laptop - ThinkPad Yoga distorting/compressing some icons
2014-07
thanby
I have a brand new TP Yoga Pro with W8.1 Pro x64 that intermittently distorts some icons and other graphics seemingly at random. I notice it most with icons on the task bar or system tray, but it also happens in Windows dialogs and to other things like the tabs in FireFox. The distortion basically looks like it compressed them to about half their native quality, and for what it's worth it carries over to an external monitor so I know it's probably not hardware-related. I have applied every single update available in Windows and from Lenovo's website, which appeared to make the problem go away for a few days but now it's back so that may have been a coincidence. I've searched around and can't find anyone else experiencing this issue (including my coworker who has the exact same laptop), though I don't exactly know how to describe it to a search engine so I may have missed something.
Has anyone else seen this kind of behavior or know of a lead to a solution?
Here's an example of a distorted icon followed by what it's supposed to look like normally (taken from another machine):
Edit: Forgot to mention, only some icons are distorted at any given time (usually 1-3), the rest appear fine.
Here's an additional example of the problem happening with a default system icon, as opposed to an icon from an installed application:
nitbuntu
I was testing a Thinkpad SL500 system at a local store and found the flexing of the keyboard to be quite a deal breaker for me; it was flexing quite prominently with very little pressure applied. I find it hard to believe that a business grade laptop should have this problem as a consumer grade laptop that I own (Dell Inspiron 1526) has very little keyboard flex and one needs to apply a lot of pressure to notice it.
Is this a common issue with the SL500 or SL510 models of Thinkpad laptops? What about the Thinkpad R500, does this also suffer from similar issues?
Shinrai
There was a problem with one specific keyboard FRU series in some of the T400s and 500s that did this; Lenovo will swap it if you call and complain. I do not believe any of these ever made it into the SL500 though, and am also unaware of any complaints about the keyboard. (And I used to do first level tech support for Lenovo!)
Brian Knoblauch
That's the first time I've ever heard a complaint about a Thinkpad keyboard. None of the many models I've worked with exhibit that issue.
paradroid
The SL-series are cost-reduced and not built quite as well as more traditional ThinkPads. The R-series are usually better built, but the best quality ThinkPads are the slim T-series and X-series (the ultraslim lightweight 's' models flex slightly more, as they have carbon-fibre instead of the titanium roll-cages).
ThinkPads in general are not as well built as the older IBM-era ones, in my opinion, but they are still built very well, and much less expensive than they used to be. I'm on my sixth ThinkPad, an X200s, which has a very slight amount of keyboard flex when I press down on the right side of the keyboard (on the P key).