Thinkpad T420s Owners' Thread

I'm using PM v3.59 and PM driver v1.62 (latest versions according to Lenovo)

 

I only see a difference between DVI and VGA with old CRTs. Never could see any difference on an LCD or Plasma.

 

People at work has stopped using glasses after changing from vga to dvi on the same monitor, so there is absolutely possible to see a difference.

 

I've been using two monitors, side by side, for the last year. One is connected with DVI and one with VGA. Without checking the cable itself, I could never tell which was which.

I don't wear glasses and have 20/20 vision - well last time I had my eyes checked.

But that's just my personal experience.

 

Do you use RapidBoot Extreme? I understand you ned GPT partition for that and UEFI-only boot. It is not easy to migrate existing MBR to GPT, while not loosing data.

Change the booting style of Windows Vista or 7 x86_64 versions from BIOS-MBR mode to UEFI-GPT mode without formatting or reinstalling - InsanelyMac Forum

Anybody brave enough to try it? And is RapidBoot Extreme worth it?

 

this may be a dumb question but i am about to order a t420s and just want to make sure...

is the 3 cell bay battery supposed to work with the 6 cell battery at the same time making it a 9 cell battery? or do you use one at a time?

i believe they had a 9 cell battery in the t420 but you can't order a t420s with a 9 cell, so i guess that the 6 cell + 3 cell would be equivalent if it can be used at the same time?

thanks!

 

They're both physically in the laptop at the same time, but one drains then the other drains.

 

Secondary battery gets discharged first and charged last (ie. primary one is kept at 100% if there is some capacity left in second one).

See: http://myego.cz/img/lenovo/baterie2.png

 

I encountered the false low battery shut down problem today. Just after I had checked that I still had a couple of hours remaining, the computer decided to hibernate. So I turned it on again and the battery was still at 43%. There's evidently a seriesous bug somewhere. I ran for another 1.5 hours (approx) and then the T420s again hibernated. When I turned it on it said 7% which is still above my critical battery threshold of 3%.

By the way, pulling out my USB mouse dongle added at least an hour to the prediced full battery run time. It looks as if having any USB device plugged in costs several watts in power. I don't know if this a Lenovo or Sandy Bridge problem but I've not seen this happen on my other computers.

John

 

John, shouldn't any USB-connected devices be drawing power?

Especially the USB 3.0, which outputs enough juice to power a smallish monitor.

 

Was your dongle in the usb 3 or powered usb port?

 

It was in one of the ports at the back so there's a 50% chance it was in the USB 3.0. However, it's also worth noting that my colleague, who was trying to work through the same power cut using an L420, was complaining that his battery would run run out before it was time to go home. I suggested he unplug his mouse and he saw a similarly large increase in the time remaining on battery.

This merits further investigation. But the big issue is the computer doing a critical battery hibernation when it should not.

John

 

Does it matter? The mouse dongle draws the same amount power to operate, whether or not the port is "powered".

 

Yes, it does matter. Especially considering the history of the problems on the w510 and the usb 3 ports there. Maybe you aren't aware of what I am referring to, but you might give some folks here the benefit of the doubt. I try not to ask stupid questions. This one in particular had a purpose.

I can tell you for a fact there is a very real difference in the three usb port types on the w510 so it's not out of the realm of reason some legacy could have carried over.

 

Maybe.

Specific, helpful details will be appreciated.

 

Same happened to me too. Windows power manager suddenly complained about only 7% remaining, "find a power source". The Lenovo power manager still reported almost half the time left.

 

Further checks reveal that having the mouse in USB 3.0 does use a significant amount of extra power. I would have much preferred if Lenovo kept to eSATA as it did on the T420.

And yesterday's excitement was Power Manager getting broken. It told me that I had no battery and various other functional problems. It was OK after a reboot but it looks as if my initial impression that Lenovo BIOS and software were less buggy than Dell's isn't completely correct.

John

 

Hello,

I just replace a new T420s i7 + nvidia model and use Intel 320 SSD 300GB & 8GB ram, feel very good

But I have few question to ask.

About the NVS4200m display problem

Left: from other review website
Right: My T420s

How can I speed up the display card to original performance? (the fillrate, GPU clock and shader)

About the 27++ slice battery

the promo from Lenovo US website


but the following information indicate the T420s is not compatible
Lenovo Support - ThinkPad Battery 27++ (9 cell slice) - Overview

About the RAM occupy

When the Win7 startup, the system use about 1.6GB.
I want to know which program can be turn off or not necessary?
or use clean installation?

Thanks a lot.

 

NVS4200M: I'm not sure if it would make a difference, but do you have the i5 or i7 model?

Slice battery: I think that's a mistake, I don't think the slice would work with the T420s. If you want better battery life, try the Ultrabay Battery instead.

I'll get my own T420s in the mail on Monday, so I'll let you know about the RAM then.

 

Ordered mine a few days ago (with the university). Should be in my hands by July 20th. I'm excited! My only concern is battery life, any tips to getting the most out of this computer?

 

Since the slice battery works through the docking connector there's no obvious reason why it's incompatible. The capacity is almost 3 times that of an UltraBay battery. It's something that someone needs to try.

The relatively low capacity of the main battery means that 5 hours is about the most you can manage and that is with display on half brightness or less, minimal CPU activity and nothing connected to USB. Web browsing, for example, uses significantly more power than working in Word. It's best to assume about 4 hours from the main battery and an extra 3 hours from the bay battery. (Note that the previous generation of UltraBay battery is compatible and may be cheaper to source. It just has slightly lower capacity).

John

 

Probably the best notebook review I have ever seen:
Lenovo Thinkpad T420s review

 

I ordered one today for work. I'll let you guys know if it is compatible with the T420s on Tuesday when I get it.

 

has anyone used a Vidock (4 or 4plus) with the t420s? what is the maximum card that can work with the t420s and vidock? also if i plan to use a vidock is it better to get the non optimus t420s that just has the integrated hd3000 vid card?

 

Not sure about the compatability, xdefyoddzx, but I'd advise against the Optimus. From what I remember, there were a few issues with an external GPU and the 4200M....

But more importantly, if you're going to use an external GPU, why would you need the Optimus? It will add cost that you will significantly outperform. The integrated solutions are very good (for integrated stuff) and will handle most of what you need. Anything more than that, and you can jump to your eGPU.

Someone may know more about the Vidock series than I do.

 

While I plan on using an eGPU (DIY ViDock), I still ordered the Optimus. I would prefer better than integrated graphics while traveling and I won't always take my eGPU on the road with me.

 

Doesn't fit. Shame too, would have been nice for flying.

 

Installed Win 7 from scratch as UEFI system, boot is about 3-4 seconds faster, everything seems to work great, including SSD speed. Fingerprint needed small hack though: Fingerprint reader is not compatible with UEFI - L... - Lenovo Community

 

Have you tested backup and restore since the install?

 

Thanks for the update. Our uncertainty is ended. You'll just have to get three bay batteries instead.

John

 

With one bay battery, I get a full day out of my laptop - office work, no video.

I do plan on grabbing up two more for flights to China.

 

Not sure which backup you mean. I use Acronis Online Backup, which works well.

My install is clean Win 7 x64 Ultimate from MSDN.

 

I guess shipping times are getting better, after my trusted old Samsung X460 bit the dust Sunday night, I ordered a T420s with i5-2.5 Ghz, 4 Gig 1 stick RAM, Nvidia 4200M, 320Gig HD from the limited customization option sale on Lenovo's shop (no choice on processor or RAM, option for drives, cam, WIFI, BT, etc). Ordered on 6-13 estimated ship date 6-23.

Ike

 

I was referring to a backup of your OS, Apps, and data. If you have that covered when using UEFI, great. But a lot of products will not do a backup and allow you to restore to a different drive in case of a drive failure when using UEFI.

I am bringing it up so people won't rush into this without considering all of the factors.

 

The Windows 7 bare metal backup works with UEFI - just don't touch the backup directory... any modifications can bork it.

 

I recently installed my Intel 320 SSD into the T420s. I used the previously made Thinkvantage Recovery discs to load up my system again. Afterwards, I installed an Intel 310 msata drive. Weird this is, now I have the following drive: C, D, E, F, and Q.

C is where I want Win7 installed (the Intel 320)

D is labeled a generic System_Drv and has 1.13 of 1.16 GB of data

F is the mSata drive

G and Q are both labeled Lenovo Recovery (also Q has the actual icon)

Did I screw something up in the recovery? I thought it would be a simple restore (didn't care to do a clean install). Should I just restore again, or is there something I can do with the generic D and one of the extra Recovery drives?

Thanks.

 

You are right. In fact, handling GPT discs is paid add-on for Acronis, had to purchase TruImage Plus Pack to image this:



// edit: Windows Backup does NOT work. It complains about disk D: (HDD) being my boot drive, which is not true (Primary / Boot and System / EFI partitions are both on SSD).

 

Yea, until the backup and recovery products catch up and this becomes a seamless issue, it's going to be an issue for a lot of people. Especially when they get painted into a corner.

The imaging and deployment tools are still behind the curve, too.

The rush to UEFI will have road kill.

 

Tried removing HDD from its cage and boot Windows - no problem. But with HDD inside, it thinks it is a boot disk anyway.

 

This sure is starting to become a long thread..

Anyways, I have a question (which I also posted at Temperatures to expect on T420s i7 with NVS4200 - Lenovo Community.

My fellow T420s with NVS4200 owners: Can you please tell me what temperatures you are seeing when really stressing the system?

I've seen 90-95C using the nVidia Smoke Particles CUDA demo. Fan speed was 5.3K (both temperature and RPM read by TPFanControl).
The idle temperature was around 45C.

Today I saw around 80C with 25% system load (one core capped) and external displayport screen (this seems to add around 5C).

I'm unsure if I should be worried, it seems high..

Any information is highly appreciated.

 

What do you normally use your T420s for? The T420s isn't designed to be a gaming or encoding machine where the CPU/GPU complex is going to get stressed for long periods of time.

 

I get 90-100C.

 

I will use to it to develop various OpenCL/CUDA stuff (so GPU accelerated applications). It's just for developing the apps, not really "running them".
It will not be running stressful stuff that much, I was just curious if the cooling was working as intended.
Based on ooxxoo's (thank you) reply, it seems like it might.

 

I was playing with ThinkVantage Power Manager yesterday and noticed the Lenovo Turbo Boost+. Here are Windows Experience scores before and after enabling Lenovo Turbo Boost+.

Before ==> After
Processor 7.1 ==> 7.1
RAM 7.4 ==> 7.5
Graphics 5.0 ==> 5.9
Gaming Graphics 6.1 ==> 6.3
Primary Hard Disk 5.9 ==> 5.9

I have a T420s Core i5 2.5GHz, 8GB, Integrated Graphics, 320GB HD.

I doubt this would result in any real world difference, but it is interesting to see that the Graphics score went up so much.

 

I'm currently running a program which has been keeping one CPU core busy for several days. The peak CPU temperature so far is an uncomfortably warm 97C although it is normally around 80C. The fan is running at a steady 4,000rpm. I haven't seen the noisy 4,800rpm that I encountered when I first got my T420s. Perhaps it got removed from BIOS 1.12.

John

 

Anyone have problem with TPFanControl? Something happened with mine. The temp. is stuck at 47C and even reinstalling doesnt help?

 

Where do you get one of the Ultrabay batteries from and how do you use it?

 

See here for a newer version of TPFanControl. I have been using it for the past couple of weeks on my T420s and haven't noticed any abnormal behaviour.

John

 

What are your settings? Or rather, when your machine is idling what is the normal temp and fan rpm?

 

I bought one with my T420s and got another from ebay. The latter has about 10% less capacity but is half the cost of the new version (UltraBay III). To use the battery you remove the optical drive and put the battery into the hole. The bay battery is only 3 cells but increases the total battery capacity by about 60%.

Here's my fan control profile (from near the end of the .ini file).

The numbers mean that the fan comes on at lowest speed at 55C and turns off again when the temperature drops to 50C. Fan control returns to the BIOS when the temperature reaches 85C. Back at home that meant that the fan was usually off when on idle. Now I'm somewhere warmer and the computer is currently running all its waking hours running what is proving to be a long process so the fan is usually running at 4,000 rpm. However, and perhaps a reflection on more ambient noise, I can't hear the fan running.

John