Thinkpads Forum

I am looking to buy a t420 and I was wondering if fan noise is still an issue? I am one of the more sensitive people to noise.
Would it be reasonably quiet after installing tpfan?

From my experience, the T420 is a relatively quiet and cool running machine. I previously owned a warm and noisy T60. So the T420 was a significant improvement.

The fan is only noticeable when it kicks in e.g. after hours of heavy use. This is when the RPM spins around 3400. Otherwise, it idles at around 1600 RPM or lower and it is barely audible.

I use a T420 at work running two HD external monitors, Outlook, Word, Excel, and multiple browsers, pages at least 10 hours per day, 5 days a week. The machine stays steady most of the time. Only occasionally does the fan kick in.

Caveat: my work T420 has an i7 CPU and the office is air conditioned. On the other hand, my personal T420 had an i5 CPU (I no longer own it). And I did notice that it ran a couple of degrees warmer and with more RPMs. Still, the differences between the two were not that significant.

I sold my T420 because I could not get used to the display. The widescreen and high resolution did not make it very conducive for text and reading (I have bad eyesight so this might not be an issue for others). Still, I would not hesitate to recommend it to anyone looking for a solid workhorse that runs cool and quiet.

I've owned every T series from the T41 onwards.

The T420 is one of, if not *the* quietest at idle that I've used. At peak it's comparable to the T410/T500, but still quieter than the T4x series.

thanks for the replies guys, may i know if you happened to buy your t420's in the last 6 months or so?

I bought mine back in June. The one from my work was purchased around April.

manish wrote:thanks for the replies guys, may i know if you happened to buy your t420's in the last 6 months or so?

I got mine right after they first went on sale.