The Ultra T410 Guide (No RJ-11 w/ RS-232 please)

[Navck]

These posts will be constantly updated.
BATTERY GUIDE FOUND IN THIRD POST. GET CLOSE TO 7-10 HOURS ON A 9 CELL LIKE I DO

A world first, because nobody decided to *actually* show the insides of a T410.
http://img707.imageshack.us/img707/3799/dsc2182w.jpg
Chassis (Everything in place)
http://img696.imageshack.us/img696/8835/dsc2176.jpg
Chassis (Heatsink removed!)
http://img243.imageshack.us/img243/3262/dsc2174.jpg
Keyboard (No, there is no flex. If there is, see my followup post on how to fix that. I type 150WPM so don't call me a liar, especially with my Model M and Model M13.)
http://img248.imageshack.us/img248/3074/dsc2172o.jpg
Heatsink (Facing up)
http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/2488/dsc2171.jpg
Heatsink (Upside down)
http://img33.imageshack.us/img33/5381/dsc2170.jpg
Bezel (What is this about weak mesh? Bullpuckey, those holes are durable.)

Seeing none of the review sites would do this, I decided to do this.
Boots in 22-25 seconds on a harddrive, running at 41C right now, fan occasionally spooling up to the lowest setting.

HARDWARE MAINTENANCE MANUAL (HMM) FOR T410
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-74470

MAINTENANCE VIDEOS
http://www.lenovoservicetraining.com/io ... index.html

Build quality:
Perfect, don't say it flexes or bows or anything, the T410 I have is inherently better than my T43 in construction period.
Complaints? Go down and maybe I can help you solve them. See all my posts on why the T410 has excellent engineering and why people have funny, old world ideas on quality ("Evil lid, it flexes, therefore it is a cheap, evil, non true Thinkpad!" Silly, thats part of how it is designed to absorb some of the stress to prevent damage to the LCD. Read my many posts) Also refer to my "first impressions" topic! (Locked)

By the way, for an odd test, I pushed one of my replacement T43 keyboards against my T410 keyboard. The T410 keyboard bent/deformed less. What does this say about "keyboard flex?" (Read: Make believe insanity)

The T410 is a Thinkpad as much as the Thinkpads of the past. It is such a good machine that people have enough time to find "flaws" like "flex" and "creaking." Now that is something Lenovo's Marketing department should realize. A machine so good that people can't find actual, valid flaws about it. Amazing.

Tips for cleaning your T410:
Car detailing spray works wonders, I mean it. Spray it onto a microfiber cloth and wipe the exterior, make sure you wipe the exterior dry. (However, please contact the manufacturer and ask them if its safe with plastic, rubber and possibly your LCD!)
DO use a high quality, clean microfiber cloth when wiping your Thinkpad down.
Pentel Hi Polymer OR Staedtler Mars erasers CAN be used to clean the outside of your Thinkpad as well. The Mars erasers will actually darken the rubberized lid a little. The HiPolys are generally nice to just scrub the outside with as well, they'll make your lid look a little more grayish. However they do work wonder on the plastics (Less shiny.)
Isopropyl alcohol is a wonderful alternative for car detailing spray if you need to clean the lid in a jiffy.
Once in a while, remove your keyboard and shake the crums out, then get a can of duster gas or a blower bulb and aim at the heatsink fan. Watch as a cloud of white dust sprays out of the vent ports from your fan. If you plan on removing the heatsink, blast the underside of the fan too and from all sides. If you are using a can of duster gas OR compressed air with limited pressure, hold the fan in place.
Taking your T410 apart anyways? Get a small, soft bristled paintbrush OR a photography brush for lenses and lightly agitate the dust before using a can of duster gas or compressed air with limited pressure. It'll make life easier.
Blast all your ports too, those get dusty over time.

Resolving some of the "problems" with your T410 (Ex: Creaking) Part one of many!
DO NOT USE A POWER TOOL, EVER. YOU MUST USE A SMALL SCREWDRIVER AND BE VERY GENTLE, IF NOT A TORQUEDRIVER FOR SAFETY.
RAM door seems to be arching/buldging out?
Remove the screw retaining it, pop it out of the slot. Insert it on the opposite side from the screw at an angle, ensuring it properly seats with the funky clips. Align the screw and ensure BOTH plastic tabs on the sides ALSO firmly seat. Tighten the screw to torque spec but do not hamfist it.

Keyboard flexes, especially for the escape key or such?
Remove the RAM slot door, remove the keyboard retaining screw, remove the keyboard. See the small pieces of metal that poke up? Lift those slightly, they may of been bent flat. Do one more thing, run your index finger over the top left area of your keyboard bezel. Does it flex? If it does, see the hardware maintance manual. Remove all the screws associated with the keyboard bezel. Push lightly on the left side of the bezel (Near the speaker mesh) and make sure it firmly seats with the lower body plastic. Retighten the screws to torque spec or SLIGHTLY more. The area where the fan is should be extremely firm now (I kid not). Replace the keyboard, your flex will be gone now.

Making your T410 run cooler:
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=45&t=85643

Fan noise driving you nuts? I'll post an update later for my TPFC settings on smart after I did my thermal paste.
Want to get 10 hours of battery life on discrete graphics like I do? I'll also post an update foor that later.


This is, of course, if no one is offended by my post (Oh no, I am an evil harddrive user who can boot in less than 30 seconds! Word 2003 even loads in a second! Oh wait, I also somehow achieve 10 hours and have no weird creaking noises from my T410!) and asks a moderator to close this topic! Oh and to finish some finals up.

[Navck]

Fan and temperature:I have reported that the T410 can reach 91C, but that was before I blasted the heatsink and had clouds of dust come out... Right now fully loaded it doesn't seem to want to exceed 70C.

May 14, 2010 tables

Standard cooling

Level=36 128
Level=41 0
Level=42 1
Level=44 1
Level=45 2
Level=46 2
Level=48 3
Level=51 5
Level=57 6
Level=66 7
Level=72 128

Aggressive cooling (Kind of obsolete now.)

Level2=38 0
Level2=42 1
Level2=44 2
Level2=45 4
Level2=46 6
Level2=56 6
Level2=62 7
Level2=64 128

Low "fan noise" profile, you have a bit less thermal inertia since the fan won't be cooling to 42-44C.

Level2=38 0
Level2=41 0
Level2=42 1
Level2=47 1
Level2=55 4
Level2=58 5
Level2=60 5
Level2=64 7
Level2=72 128

This is my current table for my usual fan settings, the T410 idles fairly silent but will ramp the fan up quickly from extended heating. It is less aggressive than Lenovo's default BIOS settings for thermal inertia (Low end fan speed is virtually next to idling.)

These tables will change the more I use the T410 and I will add more to this.

Speaker makes a popping sound/no sound?
Remove the keyboard and bezel, inspect if the wires to the speaker are frayed, which can happen when they rub the chassis. You just need a little electrical tape to patch the small area where the insulation gets rubbed through. This is a short to ground generally.

Left palmrest creaking?
This is a little advanced, but you have two ways of fixing this. Remove the smartcard reader and buy the filler piece (See: HMM) and quit your company if it requires smartcards (I kid, of course). Or you can alternatively, buy a stack of index cards, trim them to size and use a little tape to fit them right over the index card reader. Do not forcefully compress then, check the clearance gap between the reader and palmrest and insert just enough to make a little padding there. I would also use a holepuncher to make a few holes (Or a lot.) so heat can still freely radiate upwards from the harddrive. Ideally you want to punch holes like your Expresscard slot filler so the paper (Which is an excellent insulator) does not insulate the left palmrest. Also some small pieces of tape to hold the index card stack over the palmrest would be a good idea to keep them from moving when you fit the bezel back on.

DVD drive does not latch properly?
Don't push the drive in by the half near the USB port/eject button. Push it by the area closer to the audio jack. It'll latch solidly on the first try.

Really love your battery enough to unplug it from your T410?
If you plan on storing your battery for long periods unplugged from your Thinkpad... Get two large ziplock bags, those tiny packets you find in shoeboxes and other items (Known as silica packets) and discharge your battery to about 40-45%. Stick your battery into the first ziplock bag with the packets. Push all the air out of the bag, wrap it around the battery and seal it. Put your outer bag around that. I wouldn't throw the battery into the freezer side. If you have to use the battery, let it "thaw out" (You don't want to induce a thermal shock by suddenly heating it) with the bag open. The packets should keep the humidity down in that bag.

Want to make your battery last longer without putting it into the fridge?
Keep the state of charge (Use the power manager to set your thresholds) around 40-50% when you're not planning to use it. When you do have to charge it up or discharge, don't go and run the most battery intensive program you can. The cells in the pack do not like it when you do heavy discharges. The gentler the discharge rate the happier the cells. Also if your machine runs hot then the battery is also elevated in temperature.

For more on the subject of your battery pack and how to make it live longer, please see this page:
http://www.batteryuniversity.com/parttwo-34.htm

Reserved for future information like run time improvements.

[Navck]

The All Important Battery Life Guide
So you've seen my screenshots of 10 hours on a 9 cell battery. Some of you probably think I'm a dirty liar who works for Lenovo and the HDD-and-military-industrial-complex. However as far as I know, I'm not compensated by them for saying anything good about specific products. Well if you're not part of that crowd, then feel free to start reading.

By the way: i7-620m, NVS3100m, 320GB 7.2k HDD
Power hungry beast? Nope.

The foremost important factor isn't about trying to undervolt this and that (Arrandale doesn't let you anyways, Intel did their own thing this time and it is a fairly capable solution.) but instead, your usage habits.
Yes, you heard me, you, the user, determines how much battery you can get out of your T410. It actually is dependent on the way you do things. I'll get to that in a moment, but let us get all the physical-laptop-and-software-end items out of the way:

Initial steps
1. Disable all unnecessary services you don't use. Use the start menu searchbox or Winkey-R, services.msc
http://www.blackviper.com/Windows_7/servicecfg.htm This will help you figure some of the descriptions out.
2. Aggressive idle timers for battery usage, dim or turn the screen off after 1 minute. Suspended, HDD spindown depends on you but I personally don't worry about those.
3. Disable your anti virus program's real time protection capability IF you know you're going to be fairly safe. Those are CPU cycles it needs everytime you have something happen on the FS and memory end. Every little bit of overhead counts.
4. Don't run programs you know that are horribly coded, closed or open source, just don't run something that you KNOW to be terribly unoptimized if it isn't vital.
5. If anything from 4 is running in the background, kill those off too. You're making the 1-3 watt difference for your processor power consumption here.
6. Turn on the LCD dimming features for boot/shutdown/hibernate/etc.

Now with most of the conventional stuff out of the way, realize this is your power consumption spectrum:
LCD ~ 1-5W
CPU ~ 1-35W
GPU ~ 1-35W
HDD/SSD ~ 1-3W
DVD/CD ~ 1-5W (Powers off/Deep idle state capable, so don't worry)
Planar ~ 1-5W
Fan ~ 1-3W
USB ~ 2.5W EACH PORT (You heard me. Your flash drive, printer? Plug your T410 in for a print job, watch your battery meter drop two hours.)
Various indicator lights combined ~ 1W (Tops. Rounding up. Including Thinklight. However if you had a backlit keyboard this number goes up fast.)
RAM ~ "Insignificantly low number close to 1-2W" (You can't do anything here, period.)
Wireless ~ I don't have a number

The overview here is that
LCD - You can power this on and off because you have a LED backscreen. Guess what that means? 2W on low brightness? Power it off. Power. It. Off. This is ALSO a part of usage habits.
CPU - You can't do anything besides the above AND usage habits. I'll get to this.
GPU - nvidia system tools. Your NVS3100m can constantly change clockspeed depending on GPU load. However, as NVIDIA is completely incompetent in the driver department, it floors the throttle everytime you alt tab with Aero. See below the usage guide on how to make it stop being obnoxious. Also decreases your temperature.
Optical drive - It powers off anyways. This shouldn't matter at this point, short of removing it and loading a travel bezel on (Why.)
HDD/SSD - This is fixed power consumption. I don't care if people tell you that platters or NAND will save you power. Look at the idle versus peak power consumption .
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd ... 55-14.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/not ... 06-16.html
See this? You can ONLY change your usage habits at this point.
Planar - This is fixed usage. All the subcomponents like the ICs will have to do their own thing.
Fan - You're insane if you try to kill the fan in the quest for higher temperatures, greater "silence" and "less power consumption." Don't touch the fan.
USB/Ports - Unplug your devices if you don't use them. Also surprise overhead for USB operations as well as files being moved over eSATA. Minimize your usage here.
RAM - You can't do anything short of having a single module instead of two.

Wireless tip
Your wireless radios, power them off if you don't plan on using them. Reduce the transmit power if needed when the AP is low. Bluetooth has overhead for file transfers.

Usage habits
Best part right here.
Your LCD is the fastest way to save power immediately. Ever notice your LCD brightness, in steps, is a linear progression except between 0 and 1? Guess what, human eye works this way: For twice the brightness, you percieve something to be "partially" brighter than before, not twice. Some of the guys on the high performance, 100+ dollar flashlight/illumination market (Don't joke with them, they're very serious and also have very serious engineering involved.) figured out that you want to change brightness exponentially to get a linear response in brightness. What does this mean? When you set the LCD brighter? Guess what, you're using something close to twice as much power to make it gain a step in LINEAR brightness. What does this mean? Your power consumption isn't linear, it is exponential. Ideally, you want to constantly adjust your LCD brightness to your surroundings, if not adjust your surrondings if you can. I would recommend not to exceed 6-8/15 if you want to see very long battery life.
Ever notice how sometimes in habit, you will idle your machine for 20 seconds? Power the LCD off, right there. That makes your power consumption go from 1-5W to a practical ZERO. Twenty seconds, everytime. Five seconds of idling? FN End a few times until your LCD is at 1 or 0. Right there you cut your consumption from 2-3W to Subwatt-1W. This might involve thinking but last time I checked the human body is capable of turning food into energy so that is kind of a freebee compared to an outlet.

Did you know when you open and close things rapidly, move from webpage to webpage in an erratic manner, your battery lifetime goes down? Even if people "presume" that computers get "x" cycle of work down that they consume "y" watts for every cycle of work, it isn't true. Everytime you cause your T410 to flail, that means your processor exits the low power state, goes up in multiplyer, load--, done, wait, low, up. Nonstop. Your disk drives will go from their idle state, seek, wait, idl- seek. You're defeating the power saving measures right there. This is the equivalent of constantly riding the brakes while tailgating someone when you're driving.
What you WANT to do is to get a large amount of events completed within a short burst and let your T410's hardware enter their idle states. What does this mean? Load your 20 tabs, your 7 PDFs and your 3 applications (App = "Applet", not "Application."). Why would you do that? Your processor is already in the higher CPU states as with your harddrive. Max it out right there and let it complete whatever work it has to. Now at this point, you want to read one of your pages/PDFs without smooth scrolling (No middle trackpoint button, use arrowkeys or pageup/down.) Your CPU will remain in the lower power state. Your storage device will be happy that it isn't constantly reading and writing and enter an idle state.
Close all your unnecessary programs, gadgets, dodads and other shiny things. CPU cycles, CPU cycles! Run them in the same batch of processes you'll be making the processor state exit idling.
The transition from idle and exiting an idle state has let me achieve those battery times. However, most people don't believe me because they are unable to understand the processes involved, as the concept of "time spent in idle/low power mode/states" is too hard to comprehend over just directly undervolting something.

If that seems too hard and somehow abstract, think of your T410 as a car, you want to accelerate and coast. Don't ride the brake and throttle.

nvidia system tools and making your NVS3100 stop being stupid
http://www.nvidia.com/object/nvidia_sys ... _6.02.html
INSTALL THE PERFORMANCE FEATURE. That is the main component you'll care about.
It might do something stupid during install. Kill the installer processes and try again.

Done? Go to the "Performance" section of your NVIDIA control panel (It'll even make a shortcut for you.)
Device settings.
Clock speeds, see that? Save the default clockspeeds as something.
I made several profiles, they go from (Clock-memory-shader)
151-202-367 - Minimum power usage, you might notice some slowdown
200-240-400 - Best all around if you don't plan on using the GPU for anything important
300-300-600 - You'll do fine with lower resolution videos and GPU acceleration
405-405-810 - This is if you need a little more power for higher resolution videos being rescaled
Default - Use this if whatever you're doing starts stuttering.

The NVS3100m, somehow, came out was an incredibly competent mobile GPU even if NVIDIA made it. I joke not. It has three steps for the clockspeed:
Idling, 2D / Desktop, 3D / Performance.
The settings you just changed apply only for the 3D clockspeed, which the NVS3100m feels like it constantly want sto be it. It rarely sits at the 2D clockspeed for some reason and it will more likely go into the idle clockspeed.




More useful videos
http://www.lenovoservicetraining.com/ion/TPU/TPU.htm
http://www.lenovoservicetraining.com/io ... PU_FAQ.htm
The "university student" video will give you a good idea on why the system board is happy with the "roll cage" chassis construction (And also why it isn't happy with a solid slab that it is rigidly attached to.)

Oh and, of course, that video is from 2005. Now think of all the improvements the T410 has gone through (Lid using a standoff design, solid chassis frame supporting the planar, rubber shock reducing rails for the HDD, the feet-bumpers similar to the T30 but in a modern format...)

And those two videos do teach good handling of your Thinkpad. They are however, a little corny at times.

Still reserved for more things ahead! (Because the internet has crazy people who lie about things all the time and I need to make things right.)

[Harryc]

Thanks for the guide. The most interesting aspect of the pictures IMHO is how Lenovo is making swiss cheese out of many covers, cages, keyboards, and other components to save weight.

[Navck]

Actually that is for strength, if harddrive heads were solid plates of metal instead of milled A arms, you'd be losing a lot of strength.

The same applies to something like a T43 (Check the holes formed or drilled into the Ultrabay area.)

[ThinkRob]

Thanks for the guide. The most interesting aspect of the pictures IMHO is how Lenovo is making swiss cheese out of many covers, cages, keyboards, and other components to save weight.

I noticed that too. The T60 skeleton is almost entirely solid metal. The T400/T500 have a mostly solid one (with the exception of the UltraBay covering). The T400s, less-so. And now this...

Either they're after some serious weight savings or they're looking to cut costs in any way that won't immediately be obvious...

[Navck]

http://www.thinkwiki.org/images/6/6c/T4 ... ensors.jpg

From a structural point of view, you want to put holes in there for strength and weight savings. Also in terms of cost savings, Lenovo would be better off in removing all the LED indicators. (You're talking about grams of metal being removed here) The costs to make those holes in the first place by tools (Including replacements as said tools wear out head to grin...) would cost more than whatever amount saved. Alternatively those are forged/cast into place (Which makes sense).

[irus]

very good review. i wish all reviews were like this.

[Colonel O'Neill]

Err... Correct me if I'm wrong, but cutting holes in an otherwise solid sheet of metal increases the strength of it only if the force/strain applied is in the same plane as the sheet of metal. I'm not sure if it'd increase the resistance to forces perpendicular to the plane.

[Navck]

Tell me, do harddrives have SOLID heads or are they drilled and milled to be like A arms? They're made that way for rigidity, a solid sheet of metal does not oppose bending as much as the drilled/machined sheet. (If you don't believe me, go try it yourself.)

As long as they drill/machine in the right places you'll get rigidity OR equal strength (Versus a solid sheet) for less weight (Which is "more strength" for same weight.)

Force and strain are not the same by the way.

[Colonel O'Neill]

Hard drive read heads do indeed have holes drilled/milled into them. But I always thought the point was to lighten the head so that when the drive is bumped the head is light and the inertia would be more easily damped to prevent the head from scraping the platters.

As for the strength of the metal... I don't have access to any machinery or sheet metal to attempt any sort of experiment, so I can only reference this: http://www.iperf.org/strength.html
The equivalent solid material ratio doesn't appear to go above 1.0, although their data is equivocal at best.
The graph they present (Ratio vs % Open area) does seem to have a strong inverse correlation (of course, it doesn't imply causation).

Personally, I can accept that they cut holes into the thing; not that big of a deal as long as it doesn't manifest itself noticeably. (Critics may point out this as a cost cutting strategy.) But I am perplexed as to the configuration of the holes and why they aren't circular... Intuition (which can and does fail) tells me that a circular hole would best disperse a force in all directions equally.

And a force causes a strain, does it not?

EDIT: IMHO, this little sidetrack should get put into the flex/heat/chassis thread to avoid detracting from the original purpose of this thread.

[irus]

i would prefer the hexagons but oh well whatever shapes they like!

[Navck]

I hope the people who think that this is a cost savings measure... Realizes that to create a SOLID SHEET of something then to drill holes into it (Ex. Keyboard) would cost more, right? It is an additional step in manufacturing AND tooling is not free either (Replacements for the machining heads will be required.)

But some people are too ignorant into old world ideas of "quality" to realize that and certain companies will exploit it by complaining that a milled block of aluminum is quality, if not stylish.

Moving on, that website only implies one method of perforating the material. Harddrive heads need rigidity, not only weight reduction and an A arm will be more rigid than a solid triangular wedge of metal.

Force and strain are still different and not the same, ask an engineer why.

I'm fine with this discussion, it helps clear up "ideas" that people have about the T410 being an evil, non true Thinkpad built by Chinese cheapened to be inferior to their floppy wielding yet somehow coexisting with rollcage yet Lenovo Thinkpad. (Silly.)

As for non circular holes? You can make many types of perforations or shapes to enhance rigidity.

[Colonel O'Neill]

It is definitely logical that to go the extra mile in working the metal involves extra costs (which I hope that they recoup by recycling the parts they do cut out for the sake of efficiency). Solid-sheets of aluminum (wonder if the fruit people will get Alzheimers Oo) you can just mill one after another, leading to simplified production lines and significant reduction in cost. Here's where that distinction between function and form is made (although I would like to see Lenovo provide a repaint service for the lid ).

I do realize that the page I referenced is lacking in a lot of crucial details which detracts from its credibility. (For one, data with no stated errors isn't trustworthy at all, not to mention the lack of statistics, trials, hypothesis testing, uncertainty propagation, and all that fun stuff )

The whole perforation thing to increase strength is a bit counter-intuitive... Then again, so are a lot of things.

I'm not claiming (or, alternatively, generalizing) that force = strain. I'm just saying that the two are somewhat related.

Discussion is always good, even when I'm trying to make do with pre-university physics. XD
It'd be nice if Lenovo engineers would provide some of the data they used or add their side into the discussion.

Also, I notice that the heatsink on the T410 appears to be reduced in size compared to the one in my T400, albeit only slightly.

[Navck]

Actually the process to mill a slab of aluminum is inefficient in cost when you can cast and mill or forge and mill. Forging and milling would also be the strongest and least wasteful. (However, you really don't get a lot for repucking aluminum from milling... Guess what isn't environmentally friendly as a product while the marketing says so...)
However, a brand image is at stake when you use a RDF for sales so in that case, an "inferior" decision is made to ensure that marketing is at least, partially truthful.

Perforation increases rigidity. In some practices, it can even improve EQUIVALENT armor thickness for vehicles as well due to specific effects on how projectiles or streams of molten metal at hypersonic speeds interacts with changes in density.
Speaking of vehicle armor, a standoff design also can increase equivalent "thickness" without weight gain, as with having a lid where the LCD does not directly mount can increase protection for the LCD without a weight increase. (As with using a very rigid plate of specific alloys can increase protection for the LCD.) All methods are as valid as the ways you can solve math problems.

I will try to get a little more information out on various fixes and tricks for extreme battery life after I finish some revisions to an English paper and a math final.

[Colonel O'Neill]

All methods are as valid as the ways you can solve math problems.

Well phrased. I'd like to hear about your battery life tricks; I convinced a friend to order a T510 with discrete graphics, and wouldn't mind squeezing more battery life out of it.

I gotta go finish cramming for my three Biology papers. (Curse you IBO )

[Navck]

But just to make a note: I do not count a slab of aluminum with the motherboard rigidly attached as being valid. Just to clarify on that, if one were to use a solid frame encapsulated by a slab of milled aluminum and have the planar mounted to the frame in such a way that the planar will not be stressed.

But that is another criticism at another design which is not used in Thinkpads.

[Colonel O'Neill]

But just to make a note: I do not count a slab of aluminum with the motherboard rigidly attached as being valid.

True. Considering that a well thought-out design would be equal to considering the Hummer a environmentally sound vehicle.

Also, just a quick question, is the speaker grille still an assortment of large holes as in the T400, or has it become a much finer mesh? The pictures online don't really reveal much.

[Navck]

See the bezel picture, it has the mesh but the speakers have two ports cut out for them, a reinforcing metal frame and mesh fitted from above.

Some people say that it is "weak, cheap and easily damaged by their fingernails." Or "so they believe."

Personal experience shows me that it is quite durable and when the bezel is properly fitted the left side will feel extremely well fitted. (The right you'll feel a little depression but it won't give away.)

[Colonel O'Neill]

Ah. The finer mesh is nicer; beats having to clean random chunks of food debris and dust out of them all the time. The first thing I noticed about the bezel is that it appears to be multi-layered, which is also intriguing.

EDIT: I also notice your fan config doesn't use the undocumented 64 fan level. Does the T410 still allow for it?

[Navck]

You will have to deal with dust, which is easy as taking a high powered vacuum with the crevice tool, then using your fingers as a standoff and funnel to slowly let it inhale the dust.

Or you can pop the bezel like I did, use a fine brush and blower bulb to remove the dust. It seems to form into the fine microdust.

I wouldn't say it reduces the quality or volume of the audio (Which isn't the best anyways) but it does seem eck when you remove the bezel (It piled on thick for me, but high dust environment!)

[winco32]

Thanks for the T410 guide, I don't have any flex in my keyboard but I have some creaking on my left palm rest. The model I have has the express card slot under the left palm rest, is there a way to firm up the palm rest and reduce the noise, my T400 does not have this problem. Thanks..

[Colonel O'Neill]

Err... I consulted a physics teacher, who also claims that cutting holes in a piece of metal cannot increase its general strength. However, it is apparently plausible that cutting holes in areas where stress is expected would prevent (micro?)fractures that can spread and turn into a large crack.

[Navck]

Are physics teachers paid 100k+ a year as mechanical engineers?
No.

Does cutting holes in metal increase TENSILE STRENGTH or RIGIDITY due to three dimensional shaping (Ex: "The hole")

I had a physics teacher tell me with AP Phys B students from his class in highschool that my car cannot handle the way it does because thin sheets of stamped and welded metal ("Unit body, unibody" construction.) would immediately deform. Therefore I must be driving a giant truck like frame with a sedan body bolted on. (But last time I checked, I am driving a Swedish sedan with a turbocharger that can corner quite nicely all while having high gas milage to save me money.)

AP Physics B students tell me guns do not work the way they do in real life because of their oversimplified physics models telling them that a human should be thrown flying by the powder loading in cartridges.

Engineering degrees will still prevail over physics degrees. After all, what does the latter do? Sometimes the particle physicists may get a job at Mercedes Benz to service superchargers or maybe model the molecular flow that occurs between the platter and head of a harddrive. Most of the time they become low paid educators within the system of academica with questionable "qualities" as a person for hire. Rarely you will find one who is highly committed to education and loves the minds of students willing to learn.
The former makes our modern world the way it is, from the aerospace industry to the very processes to make soda bottles (Which are quite strong, enough to make high pressure air/water bottle rockets.)

Do yourself a favor, take your Expresscard 34 filler out and find another laptop with a solid filler card. Compare which has greater RIGIDITY. This will answer why the T410 has the chassis frame the way it is.

[Colonel O'Neill]

High school physics course material is definitely watered down so much, with so much handwaving at practical applications, that it doesn't really apply to reality as much as we're led to believe. (Everything is a point entity! )

Do yourself a favor, take your Expresscard 34 filler out and find another laptop with a solid filler card. Compare which has greater RIGIDITY.

Actually I have done this before. The solid one is more solid but the plastic they used was thicker than the one I had, so the comparison wasn't really valid. I was pushing downward with a perpendicular force to the plane of the filler. Squeezing it laterally didn't have any noticeable difference.

(The comparison was actually made between ExpressCard/54 fillers; the one in my T400 has a thick outer edge with the center material being about half the thickness.)

[Navck]

If you can find an equivalent filler card made of solid plastic, you'll find the hexagonal mesh of your filler card lets it remain as rigid if not more. You may have to snag someone's new HP or Dell if they have a Expresscard 34.

Oh and do try holding them at the bottom and push them against each other so the force applied to both is roughly equal. Watch for deformation there. (Pushing a card with your finger is not as equal as having both cards exert roughly equal forces against each other. Watch your angle and area that they push at each other or you will be forcing one across a longer moment arm.)

[Colonel O'Neill]

I have the ExpressCard/54 filler, which actually has rectangular holes.
I don't have a camera handy at the moment, nor can I find a picture on the internet, so I guess Paint will have to do: http://img43.imageshack.us/img43/3047/ror.png

It was drawn pretty much to scale by holding the thing against the screen.

Ah. I will retry the comparison with your method next time.

[Navck]

That wouldn't be a fair comparison to the T410 filler where the structure is higher in density.
If you do have a Microcenter or any other place with Thinkpads near, try taking the Expresscard filler from a T410 and another laptop with a solid filler. Push them against each other and notice how much deflection occurs.

... If someone asks what you're doing, tell them you're making an important decision to determine the quality of construction between two laptops and that it influences which one you potentially may buy.

[Colonel O'Neill]

Unfortunately, absolutely none of the computer stores in my area seem to carry ThinkPads of any sort. (HP, Dell, Toshiba, and fruit-land. sigh.)

I might try it with the filler card from the T510 that's coming in for a friend (assuming it ships in the near future).

[Navck]

For anyone else on rigidity...
http://autobus.cyclingnews.com/photos/2 ... ainset.jpg
These things have to withstand a human outputting 200-300W of power to the cranks to propel their body weight + bike (A small fraction of the total weight) uphill through the various gear ranges as they mash or spin the pedals. That would be close to 150 pounds of cyclist and bike going uphill.

Yet it is as strong as if someone made solid crankarms.

What does that say about "holes?"