Really sick of the T400 - I miss my T61! Shame on Lenovo for leting this Beta laptop out!

From day 1 since I got this expesive brick, there have been problems.



1. Fingerprint reader on almost everybody's T400 malfunctions.

2. Litterally 50% of the time that I try to shut down, hibernate, or standby, the system gets stuck in the proccess, and I have to use the power button to shut it off.

3.There is NO way to do a custom factory restore like the T61 used to have. Right out of the box, I tried, and it wasn't there. I downloaded the latest version of R&R, and now it offers me to do a custom factory restore, but it doesn't work! I try both the regular factory restore and the custom, and I get the same error. (paraphrasing) unable to find c:\preboot\utils\convert.cmd. Lovely, now what. I tried reinstalling R&R, and still the same thing. Worse, when I try the factory restore, it asks me if I want to format just the C drive, or all the hard drive with all the partitions. I though those partions were put there by Lenovo in order to restore, etc. WHAT KIND OF A STUPID QUESTION IS THAT??! How do I know which to use. Of course there is no documentation about it. Totaly unclear!! So now, I can't even reformat my computer. AND NO, I AM NOT USING THE CD's! I don't even have them.

4. Access connections always crashes.

I have thge power manager set to keep the computer on at ALL times when on AC power, but of course it still goes into standby.



Any help with #3 would be greatly appreciated! It might solve the other problems once I am able to reformat without all of the junkware.

 

The laptop is not BETA-like, the software is.

 

Yeah, I think you are right, the hardware is not the problem. But it is sold as 1 package by lenovo, and they really screwed up.

Why did IBM have to sell the thinkpad line??!!!

 

Personally, I hate/have no use for the fingerprint reader so I ordered mine without. Outside of that, you might want to try a clean install. The quality of the manufactures’ software tends to be leagues below that of Microsoft’s own and I tend to install as little of it as possible. With the exception of some slight springiness in the keyboard, my T400 performs flawlessly in every aspect.

 

I am considering that. One question though. If I used a vista CD to format and install vista, would it erase the lenovo partitions? Would I still be able to get the lenovo install back at a later time?

Also, how do you switch between graphic cards without lenovo software? Or did you install the power manager?

 

Clean Install Guide

 

How exactly do you justify this statement? Certainly a few individuals have reported problems, but I don't see how an objective reader here or over at thinkpads.com would reasonably come to this conclusion.

Wish I could suggest something to help with the other issues; I didn't see much preloaded stuff, nothing like other laptops I've had.

I believe you can do a clean install from a Vista disk; be sure to make your Product Recovery Media first, those will take you from a blank hard disk to a fresh factory install. First disc is CD, second two are DVD's. I've used these to build the system to the 7200rpm hard disk I'm using on my T400. Process is a bit confusing, but not too difficult to figure out.

If you do the clean install, be sure to do the activation backup form the clean install guide.

To switch graphics you will need the video drivers from Lenovo as well as Power Manager.

 

LenovoT61B is right. The hardware is fine. The issue is Vistaster. You need to install Linux or XP.

 

it is a shame you cannot do a custom factory restore. it would have been nice to use my XP restore disks to do a custom install! a definite drop since the T61 line...

 

haha BETA! supposed name T61.1?

 

Do a Clean Install

 

Maybe your hardware has problems. I do not have these problems on my T500.

1. My fingerprint reader is very comfortable, with very high sucessfull ratio. It will not fail if I scan my fingerprint correctly.
2. No these problems.
3. Have not tried factory restore, so did not know it excatly. However, if it can not be customed, I think the reason is that the factory restore are now using windows vista 'wim' filemat as the restore file. If you are interested, you can go to microsoft to look for what's that. In short, it is hardware sensitive and different from previous backup format. Alghough all places said the 'wim' is more advanced, I indeed found it not comfortable.
4. Have no this problem.

1, 2 and 4 may be due to the problems of your hardware or yourseft... 3 is a problem.

 

I am running Vista on a T400 and also haven't had the problems listed (didn't try #3 though).

I actually expected my fingerprint reader to give me all kinds of problems based on some of the things I had read on here, but so far it has worked perfectly. Have you downloaded all the vista/lenovo updates?

 

sounds like you have the "cream" of the crop....ENJOY!, because most of us T400 owners haven't hard time with the laptop like you...All I can say is factory restore....the recent BIOS update and, you should be good. If nothing works....order XP and you won't regret having a T400.

 

Well my service partition completely failed and the recovery cds didn't work either. So I used the XP recovery CDs that came with the T400. Only problem is that it would be nice to have all 4GB of ram. I was using Vista 64.
I am going to call lenovo and get the vista recovery cds.

As for the fingerprint reader, just search the thinkpad forms, and lenovos own forum and see how many people are complaining about it.
Someone recently posted that lenovo admitted it is a software or driver problem, and that replacing the hardware wont solve it.