[clug] Dreambook Laptop.
Ben
shadroth at gmail.com
Fri Jan 13 22:46:02 GMT 2006
I got the same model, with a similar configuration, around the same
time. I had a few issues with some guys in Brisbane, but Pioneer were
very helpful, and I should be able to deal direct with them in future.
Unfortunately, the client wanted Windows, but I was able to have a bit
of fun tweaking it. I selected a Turion MT-37 CPU (2.0GHz), 25Watt @
1.2V?.
The CPU ran stable at around 1.05 Volts at 2.0GHz, and I was able to
drop it from 1.00V to the minium 0.80V at 800MHz, making for some
excellent power savings.
There's a nice guide to ripping the thing apart here:
http://www.overclockers.com/tips1192/index.asp
And a (Windows) guide to tweaking Turion/Radeon based laptops here:
http://forums.extremeoverclocking.com/showthread.php?t=134927
Regards,
Ben
> Michael Jameson.
On 1/9/06, Nigel Cunningham <ncunningham at cyclades.com> wrote:
> Hi everyone.
>
> A few weeks ago I replied to an email, saying I was thinking of buying one of
> the 'Dreambooks' from Pioneer Computers. It arrived just after Christmas, so
> I thought I'd give you a rundown on my experiences:
>
> I didn't find getting hold of a Dreambook to be trivial. They're apparently
> sold through Harvey Norman, but I don't see any indication of that on their
> web site. I purchased mine through a small Brisbane firm (I can provide the
> details to anyone who is interested).
>
> I purchased the 8350 model, primarily because I really wanted to get a Turion,
> so as to provide better suspend-to-disk support for 64 bit. Pioneer allow you
> to customise, so I got mine with a M-34 processor, 1GB of RAM, a spare 9 cell
> battery and a DVD drive and without the M$ tax or a hard disk, for $1925
> incl. I was very pleased with the price.
>
> I wanted no hard drive because I had purchased a new 7200RPM one a year or so
> ago, and wanted to put it in. (PATA).
>
> I was a little dubious about buying the laptop. Googling provides very little
> information at the moment. There was one very positive but also very brief
> comment on Whrilpool.
>
> Unpacking the Dreambook was trivial. There was the notebook itself, the spare
> battery and a small clear plastic bag with cds and a couple of small books.
> Oh, and the freebie laptop bag.
>
> Installing the hard drive was trivial. Two screws on the bottom of the laptop
> cover a drive bay, which contains a 2.5in frame that holds the drive in
> place. The frame is secured by one more screw in the middle, and the
> connector is a simple, standard 2.5 in adapter, requiring no special
> adapters. (Unlike my old Omnibook).
>
> I had obtained Ubuntu's 5.10 AMD64 release, and so proceeded to install it on
> the spare partition I had prepared. This turned out to be very slow, because
> the ACPI implementation caused continual APIC errors and of course filled the
> partition. This ruined my initial impression - I began to fear that I had
> bought a lemon. Once I figured out what was going on, however, things
> improved drastically. Killing the log daemons while the installer ran made
> the machine feel more like an AMD64 than a DX-25.
>
> After installation was complete, I installed the most recent kernel
> (2.6.15-rc7 at the time), and the APIC errors went away.
>
> My next problem was X. The Dreambook has a 200M card - relatively new and
> therefore requiring XOrg 6.9 to have any real support. Ubuntu sources were
> thus changed to Drapper and downloading began.
>
> So, I'm now running Drapper on a 2.6.15 kernel.
>
> Now for the quirks:
>
> - The Function key is on the bottom left. I keep hitting it when I want
> Control. Maybe I'll get used to it. Maybe I'll find some nifty tool to swap
> them.
> - There are some kernel issues - the uli526x ethernet card has no power
> management support yet (yes, I'm planning on giving a fix a go); the screen
> drivers sometimes put the display in the wrong state when switching from X so
> that you have to switch to and from X a couple of times before you can see
> anything useful, there's no hope for DRI at the moment, and hotplug needs
> some coercion with a hammer to set up the Synaptic touchpad right.
>
> Having said all that, I'm really quite happy with the Dreambook. I have real
> power management for the first time (cpu at 800/1600/1800MHz), and the
> battery technology looks like it had been well designed so that I won't have
> to buy a new battery every year.
>
> I'm really looking forward to the drivers getting up to scratch, so I can see
> what the machine is really capable of.
>
> And yes, I have managed to get Suspend2 running fine on it. Improved AMD64
> support will be in 2.2, due out shortly.
>
> I'll see if I can set up a web page somewhere with more details.
>
> Regards,
>
> Nigel
>
> lspci output:
>
> 0000:00:00.0 Host bridge: ATI Technologies Inc: Unknown device 5950 (rev 01)
> Subsystem: Mitac: Unknown device 8350
> Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 64
>
> 0000:00:01.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc: Unknown device 5a3f (prog-if 00
> [Normal decode])
> Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 128
> Bus: primary=00, secondary=01, subordinate=01, sec-latency=32
> I/O behind bridge: 0000c000-0000dfff
> Memory behind bridge: c0000000-cfffffff
> Prefetchable memory behind bridge: 0000000090000000-000000009ff00000
> Capabilities: [44] #08 [a803]
> Capabilities: [b0] #0d [0000]
>
> 0000:00:14.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI4510 PC card Cardbus
> Controller (rev 02)
> Subsystem: Mitac: Unknown device 8350
> Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 168, IRQ 169
> Memory at 44000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
> Bus: primary=00, secondary=03, subordinate=06, sec-latency=176
> Memory window 0: 40000000-41fff000 (prefetchable)
> Memory window 1: 42000000-43fff000
> I/O window 0: 00001800-000018ff
> I/O window 1: 00001c00-00001cff
> 16-bit legacy interface ports at 0001
>
> 0000:00:15.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications, Inc. AR5212
> 802.11abg NIC (rev 01)
> Subsystem: Askey Computer Corp.: Unknown device 7084
> Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 168, IRQ 185
> Memory at d0000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
> Capabilities: [44] Power Management version 2
>
> 0000:00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 NorthBridge
> Flags: fast devsel
> Capabilities: [80] #08 [2101]
>
> 0000:00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 NorthBridge
> Flags: fast devsel
>
> 0000:00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 NorthBridge
> Flags: fast devsel
>
> 0000:00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 NorthBridge
> Flags: fast devsel
>
> 0000:00:19.0 PCI bridge: ALi Corporation M5249 HTT to PCI Bridge (prog-if 00
> [Normal decode])
> Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0
> Bus: primary=00, secondary=02, subordinate=02, sec-latency=32
> I/O behind bridge: 0000a000-0000bfff
> Memory behind bridge: b8000000-bfffffff
> Prefetchable memory behind bridge: 88000000-8fffffff
> Capabilities: [c0] #08 [a803]
>
> 0000:00:1b.0 Ethernet controller: ALi Corporation: Unknown device 5263 (rev
> 50)
> Subsystem: Mitac: Unknown device 8350
> Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 128, IRQ 193
> I/O ports at e000 [size=256]
> Memory at d0010000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256]
> Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2
>
> 0000:00:1c.0 USB Controller: ALi Corporation USB 1.1 Controller (rev 03)
> (prog-if 10 [OHCI])
> Subsystem: Mitac: Unknown device 8350
> Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 169
> Memory at 44001000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
>
> 0000:00:1c.1 USB Controller: ALi Corporation USB 1.1 Controller (rev 03)
> (prog-if 10 [OHCI])
> Subsystem: Mitac: Unknown device 8350
> Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 185
> Memory at 44002000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
>
> 0000:00:1c.3 USB Controller: ALi Corporation USB 2.0 Controller (rev 01)
> (prog-if 20 [EHCI])
> Subsystem: Mitac: Unknown device 8350
> Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 128, IRQ 201
> Memory at 44003000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256]
> Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2
> Capabilities: [58] #0a [2090]
>
> 0000:00:1d.0 Multimedia audio controller: ALi Corporation M5455 PCI AC-Link
> Controller Audio Device (rev 20)
> Subsystem: Mitac: Unknown device 8350
> Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 128, IRQ 201
> I/O ports at e100 [size=256]
> Memory at d0011000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
> Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 2
>
> 0000:00:1d.1 Modem: ALi Corporation M5457 AC'97 Modem Controller (rev 20)
> (prog-if 00 [Generic])
> Subsystem: Mitac: Unknown device 8350
> Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 177
> Memory at d0012000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
> I/O ports at e200 [size=256]
> Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 2
>
> 0000:00:1e.0 ISA bridge: ALi Corporation: Unknown device 1573 (rev 31)
> Subsystem: Mitac: Unknown device 8350
> Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0
>
> 0000:00:1e.1 Bridge: ALi Corporation M7101 Power Management Controller [PMU]
> Subsystem: Mitac: Unknown device 8350
> Flags: medium devsel
>
> 0000:00:1f.0 IDE interface: ALi Corporation M5229 IDE (rev c7) (prog-if 8a
> [Master SecP PriP])
> Subsystem: Mitac: Unknown device 8350
> Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 255
> I/O ports at 1100 [size=16]
> Capabilities: [60] Power Management version 2
>
> 0000:01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc: Unknown device
> 5955 (prog-if 00 [VGA])
> Subsystem: Mitac: Unknown device 8350
> Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 11
> Memory at 90000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=128M]
> I/O ports at c000 [size=256]
> Memory at c0000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
> Expansion ROM at 98000000 [disabled] [size=128K]
> Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2
> --
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