Windows Vista on Notebooks: Why and What Hardware?

[mobilenvidia]

A good article to see if your ready for Microsofts next OS.

A wee snippets from Tom's Hardware

Microsoft announced that it will release the business version of Windows Vista on November 30th and that other versions will be available early in 2007. So it's really time to start planning your next step. In this article we'll help motivate you to get going with Vista and guide you through what has become a confusing maze of decisions regarding upgrading your existing hardware or buying new hardware.

for the complete article have a nosey here

[Fabrice Roux]

Since we are interested in the mobile side of the problem... Vista Premium minimum/recommended requirements and results:

- System memory : 1/2GB. (XP needed 512MB for basic use... but required 1GB for more)

- GPU : DirectX 9.0 class with 128MB and Pixel Shader 2.0. GeForce FX and up should work unless they don't feature the required amount of memory.

- Battery life : because of the intensive GUI, it seems that you can kiss 1/3 of your Windows XP battery life goodbye after switching to XP.

- Gaming : Microsoft admited that games should be between 10 to 15 percent slower under Vista.

- Sound : Another big bummer for gamers... the loss of hardware sound mixer... which means EAX effects will be ran (if ran at all) thru the CPU instead of the shiny $/?150 SoundBlaster Audigy/X-Fi. This will lead to both sound quality and frame rate drops.

From my point of view it's not worth "upgrading" to Vista. I might reconsider my opinion after the SP1 and the massive availability of both DirectX 10 games and hardware. But until then I'll keep my beloved Windows XP close to my chest... and of course Ubuntu + Beryl.

[LSudlow]

Fabrice, I agree with you. I've been a Vista beta tester since the beginning and have used it pretty extensively. The pretty GUI requires serious hardware to feel responsive enough to keep as your main interface. With my 64MB FX Go5200, I usually end up dropping back to one of our modded XP drivers and being MUCH happier afterward.

I think all the account protection stuff is intrusive in the extreme and shut it off immediately.

I think the performance loss and the audio problems will be the biggest hurdle for gamers. I don't see many gamers being willing to put up with either one. For me it's even worse since I rely on Toshiba Virtual Surround to make my Inspiron's pathetic speakers halfway tolerable, and TVS doesn't work with Vista.

Despite all my bitching, I'll probably upgrade when I get better hardware. Vista has some major improvements under the hood, and some features that will likely be required for future generations of software. In the meantime, I'm sticking with XP and looking forward to testing SP3 (if it ever arrives).

[Fabrice Roux]

Let me add an extra layer of stay away from Vista or your GPU will fry...

Check out this article at Tweaktown.

The summary is explicit:

We found serious issues with nVidia ForceWare drivers in Windows Vista about thermal mangement - Possible fire hazards!

I can already see the kiddies complaining about the bad driver that killed their transparent title bar windows experience. Get over it.... Vista is not available to the masses therefore consider anything Vista related as BET@.

A quick reminder about the Microsoft/Creative scale:

SP2: final product

SP1: release candidate

RTM: beta software

beta: alpha software

alpha: proof of concept

[Fabrice Roux]

Well... back to the EAX incident... Vista will support EAX 1 and may be EAX 2 thru software emulation. Which means that another 10% performance will go down the drain.

Plus the fact that X-Fi cards support EAX 5 by hardware under XP will render EAX 1/2 by software. :)

If you are like me and rely on 3D sound when gaming online... expect to get pwned a tad more with Vista.

Creative is leaning toward an OpenAL wrapper... like other did for Vista.

[Richteralan]

Hm....

the EAX hardware sound acceleration is NOT disappeared in Vista.

Vista sound driver architecture now removed DirectSound/DirectSound3D. That means any sound cards that don't have EAX and OpenAL will revert back to software mixing.

Any sound card that has OpenAL will use OpenAL, any sound card has EAX only will need an updated driver with OpenAL support.

Any sound card has OpenAL and EAX can still has hardware acceleration.

[Richteralan]

Let me add an extra layer of stay away from Vista or your GPU will fry...

Check out this article at Tweaktown.

The summary is explicit:

We found serious issues with nVidia ForceWare drivers in Windows Vista about thermal mangement - Possible fire hazards!

I can already see the kiddies complaining about the bad driver that killed their transparent title bar windows experience. Get over it.... Vista is not available to the masses therefore consider anything Vista related as BET@.

A quick reminder about the Microsoft/Creative scale:

SP2: final product

SP1: release candidate

RTM: beta software

beta: alpha software

alpha: proof of concept

I installed Vista on my laptop and I didn't experience a single time my 7900GS overheats.

Not even above 80C.

And also I don't find that article trusting.

NVIDIA Vista drivers has no temperature monitoring. But it doesn't mean the video card will go on fire by itself. By default, Vista will run the lowest frequencies as it happens to my 7900GS.

The only gripe is Vista won't automatically adjust 2D/3D frequency settings. Once my 7900GS sticked to 2D, it won't change. I have to change my power scheme to max performance, and reboot once to get it running @ 3D frequency. But once I changed the power scheme to balanced/power saver, it will revert back to 2D frequency.

[Fabrice Roux]

Do you actually understand article?

It states that THERMAL MANAGEMENT IS NOT PROPERLY FUNCTIONING UNDER VISTA.

Not that the GPU will fry just by installing Vista.

[mobilenvidia]

The article states that the Video card overheated due to the vista drivers.

Not sure if the threshold is not set in the Vista drivers to slow the the GPU down when it gets to 102degC

Or Tweaktown just blew up their video card for another reason that is not Vista Forceware related.

To confirm this somene needs to get their GPU over 102degC or better yet 105degC and see what happens.

The driver should throttle the GPU down to around 100/200Mhz to save it from overheating.

I've also run extensive 3DMark tests and have not had heat problems low 80's is what I got.

But the problem might be when it gets to 100+ degC, and not slowing down.

[Fabrice Roux]

The article states that Vista Aero Glass which uses Pixel Shaders has a side effect of making the IDLE temperature higher than XP. This is not shocking since XP basically is pure 2D. It has nothing to do with nVidia drivers. In fact we can expect each and every GPU (Intel, AMD or nVIdia) to be warmer under Vista than they were under XP.

The article states that currently the thermal management is broken. It's the thingy that change the default behaviour (read VBIOS parameters) when Windows boots. When implemented properly on a desktop card (at least the GeForce 7xxx) boot at "middle" speed until Windows nVidia driver kicks in and switch the fan speed accordingly to the core temperature. Usually it switch to lower speed...

In the case of ForceWare Vista drivers they fail to at least shutdown the GPU to safe clocks (100 MHz or so) to protect the GPU. So in standard usage with no overclock and a properly functionning cooling system there is little issues to that glitch... but if you go beyond standard usage... there is a chance that the heat will geometrically increase to the point of no return... (silicon migration or whatever silicon heat related issue)

[Richteralan]

Do you actually understand article?

It states that THERMAL MANAGEMENT IS NOT PROPERLY FUNCTIONING UNDER VISTA.

Not that the GPU will fry just by installing Vista.

I can read texts that much smaller than size 7 :)

And Probably you don't understand my post? :)

Of course I know very clear that installing Vista won't fry anything. But what I was implying are:

those high temperature are not without reaon:

1. thermal management is not functioning.

2. the HSF on the video card is not functioning.

Take your pick? :P

The article states that the Video card overheated due to the vista drivers.

Not sure if the threshold is not set in the Vista drivers to slow the the GPU down when it gets to 102degC

Or Tweaktown just blew up their video card for another reason that is not Vista Forceware related.

To confirm this somene needs to get their GPU over 102degC or better yet 105degC and see what happens.

The driver should throttle the GPU down to around 100/200Mhz to save it from overheating.

I've also run extensive 3DMark tests and have not had heat problems low 80's is what I got.

But the problem might be when it gets to 100+ degC, and not slowing down.

Correct

but I'm afraid these tests are just "take the face value".

I'm wondering who is going to let their GPU going beyond 100C.

The people who let it happen either:

1. their video card HSF broken accidentally.

2. should buy a PS2/X360/PS3/Wii instead.

[Richteralan]

The article states that Vista Aero Glass which uses Pixel Shaders has a side effect of making the IDLE temperature higher than XP. This is not shocking since XP basically is pure 2D. It has nothing to do with nVidia drivers. In fact we can expect each and every GPU (Intel, AMD or nVIdia) to be warmer under Vista than they were under XP.

The article states that currently the thermal management is broken. It's the thingy that change the default behaviour (read VBIOS parameters) when Windows boots. When implemented properly on a desktop card (at least the GeForce 7xxx) boot at "middle" speed until Windows nVidia driver kicks in and switch the fan speed accordingly to the core temperature. Usually it switch to lower speed...

In the case of ForceWare Vista drivers they fail to at least shutdown the GPU to safe clocks (100 MHz or so) to protect the GPU. So in standard usage with no overclock and a properly functionning cooling system there is little issues to that glitch... but if you go beyond standard usage... there is a chance that the heat will geometrically increase to the point of no return... (silicon migration or whatever silicon heat related issue)

Yes I read the "article".

But as a matter of facts(or maybe it's just me and my magical Dell laptop1111!11zomg), I never experienced higher idle temps in Vista than XP.

Then my point is:

how the GPU can achieve 100C just by Aero alone?

I agree this is a problem which needs to be solved.

HOWEVER, it's not such a huge problem hyped by that single "article."

So, please chill and use normal size texts.

Thanks.

P.S. I'm not associated with M$ in any way..heh..

[Fabrice Roux]

I repeat...

With proper cooling there is no reason your GPU will fry under Vista.

In this article the author clearly states that his watercooling system failed... which means that GPU heat stayed on the copper heatsink. In that failure state even the BIOS would lead to overheat...

Heat cause silicon to draw more Amps... Amps cause the silicon to dissipate more heat. Which means that past a given frequency, the un-properly cooled GPU will overheat and die if there is no clock throttling logic.

I use a passive cooling in my desktop for noise reason... the temperatures of my 7600 GT are pretty low. Since I don't move my PC around there is little chance of cooling system failure. On the other hand my Inspiron (which has a double heatpipe + double fan) is likely to fail... mainly the fan. Which will lead to the death of my 6800 Go... and believe me this in not even an option. It costed me an arm, I use it professionnally so I'm not gambling with it.

I'm talking of my mobile GPU that IDLE at 43°C and tops at 65°C after loops of 3DMark. You probably don't know that there are laptops with tiny tiny cooling capabilities that IDLE in the late 60s and reach 90 under pressure. Look for people complaining about Matrix effect... it's their GPU throttling because it overheats. The same laptop with Vista will either lock up (if the user turns the computer off quickly) or fry it's GPU if the user is not in front of the computer.

So let me repeat AGAIN:

With proper cooling there is no reason your GPU will fry under Vista.

[Richteralan]

Ok, so why you made a big fuss about the thermal management? :)

[Fabrice Roux]

Let me help you:

You probably don't know that there are laptops with tiny tiny cooling capabilities that IDLE in the late 60s and reach 90 under pressure. Look for people complaining about Matrix effect... it's their GPU throttling because it overheats. The same laptop with Vista will either lock up (if the user turns the computer off quickly) or fry it's GPU if the user is not in front of the computer.

[Richteralan]

First of all,

You don't need to use big characters. As big characters don't make you more convincing and more mature and even more cultured.

Secondly,

You don't need to use some insulting pictures to extend your rudeness and immature attitude.

Thirdly,

Let me help you in case you don't know what you are talking about:

You first linked the article which is using a desktop 7900GS. And the tester fried the card with faulty cooling system. You made a HUGE fuss about the thermal management in Vista which I responded that the thermal management is an issue but not as huge as you hyped.

Fourthly,

Now you evaded the original topic and switched to mobile graphics.

OK! I'll help you again:

Tiny laptops with tiny HSF and idling temperature at near 70(or late 60s as you put it), I HAVE YET TO SEEN.

EVEN these laptops exists, the BIOS WILL TAKE CONTROL OF THE FANS IF OS DOESN'T CONTROL IT.

Just take my Dell E1705. I use i8kfangui, and I usually run with no fan management, that means the software doesn't control fan speed according to temperature. There are numerous of times that I jumped to games without setting the fan control. This means the software and OS still DOESN'T control the fan. Now it's where the BIOS kicks in. The BIOS will turn fans on when CPU/GPU temperature reach a certain threshold.

I simply cannot imagine a laptop WIHTOUT BIOS fan control. Not everyone with Dell will install i8kfangui and set fan control profiles, right?

Last but not least,

I feel your hate for America and everything America. To be fair, I'm not American, neither I like America.

But your attitude make me sick.

[Fabrice Roux]

OK let me cherry pick an example that your narrow minded brain might understand. Let me compare the improperly functionning thermal management in Vista to a defective airbag in a car.

You can drive around for kilometers and kilometers safely with a defective airbag. No question asked... but the day you hit a wall and the airbag doesn't pop-up... that your chest is turned is strawberry jelly and your ribs are poking thru your backbone. You will wish that this failsafe device worked as advertised.

You can use a GPU without thermal management for years if your cooling system is properly cooling the GPU. (you find large text offensive... lets try small text) I never stated it was a huge issue... when I first mentionned the article I qualified it as "an extra layer of stay away from Vista".

So you might want to eat more fish for memory and check asap with the local eye doctor.

You seem to blame me for driving the thread to the mobile world... Let me refresh your memory the thread is called "Windows Vista on Notebooks: Why and What Hardware?"... Notebook is a synonym of laptop. And this website is called laptopvideo2go. So I believe you are barking at the wrong tree dude...

*select* *ctrl+c* *ctrl+v*

So you might want to eat more fish for memory and check asap with the local eye doctor.

You are assuming that Dell laptop 2006 class cooling logic is the standard... believe me it's not the case. You have OEM that use the same heatpipe + fan for both the CPU and GPU, in some cases the fan speed logic only uses the CPU temperature. Try to use the search function with the words overheating, throttling or matrix effect.

Where on earth did you imagine that I hate the USA? Some of my best friends are in California, Arizona and New Mexico. If it's my flag... yes I'm a french person from France. Which means I'm rude, I smoke, I have a beret glued to my head and a baguette located under my dirty unshowered armpit.

But you are right about something... I usually drive morons and retards sick. Are you either or both? :)

ps: are you the dude from Chili that shone 6 months ago?

[Richteralan]

ROFL you are so cute :)

go live in your hole. :)

[JadedRaverLA]

My $.02. I've been a beta-tester for Vista, and am now running

Vista RTM on my HP dv2000t with Nividia GeForce Go 7200 graphics chip.

Nvidia's drivers for Vista ARE right now WAY behind ATI's and Intel's. (Intel GMA950 scores 3.0 3d graphics Windows Experiece Score while Nvidia Geforce 7200 scores 2.6 -- kinda sad). Nvidia's lack of progress in Vista is annoying, but I don't believe there is cause for fear that your notebook will catch fire.

The one issue that is somewhat alarming is that generic drivers (like those provided by MS, and those on this website) likely have no idea what speed your manufacturer wants your graphics processor to run at, and is just running at somebody's idea of "default" speed. If your notebook manufacturer's drivers choose to run at a lower speed because of inadequate cooling, then, yes, you will likely run warmer than you should. And if you're using the aero interface in Vista, then you are constantly using the 3d capabilities of your graphics chip, which you weren't doing in XP.

So, yes, Nvidia should take some heat (sorry about the pun) for not yet creating fully functional Vista drivers, but once it is released and you can get drivers from your notebook manufacturer that correctly set the graphics core speed, most heat problems should take care of themselves.

Now then, for my own little rant about Vista vs. XP, here goes:

On an older, lower-powered system (especially one that cannot run aero), the Vista experience is slow and not worth upgrading.

On a fast, dual-core system, with plenty of memory, and a graphics card that will run aero, the Vista experience is awesome, considerably faster than XP, and, once you try it you'll never go back. I know system requirements have been released by Microsoft, but here's mine.

To REALLY experience Vista, and to get a considerably faster OS than XP could ever hope to be, you want:

- Fast dual-core x64 processor (Vista takes MUCH better advantage of multi-core/multi-processor systems than XP, and the x64 version will, in a few years, be the standard)

- 2 GB+ RAM

- 80 GB+ FAST Hard Drive (4200rpm need not apply -- ALL can be helped dramatically with USB Drive or SD cards used in ReadyBoost)

- Graphics card supported by aero

To get similar to XP/slightly better than XP performance, you want:

- Slow dual-core, or fast single core processor

- 1 GB RAM

- 60 GB Hard Drive (again, ReadyBoost can speed things up noticeably)

- Graphics card supported by aero

Less than that, and your experience likely will not be improved by Vista. In any event, my sources say that the trial version should be made available to everyone within the next two weeks, so give it a try before making a final decision.

Edited December 3, 2006 by JadedRaverLA

[Richteralan]

My $.02. I've been a beta-tester for Vista, and am now running

Vista RTM on my HP dv2000t with Nividia GeForce Go 7200 graphics chip.

Nvidia's drivers for Vista ARE right now WAY behind ATI's and Intel's. (Intel GMA950 scores 3.0 3d graphics Windows Experiece Score while Nvidia Geforce 7200 scores 2.6 -- kinda sad). Nvidia's lack of progress in Vista is annoying, but I don't believe there is cause for fear that your notebook will catch fire.

The one issue that is somewhat alarming is that generic drivers (like those provided by MS, and those on this website) likely have no idea what speed your manufacturer wants your graphics processor to run at, and is just running at somebody's idea of "default" speed. If your notebook manufacturer's drivers choose to run at a lower speed because of inadequate cooling, then, yes, you will likely run warmer than you should. And if you're using the aero interface in Vista, then you are constantly using the 3d capabilities of your graphics chip, which you weren't doing in XP.

So, yes, Nvidia should take some heat (sorry about the pun) for not yet creating fully functional Vista drivers, but once it is released and you can get drivers from your notebook manufacturer that correctly set the graphics core speed, most heat problems should take care of themselves.

Now then, for my own little rant about Vista vs. XP, here goes:

On an older, lower-powered system (especially one that cannot run aero), the Vista experience is slow and not worth upgrading.

On a fast, dual-core system, with plenty of memory, and a graphics card that will run aero, the Vista experience is awesome, considerably faster than XP, and, once you try it you'll never go back. I know system requirements have been released by Microsoft, but here's mine.

To REALLY experience Vista, and to get a considerably faster OS than XP could ever hope to be, you want:

- Fast dual-core x64 processor (Vista takes MUCH better advantage of multi-core/multi-processor systems than XP, and the x64 version will, in a few years, be the standard)

- 2 GB+ RAM

- 80 GB+ FAST Hard Drive (4200rpm need not apply -- ALL can be helped dramatically with USB Drive or SD cards used in ReadyBoost)

- Graphics card supported by aero

To get similar to XP/slightly better than XP performance, you want:

- Slow dual-core, or fast single core processor

- 1 GB RAM

- 60 GB Hard Drive (again, ReadyBoost can speed things up noticeably)

- Graphics card supported by aero

Less than that, and your experience likely will not be improved by Vista. In any event, my sources say that the trial version should be made available to everyone within the next two weeks, so give it a try before making a final decision.

I know why your 7200 scored 2.6 only. Because for a while my 7900GS scored 3.0 only, too :)

The MS Generic Driver AND NVIDIA Vista Driver default the video card running @ 2D clocks and won't change if you run some 3D programs.

The trick is set your power profile to "high performance", not "balanced" or "power saver", and reboot with this setting, then your video card will run @ 3D frequency on next reboot. But once you set the profile back to "balanced" or "power saver", it will change back to 2D and you have to do the trick again.

[zoing]

Hey guys, don't :) we should :)

[Fabrice Roux]

From the official Vista Capable page:

A Windows Vista Capable PC includes at least:

• A modern processor (at least 800MHz1).
  
• 512 MB of system memory.
  
• A graphics processor that is DirectX 9 capable.
  

A Windows Vista Premium Ready PC includes at least:

• 1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor1.
  
• 1 GB of system memory.
  
• Support for DirectX 9 graphics with a WDDM driver, 128 MB of graphics memory (minimum)2, Pixel Shader 2.0 and 32 bits per pixel.
  
• 40 GB of hard drive capacity with 15 GB free space.
  
• DVD-ROM Drive3.
  
• Audio output capability.
  
• Internet access capability.
  

If you need to refresh your memory about the DirectX capabilities head over to the Recommended driver thread.