T440p Owner's Thread

This time around, the bloatware was not too bad from Lenovo IMO. The DVD software is rubbish, but at least it's an option for those who want DVD playing/burning software out of the box. I could also see the various Lenovo tools being of use to someone somewhere (though I removed most of them). Norton, however, is the one truly heinous exception. I hate that software with a passion. Even after uninstalling the Norton trial and then using Norton's own removal tool, I kept finding Norton-related stuff on the drive and in the registry for weeks afterwards.

One day perhaps Lenovo will sell business laptops configured for business users (ie. no operating system and/or with zero additional software). But it and IBM never have for as long as I've been buying Thinkpads.

 

I installed windows 8 off a torrent. The torrent came with a separate crack, but since the laptop stores its windows key in the bios it was unnecessary, windows just installed itself and activated no problem. I don't know if you need UEFI turned on or not for that to work, but I think it shaves a few seconds off the POST so might as well use it.

I've never used a computer without reformatting it first, and probably swapping out the HDD as well.


I tried installing 8.1 on the T440p but there is no atheros wifi driver for 8.1 (It refuses to install). I had to install 8, install the wifi driver, and then upgrade to 8.1. It was frustrating and ridiculous. Maybe they have a driver now.

 

PC3-15000 (1866MHz) CL10 works perfectly....

I have this set: Vengeance®

 

Well, I pulled the trigger on a T440P today. I went with the i5-4330M, FHD screen, Intel graphics, and Intel 7260AC wireless. Also picked up 2 pro docks for work and home, 16Gb Crucial Ballistix DDR3-1600 CL9, and a 1Tb Samsung Evo SSD. Got a great price on everything, and I think it should result in a pretty well balanced system. Hopefully it marks a nice upgrade over my T420, which in turn will absolutely become a nice upgrade for my lady friend's 6yr old laptop.

Now we play the waiting game......

 

I wonder if I use M2 drive to be a boot drive and leave the original one as the data drive, will i loose the secure boot feature?

i tried couple times today, and I will get a blue screen when i started with my win7 with security chip enabled.

the fingerprint reader has no response, is this normal?

 

I had the same problem. The solution seems to be to install the "Lenovo Power Management Driver". It's not among the things offered by the Lenovo System Update tool. I made a fresh install, so I didn't have it.

 

Nope, it still happens.

 

Yeah for me the solution was to stop using the 135w on the dock.. I now keep the 135w in my living room and I still see the occasional switch to battery thing going on with it... I think the 135w adapters just have issues..

 

I bought this computer on 2nd Decemember and am still waiting for laptop to be fully functional. I phoned to get fan, monitor, and keyboard replaced on 15th. They promised to send guy to replace keyboard and fan next day and said I had to wait for monitor. Guy turns up without keyboard. Whilst replacing fan manages to knock off a key from the keyboard and also backlight stops working.

Noticed heaphone socket was not working so got him to have a look and he decided I needed a new board.

Get an after call from warranty next day to see how it goes. Thought that was a nice touch. The fan seemed to be just as loud.They agreed to replace it again.

The repair guy had said he would come round with the keyboard the next day. Day passed and he had not arrived. Phoned warranty. They almost laughed at me saying that they don't send out people to do repairs on seperate parts and that I had to get it all fixed at once. I told them this was unacceptable and I was being extra penalised for having received a worse machine. They said it was uneconomical for them to send the repair guy multiple times. I mentioned I had bought a quality system and it was their failing and they should do their utmost to get it right. They said their system was incapable of sending out a guy for each part. Then how come a guy had already been to my house? So I asked how long the monitor was going to take to arrive. They said they had no idea, they could only tell me that it would not be within the next 6 days.

A couple of days later I phoned to check about what they were going to do about the faulty headphone. They said they had sent me some drivers to try and was rude about me not having done it. I told them I had an email in front of me proving I had informed them I had. He said they could not do anything without sending a guy. I told them a guy had been. They said because they had asked me to try drivers he had to come again. I asked if he could come early and fix the other parts. They said that there was no benifit to me. I said there was because if I needed a new part it could arrive around the time of the monitor. He could not see the logic.

Over a week later got a missed call with no message. Next day warranty guy turns up by surprise. 3 new parts. I asked him about the motherboard he seemed shocked that they had not sent it, assuming someone had come and fixed it already. He did no checks just phoned them up and gets the part on order.

All new parts had the same problem: monitor with light bleed, bunch of keyboard keys have different bounce and feel, fan still is loud. The machine came like this from the factory. I ordered it almost 2 months ago. Repair guy said it is not possible to get whole unit replaced.

 

There doesn't seem to be any solution now. Does anybody know if the 170W works better?

Right now I have the following problems
1.fan is buzzing
2.dock disconnects every 20 minutes. I have to open and close the lid to fix it.
3.I connected an external amp with speakers to the dock's phone jack. When I power down the machine, there is an awful 50Hz buzzing. The phone jack on the laptop is ok.

I think this t440p sums up to a desaster. It feels like a pre-production experimental setup.

 

i should receive mine today, but so many complaints not really excited anymore.. -_-

 

The FHD panel is really nice. Perhaps that cheers you up. I also like the new dock. It really needs less space. But everything together feels like pushed to marked without proper QA.

I just made the following. I have two 135W adapters, one from the laptop, one form the dock. But they are acually diffent!

laptop
model number ADL135NDC3A (FRU 45N0362)

dock
ADL135NLC3A (FRU 45N0366)

The 45N0362 seems to be ok, so I'm using that on the dock. That was also confirmed in the german thinkpad-forum.

 

The echo chamber that is the internet has to be taken with a grain of salt. I absolutely don't deny that others have had problems, but you can't let that sully your own impressions. Open the box with an open mind and you will be happier in either case.

*

On another note, I'm glad I bought when I did. The Canadian list prices jumped by $100 just a few hours after, presumably due to the weak Canadian collar.

 

Warranty guy phoned up. They are going to take my machine into the workshop for inspection. Minimum of 6 days without laptop, usually solved within 2 weeks, but if they have to wait for parts then who knows.

 

This is the first Thinkpad I've ever bought that needed repairs from the get-go. Not sure if I'm unlucky this time, or previously lucky, or if this is the new normal, but it was annoying either way.

I had a loud fan but the new one is quiet. I've not had any problems so far with the dock or my 135W power supply (which I'm using with the dock) -- if your problem is literally every 20 minutes then I'd check the power settings in case the computer is actually putting itself to sleep. And I also noticed the annoying buzz when connecting the computer from the headphone jack to an aux. input on an amp. I put that down to some grounding issue that is probably no fault of Lenovo's design (the headphone jack is fine when using it with headphones). I wonder if there's a way to ground the computer better. Or perhaps the solution is to ensure the computer and amplifier are plugged into the same grounded power supply.

 

Yep, tech just came. Replaced my LG screen with another LG screen even though I ordered the FRU specifically. He was very helpful though, I guess I'll just have to call Lenovo tech support back and figure it out.

 

Did you install the Intel Rapid Storage AHCI driver? I made a fresh windows Windows installation and it still has the MS driver (6.1.7600.16385 from 21.06.2006). If the LPM feature of the Intel driver causes the problem, I suppose the MS driver is simply to old to have such a feature. I'm hesitating to ugrade to the Intel driver. The system is ok with the MS driver and the SSD840pro the 3rd day now.

I would like to know if people are doing fine with the Intel RST AHCI driver.

 

@huluvu I have it installed. Do not remember if I got it from Intel or Lenovo. Do not know what difference it is making. Machine has not crashed.

Have noticed that sometimes moving files takes longer than it should. Also noticed they sped up alot when Windows Defender was disabled, but still were not instant. Also deleting files took longer than expected. I mentioned it to the warranty guy and he said I should check after I get a new motherboard. Did some benchmarks on my hard drive and they gave back fairly good results.

 

thx for checking that.

btw, write delays may just be caused by lack of over provisioning space. I gave mine the value that Samsung Magician suggests. So far it seems ok.

 

Unless checksum of that torrented image matches the checksum of MS official images I'd be wary of using it for anything other than throwaway virtual machines.

 

Got a phonecall from Lenovo this afternoon. Because of Chinese New Years there will be no activity in the factory for two weeks.

I'm guessing I'm going to have to forget I bought it. Again.

And I found another user that had a boot loop when Debian/Kali Linux tinkered with the MBR. Can't wait!

 

As a matter of principle, my clean Windows installs always involve installing the latest Intel INF Utility before anything else, installing the latest Intel RST package immediately after, then uninstalling the RST software leaving just the drivers. I don't think this strategy has ever given me a specifically identifiable problem, but has certainly solved some.

Absolute worst case scenario, there are regedits you can do to manually disable LPM on troublesome devices.

 

The Lenovo driver package .EXE's will slow a copy or move to a crawl with Defender turned on. I reported it long ago but no action has been taken that I am aware of.

 

You don't have to regedit anything. Intel provides a configuration tool. it's the SetupRST.exe

 

Of course, good point. I always uninstall that leaving just the drivers.

 

Waited in all day for UPS to take my laptop to the warranty workshop. They never arrived grrrrrr

 

UPS's service is really crappy. For me, they attempted delivery but no answer. Then the 2nd and 3rd day they didn't show up and claimed on the status that "the customer wasn't available on 1st attempt"..... 3 days in a row!! and the driver never showed up because I waited all day home for 3 consecutive days.

 

So I got the laptop today. After reading this thread all my enthusiasm had died down, and after using it for some time I have to say the user experience on this laptop is really bad for me. I booted into windows once just to make sure everything is working and then installed Ubuntu, after swapping the HD with a Samsung EVO 840 500gb SSD and installing 16gb RAM. Absolutely no issues in that process like some people may have experienced on this thread. The touchpad performance is really disappointing in linux. The cursor moves during clicks resulting in lot of accidental "New Folders" getting creating. Some of the keys on this keyboard is more clicky than the rest and it is really annoying. I can only hope the sound changes with time. Does anyone else experience that? especially with the keys around the trackpoint nub. Well the screen is great, so it has something going for it. I just had so many hopes from my next thinkpad, wish I had seen this forum earlier.

 

@ejohn: the keyboard definitely has passed through low quality control standards. I was not happy with my keyboard and got it replaced. The new one had similar problem of clicky keys which lacked bounce, however the faulty keys were in a different location. I am getting another keyboard fitted.

 

I've had no problems with my keys, or with the touchpad in Ubuntu. Aside from the fact that it is just poorly designed in general with the lack of buttons, that is. In Ubuntu the cursor moves smoothly and two finger right click/two finger scroll both work fine.

 

The same exact thing just happened to me today, expect in my case it was with a T440s and I have offsite repair. After having it for almost a month waiting for the part, the repair depot replaced the LG screen with another LG screen, even though I specifically stated my issues with the screen and gave them the exact AUO part # several times. This afternoon I shipped the laptop back to Lenovo and told them they can keep it, and they are sending me back a full refund. From the time I ordered the laptop until today, this has been 60 days of horror and wasted time. Good riddance.

 

My keyboard is generally ok, the "click" is stronger than that of my T430s keyboard. I like it, but I also like mechanical Cherry keys. But the Enter key is really weird. It kind of "swims". I can move it about 1mm in each direction... and it's noisy.

 

Guys, where on earth do you find the ultrabay in Canada??

 

My internet gets disconnected when using my BT mouse, is it related?

I have my resolution at max but scale at 125%, however chrome, other programs are blurry and store apps are too big, is there a remedy for it?

 

Well, why have screen at 125% if things are too big? Perhaps only increase the font size?

 

I think having less keys is quite ok. There are enough useless keys from the console and host age like Pause, Pos1, Num Lock, Caps Lock, Print etc. I just find it more comfortable to have screen brightness and volume control as alternative functions of the cursoe keys. That's how Dell makes it. It's really convenient.

 

Just because you don't use those keys doesn't mean nobody else does. Yeah, Scroll Lock is indeed pretty much useless in modern OSes on it's own, but it's priceless when you rely heavily on keyboard and want it to work seamlessly in virtual machines. I hate losing one of the Ctrl, Alt, Shift or any other keys I use extensively for it to become a Host Key in a virtualization solution like VirtualBox, so I assign Scroll Lock as a Host Key. When Lenovo removed it on W530 I had pretty uncomfortable experience with VMs. Luckily, in W540 I can now use as a Host Key one of those useless multimedia keys above the numpad.

 

The touchpad seems passable as long as you are not actually clicking the pad although I still find it a bit difficult to "aim"!

Has anyone with the nvidia card successfully installed bumblebee? I always get a corrupted system after trying to install bumblebee and the nvidia drivers. Also the folks with linux, did you disable UEFI before you installed linux? I have installed it in both modes (UEFI/legacy) but If linux is the only OS that's going to be installed, which is the preferred method.

 

Downgrade your BIOS to 1.14 as per this bumblebee bug.

 

I did that, however metro apps and charm are still extra big...

 

That's on purpose. Apps are made for devices smaller than a laptop, but with even higher dpi.

 

Does the internet randomly disconnect with you guys? I'd like to know if it has anything to do with the chip or win8.1. I have the 2x2 thinkpad card.

 

Anyone here know when will 95w dock will be available in US?

 

I prefer pure UEFI mode (i.e., with CSM disabled), but from the usability stand point there is pretty much no difference between BIOS/Legacy and pure UEFI. There appears to be an issue with nVidia discreet graphics freezes on UEFI with CSM enabled, I'm not sure if it's an issue of Nouveau driver or there is something else at play.

 

Roughly speaking, what does this CSM do? Googling doesn't give me easy-to-understand answers.

BTW, my SSD is coming, do I need to do anything in BIOS to enable "AHCI" mode"? I don't see any option in BIOS that says anything about "SATA". This is probably a silly question. But after my experience this weekend, I rather ask dumb questions than do dumb things (which I will talk about in a separate thread).

 

Buy the 65W dock + 90W adapter. Boom. And best of all, you keep a spare adapter for travel.

 

I'm confused, because the 90W dock is absolutely available - I ordered two of the pro version, have tracking numbers, should be here Wednesday.

I suppose that they don't show up as accessories when you order the laptop, only the USB 3.0 dock shows up then. But you can still search for them separately and add them to your cart. 40A20090US and 40A10090US. Mind you, I actually added them to a separate cart and separate order, because I had different discount codes for the laptop versus the docks.....

 

Just purchased my t440p coming from a t430 that has put up with my abuse! I was wondering if other ram would be compatible with the t440p than the low voltage kind. Specifically if this would be acceptable http://www.kingston.com/dataSheets/KHX1600C9S3P1K2_8G.pdf

 

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1.35V, DDR3, SODIMM, 204 pins is what I use. Sorry about missing that important detail. Thank you pipspeak.

This is an interesting discussion on this topic. http://forum.notebookreview.com/msi/729450-haswell-fast-ram.html

 

I thought Haswell mobile CPUs only supported 1.35V RAM?