Thinkpad T420 Owner's Thread

Received my new T420 the other day and I installed an SSD and did a clean install of Windows 7 Ultimate. Everything seemed to install and work fine EXCEPT that I have no UltraNav driver or UltraNav utility.

I have downloaded the current version of the ThinkPad UltraNav driver and tried installing it several times. No error messages occur but upon reboot it is as if nothing has happened - Mice under the Device Manager only lists PS/2 Compatible Mouse. Trying to manually run UNAVOSD.exe from the installed directory (Program Files - > ThinkPad -> UltraNav Utility) results in error "UltraNav driver is not installed".

Any ideas before I format and reinstall everything again?

 

My new T420 will be delivered Mon, 9/26. Although I've read Hearst's excellent reinstall guide and the majority of the posts in this thread, if this has been answered I missed it. The factory install from Lenovo, is it EUFI enabled or Legacy bios? If it's Legacy as I suspect it is, a nuke/repave is likely in my future. I'll of course do the Recovery CD's first, or back it up to my Windows Home Server or both.

Thanks

 

I was able to get it working by uninstalling the UltraNav utility and installing an older version of the driver/utility, then updating to the current version.

 

Would a DVI-D to HDMI cable work to connect my T420 to a tv?

 

The factory installation is under Legacy mode by default if I recall, you can perform a clean install to do a UEFI installation but be aware of some issues such as the fingerprint sensor software not working properly under this mode. UEFI mode is slightly faster than Legacy mode in boot up but its only a few seconds between them so just weigh up whether the few seconds gained is worth over the convenience of compatibility.

You can use a DVI-D to HDMI cable but you still need a Displayport adaptor to feed through the T420 since it doesn't have a HDMI or DVI port natively. Bear in mind using a DVI-D does not carry sound so you might as well stick with a standard HDMI cable if you want the audio feature as well. Some manufacturers do away the Displayport adaptors and have a single HDMI-Displayport cable which could be worth considering.

 

Thanks for the reply Hearst. I got the notebook today and I guess I wont be doing the clean install for UEFI goodness for now as I've already upgraded it to Win 7 Ultimate (from Win Home Premium using Windows Anytime Upgrade) and installed Office 2010 Pro Plus on it.

Battery life with the 9 cell is pretty sweet!

 

It saddens me that there are scratches on the lid and I haven't even had my laptop for over a month yet

 

A little update on the hinge defect issue i'm having as late on my T420 and still we're in stalemate after 2 weeks. I did have two phone calls but they're from the same rep who either wanted me to cave in and pay for the hinge repair or simply close the case without a satisfactory conclusion. Again I asked for more time with the existing case but it's twice that I have to do it which is becoming rather embarassing. At times it makes me wonder whether i'm valued as a ThinkPad customer over here.

I have to give a special shoutout to Lead_Org who is actually assisting my cause continually, despite not being a Lenovo staff himself he's contacted Lenovo Staff directly on my behalf (Serge, Cleo@Lenovo, Mark@Lenovo) for some clarification on the hinge warranty issue.

From what we both gathered, hinges are exempt from warranty repair (even if it was a genuine mechanical defect) under Lenovo's European Warranty policy. Yes you have read correctly, any defects on the hinge is not covered under warranty repair for Europeans, although Lenovo in other regions such as the US, AU/NZ seem to have a different view on this.

Lead_Org had contacted Mark@Lenovo to clarify on the warranty policy for European Lenovo users to see if he can do something about it. Here's hoping Lenovo do the right thing and care for its European customers as well as others around the globe. I personally would hate to see anyone going through the same experience I am facing.

 

It's unfortunate, but also pretty much a fact of life. I felt the same way when the lid of my first MacBook got light scratches after only owning it for about a week.

 

Wow.

That sucks.

Lenovo's US support has always been great about replacing stuff like that, but given my dealings with their (IBM) support (UK/EU), I'm sad to say that I'm not surprised.

Best of luck getting it sorted.

 

It may be time to start looking for some consumer advice.

It's my recollection that the UK Sale of Goods Act covers manufacturing defects (and why else would hinges go floppy after a few months on a Thinkpad which, we are assured, are built to last). I'm not sure how Lenovo UK can wriggle out of that one. Either they agree to replace the hinges or they admit that Thinkpads aren't built to last. You may also want to notify the credit card company that you used for payment since they may share liability.

Perhaps it's time to write to whoever is boss of Lenovo UK expressing your concern. In the mean time, if Dell are reading this, they will be rubbing their hands with glee.

John

 

Just ordered the T420 after going back and forth between this and the x220. Decided I preferred the higher screen resolution after using a x201 for awhile.

Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-2620M (2.7GHz base; 3.4GHz Max Turbo, 4MB Cache)
Operating System: Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64 - English
Total Memory: 4GB PC3-10600 DDR3 1333MHz SDRAM SODIMM Memory
Hard Drive: 500GB, 7200RPM Serial ATA 2.5" Hard Drive
Display: 14.0” HD+ (1600 x 900) LED, W/720p HD Camera
Graphics: NVIDIA® Quadro® NVS 4200M
Optical Device: DVD Recordable SATA
Keyboard/Pointing Device: UltraNav (TrackPoint and TouchPad)
Battery: 9 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (Up to 2.8 Hours Run Time)
Ethernet/Wireless: Intel® Centrino Advanced-N 6205 (2x2 AGN)
Bluetooth: Yes
Integrated Camera: Yes
Color: Black
Fingerprint Reader: Yes

An extra 4 GB of RAM and a mSATA 64 GB drive are on the way.

 

I'm finally a Thinkpad owner! I love it, it's exactly how I imagined it...perfect.
Although, I already have one dead pixel. (top left corner, so really unnoticeable, meh.)

T420 with HD+ and i5-2540 for a total of $755.01!


I have a question:
Why would one download and install Windows 7 (from the link in the first post) rather than use the the "Lenovo Recovery" on the computer? Basically, is there any difference?

Also, if I were to upgrade the memory (4GB->8GB) should I just add 4GB or should I get a 8GB kit? (I'm lazy, don't want to search, ahah.)

 

Fresh T420i here

Anyone has issues with the Touchpad especially with scrolling? It takes 2-3 times for the Touchpad to accept my 2 finger input to scroll. It's kinda annoying. Tried searching, no cigar...

 

Disable all "SmartCheck" settings in Ultranav (touchpad) driver. Does help

 

Nope. Works flawlessly for me. Driver/setting issue perhaps?

 

It seems to prefer that you start the scroll with both fingertips parallel to each other. If one finger is higher/lower on the trackpad surface it sometimes seems to miss recognizing it as a scroll gesture. At least from my experience that happens. I tended to have my index finger extended and the second finger slid back about a 1/2". When I started putting them right next to each other the missed scrolling problems went away.

 

Nope but a DisplayPort - HDMI most definitely would. As most DP laptops, this is actually DP++ so it can transmit a HDMI / DVI signal as well. This sort of cable is not even expensive any more (mine was 24 dollars ) $5.29 Amazon.com: High Quality Black DisplayPort Male to HDMI Cable Male - 6 Feet / 2M: Electronics here. The only curiosity about the cable is Monoprice not carrying it.

 

Does anyone else's T420 have problems with booting? Mine is only a month old and sometimes it gets stuck in an infinite boot cycle. It goes past system diagnostics but gets stuck before I can choose which OS I want to load. The only way I've been able to stop this is by disconnecting it from any powersource (battery) everytime. I've updated my bios and reset all the settings.

 

That's strange, while my T420 does have some warm reboot issues (going to see if the latest BIOS helps in a moment) it doesn't gets stuck in an infinite loop. Are you using the stock hard drive or have you changed it to something else such as a new SSD?

 

I'm using the stock HDD

 

Just got myself a T420. Managed to get a reasonable deal locally (Canada) for a 3 month old T420 with 3 year warranty, i5-2540, 4gb ram, 500gb hd, 1600x900, with 6 and 9 cell batteries and a mini dock plus series 3 for $1000. Upgraded to 8 gb ram and have an intel msata 80gb on the way.

So far so good. The build quality is great, better than two x220s that I had bought recently. The screen isn't great as expected, but good enough for my needs. Definitely much heavier than the x220 though.

What's the general consensus on linux support? Googling/reading through threads tells me that its not entirely stable. People are reporting unexplained x crashes etc with external monitors. Anyone here running linux full time?

Are there any color profiles (windows) available to improve upon the default colors, or is it just a matter of playing with the intel graphics control panel?

 

I have. I've been running Linux on mine since the day I got it (I don't have any Windows licenses for personal use, so I haven't used anything but Linux on my PCs in *many* years.)

No X crashes here, and yes, I do use multiple monitors.

I run Debian stable with the only non-stable packages being a custom 3.0.x kernel (grsec, PaX, and a couple misc. experimental patches) and the Xorg stack from squeeze-backports.

ALSA support is... well it's not to my liking. But then again, I've always thought of ALSA as being pretty poor compared to OSS. I use OSS4, and am pleased to say that (when patched properly) it supports the audio chipset perfectly. Great sound quality, correct power management beep support, jack/internal switching working as expected, etc.

So basically: with a recent kernel and a semi-recent Xorg stack, support is flawless. The only imperfection I've run across graphics-wise is a lack of vblank sync on the LVDS display. That's only noticeable when playing back fast-moving video though, and since I don't do that on this machine it doesn't bother me.

 

Really? I don't see a difference in build quality between any of the X220 models I've order and the T420 or T420s models that I've ordered. The only models with issues are the W520/T520 and the loose battery with LCD flex.

I've used Backtrack 5 on the T420, T420s and X220 without issue. No crashing. I've also used the latest Suse and Ubunutu on the W520 without issue. Heck, without any modification the battery on the X220 with BT5 lasts 9-12 hours depending on usage (9 cell).

 

I dont have the x220 with me so I might be wrong here, but isn't the screen thicker/more solid? Also the bezel seems to be more uniform as opposed to the x220 which wasn't entirely flush with the screen.

Thanks! Tried out debian testing yesterday and its working well so far.

 

You can actually run stable just fine if you don't want the package churn and breakage of testing. The only caveat is that you have to install the squeeze-backports Xorg -- but given that that's two line command, it's not too bad.

You will have to run a 3.0.x kernel. I don't remember whether that's in wheezy, but if not, you should build and install your own. Otherwise you *will* get hard lock-ups.

Yes, but only marginally so. The X220's screen is smaller though, and with less surface area a thinner cover is fine. Plus, the composition isn't (IIRC) the same.

 

Hello! So I bought an ultrabay hard drive deal and noticed it says 1.5Gb/s. Looked at the one hearst posted http://forum.notebookreview.com/7453928-post36.html and it is also 1.5Gb/s.

Isn't that limiting the sata III speed these are supposed to get? Is there one that is 6?

 

I can't vouch for 6Gb/s, but I have an UltraBay HDD caddy which says 1.5Gb/s but runs fine at nearly twice that speed on my T420s (I tested it with an SSD). The connector does not include any chips but the wiring will only have been verified for the fastest drives available at that time.

There's also the matter of the speed of the port used for connecting the UltraBay. This may only be 3Gb/s.

John

 

Squeeze didn't have the drivers for ethernet and I had already burned the iso for wheezy so tried it out. Ended up with linux mint debian edition, which works well but I'm starting to get frustrated by its half-way-debian-ness. I guess I'll do a clean install after my mSata ssd gets here.

Overall though, it works wonderfully well, and the battery life is fantastic after putting in "pcie_aspm=force i915.i915_enable_rc6=1" (around 9-10 hrs with the 9 cell which is as good as windows), though I still haven't had the time to investigate what those 2 params do. No crashing with multiple monitors either. The sound volume seems to be lower than windows, so I'll probably have to look into that. I found this guide for installing oss4 (http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=52919), is this good enough or did you have to do something else?

 

Huh?

Squeeze definitely *does* have drivers for the wired NIC. e1000e support has been there for... well for a long time.

You could have just used Squeeze + a new kernel if you wanted to avoid LMDE...

The former forces ASPM to be enabled regardless of whether the BIOS advertises support for it. It happens to be a safe thing to do on the T420, but other machines might crash with such a setting. The latter controls the ability of the GPU to enter a particular low-power state when it's idle. It's disabled by default since some of the Intel GPUs have had trouble with it in the past.

I didn't do that. And I'm afraid it won't work for you either.

I'd download it from 4front directly and build it outside of the debian toolchain. You'll need to apply a patch found on the forums to avoid the OOPS that happens on Cougar Point hardware. I don't have the patch handy, but it's pretty simple IIRC.

 

Not sure why the drivers don't work in squeeze then: Debian Linux 64-bit on Lenovo Thinkpad T420 | Generative Software Development Lab

Yeah I'll end up doing squeeze + 3.0.x now. Good to see how well everything works though; power consumption in particular is excellent. Thanks again!

 

Hmm... Perhaps I'm misremembering.

Either way it's a moot point. You need 3.0.x anyways, and the e1000e module in 3.0.x definitely supports the chipset.

 

I'm also running squeeze, but with the 3.0 liquorix kernel. I've activated backports for the xserver and mesa packages, and overall I love this machine. I get between 6-7 hours on the 6 cell and thinkfan keeps me quiet in the library.

The only problem that I still can't fully remedy is some pretty nasty vertical tearing while playing video. It happens in VLC, gnome-movie-player, and in Flash video on the web. I've read that this is a common problem with Sandy Bridge chipsets on Linux, but now that this system is well over 6 months old, I was wondering if someone's hacked up a solution for it.

 

AFAIK vblank detection through LVDS still sucks. Thank Intel for that one.

There's not much to be done about it, I'm afraid. While I don't really experience much of that, I also don't really watch movies on my laptop, so any tearing that may occur isn't really a problem for me.

 

Got my mSata 80 gb. I ended up going with squeeze with the liquorix 3.0 kernel as well.

After setting up tlp (or hdparm) to spin down the main hd in 3 minutes (I only use it to archive downloads), I'm getting around 7-8 W when browsing at 80% brightness. Powertop estimates around 12-13 hrs, and browsing for 2-3 hrs tells me its pretty accurate. Running my dev vm and working in vim, testing in browser keeps me at 9-12 W and battery estimates at 8-10 hours.

I got OSS4 working but the sound was very distorted, lots of noise. I'll be looking at this later when I have time to play around. For others wanting to try it out, I essentially followed the guide here ( Debian User Forums • View topic - Roll your own GPL'ed OSS4 (stable/testing/unstable)) with the patch here ( Open Sound System • View topic - soundon for intel hd audio controller tiggers a kernel oops. It installs and detects my card just fine, and it is possible that I messed up playing around with ossxmix. [Edit: read the patch thread to the end, it fixes the distortion for the most part, but there still is some at the highest volume settings]

At times, the middle mouse/trackpoint button stops working after resume from suspend. Anyone else having this problem?

 

Distortion via the speakers? 'cause the headphone jack works fine for me, even at high volumes.

Yeah, the patch posted there needs to be applied for it to work with Cougar Point chips. It's an easy fix, and a one-time thing.

You don't *have* to use OSS4, BTW. The laptop works fine with ALSA. It's really personal preference. The only thing that might be problematic with ALSA is getting suspend/resume/power beeps working correctly. That, and mixing console beeps without static.

OSS4 is superior from a technical standpoint, absolutely, but both are good enough that it's likely irrelevant from a user perspective. (Unless you want per-app mixing... then OSS4 wins, hands-down.)

 

I'm pleased to say that I finally got my ThinkPad T420 back with the hinges repaired under warranty, it had a problem where it gone really loose after just 5 months of usage. It did took a while to get to that stage though, I had to keep escalating my case until after a month of waiting they have finally relented the issue as being defective rather than wear and tear.

Pleasingly the depot service in the UK was quick. Sent on the Monday, Lenovo received the unit on Tuesday, repaired by Wednesday and sent it back to my doorstep on Thursday. No horror stories to report on the system and on experience it was fuss free.

Though I probably wouldn't be able to get to this stage if it weren't for the friendly staff on the Lenovo Forums, a particular big thank you goes to Lead_Org who despite being 10 hours ahead of me being based in Australia, had constantly supported me throughout the issue. ♥

I just hope no one else had to wait a long time as I did should their hinges fail below of what is expected, my case on the Lenovo forums can be viewed on this link which can be used as reference for others who find themselves in similar circumstances.

 

Glad to hear it Hearst, I remember seeing your post on the Lenovo forums.

It seems like the Lenovo forums are monitored by some very good people, Lead_Org being one of them. Aside from the TOLUD issue, Lenovo staff appears to be very helpful with people on there. They fixed my return receipt issue a while back too.

 

My wife has got a T420 for working from home. It is equipped with integrated graphics. I was glad that we finally had a good video player, but so far, no luck. When I connect it to the TV through HDMI, and play something as simple as a DVD, it shows very noticable tearing. I tried with various pieces of video: CPU utilization was always very low, but display was still bad.

I tried the basic things: 720p, 1080p, 24 hz, 50 hz, 60 hz, nothing made it go away. I tried VLC Portable and Windows Media Player, no difference.

Then I tried on the T420 display as well: that isn't perfect either, it tears less, but it still tears. In fact it looks there is some very basic issue here, because if I just right-click on the desktop, the fade-in effect doesn't seem to be entirely smooth either. It looks as though the HD 3000 couldn't properly handle anything that moves or animates.

What is this, and how do I identify the cause?

Can it be a driver problem? That would be sad, because we don't have admin access to the T420, and the IT at my wife's workplace isn't too likely to help.

Or can it be a hardware defect? Again, the likelyhood of being able to convince the less-than-helpful IT department seems quite low.

Or is it possible that the HD 3000 Intel graphics is simply this weak, and I'm perhaps more sensitive to these issues than the general population? I have a good eye for these things, but to me the problem was clearly evident in the first seconds of video we watched.

 

Most likely its a driver or quite possibly a video codec issue. If you haven't done so try updating to the latest Lenovo Video Driver to see if it improve things. Also its not a bad idea trying an updated codec pack such as K-Lite or CCCP depending on preference.

 

Thanks. I think we can rule out codecs, since everything that moves shows tearing. If I fire up a Calculator window, and drag it around the screen, the edges of the window clearly show tearing. Updating the driver is less than trivial in this case. Since we don't have admin access and my wife's IT is not likely to do the driver update, I beleive the only thing I could do is try and manually replace the driver on the file system level. (I mean this: take out hard disk, attach to other PC, replace the driver files.)

Is there any hope of carrying this out with success? Is it perhaps as easy as replacing the single igdkmd64.sys file? I see there are many other files in the driver download, and I don't know which of them are really relevant if I just want to update the device driver, and if it would be trivial tro find out where they need to go... Or will Windows complain the next time it boots because of changed system files even if I manage to do this?

Another option it to look for exploits to gain admin access. Or start begging the IT guys. Or just leave it.

 

Gergelyv have you tried updating the drivers using Safe Mode, this will use the basic video driver instead of the Intel video driver which in most cases allow you configure and update the drivers if necessary. To access this mode, just before the "Starting Windows" screen load up keep pressing F8 and it will give you a selection of choices, choose "Safe Mode with Networking" and then try updating the drivers from there on.

But if its still tearing even in Safe Mode then in that case most likely its a hardware issue in which you need to call Lenovo Support for assistance.

 

Hello together,

I'm new here.
I own a T420 (Core i7) with some customizations: 6GB of RAM, 1x SSD and 1x HDD in the ultrabay. Also dualboot with Ubuntu 11.04 and Windows 7 64bit.

Now I would like to know what your t420's power consumption is and what i may do wrong.
My Ubuntu uses 7.5 to 9 Watts. Windows uses 13-16 Watts.

I disabled a lot in the BIOS, but nothing seems to bring down my windows 7's power consumption.
Powermanager is set to Powersource Optimized. Display Brightness 2, WLAN off, Harddisk in Ultrabay spinned down,Aero off, integrated graphics -> 13W idle.
A lot of unused Services disabled.

What could cause this?

Thank you for your replys.
Regards,
buesche

 

Is anyone finding that the lid is really prone to scratches?

 

No more so than past ThinkPads, no.

 

how do you do this?

 

Make sure that Bluetooth is off. Also, what system settings do you have for the Powersource Optimized profile?

Then look at the processes tab in Task Manager. On idle the CPU utilisation should be close to 0%. If not, what is using the CPU?

John

 

@iphetamine: No permanently used data on this drive, configured as "removable device" in devmgmt, it spinns down automatically (I also can remove it while running windows, does not change anything on power consumption)

@ john ratsey: I disabled bluetooth and wwan in bios (also camera, and some other stuff i don't need).

I also used blackvipers safe windows 7 service reg. (also disabled some more services).
Nothing is using cpu when idle...

Power Source Optimized profile is default except dim display after 2 minutes rather than just one.

powercfg -energy shows me some errors, but only for the "plugged in" profile.

I also thought of enabling ASPM through setpci with my ubuntu, but that seems a little bit to much... I don't want to mess up my system.

I always make sure that my systems are as light as possible...

so what is your t420's power consumption? Is is less than 13 Watts?

Thank you!

 

By checking the "quick remove" settings?

 

I can get it down to half of 13W (ie 6.5W) when on idle with i5-2520M CPU, Intel 320 SSD, no wireless, no internet, nothing plugged into USB and display brightness on 5. 7 to 8W is the typical power consumption under light usage conditions.

Run HWiNFO32 and enable Sensors to see its estimate of the CPU package power consumption.

John