Thinkpad T420 Owner's Thread

Did you upgrade from T420 core i5 or purchased a new core i7 T420??

 

I can not Install Ravit Architecture on my T420, Is there any limitation to install this software?

 

Hello!

I seem to have a problem with my T420. It worked perfectly fine since I got it, but suddenly it stopped booting! Plugged in, with/without a battery, after clicking power 10 times and 30 secs the 11th time... Nothing seemed to work. No lights are blinking when a power source is attached. Could it be the motherboard?

I don't have warranty anymore, but the laptop is not even 3 years old and I paid a premium for the Lenovo brand so this is VERY unfortunate.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

 

@Big1

Try draining the capacitors. To do this:

1) unplug the T420 and remove the battery
2) press and depress the power button 10 times and hold for 10 secs on the tenth press
3) repeat 3 times
4) put battery back in and plug back in as well

Hope it helps

 

Anybody can give information about windows 8???

 

What about it?

 

Actually I am facing driver & software problems on my Thinkpad with windows 8......many of features not working on W8, I afraid that full performance is not geting in W8.

 

Sorry man, but that is because you don't know what you are doing. The T420 runs Windows 8 well. We have two in my family and I installed the OS on both. The T420 I have sitting next to me has the i7-2640M, 16GB RAM, a 256GB Samsung SSD in the primary bay, and a Samsung 256GB mSATA SSD in the PCIe slot.

It's a rocking Windows 8 Pro machine and is my travel duty machine when I don't need the full power and features of my W530.

My approach to installation has never changed. I download all the x64 drivers from support.lenovo.com. I then clean install the OS. I then install each driver manually. I start with the chipset driver, move to power, then video, then networking, etc. At the end of my installs I look to see what might be banged out and still in need of a driver. Before I research the hardware IDs, I run through all the updates from Windows update. That usually resolves everything.

Whatever remains is simple to fix. You can look at the device properties and get the hardware ID for a google/bing search.

I never use Lenovo's Software Update service.

 

Actually I didn't ask for your product specifications. I asked for Power management driver or software is working flawlessly like Windows 7. As I am an Architect and also a 3D visualizer it is very important that all the hardware performance working smoothly. I installed W8 on my SSD 128GB and 8GB machine and working like bird. But power management software is not available on Lenovo site and W7 software crashes. So i afraid that i get the highest performance for lake of software. The Fn key also not working on this OS.
BTW what may i know the deal with you and W530?? can you share 3d max render performance or Revit Architecture benchmark?....

 

The Power Management Driver works fine. The Power Management Software does not work. Most power settings can be set within the Windows power manager, except for manual battery charging thresholds.

Everything else works flawlessly and at full performance. But as an Architect and 3D visualizer, one might think that you would be smart enough to know how to install and run benchmarks applicable to your own workload......

 

, Yes Architect Knows Everything!!!.

My 3d Benchmark is P274, Graphics Score 233, Physics Score 3052, Combined Score 266. i tested it from 3Dmark 11 Pro edition....

 

Finally, there are 14" FHD screens like https://www.system76.com/laptops/model/galu1 this, I wonder whether we could upgrade our ty LCD to something useful...

 

Hey guys,

I have lenovo t420 with i5 2520M I was thinking about upgrading it to i7 QM CPU. I am thinking about 2630QM or 2670QM? It will work? It will overheat or throttling will occur? I will be using collaboratory liquid thermal paste, also I am thinking about lapping surface of cpu cooler.

 

New bios for T420: 1.46

(New) Updated the CPU microcode.
(Fix) Corrected the help message for enabling the microphone in the BIOS Setup.

The CPU microcode update: It will support Ivy Bridge?

 

Hello everyone,

I just got my first Thinkpad and it works great. I, however, forgot to make a factory recovery disks when I first got it and ended up re-installing Windows. After the re-installation, I used Thinkpad Recovery and Rescue tool to make the recovery disks, but I only could make one startup rescue disk. Is there any way that I can do to make the back up for the data in my case?

Thank you.

 

Although you are allowed make only one set of factory recovery discs, you can do so at any time, not necessarily "right after" you set up the notebook for the first time.

Yeah, only one set.

Here, we are not talking about "factory image" backup. Lenovo's Thinkpad Recovery and Rescue tool is not applicable.

You can back up your current "system environment" (OS + user settings + installed programs - uninstalled programs, as you have set up to your liking) and your data files by using such tools as Acronis True Image.

 

google for Thinkpad revovery disk you will find many links for that. so don't worry and if you have genuine windows that imthe serial should be write down back of the laptop.

 

You should check out this thread

http://forum.notebookreview.com/lenovo/611874-replacement-14-900p-screen-t420-t420s.html

 

Hi, this is my first post here.

Very recently I bought T420 for Egpu. Everything is fine but I've heard that over 8G ram and egpu make CPU load rate 100%. Not T420, it was about X220. But these are same thinkpad product, and I'm worrying about it because mine has 16G ram(2 * 8).

Is there anyone who tried egpu with T420 especially over 8G ram?

 

Hello, I'm using T420 4236 and planning to change a single heat pipe into a dual pipeline. I bought 2860qm so I'm worrying about heat issue.

My current heat pipe is this.


And dual pipeline is this.


I'm worrying about installation compatibility.

Is there anyone tried it?

I wonder it fits perfectly or not.

 

as long as they say its designed for T420 then it should be fine.

 

also wondering how the long term quad core i7 users are faring. Any issues?

Mine came with the 2640m which is pretty fast but of course I want it faster.

 

Depending on what you're doing, a quad core may have little to no effect on performance.

 

it does fairly well for me, only downside is turbo boost is kept off all the time because the fan cannot hold the temp down on the quad core if that's enabled. other than that no problem.

 

okay, so i had attempted a 2630qm install on my t420 tonight, just had a slow blinking power light, nothing else happened. I know I installed it correctly since I interchanged it with the 2520m and it worked every time I swaped it back it. so i suppose it is just not compatible then, unless anyone else has any thoughts?

 

^ interested to know about this particular CPU 2630QM in a T420 too.

 

I'm running an i7 2670QM in my Lenovo, I replaced my stock I5 with it. IT does run a bit toasty though, around 46-50c surfing the internet with just a few tabs open, I hit 95c+ pretty fast with prime 95.

I down graded my bios to 1.37 to allow my memory to run at 1600mhz, any newer bios version makes your memory run at 1333. I'm using the stock 4gB 1600mhz stick and a 8gB 1600mhz stick

 

has anyone fitted a full hd 1080p screen on the t420 or t420s?

 

Hey guys, I've got a chance to get a almost new T420 with an i5 and HD+ screen for a good price. Just wondering if the only thing that's an issue for the T420 is its screen. If that is, how bad the screen can really be? Is it comparable to 1366x768 screens found in lower models? If so, then it shouldn't be too bad then.

I know this is a long thread so I hope you won't mind me asking this question.

Thank you.

 

I just bought a T420 for my stepson. He wants to learn Java and his wife's computer is over 10 years old running WinXP.

Lenovo T420 4174-WG9
1600X900
NVIDIA NVS 4200M
Core i5 2.60GHz
320GB HDD
8GB RAM
DVD-RW
6 cell battery
Windows 7 Ultimate 64-Bit
Office 2010

I haven't read the entire thread. That is my next step.

 

Hrmmm.... From the pictures the sell put up on eBay I think I actually got sold a T420s. The port layout tells the tale. The bulk of the ports are on the back: VGA, DisplayPort, Ethernet, USB 3.0 (it's blue and the T420 doesn't have USB 3.0)

The seller had some other issues with his listing. The description stated 8GB RAM, but the detailed specs stated 4GB RAM. If it's the "s" model I am probably Ok with that. I wasn't really looking for the that one, but I think that's what I got.

Not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Thoughts?

Here is a link to the eBay auction.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lenovo-T420...14443522&pid=100018&prg=20140116140730&rkt=4&

 

I think you did ok. I prefer the t420s over the t420 for sitting in front of the TV or carrying around. If you travel around a lot and need 3+ hours of battery than the t420 would be better. But for a dedicated vid card and 256gb ssd you did ok.

 

Yeah that add was really jacked up. Its a 320 HDD

Sent with love from my Galaxy S4

 

This arrived in the mail yesterday.

Things are not quite as described.

The CPU is 2.5GHz vs. the stated 2.6GHz i5.
It lacks the NVS 4200M.

It is a T420s vs. T420. This means no possibility of a 9 cell battery.

The thing is I don't think any of this will matter to my stepson except the battery life. He wants a computer to learn java. He has an Xbox 360 for games.

However, I am not thrilled that the machine is not as advertised. Yet the T420s trends to go for more money than the T420.

Just a stream of thoughts here.

Anyone that wants to come in feel free to do so.

Sent with love from my Galaxy S4

 

I think it's worthwhile to contact the seller and inform him that the item was not as described. He/She may offer a partial refund, granted you could be satisfied with the item but it's bad business practice to sell you an item listed incorrectly. Good luck!

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

does anyone know if there is an adapter to fit the newer rectangular tip to my older round tip ? I'm looking out for the situation that I forget my charger and have to borrow someone else's - all the new lenovo models have a rectangular tip so it is looking more likely that I will run into someone who has the newer tip and I want to use it in my older thinkpad.

All the converters that I have seen talk about round to rectangular... but not the other way around.

 

Latest Bios 1.46 is sucks for my eGPU. its shares 100% cpu when playing 3D games. I downgrade to 1.37 and solve that problems.

 

On the T420, next to the Ultrabay there is a small sliding switch. In one position it reveals green and in the other position the green is covered up. Will someone please tell me what the function of this switch is? Thank you!

 

that's the wireless switch it turns it off/on

 

Has anyone been able to get a Mini-PCIe card working in the mSATA/WWAN/mini-PCIe slot that is next to the RAM slot?

I have a half-height MiniPCIe Atheros AR9380 in the half height mini-PCIe slot that is underneath the keyboard.
To get it working, I had to install a modified BIOS (version 1.46) in which has the whitelist removed.

I have tried a plethora of Mini PCIe cards working in the full height mSATA/WWAN/mini-PCIe slot that is on the bottom, underneath the DIMM cover. (See posted images below). I have however, been able to get an Atheros 9462 working in this full height MSATA/WWAN/mini-PCIe slot. However, the AR9462 is a combo card, where the PCIe portion of the card is 2x2:2 802.11abgn wifi, and the USB 2.0 portion of the card has Bluetooth 4.0. I am able to see, and use the Bluetooth side of this AR9462 card, however I have not been able to even see the wifi portion of this card. I have tried this in both windows and in linux by using (ethtool, lshw, pci). It does not show up. I have tested this same AR9462 card in other machines of mine and it works properly. I have toggled disabling and enabling WWAN slot in BIOS, as well as internal bluetooth (as opposed to the ar9462's bluetooth), all to no avail.

From what I have read, this full height mSATA/WWAN slot is compatible with both MiniPCIe and mSATA cards... Is this correct? Please advise.

Here are screen shots of the lenovo t420 hardware maintenance manual, where the mSATA/WWAN/mini-PCIe slot is mentioned.

 

What's the max ram the t420 can handle and what speeds?

 

T420 can do 16 GB RAM. The RAM speeds are going to be dependent on the CPU you have, I believe the i3/i5/i7 dual cores will support 1333 Mhz and the i7 quad cores should support 1600 Mhz.

 

it's an i5-2410M

 

I think there is a case where if you put higher speed RAMs in it can operate at that level (1600MHz and even 1866MHz as found here with a i5-2520M) but it's dependant on the BIOS you have. The newer BIOS throttles it back down to 1333MHz so you may require to downgrade the BIOS back to version 1.37-1.11 to see the high speed RAM modules operate at the faster timings.

 

ah i see. I might get the 1600 just as future proof, if i ever get a new laptop. What about the voltage, definitely the T420 uses the standard 1.5v, could I install 1.35v?

 

I have the T420 with nvidia card.
It is connected to the TV through display port/HDMI.
In addition the sound it connected to the receiver through the headphones.

How can I make the sound go on both the HDMI and the headphones connection?
I can only find a way to choose one of them.

 

There is a trick with the Recording tab on the Sound properties that allows you to listen to the headphone jack simultaneously with HDMI audio. Granted that I only tried this on my desktop and not the T420 it's probably worth trying:

First enable HDMI audio as the default Playback device in the Sound properties. Then switch to the Recording tab and search to see if there is a "Stereo Mix" or "Wave" device in the recording section and open up the Properties. In my case it was the Wave device, switch to the Listen tab and check the "Listen to this device" box as shown below then click Apply.



Now try playing back some music and you should hear sound coming through the Headphone jack and HDMI Audio device simultaneously. Don't forget to make it the default recording device if you want to retain this setup in the future.

 

Thanks, but I have only "Internal Microphone" in the Recording tab.
Even tried right click -> Show Disabled Devices, but no new device appeared.
Any other idea?

 

Hello,

Want to share my thoughts on T420 Type 4178 that I have.

Bought it as broken and for parts dirt cheap as it had Fan error and the previous user couldn't fix it with replacing fan assembly.
So I found the schematics of the motherboard and the fault was blown fuse F4 which is located underside of the motherboard near the lan/usb connectors. Sorry didn't remember to take a photo of it.
It is 2A fast blow 0402 size SMD part and isn't impossible to solder with temp regulated soldering iron if you leave the old fuse in place. And after that everything was working almost perfect( nitpicking the left touchpad mouse button isn't working and display bezel is cracked).

What else have done to it was to upgrade memory to 8GB 1600Mhz 1.35V memory that worked 1600Mhz with bios 1.31 that I will not upgrade as its working fine.
And I swapped the i5-2410m to i7-2630qm today and have to say its somewhat faster but not as much I anticipated and the battery life is little worse. The processor will throttle if it's turboing over 2100Mhz as it is using too much voltage to be cool enough (is there any way to undervoltage sandy bridge? Miss that from C2D [email protected]...).
Temps are 40-50C in normal web surfing but go to 95-105 and throttle if let to turbo in stress test and if capped to 2.0Ghz its 85-95C have to try better paste as I using some really old nexus silver paste now.

Got ultrabay hdd caddy and 500Gb hdd that sometimes wont recognize if I remove it and put other hdd in and swap it back but if I cycle to sleep mode and back it's ok after that
and Cruical MX100 256Gb SSD for operating system and it silky smooth.

Haven't really tried the Nvidia card if its really usable or not for gaming as I hadn't had time to game.

The Ericsson wwan card seems to go too fast to power saving or something as sometimes websites timeout and a few seconds later it works ok?
The firmware update made it little better but would like to solve it(which was odd that it said it failed but after reboot card was updated and working ok).
And also it sometimes loses connection and usually reconnects normally but sometimes it wont reconnect and also the sleep mode cycle fixes it.

Battery life with the i5 was around 2-3h with 56Wh battery that has 41Wh of usable life left and been thinking about the slice as the quad core gets 1h 30min to 2h (10-15W was idle consumption with i5 and now with i7 its 14-18W at 30% brightness).

The display is LEN40A1 and have no idea if its auo or what but its 1600x900 and is usable when coming from 1366x768 crappy Acer and Fujitsu displays. Would like to upgrade full hd IPS display but that isn't possible or is it?

Been overall very happy with the computer as it was under 350€ with all upgrades listed here and is damn fast for its size and the keyboard rocks!!

 

@Karhu0

Regarding the Ericsson wwan card power saving issue - check this post:
Re: X220 3G mobile broadband problem with F5521gw - Page 10 - Lenovo Community