Is there a USB 3 port in my T420

[koden]

i was tould that there was not.
But on the bag there is an USB port with a yellow thing inside.
is that USB 3 or just a USB 2 that of some reason is yellow inside?

beside this port there is a 1394 connection. What is that?

I also found out that there was a esata port on the right side.. What can this be used to?
On the left side on top the USB 2 there is a ++P connection... looks like USB but a little bit bigger. Whats that?

type 4236-AR2

[Brian10161]

The Yellow port can be configured to supply power when the computer is off. It is USB 2.0, not 3.0 as far as I know.

1394 is firewire, mostly used by cameras and that.

eSata is an external SATA connection for use with high speed HDDs.

The ++P connection I believe is DisplayPort. Which is for monitors and stuff.

Hope this is accurate and helps

[koden]

thanks a lot...

high speed disks??
What kind?

maybe a disk like a 2,5" with USB power supply but eSata speed?

I was just looking for a solution to get something that was faster than USB 2 but still could connect to USB 2.

A disk with USB 2 and esata or firewire maybe could be a solution.

[nikki605]

Any external drive that connects to a USB 2.0 port will run at USB 2.0 speeds, no faster.

My T410 has an eSATA (unpowered) port so I bought a Seagate GoFlex external HDD with an eSATA pigtail connector and a splitter cable that gets power to the drive from a USB port. Works great. I use it to image my HDD for backups.

[jdrou]

The USB ports with blue inside are probably USB 3.0; that's how it is on my W520. As Brian10161 said, the yellow one is the one you can set to give power when the laptop is off.

There are external drives with both eSATA and USB 2.0 connections so you can use whichever one is available.

[thinkpadgeek91]

If it had USB 3 the port would be blue. Hope that helps. Yellow USB is a powered USB port.

[chx1975]

While the ignorance, the total lack of willingness to do your homework is a bit annoying that ++ sign worths a little explanation because that's the only hard one. DisplayPort is not HDMI compatible. There's a DisplayPort++ variant which uses the DP pins to carry HDMI signals -- and that's what you got http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Displ ... s_plus.svg . If you'd read the forums carefully you would have found that people (inc. me ) have reported success with using this port with passive DP-HDMI cables to carry even audio starting at the T400s days.

[jdrou]

To clarify a bit on the USB question, not all models of the current generation include USB 3.0; I believe none of the T420/T520 models have it while the W520 and the high-end model of the X220 do.

[sponka]

All models of T420s shoud have USB 3 (note "s")

Source: http://shop.lenovo.com/us/ww/pdf/T420s_datasheet.pdf

[icantux]

T420s systems have 1 USB3.0 port (blue), T420 systems do not have any USB3.0 ports.

The yellow USB port simply means that it can supply power to external devices (charge cell phones, etc) even when the computer is off - these are referred to as "always-on" USB ports (this function is configurable in the BIOS and may be turned off).

[zern]

Yellow USB = USB 2 that is powered even when the thinkpad is off.

Blue USB = USB 3, and it is backwards compatible so you can plug USB 2 devices to it. It wont make USB 2 devices faster though.

An external eSATA drive is definitely faster than USB 2. But you need to use up a USB port to power it as the eSATA connection does not carry power.

Your eSATA port may be one of those combo eSATA/USB 2 ports. This means you can use it as a normal USB port when it is not being used as an eSATA port.