Ideapad u330 - New owners :-)

Do the supplied Lenovo drivers work for Vista x64?

 

Why turn Superfetch off??? It makes launching your regular apps much faster. I have it on and it DOES NOT ever spin my HDD.

There are many things that can go on in the background. Do you have all the scheduled tasks disabled? (auto-update, defrag, virus scan) If you do, also make sure that the "windows Search" service is turned off. DISABLING INDEXING DOES NOT DO THIS.

To disable windows search, go to the start menu, type "services" in the search box, and run the app called "services" that comes up. Then scroll down and find "Windows search" (See pic). Right click on that and hit properties> then in a pull down box, select disable.

There are also many other services that are running in the background that could be spinning your HDD. This is normal, as long as it is not a 24/7 thing. (if it is, could be maleware). I could give you more tips on services to disable if you like... or you can search the internet. My HDD is always inactive when comp is idle.

Happy Holidays.

 

It made a huge difference to me. I had already tweaked all the other settings, but until I turned Superfetch off, my HDD was spinning like a top all the time. I haven't noticed a significant degradation in launching my apps.

As you say, though, it's just one variable in the equation.

 

are the problems with the u330 people have posted here the norm or the exception? I've been seriously looking at getting one, but this has made me think twice.
are the problems isolated with buying direct from lenovo?

 

Have the battery issues been fixed?

 

My U330 has a weird humming sound now, just noticed it. Whats going on?

 

hey guys, has any gotten the one key recovery to work on their U330? I push the one key recovery button but everytime i do so it only launches vista and not the recovery/restore software

 

Turn your laptop off, presss recovery key once to turn it on.

 

Have any of you found use for the Infra-red port (CIR)?

 

My xbox 360 remote turns on my U330.

 

Is there anything special you can do with it? Did the U330 recognize it right away?

 

i did, i had the laptop off, pushed the one key recovery but it only goes to vista :S

 

You didn't delete any hidden partitions did ya?

 

for some reason the 'hidden' partition shows up in my computer as drive 'X', sized 14GB... is this unusual? if it shouldnt show up at all, how do i rehide it?

 

Hmmm...I see the forum has a new and much deserved over-haul. Cool.

 

nope, no partitions were deleted, still have 'd' 'c' and 'x'

 

I am waiting for my laptop to arrive from Amazon tomorrow. It looks like most of the issues with it are either fixable (beeps, battery) or not big issues. Two things I still need to check out are the screen and the speakers. It seems to me that perception on those things is subjective as some people love it and some don't.

 

The screen on the U330 is by far the best that I've ever seen and used. Clean and clear, and I didn't have to play around with any of the display settings. As for the speakers, they are pretty good once you play around wth settings. Most of time I am using earbuds, but when I need to use the speakers its loud enough and clear.

 

So, I mean, how subjective can it be? Some people say that the screen is very washed out, then some adjust the settings and for some it looks good then and some still don't like it, then there are people like you who say that it is great right out of the box without any adjustment. Are there different screens that come with these laptops? Are some of them defective? Are some of them adjusted differently? Or is it really that subjective?

What settings did you adjust for the speakers? I am interested because I hated the sound on Sony SR that I had for a day. It crackled even at 50 per cent volume and it was still very quiet. Maybe I had a defective one.

 

The u330 only comes in the glossy. There are some people out there who are just very pickey and complain over every little thing.

The sound was adjusted in the Realtek audio control panel, i turned off all the special sound effects that this laptop has (Dolby stuff), and just have it set on normal.

 

I bet that also made it louder, didn't it? Is the sound loud enough to watch movies in a quiet room? How is distortion at loud volume?

Also, how long does the battery last when watching movies with integrated graphics?

 

This happens to me also. I've disabled indexing and superfetch. I downloaded some disk monitoring software and it seems to cycle through a few different program groups over and over (switchable graphics is one). One of these days I'll find the time to wipe and put Vista x64 on fresh and see if this alleviates the issue.

They must have shipped the U330 with some different screens.. I've seen much, much better quality. Slightly moving the angle of the lid changes the hue of all the colors on screen.. very frustrating; I'm constantly fiddling with it. The vertical viewing angles on mine is for sh*t. For example, on a website such as slickdeals there is alternately gray and white behind each post.. I can make the gray disappear by moving the screen slightly or moving my head. Terrible.

 

-The sound is pretty loud with the effects off for me, its even louder with some of the sound effects on (user prefered). There is no poppin or crakling stuff and no distortion.

-The HDD activity is something that am still working on, I don't know what this laptop is doing (I THINK IT'S WORKING ON SOMETHING TOP-SECRET).

-The screen on mine is set at one postion most of the time, websites show alright. I went to slickdeals, am guessing the blue and white your talking about is when you mouse over it, the post is highlighted blue.

 

Have any of you tried changing the settings on your screens via the graphics panels? Changing a few settings can really do marvels.

 

What are you settings?

 

Somewhere in the middle of this thread there's a lot of talk of settings, and quite a few people reported satsifying results.

I know a lot of screen complaints in reviews and such are based on default settings, which often suck. Digital vibrance FTW.

 

This laptop is fine. Screen is beautiful. I would say the speaker could be a bit louder. But it is a minor issue for me. And if you are at home the speaker is loud and clear enough for everyday use.

Nothing beats the U330 at this price range.

If you are looking for build quality like the MAC then don't bother with the U330.

Personally I prefer the U330 over the MAC.

The MAC screen is way way more glossy than the U330.

 

The quality of the panels in Macbooks are actually lower than the U330 - rather nasty with that massive price difference.

 

Received mine from Amazon yesterday. So far the only complaint is that the sound of speakers is just not loud enough. Speakers are louder (maybe not necessarily better) on Dell XPS 1330 but probably worse on Sony SR. I still am trying to figure out the best setting for the speakers; I don't know whether or not to use the equalizer and Dolby effects. If you watch a movie, the speakers don't really crackle or buzz, but they do seem to be humming when there low sounds are playing at higher volume. I don't know if it is unique to my laptop or not. I think it is probably the same on all of them. If I decide to keep this laptop, I am definitely getting some portable external speakers for it. I just wish they constructed it with better internal speakers. They do exist. And I would have paid extra $50-100 for that.

Screen. I think it is a really nice screen. I don't get all the complaints. I think contrast and brightness can be adjusted a little to suit certain personal preferences, but otherwise it is great. I was relieved to find that out because that was my biggest concern.

Construction is good. It gets quite warm when using the dedicated graphics card though.

I need to play with it more. If I find it lacking, I will order the 13.3-inch HP model from Amazon but I am afraid that one will not have a very good battery life.

 

I don't think that you had a defective one. The speakers on the SR are pretty much the worst I have ever used. I had both the SR and U330 and the LCD on the SR was much much better than the U330...

 

So would anyone who thinks that their speakers on U330 work very well be willing to do some tests with me? I want to make sure that mine are not defective. I am thinking of trying to set all audio settings to the same level and then play one of those sample tracks that come with Vista.

Please let me know if you want to test that. Thanks!

 

What settings do you have, do you mind sharing?

 

are you still interested in buying a used lenovo u330? I have mine for sale, bought in nov 2008. absolutely nothing wrong with it. email me at [email protected] if interested.

 

Ho-humm... I've placed on order for a U330.

 

I recently purchased the incase 13.3'' neoprene macbook sleeve for my U330 and I must say it is by far the best sleeve I have seen in person. This is by far more cushioned and quality built than any belkin, case logic, targus case I have seen and fits like a glove. The inside of the case is a plush faux fur material. It seems that people are pretty happy with their zeroshock III case. Although I liked the inside cushioning of the zeroshock III case, I wanted something that appeared more sleek and simple. So if you are in the market for a sleeve(which I hope everyone has one for the U330 due to the easily scratched back of the screen) I suggest the incase neoprene sleeve or the zeroshock III.

 

I think I have just found a rarely-mentioned... defect?... that seems to have plagued all U330s.

Now, this is nothing confirmed, still working on checking it...

But it looks like the system is unable, even if the settings are made to do so, to underclock the CPU to below 1.7 GHz. These processors are made to be able tun run at much lower clocks, and it looks like these laptops have some kind of issue with going lower.

I know that a few people have noticed this on the P7350 US version - and I seem to have on the Polish P8400 version. I will continue to investigate my unit - but if this isn't software-related, boy do we have a problem.

 

hey guys! does anyone having the switchable graphics-kind of the u330 experience display driver crashes using vista? => then please send a pm to me!
thanks, izmi

 

If you have solutions to problems, please post them on the forums for the common good...

 

hi enterknight,

i did not mean to withhold information. i asked because thinkpad users have problems with switchable graphics. when i did a websearch for similar problems of ideapad users today, i was surprised to find no reports.

so, if anyone knows of crashes of their ideapad related to ati graphics, please let me know!

thanks,
izmi

 

I've never seen anyone talking about a failure of the switching...

I've managed to get my clock down to .85 , somehow... but it's still strange, a little awkward, and should work out of the box.

EDIT: RMClock reports .85, but CPU-Z claims otherwise - looks like going below 1. GHz is nigh-impossible. I'll continue to try things, but if I'm correct... big issue.

 

EnterKnight,

That is really interesting. How do you check to to see what the CPU clock is? and you mentioned that it would not clock below 1.7 but you got it to go to .85. How did you manage to do this? Also, after you were able to get it down to .85, have you noticed any increase in battery life?

 

As mentioned in my edit, the clock does not go below 1.6 GHz. RMClock will report .85, however, the CPU does not comply and continue to run at 1.6. I have my machine running at power saver modified with even smaller CPU power limits, and it's idling at 1.6 GHz.

This is a pretty big issue - CPU uses more power and runs much warmer than it should, and running warmer means more fan usage, and so on. I haven't timed the battery, but it holds pretty well, however, it would have insane results if the CPU would clock down properly.

I'm still investigating - though my suspicion is that all U330s have this fault - and it's causing the battery life issues for many along with the hibernation problem...

I love this laptop but... doesn't look good.

EDIT: Windows Resource Monitor reports .79 ... very strange. Perhaps there is no issue after all...

 

Have you posted this on the Lenovo forums so that someone over there can be aware of this? Keep us updated and thanks.

 

I have.

Looks like it does clock down. Haven't seen it happen without RMClock, though - still observing.

 

The U330 Clocks down to 800MHz, or at least that is the lowest I have gotten it thus far. Not sure what you are doing wrong. Take a look at the pic. I have adjusted max processor state to 30%, which is 800MHz for some reason, although 2000*.30 should = 600MHz. As noted earlier on this thread, you can not just modify an existing power scheme. You must create a new scheme.

To further confirm my processor state, I clicked the performance tab in task manager, and ran a fractal program I have (the application does massive calculations, so it loads up the processor). When the processor state is 30% max (800MHz) CPU load is 100%. When I put the processor state back to 100% (2GHz), CPU load decreases proportionally. The correlation indicates that the U330 is able to clock down. The question of how much remains, since different programs get different results. The problem may be that some programs are just not compatible. For example, this program I am using is telling me that I have 2GB of ram, when all others report that I have 3GB, and in fact I do have 3GB. So be wary of these programs, they are not perfect. In fact, they are the most likely "problem" here.

Speaking of bad programs, the battery life estimates are way off for the U330. Take a look at the other screen shot. I get 3 hour 45 min with 88% battery left when I took that screen shot. However, in reality I have more. I adjusted my power settings to allow my computer to get down to 3% battery before turning off. This not only saves battery performance, it gives me much more unplugged time. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, when the battery life gets to "5%" it gets "stuck" at 5% for a very long time. In fact, I have had my battery meter tell me that i have 6 mins of life, when in reality, I used the computer for an additional 30 min or more. This is a huge discrepancy in the software.

Further, if you want to save more battery life, check out www codeplex.com/vistabattery/ . I don't use that program, but I have heard it's good. Vista is a power hog.

In the end , the U330 has higher battery performance than most laptops . Reduce your battery state, use power saving GPU, turn off bluetooth, and turn down screen brightness. 4 hours (which is at least what I get) is more than acceptable for the battery; size; and performance configuration of this machine.

Owner since November and I love it. The size and weight of the U330, together with its performance and design amaze me. Just 2 years ago, laptops this powerful were 17in bricks. Everyone who sees this wants it.

 

Roy, thanks for the nice rundown.

Do you use Lenovo's power management software, or do you have it uninstalled/off?

 

What does Lenovo include in terms of discs for Vista and Drivers on the U330?

Is it enough to do a clean install?

Is the hard drive bay somewhere easy to do a swap?

Thanks!

 

The OneKey recovery software lets you burn your own recovery DVD. Drivers are easily accessible on Lenovo's website.

The HDD bay is quite accessible.

 

Nice, thanks. As long as it has something to start from scratch on a new drive I should be OK. I assume there's a Vista key in the manual or affixed somewhere?

Amazon has 15% open box restock fee so I want to make sure I can do everything I need. On paper it looks nice for $999. Aside from the Asus N20, I'm not seeing anything for less that has similar features without being any bigger or heavier.

I'm reading through this entire thread now. Aside from mixed reports about battery life, any other complaints? Keyboard, touchpad quality? Does it get too hot in your lap? Make a lot of noise at all?

 

Sadly as a new owner of a U330, I don't have much in the way of positive experience so far with mine. It arrived with Vista corrupted and I had to do a recovery install right out of the box. After a month of owning it, it is overheating on a regular basis, even with a laptop cooler on it, the temps hover between 60c - 80c. I've called customer care trying to get someone to come out and look at it (I paid for the same day on site repair warranty) but all I am told is to blow air into the vents and that will solve my problems....it hasn't. So not only has it been defective out of the box, trying to get warranty help on it is all but impossible. I would expect this from a $299 emachines, not a $1100 Lenovo. So here is one long time Lenovo customer who will be looking elsewhere in the future.