Thinkpad Edge E420 owners.

Just ordered 8gb of ram from newegg

Newegg.com - G.SKILL 8GB (2 x 4GB) 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Laptop Memory Model F3-10600CL9D-8GBSQ

Here is why, when I said my ram was being used at 80 percent I was wrong. The ram is actually being used at 100 percent, and the Intel HD3000 is not getting its full 1.7gb. Playing Civ5, I opend the Intel GPU Graphics properties information center, this center has real time memory usage. The GPU was maxing out at about 1gb of ram, not 1.7, and the Ram monitor was maxing out at 80%. 3GB of ram is about 80 percent, so the ram is being used 100 and the HD3000 is not being allowed to be fully optimized. So I am getting 8gb this should allow the GPU to fully use 1.7gb.

I did open and close Civ 5 and check the real time monitor several times, on one play through it was at 1111mb, on another, 1098, and the ram changed, on the first it was at 80% on the second 82%.

So you can see that the GPU is in a race with the ram, and by max out I mean that the numbers stayed the same, once the gpu hit 1111mb it stayted there, and the ram stayed at 80%.

It is fun to watch the GPU monitor, it only uses 34mb on the desktop doing nothing, right now it is at 136mb just typing this up.

So if you plan on gaming, better upgrade to 8gb of ram.

 

Good thinking! I forgot that memory is shared with the integrated GPU.

That link is the same set that I bought. GSkill RAM has always served me well.

 

I wanted to share my initial experiences with the E420. I jumped on the $450 i5-2410 deal at Office Depot. For reference, I bought a Y470 prior to this unit, and will be returning it because of the shoddy build quality and extreme dissatisfaction with the Ideapad technical support.

So far, I'm very happy with the bang-for-buck value of this machine. The screen, while not superb, is much better than the one on the Y470. Colors are much more accurate. When side-by-side with my MacBook Pro (work machine), the screen isn't quite as bright, and the whites are slightly more "off white" in tone, but it still looks good to me for the price. My machine has a Samsung panel in it. Again, I made these same comparisons with my previous Y470 and found the E420 to be considerably better.

I have found the keyboard to be excellent as well, very similar to the MBP. One minor complaint is the lower right corner has a little bit of flex - such that pressing the right arrow key has a slight rattle to it. The other keys feel very solid. No backlight on this model, but having used a MBP keyboard for 2 years now I am able to touch type perfectly on this one - they are that similar.

The touchpad is acceptable. Nice size, nice feel, but it responds inconsistently with two finger scroll. I'm still getting the hang of it but it seems very picky about how far apart your fingers can be. In my usage the two fingers need to be very close together. I also haven't found a way to enable two-finger tap to right click in the default drivers. Will be exploring other options for that soon.

Thermal performance has been spectacular. I ran the prime95 max CPU torture test for about 20 minutes with the unit on my lap and the CPU temp leveled at 82 deg. C, and did not exceed 83 degrees. I wanted to stress that the machine was running on my legs, which partially blocks the air intake vents, and still achieved this performance. Throughout the process the heat was hardly noticeable on both the underside and the keyboard. Lenovo has done an excellent job of thermally insulating the case. Fan speed did increase with temperatures, but noise stayed quite reasonable with the CPU load. During light use the fan is inaudible from a normal sitting position.

Battery life seems to be about 4-5 hours with light web use.

I've just ordered the following parts to augment the unit:
$55 - 2x4GB of G.skill memory
$160 - 80GB Intel 320 series SSD
$210 (after rebate) - parts to construct an eGPU: CX430 PSU, LEAH, Zotac GTX 460.

Grand total of laptop, including tax, and all components: $910. For reference, the Y470 was $915 with tax (i7-2360QM, 8GB RAM, 5400rpm HDD), and I feel the E420 + eGPU* solution is considerably more powerful and higher quality for the same price.

* Note: I have not yet tested the eGPU solution, and although other user's experiences indicate that it should be easy to integrate, I cannot yet attest to that viability.

 

Good review apac, one question, how did you get an E420 for 450?
Mine was 570, and I saw it for 550, two weeks later.

I am also most impressed by the ability of the laptop to stay very cool and quiet.

The two finger scrolling gets easier the longer I use it. Also I would love to two finger tap to right click like on the macs, if you figure this out please let me know.

Lastly, if you get the egpu working, could you give us some pics and links, I don't know what a LEAH is.

I wish I could get am Intel 320 ssd, and use my hdd as storage, but right now they are too much money. I was thinking about getting a hybrid drive, but I forgot this laptop has a space for the intel 320, so in about a year I will have to pick one up.

 

So yesterday I decided to open the bottom panel of my E420 to take a look at the internals. On the lower right I see 2 dimms of ram, in the center is the hard drive and on the lower left its the wireless internet card. There is an extra empty slot above the hard drive area, any idea what this might be?

 

That extra slot is for an msata ssd

 

Hello,

i'd like to ask 2 questions:
-is it possible to replace ODD with caddy with SSD ?
-do you recommend i3 or i5 version ? (difference in price is about $80-$90)

Thanks!

 

where's the cheapest place to buy a 9 cell battery for the E420?

anyone figure out how to take out the CDROM drive and put in a hard drive chasis?

 

I would recommend the core i5, I have no desire to replace my dvd drive with am hdd, but I am sure it is possible, search around the forum.

I would buy a 9 cell battery directly from Lenovo, that way you know it works, but check newegg.com and tigerdirect.com

 

I don't think its possible to remove the dvd drive and put a hard drive in its place. I could be wrong though, if you find the link how to do this I would like to have a gander too

 

i was thinking about putting ssd to my future Lenovo E420, and i'm deciding between msata intel 310 ssd and some 2.5" ssd (as a replace for ODD). so i think i'll wait till someone will either replace odd with ssd or prove that ODD can't be removed

anyway, thx for answers

 

I was considering replacing the HDD with an SSD, that way I wouldn't need to worry about vibrations from moving the laptop hurting the drive. Maybe do both an msata and an HDD replacement? I assume that the HDD is just a 2.5" unit?

 

correct. easy swap

 

so the E420 supports mSATA?

 

There was an office depot sale where the E420 was $550. If you had a student ID you were also eligible for a special promotion to receive a free $100 prepaid visa when buying a laptop normally priced at $699 or above - E420 qualified. Net cost of the laptop was $450.

Haven't figured out the two finger tap yet, but haven't really looked either.

eGPU is working now, scored 15,300 in 3dmark06. There's a huge thread that talks about how this is done - here is my post about getting it working with this model. http://forum.notebookreview.com/gam.../418851-egpu-experiences-470.html#post7762211

 

O, I see, so the laptop was originally priced at over 699, and just because it was on sale, you still got the 100 dollar visa, thats damn tricky, they did not have that when I bought mine, too bad seeing as I am a student.

Also basic update, I got 8gb G. Skill ram, Civ 5 plays great, laptop is a little faster. No time for details now.

 

Hi,

I've got the E420 with an i5 for a month now, and recently noticed a low volume high pitched static noise when running on battery (with CPU set to Adaptive and Max Performance, with Max Battery, the noise is still there, just less volume)
With the CPU Power Management set to disabled in bios, the noise is completely gone, just that the system is a bit hotter, and the battery life is well.. teribble.

Everything else is ok, just this noise :|
Anybody else notice the noise ? Or is it just me that is picky ??

 

i upgraded with this exact ram from 4GB to 8GB and now my boot time is longer! was 46 seconds (with SSD) and now its almost double at 1:36

weird

[edit] nevermind. my system just slowed down from when i was originally clocking at an earlier speed

 

I've been looking at the e420 recently and have found inconsistent information regarding Ubuntu compatibility. Can someone comment on this? According to the Ubuntu website, it's certified, but I've read several posts saying the wifi doesn't work.

Thanks!

 

Haven't test Ubuntu yet, but if I'm not mistaken, it is certified but with a special package of Ubuntu. It seems that some are sold with a custom Ubuntu Linux installed.

 

Alright i dont think anyone cares, but i installed the 8gb of ram, put the civ 5 settings at med to high and the gpu is using 1300mb, and the ram is around 50%, so that still leaves some head room for the gpu and for the ram in general, if the system uses 4gb to run and the gpu uses 1.3, that still leaves, 2.7 open. I have not pushed the graphics any higher on civ 5, i am happy where they are at. Also anyone notice that after the screen brightness patch update, that 0 to 4 is the same brightness, what give,s, first 1 and 0 are brighter, now 0 to 4 are the same, all well.

One last thing, anyone have any headphones they recommend, I am looking for full size over the ear headphones, not earbuds.

 

so how about mstata ssd ? has anyone installed it yet?

 

Some were on a thread I put that 0-4 were the same brightness, but I found out I was wrong. Here at work with all the sunlight permeating the area, it does in fact seem that 0-4 is the same, but at home at night with the lights off it is obvious that the screen keeps getting darker as it goes to zero. But it is subtle, this is on the battery, there is a greater rate of ambient light change on the screen when the laptop is plugged in.

Also I was looking through the Intel HD3000 utility, I was checking on all of the options, for the battery I have the maximum battery setting enabled, and the laptop dims the screen slightly automatically to save battery, on pluged in settings I have everything set to max performance.

 

Can anyone confirm if the Office Depot E420, the 1141-A24 i5 model has a 7200 rpm hard drive or a 5400 rpm hard drive?

Also, how are the external speakers? I know thinkpads speakers are usually bad, but I just want to be able to watch some Hulu without headphones.

Thanks.

 

The hdd is 7200 rpm, the speakers are pretty bad, but in a quiet room they are loud enough. The volume is loud enough, but the quality of sound is very low, not much bass.

 

Ah, that's a shame about speakers.

How is the wireless? Is it a Thinkpad B/G/N card or a Intel N-1000 card? I've read on forums that the Intel one is better?

Thanks.

 

I have the Intel card, it seems fine, I do not run tests or anything to determine the quality of the wireless card.

 

I would get the Intel card. I have the same one in my y460 and I have never had any issues on various networks.

 

Alright here is an update, I have owned this laptop for what, about two months, i like everything about it, except, the battery.

Batter life is horrible, at first when I go the laptop i was having fun trying to get great battery life, but now, I have things to do.

Today for instance, I was on wifi, the screen was on full brightness, I was reading text and browsing no video internet pages, with very little graphics and flash, the battery only lasted 3 and half hours.

I have to have the screen on full brightness all the time when I am at work, I work security and the place I work in has tall windows around the entire building, sunlight is pouring in all day, even at full brightness, the screen be hard to look at for long periods, today was a nice overcast day I still had the screen on full brightness, and so I got 3.5 hours, from 100 percent to 10 percent.

Anyone else have some battery life times to throw out there, and in case you are wondering, I had the laptop set to max performance until it was at about 40 percent life, then I noticed how quickly it was draining and switched it to max battery.

 

Thomas, that sounds about right. Brightness makes a big difference in batttery life. I usually keep mine around 4 and that lasts me around 5-6 hrs.

Lenovo makes a 9-cell battery that you can use, have you looked into it? It should give a 50% improvement.

 

Hey,

I'm trying to upgrade memory. The Thinkvantage toolbox tells me to buy 200 pin memory, but someone mentioned here the GSkill Newegg which is 204 pin. And the Amazon memory DD3 10600 seems to be 240 pin.

Which one is right?
Thanks

 

I upgraded the ram of my E420 and I used this with no problems:
Newegg.com - G.SKILL 8GB (2 x 4GB) 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Laptop Memory Model F3-10600CL9D-8GBSQ

 

The G.Skill Link is right that is what I am also using.

Another Update on battery life. I have no internet at home because I am moving out of my apartment, so I was reading a pdf novel with the screen at 0 brightness. I got 5 hours out of the battery, it went from 100 percent down to 20 percent, following that, if I were to go down to 5 percent before the laptop hibernates, It should have easily lasted another hour, so thats 6 hours of battery life in a very unrealistic situation, I am basically using the laptop as an E-reader.

Im sure most people want a 9 cell battery, but I cannot justify the cost until this original battery wears out.

 

Indeed, don't listen to the toolbox, the 204 pin is the one you need. The link above is what I used as well.

 

The 9-cell should provide double, as it's more cells+larger cells. It's rated for almost double the capacity, 94Wh vs. 48Wh for the 6-cell.

Anyway, my experience with booting has been good. I'm actually downgrading from a beefier laptop (which ran very poorly with Linux), so I had my 80GB Intel 320 SSD to throw in as soon as the Thinkpad arrived.

I can go from powered off to the Xubuntu desktop in under 30 seconds, (I have a desktop widget that shows activity on my boot drive, and when it stops I stop the timer) and that's without the fingerprint reader (and a fairly complex password to enter), on the i3.

For those wondering, wifi doesn't work automatically out of the box on Ubuntu and it's derivatives. Mine works normally after following the procedure on this page: 11.04 - Wireless on ThinkPad Edge E420s - Ask Ubuntu - Stack Exchange

Count me among those looking for an optical bay adapter. The optical drive is removable, just one screw holds it in from the back (under the plate where everything else is, and underneath the wifi antenna wires).

I'm definitely going 8GB, but since mine came with a single 4GB stick as opposed to 2x2GB, I'm just throwing another 4GB stick in. I use more than 50% of 4GB normally, and I run without swap.

The webcam is significantly better than on the previous laptop I had, (Clevo), and my Netbook/file server (Asus EeePC 701)

I have to express my disappointment with the screen resolution (I think the brightness and colors are fine, and I usually run the brightness lower anyway), but the resolution appears to be a nearly industry-wide issue. 1366x768 is an insult at 14", and an embarrassment at 15" and above. The Clevo I'm coming from was the only manufacturer I found offering a 1080 screen in the 15.6" market. 1366x768 should be relegated to 10" netbooks, and the 14" should get at least a 1600x900 screen, even if only as an upgrade option.

 

Amazon is likely a mis-print, if it's not desktop memory.

DDR3 laptop memory is only and will only ever be 204 (two-hundred and four) pin. DDR1 and DDR2 are 200 pin, and are not compatible.

 

Hello, excuse me if the 'matter has already been treated,
I want to know
It is possible, after the purchase of this Laptop
install a dedicated video card, Nvidia, AMD on the Lenovo-E420
In short there is enough space to do it?

I would ask yourself another question
configuration dell'e420 asks me to select 3 Wireless Lan
leaving the last ... Intel Centrino Advanced-N + WiMAX 6250, which of the other 2 would be the right one ...
in my post , http://forum.notebookreview.com/thi...l-l/604397-lenovo-edge-13-vs-edge-e420-2.html
I asked, and the user Lead Org, I responded telling me
"It Does not Say Which is Thinkpad wireless card it is, Whether it is the 1 x 1 2 x 2 model or the model. In Which houses i would go with the Intel 1000 wireless instead."

I ask you hours of E420 holders which I select, I would have chosen the Intel 1000 Wireless
say that is good?


thanks

 

There is no real way to put a GPU into the E420, there is no slot for it, there is no space made for it. I have the Intel Wireless 1000, it works fine. I was worried about not having a GPU but I find myself with not enough time to play games, and the games I do play (Civilization 5) work fine with the Intel HD3000.

 

@ Thomasw333, I can only thank you, thanks
Wireless LAN for the fact I had read that goes well ...
will choose this ...
A silly question, since I can not put a dedicated VGA!
I change the CPU
that is, if you purchase a E420 with i3 (it cost less) tomorrow if I can put a i7?
the board of 'E420 can support it? Lenovo say that if I ask, give me an answer?


thanks

 

Yes, the mobo in the E420 can support the i5 2410M, the i5 2520M, and the i7 2620M

 

Thanks well, then I go to confirm the purchase

filthy ... for now you can order, among other things, I saw that they put on the Lenovo site U.S.
the new model E425 ... AMD-3800 in Llano Coming in late September 2011

look good reviews

 

it is the a8 3500, its a good processor, but my brother has an HP with that processor and the power brick is huge, its three times bigger then the standard Lenovo power cord I have, and this is a nice compact power cord. Idk if it will have a smaller power cord than the HP, but it is something to look into.

 

Hey guys I have a question. I love this laptop, but I'm getting a little annoyed with the fan on it. I'm doing like regular browsing online or sometimes just moving the mouse around and the fan whips up really loudly and then slows down which is really annoying when I'm in a quiet room. Is anyone else having these problems? I would much rather have it run more often than come on really loud, is there any way for me to change that?

 

Yeah, when you are not doing much, the fan can come on and spin really quick, then just stop after a few seconds, I don't think it is very loud, so I have not looked into anyway to stop it. They might make a fan control program, my gf has one for her mac, it makes the fan spin at different rates, she uses it to make the fan spin faster and more often beause she uses it so much and it gets hot.

100th Post!!!

 

Lets take a vote, who after buying an E420 or E420s, wishes they could have bought a T420 or T420S because you wish your laptop felt like a tank instead of a plastic laptop. I really wish that I had a T series I want to be able to move my laptop around without feeling like I could break it.
That being said, I really love the E420 keyboard, I don't know if I would like the T series keyboard as much.

Also T series = AMAZING battery life.

 

Still having the funky brightness issue after update the drivers, I also uninstalled the old ones and installed the new ones. Still no go. Any help?

 

any thoughts?

 

I went to Lenovo's website and went and download updates individually, another poster actually found the update, let me see if I can find the link.

 

thanks, hopefully it works!

 

So again, uninstalled the intel driver then windows automatically installed, still have brightness issue. if I can get this fixed, this laptop is a keeper!