Thinkpad T410s Open Questions Thread

Well, I just (10 mins ago) got my T410s (switchable graphics model) delivered. I know there has been very little coverage on this model, so I figured I'd make myself available to answer any questions, run any tests, take any pictures people are interested in. I know a lot of people are looking forward to the release of this laptop, so I'd be glad to help out the community!

Some quick first impressions:
1) Incredibly light
2) Very thin, thinner than the thickest point on my X61
3) Screen looks fine to me, full brightness is almost eye-seeringly bright. I'm indoors right now and with the screen set to 10/15 it's about the same as full brightness on my x61.

Ask away!

 

What are the specs of your machine? Do you have an accurate (kitchen) scale? Any pictures of the thickness and screen quality? Much appreciated!

 

Specs:
Core i5-520m
4gb RAM
160gb Intel G2 SSD (aftermarket)
512mb NVS 3100

I do have a kitchen scale! Here are the weights:
Empty Ultrabay: 1.620 kg
DVD Drive in Ultrabay: 1.753 kg
Battery in Ultrabay: 1.861 kg
90w Power Adapter: .436 kg

I have attached some pictures of the x61 with the 8 cell battery compared to the the T410s.

 

Battery life! What can we expect with a machine like that?

 

Where did you pick up the SSD, I am considering swapping my Samsung drive for the Intel G2?

 

You should be able to find the intel 160gig g2 easily enough from the usual online retailers.

 

+1 thanks a lot for the info!

If you're used to the Samsung SSD, you won't notice much benefit from the Intel - especially if you remember the difference from the Samsung over a HDD.

 

True. the only benefits the intel offered were the TRIM support and larger amount of space. Speed is pretty much the same.

As far as battery life, it looks like in power saving mode with the ultrabay battery I get about 4-4.5 hours of internet surfing. This is lower than my x61 and probably the only downside that I've noticed with this notebook so far.

Build quality is fantastic, no squeaks or sounds. Keyboard is firm and amazing to type on. I knew after having my x61 I couldn't tolerate a lesser keyboard.

 

Do you notice any whining? Some one complained before.

 

Nope. Haven't heard any of the infamous Intel CPU whine. I know what it sounds like because my X61 has the whine when it is running while the lid is closed. With tpfancontrol running and a ssd, this laptop is absolutely silent until the cpu heats up above the threshold.

 

How's the keyboard?

 

I would add some comments based on my own experience.

Firstly, no whine that I can tell. The system is uncomfortably quiet - when the fan isnt kicking in it is totally silent and that just isnt normal for a computer.

Secondly screen. I have the touch screen and I would say quality is no more than adequate. Viewing angles are poor so slight movement of centre results in clear changes to the screen lighting/colouration. Brightness is good and colours are vivid, but contrast is poor. Pretty much what I expected, though I had hoped for more.

Weight - I moved from an X60 to the T410s as although comfortable with a 12 inch 4:3 screen when travelling (I use docking station at work and home), I wasnt keen on the 16:10 of the X201. I thought the increase in size and weight to the T410s would be fine, and dont get me wrong - it is certainly no overweight beast, but the weight increase is enough to notice. I am suprised by this and it could in part be simply the perception of 'bulk' which the T410s has compared to the X60.

SSD - mine arrived with a Samsung. This seems to be the most common one, though I am sure someone mentioned getting a Toshiba recently.

G.

P.S. putting a 160GB intel G2 SSD and Windows 7 on the X60 (C2D 2GHz/2GB Ram) has made it seem like a different machine. Massive improvement from sluggish XP on a 7200rpm HDD and highly recommended way of rejuvenating an old machine.

 

The keyboard is probably the best part of the machine. I was a huge fan of my x61's keyboard and the T410s' keyboard is likewise awesome. It's much less clicky, so typing is significantly quieter. I don't seem to have any keyboard flex that I can notice.

 

I'm trying to find any info on battery life running a T410s with integrated IGP (or discreet switched off), SSD and just the 6-cell battery. Anybody able to give me a ballpark?

Getting ready to buy. At the moment I'm hesitant to get an ultrabay battery - not sure how durable it would be over time.

 

Well, with just the six cell and running on integrated, you're looking at about 3 hours of light web surfing with the brightness down. If you are concerned about the ultrabay's durability, I would just get the battery and only put it in for long trips, or buy a couple of ultrabay batteries secondhand or off the outlet.

 

Thanks, good idea. So the 3-cell might add 1.5-2 hours or is that optimistic?

Also, i'm toying with the option of getting the lowest ram option and replacing it w/ 4gb aftermarket. I'm not going to overclock anything. Any point to springing extra for 1333mhz vs 1066mhz?

 

I think I've found my answer on 1333mhz vs 1066mhz here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/lenovo-ibm/462488-t410s-questions.html

So I'm leaning towards 1066 but still debating whether to get 4gb pre-installed (adds @ 70$+). If someone comes across a good deal please post it...

 

Yep, you'll get about 1.5 hrs out of the ultrabay battery. I personally think that it's definitely worth it.

As far as RAM, I just got it configured with 4gb straight from the factory so I didn't have to deal with the hassle. I don't think that 1333 mhz vs 1066 mhz RAM will cause a noticeable difference in performance. With a core i5 and a ssd, this thing flies anyways.

 

I've run into my first issue with the t410s.

It seems that the CPU/GPU run very hot. This was something I worried about with such a thin machine having a discrete GPU. However, temperatures generally are very mild until you try and fire up a 3d game. The game does not have to be particularly demanding, but temperatures shoot up. The issue occurs when the heating up reaches its peak.

Games will generally run smooth on the t410s until the temperatures build. Once temps hit over 80 deg C (176 deg f) the games start to get choppy. I believe that this choppiness is the motherboard kicking in some performance limiting in order to keep the board from frying itself. I have installed tpfancontrol and will run the fan at max the entire time but it seems to have little effect on the eventual temperature buildup. The buildup takes about 2 minutes of gaming before the performance limiting kicks in.

This makes it difficult to play any 3d games. Note that I was not running Crysis on this machine or anything, just Civilization IV. It may be that I just have a machine that is running unusually hot, but with so little information on the discrete graphics model t410s available, its tough to know if I'm in the minority on this heat issue, or if this is simply the reality of having so much power crammed into a tiny space.

Does anyone have any additional information or first hand knowledge of this problem?

 

So, I just got mine yesterday (80GB, IGP only, added an ultrabay battery) and so far I absolutely love it. Very quiet, very light, Win 7 boots up fast with the SSD. So far the battery life is more than what I'm accustomed to - still testing. I do ERP implementations so this is a business/travel machine primarily and this fits the bill perfectly for my needs

Screen is plenty bright and clear to me. I Like the trackpad texture. Top is durable, bottom has some flex in areas but I'm not concerned about it.

I dropped in an additional 2GB 1066 stick Corsair ram from Newegg. Works great so far and only had to remove one screw to access the slot.

It's a small HD and Lenovo takes up quite a bit of extra space with the 2 partitions for backup and who knows what else. I back up files to a WHS so I really don't need the Lenovo utilities and partitions. I'm planning on doing a fresh WIN7 install because I'm the type who likes to know exactly what's installed on my machine.

Has anyone who has done a fresh install on these had any problems with getting good drivers for the fingerprint reader, webcam, IGP, etc? What tool can you recommend to easily remove the partitions and reformat?

 

Well, I own a T410 and while it is true that temperatures do rise when playing 3D games (I've played Just Cause 2 a few times and it runs surprisingly well on low settings), I don't think that mine reach 80C since right after I game I can put it on my lap and while it's a bit hot, it doesn't seem that hot.

Maybe it's because there is better cooling in the T410 because of more space, but just to be sure could you suggest a program that I can download to test my temps after gaming?

 

I've heard that the ultrabay battery wears out very quickly even if accounting for the fact that it always discharges first if it's inserted into the ultrabay. Would this ultrabay then "protect" the main battery from being used as often? I don't think that this is necessarily a horrible design. But are people saying that the ultrabay does not last 300 cycles like a normal lithium battery?

 

80C means on the chip itself. Just 5mm away the temperature is drastically different. Think of it like a candle, the flame is hot but it's also small so it doesn't heat up things nearby much.

 

When it's 80C I'm pretty sure you could feel the difference considering when I'm watching HD videos I can start to feel it getting a bit hot.

 

I rec'd my t410s today
* 128 SSD
* 4gb RAM
* Switchable Graphics
* 6cell + 3cell battery
* 3yr accidental protection + onsite warranty
* 3 Antenna wireless

It cost $1549.92 and I love it so far. I am currently running a battery life test on it with sporadic usage. My only disappointment so far is that it doesn't have separate ports for headphones and a microphone.

 

Paperboy,
Glad you like your new machine. How did you ever score such a great deal?

 

& does this include tax?

 

I'm guessing that deal was a 30% off discount.

 

Hi there everybody!

After reading these forums for quite few months I'd like to thank everybody here. I received my T410s like 10 days and wanted to jump in if anybody is having questions or in need of help. I'd write also a small review to you with my points coming from a Z61m machine.

My model number is 2904-FUG with
128gb samsung ssd
4gb ram
gobi wwan with gps
discrete graphics

First impressions
Reaaaally light and much smaller than the Z61m. Believe those people who say it is impossible to see how slim is this machine compared to the Z61m. Carrying it around the day in a backpack is much better and I like I'm not getting tired so easily. The top is really neat with just Thinkpad written on it and a Energy star sticker. No Lenovo there.

Build quality
The Z61m looked and feeled like a rock with it's titanium lid (I'd like to confirm, yes it really was a metal alloy or something). When I opened the lid of the T410s I instantly recognized a little flex of the screen, which I was worried about, but up to now I see no problems with it.
I hope I can flex the screen a bit and it won't hurt it. Anybody to confirm?
The palmrest shows 0.1mm flex, when I think it just doesn't sit on the cage neatly. When using it is impossible to recognize, just when I was pushing on it I noticed.
The 4 stands on which the notebook is sitting are really good and don't allow the notebook to move on the desk. When I want to push it or move it closer I have to give more force or lift the notebook a bit.

Keyboard
It is really quiter than the older one and the bigger ESC and DEL keys are really better, although I though it is now improvement before, now I can feel it. I need to get used to the smaller differences between the keys but it's getting better (I'm not a 10 finger typist). I'm missing though the Fn+F9 shortcut.
For the touchpad, the texture is unusual, pretty rough and I'm used to the touchpoint which is nearly the same. But I'd like to add that the configuration is really good and you can really set whatever ou want with the given utility(actually it is integrated in the mouse options of the win).
The new mute with the led is great. The feel is also good, hope it is durable.

Battery life
Did not have time to do better testind here, but it is not long to say. Maybe something more than 2 hours with a higher internet and office use. I have to see the Power Manager options though because in the Advanced mode there are really a lot.

Speed
The 128gb Samsung SSD gives the feel. The processor is again faster considerably from the Core Duo 2GHz on my former Z61m. Ram seems to be full always with the swap, but I think it is the policy of win7. Did not test out the 3100nvs, so maybe later I can give more info.

Other
1. Switching the graphics is not Nvidia Optimus, it is with power manager (sometimes you have to close some apps before switching).
2. The USB ports seem to be powered all, not just the one which is marked, however there may be some settings in BIOS (did not check out yet).
3. Thinklight is white now and stronger than in the Z61m.
4. Really missing the "plugged in" led. Others not yet that much.
5. Like the positioning of the "Microsoft sticker" with the serial number under the battery so it doesn't ware off.
6. I haven't noticed any CPU whinning and the fan is quieter than it was on my 4 years old Z61m. In a normal environment I can not hear it. Sometimes I think it could go off thogh. Will go and try TPfancontrol.
7. Thinkvantage toolbox was a good idea and I like Lenovo released a patch for Firefox 3.6 to fix the Password Manager.

Questions/Problems
1. The "powered" USB sometimes does not recognize the devices I plug in (mobile,usb enclosure). Did anybody notice it and know what the problem could be? However the device is turned on, it just don't show up in win.
2. How to clean my notebook? The touch and feel of the lid is great, but you can easily see where I touched it. Can anybody recommend me with what to clean it so I don't damage it?
3. Did not open my machine yet, but can someone tell me which material is the fan made of? In the Z61m is was copper to tell from the color, but now the color is black. Is it painted?
4. Any idea if I could run the first boot application? It also offered 50% off when buying Office 2007.

In general it seems like Lenovo is still improving their Thinkpads even with very small changes but toward the right direction. Please feel free to ask me any questions or tests to run.

 

It'd be great if you could try some games with the discrete GPU to see if you have the same heating and high temp issues as mrpeaches. I'd like to know if this is a general issue with this model or just isolated to mrpeaches's machine.

 

I would like this as well

To be more specific, it affects 3d games after about 30 mins or so of playing. It manifests as an intermittent (about once every 15-30 secs) severe drop in frame rate lasting about 2-5 seconds. On a hunch I logged my temps with coretemp and I had a max temperature of 92c when the stuttering started.

 

Hi mrpeaches,
I just played several times Settlers 7. Sorry for not responding sooner, but at least 30 minutes of gameplay and I also needed to adjust the graphics several times.
Finally I could realize your problem here. I tried tpfancontrol and even without it after the time as you mentioned each 30+ seconds the game just lagged for the 2-5 seconds and then continued to work. I have no idea where the problem is.
Also tpfancontrol is displaying just the CPU temperature. Have you any idea why is it not displaying other temperatures? Also when I tried to set manual with 7 after a short while it jumped back to smart.

PS.: The first time yesterday and today I can hear the "cpu whinning". It's so terrible, because the fan with tpfancontrol shuts down, then one can hear it.

//Edit: tpfancontrol manual setting appears to work, but still displaying just the cpu temp.

 

All I get is the CPU temperature as well. It may simply be that there are not other temperature sensors on these laptops.

As far as the graphics problems go, I do believe it is due to overheating. While I am glad I am not the only person with these problems, I am simultaneously upset that these machines have this issue in the first place. I wonder if anything can be done to fix this as it is highly annoying.

 

It's disappointing to hear that a number of people are having these issues with the nVidia graphics. Based on my limited experience thus far and hearing your stories, it seems to be so poorly implemented as to be a hindrance rather than any kind of benefit (or at the very least a feature that I regret paying extra for). I'm still in the process of evaluating my T410s that only just arrived and this makes me wonder what sort of rigamarole I'd have to go through to return the machine while avoiding the restocking fee. (BTW I just posted about my experiences here.)

 

For what it's worth, I have just the integrated graphics and have not experienced the 'cpu whine' or other issues. For what I use it for (work, browsing, travel, occasional hd flash video) it's been great. Be real honest with yourself about what your primary usages/needs are going to be and if gaming drops below work/browsing/hulu then you might be happier with the IGP route.

Oh, and SSD's rock. I can never go back now.

 

Does this mean that the infamous CPU "whine" is a function of the discrete card and that if you have the IGP, then there is no such whine? I thought I read someplace that the whine may, in part, be also caused by the processor though I could be wrong.

 

I believe it has to do with the power state of the CPU. I've never had a laptop with it, nor have I seen one where I noticed it and I see a fair number more notebooks that most.

 

Hmm...ok. But as some of these threads show, some people are indeed having problems with this "whine" business (like, in part, the OP). So, that means that IGP or not it is the CPU that makes the sound. That's kind of a killer problem actually because there is nothing you can really do about it. Or, is there?

 

The sound comes from the motherboard (inductors and capacitors around the CPU) and is electronic noise from cheap components not being properly insulated. The noise is from the current that goes through the CPU creating an audible resonant sound. You can solve it by opening up the notebook and insulating the offending device (if you want a quick and dirty solution, use glue).

 

Are you being serious (about the glue part!)? If this is the case, then why would not Lenovo recall all these "noisy" machines and apply a "fix" of sorts. Obviously there must be a problem, which they would know by now!

 

Because it's not a problem that needs fixing, so why recall for it? I've seen it in all brands. I only notice it when checking for it, but I'd never notice it in normal use.

 

I've heard the cpu whine before and either people are incredibly picky about the sound or they like their rooms to be deadly silent. Am I the only one not bothered by the minimal sound because there is always something else (tv, radio, window open to outside noise, etc) going on at the same time?

 

I'm with you. I can only imagine what these people do when the HVAC in their home turns on, maybe cover their ears with their hands and shout "STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT." Every finger press of the key must be like torture "click click click." My guess is, it's the same people bothered by 100% inconsequential battery wobble.

 

So, in effect you are saying that the so-called "infamous" CPU whine is a bit of an overexaggeration? I don't have it (or at least I can't make it out on my machine (R400), but that is probably because I am way behind in CPU terms - C2D) - but what about all those posts/ threads dedicated to the "whine"?

 

When I got my T60 with the T7400, I paid attention for it just because someone asked me to. It has it. I have never noticed it since the day someone asked me to check for it. I can say the same for my X201.

 

Well...I can't seem to hear it! My ears must be insensitive while that of others who are bothered by it (which in no way lessens their concerns) must be very keen. What else is there to say? Though I will add that some niggling issues are quite irritating as and when they crop up. In my case it was the creaks and I got Lenovo to replace the whole machine (under warranty, of ofcourse) and now there is nary a creak and a better keyboard too!

 

It may have nothing to do with it, I had just noticed in my quick perusal that most of the folks having issues like that also happened to have the switchable graphics. I have not experienced the issue.

 

It seems a question worth asking. Maybe a poll would help. I'm also curious to know if folks with the discrete graphics more often notice high fan speeds in general (ie even when they're using integrated graphics).

 

The "cpu whine" that people complain about has been talked about in mobile intel cpus for a while now. I have an old C2D that has it. It doesn't have anything to do with integrated or discrete graphics. I still think people are getting worked up over a very minor sound, but to each their own.

As far as the fan running, the discrete GPU is going to generate much more heat than the integrated graphics. Hence, your fan will run louder and more often with the graphics on that it will with them off.

 

can more people comment on battery life if possible?