T440s Owner´s Thread

My guess is the onboard RAM is CL 11, because I got a G-skill Ripjaws 1600 CL9 and it shows up as running at 1333.

 

Exactly the same thing happened to me. I got CL9 RAM as well, maybe that's why. There's no bios option to change it. But from what I read anything above 1333mhz is technically above the DDR3 spec and my desktop is also running at 1333mhz so I stopped caring about it. But it's probably better to go with Crucial if you care about that sort of thing.

 

How is the wireless AC card for you? Is it stable?

 

Hmm, so it seems that going for 1600 CL11 seems to be the best option in order for it to run at 1600.

Wonder which is better tho, CL9 @ 1333 or CL11 @ 1600

 

I haven't had any problems with it so far. No drops or instabilities.

Pretty much the only "issues" I notice are a little backlight bleed on the Lenovo boot-up screen, and speaker white noise. The noise is really only noticeable when I'm really close to the laptop, though.

 

Exactly the same for me. Have no complaints apart from the two issues you mention (although interestingly I only get speaker white noise approximately 50% of the time now; haven't worked out the trigger yet). Have had no issues with the wireless (touch wood).

 

It's been a while now since I received the AUO screen and did the swap, and I've had more time to evaluate it with a proper display. The AUO really is much better than the LG it replaced. This is the way the screen should have been to start with. Text is very clear. Overall I like the screen a lot, I did have to get used to it having a warmer yellowish color at first but it only took a day or so to adjust.

My concerns now are the build quality and whether this laptop is going to last me years, I'd like it to last at least as long as the 7 year old HP I had before which quit working. It just feels too plasticy. Unfortunately I haven't seen anything else out there that will match it in terms of IPS FHD screen quality (AUO not LG), weight, and the powerbridge ability. My T440s also has an annoying "creaking" problem that happens on the bottom of it to the right of the trackpad. Anytime there's any pressure on that side I hear a creaking sound. I guess I will have to see if there's any way for me to reinforce that area next time I have to open the bottom of the case (for RAM upgrade if I find 4GB isn't enough).

I recently also noticed a concerning issue with the power. When you have the laptop on your lap or are lying down reading websites, you can get small shocks from touching grounded metal objects if it is plugged into the AC cord. I could feel a buzzing when i ran my hand along the metal bed frame. I got my multimeter and measured ~18 volts AC between myself and the frame when the laptop was resting on me. The frequency was dead on 60hz so this is definitely mains power leakage. The culprit seems to be the metal around the docking area on the bottom, this measures ~28 volts AC to ground. I will see if covering this up makes any difference in the shocks.

 

I also had the creak on one of mine. Annoyed me so much I sent it back, couldn't figure the cause. Other 2 I got was fine.

 

The creaking on the bottom side comes from the SSD. The SSD is wrapped in thin foil. This foil together with some pressure and the SSD mounting frame produces the creaking noise. Just remove this foil if you use an SSD.

 

After reading your post, I rechecked the white noise and it's actually changed from before. Initially, it would just be on all the time, even if I had no programs running. Now (I have no idea what happened, maybe an update?) it's only on when I'm playing audio. Interestingly, the white noise stays on when I've stopped the audio, but have the player in the background still.

 

Another question to those that installed their own RAM: If I get a RAM with a head spreader (looking at the crucial ballistix), is there enough space for it to fit? should I get get a ram without the heat spreader instead?

 

Doesn't all RAM come with heat spreaders? I don't think it's possible to run RAM these days without them. Mine certainly had some kind of heatsink on it. I don't know if some heat spreaders are bigger than others but mine definitely had some.

 

Does anyone have the extended battery? What kind of battery life are you getting in real world use?

Thanks.

 

I mostly use the battery during powerpoint lectures with wifi on and about 30% brightness. In that scenario, between 14-16 hours.
I've tried it once with wifi off and 30% brightness, which definitely raised runtime to over 17 hours.
During moderate web surfing and Youtube with music playing most of the time, I'd say a good estimate is 11-13.

The 3 cell + 6 cell will give you double the capacity of the 3 + 3, just fyi.

 

Have the Intel 7260AC WiFi card in my T440s and no longer having the WiFi dropping out but now notice the throughput speed of the card is reduced dramatically. I have a stable 30mb/s connection and the T440s can only get maybe 10mb/s at best sometimes. My phone and other wifi laptops get the full 30mb/s during speed test. Even within my network getting data from my server is slow, I may get 1 MB/s. I have seen that the AC cards are having issues, updated to newest drivers and has done nothing. I am connected through a N-Router and at 2.4Ghz. I hear people getting AC routers to help fix the issue but the problem is at school the network is run on 2.4Ghz N access points. Anyone know of any updates Intel may be putting out or any fixs. I did not notice this in the past being this slow and I have changed nothing, actually the laptop has not been used much in the pats few weeks other then some writing and viewing of documents as it is not my primary laptop and computer.

 

Use Speccy to find out. Mine runs at CL 11 at 1600 MHz. Running at CL 9 will probably push you down to 1333 MHz.

 

Those of you hoping to get your 5% discount from Lenovo for delayed shipping can look forward to keep waiting. I just called in to return my T440s (yeah, crappy LG screen is not gonna cut it) and I also inquired about the refund for the 3 year depot warranty return that I made on 31st December (got the 2 year onsite instead). I was told that it was still not processed by them! It has been 20 days and they still have not processed the return. So yeah, no point in keeping your hopes high for the 5% discount refunds.

 

I actually got an email from them last week saying that they will be issuing the 5% to me soon. I wonder if it has something to do with Lenovo wanting to wait until the return window expires.

 

I'm thinking of ordering a T440s but I'm worried it's going to come with an inferior display. Is there no way to ensure it comes with the AUO panel?

 

I got my 5% credit back.

 

Just bought a T440s with i7/8GB/FHD/256GB/7250AC/win7 Pro/3 years pro Warr for $1256

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N900A using Tapatalk

 

How'd you get that price?

 

Cool, now forget about it for the next couple months. Lenovo suck at shipping.

 

Didn't buy from Lenovo

 

Holy crap, where did you get it? That's a ridiculous discount. Are you sure that's in USD?

 

I recently got my T440s with the LG screen. I was disappointed by the huge difference between the auo and the lg screens. My situation is a bit tricky. I bought my T440s on eBay since lenovo doesn't ship to my country. I was thinking about getting the AUO screen from eBay (its 100$) since I don't have many options besides that. I do have 3 yr warranty but it won't be that useful for me. How hard is it to do the replacement by myself?

 

I would like to know too! Is that in USD? And if so, where did you get it from?

 

Please do tell. When will you get it to check what screen it has? I just gave up and ordered a rMBP but I'd reconsider if this is new with an AUO.

 

I placed an order for a T440s w/ 1080p touch screen, 256 gb ssd, 8 gb ram, i7 around January 1st. Original ship date was the 24th but it actually arrived at my house in California on the 14th.

The screen is great. I just checked in regedit and it appears to be the HAN one, which seems to be AUO. I also think the touch screen works great (I like to use it for reading more than a mouse or tuchpad when lying on my back or at the desk hunched over).

So your mileage may vary, but perhaps ordering the touch screen would do it. And I feel like there's some very ardent keyboard powerusers here who shun touch screens at this stage, but I think most of you would find some use with one in ways you wouldn't expect.

I really really like this laptop. I should note that this is my first thinkpad, so I was not married to the trackpoint/discrete buttons. I could see the lack of that as a big negative for some. The touchpad is OK, but its probably the only part of the laptop I don't love. A bit loud and cheap feeling when you push it. Otherwise, everything is great.

 

I am looking to buy a T440s too, would appreciate if you could share how you got that price.

 

is it worth spending $100 to upgrade the cpu from 4200u to 4300u? i mean see a lot of people in teh forum that purchase t440s prefer 4300u over the 4200u but the difference in performance seems so minimal.

 

Its not just about performance. There are other features such as Intel VT etc which you would only get with the 4300U. Check them out for yourself here:

ARK | Compare Intel® Products

 

if your company needs the vpro management set or vt-d but in most cases I can't imagine a user needing these features. The lower end cpu already has vt-x which is what you'll use to run any vm software. vt-d is used mostly to pass through devices straight to the virtual machine. I use it some servers to pass through controllers etc and I run some laptops as test vm stuff but I can't imagine a regular laptop user needing this nor do I think any mainstream user OS really supports this feature.

 

thanks for the reply. from teh comparison, the only thing i will need and find useful from 4300u is the intel small response tech and vpro tech and additional of 0.3ghz clock speed, such i dont think is really worth pay an extra $100 for it. i will probably get the built-in ssd setting to avoid the hassle of replacing drives and reinstalling os.

 

I read somewhere that only the Touch FHD comes with the LG display while the non-Touch FHD gets AUO? Is this true?

 

False. I have the non-touch FHD version and it came with the crappy LG screen.

 

Here is to hoping that mine doesn't have it :thumbsup:

 

@zizo79 Could you please let us know where you got your unit for that price? PM me if you don't want to post it publicly. Thanks. :thumbsup:

 

I have a touch FHD, and it came with the AUO display. It is an excellent display.

 

From what I've read on forums, I've seen FHD touchscreens have the AUO only, while the non-touch screens have either AUO or LG.

 

Is it possible to swap out CPUs on the T440s after purchase? IE: They are not soldered in by Lenovo and still maintain their socket function.

The factory CPU options are i5-4200u, i5-4300u, and i7-4600u. ARK Intel specifies that these 3 little buggers use socket FCBGA1168 and TDP 15W.

While browsing through the list of all Haswell CPUs produced by Intel I saw something that caught my attention.

The i5-4258u, i5-4288u, and i7-4558u also use use socket FCBGA1168 and TDP 28W. This is important because these 3 CPUs also have iris 5100 graphics. The thought of having a T440s with decent graphics performance is wonderful. Especially since those of us in the USA were screwed by Lenovo and not offered the dGPU N'Vidia option that many other countries received.

What does the board think, would it be possible to switch over to Iris 5100 CPUs without running into issues with BIOS or TDP increase?

And for the sake of argument let us assume that the extra heat of the higher TDP Iris CPUs could be handled by the stock cooling system with a re-paste and tpfancontrol.

 

The CPUs are soldered on the board on all T440s units. The ULV CPUs aren´t available as socketed CPUs.

 

Darn. It seems you are probably right. I just looked through the assembly manuals for the T440s (only ULV CPUs) and T440p (only mobile M CPUs). The manual for the T440s makes no mention of CPU removal, but the T440p does.

I assumed that since ARK Intel actually listed a socket type for ULV CPUs it also implied it was a traditional removable land grid array type.

 

is it more likely to get AUO screen from buying the FHD touch t440s? i have been reading the post on this thread and this seems to be the case. if it isn't how likely i get the AUO with non-touch t440s? i really want to avoid getting the LG screen and the process of shipping it back for maintenance. With the supply shortage in lenovo and the high rate of people shipping back their products for repairs (and possible delays like wrong address and whatever), 30 days seems like a gamble for lenovo to get things done...

 

ibmthink, do you know if a 8GB base (soldered) option will be available anytime soon? I usually do memory-intensive work and I want to increase the longevity of the laptop (my T43 lasted for 7 years - awesome machine!!).

I also had a great T430u with 16GB ram that got stolen about a month ago. I don't want to pay $500 more one year later to get a laptop with lower memory.

 

Ordered one today with an estimated ship date of 2014/02/26 and delivery date of 2014/03/05..

 

What is your config/price?

 

i5-4300u, 4gb, 500gb hdd, touch fhd, 3+6 cell, 7260ac, 2 yr onsite warranty. $1330 before tax. Shipping to Canada.

Just yesterday it was showing an estimated ship date of 11 days.. today it shows 4+ weeks. Not sure what happened overnight...

 

Dont believe what they show in the website.

Since I've been following this thread I've heard of only a couple of people who got their order before the estimated date.
I'm on my second order, shipping was postponed once so far, in my last cancelled order it postponed three times (Canada too)...

Just forget about the computer, if you are anxious to get or need it soon the wait will be hell.

 

I ordered something similar to yours, and estimated ship is 10/02, delivery is 17/02 to Vancouver, BC. (I ordered mine last week)

Guess it's a popular model eh!