upgrades for lenovo T420

Thinking about the T420, with a couple of upgrades on top.

When customizing the T420 to order, lenovo.com has an overpriced upgrade to 8GB RAM - almost $250. The very same part - 55Y3711 - is 2 x $70 = $140 at the lenovo.com accessories store, and that's just the first place I looked. Any reason not to buy the T420 with 2GB RAM plus the two 55Y3711 modules?

Also, other brands have DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) memory; will that work on the T420?

As far as disks go, I'm thinking about the Seagate Momentus ST9750420AS - hybrid SSD / 750GB drive. It's about $100 from Newegg, which is the same price as the Lenovo CTO upgrade to a 500GB drive. Worth it?

 

That is not a Hybrid.

I for one cannot recommend it (even sight unseen).

Neither the CTO 500GB upgrade or that Seagate is worth it in my opinion.

Consider the Scorpio Black 750GB which I managed to pick up for ~$100 shipped (on sale) instead.

Also with this being a second generation i core series, I don't think you should have any problem with using PC3 10600/10700 RAM.

This might also be interesting for you:

See:
Geek deals: 10 percent off Lenovo ThinkPad T420, T520 ? Computer Chips & Hardware Technology | Geek.com


Good luck.

 

You're right, that's not a hybrid drive. My bad. I was thinking about the ST95005620AS hybrid. Also $100 or so. Thanks for suggesting the Scorpio Black.

The memory question boils down to whether there are any reasons to buy the CTO memory upgrade, rather than buy the memory separately and upgrade on my own. What are the pros/cons, aside from the price?

Does upgrading the hard drive or memory violate Lenovo's warranty?

 

No, the HDD and memory are both CRUs (customer replaceable units), although obviously neither will be covered under the T420's warranty. Pro: you save a lot of money. Con: you need to spend your time installing both.

 

Hard drive & RAM usually count as user-serviceable parts, although I am not 100% sure with Lenovo. You should be able to find out on their website.

Pros/cons? Convenience, only having one warranty to deal with if some of your memory goes bad (unlikely), guaranteed compatibility (again not much of an issue if you do your homework on the 3rd party memory you order)

Just comes down to a cost/benefit analysis. The new laptop I've just ordered, maxing it to 8GB RAM came to like £40 more than if I'd done it myself, so I paid Sony for it - to me, the cash is outweighed by the convenience of having it done, not having to spend half hour of my time ordering it/fitting it/waiting in for 2nd parcel delivery etc...

Had it been £200 like they were asking for another laptop I looked at, then I'd do it myself. Depends how much you value your time really.

 

Shouldn't violate any warranty, but the upgrade memory price is ridiculously out of line with reality:

For $90 you not only get 8GB RAM, but also 2GB too which you can use to sell the system with in the future - or, sell it on ebay for a few bucks.

See:
Patriot Signature DDR3 4GB CL9 PC3-10600 SODIMM at Memory Express Computers

 

Thanks, guys, that's what I was thinking too. And as long as I'm going to upgrade the RAM by hand, I might as well upgrade the drive - and get a spare 250GB to keep or sell.

 

Get the Ultrabay and use the drive for backups.

 

It turned out that the same Lenovo-branded memory part 55Y3711 is $60 from lenovo.com if you're eligible for a student discount. So $120 for two 4GB sticks. Much better than the CTO price. Not as cheap as third-party RAM deals, but it's direct from Lenovo and it's low-halogen.

Putting the stock drive in the Ultrabay is a great idea. Is an Ultrabay useful for anything other than a second HDD / SSD?

 

If you don't use the ODD or need a secondary HDD/SSD, you could just use it as a "weight saver", though some people are picky about weight balance. Not sure if Lenovo still has a battery for their Ultrabay, but if they do, that is another option.

 

A lot of the press/marketing for the new 420 has concentrated on the 30 hours maximum run time, which I believe involves putting a battery in place of the optical drive.

 

The max run time is based on the Intel integrated graphics option with a 9-cell primary battery and a battery slice under the machine.
The T420 does not have a battery connector in the ultrabay (they removed that option from the T series ultrabay awhile back), so ultrabay batteries will not be compatible with the T420.

 

Cheers for the info, didn't realise it was a slice on this one, don't know where I got the Ultrabay thing from.

 

Does anyone know, if a quad sandy will run in the notebook?
I think it will get to hot?

Found some on ebay for around 250$.

 

It wasn't designed for them, not sure if the BIOS would support it.

 

wrong topic

 

But surely installing both the hard drive and memory modules are a quick job to do on the T420 (I can't imagine it being different to the T410)? If it means investing a few minutes of your time for potentially huge savings over Lenovo customised options in return then I don't see it much as a negative aspect! The lack of warranty support is the catch though.

 

As far as replacing the hard drive - do I need to get anything off of the factory installed HDD before I remove it / wipe it? Can I just put in a new drive and install an OS on it, or do I need to get drivers or other Lenovo software from the factory drive first?

 

You can't really "get" drivers from a factory drive unless you clone it (either the OS, or the recovery partition). Drivers are usually best gotten off the manufacturer's site (Lenovo in this case). So no, you don't really need to get anything off the factory installed HDD. However, if you don't plan to use the HDD, I'd keep it as is in case of the need for warranty returns; that way you can just install the old HDD before you send it off for service, and have no worries about losing your data or the security of your information. If, on the other hand, you plan to use the HDD, then obviously you'll want to clear it or otherwise use it.

 

You should be able to get the drivers from the Lenovo website, it isn't necessary to extract them from the existing factory drive. Though at the time of writing there isn't a T420 section on the support site as yet.

Of course you can use your initiative and download the OEM version (direct from the vendor such as Intel, Nvidia etc.) for the graphics, wireless drivers in the mean time.

 

For those playing along at home: the HDD and memory upgrades were pretty easy. There's a nice youtube video on how to pop out the keyboard to get access to the DIMM slot underneath. No issues with the Momentus XT. The T420 runs like a champ. Windows 7 performance rating computes at 4.9; the lowest score (which is what determines the final rating) is for graphics performance, and in my case that's for the Intel HD 3000 graphics.

Lenovo has already posted all of the drivers online, but they are not yet listed on the "driver matrix page". There's even a handy RSS feed of driver updates.

The only glitch was that the Windows 7 does not include drivers for either the onboard gigabit Ethernet card or for the Thinkpad b/g/n WiFi module. I had to download all drivers via a separate machine and sneakernet them over.

If you have any questions about the T420, feel free to ask.

 

I would be interested in the full spec's of your specific machine, what system you upgraded from (if it was really an upgrade) and what your general impressions are from your new system.

Yeah, I want a (mini) review!

Something like this (don't need all this detail, but it would be nice):

See:
Lenovo ThinkPad W520 - mini review - Keith Combs' Blahg - Site Home - TechNet Blogs


Thanks in advance!

 

Sure, I'll try to put up a review once I get some experience with the machine.