Initial Impressions and Questions: 2623D3U

[Zarkon]

I ordered the 2623D3U on 3/12. It shipped nine days later on 3/21, even though it was scheduled to ship on 4/7.

The D3U model has the T2500 processor, 1GB RAM, an X1400, and a 15" FlexView screen.

Some comments/questions:

1. I'm loving the FlexView. I doubt I'll ever have a situation where I'm forced to look at the screen from an odd angle, but it just looks nifty. After using the AC adapter for an entire day, it's pretty annoying to have the screen darken noticeably when I switch to battery. Something to get used to, I guess.

2. Does wireless reception go down when running off of the battery? I've noticed that I get dropped more frequently when compared to using the AC adapter. Note that I only have one access point to test with, and its signal strength is always below 15%.

3. I have the Panasonic 9V battery, and unlike some other users, the fit is fine. I've been mostly using my AC adapter, but the battery monitor tells me I should be getting around 5 hours of battery life while I'm running Firefox and playing MP3s.

4. No dead pixels at all.

5. The fan seems to be always on, but since I've used desktops exclusively for the past nine years, the noise isn't an issue for me. However, when I'm running off of the battery, there's an irregular whine that's coming from the battery/fan area. Does anyone else hear this? It doesn't happen when I'm using the AC adapter.

6. I added a 1GB stick of ram (from Patriot). I'm not very good at assembling things, so this was pretty frustrating -- in particular, reattaching the palmrest was a challenge because the instructions in the upgrade guide is misleading. Instead of lining up those little tabs on the side, it's better to line up the edge of the palmrest facing you with the edge of the laptop.

7. The beeping when I accidentally press three buttons simultaneously is annoying. Is there a way to disable it, without disabling all the other system beeps? (Edit: solution)

8. Although this laptop is far faster than my old desktop (Athlon XP 2100+), it takes three times longer to boot up even with Google Desktop/etc removed, which is somewhat annoying. But since there's no apparent slowdown/lag once everything's loaded, I can't really complain.

9. The activity indicators being right below the screen is a tad distracting. Especially the wireless one, because it blinks whenever there's network activity.

10. I've used the Windows key for a long time, so it's nice to have it on the ThinkPad. But the Fn key pushes the Ctrl/Windows keys down, which is frustrating because I always end up pushing Ctrl instead of Windows.

11. How do I disable the CAPS LOCK: ON/OFF popup that appears when I press the caps lock buton? I always press it accidentally, and it interferes with some full-screen games.

[hoya]

1) Access Connections increases boot time, so that is a possible culprit. norton AV is also another resource hog - eTrust EZ AntiVirus is a much better solution and they have a 12-month trial version.

2) use power manager to control screen brightness when on battery power.

3) there is a setting for the power mgmt on the WiFi card. go to device manager, find your card, then check those settings.

4) that other sound you hear is probably the capacitors. I've heard that on many T43's so it's nothing to worry about but very annoying. you'll find several threads on that in the T4x forums (high-pitched sound, etc.)

5) check Advanced display properties for the On Screen Display tab to disable the Caps lock issue.

[Hamid]

Zarkon, could you please check out your 2623-D3U and tell me what keyboard (NBM,ALPS,Chicony) and LCD it has got?

[tcatalfa]

My 2623d3u shows the bus clock to run at 167 mhz. This is reported by running the Belarc utility. It is advertised to run at 533 mhz.

Is there a way to configure this manually, say, in the bios? I opened up a ticket with the IBM / Lenovo help desk and they were baffled; told me that I needed to adjust the power settings. The system clock shows 167 mhz whether on power brick, dock, or on battery.

Thanks...

[darrenf]

166.2 is the correct bus speed. Since four pieces of data are transmitted with each clock cycle (a process known as QDR), the "bus speed" is routinely multiplied by 4 by the advertising department.

-darren

[NJRonbo]

I own the 2623D7U.

I also notice that bootup takes forever on
these T60 models.

[tcatalfa]

166.2 is the correct bus speed. Since four pieces of data are transmitted with each clock cycle (a process known as QDR), the "bus speed" is routinely multiplied by 4 by the advertising department.

-darren

Thanks... but I am confused, because when I run the same test on my eMachine T5026 which has a p4-3.06 GHz, the results show a bus speed of 533 MHz. Is this an apples to apples comparison? Or, is the T60 running slow for some reason?

Thanks.

[lithium726]

Just a different chipset reporting a different thing to belarc.

the system runs off a 667mhz FSB (its not 533 - that was the T43/Sonoma). this is 166mhz multiplied by 4. your CPU is 2ghz - this is 166mhz multiplied by 12.

use CPUZ to verify your bus and clockspeeds.