Lenovo Thinkpad T410 Owner's Lounge

Top middle of bezel right above the webcam. It is awesomely strategically hidden and placed

 

I see! Very good location for it! Thanks.

 

OK, so I am a little late on the uptake on this (I hope!) great laptop. I should be getting mine by the middle of next week. I was glad to see that the early problems with switchable grafix was fixed in October. I had a TP many years ago, but dont even remember the model number. I have been on a (company issued) Dell Latitude D600 for about 6 years and it has held up well, although it is basic with no frills or bells and whistles. My coffee table unit is a HP Mini netbook and I am frustrated with its lack of horsepower and my wife uses our desktop almost exclusively (shuttle). The unit I ordered has basically every option aside from SSD (I will add myself) and Office (supplied from my employers MAPS) So here are the specs:

i7 2.6GHz
8GB RAM
NVidia Optimus switchable
GOBI WWAN
Fingerprint reader
WXGA+
500GB 7200 (to be switched to OCZ Vertex 2 120GB. The 500 will be in an external eSATA enclosure)
3YR TPP with priority on-site
Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit
3YR Computrace (I am sold on this option after buying a stolen lappie and having the company recover it, and my money was reimbursed too!)
Webcam
9 cell battery
Bluetooth
Centrino 6300 n

I already know I paid too much for it (~2183 USD not including tax/Computrace), but reason was out the window when I finally decided what I wanted. None of you know about that,right?

Anyway, I guess I have 2 questions:
Are there any new perks on the (soon to be released) T420? Maybe eSATA 6.0Gbps? USB3.0? Quad core i7? Not that I have buyers remorse, I just want to make sure that it will last for 3-5 years and not be outdated right away.

Next question, Should I image the factory loaded OS to the SSD or fresh load? I know there is an alignment issue, but it sounds like it is pretty easy to get around these days.

I am glad for you guys (and gals) and this forum. No-one else understands!!

Jonesy

 

@Jonesing4Wind
The specs you chose are monstrous, and most likely will take you a bit more than three years, but its always better to cancel (if you can) and wait for the T420 since it is just around the corner. OCZ Vertex 2 in my opinion is the best SSD out there along side the C300, good choice by the way , and a clean install is what I would recomend, but if you'd like to image the factory loaded OS into the SSD that is not such bad idea taking into account that Lenovo don't really bloatware the preloaded OS.

 

THermoD: I will image it anyway. It's force of habit, with all the computers I work on. I will probably go for the fresh load and have the TIB (acronis image) to fall back on if something goes sideways. I find I am more familiar with the drivers and OS if I do it this way. I just dont want to lose any features like power options, switchable grafix, etc if I load a clean image. But from my reading, all the software/drivers are readily available. Are any specs available on the T420 yet? Unless there is some bada$$ benefit to the T420, I will go ahead and accept the shipment (supposed to be this Wednesday) and start playing with my new toy.

Oh and BTW: I will be running a couple virtuals on this hardware. That was the main reason I went so heavy on the specs.

 

Another reason I will probably stick with the T410 is that "Bleeding Edge" products usually need some time in the wild before they mature. I will be using this for at least 1 business (maybe more, depending on my employment situation) and cannot be without it for unknown or unforeseeable problems.

Jonesy

 

T420 releases in two days. Preliminary specs:

16:9 display HD+ resolution
Integrated gfx, or NVIDIA NVS 4200m Optimus
mSATA ssd
USB 3.0
Slightly thinner and lighter weight
720p HD camera w/new even lower light sensitivity

Likely has much better power consumption based on what we know about sandy bridge so far.

 

Whew!! I was hoping I would find something wrong with the T420! I prefer 16x10, and the mSATA drives cannot compete with the best 2.5 SSD's yet. The rest is sour grapes, sure I would like a better cam, but USB cams are always an option and with the 9-cell giving me (real world) 4-6 hours I think I will stick with my new (soon to be outdated) T410.

THanks for all the info guys!

Jonesy

 

Hi Jonesing4Wind.

Below are my specs:

i7 2.6GHz
2GB RAM
NVidia Optimus switchable
Fingerprint reader
WXGA+
250GB 5400
1YR TPP Normal warranty
Windows 7 Home 64bit
Webcam
9 cell battery
Bluetooth
Centrino 6300 n

I paid for 1340 USD including tax last month, then spent
95 USD for 8GB Kingston Ram
219 USD for the OCZ Vertex 2 128GB SSD
20 USD for a CAPDASE Screen protector
20 USD for a Case Logic pouch
45 USD for a T410 Ultrabay Caddy
60 USD for a 500GB 7200 HDD
28 USD for Bluesolei (to use with Server 2008 R2 X64)

Afterwards, ghosted the entired 250GB HDD (just in case for warranty issues), installed Server 2008 R2 X64 on the OCZ SSD (1 single partition), disabled swap file in C:, set TEMP and Internet cache files to the 500GB HDD. Everything went well, cold boot into Server 2008 R2 in under 10s.

Hope my T410 can last for 3-5 years

 

New T410 i5: recommendations for removing bloatware/links?
anything recommend to keep or delete from the ThinkVantage software?
Do I need it all? Do I need it at all?

mmmm, opinions!

 

No need to delete anything. Thinkpad is known for their efficiency in "bloatware" area. Most of thinkvantage software is quite useful such as : access connection, power manager, system update and active protection.

Other such as corel movie factory lenovo edition and winDVD i think are also quite useful, although i rarely use that.

Others in this forum may have different opinion and experiences. So it is better to gather as much as possible and determine what suit you best. I personally never do anything on the pre-installed image on Thinkpad, IMO they have already put everything you need there. And they already fine-tuned the program and drivers to meet "enhance experience" moniker (ok, some will argue that this is only a gimmick from lenovo )

My point is, you dont need to remove anything, unless you plan to do a clean install. The package is already good, no trialware, no sponsor or advert programs, etc and Thinkvantage is quite useful. Am i repeating myself?

 

WOOHOO!! That's what I am hoping for!

Jonesy

 

Just wanted to ask y'all how this set-up and price looks:

THINKPAD T410i
- INTEL i5-480M (2.66GHZ,3MB)
- Window 7 Professional 64
- 14.1WXGA+TFT
- IN.GR.M.A.5700MHD-AMT,TPM
- 4 GB PC3-8500 1067MHZ 2DIMM
- Touchpad with Fingerprint Reader
- 2.0 MP Camera
- 500GB HDD 7200RPM
- DVDREC8XMAXD.L.U.SLIMS.ATA
- 6-cell battery
- Bluetooth w/Antenna
- Intnel Centrino 6250 with WiMax

$760 before tax. Did get this through the EPP site.

Thank you!

 

Not a bad price at all. Only standard 1 year depot warranty?

 

Yeah, 1 year depot. I do live in Durham, NC (near the warranty center I'm pretty sure). I was told I can always extend it. I've had two ThinkPads previously (both while under IBM) and I never had an issue. Have you all found it's worth the money to get an extended warranty? Upgrade to NBD?

 

hi,
I wonder if the ultrabay battery
Lenovo Support - ThinkPad Battery 42 (3 cell bay) - Overview
works on t410?

 

No, this is not compatible with T410 (as specified)
this will only work with T410s

 

Hello everyone,

I have owned my T410 for almost a year now. (I bought it last May) I now have a few concerns about the unit. Nothing major just minor stuff.

I recently upgraded the ram to 8gb (DDR3-1333 CL9-9-9-24) The bios reads it all fine, but in Windows 7 it says 8gb "7.53 usuable". Anyone know why? I have the NVS 3100m card in my T410.

I use this machine a lot for virtulization. I use to keep the guest os's on the same drive as the ssd. Recently I moved all but one guest os to a HDD in the ultrabay. Ever since I did that my host os has been rather sluggish. Espiecally with Lenovo programs. Like the Power Manager it takes very long to open and close and sometimes crashes.

The Host OS has barely anything on it.

The SSD is the Lenovo/Toshiba OEM one. (Yeah i know I regret it now, considering the price I paid for it.)

Any help would be appreciated for either problem. Just fyi the ram upgrade I did it after not before.

 

HDDs are VERY SLOW compared to SSDs. If you moved your virtual images over to the HDD, then probably that is the thing that causes your system to be sluggish. The sluggishness can also appear long after you have closed your virtual machines. And if you are switching between virtual machines, it is probably the HDD that is forcing your computer to be slow.

I use virtual machines at work, using vmware. And after I have closed down the virtual machine (suspend), it takes 5-20 minutes before the host machine is back to being usable. Even though vmware is closed, I suspect in the background it is still active. There is an awful lot of HDD activity in the host, and for some reason it is extremely slow while things are saved to the HD. I suspect Windows is recovering the paging file while vmware is saving something. It is just terrible, the machine barely reacts. And that is a quad core notebook.

A collegue has the virtual machines on an SSD, and has none of these problems (otherwise the two notebooks are the same). So if you can afford to keep your VMs on the SSD, that would probably solve your problems.

One way to prevent this is to always shut down the virtual machine. Even with the booting and program restarting inside the virtual machine, this way seems faster than suspending. Just shutting down the VM can be completed in a minute or so. Suspending just wastes too much time in the host. If I want to shutdown the host and I try to suspend the virtual machine, the host will take forever to hibernate or shutdown.

Too bad, because it really spoils the virtual experience.

 

Durham to Morrisville is a pretty quick trip, but I'm not sure if you can just show up on their doorstep with a dead ThinkPad.

Honestly, if you're patient and own a nice set of screwdrivers, I'd skip out on the warranty. The HMMs are published and most of the stuff that can break is a CRU -- so if you're OK sourcing parts online (and if you can afford the downtime) it's pretty easy to solve most anything yourself.

 

question, do any of you guys hear a unique clacking when you press the ESC key? I also hear it when I press the mute button.

 

@lenardg Yeah I do understand that the virtual machines are much slower on the HDD. But I only put the ones I use occasionally on it. Your experiance however sounds painful. For my suspending vm's on my HDD only takes about 10-15secs but there is no ackward hang after its done. I am probably going to try and reformat. Cause the sluggish performance I get even when I am not touching a VM.

Does anyone know if a need a special tool to reformat a ssd? or just use Windows?

 

https://ata.wiki.kernel.org/index.p...mand_time-out_during_erase_with_larger_drives

Secure erase. It will also bring back write performance.

Perhaps your ESC is loose or broken? Get some compressed air and blow out the keyboard?

 

There is likely some flex around the top-left area of your keyboard. Try to re-seat the keyboard. If that doesn't help, some masking tape beneath that area should.

(Having suggested that, I always believe the customer does not need to "muck around" with a supposedly premium product.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rc2rGryt2Fg

 

Just curious: can you take out the ODD in a T410s and take advantage of the decreased weight without leaving a gaping hole in the side of your laptop? Ie is there a easy, secure, reliable way of covering up that area without adding any weight?

 

I tried this over the weekend. I am having a really hard time trying to figure out a way to get the ssd to a non frozen security state.

Tried putting the SSD in the ultrabay, tried hot plugging it in after I booted into linux, tried a external case connected via esata. Im going to try a older desktop computer later today. If that doesnt work anyone have any ideas?

 

I get that "clacking" with the arrow keys, but not the ESC key.

 

A small gap under the arrow keys (bottom right area) "echoes" the key contact. In my case, the gap was around the top right area. A tighter fit, either by reseating the keyboard or with pieces of masking tape underneath, will eliminate the "clacking."

 

My T410 just developed a problem a few days ago where the left big touchpad button is very sticky. My T42 had this same problem.

Is there an easy solution for this?

 

I just put a Samsung 470 256gb into a T410. What a huge difference in productivity. Applications and documents open really fast, and I no longer dread turning the machine back on for a quick task. Total boot time is about 40 seconds, with 10 taken up by Lenovo. I just ordered another one for my backup machine. Don't hesitate, you will never go back to a spinning disk.

 

Does anyone know what this Lenovo Display 1440x900 update March 2011 is all about?

 

Eh? What are you talking about?

 

A driver that was included in Windows Update recently, but isn't on Lenovo's site yet. I installed it a couple days ago and haven't had any problems. It's likely just adding support to newer models.

 

New models (T420/T420s) are going to be HD+ 1600x900.

 

Good point.

 

Just bought a T410 and it seems to go into hibernate mode after appx. 1 minute. Been working with computers for a while, so I tried the usual under the power management and the Screensaver, but cannot get it to stop hibernating.

 

Does that imply I can simply slot in a SIM card and configure my thinkpad to browse?

 

Actually I do not have W510/W520- I have HP 8540 elitebook, but I bought same screen as it is used in W510 (AUO 156HW01 v.4)...
I also see screen offers good colors, but over-saturated...
My novice question is how can I calibrate it...
Also, is it possible to use someones .icm file???
If possible please send some good one and tell how to use it...
Many thanks

 

Hi, I'm a new owner of the t410 with i5-520m cpu laptop. It's even been recently manufactured...well the dvd drive says its made in april 2011. and bios etc..

Anyways....I don't know if turbo boost is actually working or not as I don't see any physical numbers to show it...

with speedstep enabled in bios....it feels very slow actually....super pi, 3dmark06 and sc2...feel the same as my old dual core 2ghz notebook. With thinkvantage software...it says turbo boost is enabled....

when I disable speedstep in bios...everything improves significantly...it feels much faster....but intel turbo boost monitor shows it going up but still says 2.4ghz....same with argus monitor...it seems to stay at 2.4 ghz...ive never seen it go to 2.93 ghz with turbo boost.....thinkvantage software where it used to say turbo boost enabled...is missing on the software..wuts going on?

 

Do you have the Intel Turbo Boost Driver installed on the machine? If not try using this driver.

 

So, I've been using this laptop for a little while now....I got a few gripes about the laptop.

When I wake up the laptop from sleep. The wifi internet is not instantly ready. Like, I have to wait for it to turn on, then reconnect to the network. 15-30 seconds....It's not long, but it sure does feel long..is this normal?

My biggest gripe is the sound quality of the audio out of the headphone jack. I had a sony vaio before with realtek hd audio driver.and I have the headphone jack connected to my amp and speakers...when I changed songs, I could see and hear/feel the woofers move air...I don't notice this with the lenovo laptop. With the vaio laptop. I could turn it the amp volume say 50/100 max and its loud enough to hurt me.....with the lenovo. I need to turn it up 50/100 to sound alright...and if I turn it up even more, it don't seem to make much difference at all compared to my vaio which would not stop......Will a usb sound card solve this problem? I'm using the expresscard slot already for a vidock so dont suggest a pcmia card solution or anything like that...

 

This might be a stupid question but you can get a display port cable that plugs into HDMI right? well does this limit the capabilies of the laptop. What I mean is, does it mean that I cant power a full hd screen in this way?

 

Can someone tell me what memory does the T410 use? Is it PC3-8500 or PC3-10600?

Computer memory upgrades for Lenovo ThinkPad T410 Series Laptop/Notebook from Crucial.com

 

Either module will do fine though the T410 takes PC3-8500 modules as standard. If the PC3-10600 is not that much expensive to the PC3-8500 then I get that as you can always salvage it for later should you want to upgrade to newer notebooks such as ones with Sandy Bridge architecture for example.

 

Thanks Hearst I think i'll go PC3-8500. I also plan on buying Lenovo memory because from experience ThinkPads are picky about memory for some reason. My T60 doesn't like any non Lenovo memory in the 2nd slot or it'll BSOD from sleep.

 

Complain about Thinkpad T410 bad quality !

Within one year around, this is the third time my T410 (SN: *, CASE NO. P4D61RF) got problems. This time the monitor cannot display anything, it keeps black, but if i connect to other monitor, it will display normally on the other monitor. It means the laptop's own monitor got some hardware problem. And two weeks ago, the lenovo engineer came to my house to change a new monitor, but my thinkpad still cannot display anything. Then the engineer bring back the laptop for further examine and repair. So far two weeks passed, I didn't get any feedback and call the lenovo service center (Singapore) to complain about this, they always find some excuses.

Here I would like to address one more time: I strongly suspect this T410 product has very serious problem and the quality is too bad. I have another old ASUS laptop bought in 2004, now 7 years old already, but still can work well and I never repaired my old laptop in the past 7 years ! How come your only 1 year Thinkpad T410 got so many problems??? Last week I already request one to one exchange but the singapore lenovo care always find some excuse to reject this request !!!

Lenovo must take actions to be responsible for your poor quality product !!! Now I was very disappointed with Lenovo thinkpad product quality and your customer service !!!

I hope you can face your problem bravely and honestly, not always give some excuse to customers!

 

has anyone upgraded the base N-1000 on the t410 to the Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300?

Is it worth the upgrade when the current n-1000 never gets disconnected but is sort of slow

 

The 1000 is only 2 x 2, while 6300 is 3 x 3. I've never owned a 1000, but 6300 is a great WLAN. My Alienware's 6300 always has max bars and is fast.

 

I just got one of these. Here are my specs:

i5 540m CPU
Nvidia 3100GPU
120GB Samsung 840 SSD
DVD-RW
WXGA+ LCD
Fingerprrint, Camera, Bluetooth, etc.

This is my first machine with an SSD and man is it fast!!!!

The weight of this machine is very, very nice. It's even lighter than my D630 which was the lightest laptop in my collection. It was the D630 that made me fall in love with the 14" widescreen form factor. Because this machine features the higher res LCD it allows me to work much more comfortably than on on the WXGA LCD in the my D630.

Other thoughts: It's nice to have a Thinkpad keyboard again. That being said I never really had an issue on my Latitude E6500, E6520, D830 or D630. But this keyboard offers a more pleasant typing experience. Maybe it's the fact that for the last 10+ years all that I have owned laptop wise has been either Thinkpads or Powerbooks (G3,G4 era). Whatever it is this keyboard is very nice and comfortable.

My temps are a bit high. I idle around 60c and under load it can shoot up to 93c. So I will have to re-paste the CPU. Once that is done I am pretty sure I will have far lower temps.

Other than that, I am extremely happy with this computer. It's going to be my primary computer for a long time. Nice and light, very fast, the LCD is easy on my eyes and it just looks awesome. I might be late to the T410 party, but I plan on staying and enjoying it.

 

So my recently acquired T410 was running very hot. Browsing the web using Firefox with a few tabs open and VLC playing some tunes would result in CPU tempts in the lower 90's celcius. Just idling at the Windows desktop would have temps hovering in the mid 60's. So I figured that the machine was past due for a good cleaning and a new layer of some Arctic Silver 5.

Below are some pictures of the process.

http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c163/Temetka/20140606_195022_zps1efb1a65.jpg

http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c163/Temetka/20140606_195108_zps4bd7e09f.jpg

http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c163/Temetka/20140606_195132_zpsb4112e48.jpg

http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c163/Temetka/20140606_204112_zps0ebd0cb1.jpg

http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c163/Temetka/20140606_204142_zpsdd31fc5d.jpg

http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c163/Temetka/20140606_204222_zpsc39e16bf.jpg


The end result is idling temperatures are around 44 degrees celcius and load temps are in the low 80's. The fan barely comes on now and the whole machine is settling in nicely. I've read a lot of reviews about this unit and many people commented on how cool and quiet this machine is and I was finding it hard to believe. Well, now I do. I have replaced the TIM on many laptops in my life and it has never failed to reduce the temps. But I am very happy with the drastic reduction in temps.

EDIT: Lenovo had a plastic black sticker on the CPU with cutouts for the 2 exposed dies. The old TIM had gotten underneath it and was quite nasty. So I removed it. Unfortunately, the 91% isopropyl alcohol I used to clean the TIM from the rest of the CPU was not able to remove whatever glue they used to adhere the sticker to the CPU.

EDIT 2: If I am having 2 instances of flash running the CPU can get into the 80's. If I am browsing while having LVC hand me some tunes, then it's in the low 50's. HD video playback from youtube will put it in the mid 50's and local video keeps it in the mid 40's to upper 40's.