Ideapad u330 - New owners :-)

Using Sam's settings, i crested my own power saver profile. With brightness down to 2 and wifi only and max cpu at 32%...I get 5 hrs and 10 min. Great for jumping from class to class.

Also, my audio settings are all weird. Listening to music is totally different then watching a movie, even youtube sounds different. I've played with the settings and all the sound enhancements. Can anyone tell what their settings are who dont have this problem.

 

5 hrs 10 min? Interesting.

This is changing the max cpu on Vista power settings right? Every time I try to change mine, it resets itself to 50% after a reboot.

As for your audio, trying changing your audio equalizer settings with those glowing orange media buttons.

 

Update on my shipping date:

After the date got pushed back 5 days, the same day I got a shipped out email saying it had shipped that very day. Odd, no?

Now checking delivery date is supposed to be for Tuesday!

Too bad I'll be gone all day that day and signature is required. I'll be happy to get it for sure. I'm tired of renting laptops out at my school library every two hours...

 

Yep this is on a full charge, and is done in vistas power settings. I had the same problem changing my max cpu by adjusting the bulit in power saver scheme to 32%, but it would always reset to 100%. So I made a custom plan and now the settings stay, try that hope it works. Let us know if it does.

 

Hmm... sadly no joy.

Still the same old 3.5 hr battery life. With your settings, I'm looking at a 12-13W power draw with 66 processes and factory installed Vista. I have one of the first batches of the U330. Also, my battery is hosed at 4800mWh capacity instead of the advertised 5600mWh. I'll look towards getting that warrantied after finals.

Anyone else have any better luck? 5 hours is absurdly good.

 

just took the plunge and ordered from my company a prebuilt spec for Canada:

Lenovo U330 59-016806 with:

Intel Core 2 Duo P7350
3GB DDR3-1066
250GB
ATI RADEON HD 3450 256MB
Integrated Sound card
DVD±R/RW
Built-In Web Cam
10/100/1000 & 802.11n
Windows Vista Home Premium

I'll let you know what I get with battery power after I get it.

 

Hmm.. This is the case for me as well. Had set it and forgot it; hadn't noticed that it got reset. Perhaps this is related to what Havoc reported with the proc not stepping down as expected..

 

try making a custom scheme.

 

For those of you that downgraded to XP, hows is it working out? Do you still have the functionallity as before? Anything different? I am guessing that you probably lose the energy management utilities.

 

Yeah it always reset to 50% after reboot.

So you get more juice out of your lappy than me. Good for you.

I don't have any problems with my sound.

 

Go to Power Options, and on the task to the left, theres an option to: Create a Power Plan. I named it Custom Power Saver. Once its named, go to change plan settings under the plan you just made, and continue from there. I made sure to click the Windows User account link at the top that says: Change settings that are currently unavailable, then I went to set the maximum processor state to 32%. and apply and ok.
- I really hopes this helps out.

Update: THE BIOS UPDATE HAS BEEN RELEASED, HAS ANYONE DONE THE BIOS UPDATE YET FOR THE U330?

 

Heres my battery life.

 

Hey thanks for the info JarJar.

I read on Lenovo forum that the BIOS update won't fix the loud beep if you unplug the charger outside of Windows. This may still be a problem for some.

Maybe you should wait a couple more weeks before deciding if you should update your BIOS.

JarJar can you run RightMarkCPU clock Utility and post your battery measurements here?

 

Rightmark CPU Clock Utility:

Designed Capacity: 56160 mWh

Fully Charged Capacity: 55860 mWh

- I was trying to uninstall rightmark, but there is no uninstall utility within the program and none in windows uninstall. Anyone know how?

 

anybody owned both X300 and U330 and compared between them?

 

Found this from RightMark FAQ -

Q: How do I uninstall RightMark CPU Clock Utility?

A: Uninstalling RMClock is really easy. It is enough just to exit the utility if it is currently running and completely delete the folder you have installed it into. To ensure a complete clean-up of the program registry settings, you can apply the RMClock_WipeOut.reg file found in RMClock folder beforehand.

 

Hey I'm Back. For all of you having problems with "power state resetting" Try setting a 32% power state within one of the pre-loaded settings. (e.g "Power Saver")
Right-click window power manager in task bar> Click power options > Click "change plan settings" (under whichever plan you want to modify) > click "change advanced power settings" > scroll down to "processor power state" > click the expand box > double click "max processor state" > set it to how you wish.

That works for me.. Also, for all of you who dumped vista, click the thumb:
The U330 is fast and sexy...

 

Is that that an Mac OSx widget, how'd you do it?

- I was reading on the lenovo forum/U330 BIOS update that the wireless gets messed up when they did the BIOS upgrade. Is this true?

 

Designed Capacity: 56160 mWh

Fully Charged Capacity: 58130 mWh

 

^what is your battery life with power saver? 5 hrs?

 

~ 4h with power saver (0,8Ghz, only on wifi, use web, 4/10 brightness, wifi with lowest power)
58130 mWh / 14-15000mWh

 

Go to stardock.com/downloads, the program is called "Object Dock." I have downloaded and installed custom icons into mine, as well as a custom background. Yeah, it does work like the Mac OS launcher.

The glass window you see on the left is Miranda IM. It is fitted with a glass skin, and highly customized. I would show you a shot with my buddy list loaded in there, but some people may abuse that. It looks great though, much better than the bloated AIM. Simple and clean.

As you can tell I like a clean desktop. On my sidebar I am using a program launcher. I also use rainlander for my calender.

On anther note. My U330 runs vista with maxed settings no problem. Vista loads fast, shuts down fast, and is buttery smooth. There is really no need for tweaking, although I have anyway. I have no glitches, except the one i had with Outlook. BTW, IF YOU USE OUTLOOK AND IT IS SLOW OR CRASHES, I HAVE SOLVED THE PROBLEM! I looked everywhere for a solution, most gave minor improvement, blaming the .pst file size, etc. The problem, however, was windows indexing/search ALL ALONG. It is a WORTHLESS feature of vista. IT makes searching faster... the few times that you need to search your computer, while making your computers slower ALL THE TIME. I disabled indexing by right clicking on the C drive long ago... but that does NOT stop the service! it is the service that KILLS OUTLOOK performance (and windows performance in general). OUTLOOK IS 5 times faster with the service disabled. Instant load nearly. To kill the service download "Ultimate windows tweaker" and click that option that says "disable search indexing in windows." wow what a difference. Without the "feature" I still have not run a search that last more than 30 seconds, in fact I never have. Not sure what Microsoft was thinking.

Ah battery life.. our poor U330. Max settings, I get 3 hours. However, when I cant get to the outlet, I use an "extra power save scheme" that I set up, and can get more like 4.5 hour that way (33% power state). The U330 goes with me everywhere, but most places I go there are outlets..

Has anyone noticed also that the battery life estimate may simply be wrong? I change my settings to let my U330 drain down to 3% before it goes into sleep mode. However, when it gets down to 5% and the time estimate says "6 mins" my battery A LWAYS takes about 20 more mins to get to 4% then maybe 10 more mins to get to 3%. Please try this, let me know if its the same for you. (That is on power save setting btw).

Also, as far the "design usage" and "actual charge capacity".. good luck with that one. Most likely the battery is NOT defective. The Lit-Ion battery is notorious for this behavior. What you need to do is drain you battery all the way out (like 3%) ON EVERY USE! That is, if you start using U330 on battery power, dont plug in until you have drained it all the way down. Plugging in sooner will degrade battery charge capacity FOR THAT CHARGE. Unless the battery is old, or otherwise defective, you will see much higher charge capacity if you let the battery drain all the way out, and then recharge.


Last, I would LOVE to see a fix for the bios so that jingle goes away.. Meanwhile, I use sleep mode. The U330 goes in and out of sleep very fast, and it does not burn any battery (maybe 1% over the course of hours in sleep mode). No Jingle on resume


Here is another screen shot of desktop:

 

What I noticed with the battery is that, if its at 97% to 90% it doesnt charge when its plugged in. It say plugged in but not charging. Am guessing that this is a feature that saves the battery.

 

yes, and I wonder if i can config for that (for ex: dont charge battery when battery >= 70%)

another question, if computer is off - battery = 95%, is it charge when plugged??

 

Anyone know where the u330 bios thread went.

 

Probably buried in the back.

Link is here.
http://consumersupport.lenovo.com/en/DriversDownloads/drivers_show_988.html

 

Anyone use the bios update yet?? Any problems?

 

Fixes the boot jingle. By default, it's off now. There's also options to turn it on, half-volume, and off in the bios.

Doesn't do anything about the beep when you go between AC and battery, but you can fix that by either muting your volume or disabling Windows beeps in Speaker properties.

It doesn't cause any new problems. But it doesn't do anything for power management, currently a work in progress as reported by Mark@Lenovo.

 

hi all,
how can i do that with u330 ??

 

Where did you get that battery option. I would like to set the battery to charge at my choice.

 

that image comes from other forums (in vietnamese) from a user of lenovo T400,

i want to do that with u330 but dont know how

 

its thinkpad power management software. so u'll have to wait for lenovo to come out with something similar for ideapads if they ever do

 

Man that sucks, this utility could save the laptop battery from being over-charged. Hope lenovo gets this out to our U330's.

 

helllo everyone who are not happy with battery management,

yesterday i was like you but today i'm happy.
in thinkpad (ex: lenovo t61), you have software "power management" to control battey, percent to charge, but it work only when computer is ON and only in Windows. So if the computer is on and in windows, it charge only when battery < 90% or 80% and you can config it.
If computer is off and battery = 99%, it charge when plug to AC power

In U330, there is not any software, but the computer control the battery in Hardware.
When battery < 90%, computer is Off, you plug it to AC power, the battery lamp is RED and it charge

When battery >= 90%, computer is Off, you plug it to AC power, the battery lamp is BLUE and it don't charge

So U330 is better, battery management works when computer is ON or OFF.

(sry for my bad english)

 

Thanx man, guess the U330 is smarter then I thought.

 

Hey guys, Check out my U330/Vista/Imposter Mac Style Bar...
I am using RocketDock, it's free and sooooooooooooooooooo...S I C K :O)

 

JARJAR1145

You can add something called KK dock or KK editor or something along those lines

basically, it can add an icon to your dock that will replace the windows start bar

I tried that whole setup sometime back, but I trashed it because somethings became too annoying to use. (ie the taskbar icons... although there is another fix for that, it is still lacking)

 

alright i have a question for you guys... somehow when i first got my u330 i disabled the microphone (to save battery), and i can't remember how to turn it back on. i know its simple...

how to do this?

 

No problem, Control panel > Hardware and Sounds > Click sound > go to recording tab > From there you can turn it on, enable or disable.

Also in control panel, scroll down to Realtek HD Audio Manager > go to the microphone tab and set the settings.

Hope this helps.

 

So I finally received my U330 about a week ago. 16 days after ordering, which is a short time compared with some of the members of this forum, but an eternity when it came to dealing with finals.

And it came with 1 Gig of RAM, despite my ordering of the higher configuration...I felt extremely annoyed at that and the fact that my 320 Gig HD didn't have 320 Gigs of space (I reread this thread to find out about the partitions, but I'm still skeptical it's all there...). They don't even sell a 1 Gig RAM configuration for the U330 so I was incensed.

I spent about 3 hours with Customer Service and Technical Support over the issue, increasingly angered at their responses...first of all, their recommended course of action was to return the laptop, wait for my credit to be returned to me and then re-order another of the same kind of laptop...this was ludicrous to me. If you send out the wrong computer you should at least be willing to take it back and IMMEDIATELY send the correct one. That's just common business sense to me. They dicked around with me for a long time when I decided to just return the thing, but I needed to talk to Tech Support to get a case no. I spoke to them for a while and I finally spoke to someone who was willing to work with me on the issue...we agreed to for me to get credited back the price of the missing RAM and I'd install it myself (ended up being $65). I just received an e-mail yesterday saying that it'd been approved.

I don't know what to do to be honest. I'm not sure if I want to keep the laptop or not. Is $65 enough to compensate for the missing memory, lost hours of my life on the phone (I hate talking on the phone), and being inconvenienced by this? The U330 itself seems to be pretty cool (my first laptop), a little slow, but I'm not sure if it's a RAM thing or a Vista thing (also my first with Vista), but I really love the form factor.

What do you guys think?

 

Congratulations... you've been initiated into the "Lenovo Customer service screwing with your order U330 club". My opinion, I would keep the system and just buy 2 gigs more and throw it in there. This laptop is smooth with 3 gigs, no troubles at all with vista. The HDD however is partitioned. So it is 320gb, but not for you to use, theres the partition/recovery and your c drive and another hidden partition. This laptop is light, great for taking to classes and kiling time. Plus it has the power to do just about anything, and I can do gaming with no problems.

 

Thanks...I think I'm going to keep it. Now, all I need to know is what to do with it. Supposedly, a lot of bloatware on it. I don't know how to tell the difference between that and useful stuff.

 

Removing the bloatware is no problem, but the software that is used to connect the wifi, the Readycomm sofware. that is kinda buggy, dont uninstall it, just disable it through its own menu and then disable it in services (adminstrative tools). Just do that and let vista handle the wifi.

 

Nice JARJAR, but I think I got you beat. Reflective Icons ;-)

 

Yes you do. Have any of guys noticed that the HDD acivity just wont stop, the laptop would would be idle, doing nothing and the harddrive just wont stay put. I dont know what its doing, but its working like crazy. I turned off indexing on both the c and d drive. Anyone else notice this?

 

Seriously considering the U330 but I have a quick question for those who own it: How does it game? I'm not talking about serious hardcore FPS gaming, i'm talking about WoW, WAR, and other RPG/RTS type games. What's everyone's gaming experience been like with this rig?

 

It'll handle wow and most RTS.

 

Any of you guys notice this?

 

If you're running Vista, turn off Superfetch.

 

Superfetch if off and indexing...any ideas.