ThinkPad X220 (i/T) Owners Thread

If you really want to keep making these pathetic quibbles, keep em coming. You're only losing face as a mod.

 

This is what you said a couple pages ago:

That's a broad generalization, not giving your personal experience in my opinion. The more likely situation is that the vast majority of ThinkPad customers are happy campers. I'm quite certain that there are customer who received less than stellar service, it's much more likely to be isolated incidents.

Also calling people monkeys who probably worked hard to fix your laptop is disrespectful. You don't know what goes on there. Maybe management wants them to do every repair in 10 minutes, which isn't enough time to do it right. That wouldn't surprise me at all.

 

I just got a call from Lenovo, and they said that they'll be starting the order process for a replacement x220. Evidently, Lenovo isn't offering the i3-2310m anymore, so instead I'll be getting an i3-2350m. The representative said that the return date and warranty are reset for the new unit and aren't based on the old unit's ship time, which I like. Hopefully this all ends up working out.

 

Mine keeps shutting off for some reason. I leave it asleep, sometimes when I go to class or somewhere out and when I come back and push the power button, it is off. I have no idea what is causing this, but it is happening a little often.

 

I would guess it is in hibernation. Depending on your power settings, it can go into hibernation after being in sleep for so long.

 

I'm still waiting for my replacement order to ship, but today I noticed on the defective unit that all of the dead pixels that were there before are now gone? There were maybe 3 or 4 of them before...maybe the screen just had to be "broken in"? Or maybe the service depot sprinkled magic pixel dust on the screen? The impact/puncture damage on the screen is still there, though. Eagerly awaiting my i3-2350m replacement!

 

But I have hibernation turned off.

 

If it was hibernating, it would say resuming after pressing the power button. I normally don't use hibernate, but if my battery runs too low (because I thought it was plugged in and it wasn't) mine goes into hibernation.

The only other reason I have seen my thinkpad (a T42) shutdown unexpectedly was because of excessive temps. Try running some temperature monitor software to check the CPU and GPU temps.

 

I agree with you. The thinkpad service has always been the best in my experience. I used to buy two laptops per year with different brands but now I have to stay with Lenovo thinkpad because of the excellent service that I have received in the past years.

 

any one can say how good is idea to take X220 Tablet as BOOK READER device (for pdf reading e.t.c.)

I thought about some Samsunb Galaxy Tab/IPAD2 - what u think what will be better for book reading and site surfing, while you are in bed or something? I like that X220 is full windows machine with keyboard, what I can use some time while traveling, but not sure what will be easier for the eyes for long time book reading?

P.S.: I know e-ink better for book reading, but they mostly sucks for PDF + very slow + sometimes I want to read just some big website articles not seating near pc.

 

My replacement arrived today. This one has a 2350 i3 instead of a 2310. Nice free upgrade.

On first turning it on, I noticed a dead pixel right in the middle of the screen, and another off near where the start menu button is. I thought, "Oh, not this AGAIN" and was disappointed for a few minutes.

After giving the computer time to warm up, I thought I'd try the "massage the pixel back to life" trick (the blue part of the pixel wasn't working)...even though this trick has never, ever worked for me before.

This time, it worked. I'm surprised and very pleased! There (now) aren't any dead pixels that I can see. There's some minimal backlight bleed in the bottom center..but by laptop standards what little there is is acceptable. Of course, the bezel warping issue is still present, although not quite to the same degree as the other one when it arrived. This may be due to the fact that it is cooler outside now than what it was two weeks ago, though. This is apparently a design flaw in the x220 series that lenovo needs to address. Maybe when they fix it I'll order a replacement bezel from them or something. For now, it isn't too much of an annoyance even by my picky standards.

Overall, I'm pleased with the laptop and I'll post more if I run into any problems.

Edit: Both of my laptops have had different distinct "new laptop smell" that lingers with them a while - kind of like new car smell? I wonder why? Factory smell, maybe?

 

Hey everyone, having some weird issues with my battery (9-cell)

So after using my battery for like 4 or 5 hours my computer says that I have around 5 hours of battery life (like it should). Everything is normal and then suddenly it jumps from 5-6 hours of battery life to "6%" which it then puts the laptop and sleep mode..

The battery's condition is fine and all of my power settings are normal, so I'm not sure why it is suddenly always dropping a huge amount of battery life?

 

So, my hitachi HDD in the new laptop makes an audible spin-down sound when powering off. Is this normal?

The defective laptop has a Seagate hard drive. Which one should I keep? I've read that Hitachi is faster but that Seagate is quieter and cooler. Thoughts?

 

In my experience, hitachi drives have an excellent lifespan (low failure rate) when compared to WD/Seagate.

 

Sounds like a typical battery failure. Get it replaced sooner rather than later.

S

 

Sometimes when waking out of suspend, my X220i can't change the screen brightness. Either via hotkey or in the Windows settings.

Did anyone else experience this problem, or do you know if the latest BIOS update fixes this problem? I wasn't brave enough to apply it yet...

 

It's quite well known across all series.

Set lid close to no action, and when it happens, close the lid, wait a sec, reopen it, and it should work. Happens to my W520, my T400, and 100% of the time on my X100e.

 

Thank you Colonel, I will try that. It's sad that we have to use a workaround for such an old problem, if even a notebook like the T400 has it.

 

Hey, I'm in talks with someone on craigslist right now and don't think this warrants a topic, hope it's alright.. Does anyone know how much an X220 w/ i5, default config, and no IPS resells for, sealed? I see it's about 800 on Amazon, but it's at 500 bidding on Ebay.

 

in USA? probably not more than 600 to 700 dollars.

 

I still haven't sent the machine in yet as it's so damn new to me right now that I don't think I could be without it for a few days. I'll probably end up sending it in to the depot in a few months or look into having a local depot do the job.

Truth be told, I'm not actually bothered by the bezel warp. After slowly pressing and holding it in place, it's seems to have become more flush. It's still there, but it's much less of a warp that before. I definitely want to have it fixed as I don't want to deal with dust getting in there over time...

 

I decided to go with the seagate drive because it is quieter and does not have a shutdown beep or worrisome sounding spin down sound.

Other problems I've noticed:

-When in a totally dark room there's some very noticeable backlight bleed in the bottom right-hand corner, but it isn't entirely due to the LCD - it's due to the bezel! If I apply pressure to the bezel on that side of the bottom, the backlight bleed almost all disappears.

-The fan on the replacement is considerably louder than the original one, and has a high pitched whine to it. It sounds sort of like the high pitched whine from a passenger plane engine when heard from within the cabin. Is it true that I can't switch the fans without voiding the warranty?

Other than that, things are mostly good...I reformatted and reinstalled windows + all of the drivers, and that seems to be working fine.

 

Thanks for the reply about the price. If I can resell for 700 then I just got my X220i with IPS for 585 shipped and taxed.

Anyway, I was just wondering if anyone here has bought skins for their X220? I was looking at Gelaskins, but since the X220 is uniquely sized it isn't listed..

Skins for Laptops | GelaSkins They offer:

• 8.4 x 5.5" (213 x 140mm)*
• 9.4 x 5.8" (239 x 147mm)*
• 9.8 x 6.7" (249 x 170mm)*
• 11 x 8.3" (279 x 211mm)*

Forgive the blasphemy, but my wife just really hates the matte black and we almost went for an E420 because of it .. Heh.

 

Just checking in! I finally got my X220 today after it was held up in customs for a few days. I've read backwards ~100 pages or so, hopefully will read the rest this weekend.

I'm running Debian Sid on it, and posted in the Linux thread: http://forum.notebookreview.com/lenovo-ibm/575569-linux-x220-26.html#post7992503

I was happy to find that my Pelican 1080CC case fits the X220 with the 9 cell perfectly, and that my zalman nc1500 mini cooler fits the X220 nicely as well. Both are carry-overs from my last notebook, an ASUS U20A (also a 12").

 

Update your BIOS. For the X120e, at least, this issue occured whenever the power state was changed when the laptop was in sleep mode (ie, unplug your laptop when it is sleeping and turn it on using battery power). After a BIOS update, though, this issue seems to be mostly resolved, although I get it randomly every now and then for some reason.

 

Is the CPU throttle problem fixed on these especially with the i7 CPU?

 

Yes, with the most recent BIOS, throttling is no longer an issue (i7, AC adapter in, battery attached).

 

It happened across many (including latest BIOS versions) and still does occasionally. Sometimes it just takes a few seconds for the thing to respond, other times not.

 

Looking more and more like the X220T might end up being my next notebook. Too bad getting a customized system shipped to ole Norway at a sane price might prove challenging. Hopefully the build quality and throttling issues will be solved soon.

The notebookreview... review mentioned the multitouch screen being underwhelming compared to the not multitouch version. Anyone have any experience with this?

Currently sitting on a Alienware M11X (bleh) where the hinges are about to break for the fourth time. Good thing consumer rights have my back. (Void purchase if within five years, three repairs on the same problem doesn't remedy the problem.)

 

Hi Northern AvengeR,

I would seriously advise avoiding the X220t for the time being as it suffers from serious stylus accuracy issues (see this thread). Lenovo are apparently working on a fix that should be released soon, so you might want to wait until people report back on the results.

To be honest though, the digitizer issue coupled with the backlight bleed, bezel warping and IPS ghosting issues (all of which are complained about frequently on the web) don't instil me with confidence regarding the quality of the laptop. Fortunately, I managed to return my X220t for a full refund, which is a shame because otherwise I really liked the machine.

 

Too bad. It almost looked like a perfect notebook for my needs. I still have a while until I have to decide on which notebook to get so I guess I have to do more research.

Thanks for the warning though.

 

I should be getting my hands on my new x220 in a couple of weeks, which I am quite excited about. Since I am not really busy at work, I wanted to write (for my own sake) out the steps to install a mSata drive. I chose as simple a setup as possible (Intel 310 80GB mSata since I read it was likely the most stable; a USB key because I don't want to buy an external DVD drive just yet; and R&R factory state rather than a clean install of Windows 7).

I have mostly been using Macs for the past decade so I needed to dumb down as many steps as possible. Please let me know if any of my steps are totally wrong or if I am missing anything. Thank you. Various Thinkpad forums have been quite helpful.

(1) Create factory recovery disks on to a bootable 16GB USB thumb drive ( http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/detail. ... MIGR-74246); ( http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/detail. ... IGR-4Q2QAK)

(2) Install mSata (watch the service videos for each step below at http://www.lenovoservicetraining.com/io ... index.html)

(3) Remove the Keyboard (page 67 of Hardware Maintenance Manual ("HMM"); service video)

(4) Remove the Palm Rest (page 69 of HMM; service video)

(5) Insert mSata drive (page 71 of HMM; note that there are no specific instructions for doing this on Lenovo's web site, but it is basically the same process as "Replace WWAN" as described in the service video (but without connecting any of the wires obviously)

(6) Reattach Palm Rest and Keyboard

(7) Remove the Hard Drive (page 63 of HMM; service video)

(8) Insert USB thumb drive containing factory recovery disks

(9) Turn on x220 and press F12, when "Startup Device Menu" opens, release F12 key (page 108 of HMM). Select the desired startup device (mSata) and the press Enter. The restore process begins.

(10) Follow the instructions on the screen to complete the operation.

(11) Re-install the Hard Drive (page 63 of HMM; service video)

(12) Remove the USB thumb drive containing factory recovery disks and restart the x220

(13) Press F1 to enter BIOS

(14) Change the boot priority to mSata via the Start/Boot menu.

(15) Afterwards, cross your fingers that these steps work. You will then need to call Microsoft to activate Windows 7 on the mSata assuming I don't use the ABR tool to copy the Windows activation code, which I don't plan on doing.

It gets even murkier for me with these last steps.

(1) Forums are unclear as to whether an install of the factory state on to a mSata would require re-installing SP1 and device drivers. Assuming it does, I think you of SP1 and device drivers is necessary for a factory state installation on to a mSata. Assuming it is necessary, I believe you can re-install device drivers and SP1 using the ThinkVantage program. However, you must make sure to install Windows SP1 before installing the Intel 3000 HD driver or else you will have to re-install Windows 7 again. Just uncheck the boxes for Intel 3000 HD until you are sure that Windows SP1 has been installed.

(2) Then, reformat the Hard Drive to recapture some disk space but leave the rescue and recovery partition alone just in case the mSata fails.

Notes:

--According to various forums, the method above should have no alignment issues despite initial concerns from various posters.
--The main advantage of a clean install is that you can get rid of bloatware from the start.
--I am also confused about UEFI and Legacy boot issues, but I think most people seem to think UEFI is the way to go and that you should set the mSata to UEFI boot only in the BIOS steps (no.11 and 12 above).

 

Looks like just about perfect instructions to me...

#15: no need. I've transferred an image of Windows 7 to an SSD on my desktop and the mSata on the x220 and there was no need to call Microsoft.

(1): My x220 needed many Microsoft and Thinkvantage updates after moving Windows. Whether SP1 and device drivers were involved, I'm not sure.

 

Thanks. When updating, did you go just go directly to the Lenovo support page, and did it automatically tell you what you needed? Or did you go through the Thinkvantage program?

 

I used Thinkvantage.

 

I am very close to pulling the trigger on an x220, the only thing I'm nervous about (because I bought a e220s and had this issue) is that the screen will be a bit grainy, as if you can see a grid of pixels at certain distances. Does anyone know what I mean? If so, does the x220 have any signs of this?

 

the screen door effect is not a problem with the X220.

 

rofl, that is the best term I've used to describe it. Thanks!

 

I just ordered an x220 with:

i5-2520M
4gb RAM
IPS screen with 720p webcam
wifi upgrade
fingerprint reader and bluetooth

for $920 after tax. How did I do?

 

You did great. You came in at about the same price as I did. Mine was $955 after tax except that I got the 9-cell battery. I believe our other configurations are identical (including the screen, webcam, FR, BT and 6205 wifi upgrade).

 

It is okay for the price, but if you are in USA you probably can get better pricing.

 

woops!

Reading your response made me realise that I forgot to mention the 9-cell battery. I upgraded to that aswell.

 

I think there was a similar new, not refurbed, model in the outlet last week for a little over $700.

 

Hi
Re: the fingerprint reader on X220, does anyone know if its possible just to activate power-on fingerprint WITHOUT having a windows password/fingerprints? Cheers

 

Wooo, I'm amaze by this laptop. Just did a clean install on Intel 310 80go and added 8go of ram. It rocks, it's fast, strong and powerfull.
I did my clean install with a single USB thumb (win7 ISO and custom drivers selection installed manually)
Next step, I'm going to calibrate the IPS screen with Adjust software and a prob, see how good it can be, I will post ICM profil if you want it (brightness at 12, as I feel confortable with it).

I get that WIE score (i52520, 8go RAM, Intel 310 80go + Hitachi 320go 7200rpm)
Processor 7.1
RAM 7.5
Graphic 6.3
Gaming 6.3
HD 7.7

Still tweaking the beast :
1. I read on some posts about the enablePS (reg fix) that optimize Wifi setting for battery. Should I apply it ? I didn't see any drop in battery after clean install, same duration (9cell).
2. Do I need to run on schedulle, Intel ssd optimizer as I thought it was implemented native in 310 mSATA G2.

 

I am considering x220 right now. Is it worth upgrading HD from 5400 to 7200 rpm? Would the 7200rpm HD have more noise and possibly causes vibration?

Another question is that if I install a 32GB mSATA SSD in it, would it be recognized as a separate drive? In other words if I want to take advantage of it as a boot drive then I would have to reinstall Windows 7 right? Is it possible to set something like a firmware based RAID so that the SSD can work together with the HDD as one single drive?

 

I've never had vibration with the 7200. You can feel it spinning if you put your hand flat down on the machine. Frankly I've never even noticed that until I actually just did it. I couldn't tell you any sound difference, but the 7200 isn't bad. This is the quietest machine I've ever had.

The mSata will be recognized as another drive. I basically set mine up as two mirrored operating systems. My intel 310 is my main partition and then the hdd is for data storage. I dig that just in case my SSD dies... have everything on the HDD so I can just boot to that.

Plus with the mSata you can spin down the HDD so the machine will be veryyy quiet. When the HDD spins down I can't even hear my machine on unless I'm doing something real intensive and the fan ramps.

 

Have all the initial problems with the x220 been fixed? I've heard many problems about screen burn-in, CPU throttling, loud fans, and what not. I'm in the market for a nice portable laptop and I plan on buying one within the next two weeks.

 

I vote for a mSATA for the boot drive and the Hitachi 500GB Zk500. Then you've got speed and space. I wouldn't go below 40GB for a mSATA.

 

Since X220 has no optical drive, if I want to transfer many Gigs of movies, would there be a faster way than through USB 2.0?