63.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)

 

You can make this change permanent. This way the setting gets applied once the processor module is loaded at boot.

Code:

$ sudo echo "options processor ignore_ppc=1" > /etc/modprobe.d/enable_turbo.conf

Here to set it to all 4 cores. You can add that line to a startup script to make the changes permanent. Do you have a /etc/rc.local file? An alternative is to install sysfsutils. Then you can set each parameter manually in /etc/sysfs.conf

Code:

$ for i in /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu[0-3]/cpufreq; do cat $i/cpuinfo_max_freq > $i/scaling_max_freq; done

Ok, fire it up once again and see whether this thing throttles. To produce some extra heat copy a large sum of small files while running the test. You could also copy/delete some stuff to /tmp which usually is mounted as a RAM disk, so even the RAM has something to do.

 

Strange, although adding the conf to the files you mention the setup still isn't activated on boot. I've activated it manually again:

Code:

# cat /sys/module/processor/parameters/ignore_ppc
0
# for i in /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu[0-3]/cpufreq; do cat $i/scaling_max_freq; done
1800000
1800000
1800000
1800000
# echo 1 > /sys/module/processor/parameters/ignore_ppc
# cat /sys/module/processor/parameters/ignore_ppc
1
# for i in /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu[0-3]/cpufreq; do cat $i/cpuinfo_max_freq > $i/scaling_max_freq; done
# for i in /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu[0-3]/cpufreq; do cat $i/scaling_max_freq; done
2401000
2401000
2401000
2401000

Below is a new run of your cpu loader together with a find / -type f | xargs -i grep -i stuff "{}" to exercise disk and RAM.

Code:

Every 1,0s: grep Hz /proc/cpuinfo; sensors | grep c...  Tue Aug 26 17:35:08 2014

model name      : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4500U CPU @ 1.80GHz
cpu MHz         : 2401.000
model name      : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4500U CPU @ 1.80GHz
cpu MHz         : 2401.000
model name      : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4500U CPU @ 1.80GHz
cpu MHz         : 2401.000
model name      : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4500U CPU @ 1.80GHz
cpu MHz         : 2401.000

coretemp-isa-0000
Adapter: ISA adapter
Physical id 0:  +59.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 0:         +57.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 1:         +59.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)

Code:

Every 1,0s: grep Hz /proc/cpuinfo; sensors | grep c...  Tue Aug 26 17:48:17 2014

model name      : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4500U CPU @ 1.80GHz
cpu MHz         : 2401.000
model name      : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4500U CPU @ 1.80GHz
cpu MHz         : 2401.000
model name      : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4500U CPU @ 1.80GHz
cpu MHz         : 2401.000
model name      : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4500U CPU @ 1.80GHz
cpu MHz         : 2401.000

coretemp-isa-0000
Adapter: ISA adapter
Physical id 0:  +74.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 0:         +70.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 1:         +74.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)

No throttling as you can see. BTW, I was quite surprised to hear you mention throttling as the Z30 (well actually the Z30t-A that I own) has a pretty aggressive fan curve that maxes out the fan early and the fan is running at high speed after a little while into this test.