Upgrading fanless Dell X1 with SSD? (need SS Laptop)

More popular than ever, but some are still very noisy.

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hmsrolst
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Post by hmsrolst » Thu May 21, 2009 3:15 pm

needsnumbers wrote:I just installed a Samsung 16gb ssd into my X1 but am having a few issues with it. Nothing serious, but did anybody else notice the long time for the bios to start? The bios progress bar gets to about 3/4 and then crawls slowly to 100%. This bios slow down is the only thing causing my boot-ups to take just as long as with the HDD.
I have two X1's, one with a Samsung 32GB and one with a 16GB. The former is running XP, that latter Windows 7. Neither displays this problem, so there's some other problem you're having. Maybe the SSD is defective, or maybe something else.

BTW, neither Windows 7 nor VISTA will do 1280x1024 with the 915 chipset--not an X1 problem, but universal with this chipset, AFAIK.

castar80
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Post by castar80 » Fri Sep 11, 2009 7:35 am

This is an excellent thread!

I'm currently thinking of installing an SSD drive on my X1 but I cannot find the aforementioned drive anymore or anything close to it. Do you think that a CF or an SD card could be a viable system drive?

Also, concerning Windows7; do you think they're worth upgrading to using this 5-year old laptop? Do they seem to be sluggish in terms of responsiveness compared to XP? Where did you find the drivers to have everything working?

I'm really looking forward to your replies. Thanks!

hmsrolst
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Post by hmsrolst » Fri Sep 11, 2009 3:32 pm

I don't think the SSD's are readily available anywhere. The last one I bought was from ebay, so you might check periodically there.

I would not suggest upgrading to Windows 7. It's not that the system is sluggish, but there's only a plain VGA driver for video, either in Vista or 7. If you search the web some, you'll find that there's a hardware limitation for 915 graphics that doesn't permit running Aero. Unfortunately, Intel decided that this was a reason not to provide a driver that would permit more limited use. That being said, XP works fine, so it's no big loss.

It's a shame that the SSD's are no longer being retailed, because it's a great combo with the X1. Perhaps someday I'll grow tired of it and want an upgrade, but because that seems so distant, I have another X1 and SSD as a spare.

castar80
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Post by castar80 » Sat Sep 12, 2009 7:34 am

Thank you for your reply. I don't particularly care for Aero; I just want a fast silent system. Maybe I'll give seven a go after all to see how it feels.

Thanks!

hmsrolst
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Post by hmsrolst » Sat Sep 12, 2009 11:47 am

castar80 wrote:Thank you for your reply. I don't particularly care for Aero; I just want a fast silent system. Maybe I'll give seven a go after all to see how it feels.

Thanks!
I think my earlier post wasn't clear. My point is not that you can't run Aero, but there is no proper video driver at all. The most immediate upshot is that you can't run a resolution higher than 1024x768 (at least I haven't found a way to do it).

It does boot lightening fast, but losing 1280x768 isn't worth the trade-off. If you can find a way around this, please post it.

castar80
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Post by castar80 » Sun Sep 13, 2009 4:40 am

Actually, there is a workaround. Dell doesn't provide a Vista driver for the X1, BUT you could install the driver (sp34749.exe) that was provided by HP here:

(I tried posting a link here but I'm not allowed yet; just search for sp34749.exe in Google)

I have done this with 7100RC and it worked at 1280x768 resolution with no problems and of course, no Aero.

hmsrolst
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Post by hmsrolst » Sun Sep 13, 2009 9:09 am

Thanks very much, castar80.

I tried sp34749.exe, and it worked in a funny kind of way. I tried installing it three times and each time I got a message saying that it wouldn't work with my OS. At that point, the Intel driver installation opened up. I went through the install, and at the end, 1280x768 appeared in the resolution options. Device Manager shows that it's the Intel driver that's installed. It's strange because the HP site doesn't show it as a patch to the Intel driver. At any rate, all's well that ends well.

Another issue I had was that I had to work with several drivers to get the sound working; Dell is no help because it only lists XP drivers for the X1. The one that finally worked for me was R99254.exe. With that everything seems to be working fine.

Again, thanks very much.

castar80
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Post by castar80 » Mon Sep 14, 2009 5:27 am

I'm glad I could be of help! Thanks for the sound bit, I didn't know that myself. I am re-installing windows 7 right now, I hope I'm satisfied with their performance. I will let you know of my impressions. Thanks :)

btw, did you run the video driver setup in compatibility mode? If not, this is probably the reason why you couldn't install in the first try.

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Post by hramrach » Mon Aug 30, 2010 4:44 am

Thanks to the pictures posted on some other forum I was able to upgrade the disk drive succesfully.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/dell-la ... ost4475039

I upgraded the X1 with a Runcore IV 64GB ZIF SSD.

Not only is the disk somewhat faster but it is twice as large as the original Toshiba drive.

The Delock adaptor I used looks just like the pictures posted earlier in the thread but it would not fit because there was plastic sticking on both sides on the mini-ide connector. I just filed the adaptor until it would fit on the cable inside the notebook.
needsnumbers wrote:I just installed a Samsung 16gb ssd into my X1 but ... The bios progress bar gets to about 3/4 and then crawls slowly to 100%. This bios slow down is the only thing causing my boot-ups to take just as long as with the HDD.
It also seems to me that the bios takes long to boot with the SSD but I did not take it out just to confirm. I have only A03 so perhaps later version would behave better .. or not.

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