Thinkpad T420 Owner's Thread

I have a question.

Recently purchased a T420, and I am not sure if I am paranoid or anything, but does anybody have a LITTLE bit of a loose hinge. As in, it's sturdy, but if you put pressure on it a little bit, pushing it to the back or the front, it wobbles a tad bit. Is this with any screen?

Please check, this is pretty important to me, seeing that my immediate 30 day warranty for newegg is running out soon!

 

Deciding between T420 and T420s and I wonder what is actually a difference between them beside 3.0 USB ports.

I guess you can always attach 9cell battery to 420s model or not?

 

Mine does move slightly if you put a bit of pressure against the lid but it is firmer compared to my 4 year old T61 which has too much leeway and rocks about. I don’t think it’s a major issue so I wouldn’t really worry about it.

Battery difference are quite significant between the two, I don't think the T420s even have a 9 cell battery option as it offers either the standard 3 cell or upgraded 6 cell battery. Even so the 6 cell on the T420s holds less capacity compared to the 6 cell on the standard T420 models. If having long battery life is important to you then you may be better off with the standard T420 model.

 

Yes it is.

Right now I am having W510 and what I do not like about it is bigger size and very low battery life.

So I am looking for something smaller and with better battery life. I was also looking for X220 where battery life is great but I guess that T420 is easier to use - more comfortable.

 

Should T520 owners post here, or create a new thread?

 

I notice that T series use integrated graphic. How good is it Intel HD Graphics 3000?

I am using W510 and not playing games. Will I miss something? I use photo management tools like PS, Lightroom and daily business activities .

 

T520 owners should visit this thread.

The Intel HD 3000 is a capable GPU, I use it for Photoshop work with no problems and it plays my HD movies without much strain so I would believe it would be fine for your needs.

 

Weight and thickness. Personally, I would have preferred my T420s to have eSATA. USB 3.0 is not yet sufficiently mature to be bootable.

The T420s battery is at the front and only comes in one size. However, a battery in the bay can add around 3 hours to the T420s run time. FWIW I'm typing this on my T420s sitting in an airport using the wireless connection and the power gauge says 6h 24m (76%) remaining with both the main and bay batteries on board.

John

 

How much have this predictions wit the the real usage time ? Run times >7,5-8hours are possible ?

 

Sorry to repost but can anyone else with a similar setup run a graphics benchmark and let me know how they do? I've got a new T420, with i7, 8gb of RAM, 1366 X 768 screen and nvidia gpu option

I ran the 3dmark benchmark and got P2625 3DMarks.

Thanks!

 

What bluetooth mouse should I get for my Lenovo T420?

Has anyone tried the Thinkpad Bluetooth laser mouse ($50)? It'd be nice to have a matching mouse...but if there are better ones (performance wise or price wise), I don't mind mix-matching

 

Any Bluetooth mouse should work fine with the T420. Personally I use the Microsoft Bluetooth Notebook Mouse 5000 which is comfortable and uses Laser technology for better accuracy. Since it's finished in Black and Silver it doesn't look out of place with my ThinkPad plus its also less expensive than the ThinkPad mouse too!

 

I seriously considering an SSD. SHould I go for it or wait till prices go down?

I currently have 500gb main, and 250gb secondary ultrabay caddy.

 

If you're not using mSata for UMTS, than go for mSata SSD and you'll have than 3 disks in your Laptop. I have it like that.

 

I am not so familiar with SSD. Can anyone give me just a short recommendation what to put in T420?

I would need more space than just 256MB. From last post I can understand that I can put more SSD in 420 or.. ?

Also please give some manufacture propose which works the best with 420.

Thanks!

 

which is cheaper, mSata or SSD?

I don't mind having a regular ssd + hdd..

 

Is the combo headphone/microphone port compatible with Nokia headset? when i plug my Nokia E72 headset in, the sound is terrible with lots of hiss and the mic seem not work.

 

You can look for example here on prices of mSata SSDs and for example here are prices of both variants.

 

My T420 just shipped yesterday. I have purchased an additional 4GB of RAM to supplement the 2GB that it shipped with from the factory.

Do you guys recommend getting an Intel 40GB mSATA SSD for $100? I guess I can install Windows onto that drive and leave everything else on the 320GB hard drive that comes with it.

 

If you're not going to use the optical drive often, Id get an ultrabay for 20 bucks on ebay and get a much faster ssd.

 

I could possibly get three drives on this thing? Sweet. But I do use the DVD drive to install games and operating systems occasionally.

 

Yes you can have three drives on the T420, one mSATA drive, one primary drive and one drive in the Ultrabay. The Ultrabay drive you can hotswap anytime should you need to use the optical drive again and vice-versa.

 

The 40GB Intel drive is extremely cramped for a Windows 7 install.

Add onto that that the 80GB Intel drive is significantly faster (more memory = more channels) and I have a hard time recommending the 40GB Intel drive.

 

Yeah, but it's out of stock everywhere. The 80GB version, I mean.

 

T420

Ordered: July 13
Estimated ship date: August 5
Actual ship date: July 24
Estimated delivery: July 29

Good thing I didn't spend money on expedited shipping.

 

Very similar to mine:

Ordered: July 14
Estimated ship date: August 11
Actual ship date: July 24
Estimated delivery July 29

Probably part of the same general shipment.

 

Just got my T420 with Win7 today. I basically bought a Lenovo because of the matte screen, metal frame, and keyboard. It's going to be used for surfing and light gaming.

Does anyone have a list of what all the various Lenovo pieces of software do? I'm upgrading from a T60p on Vista32. I'm not willing to do a clean install.

I'd like to disable and/or remove as many "extra" pieces of software as possible (95 processes under WinManager = slow boot). I can go through the add/remove programs menu, but want to be sure I'm killing the correct stuff. I can always google the process names, but on my T60, things had a way of being resurrected everytime I did an update.

TIA-Frisbee

 

Thinking about buying one of these tonight while the 10% off deal is still running - are there likely to be any refreshes on the horizon, in the next 3 months or so does anyone know? Say before Ivy Bridge hits next year? tia

 

I have no inside knowledge but I can't think of any good reason for a refresh before the next Intel platform arrives. These are business machines where, for ease of support, changes are made less frequently than for consumer notebooks. That's not to say that there won't be minor tweaks, such as offering a 500GB HDD if/when one becomes available in 7mm thickness.

John

 

Thanks John, appreciate the input, thats the sort of info I was after. I've gone ahead and bought it.

 

I recently purchased the T420 and it came preloaded with ThinkVantage Fingerprint Software; I could not, however, located ThinkVantage Password Manager (or, for that matter, ThinkVantage Client Security Solution). I was under the impression that this software came with the computer. If anyone could help me find these apps either on my computer or as a download, I would be grateful. I mainly want to have the ability to log on to websites through the fingerprint analyzer rather than typing a password; if there is another application that can do this, please give me the name!

Thank you

 

Hello. Can anyone confirm if the T420 has a microphone on it or not? I bought a machine without the webcam.

 

Anyone experienced skype not functioning well with the laptop? When I tried to call using skype, an error message appears saying that skype cannot access the sound card. Cannot hear a thing (and the other side cannot hear also).

 

hmm searching the thread isn't working so well for me this morning so...
since i've ordered my t420 now i've got a couple of questions if thats ok:

My plan is to replace the hdd with my ssd - i'm reading about the standard fitment being 7mm or something - do I need to order a part so I can fit my standard ssd into the hdd slot?

I also want to put my 2nd hdd in the ultrabay, but i notice the standard lenovo one is 9.5mm and has a gap - is there a link or list somewhere of recommended alernatives with no gap?

thanks.

 

I got mine last night and it is great except for a few things.

The wireless is pretty poor and I even paid extra for the 6205 2X2AGN. I didn't have a lot of time to mess with it, but I could only get ~20mbps internet transfer speed and 2mbps windows file transfer over the network. All the latest drivers were installed. I could do ~30mbps both internet and file transfers with my old Ideapad with the cheap Intel 5100 in the same location. Connected at ~150mbps instead of the 60 some I got with the thinkpad. I'll drag it out tonight and try both again...

Another annoying thing is the lack of Chiral scrolling. Again my Ideapad had it and it was really the best way to scroll, yet the thinkpad drivers lack it. Two finger scrolling doesn't work very well either.

The 65W power brick has a fairly short cord compared to the one that came with my Ideapad, just a minor annoyance compared to the location of the power cord plug. Plugging it in directly in the middle of the back means I can't keep it plugged in while reclining in bed as the plug would be against my leg and eventually break. I guess I need to look in to an adapter, something like Amazon.com: Right Angle Converter for Dell and HP Laptop Power Adapters -LC90: Electronics . Is there anything like that which is known to fit the 65W adapter?

I didn't get a chance to really look at the screen since I couldn't actually stream any video to the laptop with the weak network speeds. I did get the 1600x900 screen though, so hoping it will look nice.

 

Standard fitment for ThinkPad T420's are normally 9.5mm drives but lately Lenovo have been shipping out 7mm variants along with matching rubber rails which doesn't help should the user want to upgrade to a bigger/faster 9.5mm notebook drive. I would wait and see what Lenovo may have provided you, I was lucky that Lenovo shipped mine with standard 9.5mm rubber rails on my T420.

As for the Ultrabay usually eBay is the place to get third party adapters, I have one from Digizon which works fine on my T420.

You could try using Intel's generic wireless drivers instead of Lenovo's as they're usually updated frequently to see if it resolves the slow speed issue. Initially my Intel 6300 wireless card was slow locking on to my wireless network but an update to the generic drivers seemed to improve it slightly.

 

I am looking into buying a t420 and I just have a question about the graphics card.

The advertised battery life on the t420 is around 9 hrs (with the intel integrated HD graphics).

I want to get an NVIDIA 4200M graphics card instead of the intel integrated. What effect on the battery life will the NVIDIA card have? (It includes the optimus setting)

 

Hi, I have the 65W AC adapter and wanted to know it the 90W will work with the 6 cell battery on a t420. Thanks

 

Yes the 90w would work fine, actually it will charge more quickly compared to the 65w adaptor.

 

Thanks Hearst. I wanted to buy a backup AC adapter since I will be out of the country. The 65w and the 90W are the same price. So if it was you, which one would you buy. thanks again

 

If you are not doing anything which needs the Nvidia GPU then the computer should switch to the Intel GPU and give the advertised run time (but note that this also depends on usage and screen brightness).

If you try running anything graphically intensive when on battery then the battery run time will plummet (as it will for anything that is CPU intensive).

John

 

If they're the same price then personally I go for the 90w. It is slightly bigger than the 65w brick but if you're spending most of yout time on the desk then it shouldn't be too much of an issue.

 

One problem solved. The default Synaptics drivers are older, but they have ChiralMotion by default.

 

Just wondering, but do you happen to live on the west coast too?

 

No, East Coast here. My estimate was probably longer because I ordered a PC DOS version with the Quadro NVS 4200M soldered onto the motherboard.

I just got a base model T420i and changed three components:

1. Display: 1600x900 resolution screen
2. Graphics: Quadro NVS 4200M
3. Wireless: Centrino Wireless-N 1000

Came to $748 with the Mastercard promotion.

 

You could look at MyDigitalSSD's 128GB drive, or Renice's 120GB model. Both are larger than the Intel 40GB, and should be faster as well.

 

Any reason why I can't change brightness of the screen after waking up from sleep? I can't change it via fn keys or power plans. Installed latest drivers and updates via update manager and it still happens.

I have to restart the computer for it to work again.

 

Update

- Left Hong Kong 7/28, 4:30 local time (currently past 1:00am in Hong Kong, so it's been in transit for about 9 hours)

I will be very happy if it actually shows up tomorrow! Either way, I'm a patient person lol.

 

Cheers for that Hearst, I've ordered the drive bay, and i'll wait on the rails, or I might just grab some in case - I want to be able to swap the drive out as soon as the machine arrives really, I could always pass them onto someone else I spose if I dont need them.

 

What does everyone use for there power settings? On AC and battery settings as well?