T410s Switchable Graphics - Unimpressive

I picked up a T410S a few months ago and have been fairly frustrated with both the screen and switchable graphics. I am by no means a gamer; however, I enjoy the occasional game of warcraft 3 and starcraft 2 so I decided to throw in the switchable graphics card.

What a mistake, the graphics card is beyond unusable. As soon as I open a game the graphics card instantly pulls a Chernobyl and throttles back to 1-2fps to avoid a meltdown. I literally have no use for the switchable graphics; aside from working as a makeshift hairdryer (it emulates both the heat and the noise quite well), it is consistently slower than the integrated graphics.

I literally paid for Lenovo to stick a power sucking waste of space into my laptop. This T410s is more capable in power saver than in balanced mode unless I force integrated graphics. The only time I have successfully used the nvidia graphics is in the freezing outdoors (and I'm in Canada so its pretty damn cold).

And don't even get me started on the screen. I am far from picky, I have the cheapest 5 year old LCD on my desktop PC but the contrast ratio on this screen is brutal. Dark movies look like a mush of gray. I read the reviews, saw complaints about the monitor and thought to myself "It can't be that bad, my point of reference is some dell I pulled out of a dumpster". Again, what a mistake. I don't even understand how factories are still producing these disasters.


Now my T410s isn't all crap, I am quite a fan of the keyboard as well as the red nipple thing. The processor also performs well and luckily the integrated graphics is more than enough to run all the blizzard games I could ever want. My favorite part of the laptop is how I can fit both an SSD and a 500GB in the ultrabay.

I'm hoping someone figures out how to replace the screen and they underclock the card or something with the next driver revision. Until then, I just feel like complaining.

TL;DR I can't decide if I hate my laptop or not. Also the switchable graphics suck.

 

If you don't like the machine, why not return it?

 

Yes for some reason the T410s switchable graphic card is implemented badly, the GPU goes haywire when you stress it little bit.

 

One of the most expensive machines in their line up and there's a defect like that?

Return enough of them and it'll get fixed.

 

I returned mine for that very reason. What sense paying so much for a top-of-the-line machine with nvidia graphics and SSD if they, uh, can't actually perform as a top-of-the-line machine should? The SSD was more than fine, the graphics were just a disaster. If you search the forum with my handle you'll find two other threads discussing the issue. Others seem to have had success using TPM Fan Control to manually max out the fan whenever they play games. Which is of course absurd, but perhaps useful in your case if the return window has passed.

That said, I liked the T410s enough as an everyday laptop that I'm still considering one at the right price. And maybe going this route:

So I just hooked up a 2GB 5850 to my laptop... - [H]ard|Forum

 

Unfortunately, I picked up my t410s essentially as soon as the switchable graphics was available but didn't try any gaming until starcraft 2 came out.

I'll give tpm fan controller a try. The link where you hook up a desktop graphics card to a laptop is , I might give that a go as well.