Thinkpad T420s Owners' Thread

[orangebuddha]

I use visual settings of Best performance + smooth screen fonts. You might want to try this to see if it drops the power consumption. Also try different GPU power settings.

John

hi John, thanks for the suggestion. Only issue is, I can't seem to find these settings in Win 7. Sorry, can you tell me where they are?
I've used it more times now on battery, and seem to be able to consistently get 3 hours+. But nowhere near 4 hours. In the next couple of weeks i'm flying all around, so we'll see when the rubber really hits the road and i need battery the most .
I have the integrated GPU, not the Optimus one. Not sure if thats making the big difference.

[John Ratsey]

hi John, thanks for the suggestion. Only issue is, I can't seem to find these settings in Win 7. Sorry, can you tell me where they are?

My Computer > Properties > Advanced System Settings > Advanced > Performance.

See if that helps. Otherwise we will have to dig deeper. Did I share my Lenovo Power Manager settings?

John

[BobMugabe]

After some adjusting I found myself to be completely satisfied with my T420s, to the point even that I am starting to consider selling off my X220 i7-2620M IPS. The T420s simply handles and travels better and more comfortably than the X220s, judged at least from my own perspective and requirements. Pairing it with an Ultraslim AC Combo adapter and predominantly flying with airlines that offer on-board power sockets on long intercontinental flights really contributed to my productivity.

(and what I now know about the T430s only makes me more convinced that this will be the line I will stick with ;-)

Very cool, wditters. I noticed your sig says you have a T420s with 16GB of ram... how'd you manage that? Is there something special you have to do to get the machine to recognize 16gb?

Thanks!

[huntmol]

Well I will soon be switching from the X220 brotherhood to the T420s brotherhood. The small screen size eventually wore on me and with the good cyber monday deal running on a T420s with an Intel SSD I decided to jump on it!

Ordered my T420s with:

-Win 7 Professional
-Intel i5 2.5GHZ 2520
-4 GB RAM
-1600x900 display
-160GB Intel SSD
-Intel Centrino 6300 3x3 wireless card
-720p HD webcam

Should be receiving it in a few weeks so I'm pretty excited! I'll be grateful for the bigger screen yet still lightweight chassis.

Same here, there were some great deals to be had this past week.

[huntmol]

Soon-to-be T420s owner, checking in! Upgrading from a T60.

EDIT: Hm, I appear to have posted right underneath myself. Maybe I mixed up my tabs or something....

[wditters]

Very cool, wditters. I noticed your sig says you have a T420s with 16GB of ram... how'd you manage that? Is there something special you have to do to get the machine to recognize 16gb?

Thanks!

Nope it just did with Samsung M471B1G73AH0. Mind you I cannot give a full guarantee on that. However, Matt Kohut's comment on Lenovoblogs.com may reassure you a little bit. Mind you, it will also affect battery life.

Matt Kohut said on February 23rd, 2011 10:05 am :
"Petr — Yes they will support 16GB of RAM, but I think we’re not qualifying the 8GB sticks for them as of yet, so for now you’re on your own"

http://www.lenovoblogs.com/insidethe...hinkpad-t420s/

[huntmol]

Mind you, it will also affect battery life.

How negatively will 16GB of RAM affect the battery life?

[wditters]

How negatively will 16GB of RAM affect the battery life?

I see no dramatic changes compared to 8Gb

[blindzior]

Hi again, im back after using t420s a couple of months and wondering if you guys figured out what SATA ports does this machine really have? for main hard drive and cdrom? It was meant to be SATAIII but some people says that it's only SATAII.

[Thors.Hammer]

Hi again, im back after using t420s a couple of months and wondering if you guys figured out what SATA ports does this machine really have? for main hard drive and cdrom? It was meant to be SATAIII but some people says that it's only SATAII.

The Ultrabay and Primary bay are SATA III. The PCIe mSATA implementation is SATA II.