Thinkpad T420 Owner's Thread

The T420 HD+ screen will look a bit denser than the WXGA+ screen in terms of pixel size. Depending on which panel you get, the LG panel apparantly looks more griddy while the AUO panel is more grainy from the anti glare coating. They're not absolutely terrible by all means and for most tasks they're adequate.

The T420 doesn't come with a privacy filter so you'll need to purchase that elsewhere.

 

I'm looking to buy a T420 with an SSD. My questions are:

Should I order the 128 SSD that comes with the laptop?

OR

Should I buy a separate SSD (from newegg perhaps?) and install it on my own? If this option, which SSD specifically? And is there a step-by-step guide anywhere?

Note: I am totally unfamiliar with this process. I'm slightly afraid I'll mess up my computer. know this...is it still worth it, haha?


SSD from Lenovo: Mine is about $200 or low $200.

 

Generally you should buy it yourself. That way it's cheaper and you can choose which SSD you get. There's a forum dedicated to SSDs, so you can use it to figure out which SSD to get. Another advantage is that you get to keep your platter drive too, so either: a) keep it in case you need to put it back in, b) stick it in another machine if you happen to have one that needs it, c) get an optical drive bay caddy and install your original hard drive there for extra storage space, or d) get a USB enclosure for it

Solid State Drives (SSDs) and Flash Storage

And here's a thread specifically related to the T420
http://forum.notebookreview.com/solid-state-drives-ssds-flash-storage/590871-ssd-t420.html

 

Hey! My ThinkPad will be arriving any time today and since I got the DOS version I'll be doing a clean install of Windows. Which pre-installed programs are worth getting? I recall reading somewhere that the power management one was decent. Anything else?

Any other reminders for clean install are always welcome too.

Thanks,
Faustus.

EDIT: It came! Letting it charge right now but something odd about that. The green battery light is blinking, is that normal?

EDIT #2:Read the manual. Got what the blinking LEDs mean

 

Thank you very much for the answers. It helped me a lot since I wasn't sure about the buying because of the display, but now I think that I will get the laptop with the 1600*900 display after I will have done my exams in august .

 

Yes the periodic blinking green light is normal when its charging. You probably want the Hotkeys Integration so it displays the status for when you change volume, display brightness and also activate the Bluetooth module should you have one. The rest is acquired taste, System Update is nice for people who are new to ThinkPads and are unsure what drivers are needed for the system. Though if you follow a section of my Clean Install guide you can actually do without System Update and rely solely on the DRIVERS folder to gather the rest.

 

@Hearst, thank you for posting the Windows Clean Install Guide. For clean install of Windows 7, you mentioned to load the Intel RST drivers via "Load Driver" during the installtion in Step 8 (page 41). Just curious, why do we have to load the Intel RST drivers first prior to the completion of the installation. Are there any disadvantages of installing/updating the Intel RST drivers after the Windows 7 installation?

 

If you do it after you had installed Windows then you'll need to install Intel's Rapid Storage Technology software on top to obtain the driver. From experience you can't over ride the MS AHCI driver with the RST driver from the Device Manager.

Loading the RST driver before the Windows installation bypasses the need to install the RST software on top, handy on keeping the system resources down to a minimum which is why I prefer this method.

 

Is the T420 more durable than the T400? Is the lid of the T420 stronger than the lid on the T400?

 

I own a T61 which uses a similar chassis to the T400, so far from usage I think the T420 will probably be just as durable though time will tell really as it hasn't been that long since it came out.

As for the lid I do say on the T420 it does slightly flex a bit more compared to my T61 (which like the T400 has a LCD rollcage). However at one time I did foolishly carry my T420 via the base with the LCD lid up and bashed it against the door frame pretty hard (yeah don't ask ) but nothing happened so it is quite strong despite the lack of rollcage.

 

As I'm getting my T420 soon and it comes with PC-DOS preinstalled, I'll be doing clean Windows 7 install. Do you know if there are any incompatibilities when non-Lenovo drivers are installed?

I always do a clean install with new laptops anyway, and I always grab the latest drivers from related component provider sites (Intel, ATI/NVidia etc.) and it has always worked like a charm. But this is my first Lenovo laptop, so I don't know if there are any potential incompatibility problems with drivers that are not from the Lenovo site. I’m most interested in Intel RST drivers, Intel WiFi drivers, Intel graphics drivers and nVidia Verde graphic drivers. I’ll probably grab the rest of the drivers from Lenovo’s website.

 

I stripped one of the drive trays, removing the metal covers. This dropped the weight of it down to just ONE ounce. This with the SATA connector board still installed. So for anyone gung-ho about making it as light as possible, using an mSATA SSD, no HD and a stripped drive tray will save you potentially a half pound.

 

I think the drivers download from Lenovo (support.lenovo.com) are identical to those download from the component manufacturer sites (Intel, NVidia, etc.); hence there should be no incompatibility issue. It is probably easier to download everything from Lenovo. There is also the ThinkVantage Toolbox if you are interested. I am no fan of the ThinkVantage Toolbox though.

Drivers from Lenovo:
http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/research/hints-or-tips/detail.page?&LegacyDocID=MIGR-77167

*You can also use the ThinkVantage System Update to keep everything updated:
http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/downloads/detail.page?LegacyDocID=MIGR-73695

ThinkVantage FAQ:
Lenovo ThinkVantage Toolbox - FAQ - Lenovo Community

BTW, the T420 (PC-DOS) I received from Lenovo came with a blank hard drive with no PC-DOS preinstalled. Either Lenovo forgot to preinstall the PC-DOS on mine or it was supposed to ship that way (with blank hard drive). Either way, it did not bother me since I loaded the T420 with Ubuntu

 

I just received my brand new T420 and I'm getting the BSOD while installing/configuring win7pro that came with the laptop. (restart/click next/bsod loop) can't even get past the first page. Should I just return this or get it fixed by lenovo?

 

If you just switched it on and it keeps going through the BSOD phase then I would call Lenovo support and request for some recovery discs to see if that solves the problem (just say you had no chance making your own recovery discs and Lenovo should send you some for free). Start small first but if it still persists even after the recovery discs then I would ask for a repair. Though if you have onsite warranty repair then it wouldn't be that bad.

 

Got my brand spanking new T420 last week. Didn't have much time to play with it as I don't want to proceed with transferring documents and setting all apps and customized settings until I replace the320G (7k2) hard drive with an SSD.

I pretty much ordered fully loaded T420 but changed the order to remove the SSD because I was already waiting almost 4 weeks and the date kept on being pushed back. Ordered an Intel 510 series from NewEgg already and it should be here tomorrow.

I already cleaned it up as much as I could and will probably just "ghost" it over to the new SSD. Will do clean install only if necessary or at next re-install cycle.

I normally keep my collection of documents etc on a separate drive in the ultra bay and since I only used about 200GB of the 500GB I had available on my T60P I decided to use an SSD in the ultra-bay as well a Samsung SSD drive will fill that need nicely.

First off...couple of gripes.

1.) I expected a USB 3.0 to be included as I read somewhere that if one orders i7 the new'er iteration of USB would be included.

2.) This laptop is not thiner than my aged 4 year old T60P. Matter of fact, it feels thicker. Reason; the bottom half is actually thicker, the lid is not thinner I guess courtesy of LED-backlit display. The fact that the ultra bay expanded from 9.5 to 12.7 mms confirms my feeling.

Regardless of the above....I LOVE IT!

Got a great price by dealing directly with a rep. One can trying getting quotes from different reps and compare them.

ONE QUESTION for now.

1.) Did lenovo come up with their own 12.7mm ultrabay tray or is it only available from ebay? I don't like the plastic one available from ny-compu-tek and the other guy seems to be asking a bit to much. I will buy it if I don't have a choice but if lenovo had it I don't think it would be that much more.


I will post more info on my lappie in the next post.

 

I bought the same drive for my OS because it was SATA III The Samsungs listed on NewEgg with 5 eggs (the only SSD i found with a lot of reviews and 5 eggs) only came in sata II interface. I picked that in 256GB capacity for the ultrabay.

I am glad you confirmed that the Intel 510 works with T420

 

One more thing. I normally "cycle" all new batteries 5 times when I get them. This applies to AA cells, cell-phone & laptop batteris etc.

I esentially charge them fully and discharge them all the way to 1-2% before charging them again. I do this 5 times.

My 9-cell battery after 3 cycles shows full charge capacity at 97.55 Wh vs design capacity of 93.24 Wh.

I know with time the capacity gets lower with time/usage ( lost about 10 and 14% on both of my 9-cell batteries on T60p respectively but its nice to know that I am actually starting with capacity that is already higher than what the battery was designed for.

I recommended a lot of ThinkPads over the years and those individuals that follow my recommendations, lost about 5-10% of initial capacity over a period of 2-3 years. Those who didnt, lost anywhere from 40-70% over 2 years. I guess this is why Lenovo is offering battery warranty, something I would never consider.

 

I am thinking about getting this, and I was wondering if the DVD drive can be removed easily enough to save weight?

 

My T420's optical drive has a problem I believe. Whenever I pop it out and when im pushing it back in when its in I hear this springy noise and its quite loud if its silent around the house? Does anyone know what this is. Also when I was installing stuff via CD it was also ticking like 'tick tick tick' in the optical drive....

 

Yes there's a tab underneath the system which you can slide the DVD drive out.

Bit strange, mine doesn't click that bad when installing from the drive. What model is your DVD drive? Mine is the Panasonic UJ8A0A (P/N: 45N7550).

No Lenovo still haven't released an official 12.7mm Ultrabay Caddy to this day strangely. You can only source them unofficially from eBay if you want a Ultrabay caddy that fits flush with the T420.

 

Cool, but wouldn't there be a gaping hole on the side of the machine, then? Or is there a door that covers the gap up?

 

Ah unfortunately it doesn't have a nifty flap that covers the gaping hole when the DVD drive is out, plus Lenovo didn't make a travel bezel in 12.7mm size. The only solution I can think to make it light as possible is obtaining the 12.7mm Ultrabay caddy and leaving it bare? (=_=)

 

When I first opened my laptop I had two lines of dead pixels on the side of my screen. After a while one of the lines disappeared, so there is only one line of dead pixels. This leads me to believe that it's a connection issue and not a display issue. Is this a valid assumption? Will it break my warranty if I open it and reseat the lcd connector?

 

If you got lines of dead pixels on your screen then I would call support. While you don't necessarily lose your warranty trying to reseat the connector on the screen, diagnosing display issues is a lot of work and can be a case of trial and error (as I just found out with a different laptop, not a nice experience).

Plus you may never know if it may be an intermittent problem, disappearing one day then come back later and that would really be frustrating - especially if you only just put it all back together again!

 

Hi Guys,

I'm coming from years of Mac use, so kind of lost on everything PC. What programs should I be getting to help protect it? Any free antivirus programs?

I'm about to order my t420, and was wondering if you guys can take a look: Processor1
Intel Core i5-2410M Processor (2.30GHz, 3MB L3)
Operating system12 Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64
Operating system language Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 US English
Display type 14.0 HD+ (1600 x 900) LED Backlit Anti-Glare Display, Mobile Broadband Ready
System graphics Intel HD Graphics 3000
Total memory8 2 GB DDR3 - 1333MHz (1 DIMM)
Keyboard Keyboard US English
Camera 720p HD Camera
Hard drive4 500 GB Hard Disk Drive, 7200rpm
Optical device5 DVD recordable multiburner
System expansion slots Express Card Slot & 4 in 1 Card Reader
Battery60 9 cell Li-Ion Battery - 55++
Power cord Country Pack North America with Line cord & 65W AC adapter
PCI adapter IEEE 1394a port
Integrated WiFi wireless LAN adapters10 Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 (3x3 AGN)
Integrated mobile broadband65 Integrated Mobile Broadband - Upgradable
Language pack Language Pack US Englis


All this for around 770 pretax.

What I'll use it for: law school. One Note, Word, excel, internet. That's probably it. But I like the option of using it for more if necessary.

Will upgrade to 8gb ram via newegg.

Deal sounds good? Should I wait?

Thanks in advance

 

The specs are decent, you pretty much have all the bases covered in my opinion. $770 is a heavenly figure for where I live (we have no love in Europe) but Lenovo occasionally do bring out some coupons to further sweeten the deal (it tends to crop up more frequently for the US) so if you're not in a hurry then you could wait until one pops up.

As for the antivirus you can get by with Microsoft's Security Essentials which is free to use and actually resource light so it doesn't bog down the system too much.

 

thanks for the response. I'd like to pull the trigger, but will wait a beat to see if a coupon pops up.

Thanks for the advice on MS Security essentials. Good to know I wont have to actually buy additional software...

 

Hearst,

I'm following your guide for the T420 clean install. At the moment I'm downloading all necessary files.

The download link "Intel Rapid Storage Technology (SATA) Drivers" no longer work, could you direct me what type of file I need to search on Intel website?
is it this file in this link ?

Btw thanks for making great guide.

Thanks

 

For 64 bit OS, use these RST drivers. For 32 bit OS use these drivers instead.

 

I was wondering if anyone could help answer my question. Can you restore an image (Norton Ghost 15 or Window 7 Backup and Restore) on a SSD like you would on a disk drive?

My question in more detail. In the past, on my disk drive, I like to do a clean install of Window 7. Then, I install all my programs. After that, I create a one time backup image of my entire hard drive using Norton Ghost 15. I create and save the image on a separate hard drive. If I have a virus or my laptop is very slow, I will restore my primary hard drive with the image. I boot up my laptop with Norton Restore Disk and restore the drive.

I purchased my first SSD (OCZ 120 GB Vertex 3 SATA III 6.0 Gb-s) and installed the SSD yesterday on my T420. It was a pain to install. After the install, everything was better than great. The drive is very fast. Using ATTO, the drive was around 500MB read and write. I installed Window 7 Ultimate. It created a "System Reserved 100 MB NTFS (Healthy (System, Active, Primary Partition)" and a "C:" drive of 111.69 GB NTFS). I installed all my programs. I created a one time image with Norton Ghost 15.

1. When I read online, people advised restoring a SSD with Norton Ghost might misaligned the partition and reduce the life of the partition. Is this true?

2. If question 1 is not true, is there anything I need to know or do to get Norton Ghost 15 to work properly on a SSD that I would not need to do on a disk drive?

3. Some people online advised to use Window 7 Backup and Restore. Go to backup and restore and select "Create a system image." Is this method better for SSD than Norton Ghost?

4. If Window 7 Backup and Restore is better, is there anything I need to do when I restore from the Window 7 image?

Thank you very much for your help.

 

Hearst I believe its the HL-DT-STDVDRAM GT33N

 

@reaxion, my T420 comes with the HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GT33N as well. It makes "click clack" sound whenever the T420 startups or reboots, even if there is no CD/DVD inside the drive. It also makes the "click clack" sound when you open and close the drive without any CD/DVD inside. It sounds like the head is trying to reposition/reseat (sorry for my lack of term) when you close the drive. Not sure if it is defective or just cheap drive. It does not bother me much since I don't use DVD drive. The placement and design of the drive button do however drive (pun intended) me crazy. I have accidentally pop open the drive many times I am thinking of replacing the drive with something else, perhaps just an empty placeholder.

 

You can do it, but I would not recommend it. When you switch to a SSD it is best to install a fresh copy of Windows 7. This is because Windows 7 automatically detects the presence of a SSD, and alters many important settings (such as disabling defragmentation, enabling TRIM, amongst others). If you do restore an image from a HDD, you also have to align the partitions up as well. I don't know how to do it, but if you do choose to go down this route Google is your friend.

My T420 came with the 7mm HDD and rails, and I'd like to share my experience on how to obtain the 9.5mm rails from Lenovo for free under warranty care. When I rang Lenovo's warranty department and asked for a 9.5mm rail, they insisted that they can "only send out the part that the laptop shipped with". I asked them for the FRU of the rails the laptop shipped with (and thus can send to me), which is 41V9756. As I checked online, this is the FRU for the 9.5mm rails in the first place! The 7mm rails must have a different FRU and isn't on their system; bloody lottery! I rang up again to a different person, claimed my rails have snapped due to poor quality, and they quickly arranged for the replacement rails to be sent to be. A day later, I receive it via urgent courier (lol) and it is now in my T420 keeping my SSD happy. If you experience the same stubborn warranty staff that chant the same line they said to me, try doing it this way.

 

Hearst, can you please provide some more details on the Digizon caddy for me? After installation, is the drive slightly loose; as in, when you tip the machine upside-down, does the drive inside the caddy move? From the photos it isn't perfectly clear, but is there a slight gap on the right hand side where the thin part is? How is the build quality? The previous one I obtained from eBay was very very questionable for what I paid for it. I would like full SATA 3Gb/s speeds so I'll probably end up buying it anyways. Thank you.

 

I found the 2.5" hard drive to be quite secure inside the Digizon caddy. I even tipped it upside down and moved it about but the drive didn't sag from its weight. While flipping my T420 upside down and upright the caddy does slightly move up and down when inside the system but movement is minimal. However I wouldn't recommend constantly tilting your system while the hard drive is in operation (caddy or not). There is a slight gap on the right side of the bezel but generally I don't notice it to be honest.

I will admit the hard drive locking tab does feel a bit flimsy (not as good as my PATA Fenvi drive on my T61 in terms of solidity) but overall the build quality is quite good for what it is and performance, well it does what it says on the tin. My hard drive in the caddy reports SATA 3Gb/s speeds confirmed by CrystalDiskInfo and HWInfo32 so overall i'm quite pleased with it.

 

bummer....

my ssds are in but not only i still dont have an ultra bay adapter my regular hard drive came with 7mm rubbers. I think I can modify these with a razor blade but if they are not expensive then i'll just probably order a set. I just hate waiting!!!

 

That's weird. AMD's Catalyst AHCI drivers (on my desktop) easily overwrite the MS AHCI drivers. Maybe that's because it uses an installer instead of through the device manager?

 

found them (Part 41V9756) on ebay for 3.99 shipped and the seller is in NY

already ordered

 

I appreciate the info Hearst, I'm ordering the caddy pending my refund. Thank you. I'd be interested in securing the drive down with something like electrical tape when I get it though!

 

Hey guys, is it normal for the T420 to have some degree of flex in the keyboard? Specifically, the S and D keys on mine have a little bit of flex. Rest of the keyboard is fine. I've tried remounting the keyboard and the problem is still there. Is this worth telling Lenovo about or is this normal? This is my first laptop purchase.

Thanks!

 

When I type normally on the T420 the S and D keys are perfectly fine. If I press them a bit harder then it does slightly flex inwards but this isn't usually my typing style unless i'm in a bad mood! My keyboard is the UK English (45N2170) version so its probably not the same for you.

On the T420 there are three different versions of the same keyboard layout so by chance you may have a version that isn't satisfactory to use. If you know which part number (usually stamped underneath the keyboard) then you could explain to Lenovo about the unusual flexing and quite possibly they could exchange you with another one.

 

I have a strange issue with my T420 that only started recently. When I cold boot my computer, the power manager battery gauge is greyed out showing "--" upon logging into Windows. It then takes a while before the battery is detected, and I have to manually specify a power plan. It feels like it's slowing down the boot process into Windows desktop as well. Has anyone else experienced this?

 

I am about to pull the trigger on a T420, but I hear some of the models sold on Newegg and Amazon sport 5400RPM hard drives. Do they?

 

5400 RPM drives are far more common, and are indeed the base configuration for most types.

7200 RPM drives seem a little pointless, now that SSDs are so cheap, but that's just my 0.02 USD...

 

I read about this but I wanted to know if anyone found out what causes this. While on battery there is a buzzing noise, not loud or anything. Only does in on battery, anyone know any settings I can change in power settings to fix it. If not its no big deal. Thanks. If does it when the computer is in sleep mode too running on battery. Thanks

 

Are they really that cheap though? The price per gigabyte of a hard drive still cannot be beaten by an SSD or even come close. They have certainly fallen in price, but I'd hardly call an SSD a cheap upgrade.

 

The T420 has a half and a full size mPCIe, right? The full size could be used for an mSATA drive but then we only have the half one left. I am wondering whether the Option GTM671 would work there, it's a combined WWAN+WIFI card. The question is -- where would the SIM card go and can the Option card read the SIM from the half size slot?

 

My T420 has a dummy SIM card in the slot behind the battery, even though I don't have a WWAN card installed (I put an Intel 310 mSATA card in there instead). There must be some sort of standard way WWAN cards gain access to the SIM. How, I have no idea.

 

Hey yall,

First off, I wanted to say thank you for your diligence in compiling information about about the T420. You guys had everything I wanted to know, including things like "what will happen if I stick a quad core in this puppy?"

I have a question about drive caddies for the t4xx/t5xx. It seems like there's two kinds available online: some that cost around $60 and some that cost around $20. The Digizon caddies reccomended by Hearst are the former; I wanna buy the latter.

Seems like there's a couple ebay sellers that have 12.7mm caddies available, but there are whispers that some of these won't give good speeds. I'm in particular looking at this one:

New 2nd hard drive Caddy Lenovo Thinkpad T420i DV16 | eBay

I figure it's a drive caddy - it can't be that complicated. Should I pull the trigger on it? Anyone have experiences with the cheaper caddies they would like to share?