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Toshiba M200 and a Solid State Drive

By In Technology0 Comments1,963 Views

So I decided to amp up the performance of my Toshiba Protege M200 tablet by installing a Transcend 64GB SSD into the already awesome device. And I must say: Wow! So quiet! And it got a huge boost to hard drive performance all the way from 4.4 to 5.8 in the Windows Experience Index. On top of that it’s a lot cooler now but did I mention quiet???

I have my power options in Windows to allow the processor to lower it’s speed even on full power so the fan barely comes on. Even while I type this post, the fan it totally silent so this computer is emanating NO SOUND what so ever and holding steady at 55c for the processor temp. Now of course compared to my new 45nm quad core AMD which is 45c at full load, doesn’t come close. But for a 90nm processor in a 5 year old tablet laptop, I’m doing pretty damn good.

Q: Does it really boot faster with SSD?

A: I’d say it shaves about 2-3 seconds off the boot time of mine*.

Q: Does your profile and applications load faster?

A: Definitely seems more responsive, yes. For both loading my profile and applications.

Q: Is Aero any more stable with the SSD?

A: Not really.

Q: Do games play better with the SSD?

A: I may see a bit better on loading screens but overall frame rates will probably remain the same.**

Q: Has your battery life improved a lot?

A: Solid State Drives require far less power than traditional hard drives, but how much they actually draw on the battery I can’t really say (verses the cpu or gfx). Presumably I should, but I haven’t had the chance to test it yet well yet. So far Vista estimates about 2:30 hours on the battery with my current setup. I’ll know more when classes return.

*Specs: 1.8 GHz, 2GB PC2700, Clean Vista Ultimate Install

**No games installed yet

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Toshiba M200 and Dual Displays

By In Technology0 Comments5,066 Views

Like me, most of you who have the infamous Toshiba M200 tablet have probably upgraded that outdated XP installation to either Windows Vista or Windows 7. And you probably upgraded the video drivers from the old 64 Forceware to the 97 or 98 Forceware off of LaptopVideo2Go. But you’ve probably also noticed a few things in regards to the display no longer work, such as Dual Displays. Fortunately there’s a solution for enabling Dual Displays in the BIOS.

Reboot your computer and hold down the ESC key before the TOSHIBA logo appears. The laptop will prompt you with an error message “Check system. Then press [F1] key.”  Press the F1 key. Once in the BIOS setup, navigate using the directional keys to get all the way over to the right side where it says Power On Display in the DISPLAY box. Press the Space key until it changes to LCD+Analog RGB. Press the End key followed by the Y key to save your changes.

And that’s it! You can now plug in your monitor to the VGA output of the tablet and enable dual displays in Windows using the mobility center. I was actually quite surprised when I could run my main monitor at 1920×1080 and the laptop LCD at 1400×1050 with out any issues.

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PC Woes

By In Technology0 Comments1,889 Views

So conveniently on the day after I lose my phone my computer’s Hard Drive dies, there goes 130GB of personal data. Although I did make a recent backup since I had to send in my motherboard for repair which only came back to me about a week prior. At the moment I’m running my desktop computer with an old old old… old 80GB Maxtor drive which I figured I’d use to try Windows 7 RC while I wait for my hard drive to come back.

So what are my first impressions of Windows 7?

Well… it’s very… blue. I changed as much of the colors that as I could the second the install finished. But so far it seems decent, although my old HDD isn’t attributing anything good to the overall performance. What are my performance ratings?

Processor: 7.3

Memory: 7.5

Aero GFX: 6.1

Gaming GFX: 6.1

HDD: 4.3  (awww……)

Anyway I’ll see how much of it all improves when I get my other HDD back.