First impressions of ThinkStation S10

[Paul_P]

Disappointing, to say the least. I'd expected the 6423-31M to have a bit more performance than this. A four core processor and the performance is as bad as the ThinkPad Z60t it replaces, though some of that is down to Vista, some probably a consequence of not having enough memory (2Gb, of which 750Mb is stolen by the graphichs card!). The Rescue and Recovery partition boots, but hangs at the logo. Hardly much use. The Rescue and Recovery DVD doesn't work. An attempt to restore the hard drive to factory contents failed because a file is missing from the DVD... Why was I using the recovery DVD? Because, in order to use the supplied RAID feature, the two disks must be cleared. Which would be fine, but the machine refuses point-blank to boot from the hard drive after the system has been restored (using the Start Recovery DVD set). Either the recovery software blindly assumes the disk is bootable and fails to set it so, or the RAID hardware is getting in the way. Either way, right now I have a very expensive ornament under my desk. All in all, a big disappointment. The supplied RAID documentation is insufficient, and the recovery facilities don't allow access to disk management tools to determine what's going wrong. And if all that wasn't bad enough, I used Vista's backup tool to create a backup of 'everything I need to restore my PC'. Just a pity Vista refues to acknowledge the existence of the backup. If performance is this bad on a 2Gb machine, I can't imagine what it must be like with the 1Gb supplied with most of the range. On the plus side, the machine does at least appear to be up to Lenovo's usual high standards, and the support guys are doing their best to help with such a new machine. Paul

[Paul_P]

Well, I've had the machine long enough now to form an opinion. And it is not good.

Overall, it's useable, but only just. Most of the software I need for work won't run on this machine, though to be fair that's more a fault of Vista in most cases.

I can't get into my office Windows network because the VPN software we use won't even load on Vista x64. I can't read product documentation locally because the software won't run on this machine, even though it is written in Java (fortunately most of the documentation I need is available on the web).

Some of the software that will run on this machine is the expensive versions of products - the type you pay extra for features you don't need, just because the cheaper versions don't support x64. And even then, the features I do want won't run while Windows is active (eg, backup recovery software).

Vista is flakey to put it mildly, runs like a dog, and crashes more often that a teenager in Commodore.

My ThinkPad was much better than this. Given all the problems I've had, I'm livid that despite numerous request, Lenovo Customer Satisfaction refused to contact me to discuss the issues. Most of technical support has been fine, though not all.

Overall, unhappy and don't recommend it.

Paul_P

[mbhockey13]

It's 100% Vista.

I wiped Vista and installed XP on our D10s and they FLY.

The XP Drivers come with the machine on CD so I'd do yourself a favor and move back to XP.

[Hatelenovocanad]

can't say how useful your post was but i'll say this THANKS!  i am skittish about going for the 4GB memory or 64 bit system just for the reason you mention and what the first guy said!

i'll just get over the top HDD with 3GB memory and hope for the best!

are you using SAS or SATA HDD?

[Paul_P]

I have to say, mbhockey13 is right; Vista has a lot to answer for. Normally, I only go forwards, and don't want to revert to XP, but Vista 64 is stunningly bad. Suspend/hibernate still hasn't improved over XP, in that it randomly refuses to come back to life, forcing a restart of Windows and a painful wait (of the order of hours) while the RAID controller re-syncs the disks.

Yes, I'll blame Vista for most of the problems. But equally, this machine feels rushed and improperly tested. The Intel RAID supplied with the machine is feeble, as per the comment above. The whole point of RAID 1 is reliability, yet it seems to trust Windows to do the work of keeping the disks in step, which is something that should be done by the hardware. Still, that's what comes of using cheap SATA technology instead of SAS with a 'proper' RAID card.

This machine is marketed as a workstation. It cost much more than a standard desktop, but has none of the reliability or performance one would expect of a workstation.

As time goes by, my opinion has not changed. Far too little software installs on the machine, half of that then refuses to run, and we are forced to pay premium prices for compatible versions. And some of those are bug ridden. Windows performance and reliability are so poor it is a joke, and this machine was intended for work use. It's just about up to the job.

Paul_P

[biowizard]

On the positive side, I currently find my new S10 pretty good. I've wiped Lenovo's pre-installs off the machine, completely repartitioned and reformatted the two 250Gb SATA drives, installing my MSDN version of Vista 64 Ultimate on the second partition of the primary drive, with a single 2047Mb FAT primary DOS partition in place of the old Lenovo restore partition for legacy purposes. Meanwhile, I've partitioned the secondary drive as a single Extended DOS partition, with a series of 8Gb and 32Gb FAT32 volumes.

The reason for the DOS/FAT32 stuff is that I still write some software for the legacy platforms, and need to run 16-bit tools during this process! But that's a long story ...

In short, though, my overall reaction is that my S10 flies big time. I've had the fastest benchmark timings ever of my own software, and since adding 4Gb RAM to the 2Gb that came with the box, even Vista 64 feels light and snappy.

Brian

[Paul_P]

A useful update to anyone else with a quad-core S10. For whatever reason, my machine was configured to run on a single CPU (no wonder it was slow!). Enabling the three remaining engines has made a huge difference, particularly to start-up times.

More memory is on its way (to bring the machine to the full 8Gb), but so is an extra video card. We'll wait to see what difference this makes.

Paul

[biowizard]

Was your S10 with 4Gb to start with, or are you binning a pair of 1Gb modules in order to install the 8Gb? At current prices, I didn't feel able to to the latter, so my machine currently has 6Gb. Maybe next year I'll swap out the two 1Gb modules and replace them with 2Gb ones, if the prices drop somewhat (and I can find something which actually needs all that RAM! :lol: )

Brian

[Paul_P]

Brian,

I'm binning the existing 1Gb chips. I could have saved $1,000 by adding 2x2Gb blocks, but as I was spending $4,000 for the extra monitors, video card and memory, it seemed pointless to skimp at this stage.

Good home wanted for 2x1Gb Lenovo DDR3 memory modules!

Paul

[erik Community SuperMod]

vista runs considerably faster with more memory.   8GB should do quite well.

i went a bit overboard with 16GB but got a great deal on a matched set of eight micron 2GB modules.   so far the most i've used at one time is 9.5GB.