ThinkPad X220 (i/T) Owners Thread

Cletus, I hope it's fixable with a 90w adapter - latest info on here does suggest it's power draw/adapter related.

Petrov.

 

Ok thanks. Thats what i thought. So as of now the only way it doesnt throttle is if ac not plugged, laptop running only on battery, correct? and i think i read some user stated that with the 90w slim power adapter that there was no throttling either. So isnt this implying the problem is on the ac adapter? Can more people test with the 90w adapter that worked for that other user, i think floz23 was the one that reported it. I know there shouldnt be a problem when ac plugged since it works fine when running on battery only, but if this is the case it appears that can be fixed in some way, no?

 

Hey guys,

Here's my full breakdown/story about the problem.

It goes through all of the crazy details and conditions which affect the situation.

ALSO:

Things get weirder. Remember how I was reporting those problems with the touchpad when the 90W UltraSlim adapter is attached? Well, when stressing the CPU and GPU with a program such as OCCT, the touchpad problems disappear.

I think this laptop is experiencing some pretty serious power-related problems. Hopefully a BIOS update can correct them, or we may be looking at some sort of board or power supply replacement...

 

OtherSteve, great summary! Do you think it's worth adding the semi-permanent nature if the throttling (fixed by cold reboot or unplugging and repluggig the ac power?).

Also, I'm sure the nbr crew on here wouldn't mind a shout-out?

Petrov.

 

Sorry Petrov, I've got you mentioned in there as the source of the information. I suppose I should link to this thread as well.

Also, whoops, yep--let me edit that in about the semi-permanent throttling also.

 

Nice writeup. Just a small issue though, with the 90watt adapter, the cpu will NOT go to its full 3.2ghz for all cores when you stress the cpu and gpu. Even if the temps are within limits, the cpu and gpu will be clocked to their highest, stock rated speeds.

 

I received my x220 a couple of days back. So far, quite happy about this great product. But today found two things not so great about it, and it begins to bother me quite a bit.

1. The bottom of the screen frame, instead of staying close to the screen, bulges quite visibly, leaving a crevice of nearly 1 mm in the left part of bottom screen frame.

2. The bottom screen frame feels quite warm. Not sure if it's because of the led lights at the bottom. But aren't led lights supposed to be much less heat-emitting than the old CFL lamp?

Are these two problems common with your X220?

 

No, get it fixed.

 

Hey floz,

I can't seem to replicate this problem. With my 90W attached, the cores both rocket to 3200 MHz (or above/below slightly), just as they should.

 

Hmmm, maybe I should test with OCCT. I never really liked that program, so I've stayed away from it for a while. When I did my tests, I used 2 separate programs to stress test... furmark and intelburntest, which are the two most stress-inducing programs I know of.

Maybe later this evening I'll do another round of testing.

 

Hey what program are you guys using to monitor all of this. Sorry I don't benchmark. Can someone reccomend a monitor tool, or if there's one built in, and a program to run to stress the system. I just got my 2nd x220 i7 today, still sealed in box. I'll run the test on both the 65w adapter and a 90w adapter I have from a previous system.

 

floz, are you also having the touchpad problems (same as steve) when you have the 90W adapter plugged? And does it also gets fixed while running occt test?

If the throttling issues goes totally away with the 90W adapter and by using the laptop without being on ac power (battery alone), I guess I can live it with it for a while until lenovo comes with a solution, hopefully soon. If not, I guess I'll just keep the one with the i5 processor since all these problems are coming up on the i7.

Update: Well found the thread about the touchpad problems, gonna do some reading now.

 

Yes, I have the jumpy touchpad issue with the 90watt adapter. I havent tested the issue under system load, though. Honestly, knowing my personality, I've been obsessing over these computer issues a little, so I think i need to take a break from testing and such for a few hours

 

Yeah, I know what you mean. I haven't even get my hands on the laptop and already thinking too much about all these issues since I'll be getting mine next week. I think mostly everyone here is in the same situation.

 

One question,

Has anyone with a NON-SSD drive, with the 320gb 7200rpm Hard Drive performed these tests and having the same throttling issues?

Just want to see if there is a correlation about having the ssd drive and the throttling issues. I really don't think it's the case, but let's make sure.

 

My system is the stock doorbuster sale, with the 320GB 7200RPM hard drive, and I have the throttling.

 

Just got mine today and so far, every thing seems fine. A few questions:

1. How should I check for this throttling issue?

2. Which battery levels should I go with? Sometimes the Lenovo one is higher than the Windows one, but other times the Windows one is higher than Lenovo, and sometimes by more than 2 hours.

 

am i correct in that the throttling only occurs on the i7 processors and not the i5?

 

So I read through the posts about the throttling issue, but not really sure. Is it an i7 issue? I just sent in my thinkpad today to have the fan and battery fix. I had random shut offs and when I turn the computer on the message I received was "Battery has reached critical levels" and then yada yada yada.

I called the rep and he said they've had several issues like that. It was upon his recommendation that I felt a need to send in the computer for an evaluation. I read that you guys thought it was a power issue and just wanted to chime in.

I have an i5-2520, nine-cell.

 

1. Easier way to do it --> Go to Page 91
2. Dont know about that, but to check for the throttling issue, you will need to have the 65W ac power adapter plugged. If you just asking about the difference in battery level between the lenovo or windows, someone with similar issue can answer this question I guess. I dont have my computer yet so can't really answer it.

Yes, at the moment, it seems that the problem is only with the i7 processor. But you can try to test your i5 to see what happens and post your results here. The more info we can get, the better to see how the problem can be fixed. To learn about throttling issues/tests you can start reading from page 80, or just go to page 91. There, users discussed the many ways they are replicating the throttling like only running the gpu test on ooct, running prime95 and furmark together, running 3dmark06 like 4-5 back to back. You can use hwinfo32 to get the cpu stats and the cpu temperatures.

 

I definitely will once I get my laptop back! I am interested in this issue and would like to provide as much help as possible.

 

Okay maybe I did something wrong, but here are my results.

I plugged the x220 in using the 65w adapter. I set the power scheme to High Performance. I ran the GPU:OCCT test. After 1 minute, the GPU jumped to 1300mhz and the CPU stayed at 3200mhz.

Should I not have done this test on High Performance or does the throttling affect all schemes?

 

You have run two stress tests simultaneously, one for CPU and one for GPU. I use furmark for gpu and intelburntest for cpu.

 

Out of blatant curiosity, we do have some folks here experiencing this throttling issue with the 9-cell battery also, right?

 

The slip shot test that I did was with a 9-cell battery, but I'll try it again with floz23's advice and let you know.

 

Ok,

I did another run with IntelBurnTest and GPU:OCCT tonight. Ran them both at the same time for about 20 minutes and no problems. I am still not seeing any throttling problems like others are experiencing. My CPU temps maxed out at 87c during the stress test. I am running with ac adapter 65w and 9-cell battery attached, bios 1.12. I have reached 90c during another test I ran last night. I thought that might trigger the perma-throttling but still the system managed the high temps fine. Hope this helps others out. Oh I almost forgot, I have the i7 cpu.

 

But petrov, othersteve and some others have gotten the throttling by just running the occt gpu test alone. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

 

That's correct in my case at least. I don't need to push the thermal envelope at all to get throttling. I can get throttling at CPU temps <50C. I am more and more confident it's power source-related rather than thermal. When the GPU kicks up to 1300mhz you can see how the cpu throttles down immediately (ie no lag for things to "heat up").

But what would I know, I'm no engineer.

Petrov.

 

You need to try the 90-watt adapter and see what happens.

 

Indeed. Except I don't have one. I will see if Lenovo will send me one, gratis.

Petrov.

 

So you have two guys with 9-cell and 1.12 not experiencing any throttling. Is everyone else on the 6-cell?

 

No. I have both the 4-cell and the 9-cell, on bios 1.12, with a regular 320GB 7200RPM hard drive, and I have throttling with both. I've attached screenshots below using both batteries while on AC power, and you can also see from my tests that my temps are nowhere near the upper limits.

 

This is also how I see the throttling, I run HWiNFO32 on one side of the screen, and OCCT on the other. The only stress test I'm using is the third one down in the OCCT menu, "GPU : OCCT". It usually takes somewhere between 1-5 minutes for my system to throttle down during this test.

 

Hello again. Damn I feel so noob-ish going back to Windows after so long. Anyway, quick call for help. I got my X220 last night and LOVE it. I suppose I am less technically oriented than some here but I can't find fault with this machine. Looks and performs very well so far.

What I am having trouble with is locating the controls for the facial recognition. I have read the X220i has it but can't for the life of me find out how to enable/disable/set it up. Any help very welcomed.

 

AFAIK the thinkpads don't have it, the ideapads do.

The only security function I know of in the x220 using the camera is the lockout function, where the laptop will log out the user if it detects no presence in front of the laptop.

 

Ah. Ok. Well, are there settings for the logout function? I am slowly finding my way around this new world Thanks!

 

I couldn't agree more. If you want an ultraportable, I don't know why you'd look at anything else. The only real fault I can find in it is the fan is on quite often, even when in low power mode. It's low speed, sort of a dull hum. It's not terrible, but it's there. I'm hoping Lenovo will come out with a fix in the near future.

 

Control Panel -> Lenovo- Ehanced Camera Security.

 

Zaz, of course reading all 100 pages of this thread (give or take) I was worried about that but so far, in several hours of use, web surfing, using Adobe Lightroom to process some images and running updates, I have not heard the fan once. Maybe my ears just can't pick it up? I was sure it would sound like a 747 taking off from what I was reading here but if it's running, it's totally innocuous to me.

 

I think its called Lenovo Autolock.

 

Thanks vinuneuro. Duh. Looked there but somehow missed that.

 

I actually like the idea of using the facial recognition to log in. Does anyone know if, in fact, that is not something supported with the X220? Is it something that can be added. According to what I can find on Lenovo's support site, it seems they don't recommend installing the veriface on certain systems. Thoughts?

 

Yea I'd really like it as a convenience feature.

 

I am trying to install win 7 off a usb drive, BIOS detects my new ssd, but windows does not ... I also tried pre-loading the AHCI drivers (old school), and it still does not detect it, is there something else I need to do?

 

I saw some conversation somewhere (maybe this thread) about the displayport on the X220 and it's ability to transmit audio when using a displayport to HHMI adapter. Anyone know if this works and if so, what adapter. I have been to monoprice.com and see a few adapters but I know some work and some do not in terms of audio. Thanks.

 

double posted

 

Here you go:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/lenovo-ibm/578530-x220-video-audio-out-through-displayport.html


Best way to search on this forum is to put this into your browser:

site:forum.notebookreview.com x220/ insert subject

 

To the people that are not getting the throttling issue (at
the moment only DinkinFlicka and glambert I believe) and anyone else that
recently got the laptop (with the i7) and want to do the testing.

Can you please try to perform different tests that causes
the throttling issue to others..again with the ac power adapter plugged in
(65W).

e.g. – Running 3DMark06 back to back 4-5 times (not
giving it time to cool off) while hwinfo32 or CPU-Z (or both) running to get
the cpu/gpu stats OR
- Running prime95 torture
test together with furmark or occt gpu stress
test while hwinfo32 or CPU-Z (or both) running to get the cpu/gpu
stats
- If you try the occt gpu
stress test again (with hwinfo32 running), please do so for about 10min minimum
and record the cpu/gpu stats again

Please report what temperature are you getting after the
test (in 3DMark06, record info after each test, then run test again right away)
and if it throttled or not, even if only momentarily for a sec or 2. And if it
did, did it throttle to 800Mhz or to stock 2.7Ghz?. Also report the gpu clock
speed while test is running. Please do this whenever possible if you have the
time.

This is just to rule out that this is a problem in ALL the
i7 machines and that it might be only a problem with some machines, and that if
possible to exchange the machine for another one might actually be a good
option since some of you are reporting a non-throttling issue.

Thanks.

 

I think you'll have better luck finding throttling by running occt gpu stress testing, or furmark, then combining that with something separate to stress the cpu.

So, to be totally clear, since everyone is experiencing slightly different behavior, when I'm on the 90watt adapter, maximum stress on the cpu/gpu causes my x220 to throttle to stock speeds 2.7ghz/650mhz.

On my 65watt adapter, when I put maximum stress on my cpu/gpu, i get intermittent fluctuation between 3.2ghz and 800mhz on the cpu, and 1300mhz and 650mhz on the gpu. I only saw the perma-throttle once, and I was able to undo it by changing power modes in power manager.

On a 65watt adapter, my x220 will throttle down to 800/650mhz just by running furmark or occt gpu, but I find its much more pronounced with an extreme cpu load added at the same time.

 

this is what you want, someone in the other thread has tested it and works perfect with video and audio

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