Thinkpads Forum

Just got my T400 on Monday after ordering on the previous Tues. Pretty quick. Anyway, I'm coming from a T43 that was fantastic. It was a workhorse that was used all day every day.

I've noticed that the hidden partitions aren't hidden anymore. What is the Lenovo and service partitions? Recovery goes to Service partition? And the other?

Also, I got the LED backlit. It's bright as hell! Is it me or are the colors washed a little?

Anything else I should know or do with the new machine? I am new to Vista, so I'm just about lost with this new unit.

Thanks,

Coming from a t30, I found the colors to be better, and are not washed out in comparison to any of the screens here. I would warn you to try the range of the brightness though. If you're running too bright, it could make it seem washed just because it's in a darker environment. I think one partition is for backup, the other for recovery, but I'm not sure. I cleared it all away in favor for XP (I can't stand Vista.) If you don't have any issues, then there probably isn't anything more you need to know. Just make sure to lookup how to switch graphics (using the icon in the task bar) before it you need it. Enjoy your new laptop!

Thanks for the reply.

Not to sound like a total idiot, but can you explain the switching graphics thing? How and why would I need that?

Also, When the laptop goes into and out of sleep, the beep that sounds is extremely loud. Is there any way to lower that?

I've also found that the difference in the two battery icons with the time left is considerably different. Any fixes for that?

I know I'm behind on the T400's, but is there any place I can follow up with in regards to basic knowledge and fixes, tweaks of this laptop?

And Vista takes some getting used to! wow

kduniverse wrote:Not to sound like a total idiot, but can you explain the switching graphics thing? How and why would I need that?

The higher performance (for certain purposes) GPU draws more power and so gives shorter battery duration, it also used more memeory. The standard performance GPU (for most purposes) draws less power, gives longer battery duration and uses less memory.

If you are running Vista, you can choose on the fly which GPU you will use.

Cheers,

Bill B.

Thanks for the explanation.

Has anyone had the audio issue I'm having? The system volume when it beeps in and out of sleep, or when you plug and unplug the power is extremely loud. Is there anyway to lower that? It's not the same as the audio from the speakers, so the volume buttons don't control that.

Edit: I noticed what was happening with the defrag issue.

Thanks everyone

I'm also noticing my hdd activity is extremely active. Even when i'm not using the laptop. I checked the task manager, and noticed i'm using way over 1GB of memory, CPU usage is erratic, but I don't know wha'ts causing this. Anything I can check or turn off?

According to the resource monitor, i'm currently at CPU 82%, disk 100%, and memory 58%. I have no idea what's causing this.

kduniverse wrote:I'm also noticing my hdd activity is extremely active. Even when i'm not using the laptop. I checked the task manager, and noticed i'm using way over 1GB of memory, CPU usage is erratic, but I don't know wha'ts causing this. Anything I can check or turn off?

According to the resource monitor, i'm currently at CPU 82%, disk 100%, and memory 58%. I have no idea what's causing this.

It could be:
1. Vista defrag
2. built-in OS optimization (apart from prefetch/superfetch)
3. another scheduled tasks
4. indexing service if the Vista install is still fresh or you have put some more amount of data (like music, pics, e-books collections) on it
5. prefetch/superfetch (that´s the 10min HD thrash after boot)

You can check for 1 and 3 under scheduled tasks. 2 is good for your system. 4 and 5 have been recently discussed a few times on this forum, so you may want to search the forum for these Indexing updated files doesn´t cause high cpu usage, rather only HD activity. Apart from that you may want to check your system for malware as some of it tends to use system idle times (for example) to communicate to the outer world...

Hope this helps

Marin