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The above post was also posted to http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=5573605#td_post_5572662 with a little more detail. This post predates the other by a few minutes (assuming properly synced clocks), so I'd guess it was the same person who posted both of them.

There are currently three hits for "i8kspeedfan" on Google, all of them having the exact same text; slashdot, a slashdot syndicator, and the above notebookreview page. Maybe it refers to i8kfan, which is probably similar enough to Linux/*nix's i8kutils, which apparently has no project/home page. All I can find is Debian's i8kutils package (though its maintainer claims he is no longer maintaining it). The source is hosted with a direct tgz link from that page.

Speedswitch allows you to switch between battery optimized, max performance, max battery, and dynamic much like the Intel applet. Speedswitch is also able to configure a bunch of other power features.

I was one of the beta testers for Vista and tried to like it,but when your 3Ghz 2Gb of RAM gamer rig runs like a sloth and can't even play Far Cry with an acceptable frame rate,no thanks. Vista actually stayed on my machine for less time than WinME did back in the day. At least with WinME you could drop into DOS and Frankenstein WinME with Win98SE into a Win98SE with better USB support,something I still do when I come across someone who has a machine too old to run Win2K acceptably,or who have a legacy app that still requires Win9X.Here is the link for those with an old box lying around-http://www.mdgx.com/ Listed under Win98 tricks/Win98SE2ME.

Maybe in time they'll fix the bugs,but with all the DRM and bloat it'll be at least SP2 before I'd be willing to give it another try.Until then a dual boot WinXP/Xandros on the laptop and XP on the gamer rig does everything that Vista does,at least as far as eye candy. And with XP my games actually get a decent framerate without throwing out my single core rig.

I'd be willing to bet it has more to do with the fan optimization then the 7200 drive. Granted, they produce more heat, but the cooling system in the laptop should be able to tolerate it.

This fellow has written some decent, small footprint software that lets a user directly manage the fans and Intel Speedstep settings on many Dell laptop models. Anyone using a Dell laptop that gets a bit warm should check it out.

http://www.diefer.de/i8kfan/index.html

Try using i8kfangui. You can control the fan speeds manually or set bounds and have it control them automatically. It hasn't been updated in a while but it works fine on my 9300.

1. The slowest version of one of the "ultra low voltage" CPUs from Intel, which aren't really targeted at PCs, but at embedded devices
2. A slow, quiet (A/V) disk
3. Not much memory
4. Totally passive cooling

at the risk of being redundant, have you tried SpeedSwitchXP? http://www.diefer.de/speedswitchxp/

It works only on windows Xp, but there might be other tools that do the same on other OSs. The point being, that your complaint of having your laptop refusing to run at full speed when not plugged in is not a problem without solution.

This is not quite the same thing, maybe I wasn't clear. CNQ allows the processor to run at the lower speed *when idling* but I want it to run at the lower speed even when fully busy. The AMD driver doesn't allow me to do that AFAIK, but presumably it's possible with a third-party utility perhaps.

There are several things you can do to get more out of your battery.

If you have a variable speed CPU like the AMD Ahtlon XP-M then you can use SpeedSwitchXP (or similar) to force it to run at the slowest speed. For the tasks you mention 500 MHz is plenty of power.

Rip your DVD to the HDD and play it from there.

Disable WiFi and Bluetooth even if they aren't actually connected. They will continously ping looking for other devices, which does hurt battery life. Most notebooks have a keyboard shortcut to disable it.

One of the most useful utils is MobileMeter. This app will show the amount of current your notebook is currently consuming, so you can play with various settings (like backlight intensity) and see the exact affect it has on power consumption.

Finally, what's wrong with using a spare battery? Modern notebooks can hibernate and resume in less than a minute, which is trivial downtime to swap batteries.

Dan East

Granted, it's heavy. Granted, it's flimsy. Granted, it sucks battery life. But it doesn't have to be a hot-plate. I've got FanGUI keeping the built-in fans running more often (and keeping things quite a bit cooler), but it only runs in Windows. However, since this was a "simple" hack into the values that the BIOS is using and overriding them with custom values, I can't imagine that such a solution would be that difficult under Linux. Unfortunately, I'm not much of a help as I don't run Linux. Heck, I don't even "code" (as long as you don't count script-coding). But I do know that it's pretty easy once you know where to look and what to look at.

But for a heavy, flimsy, battery sucker, it's a joy to use while on-the-go. It's a true desktop replacement machine, so don't mistake it for a lightweight system that hinders you until you're back to your powerhouse on your desk. 4+ hours of DVD watching using a 2nd battery in the removable media bay isn't that bad, especially if you're on a long commute/vacation. Besides, if you're going to be away from an AC outlet for more than 4+ hours (such as when you're in a car or on a cross-country or trans-oceanic flight), you should really have an auto/air adapter. The only thing I find lacking in this desktop replacement system is hard disk space and a decent pointing device.

Check out this fan control utility; it lets you control when the fans come on. I use it on my I8K, and it works quite well.