X230(t) Owner's Thread

I just had my 256GB M4 crash and take the whole install with it. Sector errors that Windows couldn't fix. Fortunately, I had the OEM drive with most of my setup sans one week still available. The failure occurred just as my battery was almost drained and I had plugged in and the X230t was coming out of hibernation. I have no idea if that had anything to do with it.

I'm re-formating and running chkdsk on the M4 even as I write this. If everything comes back fixed I'll clone it again and give it another chance. I WILL be making daily backups though and if it fails again, back it goes to Newegg.

I googled this and evidently this is a known issue.

 

Makes sense. That's what I've got in my X230t and mine has been delayed too. My shipping date is supposed to be tomorrow. Had I known I would have just asked them to send me the 320GB. I am swapping it our for an SSD anyway. It was a free upgrade from the 320 to 500 which is Why I went for it.

 

I am now a proud soon-to-be owner of an X230! It may seem like the last choice a highschool teen would pick, but I see the greatness in this thinkpad and have been saving up for it for a while.

The only upgrades I chose were the IPS display, 720P camera, and the 6-cell battery. The price came out to be $699 using a combination of the B&N discount and the 30% off 3DAYSALE coupon.
I got the 320GB drive, so hopefully mine isn't delayed as some of your's were.

 

Does anyone else think that the digitizer on the X230t is not good enough (compared to a Fujitsu or HP Elitebook)?

 

I haven't tried any recent Fujis or HPs, but I definitely think the overall digitizer setup on the x220t/x230t is worse than what we previously had on non-E2E x200t and x201t, both with respect to the distance between the tip of the pen and screen and the whole edge-tracking fiasco.

 

Was your M4 a 2.5" 7mm standard size drive? If I'm replacing the 2.5" drive, then I'll go for 256GB Samsung 830. Otherwise, I'm thinking of msata 128GB Crucial M4. Crucial just started selling those directly through their web, at a good price too.

 

Smart choice!!! Even better is the fact that you bought the machine with your own hard saved money. Cheers!
Let us know your thoughts once you receive the machine and start using it.

 

Hey all, just received my X230T and I am really liking it so far. This is my first Lenovo of any type and my first build-to-order laptop, period. I have always bought cheap laptops that last me a year or so then I end up replacing or selling and upgrading. I am glad I made the switch.

So I noticed a ton of Lenovo software installed that keeps sending me messages here and there about all sorts of stuff. I want to rid myself of some of these applications. I have listed some of the applications below in hopes that someone can tell me if I can remove or disable them.

Lenovo Airbag Protection
Lenovo RapidBoot Shield
RapidBoot HD Accelerator
Lenovo Updates/Drivers (Can't I just update them on my own?)
Thinkvantage Active Protection System
VIP Access (by Verisign)
Thinkpad Tablet Shortcut Menu (What does this do?)


**** disregard this post, I found Black Viper's Guide to tweaking Windows 7 and that helped me a ton. ****

Rob

 

how does the multitouch screen compare to the W520 FHD monitor outdoors if anyone knows?

 

When is lenovo going to get their act together and make a tablet PC that's accurate (again?)?

 

How many of you guys who have the X230t have put a screen protector on it and which brand/kind did you go for and why? I am not anticipating glare to be a huge problem for me since I primarily plan to use the machine indoors. MY main concern is the touch sensitivity. Zero compromise if possible. In JesseBAnderson's video he mentions that the anti-glare screen protector he uses does compromise touch sensitivty a bit.

Would love to hear from X200t, X201t and X220t owners too. Thanks.

 

@miliranga,

I put a clear/glossy screen protector on mine today. See my other post.
Basically, I think it is a must, and you can get Exim two pack for $16. Works well with touch and pen. Might want to consider the 13.1" though since the glass is edge to edge. The 13.1" ones are $3.50 a piece, but unknown brand. I didn't notice any degradation on touch sensitivity, but I didn't try too much without the screen protector, so I guess you gotta try it yourself. Pen writes super fluidly now.

Probably never.. because people like you and me are still buying it. The only people notices the defects are probably the ones on these forums, which is probably not that much.

 

I went with a Photodon at first. I made some comments on JBA's site and pretty much agreed with him. The is a bit of glare at some angles. The logo really annoyed me. I did email them suggesting they consider making it optional. Anyway, I then got the Exim anti-glare. Differences between them I would say:

- Exim is more matte than the Photodon
- Exim has a little more sparkle to it (probably because it is more matte)
- Photodon felt a little more clear
- Photodon feels a bit thicker (I didn't look up the specs)
- 2 in a pack for Exim and 1 in a pack for Photodon
- Photodon has a logo in the centre and Exim is completely clean
- Touch sensitivity feels slightly better on the Exim
- Both work fine with the stylus

Hope that helps.

 

Hi,
What is your power consumption with your x230t while internet browsing?
I´'ve set up the Energy manager to "highest battery" (sorry...i don't know the exact term of it), brightness 10/15, WLAN on and the x230t use abou 8-15Watts?! I think it a very big range, isn't it?

 

What do you guy think about the internal sound card of x230?
I fount it is below average compare to many laptops that I have own.

 

Do you really mean soundcard or do you mean built-in speakers. the built in speakers are subpar. Plug in some external speakers and the sound is acceptable

 

With the 3320, an Intel G2, and brightness at 1, I was able to get around 5.5W. If you've got a conventional HDD and brightness 10, then an 8W minimum seems normal.

 

I mean the souncard.

 

You tried feeding the sound to your audio amplifier?

 

Wow, how is that even possible? I clean installed mine, i5-3320m, multitouch screen, 8GB DDR3L, intel 6205 wifi, intel x25-m 80GB ssd, webcam, no fingerprint reader, brightness at 0, power plan in Power saver mode, and letting it sit idle for at least 10 minutes, I still see 7W in PowerManager, and 8W at the plug using Kill-a-watt.
Do you have a different configuration? Less ram or non-touch screen, or single band wifi card?

 

I use an UE TF-10, so I shouldnt need an amp for it.

 

The setup for my x230t: i5 3320, 8GB RAM, Crucial m4 mSata 120GB, Samsung 470 SSD 120GB, Multitouch screen, webcam, fingerprint (--> so no conventional HDD), brightness at 1/15, Wlan and Bluetooth on -> 6-7Watt without doing nothing. So...from what I hearing it's apperently okay
But the fact, that the consumption is a double of it while using the device (internet browsing) (brightness still at 1 of 15, Wlan and BT on) is a little bit anoying

Anyway...thanks for your response


btw: Windows 8 is awesome on the x230t! Powerconsumption seems to be a little bit higher, some devices in devices manager are unknown, but the bulk works. Just one "problem", which would be nice to fix: Gestures on the touichscreen like backward and forward don't work -.- But I think it just because of the missing wacom driver....

 

Is it possible to connect 2 x 24" with DVI/VGA to the X230T?

 

My X230 has shipped and is scheduled to arrive this friday, the 27th! Of course, I doubt it will actually get here until Monday. But this is still great timing, I ordered on the 19th, so I would say I'm lucky that it's going smoothly so far. haha

 

I only had 4GB. There is a small, but notable increase in power draw going from 1 DIMM to 2 DIMM, but it shouldn't be 1.5W. I haven't found Power Manager's watt reading to be terribly accurate (and it goes away in advance mode?), and so I use Window's built-in performance monitor.

Either way, you can already get 5.5W in the x220t, so I have no reason to believe PerfMon was incorrect or anything in my x230t. In fact because the figure wasn't any lower was one reason I decided to return my x230t.

With the dock for sure; with the onboard DP and VGA combo, probably.

 

Before I buy,

- How can I reinstall Windows with all Lenovo customizations, addons and software? Planning to replace the HDD with a Samsung 830 Series which will be blank with no operating system.
- Does it come with ThinkLight?
- Lenovo keeps mentioning something about about a snap on battery slab to increase battery life to 18 hours, I cannot find it out their website?

 

Hey Domski, thanks for the info. Can you please post feedback after you installed the wacom driver. I am planning to get x230t to use with win8 as well and is really concern about whether gestures gonna work well in tablet mode.

 

Just got one of these for work with the following specs:

Processor Intel Core i5-3210M Processor (3M Cache, up to 3.10 GHz)
Operating system Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium (64 bit)
Operating system language Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 - English
Display type 12.5" Premium HD (1366x768) LED Backlit Display, Mobile Broadband Ready, 3x3 Antenna
System graphics Intel HD 4000 Graphics in Intel Core i5-3210M Processor
Total memory 4 GB PC3-12800 DDR3 (1 DIMM)
Keyboard Keyboard Backlit - US English
Fingerprint reader UltraNav without FingerPrint Reader
Hard drive 320GB Hard Disk Drive, 7200rpm
Battery 9 Cell ThinkPad Battery X44++
Power cord 65W AC Adapter - US (2pin)
Integrated WiFi Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 AGN

For a total of $900. When it gets here I'll be installing Arch linux and give a report on battery. Anyone else install linux on this guy yet?

 

You can make recovery media with Lenovo's recovery tool, though you'll need an external disc drive to do it. Then you can just re-install on the new SSD. The other option is to do a clean install with the guide here, then add whatever Lenovo tools you want. The former is quicker, the latter will result in a little "lighter" system, since you can pick and choose what you want to add.

As far as the battery, are you talking about the tablet or the regular X230? The regular X230 takes a slice battery, the same one that works on the X220. I can confirm that it definitely works on the X230, part # 0A36280. I don't know if it works on the tablet version of the X230.

 

1) You should be able to find all of Lenovo's preinstalled utilities from their website. Trial software, if any, won't be there.

2) Only the x230 vanilla comes with a ThinkLight. The x230t does not.

3) You are looking for the slice battery, which is here:

ThinkPad Battery 19+ (6 Cell Slice - X220/X230, X220T/X230T) | 0A36280 | Lenovo | (US)

 

I hadn't seen any info about how the slice battery works with the 3 cell battery, so I got one and threw together some pictures:

X230T Thermal Images with 3 Cell + Slice Battery

Brief summary is that, as expected, there is a large gap where the 6 cell battery's 'grip' would be, but otherwise it works fine. The slice battery also does not seem to ruin system airflow (at least not under light load) unlike some other slice style batteries I've used in the past.

I was planning on making this a thread here, but last night the forum wasn't interested in letting me post for some reason. (Wound up having to re-activate my account)

Important system hardware:
Core i5, 16GB ram, 256GB Samsung SATA SSD, 60 GB OCZ mSATA SSD, Intel Ultimate N.

 

I just got an x230 (non tablet), and the battery remaining meter seems very inaccurate. It continuously alternates between 2 hours and 8 hours. Anyone else have this problem?

 

Yes, for whatever reason it does not seem to average the power usage over a period of time. As far as I can tell it just assumes the power draw at any given time will continue unchanged until the battery is depleted and determines the run time accordingly.

 

Thanks for your input. I got mine to use 5-6W while typing this reply on a external monitor through VGA port (x230t's screen off), usb keyboard, BT mouse, wifi on.

From the past two days experience, after 4 hours of use like this, I have about 50% battery left. So I think battery estimate is pretty accurate in general (6-8 hours), although it fluxes a lot depending on what's going on.

Also, when the tablet is plugged in, Power manager shows higher wattage even though the battery is not charging. Somewhere between 9-12W on idle. I think that's what I was seeing before, and thinking it will also use that much power on battery only.

One last thing, white background uses a little more (less than 0.5W) power than black. Toshiba Portege R835 was the opposite, white would use less power on that laptop.

 

Is it normal for the battery to discharge when plugged in, while gaming? I am losing about 1% every 20 mins while playing a game and I have the laptop plugged in to AC power as well. I started with 100% and am now down to 97%. The power brick is also very hot! When I stop gaming the battery remains where it was and does not charge back up to 100%.

Thanks for the input.

 

How many hard drives can fit in this, and what size? I just ordered one with the standard 320GB HDD, but I want to put a SSD inside. I assume a standard 2.5" will work? Can I get an mSATA as a boot drive and run it in conjunction with another 2.5" storage drive?

Thanks!

 

You can put a "normal" 2.5'' 7mm high drive along with a mSATA. You can use a mSATA as a boot drive and use the hard drive slot for mass storage. Just note that you're limited to 7mm high drives (A lot of them are 9.5mm high) and that getting to mSATA slot means taking off the keyboard and palmrest.

 

Thanks! I'll be keeping the default 320GB HDD and am probably getting a Crucial 128GB mSATA SSD as my primary.

 

How so? A 128GB SSD upgrade costs $280 from Lenovo, and that would be replacing the HDD. The 128GB mSATA SSD from Crucial costs $125 after taxes, which as far as I know, is the lowest price point for an mSATA SSD.

 

my four year old HP is WAY more accurate, even after messing about way too much trying to make this thing usable at least. unimpressed.

 

Yea, that's normal. It has a "smart" battery that wont charge until it goes below a set amount. Default is 96% I think. You can open the power manager, click on the battery tab, then battery maintenance and then configure it from there.

 

It can happen when the power consumption is greater than what the adapter can provide. Energy comes from somewhere, so it has the battery. That's why a lot of computers have performance reduction when the battery is removed. If it really bothers you, you should consider getting a 90W AC adapter from Lenovo.

 

No bother, was just curious. I knew that basically it was pulling more power than the little brick could provide but I didn't know why it wasn't recharging and if it was normal. I am new to Lenovo but it seems that they try to keep the batteries maintained properly with the software. I am used to cheapy laptops without such amenities.

Thanks.

 

With Intel HD3000 graphics as you added more physical RAM, the system would dedicate more memory to the integrated graphics up to 384MB with 16GB of physical RAM. Does the Intel HD4000 do the same? Right now I only have 64MB shared video RAM with 4GB of physical on my system. I'd like that 384MB and would upgrade the RAM if it works the same way.

 

So would you recommend a clean install then using Windows 7 on a flashdrive instead of a factory image? I'm not buying an ultrabase or an external DVD reader as will never use them other then to reinstall windows on a SSD.

That slice battery looks huge. Unsure if I want that over a 9 cell battery.

 

If you are re-installing on something other than the original drive, I don't think you have any choice except to do a clean install. I'm not sure if you can clone the entire factory image over and still have it work.

 

It works. Just create the Recovery Media and restore to the new drive. Done that many times.

 

With just 8Gb of RAM, it says that it can use 1,696Mb of memory for the graphics. I have no clue if that is accurate and it was only using 225Mb of GPU RAM playing Minecraft.

 

Buying mine today.
Will replace HDD with Samsung SSD and also use DriverMax to update the drivers as have a year license on it.

 

So what's the deal with Amex and discounts? Still going on now?

There is 15% off deal now but i'd like to squize couple of more MHz out of my money if you know what I mean.