Thinkpad T420 Owner's Thread

With effective power management and in-OS control over number of active cores having a quad-core setup would be great. Right now some machines will let you restrict the number of active cores, but this is usually before the OS gets booted. I wonder how the power consumption would go with a quad core that had 2 of the cores disabled. Would power consumption decrease accordingly? Or would the cores still consume power even without being involved in the computational work? The same amount, slightly less or a lot?

I think the movable desktop crowd, going from one power outlet to another, certainly might like having a quad core setup. Folks doing hard core computational work like graphics, video editing, CAD or gaming. I'm guessing a lot of what a quad core would likely do is going to end up being hamstrung by the bottlenecks inherent in most mobile platform designs.

But I agree that most people wouldn't really need it. It's just the few pretending 'size matters' that'll just end up wasting their money and suffering the convenience loss while getting nothing out of it.

 

Thanks for the guide. It was very helpful during my reformatting of my new T420i. A few notes that you might want to add in:

When entering the OEM product key, be sure to include the dashes.

The Intel Rapid Storage Driver (AHCI) was not in the "Drivers" folder. I had to download it on another machine and put it on my flash drive (I discovered this during the install process).

 

Thanks for the feedback Brainonska, I will revise some material in light of your findings. I pretty sure the Intel Rapid Storage Driver was in the "DRIVERS" folder albeit under an obscure directory of "IMSM" but I'll double check to make sure.

 

Does anyone have access to an earlier version of the T420 BIOS?
I need something along the lines of 1.11.
I'm building an eGPU/DIY ViDock currently and am doing quite a bit of troubleshooting with nando over in the gaming section.
An X220 user has reported more success with 1.11 BIOS, he upgraded to 1.15 which gave him problems, and downgraded back to 1.11 and he is now having success again.

For anyone running a T420/T520 wanting to do an eGPU/DIY ViDock, its a pain. Lots of troubleshooting and things not working right.
I would advise waiting until nando and his colleague can sift through my PCI snapshot and error reports and figure out exactly what the problem is.

 

On Lenovo BIOS page is says 1.14 was the initial release version. X220 has a different version history than the T420.

It's very unfortunate to hear about the eGPU trouble with this model since I planned to use one myself. However, one would think this is solvable since the X220 with 1.11 at least works with ExpressCard 1.0 compatibility. Those smart guys should be able to find the reason if provided with enough data.

 

It looks like you might be right. I guess it was just the picture that threw me off in the walkthrough.

 

Regarding the old T420 BIOS, ThinkRob supplied me with version 1.15, which was successful.

eGPU thread w/ T420 and X220 specifics

All the hard work is now done, nando and I spent like 4 days troubleshooting through this hell of a setup.
It now finally works, the T420 is compatible with eGPU, phew, feels good to say.

To get x1.opt (optimus functionality), you must have a newer version of a Geforce card. I'm running a GTS 250, which is not compatible since it is an older 65nm G92 based card (it is basically a rebadged 9800gtx).
Xan runs a GTX 560 on his X220, and he has x1.opt running.
According to nando, you need something over a GT 4xx series card for successful optimus compatibility.
I'll probably buy a GTX 460 this fall when the used prices drop even further to get optimus. This is good, as optimus compatibility gives between a 50-333% boost in performance vs non-optimus.

 

What transfer speeds do you get on external USB 2.0 hard drives?

Is it worth it to pick up an eSATA?

 

Also- any advice on where to buy Mini Docks?

I wish my old ones were compatible with the t420...

 

I'm transferring a couple hundred gigs of movies onto a 1tb external 3.5" HDD right now using USB 2, sits around 20-22 MB/s.

It is a USB 2/eSATA drive, stupid package only came with a USB cable though, so I'm waiting on an eSATA cable from Newegg right now.

 

If you can get eSATA connection on the external drive then I would go for it, from experience transferring large files with eSATA is much faster compared to USB 2.0. If you do a lot of backups or transfer large files frequently then you can save yourself a lot of time with this type of connection.

 

I wondered if anyone that has calibrated their screen, preferably the 1600x900, could upload it to iccview.de to check the color space?
To see the 3D you need to install Cortona3D viewer: Cortona3D viewer is a fast, interactive web 3D viewer for VRML files
What I'm most interested in is how many "cubic colorspace units" it has.

My HP nx8220-screen has around 568k units while sRGB has around 834k units, and I do not want a new computer with a smaller color space.

It is really annoying that all the 15" models have decent screens while the 14" screens is a lot worse.

EDIT: Downloaded the T420-profile from notebookcheck.net, and it turns out that the T420's color space is 515k.

 

Is the screen on the T420 the same quality as the x120e or is it much worst?

 

Thank you doclife and sprtnbsblplya for your post on 5/28/2011 regarding my DisplayPort to HDMI question. Your suggestions worked perfectly. I now have HDMI audio and video.

 

Has anyone had success in getting the latest Intel graphics drivers installed (v2361, I believe)? I've read that they have fairly significant improvements over the 2342 drivers that are available on Lenovo's website, but the Intel installer won't work because you're suppose to get your drivers from your manufacturer. There was a tool for ATI chips called the mobility modder that allowed me to install the latest drivers onto my old laptop (which enabled OpenGL support that wasn't enabled with the default drivers), and I'm wondering if there is an Intel equivalent to that, too.

Any thoughts/experiences?

 

Have you tried installing them manually instead of using the installer? Open Device Manager (type it in the search box to quicken the process) and open the Display Adapters tab. Right click on "Intel HD Graphics Family" and choose "Update Driver Software". Afterwards choose "Browse my computer for driver software" and direct it to the new Intel HD drivers folder and Windows should be able to start updating the driver automatically thus bypassing the installer restriction.

 

Thanks Hearst. I was able to install it through the automatic installer after clearing my App Data: Local: Temp folder. I was looking through it to find the extracted files and decided it'd be faster and easier if I cleared the temp files . When I ran the installer again, it worked fine. I'll see if it changes any of my Experience stats (and see how it works in games, although I don't play any extremely modern games).

 

And wow. Of course these are synthetic benchmarks and I'll have to see how they perform under real-world circumstances, but the Windows Experience took the Graphics score from 5.9 to 6.3 and the Gaming graphics score from 6.2 to 6.3.

Now the biggest bottleneck on my system is the hard drive at 5.9, but I can live with that considering I have 8GB of RAM installed.

 

Is the estimated ship date from Lenovo ever close to the actual ship date? Is it either really early or really late? It's 3 days from the expected ship date, but I'm getting really impatient...

Also

I'm looking to buy this esata capable external harddrive. I've never had an esata hdd before and it appears that I need to buy a separate cable for the esata connection. What would I need to connect with the Thinkpad?

 

EZjijy, they shipped mine two days early, but one person's experiences can hardly be considered the usual for a company.

 

In a recent conversation with a phone rep that question came up. The rep expressed a lot of frustration with the shipping estimate process. Something along the lines of unusually long delivery dates being cited, possibly for the purpose of just making it appear things were being shipped faster.

 

Well of course I would get the shipping confirmation the day after I post about it. -_-; 2 days earlier than the expected date.

 

Hello, just bought a new t420 and its amazing machine but, today the fan started blowing at max speed all the time, even though I was just browsing and watching some movies. Installed tpfancontrol (0.62 version) which everyone is praising etc, but it doesn't work, every sensor just shows n/a value and the smart option keeps fan at 0 RPM and that doesn't seem very healthy.

Found some for w520 (which someone said fixes the errors with t420 too) but it just shows cpu at 128 celsius and switches to BIOS mode and the fan is once again blowing at 4k+ RPM even with light load.

Now I just use tpfancontrol with manual=1 so the fan is blowing at ~2k RPM

So any tips? Should I change something in Power Manager, I have passive with battery and active when plugged in.

 

Turhis: In power manager, did you enable the Lenovo Turbo Boost+ mode? That mode is designed to run the fan at 100% constantly.

 

128C? Are you sure that's not F?

128C is really really high.

 

Turbo Boost+ mode is off.

It shows 128C because even the newer version can't read the sensor correctly and just shows max. temp or something, I'm sure that my system is not running at that temperature.

 

Hello, im going to buy a T420 soon, but between a 1600x900 screen resolution without fingerprint reader and a 1366x768 screen resolution with fingerprint reader, which is better?

 

I'd grab the 1600x900 resolution without the fingerprint reader.

IMO you'd be looking at the display way more than using the fingerprint reader. I love my T420 that I received 2 weeks ago and I love this resolution/display!

 

Higher resolution for sure. I wouldn't bother with 1366x768 unless it was an IPS display.

The fingerprint reader is meh. Sometimes they work, sometimes they suck.

 

Reiterating the "Higher Res Display" idea. 1600x900 just feels perfect for this form factor. Fingerprint readers are rather....meh? I had one on my last laptop, and although it could be nice to swipe to log-in, it wasn't that useful. You only use it a few times a day at most, but the screen is being used almost every time you use your laptop.

 

so after having used the t420 for about a week, i can say that i have no problems at all with the 1600x900 resolution (LG display on mine), and i don't really see what the fuss was about the poor screen on this model. it seems leaps better than the screen on my 14" R61 from 3 years ago.

i definitely feel it's worth an upgrade to the higher resolution as well, it will be well missed if you don't go for it.

 

I have that happen to me once, I just chose Shutdown and pressed the power button again, I haven't had the error since then. Just to choose restart computer didn't solve the problem in my case, I had to choose Shutdown and then press the Power button.

 

The screen resolution will affect your usage of the computer 100% of the time.

The fingerprint reader is just a gimmick that only affects how you can login to your laptop.

Don't sacrifice something as important as screen resolution just to get an unimportant bell/whistle that affects 0.5% of your computer usage time (logging in).

 

Great thread, thanks a lot for providing this resource!

I have a question about bluetooth hardware upgrade and apologize if this is redundant to an earlier post, but I couldn't find anything on bluetooth here.

I have a T420 model without finger print reader and bluetooth, but I would like to upgrade it with an internal bluetooth module. Does anyone know whether this is possible at all? The FRU according to the manual is 60Y3271 or 60Y3275, but I couldn't find any for sale on the internet yet. I also don't know whether the necessary cable is installed since it seems to be the same that also connects the finger print reader (not available on my model either).
There are some bluetooth daughter cards available on the net for the T410, which look the same, but support only BDC 2.1 instead of BDC 3.0. Is this a problem or could I just install the 'old' card (given I have the cable)?

I would be grateful for any suggestions that go beyond 'get yourself a USB adapter'!

Many thanks,
Skua

PS: I just checked myself and the cable is there, so I just need the right bluetooth daughter card that is compatible with the T420.

 

All T420 models should have the touchpad cable with bluetooth module connectivity located underneath the keyboard bezel. Though I haven't tried this myself I don't think there should be a problem opting for a BT 2.1 card instead, the cable port for the bluetooth daughter card are quite similar, if not the same as the previous models (i.e. T410).

 

Will any 9.5mm drive (hdd,ssd) fit in the t420 ultrabay?

 

Yes, and any 12.5mm drives too.

 

Got my t420 today. I got it with the Hd screen not the 1600x900. The screen is great very bright. Does have a stuck pixel at the top put its out of my viewing.

I do have a question, this thing is super quiet however, I want to use tpfan control to make it even quieter. Can anyone offer some advice thanks

 

Is the rubber finish on thinkpads durable and easy to clean?

 

Could you run HWINFO and post what it says under Monitor?

HWiNFO32 Download

I'm interested in what brand LCD they're using for it.

 

I have LP140WD2-TLB1

 

that's one of the part numbers for the 1600x900 display, he has the stock screen.

 

Hello,

I'm considering getting the T420 with the Core i5 option and the discrete GPU option. I'm not gonna be doing any gaming on it but my main concern is if it's able to run 1080p video when connected to a 1080p monitor. Can you guys confirm whether this laptop runs well or not when connected to the 1080p monitor playing a 1080p video please? Thanks!

 

Integrated graphics on the i3 should have no issues playing 1080p video.

On another note, Just be sure you get 4GB of RAM and the 1600x900 display.

 

I have a friend in USA and i need to buy a customized thinkpad. what should i do to show him the customized thinkpad and he buy it for me? he doesnt know much about computer.

 

From the top of my head, I would create the desired laptop configuration on the Lenovo website, and get a price for it. In the checkout screen, create a quote, which will have a unique ID number. Ask your friend to call Lenovo sales with this ID number and they will help you place an order.

 

Having moved from Dell Latitude 6410, I noticed that the Fn key on the Thinkpad functions differently than the Fn key on the Dell. If I type Fn + J on the Dell, the keyboard will output the number "1". However if I attempt Fn + J keystrokes on the Thinkpad, nothing happens. It would be nice to enable number pad keys without having to enable the number pad via the Fn key as my typing workflow will not be interrupted.

Is there a way to make the Fn + {M,J,K,L,U,I,O,7,8,9} output {0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9} respectively?

I tried using AutoHotKey after searching on the web, but I'm not familiar with the script syntax to create this mapping. Does anyone have such an AutoHotKey script? Thanks in advance.

 

Thanks but does that apply to 1080p playback on a 1080p monitor as well? My current laptop can play 1080p videos on its screen fine but it stutters when connected to an external 1080p display.

 

My T420s with IGP and the i5 plays 1080p video on a 1080p display just fine.

 

Thanks! BTW, I'm also considering getting the T420s. What's the battery life like without the dvd drive battery? What's it like with the dvd drive battery in it?