T440s Owner´s Thread

A clean install is my preferred method. Because you are upgrading from Std to Pro, you won't be able to use the keys built into the UEFI, so you'd need to disable secure boot.

If you're wondering which order to install the drivers in, this has worked well for me in the past, and makes sense:

Chipset
RST
Video
CPPC
Ethernet
Wireless
Audio
Power Management Driver

I always reboot between each of these. After that, run System Update if you're feeling lazy, preferably attached to the net via the ethernet port. Or install the remaining drivers manually. With an SSD the process is very quick.

If you do use system update you may need to fill in some of the blanks manually. You can get the PCI ids from the device manager screen - if you go to the details tab for every device marked with an exclamation mark and google the hardware ids you can tell what's needed.

Finally, you can get the Lenovo Modern UI apps from the App Store by searching for Lenovo.

 

I plan on doing a clean Windows install, then installing either Ubuntu or Linux Mint in a dual-boot setup. I got the T440s with 256GB SSD.

My question is on the partitions. Mine came with:

1GB Recovery partition
260MB EFI System partition
12.19GB Recovery partition
7GB OEM partition
Main 218GB partition

Does anyone know which partitions I can get rid of (after making a recovery USB, of course)?

 

Yah this would be good to know. If someone has an idea could we make a clean install thread?

 

Hmm, probably just the 12gb recovery partition. By the way, what's this 7GB OEM partition you have? On my 500GB hard drive I don't have that, I wonder if that's what I'm missing to make the recovery disks. Oh well, I'm just going to go for the clean install. I just wish Microsoft wasn't so picky about what disk you use, if I could just use the OEM key to download Windows 8 standard from them I wouldn't have to burn this extra key that I have. I don't know what I'd be doing if I had already used this key :-(

 

Yep, a clean install thread/wiki would be super helpful, as I know a lot of people like to remove bloatware, and there have been a number of caveats listed in this thread about doing drivers in the correct order, etc.

Which disk(s) did you try? I was just going to use an 8.1 Enterprise MSDN disk, but it sounds like that won't work.

 

I really am not sure, you might be luckier with Enterprise. I used a Pro iso from the Microsoft "Upgrade Using Only a Key" page I linked to earlier. Got the key from my university.

The clean install actually worked, thank goodness. When installing it said something about "Windows can't be installed on this disk because your system can't boot from it" but I just pressed next and it went on and installed happily. Now I'm just trying to get drivers in, will try following the general order someone listed above. Annoyingly I'm not even getting an ethernet connection to work and I need to go to class so this will have to wait.

 

so i got my t440s today.

pros:
awesome keyboard.
good screen, although some bleed that i can live with.

cons:
platter makes this nearly unusable. its loud, slow, etc. should have had a SSD from day one but im waiting for BF sales.
clickpad is pretty bad. not sure if its the slow HDD thats causing this, but as i click around the cursor jumps around all over the place. either the system is slowed by the HDD, or something else is up.

other thoughts:
love the size compared to my t400.
cant figure out how to get wireless AC. i have a netgear R7000 but it only shows wireless N in network listings.

i probably wont be using this thing til i get the SSD. its pretty awful with the platter. lol.

 

Does the Windows Mobility Center allow the backlight to be dimmed? Or the backlight timeout to be adjusted?

EDIT: I just noticed the user guide says the backlight has off, low and high settings that are set using the Fn + Spacebar combination. I'd still like to know if there is a timeout setting.

And a question for anyone else. I'm not in a hurry to get a laptop and I'd prefer to have Windows 8.1 pre-installed. Based on previous history, how long might it take for Lenovo to start installing Windows 8.1?

 

Mine shipped out few days ago but tracking is still showing ready for UPS, how long did your status stay in that stage?

Cant wait to get my hands on it!

 

The three levels are independent of the time out, as of yet I haven't figured out how to disable it. It's kind of a weird thing to be honest, I doubt that it's a significant battery hog or anything of that nature. If it at least turned back on when you started typing that would be sensible, but it doesn't.

If you've got a delivery date from UPS then it will probably arrive on that date. Mine sat around in China for about 3 days with no update and then they shipped it out to Alaska, then Kentucky, and finally to me in California. The actual travel time was probably two days.

Regarding the Clickpad, I've been using the Trackpoint primarily and I think it's actually okay, the Clickpad sort of feels like buttons in that regard. The touchpad part is more awkward to use IMO because you have to click down which seems to inherently cause some sliding sometimes (but not always). You can do tap to click which I prefer but it's a little weird as it shifts a bit under you when you tap. I think overall it's use able, especially if you stick to the trackpoint. The only funny thing is that I keep getting confused and hitting space bar instead of the Clickpad to click but I'll get used to that with time, since I've only been using it for a few hours really.

And yeah, the platter drive was kind of meh, my desktop also actually has a hybrid HDD/SSD cache drive and that performs way better (it's actually a Seagate momentus XT which is a laptop drive, I had bought it for my previous laptop but never got around to installing it so I put it in my new desktop). The nice thing is that when you get the SSD it'll be amazing, the thing seriously boots instantly and it's completely silent most of the time. It's just an amazing experience honestly.

 

The backlight keyboard always go back to off after putting the computer to sleep. There is no software to have it turn on automatically. It is user controlled.

 

Ugh, minor annoyance with Windows 8.1, apparently the changes to scaling actually made it worse for Chrome, the whole app just became blurry whereas in 8 it just wasn't scaled like other apps were. It'd pretty dumb, I think otherwise 125% or 150% is much better. Although it seems like 125% is fine and 150% is blurry, which doesn't really make sense to me because I would think that it would just be bad for any scaling (maybe it's going to drive me crazy slowly). Pretty annoying actually that Chrome does this, everything else worked fine with scaling (and Chrome used to just ignore it). I guess they'll probably fix it soon since 8.1 is pretty new but you know, that's what beta releases of an OS are for, so that software vendors can get ready before general availability.

Oh yeah, a little thing since some people were wondering about it: you can indeed format the cache SSD and use it as a normal partition if you switch to an SSD. It's really simple, just open up an administrative console using windows+x and then type:

diskpart

to enter the diskpart program. This program is a low level partition management program so be careful what you're doing here, but you just need to know a few commands.

list [disk|partition|volume|vdisk] lists whatever you specified.

Start by typing `list disk` to get a list of your disks. It should be obvious which one is the cache drive (unless you happen to have a 16GB flash drive plugged in, in which case just remove it lol). Then you can use

select disk #

where # is the number of disk that your cache drive is at.

The last step is REALLY DANGEROUS so make sure you've selected the right disk. You can run list partition to see what partitions are on the drive to make sure you're in the right place.

clean

will erase the entire partition table or whatever on the drive, as if it was brand new out of the factory. Then if you run the disk management snap-in (search for Disk Management under settings or win+r diskmgmt.msc) it will prompt you to initialize the disk, and then you can do so and create a new partition. I think I'll probably throw my page file or hibernation file on there just to save space on my main SSD, might as well since it's there.

 

Thank you. I will do this in the future when I plug back in my M.2 drive. It however is super dangerous and 1 wrong click and your whole system can be easily wiped.

 

I recieved my T440s last night and performed a clean install right away. Now I notice that there is a problem with the greys and whites. What should be white looks like light Brown!! Does anyone what this is about?
Pretty much everything that should be white or grey looks like Brown.

Any advice? Do you guys have that too?

 

What? Doesn't the keyboard backlight respond to ambient light level? Or have a setting for that?
(if not, pretty amateur ...)

 

i'm honestly really annoyed by the touchpad. perhaps i just have a bad unit or something is wrong with the software, but the touchpad doesnt register the majority of my two finger swipes to scroll.
i could live with the clickpad and instead use touch to click, but the after the first few minutes, i've found scrolling performance to be unusable.

anyway, i'll test this thing through the weekend. if i cant get it to improve this thing is going back. its that annoying.

 

What size SSDs does the T440s support? 7mm or 9.2mm? If both, what size have folks been buying?

 

ok. so it seems like the driver crashed or something last night.

i started playing with it today and the scrolling is fine.

 

Hi, i receive my T440S 3 days ago i installed fresh win 8.1 ENT. Only problem till now is missing fingerprint driver
latest Version 6.0.0.8102 (ThinkVantage Fingerprint Software) have no support for new T400S.

so my question is if there is any solution how to use fingerprint log in with windows 8.1.

thanks, ivan,.

 

C:\Users\marcin\AppData\Local\Pokki\Engine\Launcher.dll
The specified module could not be found.

anyone get this RunDLL error at startup?
what program uses this?

I just disabled Launcher in the startup menu. Not sure what it does but i feel like its related to this.

 

Thats the wrong software for the new ThinkPads, You need the Lenovo Fingerprint Manager Pro.

The T440s supports both SSD sizes.

@MaxPL,
this should be something for the Pokki Start menu: Windows 8 Startmenü | Pokki It seems it was preinstalled on yours, you can remove this if you want (its unnecessary IMHO).

 

There's a bug on the drivers page where some drivers don't show up if you select Windows 8.1. It's best to select Windows 8 until they sort it out, then select 8.1 and get any newer drivers that exist. Bit of a PITA.

 

Regarding the clickpad - I never had a Thinkpad before, so I'm unbiased about separate buttons, but I do want to point a few things out that I noticed and might help others and also what I really like about it. Make sure you install drivers ASAP. It's a night-and-day experience if you don't have drivers installed. Also make sure you're using all the gestures (configure it so you do), I use single finger click for left click, double-finger click for right click and triple-finger click for middle button. Makes miss-and-hit the right spot on the clickpad a lot less frustrating, because you don't need to hit it, it just works. =]

 

I've also noticed the two finger scroll is pretty annoying... half the time when i use it, it pops up to the top of the page. Must be some bug

 

I have the same problem too but it works well most of the time. It is weird as there is no home gesture for the touchpad.

 

Nope, and it's really aggressive about turning it off. Poor design.

8.1 has integrated fingerprint support and it is working for me.

My two finger scroll is excellent, best I've seen on a Windows machine. Might be something wrong.

 

thanks for the tip ibmthink.

i really wish they give us more options for scrolling speed and coasting speed in the next touchpad driver.
i want the coasting performance to be equal to my T400, and right now its a bit slower.

loving this keyboard though as i mentioned earlier. cant imagine going with a macbook keyboard after ive used this.

screen is so nice too after living with the t400 screen for 5 year. blacks are great

 

I hate to do this but I have to bump up my question.
The whites are really horrible on my screen and I can't seem to fix it. I look at my Nexus 5, my T420 and when I compare the T440s displays light Brown instead of clear white.
Is there someone with the same problem or a solution? I'm about the return the damn thing !

 

Won't receive mine until after Thanksgiving. But no one has complained about colors changing only about bleed (some people). I would get a replacement or return. I think that is the case with all screens, weak colors are better than downright incorrect colors.

 

Both of ours have excellent whites, even when looked at right next to my ipad Air. What screen again? The FHD model should look great.

The only problem I have seen is occasionally when un-docking the color profile seems to get corrupted like the gamma gets cranked way up until I reboot. That's clearly a driver issue though.

 

For anyone interested, I'm currently dual-booting Win8 and Linux Mint 16 on my T440s.

Only issue is I can't seem to get the wireless driver to work. I tried installing multiple versions of the driver using Windows Wireless Drivers but to no avail.

 

Does linux work well with both batteries? How is the trackpad on linux? Are there any other drivers missing?

 

Can anyone comment on how the trackpoint buttons are on the T440s? Are the buttons loud? Can you turn off the trackpad and still use the trackpoint buttons?

 

Mine seems perfectly fine, it even seems better than my Dell U2212HM.

 

Did you get the Thinkpad wireless or Intel? One thing anyone buying this for Linux should be aware of is that Intel always has good open source Linux drivers, whereas other companies are hit and miss so it's best to always get Intel (I think for the wireless it's actually the same price for the N version of the Intel adapter, though I figured I'd spend the little bit extra to future proof it and go for AC). I'll actually install Ubuntu 13.10 right now and report back how it goes.

Edit: yeah, I'm installing it right now and the installer is able to connect to wifi no problem so there is no problem with the Intel card for sure.

 

That's my problem; I bought the default (Thinkpad wireless). Wish I knew that info before!

 

Do you guys use the trackpoint with one hand or two? It seems like one hand is a bit harder and more prone to accidental movement, but a little more annoying. It seems like the ideal way is to use your right index finger for the trackpoint and your left thumb for the buttons. As a new trackpoint user I'm just trying to figure out what works best. On my roommates' laptops it seems one handed operation is fine though which is kind of unfortunate.

 

Thank you guys for taking the time to answer about the problem with whites on my display. I may just have a bad display and need to replace it I guess. Or maybe the drivers, I dunno. The bleeding at boot up doesn't bother me otherwise.

 

@iofthestorm,
I am using the TrackPoint with one hand, right hand mainly. No problem for me.

The problem of accidential movement can be solved if you disable the Touchpad in the BIOS:

 

So I really couldn't stand the clickpad... Look at my sig.

Took advantage of the sale at BB yesterday as this was my 2nd choice after the T440s.

Will come back to Thinkpad once they improve the click pad next year. Thankfully this mbpr should retain its value well once I decide to return to Thinkpads.

 

My T440s should be coming in on Tuesday/Wednesday anyone have any tips of what should be done right away? I would think the drivers would be up to date but check those and jump right into downloading Win 8.1 or are there still issues with the upgrading? How much bloat ware is Lenovo really installing on the computers and anyone see a big difference in the Lenovo drive image vs. a full clean installation of Windows.

 

I had no issues upgrading though as I installed my own SSD and couldn't get a clone to work I was forced to do a clean install. I don't think the default Lenovo software is particularly annoying though. It was a tad bit sluggish out of the box but I'll blame that on first run setup stuff and the relative slowness of any hard drive compared to an SSD.

 

The MacBook Pro Retina models rock. I originally had the 15" but I use the 13" daily now. I only but ThinkPads and Macs now due to the high re-sale value of both. Learned a bitter lesson with the Samsung Series 9 after they polluted their line and cratered the re-sale value.

How is the screen performance on the rMBP 15" ??? Have the screen lag issues been address on high res when hitting Flash sites? It seems the models I tried were hampered by the Optimus switching. Drove me nuts. No such issues with the 13" and Intel GPU.

 

Guys is the i5 4300U option worth the extra $100? Urgent question, buying it right now.

 

The general consensus seems to be yes, but the i7 isn't.

 

i have the samsung screen and i haven't noticed any lag issues.

my biggest issue with the laptop does have to do with the screen though; i experience severely crushed blacks with about 5% of content. i'll continue to use my t400 to view that, however, til i can figure something out.

other than that, this thing makes no noise with normal use and doesnt get hot at all; both things that scared me away from MacBooks in the past which have thankfully been alleviated. trackpad is great, keyboard is acceptable but not great, and overall, i don't mind using OSX as much as i thought i would.

 

Depends entirely on your usage. It's only $78 right now, so it's quite cheap. If you have a use for 10% more turbo boost (note this only applies when you're fully using the CPU), and enterprise features, then get it. Personally, I forewent it.

 

Hi,

Anybody ordered the t430s with the 256GB SSD?

Any idea about the performance of that?

ck

 

It's $100 for us Canadians. I have never worked on an ultrabook so dont know how much performance they give. I'll be doing a lot of coding and app development.
Also, I thought this came with 3 yrs of warranty? On the website it says 1yr.

BTW Should I buy it now or wait for the actual black friday?

 

Get the i5 4300U if you need to compile stuff on your notebook. It is considerably faster than the 4200U.