General Babbling: My New T500

[ArtShapiro]

I purchased a very nice T500 (2055-AS4) from a forum member last week. I wanted a second machine to supplant my R61; both my T60p machines have been having major overheating issues (I've posted before) and one finally self-destructed.

I really like the machine. If the screen isn't quite as good as the R61's, it's a more responsive and sleeker box. Six gigs of memory is fine.

I installed Win8.1 Pro on an SSD. Some of the drivers didn't appear on the Lenovo driver matrix, but a few hours of web searching got rid of all the yellow exclamation points.

But I'm having a few issues. Can anyone advise?:

The fingerprint reader shows as OK in the Device Manager, but there's no sign of any software to use it, despite installing the Lenovo software. Not a big deal, as I've had fairly dismal results with the readers on my other machines, but still, it would be nice.

The machine appears to have switchable graphics, and I installed the appropriate graphics software from Lenovo as well as the power manager, but there's no indication anywhere as to where to switch modes. So while I puzzle this one out, I've switched the BIOS into integrated graphics mode.

And I'm having a lot of trouble with the wireless. I had to manually set up a connection to my home network, as the normal act of clicking on the SSID from the list of availables and then entering the wireless key simply failed to authenticate. Manually configuring out of control panel worked fine. And there was an hour of fruitless struggle at the local Starbucks; the best I could do was a "limited" connection after all the tricks I could muster with the wireless adapter. This is a show-stopper.

I'm hoping this guy is fully usable with 8.1, which will presumably upgrade to 10 soon. The R61 runs fine with 10, so I'd at least hope that the later-vintage T500 could cope with 8.1 and 10.

Art

[Hans Gruber]

Lenovo system update has the fingerprint reader. I am working on a T500 myself that I got last week. There are 3 options, critical updates, recommended updates and optional updates. It's usually in the optional updates tab but I think on the T500 the fingerprint update was in the recommended update tab. Try restarting your computer a few times and run the system update a few times. The updates do not always show up on the Lenovo system update on the first try.

Lenovo has a manually update for the T500 in their downloads section under the technical support tab on their website.

The Windows update should grab a bunch of the drivers you need in the windows update on Windows.

[ArtShapiro]

Lenovo system update has the fingerprint reader. ... The updates do not always show up on the Lenovo system update on the first try.

The Windows update should grab a bunch of the drivers you need in the windows update on Windows.

Thanks, Hans, but (alas) I'd done all that numerous times before posting. Automatic and manual efforts.

Has anyone out there gotten the switchable graphics capability to work on a T500 under Windows 8.1 (or 10) x64?

Art

[precip9]

As far as wireless, after a lot of fooling, I concluded that the go-to driver for the 5X00 series of Intel wireless cards is version 17.06. Don't go earlier or later.

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/24170

[Hans Gruber]

I am having problems with my ATI switchable graphics as well on my T500. I downloaded the ATI switchable graphics from Lenovo update after turing on the discrete graphics and switchable graphics in the bios. It said the driver was not a signed driver.

[TPFanatic]

Hello.

I have Lenovo Power Manager v6.67.5 on Windows 7 and I can access the ability to switch between graphics (Energy Saving Intel or High Peformance Radeon) by right-clicking on the power manager section of the taskbar.

http://i.imgur.com/onam6mu.png

After switching graphics I get a notification that Power Manager has stopped working, but the graphics switch is successful and Power Manager still seems to work.

I have noticed that when using ATI Mobility Radeon HD3650 the screen brightness control is disabled. The bar to modify brightness under power options in control panel disappears and the hotkeys do not function. This does not happen when I use Intel graphics.

Thanks.

[ArtShapiro]

Let me go on for a minute with the saga.

The machine updated itself to Windows 10 last week. It's been quite stable. I'm convinced after lots of DuckDuckGoing that the fingerprint software simply doesn't work beyond Windows 7. That's OK. And apparently the switchable graphics capacity doesn't work beyond Windows 7 either.

My wireless issues seem to have stabilized - I was able to connect to two coffee shops last weekend, one a secure site requiring a password, and one Starbucks that pops up an "Accept and Connect" screen. I previously couldn't connect to the latter.

There's one irritation that I hadn't mentioned before, and which continues in Windows 10: I can't get the Hotkey FN-Spacebar to actuate the magnifier. Installing the Hotkey Drivers only shows the On Screen Display, and no other options. And for what it's worth, the OSD flat out doesn't display anything, although the function keys still work for the Thinklight and the brightness up/down. With my aging eyesight, the magnifier would be a nice feature, and the Hotkey magnifier is a lot more user-friendly than the inbuilt Windows one.

Anyone else seeing similar behavior?

Art

[Hans Gruber]

I see the same phenomena regarding the sometimes working OSD on thinkpads including the T500. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

[ajkula66]

Anyone else seeing similar behavior?

You need Power Manager - which Lenovo officially stopped supporting after W7 - in order for the Hotkeys to work properly.