Thinkpad T420s Owners' Thread

By "slack" I mean that when the screen is open I can move the top of it by a few millimetres with very little force. The hinges themselves are tight.

John

 

Been using mine for almost 2 months now. Very happy with it. Was hoping the battery life was a bit better, but overall it meets all my needs.

Compared to the Thinkpads i've had before, i think the hinge isn't as tight. It just feels looser. there have been a couple of times when putting it on the desk, the screen has moved. Never happened with previous thinkpads.

wditters, yes i took the DVD drive out, and the HDD light went off. I played with it a bit more, and in the power plan when its on battery, the DVD is powered off. When the DVD is powered off, the HDD light is off. When i power the DVD on the HDD light goes off. So that fits in to when i plug it into the AC, as the DVD is ON under AC power. So its related to powering the DVD off.
Do you know why this is the case? I've got all the latest drivers and BIOS.

 

I've noticed this on my X201 too, but strangely enough not on the R400 for which I am thankful!

 

I also noticed this too on my T420, even with new hinges it still doesn't feel as tight compared to my 4 year old T61.

 

Hi all,

How many of you purchased extended warranties for your T420s machines? How long is your extended warranty? Did you also buy the Thinkpad Protection (for accidental damage)?

I just got a replacement machine from Lenovo and since the new machine takes over the old warranty, I decided to buy the 3-year extension. I was about halfway through my 1-year warranty.

I noticed that Lenovo also sells a separate battery warranty, so I'm a little suspicious that the 3-year extension does not actually cover the battery. However, there was no option to buy a battery warranty in the warranty upgrade process.

The T420s warranty terms and conditions lists the "Parts and Labor" and "Battery" as two different line items. Both come with a standard 1-year warranty.

Does anyone have any experience with that?

Thanks!

 

I bought the 3 year on-site warranty upgrade. I assume that the computer will be good enough that I won't want to replace it after one year and I also don't want the hassle of losing the computer while it is sent away to be fixed.

I haven't checked the small print but the normal practice is for the computer warranty to only cover the battery for one year. Normal usage means that the battery will probably die within three years and wouldn't be covered by a normal warranty anyway because it is wear rather than a manufacturing defect. A special battery warranty should cover loss of capacity due to normal usage.

One alternative you may wish to consider is getting a cheap bay battery to take a lot of the wear. My main battery only has a cycle count of 16 after 8 months because I use a bay battery when away from the mains and that gets used first.

John

 

Apologies if it's been answered previously, but what is the black plastic 'bag' object underneath the battery on the left hand side that looks clipped in? Searched through the hardware guide and couldn't find any mention of it.

Also, regarding bay batteries that work on the 420S, any pointers as to what I should search for on EBay for a generic that is compatible?

Thanks in advance!

 

John,

Thanks for your response. I've been thinking about getting a cheap bay battery + an Ultrabay drive adapter, but I haven't decided on which one first. I read through the threads and it looks like a lot of people are buying an older generation battery from eBay to use on their laptops. Which part are they searching for, specifically? I'm assuming these are generic batteries and not Lenovo-OEM.

 

Do you mean inside the battery compartment above the Windows key label as on this photo:

If so, then I don't know what it is but it is clearly part of the design. Thermal / moisture / electronic protection?

I found a place that was selling new genuine previous generation Lenovo UltraBay batteries P/N 43R8891 at a reasonable price. However, that was 8 months ago and they have now all gone. I don't have experience with the 3rd party batteries but I would be tempted to try a source that offers a 12 month warranty.

John

 

I used PC Wizard to find out who made my LCD screen and it looks like AUO made it. The manufacturing date is week 1 of 2010, which is odd considering this computer was assembled in the middle of December 2011. Did they really have that many AUO panels in stock?

I've read about people wanting to switch to a Samsung or LG panel for slightly better quality. How successful have people been?

 

I've found that the hardware info programs often have problems with the manufacturing dates. HWiNFO32 reports that my T420s' LG panel was made in week 0, 2010.

John

 

Yep, that's it. Just curious what it was is all. We're moving overseas in a month and standardizing on 420S's for everyone involved in the new company, so I want to make sure I know the machines inside and out since I'll most likely be the first "IT" resource.

 

Also, 1 issue I've encountered. A few times the wireless (ultimate/6300) picks up absolutely no networks (about 5 available). I disable the reenable the adapter and it will then find them all. I've tried:

- Disabled the power savings of the network adapter
- Disabled all the Intel AMT / AT in Bios, though the Intel Control Center shows them still as enabled...

Still doing this, when I start up, not finding networks.

 

Are you using Lenovo's release of the network drivers, or the ones directly from Intel? If the latter, try Lenovo's and see what happens. I've used two T420s with Ultimate 6300 and I've never encountered that problem.

 

I removed the Intel Proset and Lenovo Access Center software and installed Intel's 6300 driver and all is good now.

 

Has anyone removed their optical drive to get rid of extra weight? I'd like to get an ultrabay battery or possibly an ultrabay caddy in the future, but right now I'd like to just get rid of the optical drive so the machine weighs a bit less.

Only problem is I don't know what to do with the hole I'm left with.

If anyone's done it, I wonder what they did with the hole and what effects they've noticed (positive or negative). I'm curious if there is any gain in performance regarding temperature/ventilation.

I'm considering getting an mSATA SSD and ditching the Intel OEM SSD. Also for cooling and weight benefits. Without an optical drive or full-size SATA drive, the machine should be pretty hollow!

 

Lenovo don't list a weight saver as a T420s accessory but there's no reason why you couldn't use a 9.5mm weight saver made by another manufacturer since they are a standard size.

I don't think there will be any effect on the ventilation / cooling. The UltraBay isn't linked to the ventilation / cooling system.

John

 

Installed 4 more gigs of RAM a couple weeks ago so figured I should check my WEI again.



Dang my graphics for having such a low score haha.

 

Is your machine Optimus based?

 

Nope just Integrated graphics only

 

You could just get the caddy for now, not mount an additional drive in it, and just use it as a plug.

New 2nd HDD SATA Hard Drive Disk Caddy Bay For IBM LENOVO Thinkpad T420s | eBay

Then you also have the option to pop something in it later, as you please.

The weight difference is very insignificant.
I'd worry more about bulk then trimming down the weight by taking out the optical drive.
Since everything is internal, the outer dimensions of the T420s don't change no matter what you pop in that slot.
So unless you're thinking of sticking a brick of lead in there. I doubt you would even be able to tell the difference in weight.

 

My graphics are 4.5 Aero/6.4 Gaming, and I have a discrete card.

My other numbers are the same as yours, except RAM is 7.5 (Kingston 2x4GB).

 

Thanks, John and Amiroquai.

 

I have almost the same configuration as you, T420s, i5 2540, 8Gb RAM, 160Gb SSD, integrated graphics.
My WEI for Graphics is 6.3 though. All my other scores are similar to your.

 

Yeah I wonder what the difference is. I've noticed other people who have posted their WEI scores with integrated graphics getting different scores from as low as mine to as high as yours.

What could cause the difference?

 

RAM configuration makes a difference to WEI's scores for the Intel graphics. See here for my test results. Note that you may have to re-run WEI a couple of times to get consistent results.

John

 

csclifford, for my score of 6.3 for WEI Graphics, everything on my laptop is from the factory.

 

I'll rerun it a couple more times later to see if it changes, but according to your charts I should be getting 6.3 regularly.

 

If you are getting 6.3, that would be exceptional. My MacBook Air is a 5.7 on a consistent basis.

 

I think a lot of this is dependent on what version of the Intel graphics drivers you're running.

I had two T420s laptops in front of me - one with Optimus and one without. The one that was running an older version of the Intel drivers actually scored higher in the Windows desktop performance...

right now my Windows Desktop performance is only 4.6.

 

So I should maybe update the drivers and see if that will make a difference/

 

So I updated the Intel drivers and after doing so it seems that my screen is much much much brighter. I have my brightness on 1 and it seems equivalent to when I had it on 6 before.

Any thoughts?

 

Was the driver from Intel or Lenovo? Did you also update the BIOS? If not, do so.

And did the Intel driver update affect your WEI score?

John

 

Just re-ran the WEI after updating the drivers and my graphics scores increased to 6.3 and 6.3 as I assumed.

I'll update my bios later and see if that has further effect.

 

After updating my BIOS my graphics scores rose to 6.4 and 6.4

 

What about the display brightness problem. If that isn't resolved, did you use Lenovo's latest Intel graphics driver or get it direct from Intel?

John

 

Screen still remains much more bright. I'm now constantly putting the brightness on 0-1 in normal everyday situations that I normally was using 6-7 for.

With the brightness turned up to 15 I can't even look at the screen because it hurts too bad to look at.

 

I don't know how you manage to get 6.3 or 6.4! Is that with the default Windows Aero performance metric, or the 3D metric? If it's for both, that's incredible.

Which version of the drivers are you running, and which BIOS?

I have 4.6 for Windows Aero performance, and my driver version (from Lenovo) is 8.15.10.2538.

 

It was for both the windows aero performance and the 3D metric.

Running BIOS version 1.31 and Intel Driver Version 8.15.10.2509 which I downloaded directly from Intel

 

What CPU do you have? My results are for the i5-2520M in which the GPU can run at up to 1300MHz. The i3 CPUs will score lower because the GPU is limited to 1100MHz.

I would try Lenovo's version of the driver.

John

 

I have the i5-2520M, with all up-to-date drivers from Lenovo, and I still get 4.5 on the Aero test. (I also have an Nvidia card, but I understand Windows ignores this, and uses Intel graphics regardless?)

Edit: Actually, my BIOS is 1.30, not 1.31. Could this make the difference?

Unrelated: Stupid question -- how do I access the BIOS? When I press the ThinkVantage button during boot-up, it just takes me to the Windows recovery utility. --NEVERMIND. Got it. F1 during the "Press ThinkVantage" screen.

 

I'd just update your BIOS to 1.31 and see if that makes the difference. It only takes a couple minutes and that seems to be the only difference between our machines.

 

I just reinstalled the Intel Graphics driver directly from Lenovo this time and it fixed my brightness problem!

 

Got a big boost from 4.5 to 4.6!

Not sure if that's from updating the BIOS or from Windows being finicky.

 

I am running an i7-2640 right now, and I only have 4.6 for Windows Aero performance. When I had an i5 (my other T420s) it was also just 4.6.

 

I'm an Intel-only person. Perhaps the switchable GPU confuses WEI. What is your RAM score? What performance settings do you have in Power Manager?

Good. I think the Lenovo version of the driver includes some tweaks.

Do you also have the Nvidia GPU?

John

 

Hello,

I'm looking at either purchasing the T420s or the Sony Vaio SA3. The main deciding factor is reliability/durability and Battery Life; screen quality is also important (Photoshop/Lightroom), but it seems all screens in this price range and size are just adequate at best.

So back to my question, i'm just wondering how many approximate hours of batterly life are you guys able to get out of the T420s with the Ultrabay battery?

I'm in my last semester of nursing school, and I'm hardly ever next to a plug during my 3-4 hour lectures, followed by another 3 or so hours of studying/careplan writeups, so I would really like to find a laptop that can go 6+ hours without needing a charge. For the most part, all that consist of word processing, web browsing, video viewing and flash.

Any help with this is greatly appreciated.

 

8 hours of working offline in Word from main + bay battery is definitely feasible. My T420s has predicted 10 hours but a few bursts of greater activity means it falls short. An internet connection (WiFi I assume) will take a bit of power and reduce that time. Running video or Flash might ramp up the power consumption quite substantially and cause you to fall short of your 6 hour target, in which case you would need an extra bay battery (the bay battery gets drained first so you can slot in another one without shutting down the computer).

John

 

I appreciate the reply. Having an extra bay battery is a feasable option that I did not consider,thank you for mentioning that.

 

I'm in the market for a laptop, trying to decide between the T420 and X220, but find the T420s intriguing and a possible alternative. Don't mind the premium price or the odd-size drive. Seems like a great cross between the two aforementioned systems - has the speed, HD+ screen (more room for doc and side-by-side doc/code comparison), fairly light.

I've been reading about two issues, however, that have me concerned: crazy fan and "screen door" display (display worse than T420). If I'd draw conclusions, it seems to me that Lenovo stuck a sub-par fan assembly/heatsink into this model.

I'd be ordering the i5-2540M 2.6GHz CPU model with Intel HD3000 (if I decide to go with this). I don't game (well, aside from some low-grade space colonization game or something of the sort), don't watch movies, sometimes dabble in photoshop, but mostly corporate intranet site security testing, custom application testing/troubleshooting, doc writing...

Questions:

- how widespread are these problems? Luck of the draw? Screen quality really worse than T420?
- should I wait for the T430s (any word on that)?

Appreciate your comments.