2510p - Owner's Lounge

[nando4]

Welcome to the 2510P Owner's Lounge! A place to liase with other owners and draw upon existing useful tips/tricks/mods to get the most out of the little beastie Table below showing some of the possibilities.

Example modified 12" HP 2510P ultraportables by approx additional expense spent (least to most)

benchmark 1.8" ZIF PATA bay optical bay/caddy used Other mods saturn_frak none pata-hdd: 160GB HM160HC/ebay ?? losdrivare none pata-hdd: 160GB HM160HC/ebay u7600@1.5Ghz, usb_dvd, quiet_fan Borh ssd: 64GB ProIV supplied optical drive ?? sfsilicon none^1 sata-ssd: 60GB OCZ Vertex/ebay ?? w0lla hdd: 80GB Toshiba sata-ssd: 80GB Intel X25M G2/newm ?? tudorlaptop ssd: 64GB ProIV pata-hdd: 160GB HM160HC/newm usb_dvd pocket_geek ssd: 64GB Samsung pata-hdd: 320GB WD3200BEVE/newm WWAN:HS2300/mPCIe +updated to 2530P nando4 & ssd: 64GB ProIV sata-hdd: 500GB MJA2500BH/newm u7600@1.6Ghz, HD4670 gpu, quiet_fan pc2-6400_RAM Nobackup ?? sata-ssd: 256GB ProIV/newm u7600@1.4Ghz

^1 - supplied 1.8" Toshiba ZIF HDD sold but could have been additional storage, pin set as slave. A low cost, high performance future-proof setup.
RED - highest performance setup reported | GREEN - lowest power consumption 2.5" HDD+caddy combo

NEW! 2510P Performance Kit. Integrates # items below so a U7600 delivers su9400 performance plus longer battery life.

HP_Website: Drivers, Manuals including Service And Maintenance Guide, Media Services Library with disassembly videos.

Tweaks
# Overclocking in Windows. Includes Win7 WEI, PLL pinmod, SPD ram timings.
Overclocking using grub2 bootloader or Linux. Useful too for non-Windows operating systems.
quiet_fan: Almost silent fan using a custom ACPI dsdt table
Extending Battery Life. Includes power consumption measurement tools. Also 2540P 100Whr battery retrofit.
Modded X3100 Win7 driver. Increases desktop WEI by 10%.
Enabling third-button mouse click scrolling with touchstyk
Win7 Quicklaunch buttons support
Disabling AMT and TPM (serial/IDE in Device Manager) permanently

Storage tweaks
# Undo the slave PATA 30MB/s sequential write speed capping
# Manually setting ZIF/IDE transfer mode and standby timeout
Disabling power saving to increase SSD write performance

Storage mods
1.8" ZIF PATA SSD options
2.5" SATA or PATA SSD or HDD using an optical bay caddy
Jumpering the 1.8" Toshiba ZIF HDD as slave and here. eg: run ebay caddy with a 2.5" sata SSD as master.
Setting Master/Slave on 1.8" ZIF and 2nd-drive caddy with 2.5" HDD/SSD
usb_dvd: Converting the internal 9.5mm pata optical drive to external USB using a US$17-delivered enclosure
Purchasing a replacement 2510P-specific ZIF cable
PCMCIA e-sata and here
Enabling and connecting to the ICH8M native sata port. Anyone who can pull this off gets a prize

Other hardware mods/upgrades
pc2-6400_RAM: Upgrade your stock 2GB 667MHz RAM to 800MHz for free
2530P/2540P keyboard retrofit. If prefer the less busy 2530P, or the gorgeous semi chiclet 2540P keyboard.
Adding internal USB devices by tapping USB pins. eg: webcam.
DIY ViDock. A 2510P shown with a HD4670 desktop video adapter for gaming/DVI/HDMI/S-Video accelerated graphics.
4GB memory upgrade
Battery Mod: repack using 2900ma Asus 1000HE/Toshiba NB205 cells for an extra 14% battery life (volunteers?)
CPU Mod: Mounting L7700-1.8 CPU?? Some 2510Ps delivered with superLFM capable 800Mhz FSB L7700 CPUs. (volunteers?)

BIOS tweaking/modding
Workarounds to bios whitelisting of WWAN/WIFI mPCIe slots. To add non-HP WWAN/wifi or external pci-e cards.
HP Flash BIOS Emergency Recovery: confirmed works on 2510P
Flashing bios in Linux using flashrom: partial read success only
________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Mini 2510P Review

The 12.1" HP 2510p ultraportable has an impressive 5+ hour battery life from the 10W TDP ULV U7x00 CPU and 6-cell battery. It is rather inexpensive too which I assume is because it slightly older tech and the reviews highlight the bottleneck 23MB/s 4200 RPM 1.8" PATA drive, dreadfully slow against 50-60MB/s 2.5" drives. The 2510p is a far better user experience than cost competitors such as a netbook and pricier newer CULV systems (see comparative SU7300/SU9400 overclocked performance). It has a decent-sized keyboard with touchpad and touchstyk, 1280x800 LED backlit matte LCD, pcmcia slot, DVD writer, 3yr onsite warranty, internal modem, bluetooth, WWAN-ready with mPCIe slot+antenna+SIM slot, HS2300 WWAN modules are quite inexpensive. Weighs 1.46kg with the 6-cell battery, without the 180gram DVD and has optional accessories available: docking station with s-video port, 9-cell battery. Links: A comparison against a netbook. A good review. Good pics.


4 - docking station ports | 5 - the slow ZIF PATA harddisk in the 1.8" drive bay

There are negatives as well: only 2 USB ports, a mono speaker, no webcam, no HDMI, 1 RAM slot means a pricier 4GB upgrade with X3100 graphics working 20-30% slower than a dual-channel setup, the WWAN/wifi slots are whitelisted as are on all HP Business systems, and the bottleneck with 4200rpm 1.8" PATA harddisk.

The sum total of the features, and mod possibilities, when combined with a low buy-in price on ebay make the 2510P a bargain. So then how does one go about extending the functionality of the 2510P in a cost effective manner? Read on..

2510P, 2530P, 2540P differences

If you're a lucky US resident who can buy a cheap refurb 2530P with 1-yr US-only warranty, it's worth the stretch for it's better overall feature set. Particularly the faster dual-channel X4500 graphics, sata drive controllers and expresscard slot for more convenient DIY ViDock implementation.

Item 2510P 2530P 2540P 12" LCD resolution 1280x800 1280x800 1366x768 Primary and optical bay interface ZIF/pata sata sata CPU/chipset 65nm Merom/965PM 45nm Penryn/PM45 32nm Arrandale??/PM55? Graphics x3100 4500MHD 5700MHD no of RAM slots single channel (1) dual channel (2) dual channel (2) RAM DDR2-667 DDR2-800 DDR3-1333 FSB Mhz U7x00/L7x00 533/800 SU9x00/SL9x00 800/1066 ?? Wifi 4965AGN 5100AGN 5300AGN?? expansion slot PCMCIA/mPCIe expresscard 1.0/mPCIe expresscard 1.0/mPCIe webcam and nightlight no yes - on some models yes?? HDMI/Displayport no no ??

2510P/2530P/2540P HP Accessory List shows shareable accessories between 25xxP units

Acknowledgements: a cast of many 2510P and other NBR users contributing to this thread. Many thank yous.

__________________
Storage 1.8" ZIF SSDs: Runcore ProIV, Photofast V4 | SSD/HDD using ODD caddy | sata-to-zif adapter | X200 SSD+HDD
Overclocking PLL pinmod | grub2 bootloader | Toolkit........Misc DIY ViDock | 2540P wishlist | m11x=heavy+fat

Now: 12.1" HP 2510P U7600@1.6 2GB 64GB ProIV SSD + 500GB/caddy + HD4670/3dmark06=5422 | Win7 XP.sp3 Ubuntu9.10
Next (2010): 12" 32nm + expresscard 2.0+HD5870/3dmark06=22k

[Jay2k1]

Hi,

I own a 2510p as well and the very limiting factor indeed seems to be the 4200rpm PATA hard drive.

In my 2510p, there's an 80GB model inside (Toshiba MK8009GAH) and right now I'm asking myself what to do. The usual price comparison sites tell me that, as a simple replacement, there's a 100GB and a 120GB model of that hard drive series available (MK1011GAH and MK1214GAH), both with 8MB cache and 4200rpm.
Assuming PATA is the only way to go, one could consider buying the Mtron Mobi MSD 3000 32GB, 1.8", ZIF (MSD-PATA3018-032). It costs 170 EUR here in Germany - that's pretty OK imo - but tbh, 32GB isn't really much.
So I am very very interested in this thread. I have also seen the unused connector and am wondering what it might be for.

Also, did you notice the letters 'SSD' marked on the little metal clamp that is used to hold the hard disk in place? Any idea why they put it there? Waking hope?

Another interesting thing: According to the HP partsurfer, there is a 120GB hard drive w/ 5400 rpm available (part number 467847-001). I'd go for that too, unfortunately I couldn't find out what HDD model it is yet.

Edit: I just found out that Toshiba will start shipping the MK2431GAH drive (1.8", 4200rpm, 240GB (!)) on March 1st, 2009. Now, as seek time remains 15ms, I'm curious nevertheless for benchmarks, because with two platters à 120GB, it will have a record breaking data density which should increase at least sequential read and write performance.

Edit2: Oh, and I wonder what happened to this one o.O

[Jay2k1]

Good god, dude. Stop talking about soldering on the mobo, it makes my head hurt

I would never go that far. I think the possibilities are as follows:

1. some manufacturer makes a decent 1.8" ZIF hdd
2. we go for the 32GB MTRON ssd
3. the unused port turns out to be some kind of sata connector which somehow can be enabled and used

I just flashed my BIOS to the newest version last evening, I was three versions behind before, and neither of the two BIOS versions had any options related to SATA. The only HDD related option I recall is the translation logic (bit-shift vs. LBA).

At this time, I am only one click away from buying the 32GB MTRON SSD :S
The sad thing is, there was a press release from MTRON saying they would release a 64GB version of their 1.8" ZIF SSD, but apparently they never did. Makes me

[Jay2k1]

Man, I'd love being able to go for that one, that's for sure.

Say, could you provide hi-res photos of the system board of the 2510p? So we could see what kind of ricoh controller chip there is.

[Jay2k1]

Well, at least when it comes to soldering on the mainboard you'll lose the warranty anyway, so I thought it wouldn't be a big deal for you

I've seen the device ID in the device manager as well, yeah, but maybe maybe there is some pcmcia driver for the ricoh controller other than the default xp driver.
Unfortunately I don't own such a cardbus SATA adapter card, otherwise I'd have tested with some linux distributions as well to make sure it's not the windows driver that causes the slow data rates.

Well, sadness. I've read this, so I think we can forget about using the cardbus slot, which narrows it down to either stick to the existing PATA connector or figuring out what the unused connector is good for, and how to enable it.
EDIT: Forget this, read page 4 of this thread!

[Jay2k1]

I think I won't buy such a controller card, because, as you correctly pointed out, we can see enough of the ricoh chip in the HP services media library picture to know it's a R5C847.

[Jay2k1]

Point taken. I found 6 or 7 different adapters still available here, most of whats on the marked nowadays is ExpressCard. Unfortunately, none of the cardbus adapters are the short "hide-inside" ones like what you linked. That won't affect the testing of course, but assuming I'm successful it won't be of much help. I don't want to have some stuff sticking out of the notebook, the battery that stands out of the back annoys me enough...

Besides I often copy photos from my compact flash card to the notebook using a 32-bit cardbus CF adapter, so I wouldn't want the slot to be blocked by the system disk. I think I'll get myself an MTRON 32GB SSD now.

[tselling]

Originally Posted by Jay2k1

Hi,

...Another interesting thing: According to the HP partsurfer, there is a 120GB hard drive w/ 5400 rpm available (part number 467847-001). I'd go for that too, unfortunately I couldn't find out what HDD model it is yet.

The 120GB 5400rpm zif drive is the Samsung HS122JC. I picked a couple of these off eBay a few months ago for my 2510p's.

[Jay2k1]

Originally Posted by tselling

The 120GB 5400rpm zif drive is the Samsung HS122JC. I picked a couple of these off eBay a few months ago for my 2510p's.

Could you please be so kind to do a benchmark using HD Tune or HDTach? I'd appreciate it very much.

Edit: Although I guess it wouldn't matter much because I can't seem to get my hands on one of those, neither in any shops nor at eBay

[Jay2k1]

Perhaps someone here wants to know.
The probably biggest MTRON reseller here in Germany says:

unfortunately, the production of the 64GB version of the 1.8" SSD
has not yet started. The necessary 32Gb NAND chips are hardly available at the market at this time.
So, at the moment, the 32 GB SSD is the biggest available 1.8" SSD by Mtron.

I also mailed with Toshiba concerning the MK2431GAH hard disk drive, which has 1.8" LIF 4.200rpm and 240GB on only 2 platters. I asked why it doesn't seem to be available in all the web shops (the 120GB version was all I could get). Toshiba Supervisor Technical Support, Danny Stahlfeld, says:

Because the MK2431GAH has a block size of 4KB and therefor is unsuitable for PC use, the hard drive is not ordered by the distributors, because there's no demand by the shops. This is the reason for the hard drive being hardly or not at all available in retail sales.

I did order the 32GB version of the MTRON 1.8" SSD now, atm the retailer is awaiting the shipping from Mtron, Korea, and I might hold it in my hands in the first days in March.
I'm curious though if there will be any useful stuff released on the CeBIT fair (3-8 March) (I'll be there most probably).