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Why Asus trackpad driver sets the CPU speed at maximum during scroll

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Re: Why Asus trackpad driver sets the CPU speed at maximum during scroll

#181

Post by nerderloo »

MichaelGG wrote: post #156
quinndupont wrote: post #52

In no way am I trying to incite Mac vs. PC, but after years of Apple laptops I grew bored with their aluminum fascism and decided (last year) to buy a top-of-the-line Thinkpad. A couple of months later, taking a huge economic hit, I sold the Thinkpad and returned to Apple. I simply could not handle the trackpad (and I gave up on the weird Thinkpad nubbin back in the early 2000s). I quite literally felt like I had a d…

The ThinkPad click pad is an abomination. After nearly a year after regretfully "upgrading" from the IBM style to the new style... I still can't click with accuracy. Right, left - I have to make several attempts. And many times, the pointer moves during the process. I actually have to lug around an external mouse with my "top of the line" laptop. The keyboard isn't anything great, either. Few companies have earned as…

I started using X240 a week ago. I am usually not a complainer. I concurrently used X220 and Macbook fine. But I could not like the click pad on X240. I think the trackpad/trackpoint on X240 is simply a failed experiment. As someone who is fine with trackpoint or trackpad on Macbooks, I can't see how anyone can like this click pad thing.

Re: Why Asus trackpad driver sets the CPU speed at maximum during scroll

#182

Post by userbinator »

sydney6 wrote: post #107

Imagine: A Thinkpad x/t/w with the old non-chiclet Keyboard without their "new" Layout, old-sytle Trackpad/Pointer with physical Buttons, a non-low-voltage Haswell with 2 RAM Slots, capable of containing at least 16 Gigs of Memory, a removable, non-integrated Battery, proper Intel-Chipsets and their LED-backlit Display in the old magesium-style Body with aluminium Hinges and the old mechanical display closing Mechani…

I think it's more about Lenovo trying to appear "new" and "stylish", going after the Macbook designs. Cost reduction could also be a part of it. Every other laptop on the market now looks like a Macbook clone.

What they're forgetting is that many of the people who buy Thinkpads actually like the old-school, "serious business" look-and-feel that originated with IBM. They could continue making a model that is almost exactly identical to the X60/X61 (an "X62"?) but with a faster CPU, more RAM, and higher-res display, and I'd bet they'd still have many customers.

Re: Why Asus trackpad driver sets the CPU speed at maximum during scroll

#183

Post by etherael »

acabal wrote: post #140
krick wrote: post #50

So, really, is there anything left to buy except MacBooks anymore? I'm not a big fan of Apple, and would have to go through all sorts of nuisances to install Linux on it anyway, but the longer I search for solid 13" laptop, the more horrified I become. It cannot be that nobody makes nice laptops, can it?

The Razer Blade 14 is a very nice machine, if you can get over the Matrix-esque green backlit keyboard. Sane keyboard layout (but missing the pgup/dn/home/end column). Beautiful screen and 14 inches, which is my ideal screen size. Amazing gaming performance for the size, if you care about that. Surprisingly good (but not perfect) Linux compatibility too. The three big problems with it are: 1) The choice of Wifi card,…

Similar to the Razer Blade 14, but cheaper, and without the matrix-esque green backlight (just white) is the Aorus XP3+, which is ridiculously powerful and light. The only difference appears to be that it's actually even a little lighter than the blade (1.8kg vs 2.03kg), the screen is not touch based, the processor is a little beefier, it has more memory, and by default comes with 2x 256GB SSD's in RAID0 rather than a single SSD.

And of course it is ENORMOUSLY cheaper. This may differ depending on locality but I bought the Aorus a couple of days ago for 2599 AUD, and the razer with the same storage is 3699 AUD.

I got rid of both my every day carry notebook and my beefy leave it on a desk workstation just from buying the XP3+, very impressed with it so far.

Re: Why Asus trackpad driver sets the CPU speed at maximum during scroll

#184

Post by nerderloo »

yclept wrote: post #63
quinndupont wrote: post #52

In no way am I trying to incite Mac vs. PC, but after years of Apple laptops I grew bored with their aluminum fascism and decided (last year) to buy a top-of-the-line Thinkpad. A couple of months later, taking a huge economic hit, I sold the Thinkpad and returned to Apple. I simply could not handle the trackpad (and I gave up on the weird Thinkpad nubbin back in the early 2000s). I quite literally felt like I had a d…

The Thinkpad nipple mouse on my x220 is glorious to use

You'll be disappointed in X240. The buttons for trackpoint are removed in X240. Instead, they made the trackpad clickable. It's a miserable experience. It is simply impossible to use trackpoint with trackpad enabled because you inevitably slide finger over trackpad to register a click. That moves the cursor. Disabling trackpad made trackpoint somewhat usable but clicking the whole trackpad is much harder than just a button.

Re: Why Asus trackpad driver sets the CPU speed at maximum during scroll

#185

Post by skunkvomit »

quinndupont wrote: post #94
klibertp wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In no way am I trying to incite Mac vs. PC Oh, but you're doing it anyway. Whatever, sounds like fun! ;) > I quite literally felt like I had a degenerative neuromuscular disease when I used the trackpad [EDIT: I should mention that I'm using almost exclusively keyboard for interacting with my computers, so I may be missing some obvious things.] I'm using mac book pro and some hp notebook (both a year and a half old…

I tried ALL of the internal Lenovo-supplied utilities, and even "upgraded" to a generic driver provided by Synaptics (maker of the trackpad hardware). Moving the mouse cursor around the screen was usually not a problem, but scrolling and click-and-drag (to say, move a file using the GUI) would only actually work about 70% of the time. Instead of scrolling it would stutter and zing about, and instead of click and drag…

I found that Windows configuration (Synaptics and Lenovo) utilities were all lacking in configurability. I have primarily switched to Linux (openSUSE) which has far better support for common two-finger scrolling and right-clicking as well as more configurable for the sensitivity, palm detection, etc.

I couldn't believe how much better my Thinkpad Edge touchpad worked under Linux, and the trackpoint nub was able to be sped up and adjusted so its my preferred means of movement when typing. So I think there's something to be said for both hardware and software (and drivers) which affect the final user experience; unfortunately there seems to be less concern or attention towards that aspect with PCs than Macs.

Re: Why Asus trackpad driver sets the CPU speed at maximum during scroll

#186

Post by brigade »

userbinator wrote: post #167

The problem of smooth scrolling without much-increased CPU usage was solved long ago, in the era of 8-bit systems, by rendering slightly more lines to the framebuffer and simply changing the address in VRAM where the CRT controller started reading the data for a frame. The CPU could then render the additional scrolled-out lines in the background. But it seems the common way to implement scrolling today is to either h…

Well apps want to scroll more than just a static image. And it's only partly the API's fault - OS X switched to overdraw only recently in 10.9, and without any major change to API.

Re: Why Asus trackpad driver sets the CPU speed at maximum during scroll

#187

Post by copperx »

overgard wrote: post #68
quinndupont wrote: post #52

In no way am I trying to incite Mac vs. PC, but after years of Apple laptops I grew bored with their aluminum fascism and decided (last year) to buy a top-of-the-line Thinkpad. A couple of months later, taking a huge economic hit, I sold the Thinkpad and returned to Apple. I simply could not handle the trackpad (and I gave up on the weird Thinkpad nubbin back in the early 2000s). I quite literally felt like I had a d…

I don't know that apple gets this right either. (I have a macbook). The actual tracking feels fantastic and precise, and it has a nice texture, but I /hate/ how they refuse to put real buttons below it. Things like "right mouse drag" which I use all the time become a nightmare, and the whole "no buttons" thing just seems like it's putting aesthetics over functionality.

Try dragging 3 fingers instead.

Re: Why Asus trackpad driver sets the CPU speed at maximum during scroll

#188

Post by nathanb »

FWIW, I have an Asus netbook running Linux, and the trackpad seems to work fine and not exhibit this behavior. Reading the article, this seems to be a Windows-specific issue (or, more accurately, an issue with the Asus Windows driver).

Oddly, I also don't see the problem as described by the Asus engineers. Perhaps it's because Linux power management is different enough that it doesn't apply, or because it's a different processor type (dual-core Atom).

One would think they could at least make this a configuration setting so users may choose whether to live with janky scrolling in order to not have gestures turn the laptop into a space heater.

Re: Why Asus trackpad driver sets the CPU speed at maximum during scroll

#189

Post by lucisferre »

aftbit wrote: post #64
quinndupont wrote: post #52

In no way am I trying to incite Mac vs. PC, but after years of Apple laptops I grew bored with their aluminum fascism and decided (last year) to buy a top-of-the-line Thinkpad. A couple of months later, taking a huge economic hit, I sold the Thinkpad and returned to Apple. I simply could not handle the trackpad (and I gave up on the weird Thinkpad nubbin back in the early 2000s). I quite literally felt like I had a d…

I think a big part of this is just personal preference. I've never used a Mac until a few weeks ago (for work), and I'm dying to return to my X220 or W530 trackpad. The giant glass pad is sticky and hard to use, and the scrolling gestures feel wrong to me. I've solved it by carrying a small external mouse in my laptop bag, and by using my MBP with a mechanical switch keyboard and a Logitech mouse 90% of the day.

I've used Windows machine and every type of mouse from logitech trackballs (loved those for FPS games and Warcraft too bad they don't make good ones anymore), include the ones you could clip to the side of a laptop, to nubbins, and of course trackpads of every sort for about two decades.

I also lean more to using the keyboard vs. the mouse. As I spent more and more time developing software I become more adept at not using a mouse to the point where I could pretty much avoid touching it for most of the day. In Windows, this really was much better than using the mouse most of the time.

When I first got a Mac I found myself using the trackpad again for the first time in a long time. It was a huge improvement, the responsiveness of the trackpad and utility of many multi-touch gestures were quite surprising. Because it was so close to the keyboard I could easily use the gestures in place of keyboard commands, without slowing down. When it came time to get an external keyboard I actually bought a trackpad, not a mouse to go with it. It is honestly that good, at that's what I've found.

Re: Why Asus trackpad driver sets the CPU speed at maximum during scroll

#190

Post by lucisferre »

ajcarpy2005 wrote: post #177
jarin wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This might sound kind of dumb, but just rub it on your face. I'm pretty sure the "smoothing out" is just getting a nice thin coating of oil on it, like seasoning a cast iron pan.

This is the kind of insight that sets HN comments apart. Simple but possibly Useful.

Really? This part of the thread looks like Reddit trolling, but you're right, it is hard to tell, could be serious. That probably scares me more.
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