T430 Owner's Thread

Actually, you could have selected the model with the 2nd generation processor, modified the configuration to 3rd gen, and had the Windows Home Premium.

 

Its a qualification sample. I got it from ebay.

 

so the lenovo t430 comes standard with dvd burner unless you get harddrive caddy?

 

Right. You can buy an UltraBay HDD caddy adapter, like this one, and replace the stock optical drive. (You can also get a slimline SATA USB adapter to use the optical drive externally.)

 

Just wanted to check before I decide on something. Will both of these work to power my dvd drive externally? I just need to decide between USB 3 and USB 2.

First one
Second one

 

^^^ Yes. (I find the black one more suitable to ThinkPad, plus it is much less expensive. USB 2.0 may be good enough.)

You might want to take a look at this one.

 

kaso that is a pretty good deal and it comes with a case.. might have to pick one of those up

 

A few question as I finalize my purchase.

does anyone know how these deals fluctuate?

I don't have the B&N deal here in Canada. Last week there was a 17% off coupon, which I passed by since I was unsure about my purchase, right now its 10%.

I'll wait till the 12th for the next deal, but what can I expect? and how often do deals/freebies on components (ie: backlit keyboard, bigger hard drive) happen?

And also, I'm undecided between a 3 or 4 year warranty, at an $80 difference its a bit steep. But since i'm coming off an HP elitebook with a 5 year warranty that got me over $1500 worth of repairs, i'm hesitant to cheap out.

 

Does anyone know if an 11mm 2.5" hdd will fit into the Serial ATA Hard Drive 12.7mm Bay Adapter III for the t430? I have a crap load of data sitting on many Seagate Momentus and WD 500GB disks such as VM's, etc and would like to be able to swap disks quickly with the adapter. Bout to pull the trigger on the adapter if it will.

 

This is nice.

I was looking to nab a Bluray player for mine off Ebay such as this one. Has anyone been able to find an external enclosure that these drives could simply slide into?

 

Quick update on my T430 situation. I ordered the laptop on 7/3 and just received it this morning which I think is very fast and acceptable shipping. I was a bit concerned about getting the T430 over the T430s because I thought the T430 would be bigger than I wanted. I own a T510 now and I was hoping to get a much smaller and lighter laptop. I was pleasantly surprised to find that this T430 is much smaller than my T510 in both size and weight. It makes me wonder just how small the T430s really is because this is great. One thing I have noticed is that my T510 was much more sturdy in the palm rest area. This laptop has a very small amount of flex in it while the 510 is rock hard. I haven't gotten around to testing very much on this laptop yet as I am just waiting for it to die so I can charge it up and start the process of installing my SSD. Thank you everyone on NBR who helped me decide on this laptop and I will let anyone on the fence know that the screen isn't really all that bad

p.s. Kaso, thanks for that link, I will most likely pick that up since it matches the laptop and also comes with a carrying case.

 

Yeah, I like it, too. The two secure screws and the pouch are nice extras.

@Rezabrya: I would prefer the T430 over the T430s. My T510 is still "rock hard." Enjoy your new notebook.

 

hy guys i have one little question what is the big difference between de T430 and L430 ? thanx guys

 

If I may ask, how many days did it take for it to get to your doorstep after the Lenovo status changed to "shipped"?

 

I ordered on the third and the machine shipped on the fifth. I received it today on the 11th.

 

One thing I didn't realize when ordering is that the HDD that comes with the T430 is actually Sata II and not Sata III like I thought it would be. Not that big of a deal since I will be using that drive in the ultrabay as a storage drive but still not what I expected.

 

^^^ Offerings are limited for 2.5" SATA 6Gbit/s HDD, especially 7mm (and large) ones.

 

I just got my t430 and I'm getting a little worried. Its been charging for a while now and it says for now 1 min left for full charge its at 99%. However when I unplug it it says there is about 8 hours left of charge. I have the 9 cell battery and shouldn't I have close to 15? I have the power set to maximum battery life on the lenovo power manager and brightness set to 10. Ive read all reviews and they all say it gets like 15 hours. I dont have anything running just the browser.

Another think is mine has bluetooth but on the front bezel there is only wireless and hard drive indicator however on the official gallery there is an indicator for usb? Did i get the wrong bezel light indicator?

 

Hey guys so I want to replace my current T60 within the next couple weeks and i boiled my alternatives down to the Lenovo T430 or Sony S13.

guess my question to you owners was what the T430 quirks are that i should be looking out for.

like i heard it comes with a 7mm HDD can i put my regular 2.5" Corsair M4 in or will it not fit? and is the notebook running full SATA III? (sony gimped the S13 so it only runs SATA II)

about the screen is the 900p at least acceptable? i have a 900p in my current T60 that im satisfied with... would they probably be about the same quality?

I will probably get the 6 cell since i don't want a battery sticking out the back of my notebook so I'm guessing it should get 7-8 hours on 6 cell right? All the reviews are with a 9 cell so i wasnt sure.

do you guys have any opinions on the difference between the wireless cards they offer? like the Intel 6205 vs 6300 vs their base B/G/N card.

I have some questions about the NVS 5400 but il probably ask in the gaming forums. Although id love to hear from any of you that have tried modern games and how the NVS 5400m performs

 

I presume you meant the Crucial M4 SSD, you'll need to check which version as they come in both 7mm and 9.5mm formats. The 7mm ones will be fine but the 9.5mm will not fit in the T430 unless you have the 12.7mm Ultrabay caddy.

HD+ (1600x900) resolution is pretty much a must have on the T430, the base panels are pretty bad if you look at the reviews of this unit. While you not going to get IPS or 95% gamut quality on the HD+ screens the increased real estate can help on the productivity side.

7-8 hours would be pretty optimistic on the 6 cell as I get near that amount on my 9 cell from my usage patterns. I would estimate 4-5 hours to be a likelier figure, I'm not saying it would be impossible but you have to be pretty conservative on your usage though.

There are people who report a stable connection and greater range with the Intel cards than the generic base cards. If you use Linux it's a lot more easier to configure Intel wireless cards than the Realtek branded ones.

 

maybe a stupid question but thanx anyway !

 

Other than the L and the T ..... I couldnt tell ya.

For those of you who have their t430 , did you guys do a fresh instal of windows or did you keep the oem software and tweak the settings a bit?

 

The L Series is thicker and slightly heavier than the T Series equivalent, it also doesn't come some features such as the magnesium rollcage and ThinkLight. The L Series in essence is a ThinkPad built at a budget so some compromises were made to keep the price low.

 

oops yea meant Crucial M4... went ahead and returned it though since il need a 7mm drive. shame about the screen though, you would have thought things would improve over 5 years in screen tech.

 

Hi Brad,

Sorry for my late reply. Have to figure out a quick way to see replies to my posts... Anyways, just want to remind you that T430s is on a special sale right now. Go to Barnes and Noble Gold | Lenovo | (US), create an account, then you will see the enhanced graphic one before customization is around $744 now. Go get it!

By the way, does anyone know what is the latest time that one can request a price match after order? I ordered on 6th and I just noticed this new deal...

 

One more request for this info if possible please. Thanks.

 

Lenovo uses multiple RAM suppliers: Epida, Samsung, Kingston... Someone may tell you what is in their machine but it may not match what you will have in yours. I suggest you order your extra RAM after you receive your notebook.

 

I completely understand the OEM model with Lenovo (former Thinkpad support engineer under IBM). Most laptop manufacturers use multiple suppliers/OEM vendors for their memory. This is not new as you pointed out. I simply want to know what vendors others are seeing and more importantly the specs. I do not want to pay more with my discount for 8GB from Lenovo if I can get it for 1/4 of the price from Newegg. I can certainly guess, but I may miss timings, voltage, etc. You know, the kind of stuff Lenovo does not publish in tabook. Lastly, and most important, I would like the memory to be here when the laptop arrives.

 

Hi all,

I placed my order on July 6th but until now I still haven't heard anything back from Lenovo. No processing update, no shipping notice. Only a confirm email right after I placed my order. Is that normal? Should I call the customer service to see what's going on?

 

Normal? Yes, unfortunately. Not even status updates in your online "account," nor a telephone call on the day before the package is delivered.

Try to give them a call on Monday.

 

If any T430 owners have a NVS 5400M card in there, would you mind running the CUDA-Z benchmark? (Just click on Performance tab and the numbers should appear). Mainly I'd like to know the Double Precision and Single Precision MFLOPS numbers. (With the laptop plugged in, please)

It will only take like 30 seconds to download & run, and it would be a huge help for me deciding on a CUDA development machine. Thanks!

Download cuda-z from SourceForge.net

 

Performance Information
-----------------------
Memory Copy
Host Pinned to Device: 6003.21 MB/s
Host Pageable to Device: 2773.01 MB/s
Device to Host Pinned: 5994.83 MB/s
Device to Host Pageable: 3477.24 MB/s
Device to Device: 12002.3 MB/s
GPU Core Performance
Single-precision Float: 168146 Mflop/s
Double-precision Float: 21114.2 Mflop/s
32-bit Integer: 84373.4 Miop/s
24-bit Integer: 83760.2 Miop/s

 

Thank you so much, Rezabrya! Those numbers are terrific. On double-precision math, it's almost as good as the K2000M. Probably about equal to the K1000M for single-precision, and definitely better than the K1000M for double.

 

I have no idea what any of that means but I'm glad I could help! Good luck deciding on your new laptop.

 

Sometimes the volume keys dont work on the t430!! anyone know why??

 

I have had this when i started watching embedded youtube videos. Not sure why it happens, but if i just click somewhere outside of the video the volume buttons start working again. Who knows...

 

It seems to fix itself sometimes when you change the volume using the windows manual one right bottom side. But its reallly annoying

 

Should be getting mines on the 22nd, can't wait!

 

Mine came with a 4GB DDR3 12800 Hynix (Hyundai) HMT351S6CFR8C-PB. It's CAS 11-11-11-28.

 

Excellent! Thanks!!

 

Does anyone know if 1.35V memory will run in the T430? I am about to nab a 16GB kit.

 

Mine also came with the Hynix ram. I have since installed 8 gb of Crucial ram though.

 

Thanks.

This is currently in my cart: Mushkin Enhanced Essentials 16GB (2 x 8G) 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Laptop Memory Model 997038. It is 1.35V though. From what I am reading it should work without issue. Just wondering if anyone is running 1.35V and can confirm.

 

I am more than upset right now. There now seems to be a sale on the Nvidia GPU and it made the configuration I chose $289 cheaper now. When I ordered on the third over the phone, I was assured that my price was the lowest he could possibly do. Would it do any good after 12 days to call and try to get a price match?

Also, yes I am running 1.35v ram right now and it is working fine.

 

Unless it has changed, you should have up to 21 days to do a price match.

 

Well then I will be calling tomorrow to try and get a price match. Does anyone know why the NVS5400m option became so cheap all of a sudden?

 

I would imagine they're not selling the discrete graphics models quickly enough so they're trying to move inventory. Compared to previous generations, the integrated graphics of the T430 are really good, so the somewhat weak discrete option is a tough sell, especially at $200+.

Would I have gone with the integrated graphics on a T410? No way. But on the T430, $50 is probably about the price at which I'm likely to consider a relatively weak card...

 

I've seen a few people in this thread mention getting an Ultrabay battery without anyone saying this wouldn't work. Aren't the Ultrabay batteries only compatible with the T4x0s series now? Or has support been added back with the T430?

I see Lenovo lists the Ultrabay battery as an option when buying a T430, but the T430 isn't on the Ultrabay battery compatibility list...

 

Only with the "s."

Seeing is not believing.

 

I will also echo that the price match has a 21 day window. I called in this morning for a price match and the rep sent my request to the higher ups. Should be processed within 2 business days if all goes well.