T430 Owner's Thread

Hi

I am thinking about buying T430 but after reading so many "horror" stories about bad quality LCD panels I would like to confirm whether this panel is actually a good or bad one:

0A66655 04W3331 FRU for LGD 14.0"HD+ AG LCD panel for No

Thanks!
Karol

 

The LG version of the HD+ Is actually pretty good, so you are lucky. Most of them ships with the AUO HD+ panel, which isn't very good (washed out, fly screen effect, etc).

 

Touchpad is intermittent. Suddenly offs , cant two finger scroll and all of a sudden okay again. -.-

Not sure if this is due to windows 8 or what.

Also where can i find my screen information?

 

Download HWiNFO64 and run it. Expose the second window (detailed info) and click on Monitor. Look in the right panel.

 

No detailed infor at the right panel. .




Can it be possible that windows 8 is causing touchpad to be faulty?

Sent from my One V using Tapatalk 2

 

I can't believe you! Why don't you click on the stupid "ThinkPad Display 1600x900" to show details relevant to it???

 

I DID!!! It just shows empty.

And to show that I clicked it . I tried to trim when I click but clicking to trim un-highlights it. I will take a camera photo.

 

The panel on the right-hand side should show a bunch of details.

 

There. Empty.. haha maybe because I chose the HD+ screen..

I just realise the heat on the left of the palm rest is generated by the HDD... maybe I won't be putting in the HDD using a caddy. The heat was quite uncomfortable .

Sent from my One V using Tapatalk 2

 

HWiNFO always shows the display details on the systems I work with. It does not discriminate the HD+ screen, though. My friend's T430 (Windows 7) shows a Samsung HD+ screen.

 

Yes. That should be the culprit. I am on windows 8. .
Maybe hwinfo needs to be updated for windows 8

 

I played with T430 with that LG screen for a moment yesterday and I noticed that while viewing angles are not as bad as I thought they will be I could see some kind of white vertical lines on the screen. They were barely visible but still I noticed them. Is this that lcd "door effect"?

 

Does any of you guys with Windows 8 know how to remove the lock screen and log in screen at startup?

The door effect is when you move to the sides of the screen and you can't see what is on the end of the screen on the opposite side of you.

Sent from my One V using Tapatalk 2

Any of you guys with windows 8 have black screen flashes?

 

Hey Everyone,

Just ordered a T430 last week and it arrived a few days ago. It's been working perfectly, and seems really well built. Love it so far. However, one thing I noticed was the fan being constantly on (I read some other people had this issue), so I decided to try TPFC. I was wondering for those of you using this software, what your settings are usually kept at? When I left it at "Smart," my laptop would tend to sit around 55-61 degrees, and the fan wouldn't turn on until 65 or so. Just curious what your temps are like, and if mine seem too high. Not sure what the acceptable temp range for this laptop is.

Thanks!

 

The fan issue of the T430 put me off this machine, sounds like an ASUS laptop. Fan noise somethig i cant stand, this is why i rarely use my desktop. T420 had no fan noise not sure why T430 suddenly got such an annoying fan behaviour.

 

Do you have an i-7 core cpu? with Nvidia 5400M GPU?

The usage of tpcf is discussed here in great details

http://forum.notebookreview.com/lenovo/675361-w530-owners-thread-44.html

 

I just have the base i5-3210m with Nvidia 5400M

Just a note, the 55-60 degrees I'm talking about isn't exactly with the laptop at idle...I'm running a large file transfer, JDownloader, Chrome and PowerPoint ATM.

TPFC seems willing to let the laptop cool passively at this temperature. My only worry is that constant 60 degree temperatures will damage something in the long run. Especially considering the BIOS settings seem to turn on the fan for anything above 40 degrees...]

Not sure if I'm just being overly cautious. I know the i5-3210m is rated to up to 105 degrees,

 

I don't seem to be facing this fan issue that everyone complains about..

Sent from my One V using Tapatalk 2

 

Your T430 temp seems pretty normal. 60C degree is not an issue, at least to me. If you are worried, you can change the setting in the file tpfanControl.ini (it comes with tpfc) so that the fan will spin at a very high speed if the temp reaches 60C.

 

Ah ok. Thanks for everyone's help. Guess I'll leave the settings as is for now.

 

Hmm , do you guys use with battery charging after it reaches a hundred percent charged or do you guy remove the battery?

It advisable for the battery to remain charging if you will be on the power adaptor for the whole day?

 

If you wish- use the power manager to set charging thresholds. People set theirs for whichever suits their needs. For myself since I rely on my X200 during the day I set it to stop charging at 90% and to start charging at 70%

If you are unsure of where the controls are for thresholds. Right click on your battery symbol and you should see the option for "Charge battery charge mode/thresholds.." Click on that and choose custom. That will allow you to set 'start charging' and 'stop charging' thresholds. There are quite a large consensus of users who report that keeping a battery charged to 100% will significantly reduce the longevity and overall health of the battery quickly. I have used the power manager for years now and it is one of the first programs I make sure is installed if I do a clean installation on a Thinkpad.

 

I do not have the option for threshold on windows 8...
Also i am having wifi drops on the intel 6235..

Sent from my One V using Tapatalk 2

 

Sooo glad I chose Win 7...

but as for the battery thing, to find it (on Win 7), I did:

Launch Power Manager
Switch to "Advanced"
Choose the "Battery" tab
Click on "Battery Maintenance"

hope that helps! and my wifi on my intel 6205 is fine...are you sure it's not the access point? or maybe you have a defective unit?

 

What do you mean access point? I totally regretted windows 8. Haha. It works lost of the time though. Haha maybe like once every two days.

Sent from my HTC One V using Tapatalk 2

 

I mean is your router (which is usually where the Wireless Access Point is located) working properly with other devices?

And I chose Win 7 because if I ever need Win 8 it's only a $15 upgrade away, but I can't go back to 7 if I chose 8 from the beginning. Not to mention I'm primarily a Linux user.

 

Yeah working well with others... Isn't that loophole patched?

Sent from my HTC One V using Tapatalk 2

 

what loophole? I legally bought a Win 7 laptop before Jan 2013, so I'm entitled to a $15 upgrade...

as for your WiFi you might have to look into it then...might be driver issues, or might actually be the hardware...I know Lenovo had a whole bunch of Ultrabooks a few months ago that all had wifi issues.

 

I'm just wondering how long it usually takes for the order status to change from "order processing" to "in production"?

 

Could be as long as a week. But once it is "In Production," it tends to move very quicky (two days, sometimes) to "Shipped."

 

You can always "go back to 7"

...it just costs you more money to do that.

Anyway I just bought a T430 this past Saturday (Dec. 1) with an estimated ship date of Dec. 7, 3 days from today.

But from what I've seen throughout this long thread, that might get delayed; so I'm not holding my breath on Dec. 7 ship date actually happening.

And I did have the good sense to get my T430 setup with Win7-64 Pro for only $50, which to me is a *real* deal pricewise (vs ~$140 for Win7 oem DVD; it's the ID that you pay for, not the disc which you can d/l for free).

I'll start to have some minor interest in assessing Win8 when SP1 shows up for it. I'm hardly worried about getting it for some early $15 "deal" coz that "deal" comes with the very high price tag of suffering through the inevitable early software issues that go on with every really new Windows release, of which Win8 is a prime example.

I dig both Unix and Linux, and I'm especially happy that Lenovo provides at least some support for Linux.

Seems we only see "Linux" these days.

On another subject, and not just aimed at Scycotic but rather all T430 owners...

...I'm assuming that I can set up the boot drive on the T430 as a SSD drive?

...either an mSATA SSD as boot (256GB), or an even larger sized 2.5" SSD (512GB) as boot?

Right?

Any reason(s) to favor mSATA SSD (256GB Crucial M4) as boot, vs 2.5" SSD (512GB Crucial M4) as boot?

And please do NOT trot out the SATA2 vs SATA3 thing. To me that is a non-issue!

As the difference in true performance is very very very small.

At least as far as I know.

If you Think different (pun; ThinkPad), post away!

As in bombs away!

 

You can use the mSATA or the primary SATA drive as your boot drive. I don't see any reason to use or not use the mSATA (maybe price? I don't know mSATA compared to conventional atm) unless you want a conventional drive in your 2.5" bay, in which case you obviously should use mSATA as the boot drive.

 

I'm leaning to using a 2.5" Crucial M4 512GB SSD in the HDD bay by itself (with maybe 440GB total allocated via partitioning (1 large NTFS for boot of Win7-64 Pro with much smaller 2nd/3rd partitions for Linux and Linux Swap) with backup via booting Clonzilla via USB stick.

But not sure if that will work. 1 step at a time and all that.

When I do a backup I'll swap out the optical drive and plug in a 500GB (or 750GB) HDD into the optical drive bay; boot Clonezilla from USB stick and do a full/slow clone from the boot SSD to the temp HDD that is in the optical bay.

And I'll test that that backup HDD can be plugged in and booted from.

So when I'm out on an extended trip, I'll have that separate HDD as my backup (carried elsewhere in my luggage) which can likely be plugged in to replace any issue(s) which might come up with the boot SSD if that comes up.

But then I'm a mainframe guy, and even on a notebook PC real backup is always 1st in my mind.

 

Is it 'design' for the screen bezel to not be directly plastered to the screen?


Sides are plastered nicely together but middle of the top and bottom bezels are not
glued together. .

 

I got an e-mail (sent this morning by Lenovo at 12:31 AM) that my order shipped!

Anybody got a clue where they ship it from?

But since the order has 2 items (T430 and a cheap mouse), I probably shouldn't get too excited as it might be just the mouse. >Grin<

And FWIW I ordered the 2.5" SSD 512GB Crucial M4 ($375 total from a 3rd party vendor at Amazon) and will set it up as the only drive on the machine. I plan to put 4 partitions on it (large NTFS, small FAT32, small EXT3, and very small Linux swap), but still leave roughly 75GB unallocated for better performance and reliability.

I'll boot gparted to do the SSD partitioning, and then load a new install of Win7-64 Pro onto the large NTFS partition.

Any comments on leaving 75GB unallocated on the SSD?

Any comments to leave a bigger or smaller amount unallocated?

I'll take a week to check the machine out as it is when it shows up.

Then maybe another week (or more given that I'll likely want to get a caddy which will take some extra shipping time given delays due to Xmas) to find out if the DVD easily swaps out for a temp 500GB HDD so that I can do a Clonezilla backup as I hope to do.

 

In the email there should be a UBS tracking number, with that number you can track the package, the origin of the shipment etc etc.

 

They ship from China actually, takes only a few days though. Also beware that if installing an SSD in the main slot, make sure the SSD is a 7mm version. Regular ones won't fit.

mSATA drives vs regular ones, regular price is approx. the same, but mSATA ones never go on sale

I currently have an extra hard drive in my optical drive bay using a caddy, it works fine, so don't worry about that. I'm probably going to use my regular SSD from my old laptop by putting it in my caddy and moving all my data to the internal hard drive.

Oh, and about Win8, The $15 deal actually gives you Win 8 Pro. I read somewhere that "Pro" licenses allow you to downgrade for free to Win 7 Pro...hopefully that's the case. Meaning I essentially paid $15 to upgrade from Win 7 Home Premium to either Win 7 Pro or Win 8 Pro...

 

"Regular ones won't fit."

That statement looks suspect.

e.g. Crucial tells me they have their M4 SSD units in two sizes, namely 7mm and also 9.5mm

OTOH I'm looking (right now) at an Intel 2.5" 320 Series (120GB) SSD, and guess what -- the metal part is 7mm thick with a top plastic rim that makes the unit 9.5mm thick. It is mostly open air immediately over the top of the unit, only being solid plastic at the very edge of the top (rectangular shaped piece of plastic).

Is there some technical reason (extra spacing to avoid heat hot spots?) for Intel placing that plastic rim on top of the unit? The bottom of this Intel Series 320 SSD 120GB is solid metal so why this plastic piece on the top?

So if the 2.5" Crucial M4 SSD units have a similar plastic top rim, why wouldn't I be able to remove that rim by myself?

The caddy appears (to me) to allow very quick removal of the ODD, and very quick (and convenient) insertion of either a 2.5" HDD or a 2.5" SSD.

Correct?

 

Getting both Win7 Pro *and* Win8 Pro for only $15?

If yes (note that I used *if*), such a deal!

My hunch is that that won't turn out to be true.

FWIW I was able to get a free d/l of Win7-64 Pro (w/SP1 on it) a few days ago; a 3.1GB .iso file which burned just fine to a single layer DVD and booted OK on my working Win XP desktop. Since I've already got a new/unused ID from Lenovo for this soon to arrive T430 notebook, that bootable DVD should be what I need to do a fresh install onto this T430 notebook; meaning that I can return my recently purchased ($137 from Amazon) but still unopened oem disc to Amazon for a full refund.

So I can't think of any good reason to waste even a minute on Win8 until it is clear that it is going to succeed and then wait for SP1 to show up.

Meaning I'll let others separate the chaff from the wheat, when it comes to early usage of Win8.

 

On ThinkPads it is indeed very convenient to remove the ODD and insert a caddy with HDD. Very simple procedure. They use a latch on the bottom. Regular laptops use a single screw normally.

As for SSD sizes, Intel ones like 520 and 320 do use a rubber rim to make it taller. This can be safely removed with no harmful effects to make it 7mm. However other drives like the Crucial M4 9.5mm are actually taller. I believe they use a spacer between the two halves of the metal chassis to make it this size. So you should order an M4 that specifically says it is 7mm for this laptop.

As for a fresh install on the ThinkPad, you can follow Heart's guide here: forum.notebookreview.com/lenovo/642274-hearsts-guide-clean-installing-windows-7-thinkpad.html if you want.
And I have the Win 8 upgrade license now, but I'm probably not installing it for a while.

 

Crud!

Since it's Amazon, I'll be able to get my money back. Since it's a 3rd party vendor, returning it may cost me some money. Oh well. I just won't open it up when it gets here.

I already found out that I can get a 7mm thick 512GB M4 SSD direct from Crucial.

Maybe I'll just take another look at every SSD that's close to 512GB, Including the Intel 520 SSD coz I know that prices for the Intel 320 SSD at that size (~500GB) are just too expensive for my blood.

OTOH I just measured one of my 2.5" 750GB HDD and it is 9.5mm thick.

Are you REALLY SURE that I need a 7mm thick SSD???

Thanks.

I happened to come across mention of it this morning when I searched this thread for UEFI (for info on dual boot) and had one hit. It has 180 posts in it and was started recently (31 Jan., 2012). See: http://forum.notebookreview.com/lenovo/642274-hearsts-guide-clean-installing-windows-7-thinkpad.html

Seems that this Lenovo T430 uses a default of UEFI and not the older MBR (perhaps an option that can be set at boot time?)

See: Unified Extensible Firmware Interface - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Master boot record - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
GUID Partition Table - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

T430 does use UEFI. I haven't set-up dual-boot yet though so can't say if there will be any difficulties. Will probably be fine though.

And yes, if you want to put an SSD in the HD bay, you must have a 7mm drive. However (what I plan on doing), is to put the SSD in the hard drive caddy, and use the conventional HDD in the regular bay for storage.

As for SSD models that are 7mm, I believe all the Samsung models are that height, as well as the Crucial 7mm and OCZ Low Profile drives.

You can also get an mSATA drive if you don't mind the price.

 

Iṭ's helpful to say that you should use 7mm-thick SSD for the main bay. But it's rather misleading to declare categorically that you must only use 7mm-thick SSD for the main bay.

I've seen T430's and T/W530's equipped with stock HDD's that are 7mm thick and 9mm thick. The item that makes the difference is the rubber rail: Lenovo uses 2 kinds of rubber rails, one for each drive thickness.

So, the best approach is to hold off your SSD purchase until you see what drive is used in your own ThinkPad, as shipped (I know, you see a good deal and want to click Buy now). Pragmatically, though, a 7mm-thick SSD can be used with a pair of rubber rails meant for 9mm-thick drive, and the other way around is a bit tight, but not impossible nor detrimental. The main bay of T430 and T/W530 is not built to accept 7mm-thick SSD alone.

If you purchase Samsung 830/840, the thickness is always 7mm. If you go with Crucial M4, pick the 7mm-thick one to be on the "easy" side.

 

hm. I don't think the T430 can actually take a 9.5 mm drive in its main bay. I've taken the 7mm drive out and even with the rubber rails it's less than 9.5mm tall. I'll double check later though.

I have heard of someone taking apart a 9.5mm SSD and just putting it bare into the slot...although that voids the warranty.

 

It could be just your one case. As I said, I've seen 7mm-high and 9.5mm-high stock HDDs in different T430's and T/W530's. Recently, I helped a friend with her new T430: I cut out a piece of the foam envelope for the Samsung 840, of the same rectangular size, to pad the SSD to make it fit snuggly with the 9.5mm-high rubber rails.

I wouldn't recommend anyone do that. Just install a SSD with the right height for your particular ThinkPad.

 

After looking at the hardware maintenance manual, it appears to me the main bay was changed from the T420 to support the placement of the USB ports and such.

The tabook.pdf at lenovo.com/psref also only lists 7mm drives for the T430.

The documentation is sure misleading if the bay still supports 9.5mm drives.

But I believe Kaso. He's always spot on.

 

I got a few hours sleep.

The 512GB 2.5" Crucial M4 SSD shipped yesterday so it's too late to cancel that order.

But this "7mm" SSD thing doesn't make much sense, but it is shown once in the current d/l of the .pdf manual for the T430.

I think I'll wait until both the Lenovo T430 and the 2.5" Crucial M4 SSD show up early next week.

I've already decided I'll open up the SSD box and take a look. I'm inclined to use it even if it is 9.5mm thick.

Count me as totally puzzled why it would make one iota of difference whether I put in a 9.5mm thick HDD or a 9.5mm thick SSD.

 

Odds are that the confusion over SSD thickness started right there; i.e. with Samsung doing 7mm with their 830/840 units.

Just a hunch on my part.

FWIW it's called FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt)

 

See: Fear, uncertainty and doubt - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

No difference whatsoever. Your ThinkPad may come with a 7mm-thick HDD or a 9.5mm-thick HDD. A different pair of rubber rails is used in either case.

All rubber rails have the same height that is appropriate for the main bay. It is the height of the inner opening that varies to accommodate the thickness of the drive.

The fact that they are rubber implies that it is not difficult to make them "adapt" to your drive. In the extreme case, you can leave out the rubber rails.

I don't advocate any brands. Buy whatever that pleases your wallet. Live and learn. No FUD.