Thinkpads Forum

hyde wrote:
That's the stock 7200rpm thinkpad supplied 250GB HDD on X220 (which I posted above) that is running more smoothly (smoother?) than T450s with those HDD speeds.

Something that I should've asked sooner: which OS is in that X220?

I guess it's not just HDD that impacts overall performance, and we might have to look into processor instead.

Well, the SSD speeds are definitely a part of the problem. With that said, if the processor is stuck at low speeds by some power management feature, the machine will feel like a slug. LV CPU or not, that system shouldn't be slow by any means.

Two things are blinding me here personally:

a) W8.1

b) The fact that I'm completely unfamiliar with how the Lenovo image looks for that particular OS.

If you could create media for a fresh W8.1 install - with no Lenovo bloatware included - maybe a completely fresh install after saving your current image would make a difference. I'm inclined to believe that it would, but...there are several unknowns for me - as stated above - in this equation.

Lenovo images can be bloated. I remember when I first got my W530. It ran with an HDD, but the system was quite slow, just to open up chrome or IE and load web pages. A fresh install of windows took care of all the issues and the system was way snappier. However, it seems that with your T450s, the problem is even worse, since even with an ssd, your hdd from your x220 is faster. The issue may be a combination of bloated windows, made worse by hardware problems. Can't really know for sure if the drive is good unless you wipe it and do a fresh install of windows (not the preinstallation image you had when you got the machine).

ajkula66 wrote: Something that I should've asked sooner: which OS is in that X220?

ajkula66, It's Win 7 Pro SP1.

I really messed up not getting Win 8.1 Pro on this, thanks to Lenovo I missed those options when ordering (They didn't ask and I somehow skipped those, along with non backlit keyboard)

I can do a fresh install but would a normal windows activate using Lenovo's license?
Is that what you mean, not using the image but a fresh install?

hyde wrote:ajkula66, It's Win 7 Pro SP1.

Yep. That's where one of the main differences may very well be.

I can do a fresh install but would a normal windows activate using Lenovo's license?

Yes. The activation code - presuming that we're talking about W8.x - is in the machine's BIOS.

Is that what you mean, not using the image but a fresh install?

Correct. Fresh install, no bloatware.

hyde wrote:Nobody said anything about T450s' processor issues (15W tdp?) when I asked if it's a good replacement for X220,

a T450s with SSD should feel much faster than x220 without SSD, something is wrong in your situation.

maybe some bloatware is running in the background, maybe some new updates are still installing since it is a new laptop,

You need to try to see the big picture, during the instances where you notice slow downs, you need to monitor task manager for: cpu usage of the process that is slow, anything over 20% could mean that it is using close to 1-core, which means the processor as a whole is running at slow speed.

Any other processes using any significant cpu usage in task manager ? .. you need to see task manager details tab, and sort by cpu usage to notice any process that may be causing issues.

make sure to set power options to 'high performance' to eliminate it as a reason for slowness.

during slowness, how does the disk usage show in task manager ?

during slowness, how is the processor data shown in hwinfo doing ? what is the cpu core speed ? , are they running close to the maximum of 14~15w ?

hyde wrote:Windows 8.1
180GB, 35GB Occupied so far
No bloatware other than whatever is installed by Lenovo minus McAfee that has been removed.
I am not running any CPU or Disk usage intensive software.

But a few posts later:

hyde wrote:ajkula66, It's Win 7 Pro SP1.

Which one is it?
And you also never told us which programs were the CPU-"eaters".

RealBlackStuff wrote:

hyde wrote:Windows 8.1
180GB, 35GB Occupied so far
No bloatware other than whatever is installed by Lenovo minus McAfee that has been removed.
I am not running any CPU or Disk usage intensive software.

But a few posts later:

hyde wrote:ajkula66, It's Win 7 Pro SP1.

Which one is it?
And you also never told us which programs were the CPU-"eaters".

I believe he asked me about X220, which is 7 Pro, but T450s is 8.1 (I fixed it to include his question above)
CPU seems to be mostly idle, like I said the issue is only when performing specific actions, so it is not really slow overall, like folders will open fine, restart/shutdown is as expected, but when I want to open a file, it takes time (which shouldn't with an SSD) same when I am using MS Outlook, overall emails and screen changes are not smooth.

I couldn't test any more in last day and a half because I had to work with my X220 but I'll go back to it next week (I'll be traveling and won't take my T450s with me until we figure out what's wrong with it) and I'll use it in Maximum Performance to see if it helps. I still suspect it's processor, it may be idling more than it should instead of shooting back up to full processing power or it's not catching up properly.

Hi everyone, I am back from my trip and have been using my T450 today, I must say that there has to be something causing the laptop to run slowly when Lenovo Power Optimized.

While this is definitely putting a strain on battery (not just discharging but also while charging, it seems to take much longer to charge) but at least it seems to perform well which is a fine tradeoff for having the laptop run at (near) full speed.


http://i.gyazo.com/4c896ba1c7a1010679026d91eada9d61.png

I got brand new Lenovo t4502 20BX001LUS
It had Windows 8 installed and it works very slow. Then they ask to upgrade to Win 10. I did it, and it is very lagging and slow.
I bought and installed extra 8GB. It shows 12GB now. But it still opens every window very slow, lugging and slow.
Please help!!!

ivano wrote:I got brand new Lenovo t4502 20BX001LUS
It had Windows 8 installed and it works very slow. Then they ask to upgrade to Win 10. I did it, and it is very lagging and slow.
I bought and installed extra 8GB. It shows 12GB now. But it still opens every window very slow, lugging and slow.
Please help!!!

Did you find a solution to your slow T450?
I learned to live with it, and things seem to run faster in lower resolution which leads me to believe it's graphic processor issue.
Is there a way to assign more RAM or virtual space to graphic processor on this T450s? Maybe that's what's causing it, something glitchy in graphics/display drivers or hardware.

hyde wrote: Is there a way to assign more RAM or virtual space to graphic processor on this T450s?

No.