X230(t) Owner's Thread

Wasn't made correctly.. Happens quite rarely i hope, on such expensive machines..? New question : If you got a problem with your keyboard and ask for replacement, do you have to send back the actual one or they don't require it (like the battery)?

 

The X230 wasn't that expensive. If you request a new keyboard, they'll just send it to you.

 

I recall the woman said they'll take mine back.. Maybe it changed? HDD not requested if you got Thinkplus warranty. That's all i know.

I just realised there's no (virtual) numpad on the x230 unlike on the x220. Annoying, sometimes, apps requires it for a shortcut that can't be changed..

 

Once the unit was shutdown or put to sleep, it takes good 5seconds before you hear something, which sounds like a fan stopping to turn.. But why so loud? Quite strange, never had that on any other unit AFAIR. Otherwise i set the mouse in device manager not to be able to wake the machine, however it still wakes it as soon as i move it..! "USB Always on" feature is off in the bios. Dunno which other setting could help with this..?

 

Now that is really weird. You must have a device that is a little messed up
I've never heard anything like that. The only noise I hear coming from my fan other than the normal "fanning" or whatever you want to call it, is when it's turned on - there's a small noise that sounds a little like something hard and bouncy falling onto a hard surface from a very short height (although it doesn't sound like that's actually happening, that's the best description of the sound I can give) - but it's extremely soft and I barely can hear it - most of the time I don't.

 

Using SSD or HDD? I don't hear anything suspicious when it's ON.

 

I'm on an HDD. I don't mean when it's on, I mean when it's been off and it turns on.

 

From OFF to ON there's nothing. Only from ON to OFF I get this noise.

 

Well I definitely don't have that. On the lowest fan level I barely hear it over my HDD when I stick my ear to it, and when it switches off it fades away without me noticing.

 

Hopefully i get some SSD to put in soon and make sure it's the HDD.. Or not! If so, what can i do? Not sure Lenovo will agree to send someone for this..

 

Had an idea.. Just when to BIOS and waited few minutes, then turn off : without the disk, i don't have the noise, so it's clearly it. But it's not defective at all. I think when it stops it makes the chassis vibrating! The HDD bay is so thin that it's kinda hard to insert the drive, that could be the reason? I noticed there are few screws missing on the back, that could be reason (i don't have some or i would've tried of course)?

 

Just before I call Lenovo support, I'm wondering if anyone else has had issues with the X230 mini display port temporarily not working?

I have a good quality Startech three in one (dvi, displayport and hdmi) adapter permanently connected and alternate between my two monitors twice a day without a hitch.

A couple of times a year, it does not recognise either of the two monitors, no matter how many times I plug and unplug or use a different (DVI only) adapter. The only recourse is to wait a few hours (overnight usually) and then it seems to work again.

However, it is starting to happen more regularly now. I have two different versions of windows on this drive and the same thing happens from the other OS, so it seems to be a hardware issue.

Also had the same thing happen sometimes with my previous X220. That was with direct displayport connection (no adapters).

Thanks

 

One more thing: Previously it wasn't possible to set battery charge thresholds in Win 8 and there was this registry tweak as a workaround:

Changing Charge Threshold on ThinkPads under Windo... - Lenovo Community

Has Lenovo come up with an official solution (such as an update to Power Manager) or is the situation still the same?

Thanks again..

 

Hey guys,

So I've got an x230t with a blank screen.. Here's the story:

Bought machine in this state as a replacement for my old and creaky x60t. Was reported as the screen working when partially open, but not fully open (screen went blank somewhere between 75-90 degrees open. Had this exact same problem with the x60t a few years back. A replacement LCD cable solved it.

When I received it, screen was blank all the time. Works fine on external display, so not mobo or graphics.

Replaced LCD cable as per hardware maintenance manual and this video for initial disassembly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euyItfKnKNg - not real issues, all seems to have gone well.

Before putting plastics and keyboard back, fired it up to see if it had fixed it. First time, I saw a big red 'thinkpad' sign, bottom left of screen. After that, no joy. Still boots fine, works with external screen, etc. Screen backlight is working...

Question: what to try next..?

 

Welcome to the forum!

My guesses would be along these lines, not in any particular order:

a) Defective LCD panel

b) Defective point of contact on either the planar or the LCD.

These types of issues are somewhat difficult to troubleshoot without a *known good* LCD panel at hand. I honestly have no specific suggestion on what to try next, apart from possibly selling the machine as a "for parts only" unit.

Good luck.

 

Thanks for the welcome akjula66!

Interestingly, having used the machine with the screen down for a few hours last night, I opened the screen and it was working! Turned it off overnight, and again this morning, completely blank.

This feels like a loose connection that tightens due to thermal expansion (several hours with lid down heating screen), which lines up with issue 2 on your list. What's the 'planar'..?

 

Planar = IBM/Lenovo term for motherboard.

 

Aha! Thanks!!

 

Hi. X230 owner here (non tablet)

Been using SSD for OS (in HDD bay obviously) and msata 310 for storage only (which is empty after formatting).

Removed 310 today, so that only the SSD is present but Windows 8 won't load up. It says: E61 Media test failure- check cable. Put the 310 back in and Windows loads up. Removed 310 again and get the same message- and so on. Like I said, all this is with the SSD OS disk still in the HDD bay.

Both the keyboard and palm rest cables are secured, also the two cables going into the Intel wireless Lan card. .

Kinda stumped on this one

 

Anyone? ....

 

Have you tried disabling PXE booting and checking the boot order?

If it still fails with that, and assuming you installed Windows with both drives in, the bootloader might be on the mSATA drive. I'm not real clear on what Windows usually does with this, but I do know that it's generally good practice to disconnect all but the OS drive when installing to keep the bootloader in check. Though FWIW, I ran a desktop with 2 hard drives for years, had the OS only on the primary drive, and never had an issue keeping the second drive in during setup or removing it from the setup at points.

 

Hi


Windows (8) is on the SSD in the HDD bay. The msata drive is empty and reformatted. That is the puzzling thing. Why, when I take out the msata, Windows won't load from the SSD but when I put the msata back (which is always an empty disk), Windows loads from the SSD?

I already checked that the SSD was first boot drive in the bios but will give it another go and look for any option to disable 'PXE booting'.

Thanks!

 

PXE is an attempt to boot from the network.

I don't have a *20 series machine - let alone with W8 - around here to check, but you should be able to exclude that option in BIOS. At least I think so...

Good luck.

 

Hi,

Sorry for reviving such an old thread, but I need to replace my X230t keyboard. My question, should I be aware of anything while getting one? I mean, are there any bad batches of keyboards or updated versions that I should get or avoid? The thing is I have a W530 too, and keyboard looks a bit different, shinier (not from usage) and Fn keys are white(r), than the new x230t i just received, so I wonder if I should get that one instead of x230 specifically.

Thank you in advance.

 

Just be mindful that all the keyboards out there are not backlit and that even though some other model keyboards will fit, but the backlight will not work if it is not specifically meant for the xseries.

Example, the t430 keyboard is the same size and comes with a backlight but it is not activated for the X-series.

 

Good to know. Thank you.

 

Hi Everyone --

Anyone have any suggestions with regards to my auto-rotate (when I convert into tablet mode; not ACTIVE rotate) not working sometimes? It's intermittent I think. I'm thinking it has to do with Windows installing drivers and overriding Lenovo drivers. I tried to launch Lenovo Update and Drivers utility to see if it identifies the driver that will restore auto-rotation, but upon launching the utility, I get the following message, "System Update has detected a serious problem loading language files and can not continue."

Any suggestions would be immensely appreciated. Cheers.

 

Hi David,

Not sure if you still need help with this or not but it sounds like you have actually installed your Windows Boot Loader on the mSATA drive to me. I run into this quite a bit when i try to setup dual boot or separate HDD's with OS's to boot independently.

You might be able to reinstall the boot loader if you run whatever version of Windows on your PC again with the mSATA disk out and try to perform a repair. This in theory should reinstall the Windows Boot Loader for you.

 

Thanks for the info!

 

Thanks Yayo, will bear that in mind!

 

Hello, where had the x250 owner's thread gone? Can't find it..

Always quote my messages so I get notified quickly!

 

Alright, I see there's not much going on in this thread, but I hope if someone has had this problem, they see this...
Anyway, I'm having a bit of a problem, this thing keeps giving me BSODs, usually around once a week now. The odd part is that it creates neither a Kernel memory dump nor a small memory dump, meaning I can't analyse it very well (I've tried setting the settings to both kernel memory dump and small memory dump, and none of them has worked, even though the BSOD reports the memory dump being complete in both cases - it's obvious that it has worked in the past, since there are both minidump files in the minidump folder and a memory.dmp file in the system root). I have taken pictures of the BSODs though, so I do have some information.
It always happens when the computer goes to sleep. It gets stuck, doesn't go to sleep, and after a couple of minutes, it crashed and I get the BSOD. It's always "DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE", with a value of 0x0000009F. Parameter 1 is always 0x0000000000000004, and Parameter 2 is always 0x0000000000000258. Parameter 3 and 4 vary. I've found this here, which tells me "The power state transition timed out waiting to synchronize with the PnP subsystem", which seems pretty logical considering the scenario where this always happens. Parameter 3 should be "The thread currently holding onto the Plug-and-Play (PnP) lock" - is there any way I can figure out exactly what this thread is, and what process it belonged to? I'm figuring if it created dump files, this wouldn't be such a problem, but as I said, it isn't creating any memory dump files. If I would know which thread this was and what process it belonged to, it would help me quite a bit in figuring out where the problem lies, is there any way to figure this out?
Also, I tried to install one of the KB fixes that described a pretty much identical problem, where the problem was related to a fingerprint reader... but it completely refused to be installed on my computer.
Anyone else ever have this?

 

I'm not sure if I updated my experience with Lenovo but here it is:

So, I ended up getting an extended warranty on my x230t and had an onsite tech try to fix the issue. The first time the tech came he didn't have the correct screen so I had to make another appointment. The second time I met the tech , he had the right screen onhand. The second screen I got worked but the digitizer accuracy (even after careful calibration) was about the same as the first screen (but had issues in another spot). I spoke to a certain CS rep at Lenovo (who will remain unnamed) who told me that they will replace my x230t with a newer (and more expensive) but lower end non tablet Thinkpad model if I pay the inflated Lenovo price difference. Eventually , I spoke to someone who said I could return the x230t for a full refund minus the purchase price of the extended warranty that I bought afterwards.

 

Anyone lose their touch screen capability with the latest windows update (build 1703)?

Cant figure out how to get it back...already updated drivers etc but still to no avail.

Btw also tried the Disable-Enable workaround in the device manager and Uninstalling the HID Compliant Touch device and still no luck.

 

@Jansci roll back digitizer drivers to standard Windows (Wacom device will become something generic, don't remember what exactly). Don't forget to clean your DriverStore from all Wacom drivers with RAPR.

 

Thanks...still does not work. Not sure if this helps but there are 2 HID Touch Screens in Device Manager.

 

@Jansci try booting Linux from a flash drive to verify that touch-screen is functional. I'd clean install Windows 10 after that, it might be faster option to get your machine running as it should.

 

yes it was functional until up to the latest windows update...is there a build/image we can download? windows 10 wont allow me to go back to the original build anymore....or is there a Lenovo touch screen driver?

 

@Jansci you can download Windows 10 media creation tool here.

 

Thanks...but already did that to do a fresh install and still no go...the unusual thing is that there are 2 entries for HID Compliant Touch Screen in device manager

 

Here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/thinkpad-x250.759831/

Wow, when I checked out for this thread I found out my posting was the last one... in 2015

But I still have my X250 and it still rocks. Currently Win10 1703 works very well.

 

Just (impulse) bought an X230. In 2017.

Hope i'm not gonna regret this.