New X220 tablet fingerprint power-on and scrolling woes
Posted: Thu Jun 28, 2012 4:33 pm
I recently picked up a new X220 tablet to replace my rather aged (but beloved and still running) X41 tablet - overall I'm quite happy with the unit, and to me the speed of the integrated graphics are astounding (especially with dual-channel memory in it now).
One of the annoyances I've had with the system however is the senseless choice lenovo has made to, by default, leave the fingerprint reader on even with the system *powered off*, wasting battery power so that I can't just leave my system unplugged/off for a week and make the assumption I can just pick it up and go with full battery.
No big deal - the built-in fingerprint software includes a (very obscure) menu option to disable this behaviour - problem solved.
Then, I started really missing the lack of scroll keys on the screen face for tablet mode; my old X41 had these and their loss is frustrating (especially because I ordered the outdoor display unit since I have no real need/want to finger touch input and thus can't scroll with that). I had seen vague notes online that many modern fingerprint readers could be used as impromptu scroll wheels with the right drivers - the UPEK unit in the X220T is apparently one of these. After some digging I managed to find this software package:
http://consumerdl.lenovo.com.cn/UserFil ... P01WW1.exe
Which is also a lenovo-branded version of the UPEK software (probably for some other Lenovo notebook), but this one actually does support fingerprint scrolling. Success! The pack works great, and now I can scroll in tablet mode easily.
The only problem is, *this* software package appears to include no functionality to fully disable the fingerprint reader when powered off. I can disable power-on by fingerprint from working with it (I think the reader flashes orange when I try and swipe or something?), but the light stays lit and the notebooks still wastes power when off. Argh!
Does anybody know of a method for getting fingerprint scrolling working on an X220T while at the same time disabling the power-on by fingerprint functionality completely? I'd really rather not have to remember to pull my notebook's battery out and re-insert it every time I power it down.
One of the annoyances I've had with the system however is the senseless choice lenovo has made to, by default, leave the fingerprint reader on even with the system *powered off*, wasting battery power so that I can't just leave my system unplugged/off for a week and make the assumption I can just pick it up and go with full battery.
No big deal - the built-in fingerprint software includes a (very obscure) menu option to disable this behaviour - problem solved.
Then, I started really missing the lack of scroll keys on the screen face for tablet mode; my old X41 had these and their loss is frustrating (especially because I ordered the outdoor display unit since I have no real need/want to finger touch input and thus can't scroll with that). I had seen vague notes online that many modern fingerprint readers could be used as impromptu scroll wheels with the right drivers - the UPEK unit in the X220T is apparently one of these. After some digging I managed to find this software package:
http://consumerdl.lenovo.com.cn/UserFil ... P01WW1.exe
Which is also a lenovo-branded version of the UPEK software (probably for some other Lenovo notebook), but this one actually does support fingerprint scrolling. Success! The pack works great, and now I can scroll in tablet mode easily.
The only problem is, *this* software package appears to include no functionality to fully disable the fingerprint reader when powered off. I can disable power-on by fingerprint from working with it (I think the reader flashes orange when I try and swipe or something?), but the light stays lit and the notebooks still wastes power when off. Argh!
Does anybody know of a method for getting fingerprint scrolling working on an X220T while at the same time disabling the power-on by fingerprint functionality completely? I'd really rather not have to remember to pull my notebook's battery out and re-insert it every time I power it down.