Considering returning my X220

Well, after a few days with my X220, I'm seriously considering returning (and going back to my T400) it for a variety of reasons:

Battery life is not as good as I had hoped. My T400 with the 4-cell and the bay battery has around 50Wh of capacity (the UltraBay battery has degraded a lot), and my X220 has 62Wh. Add the fact that the X220 is two generations newer and you would think that it would trash the T400 in battery life, especially considering that the reviews of the X220 quoted the battery life (with the 6-cell) as around 7.5 hours. Well, as it turns out, the reviews are total garbage and the X220 doesn't get anywhere near 7.5 hours. Sitting idle, doing nothing, I see around 7 hours of battery life with my SSD. Doing real work, the battery life drops to around 5 hours, which certainly isn't bad.
But it's also not really any better than my T400, which has a year and a half on the batteries (one of which is a half-dead UltraBay slim battery).

The clickpad sucks. Period. My personal attitude is that all clickpads suck, including those on Mac laptops. Actions like dragging and right-clicking are just much harder and more error prone when you don't have physical buttons. What's even more problematic is that the Synaptics clickpad used by the X220 is considerably worse than the Mac multi-touch trackpad. The Mac trackpad can reliably detect gestures and multiple fingers, whereas the Synaptics clickpad cannot. When you rest your finger on the "button" area of the X220's trackpad, the mouse cursor control gets imprecise and choppy (as it does on all Synaptics clickpads). And the X220's clickpad has a nasty habit of missing gestures, too. If you're not a power user, or if you use the TrackPoint, or if you use a mouse, the touchpad on the X220 is probably OK. But if you've been using a touchpad for the past 4 years and you like the freedom of control it gives you, the X220's clickpad is a noticeable step backwards.

Noise is a big problem with the X220. Under full load it's considerably louder and considerably higher-pitched (and therefore considerably more annoying) than my T400. It's not as bad as a lot of laptops, but it's certainly not what I would consider quiet. Worse, the X220 is almost as loud at idle and under moderate load. TPFanControl helps a lot here, but it does so at the expense of making the laptop run a lot hotter. We're talking CPU temperatures in the 60C range while web browsing (my T400 runs at around 40-45C) and higher when there's even light load.

That brings me to the biggest problem with the X220: heat. The X220 is just too much CPU with too little cooling. While playing WoW, my T420 hits around 70C for the CPU and about 65C for the ATI GPU. The X220 (running on a hard table) never drops below 90C, it frequently hits 95C, and it sometimes throttles because it's approached the 100C thermal limit. That means that the exaust is super-hot, and it also means that the laptop burns the crap out of you if you leave it on your leg. And this is with a relatively reasonable 22C ambient temperature - it regularly gets up to 32C around here (Colorado) in the summer, and I don't have air conditioning. I understand the need to make design choices to reduce weight/size/cost, but in this case those choices mean that the X220 is at its limits before I've even really started to push it hard (like using it on a cloth surface rather than a hard table, using it in higher ambient temperatures, or pushing the CPU/GPU with something more demanding that WoW).

At the end of the day I find that I am on the fence about whether I prefer my T400 or my X220. The T400 has a better touchpad, higher resoulution display, and is cooler and quieter. Real-world game performance is similar on both. The X220 is smaller, lighter, has better CPU performance, and has a much nicer quality IPS screen.

For anyone who is considering the X220, you need to decide whether you can deal with a laptop that's hot and noisy when it's pushed hard. To be fair, there are a lot of laptops that are hot and noisy when pushed, including virtually every ultraportable ever made. That may be a compromise that you are willing to make. But if you're like me, and you chose the X220 primarily because of the IPS screen (and not because of size/weight), maybe it's a better idea to look at something else.

By the way, the IPS screen is fantastic. I'm typing this om my T400 after using the X220 for three days and it's dramatic how much of a difference a nice screen makes. I'm just not sure it's worth it.

 

the clickpad and lack of a latch on the X220 are definitely two things that are a step back. i find lenovo's excuse that they removed the latch to eliminate the problem of the hooks breaking..... but to me thats like removing tyres from a car so that they wont get punctured...
any ultraportable will be noisier, because of smaller fan diameter needs higher RPM's.

the X201 gets hot when pushed too, as with any other laptop i've ever used...so i dont know if that is really a problem. but if it does go so high it throttles then thats definitely a negative.

actually, come to think of it, the review said the lid was kept shut by magnets in the palmrest. would they wipe out a credit card if you put it on the palmrest ? lol because i alwas put my credit card there when shopping online

 

I don't expect any laptop to be cool/quiet when I push it hard. Even my T400 will throttle if you throw Prime95 + FurMark at it. What I didn't expect is that normal workloads (specifically, games) would cause the system to exceed 95C while sitting on a table, which in my opinion is unacceptably hot.

The X220 is a beautiful laptop with a beautiful screen. I'm just not sure I actually prefer using it to using my T400.

 

i wonder if the T420s would be more suitable for your use, if you get it, do write a comparison between the T420s and the X220

 

Ironically I actually ended up canceling a T420s and ordering the X220 because of negative reactions to the display.

At this point if I do anything it will probably be to stick with my T400. It is by far the best laptop I've owned (with my T61 being a close second).

 

i didnt realise the T420s had the same grainy screen as the regular T420. the T400 isnt that old anyway, what made you buy a new laptop? lower weight?

 

I for one will not push the X220 at all. Not for gaming. And as far as the click pad, I will be using a wireless usb mouse. Never liked touchpads. Will use that little eraser from time to time however. I bought it mainly for the screen and reliability factor.

Good luck with the return. Sorry you will be paying the 15% restocking fee like I did with my returned T420.

 

well not hardcore gaming, but i do game on my X201. There are loads of classic games that are still so fun, like simpson's hit and run, serious sam, no one lives forever, the original starcraft etc etc.i always prefer gameplay over eye candy anyways. and the X220 should be able to run modern games at low settings.

 

Wow, those are pretty high temps! Yours seems a bit different than what any other review is saying. If anyone else can provide some temps doing benchmarks it would be pretty helpful. I see a lot of people got it here but only few posted their thoughts/review.

If I'd be returning it, I'd call it a defective laptop (90C+ is just too much for a CPU) even in WoW. Do not settle for 15% fee. I imagine it would just shutdown if you tried wPrime?

 

This makes me want to know. Traditionally does Lenovo put a "thermal pad" on the bottom of the heatsink or a dab of thermal paste?

I would not be opposed of tearing my X220 apart and throwing down some Artic Silver 5 to help with keeping things cool.

(Alternatively, I do not have the overheating problem you reported on your X220, my i7 unit is surprisingly cool to the touch)

 

Hmmm...the OP's assessment does not sound very encouraging. It would be nice to have other X220 owners share the temps on their machine.

 

I will do a full review of my X220 tonight.

 

it might be a botched thermal paste job as the previous poster mentioned. my M4400 had a crapload of crappy thermal paste and was running really hot. i got 20-30*c reductions at load after putting some MX-3 on it and 7-10*c at idle

 

Sorry if you may have stated elsewhere, what configuration did you get? i7, i5?

 

Stickboy if you meant myself, I've got a I7

 

Yeah, I meant the OP, thanks. Wondering if CPU config has anything to do with over sys temp during high load.

I think though, if you look around at even systems with discrete GPUs that the temps while gaming can get extreme.
However, the OPs case seems over the top.

Especially when playing on a couch with a bag of doritoes and some DEW.

 

I'm thinking about replacing the thermal paste with some arctic silver stuff as well. the oem stuff are like crappy gum (i'm serious). Not sure if lenovo sues the same kind, but it doesn't hurt to replace it.

 

I have an i5-2520M. I might try to get the restocking fee waived but it's going to be difficult considering that the laptop doesn't have any obvious problem (like crashing).

I haven't tried wPrime but Prime95 causes the CPU to hit the 100C limit very quickly, at which point it bounces between 2GHz and 3GHz and the temperature oscillates in the 95-100C range.

Sandy Bridge CPUs adjust their clocks to stay within several limits. There are BIOS-configured power limits (both short-term and a continuous values, designed to protect the power regulation circuitry on the motherboard and prevent overheating), there's a CPU-configured power limit which is much higher (designed to protect the CPU and socket) and can't be changed, there are max clock limits that are dependent on the CPU model and can't be changed (3.2GHz CPU / 1.3GHz GPU for my i5-2520M), and there is also a thermal limit that's measured by the CPU and used as a last resort to prevent damage.

What I notice with my X220 is that it turbos way more than it should. In games I consistently see 3GHz core clock and 1.3GHz GPU clock. The result is that the CPU is pulling 45W+ for a long period of time (it's pretty easy to tell in power manager), which is clearly too much for the heatsink/fan.

Unlike with the first-generation i3/i5/i7 CPUs, the Sandy Bridge CPUs can actually exceed their specified power limit (35W in the case of the i5-2520M) for a period of time. The idea is that if the CPU has been under lower load for a period of time, it can temporarily go beyond its limit before the CPU and voltage regulators reach their temperature limits.

What manufacturers have discovered is that you can lie to the CPU and get it to turbo longer. The problem is that if your heatsink can't handle the thermal load, you get runaway temperature increases until you hit the thermal limit, which causes the laptop to run very hot and throttle.

Intel didn't design the thermal monitor system to be a normal part of CPU operation. If the hardware manufacturers size the heatsink to the CPU (which in the case of an ultraportable might require using an LV or ULV CPU) and provide realistic values to the Turbo Boost configuration registers, the CPU should run at a stable temperature well below the thermal monitor limit.

The fact that my X220 keeps trying to turbo when it's at 97C (three degrees below the throttling point at 100C) tells me that the values Lenovo used are totally bogus. The X220's heatsink simply cannot dissipate 35W of heat (let alone more) with any sort of reasonable temperature gradient.

I don't mean to single out Lenovo for this because there are a lot of manufacturers that rely on thermal monitor as a normal operating limit and not as the safety measure it's designed to be.

If anyone else has different results I would love to see them. I used Real Temp to take my temperature readings (the values were within a couple of degrees of TPFanControl). You can monitor turbo operation (both CPU and GPU) with the latest version of CPU-Z.

Exactly. I know the X220 isn't meant as a gaming laptop but I should at least be able to fire up WoW without melting my lap. The 95C figure was on a hard desk, with plenty of airspace below (thanks to the 6-cell which sticks out from the bottom and raises the X220 up), in a 72F room. I'd hate to see what happens at 90C ambient when the laptop is sitting on a blanket.

I believe that Lenovo uses paste.

Unfortunately on the X220 it's kind of a pain in the neck, and it almost certainly will void the warranty.

Under low-moderate load my X220 is actually reasonably cool to the touch. The problem at low-moderate load isn't that the unit is getting hot, it's the CPU getting too hot.

Under higher load (gaming) my X220 gets too hot to be used in my lap comfortably.

Have you done any tests with games, or with benchmarking programs like Prime95?

 

Service Videos

If you click the "Heat Sink" under FRU removal and watch the video, it shows a blob of paste.

 

btw, whats a reliable temp monitor for thinkpads? my X201 gets pretty hot when gaming, just want to see what kind of temps its reaching

 

Can anyone else with the X220 post a review? I was wondering (hoping?), that the temperature and noise issues were due to sustained load due to gaming, even though I know WoW isn't all that intensive. I cancelled my 420s to get the X220, and the OP makes me a little nervous. What I hope I have going for me is:

I don't game at all. I do consulting and software development, so most of what I do is RAM/Disk intensive, with burst CPU usage during compilation and heavy database queries, but nothing sustained.

I'm a fan of the eraser head (one reason I really like the thinkpads), so hopefully the clickpad issue won't be that big.

I did intend this to be a replacement to my current desktop tower that is loud (and since I'm no longer doing any PC gaming). Noise would be an issue, although when docked for my normally work day it'll be on my shelves about three feet away and I'll be using an external monitor, keyboard, and mouse. I'll just be using it as a laptop for meetings, presentations, and casual use at home.

My laptop is somewhere between China and Virginia, so if I don't see any reviews by the time I get mine, I'll post something.

 

I'd be happy to read some more impressions of X220s' owners about the noise and temperatures issue.

I will also happily provide my observations when I'll get my machine.

I don't game and I rarely use sustained CPU power (for that matter I use much more powerful desktop workstation), I also rarely use the laptop on my lap... but still I wished it would be cooler than my T42 that runs damn hot.


M.

 

bsoft:

Can it be that you get high temps because of TPFanControl? I noticed that it's not designed for X220 and with my X220 it would not kick the fan in until around 65C. And even then it would be minimum fan. The default profiles are designed for T61

Try uninstalling TPFanControl and report your results back.

I don't do gaming so I can't test. But browsing, I get 35-45C without TPFanControl and no heat issues

Also, Prime is not a fair test. It pushes the CPU to its upper most limits. Of course it will get very very hot

 

So will I. But no gaming, just normal Netflix, Internet, YouTube stuff

 

I haven't finished yet, no photos or numbers. So this is a rough draft but it should help those that want my opinion and thoughts on my X220. It doesnt even have my exact configuration listed.
---
X220 Review
---
Pros: Light, Fast, easy to work on, great battery life, best screen in class, extremely robust, solid feeling.

Cons: Speaker performance, click pad.

1. Performance

Reviewing the X220 is something I’ve been looking forward to doing I’ve wanted this laptop since I first saw the teaser photos and couldn’t wait to jump onto Lenovo’s website and start my custom configuration. As a user I find myself on the power level side, I run virtual machines, do heavy gaming and generally demand upmost performance from any piece of equipment I work with. The X220 does not disappoint in this category.

The I7 doesn’t seem to break a sweat with anything I’ve thrown at it yet, it’s snappy and very responsive. Coupled with the 8GB of Kingston Hyper-X 1866 MHz memory and the Intel X25-E 64 GB SLC SSD primary OS drive I have installed this machine performs every bit as strong as my primary machine. (Specifications below)

2. Multimedia

I know most won’t be buying this laptop for its multimedia and entertainment value but it has to be said that the X220’s IPS display is one of the best screens I’ve ever seen on a laptop to date. It’s clear from any viewing angle, it’s sharp and crisp and colors are lively but not over exposed. The resolution hasn’t hampered my work at all and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed working with the IPS panel, it will be a must have for me on every laptop moving forwards.

Staying on the topic of multimedia I’ve got to pull a negative out of my hat and just get it out there, the speakers on the X220 are poor; the sound is clear but not loud. I realized this would be the case when purchasing a Ultraportable laptop but I still think it should be said that if you are looking for quality sound while on a long trip a set of ear buds or headphones will be required.

My model came configured with the webcam and while I haven’t used this in a practical sense yet the webcam is of good quality in my opinion. It takes decent quality photos and the video is smooth and clear, the microphone to that extent is excellent and I don’t need to raise my voice noticeably to make sure I am heard.

3. Ergonomics, size and heat

Ergonomics on the X220 are almost perfect, the keyboard is very easy to adjust to, I haven’t hit the click-pad but once when typing and all the keys are laid out in a way that I’m comfortable with. I can transition from my desktops full sized keyboard to the X220 without any noticeable adjustment.

The click-pad on the other hand Is good when the laptop is on a stationary object (Desk, tray, table, etc) but when I’m lying in bed or on a chair because of how close it is to the outer shell It can be a hassle to use or to not accidentally activate, this can be resolved simply by disabling it with the function keys.

I was a bit concerned about moving to an ultraportable laptop due to the constraints on size, however I’ve been pleasantly surprised by my ability to adapt, the laptop is small, it’s the size you would expect for this class but my fears over durability and “toughness” were laid to rest. The laptop feels solid and strong, the battery has almost zero wiggle and the screen doesn’t flex. I don’t go poking laptop screens but when pressed the IPS panel has minimal distortion and the screen feels strong.

The other worry I had with this form factor was heat, I haven’t noticed ANY discomfort when using this laptop for extended periods of time, It gets “warm” but it doesn’t get as hot as previous generation ThinkPad’s I’ve worked with. With this in mind I always endorse (but have yet to do so myself) replacing the thermal grease\compound for your laptop, especially if you travel a lot and might keep it on a surface that can retain heat.

4. Final Thoughts
Overall I give my X220 high marks in performance, battery life (especially as my unit is configured), customization and quality. It was easy to setup and work on, Lenovo has a real competitor here against other ultraportable laptops.

 

if anyone has a X201 would you mind doing a comparison to the X201? i'll definitely be looking for an outlet X221 or a second hand one to replace my X201 in a year or so, assuming that the x220's form factor stays the same for a refresh, or maybe sooner as that IPS screen is rather tempting

 

Yeah...that is my plan too. Though if I get a really good 13" machine (not Sony!), I may just opt for that. If I don't get a 13" then it would be a toss up between a T421(?)s or a x221(?)s.

 

So I wonder what Lenovo would say when asked, "What workloads is the X220 designed for?"

 

what i'm really hoping is that the rumored sony external thunderbolt graphics card comes out and is successfult so lenovo copy that for the X series, so maybe in addition to the "x221i" there is also a "x221w" signifying the powerful external graphics it comes with, or even built into the dock!!

then i could definitely use a 12/13" ultraportable as my desktop! because all the specs seem to be up to par, except the graphics.

i often need to proof designs so i need the color accuracy of IPS. i cant do any proofing on the X201

 

I had a similar problem with my X200. I wasn't pushing it like you, but it was getting warm and the fan was pretty constant. I replaced the heatsink and it got a lot better.

 

what was wrong with the heatsink?

 

I don't honestly know. The new one looked just the same, but worked a lot better.

 

sounds really strange. are you sure it wasnt a misapplication of paste or something?

 

My X201T gets that hot when I play WoW as well. It has gotten worse over time and now I have to use a cooling pad or the laptop can crash due to the heat.

I decided to go with a W520 this round.

 

if it got worse over time it sounds like dust. the fact the X201 is so difficult to disassemble to access the fan sounds bad as i work with textiles quite a lot and there are lots of vent clogging fibres straying around my desk.....

 

Realistically speaking, these small or thin form factor machines aren't designed for gaming or other intense workloads like HD encoding. Heck, I wouldn't really want to do that on a regular basis with a chassis and machine like the W520.

It's the reason I recommend a desktop with better power and cooling for some of those workloads. Saves wear and tear on a laptop.

I hope the heat report here on this particular X220 is an isolated instance. If it isn't, I'll start hearing about it soon in my company.

 

I haven't owned a desktop in about 10 years now. I travel and move too much to own something so big. I don't normally game except for WoW, which runs decent enough on my X201T and my X200 before that.

I'm not sure if I'll like moving to a bigger laptop or not but my W520 is on order. Maybe I'll pick up an X120e as a second machine - bought 10 of them for work and they seem to work really well.

 

same here, hence the machine combination in my sig. but the X120e might not be the best deal, if you go for a brand new one with a 3 year warranty and then add a discount coupon it's gonna be ~500, which makes it only about 100-150 bucks less than a refurb/second hand X201, my particular one was second hand, but only 5 months old and with a 3 year warranty and in mint condition, so there are deals to be found on ebay...

 

Which is very normal. Do you edit HD video frequently? Do those encoding jobs run for 60+ minutes?

My point is that the X220 isn't a video editing workstation and thus isn't designed for it. Heck, the W520 barely is. They'll both work in situations where it's required, but if you are doing high end work loads for long periods of time in a laptop chassis, you are asking for trouble. That is regardless of brand and model. There are exceptions, but the mainstream email reading machines just aren't designed for it.

 

Your battery life sounds very low. Browsing with medium brightness, I get at least 9hrs. If it's idle it gets 10-11hrs. This is on the 6 cell. Key is using the factory image. A clean install has always used more power in every Thinkpad Ive owned and I've tested it back-back in the X220 as well.

How many Thinkpad users use the touchpad? Trackpoint is probably the best feature in business notebooks. There's a reason it's offered in business notebooks, it just works much better. Any touchpad is only good for scrolling and gestures imo.

Heat is interesting in the X220. It seems to gain and lose it at a very rapid rate. My machine idles around 40C, but doesn't take much load to push it into the 50s. I just ran the Thinkvantage Toolbox system stress test in which the cpu and gpu are pushed to full load simultaneously. It was into the 70s within 20 sec and eventually plateaued at 85-86C. Max fan speed was 4400rpm under bios control according to tpfancontrol. Base speed is 3500rpm, at 70C it goes to 3800 and 4400 at around 80C. According to CPU-Z after a certain temp (70C?) it dropped back to 2.5-2.6ghz so the Turbo implementation seems to be doing it's job. After the test was over, the temp dropped to 60C in less than 10 sec, and quickly got to 40s and 50s after that.

I think cooling might be fine in the X220 considering temps drop so quickly, the processor is just emitting a tremendous amount of heat. At the end of the day it is a very small package and a very small portion of users are going to push it to full load daily. And really even 85C is fine for full cpu and gpu load if you don't do that on your lap. Idle temps of 40C and normal operating temp in the 40s-50s is perfectly alright. What they need to do is drop the base fan speed to 3000rpm. At that speed noise is a lot lower and it only bumps temps up a couple C. Mark has already escalated the base fan speed/noise to engr so we can expect this to be fixed.

Before you return the machine it'd be worth having the heatsink replaced. Your peak temps are a lot higher than what I got.

 

On my i5-2410 X220, real temps says 37 ish (averaging between the two figures it gives) while browsing and playing music.

Adding an anti-virus scan and movie in WMP, it jumps to about 60 but then goes back to 37 after finishing.

No idea if that's good, bad or average?

I can just about hear a slight whine (similar pitch to engine noise while sitting in an aeroplane) and this increases slightly with the scan and movie. It's a bit annoying but not excessively. The fan never seems to completely stop, even while idle, but is barely audible. There is a lot of noise from a nearby road however.

 

My temps are in the 50/60s when browsing but I use tpfancontrol (smart mode 1) to keep noise down.

 

The noise on the x220 did really annoy me. Coming from building my own desktops and selecting every component for silence, the high pitched whine from the tiny fan inside the x220 didn't please me at all.

TPFancontrol helped a lot, but now my CPU idles at 50c, not something I'm used to as my i5 2500k idles around 25c in the desktop. Comparing apples and oranges, I know, but it makes me uncomfortable to see my CPU idle at half boiling point.

 

Your CPU isn't made of water...

And TPFanControl is not designed for newer laptops. You're doing your X220 a disservice by using it unless you use Smart mode 2 (which basically works just like setting it to BIOS mode it seems. Maybe a bit quieter) or set your own fan profile.

I recommend uninstalling it and wait for Lenovo to release a BIOS update

It shouldn't hurt for the CPU to idle at 60C, but it's not good either

 

tpfancontrol manual setting 2 is the winner. At 3000rpm vs 3500rpm, it is a lot quieter and there's barely any temp increase.

People are generally too obsessed with cpu temps. There's nothing wrong with higher temperatures. Thinkpads around the T60/60p generations often idle in the high 50s and low 60s and they're doing fine. Lower temps allow better comfort when using a laptop on the lap and lower/quieter fan speeds. The problem with tpfancontrol Smart mode (at least in the X220) is that it turns the off till ~75C and then blasts it to 5500rpm. That can't be good for the fan.

 

Well those older CPUs have higher temp thresholds and also higher idle temps. Newer CPUs always have lower temps both for high points and idle points

 

Older cpu's just produced more heat. This thread is proof that current processors can produce as much. And even if they didn't, just because they normally operate at lower temps because of being more efficient, it doesn't mean that they'll break if used at higher temps.

 

Not at all, but for the sake of technicality and because I'm a computer nerd, I'll just add that while it won't break them, it will lower their life-span. So instead of being able to use them for 20-25 years at normal temp, at 60C constant they'll die in about 8-15 years. But of course no one uses computers that long

 

Not necessarily. The Core 2 Duo/Core 2 Quad TJunction Max temperature (at which automatic system shutdown occurs) and that of the Core i_ processors are the same, both at 105 degrees C. The max temperature tolerance is the same, or roughly the same.

It's hard to compare temperatures in laptops, since every generation has a slightly different cooling system, but my T500's CPU temperatures are consistently lower than those of the T510 or even the T520.

It is true, however, that higher heat will lower the lifetime expectancy of transistors, but where the CPU is concerned... it's not likely to be much of an issue, as mentioned.

 

Wow this ain't right. 6 cell battery only getting less than 7 hours and it is making too much noise with the fan and whine/buzzing sound? Then heat issues? This is no good.