[chconline]

Windows 7 is so far a brilliant operating system, but there are some known issues with regards to running on my Lenovo T400:

1. Hotkey drivers: The mute key doesn't work, but volume control does. All on screen displays are completely not functional.

2. Standby power consumption issue: When the laptop resumes from standby, for units equipped with switchable graphics the ATI dedicated unit becomes active instead of the integrated GPU. It took me a while to find out why my power consumption shoots up all of a sudden when it resumes from standby, but fixes with a restart.

Still waiting for new drivers

[HopkinsProgramming]

You and your fancy GPU switching...

[chconline]

It's awesome! Midrange gaming performance where you need it (Well I have it just so I can play that one game once every year for an hour lol) and integrated for awesome battery life 99.9% of the time for me. Hopefully they'll fix it soon. For now I just disabled my ATI graphics in the BIOS, so I won't need to fix it every time I resume the system.

[HopkinsProgramming]

I'm so used to the dedicated graphics (nvidia mostly), it's rare that I can find myself being happy with any integrated or shared solution.

[chconline]

How is it shared? You can switch between the integrated and dedicated on the T400 anytime. It takes around 5 seconds. You don't even need to log off or anything.

[HopkinsProgramming]

I meant the turbo memory ones...

[chconline]

Most of them have dynamically allocatable memory sharing. It really doesn't hurt, it has enough dedicated onboard memory.

[HopkinsProgramming]

chconline, on 19 October 2009 - 08:15 PM, said:

Most of them have dynamically allocatable memory sharing. It really doesn't hurt, it has enough dedicated onboard memory.

Yeah, until you go to game, and then all of a sudden you're missing a chunk of that gig of ram you shoulda had, rotfl!


(Obviously, I saw one with a bad experience once lol..)

[shc-boomer]

Haha, so true. I even run my netbook on the 9300M GS all the time. Who cares about the 1 hour gain on performance when using Aero lags the netbook somewhat. Although worst part is trying to game or play videos, using the discrete has always been a better option for me.

[chconline]

That's because you have an Atom I have no complaints with my X4500 integrated with Aero. Heck it even runs Counter Strike: Source on medium-ish settings

[shc-boomer]

That is only part of it, regardless of the processor, the discrete always takes a load off the processor and the ram on the system. Especially important when you game.

[chconline]

However, if you're running switchable config the RAM is used anyway. I'm just saying it runs haha. It does Aero just fine, and there's a huge battery life difference for my T400.

[Big Bang]

I can live with the Hotkey issue, but damn thats an annoying Bug for Graphics.

[chconline]

I just disabled it in the BIOS as aforementioned. I very rarely need to use the dedicated graphics anyway. It's better than when I first got my laptop Lenovo Power Manager would always crash on startup for the power meter, and it is VERY irritating that the ONLY way you can switch graphics is to right click the battery meter. You can't even do it anywhere else. It's pathetic.

[TL6MT]

Thanks for the reference thread chc.