Thinkpad T420 Owner's Thread

Yes, the touchpad input isn't the greatest for scrolling. The two-finger scroll can only be done on the right hand side of my touchpad. Because of that, I can't move my fingers even a tad to the left or right while scrolling. I'll try the scroll app, thanks! I must say that the bumpiness of the touchpad is a nice change from my other notebooks. I don't usually use my notebooks' touchpad, but I will on the T420.

 

So when I contacted support about my keyboard issue, I was told that an engineer would call me back. I waited about 48 hrs thinking that it was kind of a long time not to hear from anyone, and all of a sudden this morning in the mail was a brand new keyboard. Honestly I was quite surprised. I just told someone in the support department my name, address, model # and that a key was basically stuck and all of a sudden they ship me a new one. If whoever I spoke with is out there reading this, Thanks!
On the other hand, what I realized I needed to do to fix the old keyboard was cut just a tiny sliver off the very top of the suction cup (button underneath the keycap). Now, the keycap sits slightly lower than the rest of the arrow keys and doesn't have quite as much spring as the rest of them, but doesn't basically trigger the keypress automatically and is totally functional....
By the way, if anyone is interested, in order to remove the keycaps on the arrow keys for the t420, what I found best was to pull up from the LEFT side and the key detaches from the brackets on that side. Then slide the keycap to the right to pop it out of the slot on that side. I think if you were to pull too hard on the right side, you would break the hinge or the keycap. Just my $.02.

 

Well here's a crazy proof of concept...

Caution: The following images can be distressing for the hardcore ThinkPadder.

Spoiler

Does it work? Well yes...



But what's important about this in general is that it shows the T420 to be unfussy when it comes to the EDID of the panel unlike some of the previous generation ThinkPads. Therefore it seems that instead of being tied to the two or three panels that Lenovo offers, anyone can choose a 14.0" panel (glossy or matte) of their fancy as long it uses the correct 40 pin LVDS connection and the user have the correct LCD cable to use it with. How interesting...

 

Fishnet? (Heavy sigh.)

 

Hearst, is that yours?? That is very very good news... All hope is not lost, then. What remains to be done is find a good 14'' panel and I'm set . I'm so desperate about the viewing angles that I would even give up the matte finish.

 

Yes it's my unit and it wasn't really hard to do the conversion since it took me about 5 minutes max! I'm on the look out to see which panel is worth changing to. The panel I have at the moment is the glossy version of the AUO B140RW02 V0 panel for testing purposes (well stripped out from an unit in my office), the graininess is gone due to the lack of antiglare coating which is a bit pleasing to my eyes but viewing angles is not as great still.

However it would be interesting to put the Alienware M14x's LG-Philips LP140WD2 panel in since NotebookCheck have praised the high contrast ratio and above average viewing angles. It is hard to find at the moment but I'll let you guys know if I come across it.

 

we had our power out in our neighborhood and I was happy that I had the ever lasting thinkpad battery but alas- it lasted 2 1/2 hours on full blast with the NVS4200! That is one power hungry GPU! My meter refected an available 14 hours with wifi off and screen dimmed- did a clean reinstall thru the USB- system no likey and install would not go through- burned an iso DVD and viola-it worked! I have read thru the net with a lot of complaints about installing thru the USB

 

in an almost perfect world, we'd have an HP radiance infinity panel (auo103e if i remember correctly) as an option for our damn expensive thinkpads...

 

After my T420 suffered a lot of scratches on the top lid cover (i'm not a fan of the rubber finish) I decided to give it the Carbon treatment...



I used 3M Di-Noc Carbon Fibre Vinyl which is the stuff they use on cars so it's a resiliant piece of kit, plus the texture really does feels like carbon fibre. It's not one of those cheap printed skins you find on some places.



The process does take a bit of time and effort, especially since you have to dismantle the unit to apply the vinyl properly. Looking back I didn't use the Hardware Maintenance Manual when I did this! Maybe I just got used to dismantling my system on many occasions...



I also did the palmrest and the touchpad still works so no more bumpy touchpad! Well not that it matters to me since I prefer using the TrackPoint anyway. But the matte like finish means that it's pretty much scratch proof and no longer a fingerprint magnet like before.



Unfortunately I ran out of the 3M Di-Noc to finish off the LCD Bezel and base but that probably comes next when I have the time and funds.

 

That is really awesome Hearst. Will you do my T420 now?