X205-Sli3 Benchmarks and warning

Just unpackaged my X205-Sli3 yesterday. Took me the better part of yesterday to get everything in working order. After numerous system restores, I have a warning for anyone with this laptop. DO NOT UNINSTALL GOOGLE'S PICASA 2! For some reason, when it uninstalls, it deletes several driver files key to the operation of the HD DVD Drive.

I'll post benchmarks after I go through the Vista Tweak guide.

 

Non-SLI, latest drivers and non-overclocked: 3786

SLI: 6490

Pretty respectable, eh?

 

wow...at what resolution and clock speeds?

 

Are you sure it's Picasa that causes the problems?????? I had to do clean installs 3 times because everytime I removed the bloatware, my CD drive stopped working. I finally removed everything one at a time (rebooting in between) and got it working. I didn't remove Picasa however, and wonder if that was the problem all along.

I'm not very happy with this machine. Bioshock runs very slowly, and the Sli Vista in general just seems really slow. Trying to get XP installed, but don't have a floppy drive.

 

Positive it is Picasa. I had device manager up the second time I went through and was deleting the bloatware (I did 2 system restores from the supplied disk). Before I removed each program, I would check the disk drive's driver. The files were there before I removed it, but not after. I removed the rest of the bloatware without incident.

As a side note, have you done the Vista tweaks? They make a world of difference. My machine is now a speed demon because of them.

Planet: It was just the stock clock speed straight from the factory. As for resolution, it was whatever 3Dmark06 defaults to. I didn't mess with any settings after downloading it.

 

which tweaks did you do???? I have the "adjust visual effects" optimized for performance. I also used TweakVI, but had no idea what to "tweak". I'm also in Sli mode.

thanks for any advice.

 

Okay, I used this guide from the forum. I did most of them. Just go through and use the one's you feel are the best. I recommend the XP Tune one and the disable indexing and a few other services.

 

I just updated to the 167.26 drivers and my SLI score at 1280x1024 jumped to.......6744.

 

can you point me to the video driver with a working inf for the dual 8600m gt's???

 

Try this web site. If you click on the latest driver number it will take you to a forum page with modded inf files and the driver files.

 

I got it, sorry. I didn't realize the modified inf's weren't already bundled with the driver. I'll see if it helps bioshock any later tonight.

 

I felt brave, so I did my first overclock on my 2 8600M GT's. I over clocked it to 590 (I found that some where on these forums.) How is this for a score? 7660

 

That's a pretty good score, isn't it?
You're talking about the X205-SLi3 right? So do you think it's worth the extra $100 (or so)? How does it do on battery life?

 

Battery life should be better than single 8700m GT because you can turn off one card when you want more battery life...

 

It does pretty well. Much better than my old A75.

 

Okay, best score I have gotten in SLI with 167.29 drivers and overclocking at 590 and high performance power settings: 7528.

 

I second that question.

Dxcv when you have a chance let us know how long the battery on the SLI system lasts at different tasks (ex: browsing the web and typing).

(With the graphics card no longer over clocked )

 

Okay. Will do. (For some reason the overclock didn't hold ) What setting do you want it on? High Performance, Balanced or Power Saver. Also, I'll see if one card running will make a difference.

 

Just ran 3DMark on my sli3 running XP Pro with 169 video drivers and sli enabled. With no overclocking, or other enhancements, it scored 6967.

I'm impressed, and glad I switched to XP! Need to get some games installed now that I know things are working!

 

I have to reinstall 3Dmark06 since I reinstalled XP on my X205 as well, FEAR runs much smoother on XP than Vista though but I want to see what the 3dmar06 results will be.

 

I couldn't get Bioshock to run well in Vista....I'm hoping for good things in XP

 

Okay, my findings so far:

On balanced, with SLI enabled, just browsing the internet, I get the 10% battery life warning at 1 hour and 8 minutes.

(Will post more when charging is complete.)

 

Well, you've already posted on balanced. The main one I'd like to see is under power saver. The battery life you get in power saver with the 8600 sli should provide an indication if there is a significant difference in battery life between the 8600 sli and 8700 systems.

 

Okay, so same conditions on power saver. Got about an hour and 16 minutes, however results may have been trainted cause I watch a 4 minute and 30 second Youtube video.

*edit* Also, I just checked Chaz's review, he had it at 3/7 brightness, mine was at 4/7 for some reason (default).

 

Can you try with disabling the SLi mode....?
I hope it can breaks 2 hours at least on par with Chaz's review?

 

Will do. Actually, I plan on setting it to Chaz's exact settings both in SLI and out of SLI and see what the difference is. I should have those posted either tonight or tomorrow sometime depending on when I am free. (Ah, college life.)

 

Any good results?

 

Sorry, I got really bogged down in tweaking it. I'll test it right now and get back to you. Also, I'll run it with Vista Battery Saver too. (Nice program the tweak guide mentioned.) Oh and on a side note, I was able to remove Picasa 2. I just backed the driver files up on my USB drive and replaced them after removing it.

 

Okay, I just tested it again. Same settings as Chaz got me just under 1 hour and 16 minutes.

 

Did you enable or disable SLI function?

 

Its disappointing to hear that you're getting an hour and a half less than on your Sli3 than Chaz did on the 8700. I didn't expect to see that huge a difference.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=147034

That was in Power Saver with 3/7 brightness while surfing the Internet with the 10% warning, and not doing anything more intensive than that correct?

Did you have non-essential background applications closed, and blue tooth off? I would understand if the lower resolution screen S9349 (1440x900), and some of his tweaks were making a small difference, but I find it difficult to believe that the difference in battery life between the 8600 sli system and the 8700 is around an hour and a half.

(Chaz if you read this: What services do you disable when testing systems, and what background applications do you close out of before testing battery life?)

 

Hmm, i haven't done any actual timed testing, but when I had the X205 with 8700 from Best Buy sittin next to my SLi1 back when I was comparing the two, I didn't notice that dramatic of a difference... on several occasions I had them both sittin on the kitchen table running on battery while paying bills on one and working on some excel spreadsheets while the other was copying files or installing programs... and the SLI rig didn't go dead in half the time, didn't even really notice much difference at all, or else I woulda timed em... granted, neither are stellar on the battery compared to my girlfriends thinkpad, that thing will run over 3 hours easy, but it sure won't play anything I wanna play ha

 

I closed everything that wasn't essential (SLI was enabled) and I only had Explorer open and Java was enabled.

However, I will retest it tonight.

*EDIT* Okay, I went back over the review comparing the difference. I just realized that I have an external mouse that I use. (Wired to the USB drive.) I will remove it and retest.

 

Hm. 1 Hour 15 minutes. Let me recharge and test Vista battery saver.

 

I copy this from Chaz review, thats what he do for test the battery life in the review...
Battery

"I tested the battery life with Vista’s power settings set to “Power Saver” with the display at 3/7 brightness and while surfing the Internet the entire time. The X205-S9349 held out for a rather amazing two hours and forty-two minutes before giving the ten percent warning. I think that for a machine that is running a powerful graphics card, 17” display, and two hard drives, this is a very impressive result. I was not expecting more than two hours. Needless to say, I am more than pleased with the battery life".

 

I know thats is not what you ask but it might help too...

 

It will be good to test the battery life when the SLi is disabled,
since in times of need of battery life, you most likely won't be into heavy gaming...

 

Any new updates?

best.

 

I am going to test it with the Battery Saver APP and then retest with SLI disable both with and without the app.

*EDIT* I just tested with SLI and Vista Battery Saver and it was 1 hour and 14 Minutes

 

hmm... it's still not beating 1.5 hours?

 

Nope. BTW, for any of you that lost the driver files for the HD DVD-ROM drive, I zipped them and the file is attached to this post. If you need instructions to install them, please pm me.