Thinkpad T420 Owner's Thread

Have you pressed FN+F5 to activate the Bluetooth? It tends to catch some people out when they couldn't find the option to turn it on (... even me ).

 

Ah, there we go Thanks!

 

Nice, less room for someone like me to mess things up .

Intel reports the max operating temp to be 100C but mid-90's still sounds a bit high especially for extended periods. How long was the game running before this reading was taken? Also, do you know how your i5 compares at load? A user with a X220 i7-2620M reported the temp topped out at 79C playing Portal 2 but that is also with the integrated GPU. I wonder how temps compare on other T420 notebooks. Idling in the 30's sounds pretty good though.

 

Does simply using water (or nothing at all!) actually prevent the build up of oil on the keys? I can already see more heavily used keys like H and F looking shinier than the others. I just accepted this state of affairs on my old T42, curious if people actually manage to prevent things from getting out of control.

I presume it's safe to use water to wipe off the trackpad?

 

I use a damp soft cloth with a hint of liquid detergent. First the screen gets a wipe, then the keyboard and finally everything else. I've used this method for years and it usually gets rid of dirt and grease but keyboards and touchpads tends to develop some shine after heavy usage as the surfaces wear smooth.

John

 

My T420 just shipped out today and I was wondering if anyone tried installing Ubuntu on there T420? Was there any driver issues? And if there was, could you point me to the right direction in grabbing them?

 

I agree that mid-90's is too high. My guess is that it was only at that temperature very briefly - i.e., the game started and caused the temperature to spike, after which the fan sped up and caused the temp to balance out in the 70's or so. But that's just a guess, and I'll need to do the test with temperature logging enabled.

I had the game running for sometime over half an hour... maybe around 45 minutes or so? I didn't notice any CPU throttling. And I also didn't notice the fan being overly loud, which I thought it should be, what with CPU temperatures climbing to the 90's. (Of course, Lenovo is probably using something other than the 4 core sensors to control fan speed.)

I'm afraid that I didn't measure load temperatures with the i5. I'll take a look at reviews to see what they say.

EDIT: Hmm... can't find any reviews for T420's with NVS4200 that happen to mention internal temperature readings. I agree with the reviewers about the exterior temperatures (air coming out of heatsink, palmrests, etc.) being very reasonable, with nothing ever getting too warm. A couple reviews mention load temperatures in the 80's or so, but those are with the HD3000.
By the way, I'm afraid that I'll be going on vacation soon, and I might not get around to doing some more testing + logging for a while.

 

I just got my Ultrabay HDD Hearst got and installed it. It's great, but the hdd is a bit loose, the bay came with 4 screws, but there's no place to screw them?

How can I disable/power off the extra hdd and make it accessible whenever I want?

I reverted back to factory installation with every software preinstalled. In addition to lenovo's full software package.
I find the entire package bloated. I have clean installed win7 but came back to spend some more time withe lenovo's software.

I want to do a clean install again, and install the necessary software (not only drivers) that are useful for battery life and device power management. Maybe that could be in the OP to help out others?

Any suggestions?

 

I have a question about nVidia Quadro NVS 4200M card. Is it better choice in case if the price would be the same? I am curious if fun noise could be louder with dedicated card. I am not going to play on my laptop but I would like to have such posibility in future. First od all I am looking for solid business laptop for coding. Which card should I choose in t420?

 

Stable in the 70's would be perfect .

Have a nice trip! Maybe when you return you can try out TPFanControl for a more appropriate fan speed profile for that quad .

You can disable the NVS 4200M completely in the BIOS if your concern is it generating unnecessary heat. Both configurations will come with an integrated GPU.

 

Will do. I have the sourceforge page already bookmarked after looking around the T420 reviews earlier today.

 

Generally the Thinkvantage Power Manager will take care of both the battery and system device power management. It's one of the few Thinkvantage tools that I use personally, the Power Manager is great for configuring charging thresholds for the battery to reduce wear and have custom power profiles depending on battery or AC use.

While I did a basic guide for clean installing the T420 I didn't delve into the details of the Thinkvantage programs itself as everyone has different preferences. I prefer just the Power Manager and the Hot keys utilities personally but others may prefer using others hence I omitted it from the guide.

There seem to be a method of toggling the power settings of the Ultrabay hard drive in which you can have a read here.

If they're at the same price then by all means go for the Nvidia Quadro card as it has Optimus technology that gets you both integrated and discrete graphic options. Though such scenario is unlikely, it depends on your needs at the end of the day. If you do CAD work, gaming or such then you'll benefit with the extra power of the NVIDIA card, if you do just software coding, office work and watch the odd HD movies then the Intel integrated graphics card will probably suit you better. I have the Intel card on my T420 and the system runs very cool and quiet.

 

I can only state my personal experience. You can only state yours, which may be different -- hence the familiar term YMMV.

Fingerprints left on the lid do not evaporate without a trace because they are oil-based and not water-based. Perhaps my hands are more oily than the "normal" "North American" hands, but YMMV. (Of course, I won't say what those hands touch during the day. )

 

Well I set up the T420 this weekend and I am very impressed with it besides the screen. It bugs me enough that I am contemplating sending it back. I would think for what I payed that the screen would be better than my wife's x120e but it looks no better to my eyes.

That's not to say that it is horrible but honestly it looks like my R61 but brighter. That was okay with the R61 at the price I paid but don't know if I can deal with it on the T420. I am currently looking at the T520/W520 as possible alternatives. Are those screens better? Do you have to get the FHD option for it to be better or will the 1600X900 work? I would probably spring for the FHD if I know it is better quality. I am not super excited about the larger power supplies on either but I don't know yet if I can deal with the screen (on the T420). Also why is a loaded out W520 almost $300 less than a comparable T520? That's makes no sense at all. Again if I had payed $700-$800 for the T420 then I would probably just deal with it.

Regardless if I send it back, I am looking about about $300 extra to trade up to a loaded W520 (minus the higher end video card but still has the 1000m). I am going to give it another day or two though and see if I can get adjusted to the T420 screen. I think part of it is also that I have been reading about it so much, I already knew what I was going to see when I opened the box (screen wise). Ignorance is bliss .

 

Thanks a lot for the reply.

Maybe if you can add your suggestions to the guide, that would be useful to people.

 

On my T420s, I made three adjustments: (i) Used the Windows Calibrate tool; (ii) used the ClearType tuner (it made it worse before I found a good setting - avoid the bold text options); (iii) reduced gamma in the graphics driver to 0.9 (a noticeable improvement; and (for my LG panel) reduced blue slightly. I now have a display which is usable. However, running the display at full brightness when indoors suggests that there is no headroom in the brightness to allow for bright ambient lighting or outside.

I'm sure that Lenovo could improve the default display settings by tweaking the BIOS and / or graphics driver (note that an updated Intel graphics driver was released on 16th May).

John

 

Great post. My laptop arrived yesterday. I'm going to do your post this tonight. Btw, how did you find out what kind of display you have (LG or whatnot)?

 

There are two ways: (i) HWiNFO32 gives a monitor code. Post what you find. Mine begins with LP (thought to be LG Philips) or (ii) Use the Lenovo parts lookup facility which confirms I have "93P5689 LGD 14.0" HD+".

John

 

Your guide is great, except that I'm running into a problem in the install screens first it says that it 'can't find a previous version of Windows' implying that I'm trying to do a clean install using an upgrade CD. If I click past that it jsut says ''could not read the CD inserted or it is not a valid Windows CD' The CD I'm using is absolutely valid, it's a slipstreamed SP3 CD I have used it countless times on other reinstalls. Also, I did follow your instructions regarding the SATA drivers. Any ideas or tips on where to go from here? Am a little desperate to set up this laptop and appreciate any help.

 

Hi Shashleek, just need to clarify are you trying to install Windows XP SP3 or Windows 7 via upgrade on your T420? Normally with an Upgrade disc installation it will try to see if you have an existing installation of an older version of Windows before installing. If it doesn't find this then it will ask you to insert a qualifying disc of a previous version.

XP Upgrade installation requires the disc copy of Windows 98/ME/2000 to verify. Windows 7 will use the Vista disc but it won't however use the XP disc as a direct in place upgrade with no OS installed. It needs a valid XP installation before doing the upgrade to Windows 7 if I recall.

 

Did anyone upgrade from a T410 to a T420 that can described their experiences?

 

great tips there!!! i've reset my T420 according to your setting and it's actually look better then before..

 

So is it now acceptable?

John

 

well, to be frank.. the screen quality doesn't really bother me that much, but using your setting definitely improve the viewing quality, and yes it's now much more acceptable..

 

New ThinkPad T420 BIOS released today.

Lenovo Support - BIOS Update Utility for Windows 7 (32-bit, 64-bit), XP - ThinkPad

Version 1.26
UEFI: 1.26 / ECP: 1.08

(New) Updated Computrace ROM to version 80.895.
(Fix) Fixed an issue where some security settings in ThinkPad Setup could not be changed by Windows WMI script.
(Fix) Fixed an issue where the computer might not be booted from the hard disk with Linux installed if there was no active partition there.
(Fix) Fixed an issue where the computer with large-capacity memory installed might fail to resume normal operation from standby/sleep state.
(Fix) Fixed an issue where a particular AC adapter might not be detected.

 

I was playing around with my ThinkPad T420 with the extended 9-cell battery. When I first received the laptop, it was only 15% charged. So I charged it fully and I see only 5:45 hours of battery life remaining in Maximum Battery mode. I suspect this is a bit low since the advertised battery life was 10-12 hours.

Is there a way to calibrate the battery to maximize its longevity?

 

Thanks for the update, will probably try this out later. Though I have a feeling that its not going to cure the warm reboot issue of the Intel 510. We wait and see...

What's your typical usage on the system? I have 85% charge in mine and it reports 7:04 hours at the moment just doing some forum browsing, wi-fi enabled and LCD brightness at 10/15.

 

You can calibrate your battery with the power manager.

 

I haven't done much with the laptop. Wifi is on, LCD is at 10/15 brightness, and Audio is at 2/3 of the max level. All I have done so far is install a Virus Scan, update drivers, and took a backup. I will check tonight if I see any changes, but nothing yet.

 

Thanks. I didn't realize that we have to set up the battery beforehand. If you used Power Manager to calibrate, how did you do so and what settings did you use?

 

I haven't calibrate my battery yet as I just use my battery about 1 month. Battery calibration using power manager is automatic. You just have to click on "Battery" page on the Power manager window and click on battery maintainence. I think, it doesn't have additional settings for battery calibration.

 

Anyone with experience installing Linux on there machine? I'm receiving my laptop tomorrow and I was wondering how much tinkering I would have to do when installing Ubuntu.

 

No experience, but the one thing I've heard is that for best experience with the Intel HD 3000 graphics, you may need to do some driver work, especially if you're planning on using Natty Narwhal (11.04).

[Phoronix] Intel Sandy Bridge On Ubuntu 11.04 Is Still Troubling

Personally, I think you're better off with 10.04 or 10.10 for the time being. Alternately, you could run Ubuntu in VirtualBox.

 

Yeah, I was planning to dual boot with it but for now I might just run it as a Virtual Machine. I like using Linux for coding and Windows for everything else. I ordered it with the 250GB 5400RPM hard drive since it was the cheapest harddrive configuration, so I was planning to do a clean install once I upgrade to a SSD.

Has Lenovo released a 12.7mm Ultrabay port for harddrives yet? Or is eBay still the only option?

 

Lenovo still yet to release an official 12.7mm Ultrabay caddy, at the moment only the unofficial caddies come with 12.7mm fittings which can be found on eBay.

 

I have installed the latest BIOS for my T420. But it still doesn't resolve the warm boot issue (booting from Intel 510 SSD) that I'm encountering.

 

Thanks for sharing your experiences, its pretty much what I suspected.

To be honest i'm starting to think that this problem is to do with the SATA III implementation on the ThinkPad systems. There are similar issues with the OCZ Vertex 3 as well as the Intel 510 from what I gathered. The Crucial M4 SSD is also reported to have some freezing issues on the system which I find too much of a coincidence. Notice the SATA II SSDs (Intel 320, OCZ Vertex II) are running relatively trouble free on these systems in comparison.

I'm hoping Lenovo prioritise their engineers to have a look at the SATA III SSD issues for their upcoming BIOS, you know it's bad when they spent their time updating the Computrace ROM instead.

 

I dunno... that kinda makes sense. Computrace is used by a lot of business customers. SATA III is not -- at least not yet, since Lenovo's not shipping any SATA III drives in their machines.

Still, reliable SATA III operation would be... you know... one of those things that you kinda want sooner rather than later.

 

Pardon me for this n00b question, but does the T420 have the DisplayPort or the mini DisplayPort?

I'm looking to connect my laptop to the TV, which has HDMI. If it has mini DisplayPort, then I can use the following deal: Macbook/iMac mini-display to HDMI Thunderbolt compatible with audio pass through dongle $7 shipped @ meritline.com - Slickdeals.net

 

T420 uses full size Display Port. I suggest you follow this thread as some are experiencing a problem (no audio out) when using certain DP to HDMI adapter.

 

I can't comment very much on the tests, even so its not done fairly as they was testing 6GB RAM vs. 8GB RAM so its kind of flawed (my standard 8GB 1333MHz RAMs have the same WEI rating as those 1866MHz RAMs anyway ).

Anyway the specs look decent from the list you given, how do you plan on using the notebook? You maybe able to get away with a Core i5 processor rather than a Core i7 if your tasks are not that strenuous which can save you quite a significant sum. The differences between the Core i5 and Core i7 dual core processors are quite marginal in terms of real world usage.

5-6 years life for a notebook is quite a long time so I suggest having NVIDIA Optimus instead of the Core i7 option to add some future proofing. The processors can be swapped out into something better in the future while the GPUs cannot so its something to bear in mind. Plus the advantage of Optimus is that you can select Discrete or Integrated options whichever suits your need.

For the SSDs, I say get the Intel 320. It's a proven product as it uses the same controller as the Intel X25-M which is solid as a rock. The SATA III SSD's are still quite patchy on the ThinkPads, even my Intel 510 has some issues and the Random 4k speeds are not great which is even slower than my Intel X25-M on my 4 year old T61.

 

Okay I just got my T420 today and I have been loving it! Except one thing, I was looking up info on my harddrive on HWINFO32 and apparently I have a Hitachi Z5K320, which is a 7mm drive. Does that mean my harddrive bay is only 7mm? Or can I get the 9.5mm adapters so I can upgrade my harddrive?

 

Seems you got caught out with the 7mm/9.5mm rubber rails lottery. The T420 can be upgraded to any 9.5mm hard drive but the 7mm rubber rails may struggle to fit on as " mohdfaris" had found out. Since you haven't had your T420 for that long I would contact Lenovo to see if they're is willing to give you the right 9.5mm rubber rails for you.

 

Again, thank you for the quick reply and saving me a few dollars. I will buy the 8GB 1333MHz RAMs. I will also go with your suggestion and buy the Intel - SSD SSDSA2CW120G310 120GB SSD 320 Series OEM Box.

I have no idea if the price was good or bad, but the whole system costed under $1,000. I don't know why, but the Lenovo's website didn't have the choice of NVIDIA Optimus when I purchased my T420. It only gave me the option of INTEL HD GRAPHICS 3000. If I had known about these forums before buying, I would have gone with your recommendation.

As for using the system, I have not and probably will not play video games. I normally do have 5 to 10 applications open at anytime (Word, Access, Window Media Player, Internet Explorer (At least 4 Tabs), OneNote, Bluetooth Head Phones, Calculator, etc). My current laptop will freeze and sometime it will take a couple of seconds to type one word.

I have two questions left.

First, I think I know the answer and will probably go with the Intel 320, but is there any reason I should go with the Intel 310 msata?

Second, I really like these T420 threads. Is there a way to setup my account for this website so a new reply will go to my email? I have been coming back to this website and hitting the refresh button to see if there was any new post or reply.

Again, I have said it before, but I wanted to say it again, "Thank you Hearst for your help."

 

The Core i5 with 8GB RAM would be able to handle those tasks quite easily, but if you had a T420 system with Core i7 for under $1000 USD then that's actually not a bad deal.

Going for the mSATA option means that you don't need to sacrifice the other hard drive/DVD bays for extra capacity as it is connected to the miniPCIe slot at the back of your notebook. The mSATA SSD is just as fast to most SATA II SSDs. The downsides are capacity is limited compared to the standard SSDs, you may need to sacrifice the WWAN card should you wish to add the mSATA drive and stocks are quite hard to come by for the Intel 310.

Sure, just subscribe to this thread under "Thread Tools" and you can get notifications via email!

 

On the phone with the warranty department at Lenovo and hopefully I can get the 9.5mm adapter for free. The guy seems pretty cool about it. The Georgia ThinkPad support line is MUCH better than the Lenovo Sales support line.

 

Let's hope it goes well for you! Oh apologies for being a bit late but welcome to the T420 club!

 

T61 owner here... soon to be T420 owner.

Any advice on configuring a new 420?

Wireless:
-Any benefit in choosing an upgraded card? The $0 Centrino-N 100 option seems more than capable.

Bluetooth:
-I have this on my T61 and have never used it. Is there anything I am missing out on?

Screen:
-I think it's absoultely worth the upgrade to go 1600x900.

Processor:
-Will the i5-2410M 2.3ghz available on the 420i be powerful enough to run Photoshop, Lightroom, and video encoding?
-It will cost about about $150 more to get an i5-2540M 2.6ghz. Is there a big difference in real life? The i7-2620M 2.7ghz seems to be an even smaller upgrade coming from the i5-2540... am I correct on this?

I have looked at the processor comparisons and not being an expert, it's hard to say what difference it makes in "real life"

I have read this entire 20 page thread already... very good stuff.

 

You might want the i5-2540M if you want virtualization or encryption. The only thing I've ever used BT for is for a wireless mouse; cleaner than a USB dongle. If you can get a QuickPath supporting encoder, then video encoding would be a lot easier.

 

I just helped one of our interns get a T420. If you went through the Visa program this week, and used a doorbuster system with Lenovo's additional 10% off coupon, you could get a Core i7 system (non--Optimus) with HD+ display, Intel 6205 wireless and 2-year onsite warranty (there was a warranty promo) for $987 before tax.

Some of the offers expired on the 18th, but I'm sure other options exist.