X230(t) Owner's Thread

Your X230 should be able to boot from USB. I'd call support and see what they've got to say about it.

 

Could be unhappy with your DVD drive as well. Rare, but I've seen it once or twice. Have you tried booting from other USB devices like a flash drive?

 

Thanks for the tips. I will try to boot my machine from a USB flash drive to see if this issue
is caused by my aging DVD drive. I also found a thread over at Lenovo forum, showing that
there are other new X230 owners besides me who also have this exact same problem.

X230 - Booting from USB problem - Lenovo Community

 

Hey guys

I've made a clone of the HHD to a m-SATA SSD using Disk Image XML, because Acronis had some issues with secure boot or something, but it won't boot up. What do I do?

 

assuming the msata is the first drive in the boot up and it is still not booting, you may need to mark the boot partition on the msata as "active".

I'm guessing the old harrdrive is still accessible?

Mark a partition as active

 

Are there any other laptops similar to the X230 Tablet? I mean, it can fold the screen back, and there's a digitizer for it too?

 

Very few now. The Latitude XT3 (if it isn't already EoL) is a conventional convertible, but it has an N-Trig digitizer instead of the usual Wacom. I don't think HP's latest convertible has a pen digitizer at all.

There might still be a Fujitsu or Toshiba conventional convertible with a Wacom digitizer, but that's basically everything in this space. It's very sad, I'm going to have to suck it up and buy a Cintiq soon.

 

It should definitely work. I have installed OS to the new SSD and it does boot up from the USB ports just fine. remember to select HDD as the first option in the Boot Order menu and set USB Flash to be your number 1 HDD in the HDDs list.


--

 

New bios for X230:
BIOS Update Utility for Windows 8 (32-bit, 64-bit), 7 (32-bit, 64-bit), XP - ThinkPad X230, X230i

Didn't appear neither in the RSS feed nor in the driver update...

 

All the laptops I've owned, I've never had a single scratch on my screen. The way that I clean it is by making spray bottle that consist of rubbing alcohol and distilled (or bottled) water. 40% Rubbing Alcohol, and 60% Water.

I ONLY use a microfiber cloth. At Big Lots, $5 gets you an 8-pack. Or walmart has them as well in the automotive care section. The key is to never wipe the screen while its dry. You would just be dragging the dust and dirt across the screen. I spray the screen about two times, spreading the solution evenly over the screen, and I give the keyboard area a single spray. With the microfiber cloth I wipe the screen VERY LIGHTLY (literally no pressure). Fold the cloth over to a dry section, and continue to wipe the screen to pick up the excess solution. Then wipe the keyboard down. Once you wipe the keyboard down, do not go back to the screen. You may have picked up a crumb or something from the keyboard and end up scratching your screen.

For the most part, I use 1 microfiber cloth for the screen and when that cloth gets worn out, I'll start using it for the keyboard and laptop body, while a new one for the screen.

As long as you don't flood the screen with solution where it flows down into the crevices of the screen, you'll be okay. Say if you've coughed on the screen and it's dried up, don't scrub it until it's gone. Spray that area and let it sit for 20 seconds before doing a soft wipe with the microfiber cloth--it will come off.

 

Anyone updated their HD4000 driver? I just did it today and the screen is a lot brighter! I used to have it 12, now I'm at 6 to 7 only.

 

Where did you get the drivers from? Lenovo or Intel's site?

Regarding the backlit keyboard, do you guys know how to keep it on each time it boots? I'm on windows 8 now and maybe I forgot to install a software along the way that controls the backlit, but I want it to be on low brightness automatically when it boots up.

TIA

 

There's gonna be a 17.3 inch tablet laptop someday in the future just like the X230T today. It's gonna be a lot lighter, and it's going to have faster processor(s), more ram, more SSD space. You can use a digitizer on it to draw, or touch the screen to interact with it.

That's what I really want them to have today but it's not here yet, because of the dawning of Windows 8, all new computers are going to be touch screen compatible. Then we're going to transition into a tablet digitizer compatible era. Then, that's when the 17.3 inch tablet is going to be released.

 

I used System update from the control panel.

EDIT: here's the version I installed: Intel HD graphics 2000/2500/3000/4000 version 9.17.10.2843

 

I'm sure this has been mentioned somewhere in this thread, but I thought I would ask.

Where can I buy a backlight keyboard for an X230t? My work just issued me one and of course they cheaped out on the backlight KB option. I use my tablet at night all the time and miss the thinklight feature on my old T400.

Thanks.

 

backlight keyboard is very expensive right now on the market.

 

Ah, figures. I'll just poke around in the dark. Thanks.

 

Hi folks. I've just started holidays and have some new RAM and SSD for my X230T. The RAM went in fine, everything seems great. I started preparing to swap over to my Samsung 830 SSD and found my licence key for Norton Ghost didn't work. Samsung support says they're going to send me a key, but I have to wait a day or so. In the meantime, I'm reading some more about updating to SSD. I've seen many posts about alignment issues when cloning. I'll be going from the factory installed 500GB HDD to the SSD. Do I really have to worry about alignment? Why would Samsung provide this SSD with software that clones, if cloning will cause performance problems?

My problem is that I've got a bunch of software and files already on the drive and can't reinstall the software until I go back to work. Thus, cloning seems like the best option. But, I got the SSD for performance, so I don't want it handicapped by alignment issues. Ideas

Edit:
I discovered Samsung now provided the Data Migration Tool so used that instead of Ghost. Seemed to work well, but a few things aren't working now:
- Microsoft Office needs to be activated, but previously this was already done on the HDD
- Lenovo Software says it can't access the warranty service or my product registration info
- Windows Live Mail didn't start properly, and didn't remember my password anymore

If everything has been copied/cloned, why hasn't everything been copied? (Yes I know that sounds weird)

 

After doing a bit of research, I found some other options you might prefer over a Cintiq ($2000+?! Save your money!).

Here's a 17.3 inch tablet laptop: Dell Precision M6600 Touchscreen - YouTube
And here's a pen that can turn any computer of any size into a tablet: Duo-Pen - YouTube

 

Just got my X230T a week ago and so far there are a few annoying bugs, the worst of which is intermittent wireless drop outs. My configuration has the Intel Centrino 6205 wireless card. It seems particularly bad on my home connection where it regularly drops the connection to my router and will not reconnect or see my network. This behavior often persists after several reboots and happens under both Windows 8 (mSata) and Windows 7 (regular HDD). In particular it seems to be triggered by flipping and folding the screen into tablet mode. While this is happening my other laptop's wifi connection is uninterrupted so my router is not faulty. Initially I was thinking this might be a physical defect (something to do with the routing of the antenna wire through the hinge) but as I'm testing it at work this morning it seems fine when switched into tablet model. Right now I'm wondering whether it's a compatibility issue with my home router which is an Asus RT-N12 / B running DDWRT. The odd thing is I have an earlier generation of the same RT-N12 router also running DDWRT at work and it seems to run fine here. The only other potential issue I can think of is that I have a Roku 2 XS player on my home network which perhaps not coincidentally has recently started having intermittent trouble connecting to my wireless network.

I'm running the latest Intel wifi driver version 15.5.6.48 dated 10/4/12. Anyone else having weird wifi issues?

The other issue is more minor but still annoying: screen autorotation does not work under Windows 8 despite having the driver for the HDD protector / accelerometer installed and the Windows 7 version of Tablet Shortcut menu installed which is a configuration which some other people have apparently had success with.

A final note is the mediocrity of the fingerprint reader which as others have noted does a poor job of reading scans and sometimes simply doesn't work.

 

Question regarding WWAN module in X230T. Gobi 4000 (aka Sierra MC77*0) is no go? Only on x230?

 

When I talked to a Lenovo rep (back in June), they said the Gobi 4000 would work.

 

I need my pen to work in Mouse Mode.

by default the Pen works in Pen Mode.

In version 5.1.1-5 of the Pen Tablet Properties (part of the wacom drivers) You could assign Mouse Mode or Pen Mode under the "Pop-up Menu" command that is an optional binding for the button on your pens.

Unfortunately the X230t that I purchased doesn't seem to have this option.. it is running version 7.0.0-29


Has anyone else come up against this issue before, it strikes me as odd that absolutely no one that I could locate on several forums has needed this option. I called Lenovo support and they didn't even know what Absolute or Relative cursor positioning was so I knew from the outset that they were going to be a waste of time...

I have tried to install an older version of the drivers from my HPTM2T (it runs the 5.1.1-5 version with the option to switch between Mouse and Pen modes. sadly, the Lenovo X230T does not recognise these drivers or more specifically the drivers do not recognise the wacom tablet features inside of the X230t.

My last resort will be to contact wacom and ask why in god's name did they remove this feature from the latest version.


This is all speculation but I get the feeling that :

A. They removed it out as noobs were likely swapping this around and then had no idea how to get it back so the pen worked normally.
B. The ability for the pen to work in Absolute as well as Relative modes, seems to have likely been the reason for fairly regular wacom pen "drop-outs" where the pens would suddenly swap of their own accord to Mouse mode and a restart was required to swap it back (if you didn't know you could manually swap it)

C. All of the above.


in either case, My suspicion is that the ability for the pen to go into mouse mode (I believe this is called Relative Mode .. would still be possible but may only be accessed by executing a script, macro or batch file that opens up the wacom drivers and alters the values around that control this feature. (and of cause a 2nd script to reverse this action)

Ideally if there is an older version of drivers for the pen / tablet floating around somewhere out there that work for the x230t I would love to get those installed as that will be the fastest and less messy (homebrew) fix.

If anyone has any ideas on how to resolve this issue I would greatly appreciate any available assistance.

 

I currently have the stock 4GB DDR3-1600 Samsung module. My upgrade options would be:

a) Corsair Vengeance 2x4GB DDR3-1600 (dual channel, 8gb total)
b. G-Skill 1x8GB DDR3-1600 (single channel, 12GB total)

I'm partial to the 12gb option... is dual channel a big difference like in games? More is better I guess. I hit 3+GB ram usage almost all the time in Win8.

 

Dual channel at least gives much higher result in windows performance score. And it should actually improve performance for builtin video.
If you don't work with huge virtual machines 2x4Gb would be enough for almost all use cases.
If you want more memory - spend some more dollars on 2x8gb.

 

4GB + 8GB is dual channel. (I'm sure there will be a bunch of replies debating this, which is good.)

More RAM is better. I have 12GB in some of my systems, and I feel fine.

 

Got my new X230 comes with a 320GB HDD, and I wanna swap a Samsung 830 120GB in. My question is: I couldnt find my Win8 serial number anywhere on my laptop, so how can I reinstall a licesend one on the SSD?

 

I'm thinking of getting a X230 and have some questions
6-cell vs 9-cell battery: is 9-cell worth getting? Do they both stick out? Is the 9-cell a lot heavier? 9-cel is another $30 - worth it?
i5-3210M vs i5-3320M ($55 more) worth the upgrade? (Or is it worth going even higher?)

Right now it'll be $700+tax (Canada) which seems decent; I don't know if the upgrades would be worth it. Thanks for your help.

 

I had an X230 before and I can tell you to go for the 9-cell battery. It sticks out about 7/10 of an inch or so but it makes a difference in battery life. One additional benefit is that the laptop can be grabbed by the battery and thus makes a nice handle to carry it. I also find that it makes the laptop look more pleasant. If I had to purchase a X230 today, the 9-cell would definitely be chosen. As for the processor, I chose the lowest option since I did not do anything that required the additional speed. The biggest impact would be felt from an SSD. However, if you feel that $55 is a worth it to get a slightly faster processor, then that is also fine. Wish you the best!

Here are some benchmarks of how the two processors compare. Not much difference.

Mobile Processors - Benchmarklist - Notebookcheck.net Tech

 

actually after some research, i believe i can install win8 without knowing the key, which is embedded inside the BIOS. However, I found win8 doesnt suit me, atleast on this non-touch screen X230. Is there anyway I can downgrade mine to win7 home pre or something like that?

 

If you have Windows 8 Pro, it includes downgrade rights to Windows 7 Pro. If not you'll have to buy Windows 7.

 

finally i successed in installing win 8 from usb device to my x230's ssd, however I could not keep win8 from splitting the ssd to few small partitions (for recovery or some sort like it said).

anyway, now I want to replace the Intel Centrino N6205, which comes with the laptop, with the N6300. But the laptop did not accept that, it said: "1802: Unauthorized network card is plugged..." or something like that.

So there arent anyway to upgrade wifi card?

And another question: Which 3G card could I plug into the x230?

 

Because Lenovo, as with some other manufacturers, whitelists certain devices on their laptops, even if the one you intend to replace is the same model offered. A solution would be hacking the BIOS to remove the whitelist check (so far I've only seen the x230t bios in mdl, not the x230), or use a Lenovo-approved device.

 

What's wrong with the 6250? Does it perform badly? Why the need to replace it?

Anyhow, you should consult the X230 System Service Parts, particularly the X230 FRU BOM (Field Replaceable Units, Bill Of Materials).

​

Get that exact FRU, not just any Intel Ultimate-N 6300 card.

 

There's nothing wrong with the 6205, its just me happenning to own an N6300 which I took off from my old laptop. Well, I dont think Im gonna looking for one, but thank to your FRU lists, Imma look for a suitable WWAN card ^_^

Ahh great, now I understand. But I wont temp to hack the BIOS, could not stand the risks. Thank you very much friends

 

Anyone knows where i can buy a Thinkpad X230 with the IPS panel besides Lenovo website? Reason I'm asking is that they have it on Walmart or Amazon and Newegg but it does not state if the screen is the premium or the TN panel one. Another reason is that from past purchases from Lenovo, they always delay my order so I would rather buy it from a store preconfigured with windows 7 and IPS display.

Thanks

 

Are you talking about the tablet version? Even with corporate discounts, I can't seem to get it below $900 (Canadian or US)

Thanks!

 

Unless they clearly state "Premium screen," you could match the listed model number (for example, 2320-39U, 2324-3RU, 2324-3QU, 2325-2QU...) against the ThinkPad 2012 tabook. Not all pre-built ThinkPad models are included in that book, though.

You should be able to find an X230 with ISP screen and specs that you like. Be ready for the high price.

 

My x230t's battery has 8 charge cycles on it. Lenovo power manager says my main battery is poor and lists it as 76% of its original charge capacity. I've had it about 10 days--what gives?

update: i reinstalled the drivers, calibrated again, and it fixed the error

 

There's always eBay as well.

Though really I don't think you should have any issues with the lead times on a vanilla x230; it's a pretty mature product now, and I'd be surprised if there were production kinks or if any of the components were backordered, etc.

There is no 9-Cell for the tablet. Between the 6 and 9 on the vanilla, it really just depends on how much battery life you need out of the thing. I think the 6-Cell should be plenty for most people though.

 

I need to buy an X230 Today but have a question whose answer the Lenovo chat and phone people cannot agree on.

I want an active expresscard slot because I might want to add a TV tuner or some other device. Here is what the online order page says:

System Expansion Slots

-- No Smart Card Reader

-- Gemplus 54mm ExpressCard Smart Card Reader from Lenovo

-- Cherry 54mm ExpressCard Smart Card Reader from Lenovo

I don't want a smart card reader. I do want a working expesscard port.

If I select "No Smart Card Reader" will I still get a working expresscard port, or will the expresscard function be missing from the machine?

Hope you can help me quickly!

Thanks.

 

Yes, it should have the EC slot by default.

 

Will a backlit keyboard for the X230 fit the X230 tablet? I have a work X230t w/o a backlit KB. I'm looking at this to swap out. Will it work?

Backlit US Keyboard for IBM Lenovo ThinkPad X230 T530 T430 T530I T430I X230I | eBay

 

As this listing suggests, T430, T530, and X230 (all flavors) use the same keyboard. So yes.

 

Is no one else having WiFi problems with their X230T when the screen is folded down in tablet mode? Doing this on mine pretty much kills wifi reception unless the signal is very strong.

 

Question on the non tablet x230. Will both the 7mm and 9.5mm SSD fit since i'm replacing the HDD that came with it. I have a Crucial M4 128GB SSD that is 9.5mm



Thanks

 

The 7mm-high SSD (like this one) will fit.

 

Yepp...same here!
Switching to tablet mode often kills my wifi connection. And in Tablet mode and I have a worser connection quality as in "normal mode". Where I have a signal in normal mode, sometimes I haven't in tablet mode. Switching back to normal mode brings my wifi connection back. Very annoying -.-

 

With Win8 Pro (and with all drivers up-to-date), I don't have this problem. Are you with 8 or 7?

 

Any tablet owners regret ordering the tablet model? I just ordered the non tablet x230 and am wondering if I should have went with the tablet model. Main reason why I didnt was the flimsy tablet swivel hinge seen on youtube.