x120e Owner's Thread

The no OS was a mistake made by lenovo, however they honor these mistake and only the first wave of buyer got the deal before they change it back to the normal.

Question about temperature. I wonder how safe it is to run the cpu at greater than 65 degree. The stock fan always run even at sub 50 degree, I wonder if that is necessary or are Lenovo is being extra cautious.

 

One more thing, when you dim your display to 0 do you see bright and dim spots, I assume from the individual leds? I will get pics up asap of both, the keyboard thing I can live with but it does bother me, it is very noticeable.

 

I'd "like" to contribute to this thread, but, ordered on 3/4, with a ship date of 3/16, and now, on the status page there's no date. Order says, still processing. Called the 866 number, now I'm told it's supposed to ship on 3/18, but the status page still has no date. No, I didn't order with blue tooth. Have to wonder if they're having issues. If 3/18 date get's rolled forward, most likely will cancel. Could have ordered from provantage for 20 bucks more and already had the computer.

 

Looks like im in the same boat as you. No BT, 3-cell, 3gb ram, 32-bit, 250gb 5400rpm hd. Called them today and they said supposely the expected ship date is the same 3/18. I ordered on 3/5, so technically it should have shipped by 3/15(8-10 days). Kinda sucks... I thought they would be up to par with HP in that factor. Last year I ordered a custom Envy15 direct from HP and I received it 1 day before my estimated ship date! It was in my hands in 8 days!

Not so sure about this one... and I already received and opened the Power adapter with USB hub. Guess i just have to wait it out.

 

how do you guys get FN+ END to work?

What UTILITIES do you guys recommend on installing after clean install?

Also, what SSD is recommended? Thinking about Intel's but been reading how Intel and AMD CPU don't really mix

 

Strange. I ordered on the 2nd of March, expected shipping date was the 15th, but it was sent on the 7th and arrived on the 10th. (Arrived in the US. It'd be brought to me in May.) That was a lot quicker than I'd expected. Configuration was E-350, Win7 64, 2GB, 250GB, 3 cell (i.e., default except E-350 and Win7 Home 64).

 

Finally got mine yesterday. But its bluescreening and freezing like no tomorrow.

I did change the ram and HDD to one I bought (WD Black 500gb, Mushkin 4gb 1066 7-7-7-7-20) but Ive been using those parts flawlessy on another unit for about 2 weeks previously. Pulled those parts and replaced the original HDD. It passed the PC Doctor tests in Windows.

Also the x120e messed up my 8gb usb key. Its now reading it has 173kb (i can see the rest in computer manager but Its giving me no options). I don't have any tools to test hardware from a usb key yet cause of this.

 

Thats weird ~ does everything work as normal when using stock equipment (HDD/RAM - you mentioned the HDD, but not RAM)?

 

Oh sorry, I also pulled the 4 gig stick. I wanted to do a memory test using memtest on the 2gb that came with the unit. I already did it with the 4gb about a 2 weeks ago on another machine.

Since I couldnt get memtest on my USB key.... was trying to use PC Doctor in Windows but its showing its clean. I started a stress test before I left for work this morning. If its fine, I will add the 4gig stick again. Do the same tests with PC Doctor.

Also as for the WD Black HDD is concerned S.M.A.R.T. is saying its fine on my dekstop. Also ran a deep surface scan saying its fine too. I put the HDD in a USB enclosure.

 

Did you encounter the problems with both 2GB and 4GB working together? If so, then it's possible the Thinkpad isn't handling the different RAM speeds correctly. The 4GB alone might be a good enough solution, or there may be a BIOS option to configure RAM speed which could solve the problem.

 

I sent my x120e back to Lenovo to fix the loud fan on Tuesday afternoon and just got it back this morning Kudos to Lenovo, I don't think they could have turned it around faster and the fan is fixed. This is my first Lenovo and so far I have been impressed with their service (words I've never uttered about Dell).

 

That's not surprising at all. Almost every single manufacturer can do warranty repair and generally overnight laptops very quickly. The key is how fast can they process and hopefully everything is in order.

 

I got mine back this morning as well.

 

whats wrong wid every1s x120e why y'all sending it in?
im in uk so im bollox'd if mine is messed up.

 

Read the page 4 of this thread. I think two of us had a problem with the cpu fan. Great little laptop, with that fixed.

 

i thought it was just more than the fan because others had flickering screen due to software we found out and that guy got melted speaker. and others had sound issues too.

 

Those two users specifically had the fan issue, which was quickly replaced--seems like the issue was resolved satisfactorily. With every laptop, there are issues, with some more common (ie: audio stutter) than others (ie: short-circuited speaker). That doesn't necessarily mean that a laptop is unreliable, particularly right at release. Typically, the most common issues are resolved over time (as the T400/T500 keyboard flex was).

That said, for the most common issues and resolutions of problems with the X120e, one user on the Lenovo Forums has nicely compiled them all here: Compilation of Lenovo X120e issues and solutions - Lenovo Community

Also, in other news, returning home today from college--I'll be able to get a review of my X120e with pictures up probably by the end of the weekend.

 

Anyone else have a crooked screen? I was looking at the pixels and it seems like the screen on mine is slightly slanted down at the right. I barely notice it but I'm going to call Lenovo.

 

Ordered mine on 3/4, ship date of 3/16, now ship date is 3/28. Called Lenovo to cancel the order, "John" of web sales begged to not cancel, he would come up with a resolution and email me by tomorrow. , I'm not buying a laptop so that I can played WoW .. I need it for business. If no solution tomorrow, "John" is just gonna have to beg away .. this order will be cancelled. Lenovo is really starting to me off, just saying

 

Wow, I guess I was lucky. It's starting to smell like Lenovo has some trouble with the X120e. Either the demand outstrips the supply or supply stopped for a while because of a redesign to eliminate some problems.

 

Guess I am one of the unlucky ones then... Ordered on 3/5 and mine was supposed to ship 3/17...called them yesterday, they told me 3/18...then just now the status got updated to 3/29! It's not like I got any additional's like bluetooth, abgn, or wwan, so I dont think part supply for this little guy is the issue. They could be laterally fixing up some kinks that some people are experiencing from the early units. Which is great... you know you probably will be better off in the long run. BUT, if it says ship in 10 days, it should ship in 10 days. I'd say give a leeway of at the most 5 more days and I'd be fine. BUT now they just doubled the timeframe with no explanation! I think thats a bit much. I'll probably call tomorrow and probably cancel this order and start saving up for a Elitebook with WUXGA and dreamcolor.

 

Could be the AMD CPU supply drying up. I'm sure the non-AMD internal components don't have a supply problem, so bluetooth, abgn etc., don't have an effect. Well, actually, who knows, might be that the quake in Japan caused a shortage of a specific component. That would explain a sudden jump in shipping time.

 

The tsunami and quake was on 3/11. Production in in China. Order was placed on 3/5 (sat) or 3/6 (sun) in China. Should have been processed the following day 3/7. Thats 5 business days (M-F) before the tragedy in Japan. That's a long time IMO. Add in the fact that they are already in production for about 2+ weeks, they should have some sort of idea in that time about how many units they are expecting to sell and have to build in a timely fashion.

It sucks basically. The Lenovo website says 8 days to ship at the moment. So if someone was to order right now(3/18)...they'd supposely get theirs shipped by 3/26. My order went in on 3/5 and now I gotta wait till 3/29?!?!? That my friends is 24 days.... I feel like hundreds of people just cut in front of me in line! Why does a new customer get theirs in 1/3rd the time??? hmmm i think maybe there math is backwards eh? even their logic too for that matter.

 

I am not so sure still if its my ram not playing nice or the the slot to insert ram is damaged.

2gb by itself was fine. 4gb by itself is fine. 2+4gb togather does not work without bluescreens. I would be content in just using 4gigs but if the slot is damaged I would want it repaired. I am going to pull the ram out from my t410 and try it with that over the weekend.

Is there anything else I should test for before calling lenovo. I havent really played around with this thing yet. I heard of audio issues but its not even connected to my network.

Also what is Enhanced Experiance 2.0? I always though it was a gimmik, but now I am just curious how its different from normal Enhanced Experiance.

 

I would test each slot individually, see if you can re-create the BSOD with a particular RAM slot. Also, try the t410 RAM and see if that changes anything. I have 2+4GB in my x120e right now and its chugging a way, no BSOD.

 

I didn't notice it until I saw your post. Mine's slightly crooked too. I thought it was my light fixture and shadow, but it's actually crooked by maybe 2 or 3 pixels. I'm usually very picky on these stuff, but I think this one isn't going to really bother me, one reason is because I only paid $305 for this netbook.

 

if you select the express delivery, does it ship faster?

 

@moloc

I have a habit of going into the BIOS after installing RAM, checking the ram size, and then Exiting and Saving. My Old Dell would not recognize the RAM until I would go into the BIOS and perform this. Not sure this is a necessary step for the x120e, but I always do this. Try that, let us know.

 

I never had that kind of a problem. My 2 sticks of 4GB Crucial 1333 ram (paid $80 in December 2010) worked without a hitch. I've read that somebody had problems with certain manufacturer memory/speed. But I can say for sure mine works great. No blue screen or whatever. Chips were made by Micron by the way.

Why would you want express delivery when the package is coming from China? I don't think it would make much difference, a day or two max. The regular ground shipping isn't that slow anyways. Save your money, buy a nice sleeve. Speaking of sleeve, I bought the lenovo 11" sleeve for x100e ($15). It's kind of big for 3 cell. I think it'll be loose even with the 6 cell.

 

Still doesn't explain why some people who ordered later got their machines, though. I ordered on the 2nd, but I'm hearing reports about people ordering a day or two after me who just got their machines this week. Mine is still just waiting and waiting.

 

I just canceled my order with Lenovo and then ordered the same one from Provantage. I called before I ordered and made sure they still have stock. Should ship Monday!

Everything was the same except the wireless, but I'll get over that real quick.

Edit: They actually just shipped it! Ordered an hour ago. Very impressive. Should see it Monday!

 

Not really, no. For international shipments, the majority of the shipping time is customs anyway, so it'll make a difference of one day, maximum. Besides, express shipping doesn't cut down on Lenovo's build time.

 

just got my X120e last week and i was wondering if anybody installed a ssd in to theirs. Is it running at full speed? I installed a Kingston V+ into mine and it's running slow(avg 160MB/SEC) compared to the advertised speed (230MB/SEC). I set the BIO HD setting to ACHI.

 

To the 3 cell battery owners, how much can you squeeze out from it with only surfing at 50% brightness?

Please do not quote Lenovo website (3.6 hrs on 3 cell) or other people (you would probably get 3 hours etc..), I want real time 3 cell owners here based on their experiences.

Thanks

 

I ordered on the 2nd and it arrive on the 10th. So something really is screwy.

As I said before, I suspect it's the different timing. You said the 4GB is 1066 7-7-7-20. The 2GB is probably 1333 9-9-9-24 or something like that. While the 2GB is being run at 1066, there's still a difference between them and the CPU may be accessing them at a speed that's incompatible with one of them, due to incorrect detection.

As I said before, the BIOS might have a way to manually set the RAM speed, which should allow selecting a speed that's compatible with both. And as cstavro2 said, it may be that just getting into the BIOS will be enough to fix the detection.

 

I'm using SSD, don't notice any slow downs, although I never did run any benchmarking. You should try your SSD on another computer and see if it's a platform problem or it might just be those "advertised" speed.

I get 2.5 hours playing 640x480 mp4 h264 video. I wrote a small review on page two of this thread. I believe it's not that much battery efficient compared to the regular voltage Sandy Bridge cpu. Much better than the previous AMD solutions though.

For light internet and document typing I get about 3 hours. But because I care about battery life, I only make it recharge from 70%-90%. So I can't really rely on battery too much. Just get the 6 cell if you are concerned about the battery hours. The power plug is in the back, so it's actually better to have the battery sticking out on the back. It prevents the power cord from getting bumped into when lifting the lapotp from the front. I never thought of the fact that the power plug is on the back, and not on the side. If I could do it over again, I would have ordered the 6 cell.

The faster 1333 ram has those timing, but they fall back to 7-7-7-20 when used in lower clock speed. I think these are standard compatible speeds. So the speed shouldn't really matter. See the pictures. These are my Crucial 1333 ram. Currently working with two 4GB sticks.

 

Does anyone know the PLL used on the x120e? I would love to overclock and squeeze a bit more performance out of it.

 

Personally I would like to undervolt it and have it run cooler so I could have more battery on the go while maintaining the same level of performance as I use to get.

 

Express shipping with CTO won't make a difference since its going via air from china most of the way, mine only spent 1 day from alaska --> TN hub, then one day from TN --> delivered. No real way to speed that up.

The tracking from china --> AK wasn't very clear on how long it actually took versus when they uploaded the tracking number.


I threw a another 4gb dimm in it for 6gb total, still shuffling around my SSDs but it will get one sooner or later along with a custom reinstall.

The keyboard and no gloss/build quality are really worth the small premium for people that use them every day like me.

 

I bought mine on ebay from somebody who had gotten the no-OS deal (and presumably other discounts, as the price was still ~$130 less than it would have been from Lenovo)

So far no complaints, it runs great with many things open, the screen is nice, but a little more reflective than I expected. I haven't encountered any of the audio issues people have mentioned. Now just looking to buy more ram for it...Any suggestions?

 

I read in a review of the Zacate a while back that AMD locked it down for minimal to no overclocking. I am too lazy to look up the article, but it was from one of the major benchmarking sites with a Zacate nettop.

For SSD owners, remember to update your sata drivers from AMD. The x120e is reported to ship with a driver that does not support trim. The updates on AMD's site work with the x120e (I know from experience). This should increase long term performance of your SSD.

Finally, the three cell. I have a three cell and I can get around 3.5 hours of light work at 50% with the spindle drive (It says 3:35 at 98% right now). I am hoping to squeeze a little more of it with the SSD, but the Intel drive is one of the more power hungry sata II drives out there (despite what they advertise), so we'll see.

 

Thanks. 3 1/2 hours is not bad then. Do you think it is possible to get 4 hours with just surfing and word processing without playing any videos? I'm not planning on upgrading the stock hd of 5400rpm to 7200rpm but might put an ssd in the future, you think 5400rpm saves more battery than 7200rpm?

 

At idle, I can get 7-8 Watt. Do the math, 31WH / 8W = 3.875H
I think it's a stretch to get even 3.5 hours of actual use. I find the windows battery gauge to be too optimistic.

Just adding one widget (battery gauge), CPU average utilization is around 2-3%. You can check this by opening command prompt as admin, type powercfg -energy

My config: wifi/bt on, brightness 5/15, 8GB, intel SSD.

 

Thanks. Then I guess his problem is different. Still, two different sticks could be have some different characteristics that might cause a problem. Or it indeed could be the second slot, but that should be easy to check.

 

I'm in the same boat as many others waiting on their orders with unexplained delays. I ordered 3/5 and was given a ship date of 3/17. On the 17th the ship date disappeared so I called Lenovo. They said their records showed a ship date of "the week of the 18th" and that there must have been some error online causing the date not to show up. Got up on 3/18, checked the online status and the date showed 3/29. Called Lenovo again, their story is that they received updated information from the supply chain and that they were now experiencing delays on multiple Thinkpad laptops. So I asked how confident they were in the 3/29 date, which got no reply. Pretty frustrating given the quick turns that people were seeing just a few days before I ordered.

[edit]It's like Lenovo was waiting for me to post something, just got the shipping notice which says the laptop shipped today which probably means the carrier will get it Monday and tracking might be available Tuesday.

 

Anyway I can get the dualcore version with 4gb ram for under $500?

Thinking of getting the x120e or the dm1z

 

My X120e is dual-core, paid $480 total for it, Lenovo direct. Juse need to add 15 bucks to get another 2GB.

If they ship it to me that is.

 

Here's a question for you x120e owners: is it worth switching to this from a T61 (specs in sig). I've been looking at this little guy and I wanted to know if it would be worth "upgrading" from my older Lenovo. Thoughts?

 

The question I will ask you before you "upgrade" to a x120e, Do you want a a notebook that is slightly more powerful than the netbook? This notebook would perfect for someone who uses it as a secondary machine and for those that wants to be on the go.

 

Well, compared to the T61, the x120e would provide you with:
-A lower res, smaller screen (only 1366x768 @ 11.6 inches)
-Much better battery life (5-6 hours instead of what I presume to be 2)
-According to notebookcheck.net, their GPUs have similar performance
-Slower CPU
-A best-in-class chicklet instead of standard thinkpad keyboard. It's very nice to type on, much better than any macbook keyboard I've tried.
-Lighter, thinner and smaller in every dimension

It's really depends on your needs. You're losing a fair amount of screen real estate, but retaining similar performance and better battery life in a smaller form factor. I use a custom desktop when I'm at home, but the x120e makes a great on-the-go computer at school that I can toss in my backpack and not have to worry about battery life or weight.