Thinkpad T420 Owner's Thread

@iphetamine: not even configured for quick removal... I don't know if just some spezific devices support that spin down (i think this is a SATA command)

@John: thank you for that tool, it seems that at least it is not the cpu consuming all that power (4.5 Watts average). But what could it be then...
I can't detect more power consumption related sensors in that tool.

I now reseted my BIOS settings to default. but now it's even worse...

 

Can you set the BIOS to use only the Intel GPU? I assume that you have nothing connected to the computer and HWiNFO32 shows the CPU speed on idle as 800MHz.

John

 

I've been monitoring CPU and GPU temperatures on the T420 and I am worried it is reaching dangerous levels while playing games. I realize the T420 is not a gaming laptop, but I was under the impression it should handle games like World of Warcraft without any problems.

On medium graphic settings, the game runs VERY smooth yet the CPU and GPU reaches temperatures of ~80-85 degrees.

My best guess is that the T420 isn't designed to dissipate the heat from the GPU, but if anyone has any suggestions for a fix I'd love to know.

edit: Just wanted to let the community know that today I upgraded from my stock 4gb RAM to 8gb RAM and it has drastically improved temperatures while running intensive tasks!

 

Yeah I definitely would not want to run at that temperature for prolonged periods of time. I have gamed a bit on my X220 but the temperature would get up to 90 so I stopped..Not worth breaking my only computer.

If anything, invest in a cooling pad to see if that makes a noticeable difference on the temperature.

 

could you be more specific, please?

 

@John: Thats it! Enabled only the integrated graphics card and disabled OS detection of Optimus - now I'm down to 6 Watts according to PM:



But, I'd actually like to use Optimus... now that even my ubuntu supports it...
Any idea? Just reinstalling all the drivers? Or is this a known bug?

Thank you for helping me out!

@iphetamine:
I had nothing to configure, I just bought that (ty, btw.) ultrabay adapter from lenovo and inserted the 500GB HDD that was the primary harddisk in my t420.
It spins down automatically after a short period of time when it is not in use. I just have that one annoying message popping up after each weak from sleep - sommething like "unable to safely remove xxx"
In the device manager the harddisk is configured as "Better performance" and "Write cache enabled". In the disk management it is just formated as primary partition. do not move the pagefile, temp folder or anything else system related to that device - it will prevent it from spinning down.

 

You can't grumble about 6W - that's lower than I've seen.

I don't have personal experience with Optimus but maybe this link will be of help regarding the driver installation.

John

 

No, 6 Watts are less than I ever expected! Thats great!

Well, Optimus is nice to have, I don't need it actually.
Maybe if I have time to reinstall the drivers and test I will do it.

Thank you one more time!

 

From time to time the fingerprint stops working.
Not even showing the green light.
Any idea how to solve this problem?
Or
Any idea how to turn it back on without restart?

 

I think I've seen this problem occasionally on my T420s. Check that you are running the latest BIOS.

If the fingerprint reader won't cooperate then briefly press the on button. I regularly have to do this when the FPR thinks my fingers are the wrong ones.

John

 

Is there not a "T520 Owners Thread" or are the T520 comments here?

 

The ThinkPad T520 thread is available here.

 

How does the 1600x900 display compare to laptops with premium displays like the Dell 15z XPS and the Samsung SE?

 

Quality:

I think it goes something like:
Vaio SE > 15z > Samsung Series 7 > T420

 

Hi,

it's advisable to purchase an 90w charger to use the laptop without the battery? I've read throttling problems with the i7 x220 and i'm just wondering..

There's any way to get the Lenovo's enhanced experience 2.0 with a clean W7Home Premium install?

 

I can't comment on other brands, but I don't like the 1600x900 on my T420 - The viewing angles are so bad, when I use it on my lap, I'm constantly adjusting the display to I see it directly (zero degree viewing angle). I had an excellent T61p that was far superior.

 

Do you have the AUO or the LG one?

 

I have a T420 with a 9 cell battery. This is the first my thinkpad/laptop with extended battery. Is it OK to hold the laptop by the protruding cells? I can't tell how strong it is.

 

I have the LG Model (per MonInfo). I don't know it's reputation, but personally, it's worse than anything I saw at BestBuy. Honestly, I bought the Lenovo for 2 reasons - Keyboard and Matte Screen. 1 out of 2 ain't good enough.

 

Wow, that's discouraging.. I thought the LG one was quite a decent panel.

Hope my HD display isn't that bad and can save the money of upgrading. Honestly, there're no other options in 1600x900 for the 14.0 inch factor??

 

When I lift the laptop by the bottom right corner when open and on, I hear a scraping noise, no matter how softly I raise the laptop. Is this bad?

 

Guys , I've just recieve my new T420 . All seems to work OK, nice build quality and no marks.

But sadly the screen has 1 pink pixel and another lazy one at the lower left part of it . It doesn't notice a lot when there's no black ending, but I fear that it will be uncomfortable when watching movies.

As for the display itself seems not terrible, of course the viewing angles are bad, but yeah.. not so nasty.

I wonder if its worthy to use the warranty so soon and try to get a replacement for the screen. I was probably going to swap for the LG hd+ anyways, but I hate having a damaged new product.

I got the centrino 6205 wireless card, it is good enough or may I look for a better one??

cheers

 

My T420 is in the mail. I would like to know if it is worth putting a clean windows 7 on it and re-installing all the drivers? Does the lenovo package that comes with it slow the computer down a lot? I would also like to know what updates to drivers and the bios I will have to do to improve performance? I will give a review once I get it, I am coming from a 1000H eeepc !

 

You probably won't be able to get a replacement for two dead pixels alone.

And you definitely won't be able to get a replacement if you mess with the screen...

The LG panel could very well have been one of the ones that you saw at Best Buy. The LP140WD1 is used in a few other laptops, and the LP140WD2 used in the T420 is the same panel with a matte finish.

 

Hello together

Can I ask you in which way did you see power consumption value in Ubuntu?

I need to know exactly how it changes in differents configurations because I removed limitation to cpu frequency that clocked down processor to the lower multiplier when the notebook is only plugged with the 65 watt power adapter, and now I have to discover which is the maximum possible to avoid damages caused by an insufficient power.

 

The integrated webcam just stopped working.
I'm running the latest BIOS, and re-installed the driver.
Any idea?

Problem solved.
How? It just did...

 

Another Problem here! my t420 makes some high pitching noise. strangely whining seems more often to occur on websites with black backgrounds or dark images/videos in general. i suggest the noise is coming from one of the two graphic chips/cards (intel hd 3000/nvidia nvs4200). i already tried to install the optimus driver from nvidia.com and the latest graphic drivers from lenovo.com. so far i've had no luck. whining is still there

any clues, tips or potential solutions for me?
greetings,
zoidberg

 

sup guys!
After having my T420 for 4 months, I can say I am happy camper!
But now that the holiday season is coming up, I was hoping to get the mSATA drive. I am feeling pretty anxious to get this done though, so I am wondering if there is a decent price drop during the holidays from previous years, or should I just walk over to my closest CanadaComputers?

 

Anyone know how to improve the two finger scroll on the touchpad?? It isn't very responsive or reliable.. Sometimes it works, othertimes no.. I have disabled the red knob mouse thing (forgot its name)

 

Pretty much fixed my problem, thanks a lot

 

The T420 primary drive bay is 9.5mm in height, correct?

 

Yes, the T420 has a standard 9.5mm drive bay, no need to remove the spacers (like in the X220 which has a 7mm drive bay).

 

The T420 will accept 9.5mm SATA drives but there are issues where Lenovo shipped some standard T420 models with 7mm rubber rails. It's understandable using the 7mm rubber rails for the slim T420s model but not for the standard T420...

 

Hi, i plan on getting a T520 and i see a lot of people complain about the graininess of the screen. I was wondering if i get 1920x1080 instead of 1600x900, would it stop the graininess?

 

Lenovo seem to be churning out BIOS updates pretty quickly now, not long after Version 1.35 we now have Version 1.36 released a week ago.

BIOS can be accessed using the BIOS Utility or Bootable CD format.

Graininess depends on which panel you get but as you mentioned the T520, being a popular form factor of 15.6" and sharing the same screen inventory as the workstation class W520, theoretically the quality should be better than those on the T420. The 1080p (Full HD) panel seem to gain good reviews but as this is a T420 thread (our model don't have this panel) you may want to investigate further on the W520 Owners Thread and T520 Owners Thread for a more detailed opinion.

 

thanks for the heads up! But I haven't updated the bios since i got this laptop (april), should I go for it or leave it as it is?

 

I've updated my bios every time I've seen an update posted up on the forums, but I haven't really noticed any differences (I've had my T420 since September) so it's up to you. I like to stay up to date with my software just in case.

 

Lenovo advises that you shouldn't necessarily update the BIOS if its working fine without problems, though you may miss out some new features or performance enhancements on the newer updates. Personally I updated mine from Version 1.23 straight to 1.35 recently though it still haven't fixed a particular problem of mine which is the warm reboot freeze with the Intel 510 SSD (still waiting).

 

Something weird just happened to my battery: It went from 60% charge to 6% charge instantly. The laptop then went to automatic shutdown because the battery was so low.

I know I haven't done a battery reset since I got the notebook 6 months ago but this seems a bit extreme for 6 months without much battery usage. Could it be more than just an inaccurate battery monitor?

 

I saw a similar problem with my T420s, but not recently. Make sure you are running the latest BIOS, Lenovo Power Manager and Power Manager driver.

John

 

Interesting because my T420 battery does something very similar, but around 27% for me then Windows gives a sudden warning saying its on its last 5%. Simply put, i'm fed up with shoddy Sanyo batteries in ThinkPads.

 

I have this problem with the Intel Management Engine Interface on my new T420. The driver won't install and I have downloaded the correct driver. Am I doing something wrong. I have tried everything to install this driver.

It's giving me this error "The name is already in use as either a service name or a service display name".

Windows found driver software for your device but encountered an error while attempting to install it.

Intel Management Interface Engine.

I have Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit installed.

 

Instead of using the Intel installer use the Device Manager and point it to the directory of where the drivers for the Intel Management Engine Interface is. Windows should be able to pick it up and install it from there on.

 

I've also been consistently having this problem with my X220. It's been slowly getting on my nerves more and more, as sometimes with 25% I have 2 or more hours left or sometimes my 25% only lasts me 10 minutes.

 

Did battery reset help reduce the problem?

 

Thanks and it worked.

 

WOW!! That's crazy!

I updated by bios from 1.22 to 1.35 and the loading times in faster, especially when I go into desktop everything seems A LITTLE faster.
Don't know if it's true or just a placebo effect.

 

Hi,

Proud new T420 owner. i5-2410, 4gb RAM, Intel 3000 and HD+screen(AUO not LG/Sam). Reading through the entire thread just made it easier to click on the buy button Got mine about two weeks ago. My laptop literally traveled around the globe. China to USA, and finally to India in a relatives luggage.

A big thanks to Hearst for his clean windows install guide. Even though I have a dual boot set up with Xubuntu I still like to have my windows as backup. And I've already paid for it. Xubuntu 11.10 was a great install, it picked up all the hardware and installed in 20 minutes as opposed to the endless driver install and restart cycle I had to do on Windows.

After 2 weeks I have completely fallen in love. The screen could be better but I use my 42'' LCD for movies and the laptop handles that just fine. The screen is great for my primary purpose, programming. More LOC visible and a great keyboard.

I will be starting grad school next fall and bought a thinkpad cause I'm hoping it will last me through those 2 years of college and more.

Linux specific and very very minor grouse. The fn+F5 wasn't automatically detected in xubuntu. I only wished lenovo gave a h/w switch to toggle the trackpad on/off. I use the point. I have large hands and when I'm typing the base of my palm hits the touchpad and my sentences go haywire. It's very annoying so I have disabled the trackpad from bios. Im fine with that but occasionally my mom or girlfriend use my laptop(facebook) and they want the trackpad. I could write a script to fix it but I just haven't gotten down to doing it. My old compaq had that switch, just wish my t420 had it too.

Adwait.

 

I know have duel screen on my t420 with vidock. The laptop screen and my 22 inch LCD panel. On the laptop I only have the Intel card.

 

Hi, attached is a simple script I use to toggle the touchpad. I have mapped it to Fn+F8, which is the combo for switching the touchpad/trackpoint on and off.

Code:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

# get current state
SYNSTATE=$(synclient -l | grep TouchpadOff | awk '{ print $3 }')

# change to the other state
if [ $SYNSTATE -eq 0 ]
then
    synclient touchpadoff=1
    notify-send "Touchpad" "disabled"
elif [ $SYNSTATE -eq 1 ]
then
    synclient touchpadoff=0
    notify-send "Touchpad" "enabled"
else
    notify-send "Error" "Couldn't get Touchpad status from synclient"
    exit 1
fi
exit 0