ThinkPad X220 (i/T) Owners Thread

That's weak...seems like it should be a tighter fit. Thanks for the feedback..I'm glad I'm not the only one.

 

Both the X220's (with 6-cell) I've had have no play. The first one literally had a perfect fit, the second is even (ever so slightly) tighter. First Thinkpad I've had with no battery play.

 

My dad's T410 with 9 cell has zero battery play. I hope my X220 is like that too (when it gets here, oh the wait...)

 

It's just a matter of "taste". And I can't see changing from a "klicking" keyboard to a more silent one a "downgrade".

 

First one perfect, second slight play.

 

My 9 cell battery wriggles, not a tight fit.

Petrov.

 

Same but it's barely noticeable for me.

 

An update on the drastic and one-way "semi permanent" throttling issue I have observed on my x220 (i7).

A Lenovo engineer came and replaced the whole system board (incl. CPU/GPU) today on my x220 (i7 version). Sadly, even after the replacement, the issue persisted (with CPU temps in the high 70s or low 80s only).

I am afraid to say that, to my untrained eye/mind, this suggests that this semi-permanent throttling (on at least the i7's?) is a widespread issue and not machine-specific to me...

I would recommend that all x220 owners (or at least i7 owners) stress test their system by running up to 4 consecutive 3dmark06 runs to see if the system semi-permanently throttles down to 800mhz. I suggest using hwinfo32 as a reliable monitoring program to be run in the background.

Petrov.

PS The Lenovo engineer observed the problem, acknowledged it was a big issue, had no explanation and was going to log it into tech support on his end...

 

My 9-cell is tight and has no wiggle.

 

Don't be rude!

 

Ok...it's really loose and wiggles uncontrollably

 

Downgrade? I'm glad they didn't put a loud keyboard in this thing. I much prefer the soft sound to a loud disruptive one. This is especially true working in libraries and such where noise is important. The keyboard is fantastic.

My 6 cell seems to just barely move. If it is unlocked it moves just a hair more than locked. It has to be less than half a mm of movement (maybe even less), but it is there. So no, mine isn't a rock solid lock up. Wonder if there are variances in the battery or if it is in the casing of the computer... probably computer. Basically if I didn't just now pull on it while it was in to see if it moved, I probably would've never noticed.

 

As someone who just ordered an i7 model and looking forward to using it as a video based machine, arrg that's not a good thing to find out, thinking that they tried even a system board replacement with no fix implies like you said, that it's going to be present in them all. Possible things from the limited information I know could say that if the inbuilt gpu isn't being cooled/cooler applied properly with thermal paste, or the TDP exceeding what they had planned for.

Ideally, I hope its some kind of Bios updatable problem, and I think we're all in that camp.

 

Thanks for the update. Have you heard of anyone having this issue on a non-i7? Have you tried getting Lenovo to replace your i7 with an i5?

 

Is anyone using a port replicator with their x220? With it's small size, I would like to have a larger monitor, mouse, etc. I've read some good things about the Toshiba PA3575U, and some not so great things about Lenovo's USB docks.

The Ultrabase Series 3 is appealing, but expensive ($220 +) and space consuming.

I wondered if anyone has had positive experiences with USB replicators, or if I need to bite the bullet and buy the Ultrabase.

 

The ultrabase is not large at all! It's kinda like the slice battery... just sits on the bottom of the device, and lifts it about an inch. Other than the noisy headphone jack on the back of the ultrabase, the thing works flawlessly.

 

I was hoping to rest my x220 in some kind of cradle that holds it vertically. Like the bookarc for macbooks. But the Ultrabase would be fine if I had a big desk or wanted to use both monitors. Why is the headphone jack noisy?

 

No, I haven't, honestly at this stage I'd just rather a refund than be a guinea pig.

Petrov.

 

I don't think the ultrabase was meant to support the laptop vertically... I think you'll need to hack something together to get that functionality.

As for the the noisy headphone jack, it sounds like the jack and the circuitry, was not properly shielded from interference... If you've ever build a computer with a cheap computer case, and used the front headphone jack on the cheap case, you'll know what kind of noise I'm talking about.

 

this is crap. i have two x220's coming in this week, one is an i5, and one is an i7 i got about a day after i ordered an i5 ($100 more, came w/ 7200 rpm HD, 9cell batt, etc). is this such a big problem that i should keep the i5 and return the i7 model?

 

Well nobody has tested this on an i5 yet as far as I can tell. I'd love it if someone would, but nobody has stepped up yet. I plan on ordering mine this weekend when the next sale hits (gambling on a better deal than the lame RAM and HDD upgrades) so I'm hoping we can finagle someone into testing this on an i5 (and possibly i3?) this week...

 

I really admire your patience, Petrov, having read your posts about the various acrobatics you put yourself through.

 

Give me an hour or two. As soon as I get it plugged in, I'll do the test.(i5-2410)

What measurement do I have to look out for on HWiNFO32?

 

I would recommend running up to five consecutive runs of 3dmark06 without much of a gap between runs, and monitor the CPU core speeds shown as coloured bars (bottom left of the relevant tab) on the 'summary' tab in hwinfo32.

Sometimes the throttling happens in the first run, sometimes it takes until the fourth run - but I've never had it take more than 4 runs.

I really hope guys that this is isolated to my machine because of some other component (ram, hdd??) or that it's curable via a bios update, as otherwise I really like this laptop!

Petrov.

 

Got it in front of me but when I click on the 'Run 3D Mark' button, it then fills the whole screen. Obviously, then unable to see the HWINFo32 summary box

 

I just ordered my x220 and have a question on making recovery disks. Is it possible to make them using a USB stick? If so, how much space and/or how many would be needed? I know I can pick up a cheap USB ODD, but, since this would be my only use for it, I would rather not.

Thanks!

 

Correct, you can only check the core speed after each run of 3dmark06 (which takes abou 12 mins). But don't leave more than 30 secs between hitting the 3dmark button each time.

Thanks David.

Petrov.

 

Ah, I see what you mean. Fortunately, I'm going to use USB speakers. So I should be OK there. As for the vertical cradle, I think you're right. I'm hoping the bookarc for macbook will also work for the x220, otherwise I'll be rigging up my own.

 

yes, you can make a USB one, but you'll need a 16GB stick

 

Ok Petrov. 5 back to back tests completed (actually 6 but the first might have been just over 30 second gap) and at the end of each HWINFo32 said both cores were almost full at around 2850 ish MHz. Real temp gave about 67 celcius in around a 21 celcius room. That was on max turbo.

Hope that helps.

One thing though. Each test totalled around 7 mins, 30 secs approx. Not 12 as you said.

 

Well, that's good news! This is on an i5-2410? I'm going to be getting the 2420 which clocks the GPU slightly higher than the 2410. I wonder if anyone with one of those wants to run the test...

 

Yes, 2410

If anyone with an i3 could do it, that would be great too.

I'm just wondering if any throttling has been reported with SB CPU's on other makes of notebooks, or is this just Lenovo?

 

Good to hear! Much obliged, afhstingray.

 

I tried only one iteration of the 3dMark and the CPU then worked OK on original frequency but there's one strange thing - after the end of test 3dmark reported the processor as 800 MHz. Also strange thing is that during graphics tests fan ran like crazy but during CPU tests it actually ran quite slowly.

 

I have an i5-2520M, and in a cool office I'm running FurMark and Prime95. If I run Prime by itself, it works fine. If I run FurMark by itself, I occasionally get throttles of a few seconds. The second I enable both of them at the same time I get insta-throttle. It does come out of it once I disable one of the programs. Here are some temps:

Furmark - 76-79 C
Prime95 - 93-96 C
Both - Throttles before I can get a reading

Seems a bit unacceptable. This is on a flat surface, and I even have a room fan blowing a bit of air over it. I understand this is a small machine, but I would think it should last a bit longer on a full load before throttling.

 

For comparison's sake, do you mind also doing 3Dmark 06 4/5 times back to back?

 

can anyone else with an i7 try this test?

 

Hey, where was the discussion of the 50hz refresh rate issue? I just realized that my refresh rate is defaulting to 50hz on battery, no matter what I have set in power manager! Damn, all these issues, makes me close to returning this laptop

EDIT: Nevermind, I found the thread on the official lenovo forums.

 

i was going to make one for myself, but i'm not sure if its worthwhile. windows 8 should be out at the end of next year and then my windows 7 image will be useless as i'll be upgrading.

16GB sticks are not very cheap yet.

 

Mine is too. Is that bad?

 

According to the thread on the official lenovo forums, the same issue is coming up with the t420s, and a ticket has been opened with engineering.

As far as I can tell, I only see some very minor flickering of the image at 50hz, when watching fullscreen video. The ghosting issue appears to be much more annoying...

 

the ghosting of the windows bar at the bottom is barely detectable, so not really an issue. I cannot see any flickering and even the bleed isn't bothering me at all during a video. At least that's the case tonight.

 

I have discovered a potential improvement for those experiencing ghosting issues.

Right click on your desktop.
Select Graphics Properties
Select Power
Power Source: On Battery
Display Power Saving Technology: Turn it off

I noticed that when my screen was displaying very dark, or black backgrounds, and when I switch quickly to something that displays very bright, like a web browser, that the screen spent several seconds regaining its contrast... when I turn off that setting, I no longer see that effect.

 

David, thanks for doing the runs and reporting back, hopefully that means the problem is associated with the i7 rather than the i5. It'd be great if some folks wih i7 could replicate the tests and report their results...

Petrov.

 

Madam - what CPU do you have in your x220, and what does hwinfo32 say your CPU cores are running at after the back to back 3dmark06 tests?

Petrov.

 

No problem man. Hope you sort it out.

Did you see 5150cd's post a few posts back? His i5 is throttling too, I believe.

His moniker is 'Zadam' but who knows? Maybe it's Madam Zadam

 

After all this discussion about throttling, I decided to investigate myself. I used IntelBurnTest as the cpu loader, and hwinfo32 for cpu clocks and temps.

first, I noticed that on Turbo mode, and Reduce Noise Dynamically, the system was throttling between 3.2ghz and 1.2ghz. Fan noise was low. At this point, I switched to Maximum Turbo and set fan setting to Maximum Performance. My i7 immediately went to 3.2ghz (I've never been able to get it to the full 3.4ghz) and stayed at 3.2 until the temps hit 90c. At that point, i could see hwinfo saying that the cpu was throttling down to about 2.9ghz (cpu is rated at 2.7)... It stayed between 2.9 and 3.0ghz at the remainder of the stress test until towards the end of the testing cycle, where IntelBurnTest is calculating to see if the Linpack function was calculated correctly. During this ending part of the cycle, the cpu is less stressed, so the temps dropped and the cpu went back to 3.4ghz. Saw this behavior several more times, until i was satisfied with my understanding.

It seems as if my i7 will throttle to about 2.9ghz under EXTREME LOAD. When the temps hit around 90c (my max was 96c!!). Under reagular, heavy, but not extreme load, I'm easily able to hit 3.2ghz, with an understandable amount of fan noise.

I am seriously considering applying some Shin Etsu thermal compound I have lying around... I'm just afraid that if I disassemble this thing, that when i put it back together, it's gonna develop "creeks."

 

Have you tried running an apples-to-apples test? We know for a fact that 3DMark06 will cause the throttling issue by 4 times through. If you try that it would really REALLY help.

 

Floz, on my tests, just using a CPU burn-in program like prime did not cause much throttling. Only gfx intensive tests like multiple 3dmark06 runs or actual gaming (eg civ 5) caused the semi-permanent throttling in my case.

I suggest you try the 3dmark06 back to back and multiple tests I've described previously in this thread, if yoou want peace of mind.

Petrov.

 

SIGH, fine. Downloading now. Also, in case it isn't obvious, I have the i7.