Thinkpad T420 Owner's Thread

[crapic]

Guys, what's the latest news on your mighty Quad upgrades?
Has anybody stress tested an upgraded T420 yet(code compilation/video encoding)? Is it a safe upgrade? Or does the laptop becomes unstable?

I'm asking as I need a bit more power in my T420 and I'm not sure what's best: buy an ivy laptop or upgrade the cpu. I mainly run couple of parallel VMs and compile code (c/c++/java)

Cheers

Hi,

It works properly with i7 2720qm. One thin is cooling system - it a little is not enough specially on long term compiling and it can't use Turbo bust fully.
I am using engineering sample.

I made screenshot and you can see the situation.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/22412698/T420/cpu%20clock.jpg
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/22412698/T420/cpu%20temp.jpg

This is compiling large GWT application.

[ha1o2surfer]

Guys, what's the latest news on your mighty Quad upgrades?
Has anybody stress tested an upgraded T420 yet(code compilation/video encoding)? Is it a safe upgrade? Or does the laptop becomes unstable?

I'm asking as I need a bit more power in my T420 and I'm not sure what's best: buy an ivy laptop or upgrade the cpu. I mainly run couple of parallel VMs and compile code (c/c++/java)

Cheers

I have been loving my Quad Core. Unlike everybody who claims battery life lost or overheating I have been having zero problems. Sorry guys

I do a lot of gaming with my eGPU like Skyrim and BF3 and Just Cause 2 so I push it a lot. I have seen temps of 75 but rarely anything higher. Just make sure you apply your thermal paste properly and keep your cooling system free of dust and lint. It idles around 38-43 When on Intel only mode and 40-45 when on Optimus mode.

I run loads of VM's for all the syspreping I do as well as creating images, super fast and I can run an entire Network Eco system right inside Virtualbox.

If you have any specific questions or if anybody wants any detail info like in a video let me know!

[david.radkowski]

Thanks for the swift replies!

My only concern would be temperature: I've got 80GB mSata SSD with 2 HDDs (Momentus hybrids): the main one and one in a caddy (swapped DVD), 16GB ram and onboard GPU. Do you guys think the genuine heatsink will still cope? Or shall I swap one of the HDDs for an SSD as well?

Cheerio

[ha1o2surfer]

Thanks for the swift replies!

My only concern would be temperature: I've got 80GB mSata SSD with 2 HDDs (Momentus hybrids): the main one and one in a caddy (swapped DVD), 16GB ram and onboard GPU. Do you guys think the genuine heatsink will still cope? Or shall I swap one of the HDDs for an SSD as well?

Cheerio

You can choose whatever you like as far as Hard Drives and SSD's go. Those do not effect the ability for the heat sink to cool down the CPU/GPU. Laptop hard drives do not generate enough heat to warrant the use of a heatsink.

[david.radkowski]

hi. thanks for the replies! i've just replaced the cpu so far so good!
the temperature is about 35-38 idling.
i'm actually installing win7 and ubuntu simultaneously in two VBoxes now and the temp hovers around 48-55, which i recon is not bad at all.

will have to compile something to convince myself

somebody said he had to revert back to the genuine CPU due to issues (sorry don't remember who that was). what issues exactly? running what software? i'm asking as i have the same cpu (a retail one) not the ES type.

cheerio

[mushypizza]

Has anyone tried RapidBoot? Does it really increase boot time or makes things slower?

[ha1o2surfer]

Has anyone tried RapidBoot? Does it really increase boot time or makes things slower?

If you have a harddrive, which you do, it does help even out the load caused by starting up services and programs sequentially all at once. If you have an SSD, the boot up times hit the fan

[david.radkowski]

Few more observations:

- burned all 8 cores with *systester* (cpu+mem) - no throttling observed, temp went up to 92 and hovered around 85-87 (run 3h)
- the battery (9cell extended one) discharged in less than 1h, 65W power adaptor although connected wasn't charging the battery
- once the battery had gone, the test continued on 65W adapter and it got _REALLY_ hot, I mean pipping hot, event the table it was on got hot!
- the laptop was hotter than usual, however, the ram compartment got much hotter than the bottom of the cpu; I recon you wouldn't be able to keep it on your laps for longer periods of time

So it looks like a decent thermal paste and the stock heatsink can do the job unlike the stock 65W power brick.

Do you guys know any decent 90W replacement power adapter for T420? UK location preferable
Are there any mods to cool the interior of the laptop down (ram mainly) ?

PS.
I run linux arch + custom kernel with thinkpad_acpi module with the genuine thinkfan configuration, so the max fan RPMs kick in early at about 70 C.

Cheerio

Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using Tapatalk 2

[Hearst]

Do you guys know any decent 90W replacement power adapter for T420? UK location preferable

Look on eBay for genuine Lenovo 90w 20v adapters, I managed to get an used one for £6.99 and it works perfectly so getting one for less than a tenner is doable. 90w adapters from the T6x era onwards will be compatible with the T420 (my one came from a T60).

[david.radkowski]

Another odd observation. Just got a 125W power supply and rerun the benchmark test and observed much lower temperatures !?

I recon it's a pass and I'm happy with the mod so far. Thanks for help.

Cheers

Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using Tapatalk 2