Toshiba X205 on the WAY!!!

I should run 3D Mark06 since I just returned my T7300 CPU and bought and installed the T7700 2.4Ghz CPU last night on my X205-9349, my FEAR score at 1280x800 with all the settings on max is about 56fps minimum, 83fps average, and 155fps max.

 

Any "Before" and "After" numbers....like T7100 vs T7300 vs T7700 setup?
I would like to see if it is really how significant the CPU is limiting some part of the 8700m GT performance....as what I seem to encounter in some games...

 

How would you return a CPU from a standard laptop though? And where to? To my knowledge, Toshiba wouldn't take it back as removing the CPU from their stock models voids the warranty.

 

T7100 is the stock chip in the S9349, so he must have purchased the 7300, then decided to go bigger with the 7700.

Jesse,
How much did the 7700 cost you?

 

You got right, I did purchase it (online), the T7700 cost me $345.00 US at Newegg. It was worth every penny too.

 

How much is the performance increase from T7100 to T7300 to T7700...

 

I tested with FEAR at 1280x800 all settings on max and the T7100 gave me average 46fps, the T7300 gave me average 60fps, the T7700 gives 85fps average, I like the fact that I can play FEAR and Bioshock with maxed settings at 1280x800 and both run very smooth with no lag at all, I can increase the resolution to 1440x900 and they still play well but you get an occasional lag here and there but it is still smooth overall and FEAR still plays very smooth and fast at this resolution as well but haven't done the fps sped test at 1440x900 yet.

 

Wow...seems CPU play a more significant part than was thought so in real world fps...

That seems to also match my suspicion that the CPU is limiting the performance of 8700m GT more than (or rather then) that of it's 128bit mem bus...

Do you think any brand laptop technician would be able to help me with the cpu upgrade well... even if they have not serviced this model before??

 

The bus will still choke it.... the faster processor just s q u e e z e s more out of it...

 

Well not really...think for a bit...

From T7100 cpu (1.8Gz) to T7700 cpu (2.4GHz), is just a 30% upgrade in horse power.
BUT the resultant increase from 46 fps to 85 fps is more than 80%!!!

This cannot simply be explained by squeezed out of processor power...if that is, it will more fairly increase by just 30% in fps.

The extra 50% increase (beyond the first 30% attributable to pure faster CPU) is due to "release of the limitation" on the GPU's operations that was significantly hindered by the slower CPU (rather than release of limitation from it's slower memory bus limit - as the bus clock remain the same).

==> CPU speed is hindering the performance of 8700m *more than* its memory bus limit issue (128bit bus is a fact, but its limitation is too much over-hyped!).

 

If any of you know of someone looking to get one of these notebooks have them check out my listing. I'm going to get a gaming desktop instead of the notebook so I'm getting rid of mine, its only 2 weeks old. Check out my listing here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=173849

Thanks!

 

A good laptop technician shoulb be able to help you, I have done the same with HP, Dell, IBM Thinkpad, and Sony laptops (that is taking them apart) I just like to see the difference from one manufacturer to the next in the way they build the laptops.

 

I already have a desktop gaming rig ( LianLi V2000B Plus II Case, Vista Ultimate 64Bit, Asus Striker Extreme Mobo, 2 x EVGA 8800GTX SLI Setup, Thermaltake 1200 Watt PSU, Intel Q6600 G0 CPU @ 3.0Ghz with Ultra Chill TEC Cooler, 4 Gigs of Patriot DDR2 800 Memory, Dell 24" 2407 LCD,400Gig Seagate SATA and 2 x WD 200Gig SATA Hard Drives, 2 x Plextor 716SA SATA DVDRW, Creative X-Fi. ) , I got my Toshiba for a mobile gaming system while I am on the road at work.

 

planet - I agree with you that that the slower cpu was keeping the gpu from working as fast as it can and when I put in the T7700 this opened the pipe for the gpu to process quite a bit more information and thus doubling my performance, so the bus is not limiting the cpu or gpu at all. The $345.00 was worth every penny as I still spent about $500 less than having bought the 9359 model for $2499 when I spent $1699 + $345 = $2044 not bad and just as fst if not a bit faster performance.

 

I'm fairly new to these forums, but have been reading them over for about a month now... waiting for a great deal on a gaming laptop. My wife and I just had our first child about 2 months ago and since then, we obviously have been spending more time in our living room rather than at our computers in the office... since it's easier to feed him and whatnot. Both of us enjoy playing all sorts of games and my wife wanted to get us a laptop that either one of us could play on while the other keeps the lil one "amused". Well to keep this a lil shorter than long My initial system was going to be a Dell Vostro 1500 with the 8600m gt priced at around $850. Yesterday, I found the Toshiba X205-S9349 "NIB" on eBay from a reputable person that was going for about a grand. I offered him up $1050 since that's about the max of our budget atm for a "toy" Well the auction skyrocketed up to about 1800 which seemed pretty silly since you can order them new for less. Well I get an email today that he is giving a second chance Buy It Now for my offered price of $1050 plus 50 for shipping and insurance. Apprently the winner was less than legit. Welp, I did it and should have it within a couple days. If all goes well, I should be joining this great lil community of proud X205 owner's! From what I read, this is a good place to be!

 

wow you got crazy lucky

 

Congratulations! Definitely a good price for the X205, and it's a great system with a lot of perks. Hope you enjoy it, and congrats on the lil' guy.

 

>.> dunno that sounds to good to be true, I wouldn't ever try buying a computer from ebay, but thats because i've run across so many scammers.

 

OMG, now S9359 model only $2099!
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1187848701&sr=8-2

 

And just think, I paid $2,800 (including PA sales tax) for my X205 about a month and a half ago.

Yep. I feel like crying now.

 

I got a X200 8700GT 512mb (x205 59 american version)
I overclocked to 770/930 and got 5239 @ 1280x1024
(before with 163.44 i had ca.4400)

Will 1024x768 be so different that it will give you almost 1000 points more i 3dmark 06 ?

I'm really pleased with the score !

 

mAEts,
How were you able to overclock the 8700GT. Please give us a walk through how you were able to get the X205 8700GT overclocked. Thank you
Pugs

 

I'll second that... I've tried every trick I've found so far...

Nothing allows OC with 16x.xx drivers although the stock drivers OC extremely well and very easily with very little additional heat.

Currently working on a BIOS OC, but the BIOS flashing program seems to pull corrupted or perhaps simply Nibitor-unreadable BIOS.

If anyone who got the x205s to OC with 16x.xx drivers would give a rundown, I'd be most appreciative.

 

Ok, so I ordered my x205 on Wed. and I got an automated call from UPS this morning that I would be getting a delivery today. Woo Hoo!!

Ok here's my questions:

Does anyone have XP Pro numbers for:
3dmark05/06
overclocking GPU results
FPS for games like FEAR, PREY, BIOSCHOCK

Does n e 1 have this thing set up as a dual boot, XP & Vista?

ANy performance comparisons to XP & Vista?

How can I swap out my T7100 for the T7700? I plan to buy the T7700 but I don't know how to install it. I'm thiniking the processor has got to be on the left side since that's were the fan for it is. But I've never modded a NB b4, desktops I'm a modding beast but I'm a noob when it comes to NB. Any help with the install would be greatly appreciated.

I was all set to format my drive and install XP Pro fresh when I got it but now I'm thinking about Dual Boot. ANy suggestions? I want to be able to play the DX10 games but I don't want to sacrafice the preformance in my DX9 games. I also need all of my graphics programs to run without a hitch, and Vista has proven to have some serious glitches with those.

Lataz,

BiGg RiE

 

Man, I should have done a tutorial when I upgraded my cpu to the T7700 on my 9349, it's tricky but it can be done - there are screws that need to be taken off under the keyboard as well as every screw you see on the bottom, plus there are a couple hidden screws under the HD DVD drive and in the HDD drive bays as well. All I can say when all the right screws and connector are removed the laptop splits open very easy. Good Luck!!.

 

The wifey just told me my lappy is at the cribo!! Yea Yea Yea Yea fool!!
..ok back to business...

So how do I get to the ones under the keyboard?

And if i'm understanding correctly all screws that are visible; bottom of system, HDD bay, HD DVD need to be removed then it comes apart sandwich style?

Do you have to remove the HDD to get to the screws in the HDD bay? How do you gain access to the "Hidden" ones in the HD DVD?

Also like I said in my first post I've never moded or even opened up a lappy before so in the event that I get as far as to install the T7700 what is involved is it a simple swap, is ther thermal compound to be applied to the new cpu is the locking mechanism the same as in a desktop pc?

Thx for the prompt response btw.

Oh, and any links to other laptop upgrade tutorials would be appreciated, I figure it'll at least allow me to see something familiar when I do crack this baby open.

Lataz,

 

This guide should work just fine for you if you want to be able to overclock the 163.xx drivers, you will need a flash drive though. Link

 

Ok when I try to install xp I get a "windows didnot find any hard disk drives in your system" message. I presume this is becaise I didn't opt to use the "install third party scsi or raid drivers option" but I don't know how to excersize this option. In the past when I used this item on a desktop install of xp I used floppy drives for this. I don't have a floppy drive for this lappy, and i don't know what the process would be.

Any help in this area would be greatly appreciated.

Please help, I'm gonna try a few things and then repost.

 

You have to put the SATA drivers on a floppy drive and tell XP to look for them on the floppy I tried XP on my X205 for a bit and that is how I had it see the HDD's.

 

Ok but I don't have a floppy for the laptop...

so how would I do this without a floppy?

Will a usb floppy work for this?

 

BIGg Rie - I used a usb floppy drive that I keep around in case I need it for situations like that one.

 

ok I do have one of those but it's a the job'o. so I'll test that theory in a few hours. thanks for the help!

Wish me luck...

BTW am i the only one having issues with the wireless card staying connected via wifi?

I mean when I boot up it's great then after about 30 minutes it just drops out and I can't connect then when i try to right click one of the two icons on the task bar related to it, it takes for ever to pop up the available options. Then all it does is tell me that I am conected with ip address XXX.XXX.XX.X but no wireless networks are available. Then if I restart it works. Wierd..

 

Ok, so I got Xp installed, Woo Hoo!

But where in the sam H E double hockey sticks, do I get the drivers;

VGA, wireless, etc?

Help!!!

Xp seems great, it reboots back into windows in 20 seconds!!

 

Most of the vista drivers worked in vista for me, and you can get the wireless drivers from intel, also XP does not support the turbo cache controller so you cannot use the intel robson drivers so you will end up with one exclamation mark but that's ok, but on mine I simply used the vista drives and they worked fine.

 

Ok, so i got most of the drivers installed for xp and decided to finish off my dual boot setup by fixing my vista BCD and adding xp as a secondard option with EasyBCD.

Vista still boots up just fine but when I go to boot into xp I get a message saying that I need to put my xp disc in and fix the install...

What the? I guess I'm gonna try it but I'm not sure if I'll mess up vista...

Here goes... I'll post the results

 

I am not sure what happened, did you install Xp and Vista on the same drive or on different one. It is better to install them on separate drives or partitions and not on the same drive that can cause problems like this.

 

I got it sorted out, it was my mistake I kept making the xp drive the default location for the boot ldr file but it was actually on the vista partition.

I'm up and running now with my dual boot lappy, Yea!!!

Xp is so much faster than vista in every area except booting up. I must see the xp loading bar go by about 11 times each time.

Time for some bootvis...

I've testedBioshock in xp & the new timeshift demo, both work great, i've only tested timeshift @ 1066 x 8xx something. Great game from what I've seen so far, I'll definately be picking up the full version.

Up next the new Unreal tournament demo...

Thanx 4 all your help.

 

So I finally got my Toshiba X200-192 WHEEEE! The first thing I did, was kill all the toshiba tools and ran 3DMark06 to see the perf. And guess what... it gives a 4300 score. That's terrible, because it's got the T7700 2.4Ghz, 2GB memory and 2x 100GB 7200rpm SATA disk. I was expecting something around 4700-5000.
Then I installed rivatuner and pushed the mem to 825 and the core to 650. This time the score was 4700 and the temp was around 69C. That's terrible! Who else has this problem and who can tell me what I can do?

 

Install the latest driver, it will give about 10% boost.

Btw I am not sure of what you expect. This is still middle-end graphics card. High end is 8800 or SLI solutions.

 

I'll give the new drivers a go. Well I've seen some test over here and they are tested with a T7300 and stock drivers. You're not gonna tell me that my toshiba is slower then them with a T7700. ??
I'm thinking of installing XP Pro if no result in performance is noticed. I want to be arround the 5000. That's what I expect from this LT.

 

You should pay attention to resolution they've tested in and OS they've tested in.
In clean Vista with latest drivers the reasonable figure to expect is about 4500 in 1280x1024
About 5400 in 1024x768

 

Don't get me wrong... I'm still happy with my desktop replacement. I was just expecting a little bit to much from her. I ran the test on 1280x1024 so that should give me 4500 indeed. I will play around a little more and see if I can find some more tweaks. By the way, do you know if you can overclock the T7700? (not that I want to, but....)
Running the vidmem at 800 and the core speed at 650mhz is something that should be in the standard config. To bad they downgraded the speed.

Thanx IngVarr. By the way, are you sure you got a 8700 with 256MB?

 

Quite sure, 256Mb. It doesnt play any effect in 3dmarks though, since 3dmark does not use all 512mb anyway.

Core is running in proper 8700 frequency (at least with the latest driver), vidmem however is not. For 8700 it should be 2x800, but it runs at 2x700 like as with 8600.

I guess you can overclock, hovewer, you'll want the reliable temperature monitoring software first.

 

OK, I've got XP installed on my Lappy and it's great with the option for dual boot setup I can get the best of both windows worlds.

Only thing is My xp install won't recognize and play HD-DVD discs but Vista will. But even in vista the playback is choppy. I have the latest firmware upgrade for the drive, what gives. I also noticed that when playing back a Hi Def 720p mkv file with VLC Player It freezes every time there is fast action on the screen but this only happens when on battery power and when playing back HD content. AN example of something that causes a freeze is the transition in the begining of all marvel movies where they show stills of the comic book pages one after the other and it gets progressively faster and faster. This sucks because I want to beable to watch HD content on the go. I haven't tested the HDMI out to my 1080p lcd tv yet but I hope I don't have any issues. Does anyone know where I can get the XP Drivers for the HD-DVD Drive?

Thanx

Oh BTW, I've tested Bioshock, The new timeshift demo, fear and both expansion packs, the new Painkiller demo, and dum dum dum...

Unreal Tournament 3 Demo!

All in xp and all at max settings and resolution with out any issues what so ever. I test fear and with everything maxed out I didn't get and FPS under 42!

Amazing! Benchmarks are one thing but real world experience is where it counts and this Lappy delivers in spades!! needless to say I'm extremely satisfied with the performance. The only hit I see is in fear when I get to a check point and the game saves there's about a 6 second pause where as on my desktop rig theres no stop at all. But i think the hard drive and processor get creadit for that one and not the GPU. Man I can't wait to get a t7700 in this thing!

Edit: BTW this is all at stock speeds for everything and using Driver revision 156.57

 

your luck with performance makes me cry. (while on hold for another bbb phone rep). my jealousy makes me yern for a computer that can run BASIC fear w/o expansions. just 15 fps. thats all i ask. just for the illusion of motion on my high def lcd. freakin toshiba jerks. makes me wanna punch their system board engineers in the nose.

 

Alright then, so I downgraded my firmware for the HD-DVD Player to the 3.2 revision. Now I get the sound, menu selection screen(w/out Video) all the warning messages, the "this motion picture has been approved by..." messages but no HD video. I don't know what to do at this point. I mean am I correct in the thought that the firmware revisions are also the drivers as well? If that's true it would explain why the 3.2 revision works and the 3.5 doesn't seeing as how toshiba refuses to support xp anymore on this model.

What else can I do to try and get the video to display?

Lataz,

RiE

 

Yea buddy!

My 3dmark06 score is 4887 @ stock settings

I'll be overclocking with rivatuner and rerunning 3dmark06 once I get those scores I'll post them. I've never used rivatuner before so we'll see what happens.

When I use rivatuner and hit test is there supposed to be a dialog box that tells if the test was successfull? Or does it only show this if the test fails? I test and nothing happens but I can change the settings and retest. I'm not sure if this is the way it's supposed to be though.

Lataz

 

I need somehelp with rivatuner I've tried following the tutorial on the earlier pages of the forum to no avail. When ever I try to set the clock speed to something higher it resets when I push apply then ok, it resets to the defaults.

Am I do'n something wrong?

 

To get the o/c working update the GFX drivers to v167.26 and then it'll work by all accounts:-

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=181082

 

Ok I'm planning to buy this laptop soon and I have a question about the screen resolutions.
This notebook has a native widescreen resolution right ? So what happens when you play games at "standard" resolutions like 1024x768 and so on? Does the image stretch or do you get a black border around the screen to make up for the lower pixel count?