Thinkpad T420 Owner's Thread

How would I go about returning it? I read that returns have 15% restocking fee or something like that. Would that not apply if this was considered a defect?

I would like to continue using T420 but without this annoying whine. Is it possible to get an exchange if the CPU is the only thing defective?

 

When did you buy your T420? I believe the return period is inside 21 days from the ship date.

 

The machine was shipped on the 10th, so I believe I am well within the 21 days.

 

I would return it and tell them why. That should get the restocking fee waived. This isn't buyers remorse. The machine is defective.

After you get your credit, you can always go through the process again with a T420 or the new T430. I think the percentage with this defect must be rather low.

I would not send it to Lenovo Support for a fix.

 

Thor, thank you for your advice. I will definitely give Lenovo a call about this issue. It seems that you are adverse to sending the machine to Lenovo for a fix. Is it because they have a bad record for such remedies?

The noise is more pronounced to a degree where it is very distracting when the computer is under a heavy load whereas it is more reasonable when the computer is idle. Is this a normal behaviour? I only have my 4.5 year old laptop to compare with and I understand that the CPU technology may have changed drastically over this time.

 

Edit: usually the throttling whine is the reverse (whines when throttled *down*, not up.) On second reading, I can't picture what you're describing. Odd.

 

You have 21 days to decide if the machine you received is acceptable. I choose to exercise my rights. I am not willing to accept a machine that has an annoying defect.

And to your other question, I don't have any idea what the win/loss ratio is for "warranty repairs" and customer satisfaction inside the first 21 days.

It seems you always see the horror stories on the forums but that paints a lopsided picture.

I really don't care about the history and stats. If I pay good money for a new machine, I want it to work defect free preferably for years. In the first 21 days an annoying issue is going to cause a return in my book. No question about that.

 

I looked up Lenovo's return policy and it seems as if they charge a 15% restocking fee for returns, unless, I think, the machine is defective some way. I'm not sure if I would be able to send it into to Lenovo to check for defects before my 21 days run out.
I will have to talk to a representative as soon as possible...

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but a "CPU" whine is actually caused by parts on the motherboard, no?

 

CPU Whine is down to the C4 State. Disable Intel Speedstep and there be no more Noise coming from your Processor any more. Battery life will be affected, however.

 

How can you tell if your hinge is loose?

 

Here are some ways to check if the hinge is loose:

- When you open/close the lid you feel that there isn't as much resistance or friction so it tilts easily with the slightest pressure.

- When you move the system with the lid top open it either wobbles or tilts at a diferent angle by itself as a result from movement. Good hinges should prevent significant movement of the screen lid.

- Tilt the lid at a 45 degree angle or lower, if the weight of the lid causes it to close by itself then the hinge is loose. Good hinges should always hold the lid top regardless of angle.

My T420 failed these tests after 5 months so I had to get them replaced though it did took me a while to get to that stage via IBM UK.

 

It passed two out of the three tests. The lid only wobbles when I flick the top of the lid with my finger and it'll wobble when I move it.

 

Hey guys, I don't know if anyone actually read this... but I have figured out something very important! it will decrease ur laptop's CPU lifespan by a lot if ignored!

The factory thermal paste on the T420 laptop is very badly applied (at least on the one I purchased). Here's how to test ur machine: under prime95 max heat stress, if the cpu raises higher than 80C, u are likely to have the exact same problem I encountered, in my case, the cpu was at a stunning 95C under stress. I have googled and seen a lot of ppl with this exact problem so I ignored it thinking its a design flaw!

Until one day I decided to change up the thermal paste to Arctic Silver 5 from a local store. It's only 10 bucks so I recommend everyone to just get one!

After about an hour of reading through the maintenance manual I managed to successfully change the thermal paste. The problem I see is the factory put WAY to much thermal paste creating a gap between the heatsink and CPU surface!

After reassembly I booted up and stressed the laptop with prime95 for about an hour with temperature well under 70C! which is a 25C reduction from before!

If you guys are interest I can write a actual thread about this! thanks.

I'm simply writing this for anyone else that have the problem going unnoticed!

 

^^^^
OMG just tested and mine went up to 97 degree Celcius. Gonna change the thermal paste soon. thanks for the info.
And please write a guide bacause after looking at the manual i don't think i can do it. Too many things to take apart.

 

Good timing with the temp checks, I did a stress test on my T420 and it soared up to 92c! After a good clean and a refresh of paste using Arctic Cooling MX-4 the temps dropped more than 20c under load. I give a rep for the reminder!

 

Just joined this forum... looks good. Love the T420 thread! However, would aid navigation if the thread was sorted into sub-headings? Respect.

 

indeed, theres quiet a few things to take apart. for now I will simply tell u the order and will write a more indepth guild when I get a new screw driver LOL (lost my old one, did the change at a friends house zzz)

1. Battery
2. bottom ram cover
3. keyboard screw under the ram cover
4. keyboard
5. 8 screws(5 bottom and 3 top) that holds the touchpad/speaker cover
6. the touchpad/speaker cover
7. unplug the monitor cables including wifi cables and WAN cables.
8. unscrew the monitor from bottom and top (4 screws)
9. lift monitor up
10. unscrew the left speaker unit

now you should be left with the exposed fan/heatsink unit

just unscrew the 4 CPU heat sink bolt and 1 GPU headsink bolt and it should come off no problem

clean the old paste off, put a tiny drop on the GPU chip and a line in middle of the cpu core

reassemble make sure u press down on both heatsink with a bit of force so the heatsink have better contact~

and reassemble in reverse order, you should be good to go!

 

To be honest you don't need to take out the LCD monitor to access the CPU, I didn't need to when I redid the paste. When the keyboard bezel is removed you just need to move out the left speaker and unhook the Wi-Fi cables from the heatsink. Then remove the 4 screws from the heatsink from the board and lift it out at an angle to expose the CPU.

 

Ah I guess that will make life a lot easier! but tbh the screen was really easy to take off anyways, probably like 1 min extra time only

 

has anybody tried replacing the t420 screen with the samsung model? i'm curious as to how it compares to the LG panel, which i find to be bloody awful, especially due to the horrible viewing angles (i find that even horizontal ones lack). i've read that out of the three panels, the samsung is the best. i'm wondering by how much...

 

Just picked up the following:

Intel Core i7-2640M Processor (2.80GHz, 4MB L3, 1333MHz with Intel HD Graphics 3000)
Genuine Windows 7 Professional (64 bit)
14.0" HD+ (1600 x 900)
2 GB PC3-10666 DDR3 (upgraded to 16Gb)
720p HD Camera with Microphone
320GB Hard Disk Drive, 7200rpm
DVD Recordable
Express Card Slot, 4-in-1 Card Reader
9 Cell 2.8Ah Li-Ion Battery
65W AC adapter
Broadcom Bluetooth 3.0 with antenna
Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 AGN
Wireless Broadband Ericsson F5521gw
AU$1,221

Thought that was a pretty good deal?

 

not much of a good deal
you can use the coupon here:
Lenovo Thinkpad - Upto 30% discount - Barnes and Noble Exclusive Offer. - Slickdeals.net
to save up 30%
and then myus.com to ship it to Australia, I think it would take only 1000$ for your configuration

 

Hmm... does look like a better deal. But not by much... convert it to $AU and it would work out to be pretty marginal in the end.

 

The i5 CPU is actually a better deal, you are better off getting that and later upgrade to a quad i7, I feel that the i5 have very similar speed as the 2640m since they are both dual cores

 

Good afternoon everyone. Perhaps this is not the best place but I managed to find a better one where they can advise me. I've been offered two teams that currently are these:
Lenovo ThinkPad T420 4236 vhv i5-2520M (2.5GHz), 4GB RAM, 160GB 7200rpm HD, 14in 1366x768 LCD, Intel HD Graphics, DVD, Intel 802.11agn wireless, Bluetooth, 1Gb Ethernet, UltraNav, Secure Chip, Camera, 9c Li-Ion, Win7 Pro The price 500 € Me offer 3 year warranty.
Dell es el e6320 i5 2540 ,4gb, 250gb(5400 RPM), 3g es de 13,3
The price 600 €
Personally I like the first but in this case the seller does not take me that fingerprint reader, is this possible?
The question I have is that equipment worth more than my preference was to lenovo for your comments. If you take the fingerprint reader would have no doubt but not take it I turn to you to see if you can help me choose.

Comment that both teams are totally brand new. Kind regards and thanks in advance.

 

Google Translator?

Take the T420. You can always buy a Palmrest with FPR later on.

 

Yes, i think with my english level It would not be able to express what I needed to make me understand.
It is possible to put FPR before.

Thanks for your help.

 

I'm sorry, but I don't quite understand what you want. If the Seller gives you an FPR Option, then you can of course take it if you want it. If he doesn't, you can get the Palmrest including the FPR on ebay and install it once you have your ThinkPad.

You don't happen to speak German, do you?

 

Thanks for your help .
Sorry but i don´t speak german.The Seller has a XX Stock and sell it.
The Lenovo T420 which sells no fingerprint reader and my questions is . After y buy this FPR and install in my computer If the answer is yes where i buy this piece.
Regards and thanks for help me.

 

The answer is yes, you can replace the palmrest later. Where? Ebay - NEW/Oirg IBM Lenovo T420 T420i palmrest keyboard bezel 04W1371 0A70001 W FP/TP | eBay
Not cheap, though..

 

Many thanks mate, you gotta fully understand the entire message.
Try to seek to remove the current manual and connect the new.
Regards.

 

The audio combo jack on my T420 doesn't work, what do I do?

 

Hi! This is my first post as well, Masadde. Do you have a certified Lenovo warrenty service shop within driving distance? I'd give them a call.

 

Check the sound properties to make sure it hasn't been accidently muted when the audio jack is in (does the physical mute button on the keyboard glow orange when you put it in?). If it looks OK then try reinstalling the Sound Driver, otherwise you may need to contact your local support to rectify the problem.

 

Finally bought the lenovo T420 and Wednesday arrive me but i have any questions about other topics, When I arrive it's best to create the recovery discs to install on the SSD then I've been reading this guide
http://forum.notebookreview.com/len...uide-clean-installing-windows-7-thinkpad.html

on the other side was thinking of replacing the 160GB HD for a SSD like this Crucial M4 128GB SSD SATA3 CT128M4SSD2 Disco Duro SSD I need these adapters to install the SSD Hard Drive Rubber Rails for IBM Lenovo T60 T61 T400 T410 T420 T500 T510 T520 R61 | eBay.
This ssd works well or look ssd other brands.
Regards.

 

Hello! I'm the proud owner of a T420, which I purchased not too long ago - read: I'm still getting the hang of it So far, I'm loving the keyboard and the sweet 9-cell battery!
Having read you all, though, I'm planning to install a Crucial M4 SSD drive in the near future, though, and planning in advance I ordered this 2.5" caddy from DealExtreme to replace my optical drive with a 1TB drive I have around. For $11.90 it was worth a try. I received it today, and it fits so perfectly I almost cried! But I ended up crying when I found out that, for the life of me, I can't get it to work! As I said, it snaps into place, I can even hear the drive spinning at bootup, but my system does not see the new drive! I have also installed a 500GB disk, just in case, but to no avail.
Do I need to change something in the BIOS, or do anything out of the ordinary?
Thanks in advance!

 

Bought my T420 about a month ago. It's my first 'business line' laptop I ever possessed and I'm very content with it, although I'm still not entirely convinced of the added value of these models over consumer line models, since the specs don't usually differ much, but the price does (I got a very very got offer though (yea, I stole it)). Nevertheless, I simply like the feel and looks of these sturdy black velvety boxes so much that I just had to get one when I finally had the means. Some youth sentiments are also involved since my dad’s first laptop was a thinkpad. Anyway, many of my friends/family think I'm a bit mad though for falling in love with an ugly duck.

Some remarks/questions:

-read a lot about the screen quality and the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’ screens they’ve been fitting the thinkpads with. I got the ’good’ screen. Lucky me. Also very happy with the 1600*900 resolution.

-battery live is amaaazing! Kudos for 9 cell battery and the way power is apparently managed! I’m travelling by train quite a lot, and this battery live gives me so much freedom to work where and whenever I want.

-The body flexes slightly on several places, which surprised me a bit since I kind of expected (maybe naively?) one hard, solid brick-like object. Compared to my old timer Dell Inspiron (bought early 2008), the keyboard for example has actually more flex than the Dell's, which is virtually flex-less. It doesnt bother typing pleasure much tough, since the key stroke is a delight of course.

-The battery shows a bit of movement. Again, not that bothersome, but again I expected more of the renown thinkpad ruggedness.

-The software that comes with thinkpads (the thinkvantage stuff) is really sluggish. Takes long to startup and reacts slowly on things like clicking buttons (such as turning wireless radio on and off, which I use quite frequently). How much of this software is really necessary or do you find really useful? There are quite some processes related to this software eating my general performance.

-I’ve got a model with a fingerprint reader. Curiously, when the laptop is activated again from sleep mode, I get a Dutch language message asking me to strike my finger over the reader. My windows installation is in English, and when I log on after starting up from cold, the message is in English as it should. Does the software use internet to check my location? And why would it use that location’s language. A bit strange behavior.

-have to get used to having the fn key on the place where I’d expect ctrl.

-encountered several times that I accidently hit the next/previous page keys above right/left arrow keys and losing data I put into a form in a browser.

-Thanks Hearst for your fresh windows installation guide! My t420 had the 32bit version of windows 7 installed; your guide helped me excellently installing the 64 bit version.

-also, I picked up the suggestion on this forum of using the dolby sound driver to improve sound quality. Works amazingly.

 

I went ahead and applied the copper shim mod to my thinkpad and it's running a lot cooler. Currently right now I am encoding a video and the temp according tpfancontrol is 60C. Before it would get to 67 to 73C when I was encoding video.

 

Type in "Disk Management" in the search box of the Start Orb, it should list up "Create and Format Hard Disk Partitions". Click on that and do you see two disk drives being recognised? You may need to format and initialise the drive in the Ultrabay caddy before it can be seen under Windows.

I only use Power Manager and Hotkeys Integration on mine. I don't use the others such as Toolbox and Access Connections as the Windows utilties and my system maintenance regime takes care of that!

 

Thanks for your answer. I tried that, I can't see my disk there (I've tried two of them, 1TB and 500GB, both already partitioned and formatted). I have also tried Ubuntu, but it can't see the disks either. I'm afraid my only option is RMA...

 

I keep seeing references to this "copper shim" mod but cannot find any concrete details on what exactly it is. Does anyone have a link to a spelled out write-up of this mod?

 

The copper shim is a small piece of copper that you place on the CPU. The first step is to put the thermal paste of your choice on the CPU than you put the shim on the CPU. You apply some more paste on the shim, put the heat sink back on.

 

So, the net effect of this shim is to make better heat transfer by creating more force between the processor die and the heatsink?

 

Yeah pretty much.

 

I was very happy with my T420 on day one. After a couple of weeks, I've started to notice a few tiny build quality issues that do not affect usability, but I'd like to know from the community if these are signs of a lemon, or if I should just get them fixed at the local (Lenovo-certified) shop and be done with it.

(1) The palmrest bezel on the left is very loose and creaky. There's also a nice gap between the HDD bay and the plastic, resulting in significant deformation under the weight of my left wrist. I've been told the whole assembly was probably seated incorrectly.

(2) A section of plastic oriented two o'clock above the power button is buckled. No big deal, but this is a brand new computer.

(3) The left keyboard area has terrible flex and just today started making creaking noises when I press hard, as if something under the keys is deforming and then bouncing back. The right side is as expected for a decent laptop.

(4) This might be normal, but the black mouse buttons come to a hump near the middle of the trackpad, which makes it very easy to get something snagged underneath them and pull 'em out of their sockets. Is this related to (1)?

What do you think? I received it 24 days ago. Should I get a replacement if possible?

 

I think you should have the unit checked over. My T420 is over a year old now, while battled scarred it never had any issues with creaking palmrests or keyboard flexing. Try reseating the Keyboard and the Bezel to make sure it's seated properly, use the Hardware Maintenance Manual for assistance on this procedure.

If that doesn't work then you should try getting assistance from support since the system is less than a month old, it shouldn't really have those problems at that age.

 

Hey everyone. I just got my T420 w/ i5- 2540M cpu, 1600x900 screen, intel hd3000. I paid $715. I wanted the 2540M for virtualization and stuck with onboard video because of Linux and 2560x1600 multimonitor setup. I read about all the problems with Optimus and resolution over 1080p.

I was so tempted to cancel for a T430. But the comparable Ivy Bridge w/ VT-d/Vt-X cpu was $300 more. The CSR said I would pay a 15% re-stocking fee so I declined. After 5 minutes with the keyboard, I have no regrets.

I upgraded to 16GB RAM - $95 Amazon Crucial.
I have 3 SSD installed: 32GB msata, 256GB Crucial M4, 128GB Crucial M4 in the ultrabay. I plan to put another fruity OS on the msata.

I also got the Mini 3 Dock (brand new from ebay).

I got everything in the mail today and it took me 20 minutes to assemble and install Ubuntu 12.04. No glitches. I watched a youtube video on how to remove the keyboard and that was about it.

it was the most painless install experience.

I even got it to power my 30" Apple Cinema Display and run a 720p MKV on the 2560x1600 screen with no lag. Remember,this is under Linux so it is a pretty big deal. Docking and undocking work like a breeze. no lockups switching off the second display. Fingerprint-gui works. I can sudo my shell command with just the reader.



I posted a blog article on my blog if anyone cares to read..


Fortysomething Geek: Thinkpad T420 Impressions



I'm pretty impressed with this laptop. 16GB of ram, ability to add 3 drives, a docking station and the ability to power 2560x1600 for under a grand is a big deal for me.

 

Nice review Virtualjock, I added your analysis on the Review section of the main page. It's probably going to be the last one given the T420 is now superceded by the T430.

 

thanks for the comments. yeah, I know I got in on this late.