Sony X Series Official Owners Thread

Uninstall the previous driver first. It will dump you into a very basic 'safe' graphics mode. Then install your replacement driver. It's how I've been doing it.

 

Maybe this guy has some contacts on the Vaio X team at Sony. He seems to be one of the Product Managers involved in developing flagship Atom devices and he lists the Vaio X as an example in his profile:

Anthony Yung | LinkedIn

 

OK, this is a lot of layers -- a big hardware issue that sounds like it's coming from your Huawei modem. Is it still being used / plugged in? If so, let's stop using it. Problems persist -- uninstall any programs / driver associated with it (start -->control panel --> programs and features, remove any Huawei programs or features, drivers included). Problem persists --> uninstall miniport driver from device manager (locate ! next to miniport adapter, right click on miniport adapter, uninstall). Problem perisists, let's get rid of the miniport for now --
That thing is tricky -- check here for some advice: Microsoft Virtual WiFi Miniport Adapter - Windows 7 Forums

Here's what I'd do (quoted): "Well I found the answer. You cant uninstall it but you can disable it and its gone from device manger. First open up Command Prompt in admin(Start-->Accessories-->right click it and select run as admin in windows 7,vista). Stop it by typing this without quotes "netsh wlan stop hostednetwork" then disable it
"netsh wlan set hostednetwork mode=disallow".
Now rejoice in not having it in device manger."

 

CoolCool, I will have a go tonight. Wish me luck. I will reply with my findings. Thanks man.

 

Well, I have officially over-tinkered. After playing with settings on NHC my machine randomly put itself into 16-bit color mode. Every 10-15 minutes. The good news is that I have upgraded to win7 ultimate.

I also went back to stock video drivers - I like the function buttons too much. I'll leave the EMGD drivers in my sig if anyone wants to try, but I think it's best to wait for win7 support.

I'm finally getting some good use of the bluetooth - playing music in my car. Which apparently has bluetooth stereo.

 

Ok. I disabled the virtualmini wifi and removed the driver for the Huawei portable wifi and seem to be working OK for now, however the computer is still displaying the BSOD everytime when I try to pick up of the table. I don't know Why it's doing this. Even a slight bump and it freezes. Really annoying.

 

mmmsheen, really sorry about that 16-bit thing... can't you tell what has probably caused this?

 

I did a clean install of windows 7 but the function keys are not working. What are the minimum drivers or software do I need to install to get it working again without installing other bloatware. And in which order?

 

@Rush - what model number do you have?

@Matthias - honestly I don't know, I imagine it's from playing with the voltage settings, undervolting (though I can't make that make sense, logically). Windows 7 Ultimate is a nice change though, plus the refresh got rid of my 16-bit woes

@SmurfChang - Here's a guide for another Vaio: SONY VAIO PCG-GRT150 - function keys ? - General-Laptops-Notebooks - Laptops-Notebooks
The names below aren't the same as you'll find on the drivers page, but good guesses are key. Remember - make sure you restart EVERY time you install something from Sony. Seriously. EVERY time. It's annonying while you're doing it, but it'll save you a lot of time and energy to restart after each of the following:

Install in this order (or something close to this order):
VAIO Update software update (before you go on, search for and install updates in VAIO update)
Original - Sony Notebook Utilities
Original - Sony Shared Library
Setting utility series update
Sony Firmware extension parser device driver
VAIO® Peripherals Metadata Update
VAIO® Event Service Update
Original - Sony® Programmable I/O Control Device Driver

At this point you should have fn buttons functioning again. Check this page for the drivers: Sony eSupport - VPCX115KX/S - Software Updates & Drivers

 

wonder if anyone of you experienced this. i left the vaio x on the table while charging it. when i touch the palm rest which is metallic, i can feel electricity. however, when i hold the laptop with my hands and touch the palm rest, then i do not feel it.

 

One of the main buying points in favor of the X was, for me, its keyboard. Even though I have quite large hands (and am male, just like probably 95%+ of the posters here ) I can't stand standard size keyboards, as I find that the Vaio X's keyboard allows maximum typing speed. I never have problems hitting the wrong key, yet I have to move my fingers significantly less.

-> 1. Do you feel the same?
-> 2. In fact, one of the points I do NOT want to buy the new Z is its standard keyboard. I have therefore been wondern, suppose the Z had a Vaio X type keyboard and added functional keys like media and volume etc as additional keys to the left and right, or even a scrolling wheel/ etc. would you prefer such a layout. might look stupid, though. would probably look best if there simply were functional keys of the same design as the other keys. ok, I'll quit phantasizing.

I did notice this with other laptops, I think either with the Vaio x505 or the Sharp MM20 (yep, I have a history of leightweight slim subnotebooks =) ). I *never* noticed this with the X though, and it has been heavily used, for 1 year+.

ps. edit: I think this had to do with attached usb devices. not always, i think, but it made things worse.

matthias

 

I've used laptop keyboards almost exclusively for a few years now, and I find them totally natural; I think the smaller travel is ergonomically good (for me). It took a bit of getting used to the X keyboard, compared to the old SZ keyboard, but I use it so often now I'm much quicker on the X. I'm mashing keys all over the place on the SZ these days, to the point where I just Remote Desktop into the SZ whenever I need to do anything on that machine ;-)

Custom media keys remind me of the bad old days of beigey Compaq PCs with ugly giant media buttons on the front of the monitor, or taking up half of the keyboard... always hated them since. My wife's TZ has media keys on the front of the machine and it irritates me every time I see them. I'm glad they're not in the new Z21 series to be honest. And usually the space bar is the magic pause / unpause button for many media players, and that works fine for me. It's not that I don't think media keys wouldn't be useful, it's just that I don't think they would be useful enough to warrant the space required for them. A couple of years ago we started to see media laptops with built-in credit card remotes and I thought that was a good idea, but it seems not to have caught on.

I suppose it'll take a while for me to get used to the larger keyboard of the new Z. Even with the extra width the designers had to play with I'm surprised they still weren't able to fit in dedicated page up / page down / home / end keys; those are handy!

 

hi, thanks for your thoughts...the idea was that an x-sized keyboard would look odd on the z as ppl would wonder why there is space left and right of it whilst being undersized. however, thinking of it, in fact all those 15" widescreens have the same look, with space left + right of the keyboard. still sony or whoever would never consider using a smaller keyboard simply because some 10% of popolation have thick fingers + big hands / and or are not skilled enough to handle small sized keyboards. bad luck for the 40% who would profit from the smaller size....

check out this:

Keysonic KSK-3201 BT - Tastaturen - computeruniverse.net

whats great is they virtually copied the layout + size from the X!!!

its also available in the us, but i think its differently branded so u will have to search through some keybards to find it / or google img.

i plan to buy it in some wekks' time., as my back is bent too much all the time. will have to put the x on some pedestral... will take away the cool look on my desk, but well. how do you all handle the ergonomic problems... i once saw a laptop with extendable display, one could elevate it so it would be ergonomical.

if only the x had a better display out so one coud reasonably attach a display with no quality problems. the pedestral + bt keyboard solution seems the best solution i guess. theres no such thing like a cool laptop AND ergonomics at the same time.

matthias

 

If you want the x a lot higher, go to IKEA: IKEA Hackers: Laptop/Book Stand

I have this (in black) on my desk next to my 2 23 inch monitors and the x fills in very well!

 

yep, i too have been wondering whether or not to elevate in a way where the main body of the notebook (i e the part with the keyboard) is parallel to the ground, or not (like in your proposition).

aesthetically, to get an elevated notebook to look good, i fear one would be
forced to set up a whole larger elevated glass desk surface that integratees with the main desk, and put the x on top.

 

Paging mmmsheen!

EMGD 1.8 has been released: Intel® Embedded Design Center - Intel® Embedded Media and Graphics Driver (Intel® EMGD)

..and the FAQ has been updated:

 

Hello, I've been looking for good graphics drivers for my Vaio vpc-x11s1e forever and then google sent me here ! Very good work mmmsheen. Your driver is by far the best i tested for games and "hd" youtube videos.
(and i've actually never been able to build any correct emgd driver....)

I hope this new EMGD release will imply another successful driver attempt from you. And I may not be the only one looking forward to that.

Once again, thank you mmmsheen (and every other person implied in his driver )

 

Oh man, I need to check this forum daily! Maybe what I've been waiting for! The bad part -- yes it supports win7 " in WDDM mode " I'll see what I can do. -Thanks for the confidence guys...be back soon.

EDIT: I've got a 1.8 driver for the X.

You guys are going to like this - FN buttons work for me! Well.. sort of -- there are only 4 levels of brightness. Off, Low, Med, High. Let me explain this before you install and think something's broken -- there are normally 8 levels (8 bars that display when fn+F5 or fn+F6 are keyed) - from very dim to high brightness. After installing this driver there will be 4 modes though all 8 bars will still display. The bottom 5 bars will result in black screen -- monitor off. Bar 6 is low. Bar 7 is med. Bar 8 is high. Does this make sense? If not, tell me -- I'll post a video.

Remember that I've loaded win7 Ultimate and gone through the process of installing all of the Sony Drivers (including the fn buttons) from scratch. I need someone to test whether it still works on "stock" windows installs.

I'm off to test/benchmark this thing - seems stable so far.

EDIT: this driver kills flash support - can't release as is. Wait a bit longer - I'm on it.

 

Welcome back and glad to hear you're on the case already!

 

Oh I hate to tell you guys this - I think Intel is just teasing us. Yes, there's a windows 7 EMGD pack, No, it doesn't seem to support hardware acceleration. The windows XP pack does include hw accel (in fact, it's EXACTLY the same package as EMGD 1.6) - but it kills fn buttons again.

I'll post the details here and we can try to figure it out.

 

Damn. Just when I thought Intel were about to rectify the whole GMA 500 debacle. Thanks for trying though.

I tried 'Attempt 10' of your EMGD 1.6 driver but didn't get any performance benefits with HD Flash playback. 360p was very smooth in fullscreen though, albeit a bit pixellated.

 

Ladies and gents, I've found another way to make our favourite toy perform better. Yes, Windows 7 and Office 2010 are snappy as hell on the X, but it can still feel a bit tired when it comes to loading heavy websites in Google Chrome.

First you want to install Adblock Plus, obviously. I use it with 'Fanboy's list', which supposedly features a filter list that is lighter to process.

Second, try installing the WidgetBlock extension, available here: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hgiihiookhijpbhaflohognbhmamdnol?hl=en&hc=search&hcp=main

It blocks all that Javascript cruft that bogs down every site nowadays: share buttons, tweet buttons, +1, Analytics and much more. You can choose how far you want to go.

The end result is a noticeably faster browsing experience.

 

@50s thanks for the tips. I'm going to try it on my P. (I've already got Ad Block Plus but the Widget Block sounds promising)

 

Did you Guys checked this thread:
I didnt tested the Driver:
GMA500 2048 Driver (July 2011) - Pocketables Forum

 

I installed and uninstalled it straight away. It completely garbled the display. We need to get this guy and mmmsheen to collaborate and slay this beast once and for all

 

OK DisplayController seems to be:
Chrontel CH7317 Display Controller
Sony Vaio X teardown: Chrontel CH7317 Display Controller | 84 of 89
Id like to try to build the package by my own, but iam unsure what would happen if i flash the VBIOS with wrong params.
Would not be too cool to brick my vaio.

 

Did anybody tried to mount a a pci-e mini SSD to the existing PCI-E Mini Slot which is used by the Gobi_2000 WWAN Module?
Shouldnt this delete our PATA Bottleneck?
Or using a MXM Graphics Card like this here:
ATI Radeon E4690
or something like this:
http://video.golem.de/audio-video/2...n-bringt-high-definition-auf-das-netbook.html

 

The slot for the GOBI is a glorified USB plug, it will NOT work for SSD.

You could put an SSD of the correct type, one that works on minePCIe, not the SATA type, into the WiFi slot then put a WiFi card in the GOBI slot... but it would have to be the USB over miniPCIe kind of WiFi. There is a thread around here about that somewhere.

Just to be clear, there are 3 kinds of miniPCIe slots that all look the same.

1. Full PCIe, the one that your WiFi card is in
2. USB over miniPCIe, the kind that your Gobi is in
3. SATA over miniPCIe, you will find this kind on EEE PCs and some of those little DELLs

Most WiFi cards use the PCIe interface, some use USB, like I said there is a thread about it somewhere.

Some WWAN slots on other vendors laptops have a full PCIe interface and even the SATA interface in addition to the USB interface, I think some Lenovos are like that. I have never seen a Sony VAIO that has anything other than USB enabled on the WWAN slot. Furthermore there is some sort of firmware that blocks anything but the proper OEM re-branded GOBI or Option card working in that slot, the reason I mention this is that a WiFi USB over miniPCIe may not even work as I was describing above. For example I tried to add an HP GOBI card to my VPC-Z, it was recognized but it did NOT function properly. This is not just my experience but the experience of others as well.

Sorry I don't have any links for this stuff. You can find out more by searching the forums with Google. Or send a PM to pyr0 he knows a lot more than me about this stuff, he might have links also.

One last thing... The Intel SodaCreek SSD is an example of one that WILL NOT WORK in the WiFi slot.
Have a look at this post about an SATA controler that WILL WORK in the WiFi slot

 

I modified that driver for my 1366x768 netbook with success.
See this post:
Aspire One Forum

Don't know how well that works for your VAIO though.

 

I tried the driver from the intel site containing a already package driver.
I get Blackscreen after booting win7. Tried to increase brightness but screen stays black. I did a boot into safemode and reinstalled the 2030 drivers. Do we need to flash the VBIOS as well to get full performance?
Is it safe to flash the VBIOS, what params do we need? Is there any chance to brick our devices with a bad Vbios flash? Could you try running Flash 1080p Fullscreen? It would be interesting how well the driver works with html 5 and direct2d accelaration:
Follow this link here to force gpu accelaration:
Force Enable GPU Hardware Acceleration Graphics Rendering on Old GPU in IE9 My Digital Life
And try this Benchmark with and without GPU:
HTML5 Fish Bowl

 

The latest Flash 11 Beta 2 is worth downloading. YouTube performance is much improved, at least in windowed mode.

Adobe Flash Player 11 Beta for Desktops | applications, content and videos - Adobe Labs

 

anyone knows how much it is to replace the black metallic keyboard cover? accidentally knock my X at the corner and now there's a dent...

 

Just got this second hand. Is there a way to make Aero performance better? Feels really sluggish on Aero.

 

My recomendations are:
- Disable Aero
- Disable Indexing
- Use the best Browser on earth ( Internet Explorer 9 ) IE9
- Use the best AV on Earth (Microsoft Security Essentials) fast as hell
- You can try aero with the lastest EMGD Driver i dont know if it performs better, i quit testing since flash crashed with this one.
Congrats on your bargain!

 

Mostly agree with you:

- Disable Aero completely, or leave Aero on but disabe some of the fancier effects (animations when opening windows etc)
- Disable indexing; personally I leave it on since it only slows things down at the start, once the intial indexing is complete it doesn't slow down your laptop much on a day to day basis
- I will admit that Chrome is faster on the X, especially with Adblock installed. But IE9 still ain't bad (far better than Firefox)
- Microsoft Security Essentials really is the best; you never know it's there.
- Intel GMA500 Driver set 2024 works best on my X, but there is definite promise with he EMGD set in the future

Additionally, if you don't mind the extra fan noise, you can set the X to performance mode in Vaio Control Centre. If you're feeling patricularly saucy you can even overclock the processor (especially handy if you have the 1.86Ghz model).

 

Give tracking protection a TRY. Nativly build in ie9. You can find it in add ins.
Mhh i never rxpierienced a difference with the Performance Mode Switch.
Do you know what its for?

 

Hi. I have just installed Windows 8 developer preview. I've been testing it for the last couple of days and for the most part, it works great and much faster than Windows 7. The two major complaints I have so far is the following:

- no way to change brightness (stuck on max)

- gma 500 drivers will not work

Has anyone loaded Windows 8 on their system? Do you have any advice on how to fix my issues? Thanks for your comments/help.

 

Haven't installed Win8 yet myself, but from reading about others experiences it seems that the issues you describe are typical.

Remember the Win8 version released is a very early developer version for testing purposes only....so, wasn't meant to be ready for primetime yet.....just for MS to collect info on bugs.....and perhaps generate some interest in Win8.....

 

i have windows 8 installed. everything is working including getting the intel gma 500 drivers to work. to get the intel gma drivers to work, you need to set the install .exe file to compatibility mode with windows 7 and run as administrator. you install the first gma driver (from the sony esupport page) then install the update afterward using the same procedure.

the only thing that doesn't work for me are the blue keyboard shortcut buttons. so far only the volume & mute buttons work but the brightness controls are not functioning. but a quick shortcut to the brightness controls is to press the "Windows" button + "i" and that'll take you to the settings menu.

so far, windows 8 (developers preview) is flashy but not exactly useful. it still has all the windows 7 features and disabling the Metro to get the start menu back is a absolute MUST. anyway it's running really smooth on my VAIO X and i even have it overclocked to 2.3 GHz and i can't wait for the RTM version.

 

I recently had the opportunity to check out the latest Z2 and compare it to the X. I have to say it's one of the most solid-feeling computers I've ever picked up, which is especially impressive given its weight. The screen is obscenely good as usual and it's as fast as the specifications suggest.

But compared with the X it just didn't have that wow factor. The footprint of the machine is really quite large and something of a regression from the original Z. It's thin and light but the X is just "wow" thin and light. The design isn't quite as minimalist and those assistance buttons are garish. It wasn't quite the 'larger X' that I was expecting.

All in all, it's not going enough to get me to buy one. The X is staying as both my desktop and portable machine. I feel very lucky to have picked up a brand new one at half price just before they were discontinued.

I also checked out the latest incarnations of the Macbook Air. These are superb computers, but limited in terms of connectivity and not really suited to my taste in OS or design. I couldn't help but notice how much less vibrant and bright the Mac's screen was compared with the X.

 

this thread is pretty much dead... i think everyone moved on from the X.
while i think it is a superb design, awesome battery life, super light laptop, i will be moving on as well.. the X has done very well to please me but as I am about to graduate from engineering, my work now requires intensive computer processing power and RAM that the X just cannot provide. i was working on a 45 page Word document (with graphs and tables galore!) and the X just couldn't cope with it and lag. in addition, i'll need something that can stand CAD modelling and some light finite element analysis so i will now join the ranks of Z2 owners which i'll be picking up in a week. not sure if anyone would still be looking for an X in this day and age but i will be posting again when my X is up for sale. i'll be posting it on ebay in the next little while which will include all 3 batteries (S, L, and X) with matching VAIO zipper case.

 

Hi Forum,

sorry to be so late on this thread...

I just got a brand new Vaio X (VPCX11S1E) today.

Seeing that on the X obviously there is no hardware acceleration whatsoever, looking up "Vaio X hardware acceleration" on Google, and finding this thread, was a matter of minutes....

Anyway, in order to make this thing short, would some of you guys be as kind as to tell me if I'm right with the following assumptions:

• There is no Win7 graphics driver for the X with any (noteworthy) hardware acceleration (i.e. for browsing & flash video >= 360p), correct?
  
  
• There is no way (except the "matchstick" hack) to keep the X really quiet, correct?

I have tried mmmsheen's driver already (version 10) but did not notice much improvement (the X would not even play 360p flash video without the fan at max speed AND still dropping frames in the video).

My BIOS is version r0084u4.

So if my above assumptions should be correct, I think I'll return the X. It was supposed to replace my beloved ~10 years old Portégé R100 -- but since the X is SLOWER (and noisier) than that ancient Toshiba there's not really much justification for keeping the Vaio.

OK thanks guys already for any information/confirmation on this,

Regards David

 

Whoaa. Not sure what happened now. I have tried a coupe of GMA 500 driver versions from Intel, Asus etc. Now I'm back on the latest from Intel.

However for some reason, it seems that hardware acceleration is much better now.

With VLC, the little Vaio plays HD videos windowed or fullscreen, with like 30% CPU load with the fan off, even on battery.

And Youtube videos even play with 720p and less than 100% CPU. Although that only seems to be the case in Chrome, not as good in Opera or IE9.

Any comments?

Cheers David

 

i'd like to test this out. do you have a link to the download?

 

With the Intel GMA driver the X can play HD H264 files smoothly. Windows Media Player does the job fine. I use v2026 drivers, which people generally report to give the best performance. With Aero disabled (and any number of other Win7 tweaks) I find the X is more than adequate for web and Office 2010 use.

Where it falls down is 3D obviously, as well as Flash acceleration. It plays YouTube 360p windows just fine, but anything higher than that or full screen it's pretty useless. Perhaps one day we'll get an EMGD driver that helps, but I'm not holding my breath.

But on the whole, its excellent screen and unique form compensate for the shortcomings in performance I feel.

 

I am using the earplug hack. Don't use the matchstick hack, it will shut down the X after some time.

Seriously: Has anyone opened the X to remove dust from the fan area? I feel my has become hotter and louder over the years, but I am afraid of opening the X, resp. I am afraid of being the first do try to remove dust. If anyone has done this before, it would be great if they could post some comments. Oh and pictures and detailed instructions, of course

Getting back to the noise issue: David, set CPU to 800-1600MHz instead of 800-2000, and use pssuspend and/or yawffer to freeze processes that heat up the machine whilst they are not actually in use. disable search. use a cpu lightweight AV. disable aero. when doing primitive tasks, go down to 800mhz fixed. i have shortcuts for several schemes, using the C:\Windows\System32\powercfg.exe -setactive command.

 

Thanks guys, that is great information, as always.

This is the driver that I currently use (Version:5.0.0.2030):

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=19155

This is the AVC/mp4 video that plays in VLC almost without any CPU load:



@matthias2468: I wouldn't bother opening the X but instead buy a can of air duster spray and use that to blow out the dust from both sides of the air duct.

Btw, how would I go about to set the CPU to lower MHz -- is that the fan settings in the Vaio control center?

And how come that Flash video is (somehow) not accelerated on the GMA500? I thought Flash was advertised of being HW accelerated a long time ago already. Anyway, in Google Chrome it seems to be as if Flash actually WAS accelerated (it even plays 720p video smoothly)! *

OTOH, chrome itself is barely usable on the X, as compared to the speed of Opera (where the fan is off most of the time -- except with flash video of course).

After doing like really a LOT of research I still couldn't find any other Windows subnotebook that would beat the X overall -- thin, stylish, minimalistic, with UMTS, and NOISELESS.

Or has anyone found anything already that could replace the X, honorably?

Cheers David.P

--
*) Adobe says:

So what does that mean in terms of the X -- or put it that way, why does it seem to be true for Flash video in the Chrome browser, but not in other browsers?

 

For me, it was the VAIO P....but of course, it is a smaller device, so, that may or may not be good for your needs....but find it to be a great ultraportable, yet still with usable keyboard and display....

 

Yep, a nice little machine, the Vaio P.

For me, ultra-portability is not THAT important in itself -- actually the X in my case sits on or besides the living room desk 99% of the time displaying Google Mail. And I can only have a VERY stylish and thin notebook in the living room, for "sociability" reasons.

The other 1% the X is used for e-mail on the road (mostly in holidays).

By installing the latest flash player beta, it seems that the X now plays 360p and 420p YouTube video in Opera (in normal and extended video size) fluidly with CPU load between 40 and 70 %.

However, by switching between HW acceleration on and off in flash (right click into flash video and choose "Options"), it can be seen that obviously there still is no GMA 500 Flash hardware acceleration at all.

Anyway, as I can browse the web with the fan off, and watch YouTube video at up to 480p, there is not much to be desired for me anymore, regarding the X.

Here's the Flash 11.2 beta:

Adobe Flash Player 11.2 Beta for Desktops | applications, content and videos - Adobe Labs

This is my standard test video:

HD Fractal Zoom 2^518.4 - YouTube

It’s a bit psychedelic, however it is very fast and fluid, so any dropped frames can be easily recognized.

Cheers David.P

 

Hi David,
thanks for the duster spray idea. I wonder if this may lead to some of the dust beeing blown into angles/areas within the air duct, where it, in the worst case, causes even more heat.... Also, the fan "wheel" itself, which has lots of "wings", is in the way when cleaning with pressured gas, as well as the grids. I actually doubt the duct can be cleaned that way. Readers may want to check out Sony Vaio X teardown: Cooling fan assembly - Top | 70 of 89

As to Opera, I too am using Opera on the X as it is much faster than FF/IE/Chrome, when set to automatic RAM in settings. It will go very heavy on RAM and CPU though, when many tabs are opened.
=> In fact, since I have been using Opera, whilst browsing became super fast and a joy, noise has become a huge problem, unlike what you describe some posts above. It largely depends on the number of tabs, though, and the type of websites/technology within the tabs. I wished Opera was able to automatically freeze tabs that have not been in use, after e.g. 30 secs. (Until they are activated again) There would huge savings in CPU.
Since the use of Opera, I also wished there was more RAM in the X.


PS. If anyone has chosen to try to clean the X's heat sink/fan with duster spray, please do report! Thanks! =)
PPS. I am also concerned about spills, i.e. liquid from the can of compressed gas that may damage the inside of the X...