Lenovo x121e netbook

[cas]

But no black screens and locked up systems on resume? Im talking suspend to RAM here too, not hibernate, or suspend to disk.

Not that I've had. To be honest, the power settings interface has been dumbed down and I'm not sure if suspend is to RAM or disk. But I have no problems using "suspend" or closing the lid.

In your opinion how much worse? Is a solid 4 hours of browsing possible?

I managed just under 4 hours with full brightness, 3G, in laptop_mode

What chipset is it? Also is that the top spec wifi on the list of options?

02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM43224 802.11a/b/g/n [14e4:0576] (rev 01)
Subsystem: Broadcom Corporation BCM43224 802.11a/b/g/n [14e4:0576]
Yes, that was the top spec card.

 

[racerx]

Not that I've had. To be honest, the power settings interface has been dumbed down and I'm not sure if suspend is to RAM or disk. But I have no problems using "suspend" or closing the lid.

Yup, suspend from the menu is to RAM by default. Thats good news

I managed just under 4 hours with full brightness, 3G, in laptop_mode

Not bad for the current kernel state in ubuntu... Im sure with a bit of powertop and pcie tuning that can be improved. Something I will work on when I get mine.

02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM43224 802.11a/b/g/n [14e4:0576] (rev 01)
Subsystem: Broadcom Corporation BCM43224 802.11a/b/g/n [14e4:0576]
Yes, that was the top spec card.

Thanks for that. I suspect I will just go the intel route but cant fully decide if its worth the headaches or future teething problems to go with the broadcom just to get 5Ghz support. In my experience throughput of Broadcom wifi cards has always been poor in linux, so 5GHz 2x2 will probably not be maximised anyway...

Are you on a 5Ghz 300mbit up/down AP? If so do you know what type of throughput you can push to a another device wired into the network?

 

[cas]

Are you on a 5Ghz 300mbit up/down AP?

Not at the moment, sorry.

For reference: currently on wifi, full brightness, laptop_mode, fans on full. Powertop shows 17 - 20W...
The fan is burning 7W, and most annoyingly the audio codec is burning 4-5W - best look into that.

 

[racerx]

Arghh! Just placed the order with a quidco 4% cashback... now on to crucial to get 8Gb of RAM, then Amazon for a cheap neopreen sleeve

ThinkPad X121e - 1 Year Depot Warranty 
Ships within 1-2 weeks	
£393.19

Intel Core i3-2367M ULV Processor (1.4GHz, 3MB L3, 1333MHz DDR3)1
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 6412
11.6" W HD (1366 x 768)LED, Anti-Glare, Low-light sensitive VGA Webcam, Midnight Black (w/WWAN)
Intel GMA HD Gfx 3000, Intel Core i3-2367M ULV Processor (1.4GHz, 3MB L3, 1333MHz DDR3)
2 GB DDR3 - 1333MHz (1 DIMM)8
No Fingerprint Reader
320 GB Hard Disk Drive, 5400rpm4
6 cell Li-Ion Battery xx Whr60
Bluetooth 3.0
Intel Centrino Wireless-N 100010
Integrated Mobile Broadband - Upgradable65
3045: 1 Year Depot7

 

[racerx]

Can someone have a poke around in the BIOS and look for some sort of ATA, HDD or DriveLocker password option for me please! I'm trying to choose and SSD for this, but really want to use AES encryption on the drive if the laptop supports it.

Mixed reports are out wether the Samsung 830 consumer drive supports AES on the fly.. Anyone here with that drive have any success?

I need encryption and without AES-NI in the i3 CPU it would be nice to do it at drive level to avoid the performance hit.

 

[cas]

There is an HDD password option in the BIOS, and I have the 830, but I've not been encrypting the drive.
Any simple test you'd like me to try?

 

[racerx]

There is an HDD password option in the BIOS, and I have the 830, but I've not been encrypting the drive.
Any simple test you'd like me to try?

Cant seem to find anyway to query a drive and check for AES support Some sites say the 830 does have AES on board, others say its only in OEM versions. The M830 mSATA has just come out too and that is all over the interwebs touting AES. The whole AES drive based encryption is a support nightmare at present!

Really the only way to test it is to set a password in the bios, but could potentially scrap your current OS... Then from a clean install you would set a password, boot up as normal (entering the password on boot) install your OS, then put the drive in another PC and try and mount it.... It should contain no partitions etc, just random 0's & 1's.....Obviously this is a bit more than a simple test lol

edit: After digging through a few whitepapers it appears that the SSD controller will always encrypt data to the NAND.. but setting the BIOS password provides a method of locking the drive to only decrypt when the correct password is supplied. Essentially the private key is stored in the controller, but when a user BIOS password is set it locks the drive out of the private key until the passwd is supplied. This way the password can be changed without needing to re-encrypt the entire drive contents to the new private key. Also seems from some digging on OCZ's forum that the vertex3 drives all "support" AES in the controller but OCZ recommends not using it as it may damage the device! lol....bit too bleeding edge for me

I'm a linux sysadmin and bit paranoid about privacy. Normally I would just use LUKS's with AES-256 on the filesystem, but because this is an i3 (which does not have AES-NI instruction sets) I really want to avoid taking a 10%-20% CPU usage increase to encrypt/decrypt the filesystem in software.

Ideally I want a 7mm SATA3 drive with AES support on the drive but not pay intel 710 series prices... Doesn't seem possible to get all 3, unless the Samsung does infact support it.

Sorry for going a bit offtopic

 

[IanAG]

Cant seem to find anyway to query a drive and check for AES support Some sites say the 830 does have AES on board, others say its only in OEM versions. The M830 mSATA has just come out too and that is all over the interwebs touting AES. The whole AES drive based encryption is a support nightmare at present!

Really the only way to test it is to set a password in the bios, but could potentially scrap your current OS... Then from a clean install you would set a password, boot up as normal (entering the password on boot) install your OS, then put the drive in another PC and try and mount it.... It should contain no partitions etc, just random 0's & 1's.....Obviously this is a bit more than a simple test lol

edit: After digging through a few whitepapers it appears that the SSD controller will always encrypt data to the NAND.. but setting the BIOS password provides a method of locking the drive to only decrypt when the correct password is supplied. Essentially the private key is stored in the controller, but when a user BIOS password is set it locks the drive out of the private key until the passwd is supplied. This way the password can be changed without needing to re-encrypt the entire drive contents to the new private key. Also seems from some digging on OCZ's forum that the vertex3 drives all "support" AES in the controller but OCZ recommends not using it as it may damage the device! lol....bit too bleeding edge for me

I'm a linux sysadmin and bit paranoid about privacy. Normally I would just use LUKS's with AES-256 on the filesystem, but because this is an i3 (which does not have AES-NI instruction sets) I really want to avoid taking a 10%-20% CPU usage increase to encrypt/decrypt the filesystem in software.

Ideally I want a 7mm SATA3 drive with AES support on the drive but not pay intel 710 series prices... Doesn't seem possible to get all 3, unless the Samsung does infact support it.

Sorry for going a bit offtopic

According to this the Intel 320 supports AES. I have one in my X121e.

I am happy to test but from your outline it seems like it would really need to be from a fresh install? I am happy to do this as I haven't really got much on the install and imaged from the HD. Would rather have a fresh install to the SSD and the encryption sounds sensible. I only want to reinstall once though so want to make sure the process I follow for you to test is correct

OS will be Windows 7 Pro 64 bit for now, eventually I intend to dual boot with linux so recommended distros would be useful.

 

[racerx]

According to this the Intel 320 supports AES. I have one in my X121e.

I am happy to test but from your outline it seems like it would really need to be from a fresh install? I am happy to do this as I haven't really got much on the install and imaged from the HD. Would rather have a fresh install to the SSD and the encryption sounds sensible. I only want to reinstall once though so want to make sure the process I follow for you to test is correct

OS will be Windows 7 Pro 64 bit for now, eventually I intend to dual boot with linux so recommended distros would be useful.

The intel 320's do support full AES, I was talking about the Samsung 830's maybe not supporting it.

From what I have read you should just be able to set an ATA password and things will continue as normal with the intel drive, but it will now ask you on boot for that password. If you then take the drive out and try it in another machine it will be unaccessible without ATA password support and the password. BUT DONT TRY THIS Unless your happy to lose data... I dont have my x121e yet, nor an SSD to test it with!!

Aside, how did you fit the intel 320 into the x121e? Was the 9mm thickness an issue? The seem to have excellent power consumption figures, that may be worth choosing it over a sata3 just for more battery life.

 

[racerx]

nice link, I didnt know you could generate your own key, wow! Disk encryption & reliability is a must for me (more important than raw speed) and after trawling the OCZ forums today I am really put off by the lack of documentation, firmware issues and general confusion.

If I can fit a 320 in, I think Ill go for it!

 

[IanAG]

nice link, I didnt know you could generate your own key, wow! Disk encryption & reliability is a must for me (more important than raw speed) and after trawling the OCZ forums today I am really put off by the lack of documentation, firmware issues and general confusion.

If I can fit a 320 in, I think Ill go for it!

I just saw you said SATA 3 so realise it wouldn't fit your initial criteria. I had wanted that too but decided the 7.5mm didn't really leave any option. You can get 320's which are only 7.5mm thick I think but most are 9mm with a spacer. The spacer can be removed but you will need shorter screws. Intel claim it will void the warranty but I am not sure it could be detected as there are no stickers.

 

[racerx]

I just saw you said SATA 3 so realise it wouldn't fit your initial criteria. I had wanted that too but decided the 7.5mm didn't really leave any option. You can get 320's which are only 7.5mm thick I think but most are 9mm with a spacer. The spacer can be removed but you will need shorter screws. Intel claim it will void the warranty but I am not sure it could be detected as there are no stickers.

No Stickers?? really? thats great news! So no warranty tags at all then?. Well a 120gb or 160gb intel 320 is it! I have hunted around for a 7mm, but all the cheaper retailers are all 9mm so Ill just remove the spacer. From the pics of it though I couldnt see it had a spacer.

After a stack of reading I really prefer the thought of a high quality intel drive with rock solid AES encryption, great power consumption and failure rates at ~0.5%. I can handle SATA2 speeds... I doubt in the real world I will ever be able to tell if it was 3Gbs or 6Gbs on such a small laptop.

So are you happy with the performance of the 320 in the x121e? Does it move pretty quickly?

edit: So I just searched for "intel 320 SSD" on flickr and saw this. So that black thing is just a spacer on the top taking it to 9mm? Thats fantastic if it is.. no need to crack the drive open and remove stickers.

 

[IanAG]

No Stickers?? really? thats great news! So no warranty tags at all then?. Well a 120gb or 160gb intel 320 is it! I have hunted around for a 7mm, but all the cheaper retailers are all 9mm so Ill just remove the spacer. From the pics of it though I couldnt see it had a spacer.

Yup, just consider getting the screws needed too. I didn't and was pretty annoyed when I realised I couldn't fit it! Thankfully I managed to find 4 appropriate ones in my collection.

So are you happy with the performance of the 320 in the x121e? Does it move pretty quickly?

I've not really pushed it with anything but it feels like an improvement over the HD, I will try and run some benchmarks later.

edit: So I just searched for "intel 320 SSD" on flickr and saw this. So that black thing is just a spacer on the top taking it to 9mm? Thats fantastic if it is.. no need to crack the drive open and remove stickers.

Yeah, the black thing is the spacer and just comes off. As I said before though you need new shorter screws. The existing ones go through the spacer and hold the top onto the base of the SSD.

 

[Wishy]

I've taken the spacer off my 320 and used masking tape to seal. If no void stickers or anything - think warrenty void if removed is a massive over-reaction from Intel to be honest - no way they could prove it unless you do a very messy job removing the screws.

Battery life definitely worse under 11.10 then windows (no surprise really). Not experimented with the kernel yet

With the 6 Cell I got an estimate of 4.5 hours on battery under linux vs 6.5 under windows. Most likely the PCIE sleep issue accounting for some of that.

 

[IanAG]

I've taken the spacer off my 320 and used masking tape to seal. If no void stickers or anything - think warrenty void if removed is a massive over-reaction from Intel to be honest - no way they could prove it unless you do a very messy job removing the screws.

Completely agree, I would have used tape also but had a bit of luck finding a set of screws.

With the 6 Cell I got an estimate of 4.5 hours on battery under linux vs 6.5 under windows. Most likely the PCIE sleep issue accounting for some of that.

Do you find it fluctuates quite a lot? I haven't really got a true measure of battery life yet but fully charged it usually bounces between 6 and 8 hours or so in windows.

 

[racerx]

Found this on ebay:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Mini-PCI-...121?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3f10852219

Could be handy to add more storage when choosing a low capacity SSD as a primary drive. . Might also be fun to play around with trying to rewrite the PCI-E-ID codes on the device too if required. A 64gb internal SDHC card could mount up as movies or video's directory (or any data that isnt needed quickly) to leave space on an SSD for more important stuff..

Also leaves the external SD free when needed.

 

[Wishy]

Completely agree, I would have used tape also but had a bit of luck finding a set of screws.



Do you find it fluctuates quite a lot? I haven't really got a true measure of battery life yet but fully charged it usually bounces between 6 and 8 hours or so in windows.

If I'm honest I've never run the battery below 50%. I tend to keep it plugged in whenever I'm using it to avoid charge / discharge cycles.
Also, I couldn't find a distro I actually liked, So I moved back to windows pretty quickly.

 

[naknakkus]

I've had a similar experience.

I originally ordered on 21 November (with the NOV 10% ecoupon) but 7 days passed without any update.

Called Digital River for information - they told me that there had been logistical problems and that they didn't expect the laptop to ship until 7 December.

Decided to cancel the original order and place another with the extra CYBERWEEKEND 15% reduction.

So now I have two orders both showing Order status: Order in Process!

Digital River assure me that the original *has* been cancelled and the the new order will also be shipped on 7 December.

So lets wait and see.

-RichardW.

Have you heard anything else yet? I was thinking of calling them today, but I imagine that they'd say the same thing to me if it's a "logistical problem" related to the laptops in general...

 

[owains]

Have you heard anything else yet? I was thinking of calling them today, but I imagine that they'd say the same thing to me if it's a "logistical problem" related to the laptops in general...

My order is status hasn't progressed, and the money hasn't been taken from my account yet. I just tried phoning but can't get through to speak to someone because it won't register my key presses!

 

[wallr]

Have you heard anything else yet? I was thinking of calling them today, but I imagine that they'd say the same thing to me if it's a "logistical problem" related to the laptops in general...

Yes.

Ordered on 28 November and it shipped on 4 December.

UPS tracking tells me its been through Dubai and is currently in Cologne, Germany.

I hope it will get to the UK tomorrow.

I'll keep you posted.

-RichardW.