Overall T410 impression - not impressed. Lots of glitches/buggy hardware.

Hey,

I've been using the T410 since January when it first came out and there a couple of things that really bother me. I'm using a clean Windows 7 install, 32-bit and install only the very basic Lenovo tools such as Power Manager. Does anybody have these problems and any possible solutions?

1. When booting up and Windows is loaded, sometimes the FN keys for the brightness won't work - it will be stuck on one brightness level and can be really irritating if it's too dim in a bright room or too bright in a dim room. Other FN keys for like the thinklight still work. I'd have to restart to fix this problem.

2. Sometimes, when plugging in the power, the backlight for the LED screen turns off, but the computer still functions and you can still see the screen and everything on the monitor, but there's just no LED backlight at all whatsoever. The way to fix this is to let it enter sleep or restart the computer.

3. Computer randomly turns on. It's happened a couple times already, but I would turn the computer off before I go to bed, and then wake up in the middle of the night to a bright computer monitor. Also, when it does this, Windows is already loaded and the password was not required to login - security hazard??

4. When on the battery, the screen refresh rate will drop gradually as well as the brightness. I know that this is a function on battery stretch where it lowers the refresh rate and also the brightness, but I did not enable battery stretch at all. This happens at random times when the battery is below 40 or so percent. Then the screen refresh rate and brightness will gradually increase again until the previous setting. The whole process takes about 2 min. for it to decrease and increase again. Also, no battery thresholds but this could be a common problem for everyone since I think I've read something about it already.

All of this has led me to believe that the T410 and Thinkpads have poor quality, especially since this is my first Thinkpad. Does anybody have any solutions? I've thought about returning it to the manufacturer, but this takes time and I'm a student who needs a laptop, and also I've heard that Lenovo customer service is horrible.

 

what did lenovo have to say when you contacted them about these problems?

 

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-74432

Notes:

* If LCD brightness level does not increase/decrease by one, double-click LCDBright.reg and restart the system.
This key is located on the same directory as the video driver Setup.exe
(e.g. C:\DRIVERS\WIN\DISPLAY)

you also need to modify you PM setting

are you sure you turned off your T410? not just put in sleep?

 

Since you did a clean install, you need to make certain you install all power-related and underlying Lenovo drivers and utilities—things like the Hotkey driver and Lenovo system driver come to mind. It is very likely all the issues/problems you are experiencing are related to this.

 

Lol, don't you see? The lappie just loves you and misses you very much, so it turns itself on to be with you again and even enters your password to help you

 

+1

You did a clean install and now have a bunch of software related problems...don't blame Lenovo and Thinkpads for them

 

Quick recommendation: Remove Power Manager. The power management driver is separate and is really all you need. Sure, you'll miss the cycle count information on your battery, but this application has been known to cause more problems than it corrects.

There may be people on this forum who will swear otherwise, but I've been using IBMs/Lenovos since 1996. I've worked for one of those companies for a few years. This wouldn't be the first time that the Power Manager has caused a problem.

Thinkpads have the best hardware. The software is hit/miss. It's a legacy of IBM and the thousands of different groups in silos working on different software.

Try uninstalling Power Manager and report back. It definitely sounds like a "feature" gone wrong.

 

There is a setting in the BIOS that you can set a timer to turn the system on automatically. You should check to see if it's on.

 

For the computer turning on by itself, the this is due to wake on lan function, go to the BIOS and turn it off. This happen to my Dell desktop, until I shut it off.

 

Thanks for all the tips. I'll try each of them and see how it works out.

About the clean install, I actually had these problems before I reinstalled Windows and it was these problems that prompted me to do a clean install.

Could it also be a bios problem? I've updated it already but maybe it'll be fixed in future BIOS?

 

Did the problems exist when you fired it up for the first time upon receival? If not, you didn't perform the clean install properly and no one else is to be blamed.

 

Unless I am misunderstanding things here, the OP does say in a post just preceding yours that he experienced these problems when he originally received the machine. Later he proceeded to do the clean install.

 

Since these problems don't occur that often, the first time I booted up there were none of these symptoms. However, as I used the laptop more and more often, I recognized that sometimes that the brightness hotkey wouldn't work, or that the backlight turns off and that was when I decided to completely reinstall Windows.

I'm still working on updating/changing the settings that were suggested and it'd be a week to see if anything changes, just because these problems happen randomly and sometimes it occurs whereas sometimes it won't. I'll be more sure of the solutions and if they worked within a week or so. Thanks again!

 

Don't you think there's only one single reason why? He must have posted it before I could hit the submit reply button. My bad.

 

Yeah sorry! I figured that as soon as I hit the "reply" button.

 

Did another clean install because I changed the harddrive to an SSD. Didn't install power manager or wireless access manager, installed all the latest drivers from Lenovo and updated/changed settings in the BIOS.

Problems that seemed to be fixed:
- No more booting up by itself.
- No more screen refresh rate decreasing/going into extended battery mode.

Problems that remain:
- Backlight of the LED sometimes still turns off when I plug in the power cord.
- FN brightness settings sometimes still don't work.

New problems:
- Wireless will automatically stop working. Has happened at least 4 or 5 times already. The only way to fix this is either restart the laptop, or go into device manager, disable the wireless network card and enable again. Thought it was my router at first but my iPhone connects just fine. It's very frustrating as I already have all the newest drivers available, did a clean install and didn't install wireless access manager.
*Edit: Just saw another head dealing with this. Seems to be the new driver and installing the old one would solve the problem.

Still disappointed in the T410. It seems to be very buggy and inconsistent. I'm thinking about returning it for another T410 or just get a refund. Is this at all possible?

 

My T410 is rock solid. I experience none of the issues you have here.

The issues you describe would appear to be more software related than hardware, unless you somehow have a weirdly acting display.

When you say "FN brightness settings sometimes still don't work.", please describe in detail what you mean... does the on-screen display show? does the brightness not change? What doesn't work.

What versions of these do you have installed?

- Lenovo Power Management Driver
- Hotkey driver

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=477977

 

When I mean that the FN brightness settings don't work, it means that the brightness setting won't change and that the on-screen display doesn't show. This causes the screen to remain at the same brightness as it was originally and can be annoying - if I'm in a dark room it can be too bright, or it can be too dim in a bright lit room.

No power management installed. Hot key version is the latest one, 3.02.0001.

 

There is a new version of the BIOS for your T410, not sure if you included that in your updates, and who knows, it may help solve some of your remaining issues.

 

I would download and run system update. I know a lot of people prefer to manage things themselves, but for something that is as buggy as your t410, a system update would be the next step.

So run system update, you uncheck any utilities you don't want but install any system drivers (Intel AMT, Power Management Drivers etc..) and windows update fixes.

For the backlight/brightness/fn key issue, are you using the latest graphics driver from Lenovo? As in, from their driver page, not from Nvidia/Intel websites. This may not matter at all, but it'll keep your drivers and system more consistent to only get you drivers from Lenovo.

 

Do you have the following Windows 7 hotfixes installed?

KB975496
KB975599
KB977178-v2
KB977307

If not, install them.

 

I have a T410 and have not experienced any of these issues.

I do have everything updated though (windows, lenovo software, drivers, amd BIOS). So yea, like everyone else says, try updating everything and see what happens.

 

I also have not had any of these issues. My T410 has been solid as a rock.

 

Will be installing all of these updates and system update from Lenovo. We'll see how this works out.

Thanks.