Thinkpad T420 Owner's Thread

The MS AHCI will come on by default if you haven't preloaded any SATA drivers during installation of Windows 7. The latest Intel RST drivers are available here.

Give it a few weeks as Lenovo may yet to update the warranty status properly on that particular machine since it came from the Outlet. But if it remains the same then I guess you got quite lucky with the long warranty!

 

My T400 was a refurb. It's luck of the draw if you ever need service. The On-Site sticks with the serial even after the warranty is updated. Seems that sometimes on-site shows up to support, and sometimes the regular depot warranty shows up. When the motherboard failed, it was done On-Site.

 

Thanks for everyone's help in creating / maintaining this thread.

I wanted to quickly share my experience with the T420. Overall I love it, and even more so after a scare I had this past weekend. After owning the T420 for a few months, this past weekend I dropped it on a concrete floor. The distance of the drop must have been 4 feet (from my chest to the ground). The fall took a chunk out of the shell and I was certain the laptop was finished.

Come to find out, only the mechanical drive was ruined. Everything else was working fine. The mSATA SSD was fine and I was able to boot the computer. I've ordered another drive to replace the mechanical drive. Anyways - I'm now a huge supporter of thinkpads. They are awesome.

 

The warranty just changed to 4/15/2015 with NBD on-site service..

I guess I really did get the 3 years NBD warranty!

But on the other hand, they kept on saying they sent me the 2350m instead of the 2310m that I received and took screenshots, and kept on telling me they sent me the right part.

Frustrated, spent the last hour trying to make it right and tell them I got a 2310m, but they wouldn't even check their own parts lookup site to see that this laptop actually has the 2310m.

Ugh, but I can live with it, I'll just be grateful for the warranty.

 

Mine says: Intel(R) 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family 6 Port SATA AHCI Controller - 1C03

what does that mean? I gues it's MS stock as driver dates back 2010...

So I should install RST? But that's for RAID, unless I'm missing something.

 

That is just a display string. Look more closely at the driver used, version, date, and publisher.

 

So here's what I've ended up with:

• Intel Core i5-2450M Processor (3M Cache, 2.50GHz)
• Genuine Windows 7 Professional (64 bit)
• 14.0" HD+ (1600 x 900) LED Backlit AntiGlare Display, Mobile Broadband Ready
• Intel HD Graphics 3000 processor graphics with dynamic frequency
• 4 GB PC3-10600 DDR3 SDRAM 1333MHz SODIMM Memory (1 DIMM)
• UltraNav (TrackPoint and TouchPad) without Fingerprint Reader
• 320GB Hard Disk Drive, 7200rpm
• DVD Recordable
• 9 Cell 2.8Ah Li-Ion Battery
• None
• Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6205 AGN
• Mobile Broadband ready (no mobile broadband module)

All coming to $794USD before taxes (barnes and noble gold)
I already have a crucial m4 128gb in hand from amazon (great prices on those lately), so i'll be doing a clean 7 install as soon as i receive it. Thanks, i'll be sure to come back with my opinions (my laptop experiences have been dreadful so i'm sure my review of the t420 will be glowing)

 

Those of you that travel a lot. How many of you regret getting the t420 and wish they would have gone with the s one ?

 

Not me, I love to be able to choose between my 6 cell and 9 cell battery, and I hate the small GB sizes you can only get the 7 mm drives in.

 

I travel with my T420 a lot and I don't have an issue with the weight. For its size I find it pretty light, much lighter than my T61 of similar size and that has a 6 cell compared to the 9 cell on my T420. As Jesper Juul mentioned I also like the fact that you don't have to worry about the compatibility of the hard drive size too. Given the choice again I would still choose the standard T420 over the 's' model, if I was really serious about portability I would've gone for the X220 personally.

 

Any update how this one is working?

 

Hello,

I recently purchased and I am thinking of getting T420 instead fro multiple reasons and I need your advice regarding some questions:

1. I had the problem of not being able to connect my W520 through VGA to projectors and have a 'double/clone display' without doing some manual work with the nVidia options which I do not like. Also, the nVidia Optimus causes much heat and battery throttling with W520. If I get T420 with the Intel GPU only, would these issues be resolved?

2. I was having the i7-2760QM (2.4) in the W520 and I know that the maximum I can get with the T420 will be the dual core (2.8). I do not do graphics or video editing. Would the T420 2.8 processor much less in performance than the 2760QM?

Just FYI, I have an SSD and wil always configure any machine for 8GB of RAM if this helps.

 

I would have no worries in that respect. Quad core CPUs only bring benefits when running applications that can spawn many threads to keep all the cores busy. If you are only running one program intensively and have various backgournd tasks then dual core is fine.

John

 

Sorry for stepping on toes with this post. I had a T400 which is very similarly sized to the T420 and in weight as well. If you move around a lot go for the T420s. It gets pretty annoying quickly having to move around with such a large machine. The difference in thickness doesn't seem like much on paper as well, but when you handle both it's quite noticeable.

 

School is going to end soon and I will be using my laptop almost always at home now. I have the power manager set at 35-95% threshold like some people recommended. Should I leave the battery in or should I take it out because I won't be needing to move my laptop anywhere. It's going to stay in my room most of the time.

 

Let it in. No good reason to lose the built-in UPS or risk possible CPU throttling.

 

Does anyone know if its possible to manually upgrade the processor in a t420i to an i7 or an i7 quad as some have done here with the t420?

 

Yes you can, there is no difference between a T420i model to a base T420. I previously fitted a Quad Core i7-2720QM processor in my T420i just fine.

 

How did it work out for you? Were heat and battery life tolerable?

 

At idle the temperatures were pretty decent in a small chassis as it averaged around 45c. However under load it got a bit toasty for my liking, I managed to get it as high as 96c using Prime95 which is quite close to the TJunction of 100c, plus HWInfo informed me the CPU was throttling bad to keep it under check.

It also hampered the battery life as I lost around 1hr 30mins compared to my dual core i5 setup doing my usual stuff (5hrs vs almost 7hrs). In the end as I tend to be away from the mains regularly I decided to revert to my Dual Core i5 processor in favour of a longer battery life setup.

 

7 hours? seriously?

 

I get about 7 hours with the standard 9 cell as well, not even power saver or the screen dimmed down..

With power saver / dimmed down screen, I get more than 10 hours.

 

Oh, i see. I get around 3-4 hours with my setup and 6cell battery.

your sig says "18 cell" ??

 

I also have the 9 cell slice.

Battery life is insane.


Sent from my iPhone with Tapatalk

 

New bios version 1.39 is out. Enjoy guys.

Download

 

Thanks for the heads up kyohiros, I was running this BIOS for 2 weeks as a tester for Lenovo (I was under agreement not to openly mention it until it officially comes out) to try out whether this fixes the warm reboot issue for the Intel 510 SSD. Even though it's not mentioned in the log, this particular BIOS fixes the problem so I would highly advise people with the Intel 510 SSD to upgrade to this BIOS.

Also link to the bootable CD version of the 1.39 BIOS.

 

Did they ever say what the problem was that they fixed with the Intel Series 510 SSD drive?

 

They haven't told me specifically what they tweaked but since the BIOS updates the Embedded Controller from 1.11 to 1.18 and skips the update by 2 (1.37 to 1.39) they must have done quite a bit of changes to get it working.

 

I just bought a t420 with a i7, 8gb ram and nvidia tech.
So far I love it.
It is far more better than my t410s, not mentioning the battery life.
I get this high pitch noise when running on battery with turbo boost on.
In the options I have the turbo boos dissabled, but when I turn it on the fans starts with full throttle. Is that normal?
How can I look at the bios version?

 

Yeah when you switch on the Turbo Boost from the Power Manager it will crank up the fans so that is normal. Personally I don't use it as I find the standard frequencies to be fast enough myself.

As for the BIOS info you can look it up either on the BIOS itself (press F1 when the ThinkPad logo comes on) or on Windows just look in System Information and BIOS Version/Date.

 

Does the turbo boost only make the fan spin faster?
How can I check the temp on my computer?

 

The point of Turbo Boost is for the CPU to go beyond its base frequency, like an overclock if thermal limits allows it to. The fans will spin faster for extra cooling so the CPU can try to push as much performance as it can. As for checking temps you can try free programs such as HWInfo32 or Core Temp.

 

So you are saying that all the thinkpads have the high pitch noise when running on battery power?

 

I'm thoroughly enjoying the enhanced sound mod authored by "PeterTWJ" and shared by "600X" that is compatible with the ThinkPad T420 system. If you like listening to music but not overwhelmed by the sound quality on the ThinkPad then the Dolby Home Theatre drivers could be just what you're looking for.

​

Not only it enhances the volume which to be fair, is quiet on the T420 but also changes the depth of certain tones giving more vibrancy in playback on stock speakers. You may hear certain things that you couldn't before with this mod! Instructions on how to load the Dolby Home Theatre on your ThinkPad is shown in this PDF. The relevant files needed for installation can be obtained here.

I have compiled all my Dolby Home Theatre v4 Profile for people to use and modify freely, this file supercedes all my previous files. Simply load it at the Import tab under the "ALL TUNING + PROFILES" section.

Profile Download Link ( Right click on link and save to computer).

* P1 - HD Audio by 600X
600X's tuning for loud playback on stock speakers minimising distortion, though not really recommended for headphone/phono jack use.

* P2 - Bass Enhance EQ by Hearst
Tuned for headphones/audio jack use, ideal for music with some bass such as Hip-Hop, R&B, Dance and the Wub Wub types. This EQ makes the bass more pronounced and vibrant.

* P3 - Rock EQ by Hearst
Tuned for headphones/audio jack use, adds a bit more depth to certain rock music.

* P4 - General EQ by Hearst
This EQ generally enhances tones for all kinds of music, adds a bit of depth and feels balanced all round. I also tweaked the surround settings to give a home theatre feel on headphones, of course if you don't prefer that you can always turn it off. If you connect to an external speaker using the audio jack then I probably would recommend to turn the surround feature off.

* P5 - Classical EQ by Hearst
Especially suited for softer genres like Classical and Acoustic Music, this EQ is tuned for headphones/audio jack use. Works quite well with the Surround Virtualizer on for that orchestral experience if desired.

* P6 - Voice
This is a default voice EQ for dictation and microphone conversation.

EDIT: Due to the unofficial support of these drivers, the Dolby Home Theatre v4 Drivers will not work using the ThinkPad dock or with HDMI output. If you use either of these frequently it is recommended to stick to the original Conexant audio drivers. If you want to boost volume on the stock Conexant drivers then try using this method here.

Unfortunately the high pitch noise or whine is a characteristic of the Intel processor when it goes to power saving mode, it affects all makes and not just ThinkPads. It's well documented when you do a Google search on the issue.

 

Do that 600X work on W520?

 

It should do as the W520 shares the same Conexant Audio chip as the T420 and X220.

 

Edit: nwm that is in the pdf

 

Now this is interesting. I am just DL the 1,2,3 files.
Should I also DL the DAA and DHT files?

 

I downloaded the whole folder just to be on the safe side though I think you can get away with just downloading the 3 parts of the x86/x64 files as instructed in the PDF.

 

Sounds good. This is actually great stuff since I love music. One more thing. In the instructions it tells me to uninstall some drivers. Did you do that and which ones exactly?

 

Like fx I found conextant smart audio HD. Should I uninstall it?

 

My ThinkPad was using stock High Definition Audio Device drivers from Microsoft as it was a Clean Install so it never really came with the Conexant drivers. That said most people would have this driver on their ThinkPads so it's probably best to uninstall the Smart Audio application and drivers to avoid conflicts with the Dolby Home Theatre v4 - Conexant HD Audio drivers. This is actually advised in the PDF instructions so it's best to follow suit.

 

I get this message and dont know what to do. What am I missing. I uninstalled the Conextant driver.....

 

When you uninstalled the Conexant driver did you restart the system then install the Dolby drivers after?

 

I have installed and done all the following steps.
Not when importing your settings. Where do I find them after importing?

 

Just download the inx files on the post I did earlier, 600X's profile is on Mediafire but for my files you'll need to right click on the link and save to the computer.

To import the profiles open the Dolby Tuning and Profile Creator program, on the Import tab look down to where the P1/P2/P3 etc. section is. Click on "Import" and just select the inx files you downloaded to load up the profiles to use or customise.

 

Oh wow, the audio is superb. Crystal clear and much louder than before.

Thanks, Repped.

 

Appreciate the tutorial Hearst! All T420 owners should get the Dolby drivers on your laptop ASAP!

 

The dolby drivers are the bomb. I didnt know I could get so good sound on a laptop. Using my headphones is a joy. To bad my big headphones when maxed are not so high. Any idea why?

 

Now that's interesting...I'll take a look at that.