New U400 - General [ Edited ]

[AshLikeSnow]

@ TheWind

Notice that one has a difference in elevation, the other one dosen't.  This is only a problem with SSD, feel free to upgrade your HDD to a better HDD.

[TheWind]

Thanks AshLikeSnow!  It makes more sense now why it does not fit out of the box.

EDIT: Now that I think about it more, it seems to me that the difference in the height of the edge is only 1-2mm.  Does it mean that a 7mm SSD would fit nicely and would have some space for padding to make it stable?

EDIT2: Never mind.  Just saw your other post that talks about 7mm drives.  Would still be interesting to see if anyone has tried it.

[SDalpha1510]

It seems like you could just a 7mm SSD and put some styophome or even tape to secure it so it doesnt move around. That seems like the easiest thing to do. Anyone see a problem witht that idea?

[TheWind]

@SDalpha1510,

Tthat's my current plan.  I better put some padding on a 7mm SSD than void its warranty by cutting/taking off the case.  Even a simple tape will do since SSDs are shock and vibration tolerant (to some degree at least).  I'm still waiting for the laptop to arrive, so I can't share any concrete opinion, but when I do, I'll post some pictures on how it fits.

Another option I can think of in case the screws are too long to securely attach the drive in place is to shave them off a bit until they sit tightly.

[SDalpha1510]

Keep us posted. Im still holding off buying one for now but think I will by the end of the month. Really would rather have them just add an SSD drive so I dont have to mess around with it but we will see.

[reuben9376]

I have the new Samsung 830 series on the way. It should be here on Friday and I will let everyone know how it works out for me. Just a side note for upgrading the ram. I purchased the i3 model with 4gb of ram and wanted to upgrade to 8gb.The installed 4gb is in the back slot so adding the new 4gb is simple. 

Has anyone been able to confirm if this has a SATA III port ?

[TheWind]

@reuben9376,

Regarding SATA III, I believe you can check it through free version of Sandra Lite if you open Mainboard/Diskcontroller.

It would be interesting to hear your experience with swapping the HDD to SSD.  Are you going to clone the disk (e.g. through Norton Ghost) or is it going to be a clean installation?  Many people suggest doing a clean install when moving to SSDs (e.g. in this article), but if you have to preserve the data you might need to do a few tricks in Win7 after cloning the drive.  So, it would be beneficial for other people to know if you've experienced any trouble and how did you get them resolved on the way.

[reuben9376]

I'll be doing a clean install. I've had good success in the past starting from scratch. I also think there's somethings I'll be leaving out on the new install. Im not a fan of the lenovo tailored apps and extra things that are not need. I just received the laptop and planned from the start to upgrade to the ssd so I have nothing to lose. I'll do some benchmarks on the ssd that should let us know for sure if were getting sata III speeds. 

I'm also very impressed with the performance of this new i3 cpu. I've been doing some benchmarks and it beats out my last gen Envy 15 i5 in almost everything. I did some battery testing today so I can compare with the ssd and even with the power plan set to High Performance and pretty steady hd videos playing and web surfing I'm still getting over 4 hours.  Another thing I can say is this thing stays extremely cool. I've owned the envy 14,15 the Dell xps 15z and the 2010 15" Macbook pro. It beats all of them by a long shot in the cooling department. I've done some game testing and even while gaming for over a hour it barely gets warm on the left side where it vents air. The Dell,Macbook and Envy all would get so hot it nearly burn you. Also best feeling trackpad on a PC ever!!! 

[AshLikeSnow]

@reubun.

Let me know if you manage to do a clean install sucessfully.

When I tired to do a clean install, I ran into alot of problems with installing drivers.  I ended up fialing and having to give up.  If you manage to get the clean install to work, please let me know, and be very detailed on how you did it.  For example, the order of which you installed the drivers.

[reuben9376]

What problems exactly did you run into with the drivers ? I've download all the current ones from the lenovo site. Are those the drivers used ?