Lenovo U410 Owners Lounge

I'm seriously considering buying the U410, but I want to make sure I get a good deal. I just was looking at Lenovo's site and saw a U410 for $729 as a WEEKLY DEAL. Is this a good sale? Has anyone seen them go for cheaper? I'm not familiar with Lenovo's sales (e.g. how often they occur and if the prices fluxuate frequently), so I wanted to ask here first.

EDIT: I ended up waiting until Black Friday to make my purchase (while checking nearly everyday since my OP). I got a deal for $600 on Lenovo's site with the i5 base config. Overall, I really do like the U410. However, mine does have the WiFi issues. It does not disconnect or drop WiFi, but download speeds decrease exponentially as I get farther from my router. The lowest speed I get is 3 mbps (3-4 rooms away from the router, on the same level) compared to my other laptops which get 20+ mbps. The lower speed really isn't noticeable when browsing the web. Even streaming Netflix and YouTube has been fine so far (i.e. no interruptions from buffering), but I have only spent a few hours streaming and will have to do more testing to confirm. However, the lower speed is definitely apparent when downloading large files. I am going to try out a T430u, which is very similar to the U410, within in the next couple weeks. If the screen is better and the WiFi speeds are faster then I may switch over.

 

Haven't been on these forums in about 2 years but I am back now.

Just bought a U410 for doing school work on so that I am not distracted by all the crap at my house. Newegg had the newer windows 8 model for 629 ( Newegg.com - lenovo IdeaPad U410 (59351632) Ultrabook Intel Core i5 3317U(1.70GHz) 14" 6GB Memory 750GB HDD + 24GB SSD HDD NVIDIA GeForce GT 610M). I plan on using this exclusively with ubuntu (maybe a dual boot to play tf2 now and again). Does anyone know if they actually fixed the wifi issue? Also which exact msata ssds are you guys buying from crucial, I might be picking one up after Christmas.

 

Hi there mikey and everybody else, sorry for the late reply, uni is so busy...i can tell you that the ultra book is lovely..compared it to my mates 2012 mbp 13inch and tbh only big difference is the screen otherwise the u140 specs vs mbp specs even after your mini upgrades, u410 is still better(no offence to mbp users out there)...i got this machine because i love the looks and once i heard about its upgrading capabilities i was sold...now when it comes to linux....oh dear let me break it down

1.Partitioning....I dont know why lenovo shipped their u series with 4 partitions in them already..when you can only make 4 partitions in windows and no more...great job lenovo!keep it up!..i had to sacrifice one of the "lenovo" partitions in order to create my one logical one...i just copied the lenovo driver setup files to the C drive and its still fine.

2. In order to install Linux onto the u310/u410 you have to break this "special" RAID0 setup...the main problem is the intel rapid start crap...it makes the ssd and hdd "fused to one" thats the reason why linux cant see partitions when you try to install it and you get this "system root file is not defined..blah blah blah".

3.Now i have some solutions....if your going to install linux ONLY..then disable the RAID0 and switch it to ACHI...then do your ubuntu setup...try switching it back to RAID0 once the setup is done.etc..RAID0 and iRST basically makes your boot times faster...

4.If your installing a Dual windows/linux boot then i dont know yet! thats my main goal but im having a hard time researching all the information...and i need to install ubuntu asap because its part of my coursework i also need windows for other important computer science apps

Those guys at lenovo are smoking some good grade...4 partitions...RAID0 problems...ive never had a hard time trying to install linux.ubuntu dual boot but lenovo has challenged me!wow!

My next move is to back up everything (even lenovo drives etc), create a windows live bootloader usb, install ubuntu through usb(wubi is just utter jokes), create windows 7 usb...and do a fresh install for all...

Overall, i like the pc....its quiet..really quiet...quick...NO WIFI ISSUES so happy about that...doesnt heat up, only does if your crunching huge numbers..i like it...its very classy and stylish..although apple users are like "its a clone" i really dont care, the fact that i paid £380+ less for the same spec as the mbp and is upgrade able, im happy...i might jump on the mbp wagon later on in two years so that i get to learn how to use the iOS..i have to because its part of my career prospects...im going a bit off topic but apple is alright..they are just priced with apple tax..dont know why...and the build quality of apple products are great...i was once an alienware fan...i am still but...il stick to desktop gaming and have a nice thin powerful ultrabook for work purposes

pm me or post here if you have any more questions..i hope this helps..if i find a solution for linux il come back and post it up, sorry for the typos, if any

 

I have been using this thing for a week now and I love it!!! Its got perfect Ubuntu (12.04) support. I just had to install bumblebee to get optimus working and created a small script to customize the touch pad (touch and locking drags)

 

When you are playing music or movies using the notebook's internal speakers, do you also have the extended sound options active at the bottom of the SRS Premium Surround software? Can someone comment on this?

 

I can confirm the SRS software is active whenever I've got any kind of audio playing. I tweak the EQs depending on what I'm listening to.

 

please share your information on how you got ubuntu running on your machine?and are you doing a dual boot..and also please share your small script for the touch pad

 

All you have to do is enable legacy boot in the bios and you can then install whatever you feel like... Didn't feel like dual booting tbh. The touchpad already works there is just a few extra features you can enable using the command line

 

Strange, in my case the extended options are only active when plugging in headphones or external speakers (have the U300s though). What driver do you have installed?

 

ah thank you....so all i have to do is enable legacy boot and i should be able to run windows and ubuntu?i just want to confirm before i try anything out

 

I have never dual booting windows 8 but in perfect theory yes. For me I have ubuntu installed on the Msata ssd with /home and /usr mounted on the hdd (once the Crucial Mssds get under 100 for 128gb I will be switching to one of those)

 

Very weird. I've attached screenshots of what the dolby interface looks like without any headphones/speakers plugged in. Also got the drivers right below that.

 

I only have the SRS Premium Sound Software, not Dolby Home Theatre. Maybe it is normal that it does not work with the U300s' internal speakers. Will have a look for the driver ... Thanks!

 

Anyone made the leap to Windows 8 yet? My buddy just got one of the dell xps 12s with inferior specs to my u410 and it FLYS! Examsoft finally supports it and that was the only thing holding me back from upgrading. Any thoughts/experiences before I spend Saturday morning formatting my u410?

 

Well Mine came out of the box with windows 8... does that count?

 

Yeah, how does it work? Are the touchpad gestures smooth? Any driver or performance issues? Any issues with the metro or desktop apps?

 

well for the 15 minutes i used it it felt faster then win 7. no issues

 

I am looking to pull the trigger on the U410, but I have been growing very concerned about the reported and unfixed WiFi issue that has plagued both the U310 & U410 models.

Has this issue been fixed yet?

 

If one was to Google this the answer would be yes. If you are buying it from a authorized third party (like newwgg or tigerdiect) you want to make sure it comes with windows 8 out of the box, otherwise it might be an earlier production model

 

I am from the UK so I'd be purchasing from either Amazon or John Lewis, both whom have excellent returns policies so returning it wouldn't be an issue if the U410 did have the WiFi issue.

I did a google search and it pulled up some Amazon reviews from December 2012, although it is possible these people bought their U410 a few months ago and have decided to post a review.

I will wait until after Xmas and then decide....

 

Not fixed. Just as bad with new builds. I bought one bestbuy the make date was in December. Win 8 pre-installed. WiFi was pretty poor. Returned to bestbuy and tested a second new-in-box right there with the geek guys and that one also did worse than all the other laptops on the floor. Lenovo support forums are chock full of people with the issue on the newest built ones. People with U410s are moved to the U310 WiFi issue thread.

Best thing is to go to somewhere like BestBuy or Staples where they have them on the sales floor and to test unwired with speedtest compared to other make/models. You will see it was never fixed.

 

Yes google shows the problem persists even with the newest U410s. Lots of discussion on their own forums as well. Buy it from somewhere with a good return policy. Test it immediately from two rooms away from your router with large file transfers.

 

So I'm thinking of pulling the trigger on the u410 core i5. It's on sale on the lenovo website at 699.99. But the wifi issue is really worrying me. I called up Lenovo support and asked them about the problem and the tech guy said that they're aware of the issue with the u310/u410s but they don't know why it happens?!?!?!?!?

So my question is if anyone has had wifi issues with the new Intel Centrino Wireless N-2230 they're using in the newer models (instead of 2200).

 

I've had my u410 since September, with the N-2200, and have had zero wireless issues. I purchased directly from Lenovo.

 

if you dont care about bluetooth you can pick up the version from Newegg for a 679.99 with no tax needed Newegg.com - lenovo IdeaPad U410 (59351632) Ultrabook Intel Core i5 3317U(1.70GHz) 14" 6GB Memory 750GB HDD + 24GB SSD HDD NVIDIA GeForce GT 610M (this is the same one i bought) for the price you get a included msata drive and a much larger hdd



Edit: also I got steam working on ubuntu just fine. This thing using the dedicated gpu will play tf2 at about 34 fps with everything turned on low and in windowed mode. But thats fine considering I just use this for school work

 

I'm in Canada so that deal doesn't work for me

 

@Ryan: Yours has a different wireless card and OS than those currently shipped. For the past two months it has been 2230, not 2200, and Win8. For those new ones with the 2230 there is a wide swath of complaints on N Wifi on U410. Are you getting 40 to 50mbps actual throughput (not "reported") two rooms away from router, or less?

 

I installed Windows 8, and I've got to say the performance improvements over Windows 7 are pretty impressive. Plus, I don't despise the Metro interface nearly as much as everyone else does.

Quick question for you guys: I'm having issues with Metro Apps frequently crashing upon launch. Is anyone else having a similar issue? I've run all the windows updates and all my drivers are up to date from the Lenovo website, not sure what's causing it. It's not one or two Apps, either, they all seem to have issues with crashing upon launch. LMK if anyone has a similar experience.

 

are you on the newest bios 65CN21WW ? there are problems with both the 11 and 13 bios's on windows 8

 

Good call! I was running 15, updated to 21, and boom, no more crashes. Thanks st5!

 

Anyone here heard about the new u410 touch screen version? (link) Looks pretty sweet. I wonder if there would be anyway to add the touch-screen to a non-touch version...Or possibly trade-in the non-touch one. I know its silly to some but I really feel it's the one thing missing from my laptop. If you read huge PDF files daily (like I do) and get used to being able to "flick" through pages on a tablet, it really changes the whole experience.

 

OK, so I'm >this< close to pulling the trigger on ordering a 410, and a Crucial m4 256GB mSATA SSD to drop in it... I also really want to get it up to 16GB, as I tend to need to run 2 or 3 VM's concurrently... So, from researching around I Think I'm *fairly* comfortable that despite Lenovo saying 8GB is the max this machine supports, it should take and use 16GB, but I'd really appreciate definitive confirmation from someone who has done it, and has it working right now... - anyone here currently have 16GB running in it? and did you have to do anything special to get it to work? - and what make/model modules did you get?
Of slightly more concern is the continuing uncertainty over the WiFi issues... I seen user reports from as recently as October 2012 saying they have WiFi performance so poor it is unusable... that is definitely a worry... I've read this thread from beginning to end, and that really doesn't do much to reassure me, with seemingly equal numbers of people saying they do, or do not have any issues... it really seems as though it's pot luck...

Morover, I've just come across reports from a couple of weeks ago saying that updated versions of both U310 and U410 are imminent with Win8 friendly touchscreens... so now I have another agonizing choice!! - should I wait??

 

Buying a 1600 x 900 display for my sup'd up U410, will post back with results, hopefully I picked the hardware right, only problem may be the BIOS not accepting the new resolution.

Yes, I have 16GB running right now, g.skill DDR3 1600 from newegg.
My outline for getting it to work is a few pages back, IMHO, its way worth the trouble.

My wifi is fine, but its a sept model.

 

Also, using this guide ( Lenovo Ideapad U410 Mountain Lion 90% working), I was able to get Mountain Lion working perfectly. (minus Wifi, which I did a dongle for)

 

Definitely update us when you attempt the screen-swap. Sounds pretty awesome if you can get it to work; I would definitely be interested in attempting it if you have any success.

 

Has the WiFi issues with the U410 finally been resolved?

Costco is selling a nicely spec'd i7 U410 for $699, but all the bad WiFi comments have me really concerned.

 

Results are mixed; I purchased a September build and my WiFi works just fine. That said, some on the official Lenovo forums are reporting WiFi issues with December builds.

 

Well if your buying from costcos you can always return it if it is not working... Go ahead and get it!

 

Hey iCracked, any luck with the display swap? Which one did you end up purchasing? I couldn't find any 1600x900 displays with the right dimensions (particularly the depth) in my searches. Let me know when you have a chance, the thought of a 1600x900 matte display on my u410 makes me drool.

 

Any luck with the screen?

 

Sorry guys, I guess I was a bit of a tease.

For months now I was torn on weather to sell my U410 or keep it and invest more money into it.

Unfortunately for the members of this thread, I decided on selling, mostly because I was a sucker for the design of the Vizio CN15-A5 and my line of work pushed me towards getting something with a better screen.


I did, however, get far enough to where I tore down the display lid of the U410 and took a peak at the model number.

The display was manufactured by AUO, uses a 40 pin LVDS cable, and also, had a bigger brother.

https://www.laptopscreen.com/English/screen-part-number/B140RW02~V.1/

That display has the same connector, connector location, and mount points as the panel in our U410. It is from the same manufacturer and even the same product line based on the serial.
I hope this information helps someone and I am sorry I wasn't the one doing this.

 

Did you ever find an answer to this? This could be the difference between me keeping 8GB RAM and only upgrading to the mSATA or both the SSD and 16GB RAM.

 

I was succesful in reenabling the nvidia card and the legacy USB option. I only set it up that way so it would make a clean install.

 

I posted this further out in the Lenovo forum. Just posting here aswell as it seems more fit in the Lenovo U410 lounge

As I can get hold of the Lenovo U410 for a pretty good deal, I'm hesitating to buy it. But before I do that I have a few questions about the machine if you don't mind helping me out.. As I've tried a few computers lately, but returned them all due to bad keyboard/screen. I've tried the Acer Aspire M5 and the Samsung Series 7 both 14".. The Acer's keyboard was a mess and the Samsung's screen had a dark shadowish edge on the right side.. So now I want som user inputs before I go out buy something.

The model I can get hold of is the 14 inch with:
CPU: Intel Core i5 (3. gen) 3317U / 1.7 GHz ( 2.6 GHz ) / 3 MB Cache
RAM: 6GB DDR3
GFX: NVIDIA GeForce 610M / Intel HD Graphics 4000
OS: Windows 8
HDD: 1TB Hybrid (24 GB flash) / 5400 rpm

For around 850$

My needs is light gaming and programming.. Games will be SimCity 2013, Diablo 3, Starcraft 2 and such, I dont mind jamming all my graphics to low-setting just so it runs smoothly.. But how is the graphic performance in this machine? Am I better off turning the 610M completly off and running on the HD 4000 or how well does the machine perform? I will mainly program and surf on the computer. I will use programs such as Sublime Text 2 and Visual Studio 2012, I guess these programs wont be a problem to run? It's important to me that the screen is of good quality, any comments on that? together with the keyboard and the trackpad?

I have also read about the WiFi issue on this machine, is that still present? Maybe the new Windows 8 machines have the issue fixed?

Bonus question: If I run on the Intel HD 4000, how much minimum graphic memory and maximum graphic memory does it has?

Hope you guys will help me out..

 

I am thinking of buying an U410 as well. However my inclination is towards i3 version since I don't plan on doing any heavy calculations with it.
My question is regarding RAM upgrade. I noticed it says that RAM is supported only up to 8GB in this version. As this might be sufficient for me for some time I am still curious about possible upgrade to 16GB. Is this limited in BIOS? And is there any way to bypass it? Because I think that processor (and/or chipset) should support 16GB of RAM.

Thank you for your answer, guys.

 

So guys, I have been thinking about getting a u410, and so far this threat has helped a whole lot.

But there are some questions I still dont really have an answer to. I hope you guys can help me with that.

1. I'm not a heavy gamer but im seriously addicted to assassin's creed. Do any of you have a clue if the u410 will run them?
2. Msata upgrade: any limits on size or speed?
3. Ram upgrade: any info about Cas and timings?
4. Will upgrading viod the warranty?
5. Except for the obvious touch capabilities, any other hardware(big performance boost for instance) reasons to wait till the u410 touch to come to europe?
6. Can the msata and ram upgrade be done to the u410 touch?

 

I just bought an Ideapad U410 (model #59372346). It's the model that's on sale right now for $699. It's the laptop version without the SSD caching system. It seems like the main difference between the current U410 laptop version and the ultrabook version is that the ultrabook comes with the small SSD for caching. So is the internal architecture different between the two so that you couldn't add an SSD to the laptop version or is it the same internally but the SSD slot is just empty in the laptop version? In other words, in the laptop version that I just bought, could I add an SSD on my own if I wanted to? Or does the slot for an SSD not exist in the laptop version? I'm not talking about replacing the HDD with an SSD (although I may consider that option eventually). I'm talking about adding the SSD in addition to the HDD. The originator of the thread seemed to be able to do this back in August 2012, but I don't know if this would still be the case on the newer models. Does anybody know?

 

Is it possible to upgrade the mSATA cache in U410 Touch?

This is the model:
https://shop.lenovo.com/ca/en/itemdetails/59372994/458/2E2EE2FB7736112BF81F4B61AB0CD18E

I want to upgrade the 24GB mSATA with a bigger one and put my OS in it, and use the 1TB for general storage. is it possible to do so? If yes, can I put something like this one (Crucial M4 CT256M4SSD3) in there?

I also bought some warranty with my laptop? Will upgrading the mSATA, HDD, or RAM void the warranty?

Thanks in advance.

 

srk999,

it seems the touch model is fairly identical to the normal model and therefor it is higly probable that an mstata upgrade is possible. to be sure check Bios if u can put raid mode to ahci and open up the laptop to make sure its a physical mSata slot.

to answer your second question, lenovo has the nasty habid of putting warranty stickers over essential screws, to be sure you should look yourself. You can always steam off the stickers (google it). Anyway its always smart to put back stock parts before returning it to lenovo. Hope this helps.

Can you share your experiences with the touch model?

 

Help, my mom just bought the u410, got it in the mail today, and her keyboard is acting up. She can't use her right shift key to get the @ sign, it works with everything else just not that, and the x key is either unresponsive or it is always acting like it is pressed down, when she turns the laptop on the search bar for windows 8 has like 40-50 x's on it. Is there a way to fix it at home or does she have to send it in to get fixed?