*HP 2510p Owners Lounge*

[sfsilicon]

Haven't posted in a while, but have been busy with work and my trusty 2510p with SSD is my companion all the way. I love the quick boot and shutdown and with my 6cell battery I can go a long way without recharging.

I also upgraded my wifi with an Intel 4965AGN mPCIe. This was before Nando4 figured out a way to address the Bios white listing. This was a cheap (now <$15 on eBay) and easy upgrade. Just open the wifi hatch and replace the old 802.11g wifi card. I'm getting consistent 130MBps connections with my Dlink DIR-655 on 2.4GHz. I'm sure there are newer and similarly cheap mPCIe cards out there for the 5GHz band.

---

Configuration/Upgrades:
# 2GB DDR2 Sodimm
# Windows XP Pro (Installed from Scratch to remove the HP bloatware, Win7 was still in RC when I finished my SSD update, haven't had a reason to upgrade yet)
# Upgrade: 6-cell battery (good for 5-8 hours, sticks a bit out, nice compromise between size and weight)
# Removed: DVD/CDRW drive
# Removed: Internal Toshiba 80GB 4200rpm ZIF drive (noisy, slow, saves on power)
# Upgrade: eBay Optical Bay Caddy with OCZ Vertex 60GB SSD (Indilinx, fast <60s boot, <30s shutdown, better power consumption)
# Intel 4965AGN Wireless G/draft-N mPCIe (running 130Mbps w/ Dlink DIR-655 router, need fast WiFi for streaming files off my network server)
# quiet_fan SW (great mod for quieting down the my noisy fan)
# BatteryStatus.exe from PocketGeek for monitoring battery usage
# Viking Cardbus CompactFlash adapter (used for transferring photos from DSLR to my notebook, doesn't support DMA mode so get a Delkin if you need DMA)
# 4GB Transcend SD card

Pictures:
# eBay caddy upgrade project

Tried but didn't use:
# SW Overclocking, I think I got up to 1.4GHz but I didn't need the speed. Tried underclocking, but didn't see a major improvement in power consumption.
# ZIF to CF adapter w/ 8GB Transcend 300x card. Worked great initially but 8GB is not much space. I also started getting OS crashes. CF cards and the flash they use do not have the more complex controllers or higher endurance NAND that are used in today's SSDs. They are more prone to data loss and lack wear leveling. Unless running Linux or Windows embedded get a real SSD and skip this.
# Installed Win7 on my ebay caddy + OCZ Vertex using a bootable USB stick. Looks promising, but I don't have much time to configure it and get it ready as a work replacement. Heard that it uses more battery and I was seeing some slow down on writes (I was running CDM on battery). For now I'm restoring my WinXP and will come back to Win7 later.

Wishlist:
# Built-in Webcam
# SATA port
# Touchscreen
# 4GB RAM
# Internal 64-128GB ZIF SSD (e.g. Runcore Pro V)
# Run TRIM through caddy (currently I have to connect it to a SATA port on an external PC)

To Do Projects:
# OC'ed SSD benchmarks (requested by Nando4)
# Replace noisy FAN (bought Silenx IXP1114 iXtrema Pro Fan 40mm x 10mm, not sure it will fit and the HP fan is a pain to remove).

Next notebook: Acer 1420p/1810 11.6" Dual CoreTablet
No immediate plans to upgrade, but this would be my desired next notebook if the rpice ends up in the ~$500-600 range.

[tudorlaptop]

Edit...This post originally started: Help help help!

Screen is blank and will not boot. Power is on and fan is whirring

Earlier this week installed the Runcore Pro SSD. Have had the Samsung in the caddy for a few weeks. Tonight turned off so I could boot to the SSD and disaster. Power comes on and then off. Then is comes on again and the wireless light, sound mute light etc come on. However the screen stays completely black.

Have tried removing battery and holding down power key and starting again. Have tried removing caddy and booting just from SSD. Have tried removing SSD and booting just from HDD in caddy. Same thing. Black screen, fan whirring and nothing else
Tried booting with external screen plugged in, nothing.

Edit:

I then remembered that this happened once before. I had resolved it by borrowing a HDD from someone at work with the identical laptop and putting theirs into my case. Do not know why it worked but it did. So as a last resort I put the old original HDD back in its bay and hay presto, up came the BIOS and the laptop booted up. In some ways it is just as well I now have the "spare" HDD. On closer recollection the problem started when I pressed the power button to shut down when the laptop seemed to be "stuck". Something obviously gets stuck in the BIOS that changing HDD cures

TudorLaptop

[nando4]

@TudorLaptop - only way we're gonna find out the sata pins is if someone has a BGA blowgun, can remove the ICH8M I/O chip and trace the sata pins in the lower left corner to nearby solderable vias reporting their results here for the rest to benefit from. HP have put some sort of red wax around the chip so can't readily do BGA pin probing as described here.

[w0lla]

small update.

recap: bought newmodeus caddy and a intel g2 80gb. Tried installing vista and win7 without luck, ubuntu installed flawlessly.

Had some time the previous weekend to test some more, and installed windows XP without any problems. Couldnt upgrade to win7 from within windows xp.(Do I have to upgrade to vista first?)

ill post some quick crystalmark results (slave mode still)
-5 tests
-100mb

before &after baredit hack. with crystalmark 3.0 (beta)




whenever I try to have it on master the booting get stuck.

Even if the SSD cant operate on its fullest, it still is a nice performance boost. XP with bios boot time is around 20sec. Access time is still far greater than that of the pata. The pata drive works now as a storage dump ^^

[nando4]

Originally Posted by w0lla

before &after baredit hack. with crystalmark 3.0 (beta)

Above X25M G2 benchmarks with "1011" and "1033" show the value of 0:31:1 54h (IDE Controller). The "1011" is the ~30MB/s write mode. The "1033" is full speed write slave write mode. See here for full explanation. The 89/58 with 14-15MB/s 4kb reads is duplicated using a Marvell caddy and X25m G1 here.

Originally Posted by w0lla

Is there a way to monitor the wattage usage of different programs under XP?

INFO: Extending Battery Life

Monitoring battery usage and cpu load

The u7600 consume as little as 5.8-6.2W during in idle with LCD brightness at 3 bars, wifi on and HDD in idle. Here is another comparative u7600 system consuming 6.5W at idle. If yours is significantly higher at idle consider investigating any runaway processes or devices adding CPU load and reducing battery life with tools below. There will be some variation between 2510Ps as well, but you should definitely be < 7W idle.

Tools: batterybar | battstat | process explorer

Suggested Power Saving settings

1. X3100 graphics is set to Maximum Battery. The performance settings appear to use 1W more power. XP X3100 4990 graphics driver caused unusually high cpu utilisation after ~3 mins of usage, so I rolled back to version 4926 found on a Lenovo website which has been very reliable.

2. SoundMax audio driver

In XP I set it to High Power Savings. Found this sometimes needs to be set to "None" then "High Power Savings" after a resume-from-standby otherwise it gets stuck in an intermediate mode.

In Win7/64, I manually press mute button on the touch panel to get some noticable power savings, though it was inconsistent. I uninstalled the the Sounddriver back to the Win7 default "High Definition Audio", then I disable it. This saved 0.4W at idle.

3. 4965AGN wifi driver

Set AD-Hoc power management. Set your power levels to the minimal needed to get a good signal in your area. Might also cause power spikes, so I disable then enable the driver.

4. Disabled VPRO using 'hpbi103 write vpro.vpro_state disabled' as described here. This then unlocks the "Network Interface Controller" enable/disable option in bios, saving somewhere between 0.5-1W power. With VPRO enabled, disabling the NIC in XP doesn't appear to offer same power savings.

5. Use an undervolted DC profile using the 2510P Performance Kit. So instead of running 0.9125V@x9 divider I run 0.8625V@x9 divider and all other dividers at the lowest 0.85V setting. Extends battery life and lowers temperature.

6. Apply quiet_fan mod to decrease fan power consumption.

7. Install flashblock Firefox add-on. Flash based pages kick up CPU utilisation/power consumption.

8. Have no battery-sucking USB devices attached when running on battery.

9. Install a 93Whr 2540P 9-cell battery offering a 12% battery life improvement with newer hi-cap cell technology than the 83Whr 2510P/2530P 9-cell, or 69% better battery life than the 55Whr 6-cell. See part number details for the 93Whr battery here.

10. Perform hw_undervolt to undervolt by up to 0.1375V.

Measured Battery Life

XP's battery life indicator oscillates based on instantaneous power consumption. It shows an unrealistic up-to-12hrs battery life. I don't bother to use it so have it permanently disabled. Instead I use BatteryBar whose historic measures accurately predict total battery life.

BatteryBar shows 7.5-8hrs total battery life from a 9-cell at 66Whr capacity when doing surfing/admin work. A brand new 83Whr 9-cell would give an extra 25% (2hrs), 10hrs total. That's with the Runcore ProIV ZIF SSD, no HDD in optical bay, wifi on, LCD brightness at 3 bars brightness in XP. Impressive for two-gen old tech.

[w0lla]

Is there a way to monitor the wattage usage of different programs under XP?

Been also having some problems with the intel toolbox. It wont let me run it, complains that im in raid mode.

[nando4]

INFO: Retrofitting the 2530P keyboard Could a US$20-delivered 2530P keyboard fit onto a 2510P? My visual inspection suggests the 5 screwhole mounting points line up exactly. The 2 ribbon cables and overall shape being identical with only the cosmetic differences b/w them. The 2530P keyboad having a less busy, understated, contemporary appearance with rounded-off touchstyk buttons.

2510P 2530P

2540P keyboard? doesn't fit as shown here. I've seen comments suggesting the 2540P keyboard is a step backwards in terms of look and feel anyway. So 2530P is a better option.

[rr3636]

Computer: 2510p (updated to latest firmware)
SSD HD: X25-M G2 (updated to latest firmware on anothers computer - not able to do this on 2510p)
caddy: newmodeus (jumpers on it as it came - hasn't touched those yet)

Preparations:
* Ultimate Boot CD for windows (not the normal UBCD)
* obtain "snapshot" and "diskpar" (not diskpart) to be included on the usb stick (below)
* Use "Ultimate Boot USB" to convert the "UBCD win" to bootable from usb stick

Prepare HD's:
* boot from the usb stick (above), and align both (using diskpar) the 1.8" HD and the SSD HD, and both to 51200MB (quick format NTFS, 4096) . i.e. both identical partitions and both aligned
* use MBRwiz (from the usb stick) to activate boot on the SSD
* on the 1.8" HD, partition the remaining space and format it to FAT32 (needed for snapshot image)

Install:
* take out the SSD
* Install win 7 pro on the 1.8" HD - all the way. also reboot to test all ok
* turn off computer, put in SSD, boot from the usb stick
* use snapshot to take image from 1.8" HD and put it to the SSD
* we should have an working image of win7pro on an aligned bootable SSD...
* turn off computer, disconnect 1.8" HD, turn on computer and boot from SSD

This takes me to one of either
1) "Welcome..", and just freezez there
2) "Welcome..", and then black screen and freezez there
essentially I stil can't get win7 to work... I also tried with both HD's connected and boot from SSD, but with same result.

One of my first approaches before this was to try to install win7 directly on the SSD, but that only freezez up early in the install no matter what.

I'v tried tinkering with settings in BIOS without luck. My next approach will be to switch the jumpers on the caddy (need a small screw driver first to see if that helps.

I read earlier in this post about earlier bios version on 2510p. any1 got any luck to downgrade the bios? I wonder if it might help my case.

[nando4]

Originally Posted by rr3636

One of my first approaches before this was to try to install win7 directly on the SSD, but that only freezez up early in the install no matter what.

I'v tried tinkering with settings in BIOS without luck. My next approach will be to switch the jumpers on the caddy (need a small screw driver first to see if that helps.

I read earlier in this post about earlier bios version on 2510p. any1 got any luck to downgrade the bios? I wonder if it might help my case.

The Runcore ProIV SSD folks are having Win7 install issues, and they too use the Jmicron sata-to-pata chip as in the newmodeus caddy. I'm not familiar with the imaging tools you are using so can only suggest using Linux to do an exact copy of your 80GB ZIF HDD if it's working successfully, ie: booting up without problems.

That is, after booting a small Linux distribution on USB, proceed to:

Identify which drives are which

hdparm -i /dev/sda
hdparm -i /dev/sdb
hdparm -i /dev/sdc

Do a block-for-block copy from the 1.8" HDD to the X25M G2 in caddy

# dd if=[src] of=[dest] bs=4k
dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb bs=4k

Then disconnect the 80GB ZIF, jumper the newmodeus caddy as master and it should boot and run without drama. I have performed block-for-block reimaging countless times with great success. Earlier 2510P bios versions will not make any difference here.

[rr3636]

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