The Beijing Desktop Testing Lab
As I promised in the last post, here are a few additional pictures from Lenovo’s desktop testing lab in Beijing. A desktop testing lab being owned and run by Lenovo is rather unique in the PC industry. Most desktop testing has been outsourced by other vendors to contract manufacturers. Lenovo thought that by bringing all testing in house, the company could save some money plus do a more thorough test suite than most of the industry does on their machines. Here are just a few pictures of some of the testing that goes on there.
Thermals are a major area of ongoing research. Our engineers not only have to worry about removing heat from the processor and chipset, but also have to design systems with enough cooling and power. This helps to make sure that when a customer expands the system with add in cards, memory, and drives, that these are adequately cooled too. To monitor temperature, the team attaches thermal sensors at critical points inside the system.
The system is then put into a test chamber (Lenovo has several of these) where the temperature and humidity are varied along with processor loads. Temperatures range as high as 60 degrees C and as low as minus 20 degrees C. The system is stressed so that it can perform under a wide variety of conditions. Not every customer puts a Lenovo desktop in an air conditioned office. Real world environments range from noisy and dusty factory floors to huge walk-in freezers.
Many customers have feedback about the noise their systems generate. Universally customers want their systems to be as quiet and unobtrusive as possible. In this anechoic chamber, both the quantity and quality of noise are measured. The quality of noise is also important because there are certain frequencies that are annoying no matter how loud they are. I didn’t spend much time in here because the lack of noise and echoes was driving me crazy.
Since this is a working lab environment, everyone visiting had to wear these ESD booties. Yellow tape clearly delineated ESD sensitive areas. And yes, the person over the line was asked to step back a bit.
Yes, everyone working there does wear white lab coats every day. This isn’t just a display for the tourists.
Though it is a production lab, there are some things designed to make tours easier and more visual. Here, one of several signs points out salient testing points of how and what is measured.
The next area we went to was the EMF chamber. There are many requirements around the world that regulate the electromagnetic emissions a system can emit. This can vary depending on the number and type of peripherals attached. In this case, there are several mice and iPODs attached to the system to make use of the USB ports as much as possible. The connecting wires can often act as antennae and it is important to keep the emissions within defined specs.
This antenna was positioned in front of the system to measure the EMF energy emitted. Even though the system was off, no one wanted to stand directly in front of it.
This picture shows an ESD gun. Technicians shoot 8000 volts into ports and various other points of a running system. The system has to continue to operate normally. Eight thousand volts is about 2X more than the average person carries in static electricity when touching a system on a dry day. Other than the stun gun coolness factor, this is a pretty dull test to watch because nothing happens.
This test is designed to test surge handing capacity. Typical desktop users do not use surge protectors and there is a real chance of failure from not only lightning strikes but also surges of power from your local power company.
There are many other tests, many of which aren’t as visual, some of which are Lenovo proprietary such as packaging drop tests and other specialized component tests. The benefit to all of this testing is reflected in reduced failure rates once customers actually own our systems. We have a report from a major industry analyst (they hate when they are mentioned by name) which lists industry failure numbers for every year of use in the real world. Using the same methodology outlined by the analyst, our team calculated Lenovo’s failure rates. Lenovo desktops fail significantly less than our competitors.
Lenovo Meet the Modder Dean Liou
Lenovo Meet the modder- Chris Blarsky Dairy 2
Lenovo Meet the modder- Chris Blarsky Dairy 1
Lenovo H320 desktop
October 23rd, 2007 6:22 pm
I like these posts that go inside that square shaped box and show us how other square shaped boxes come out.
I am impressed, although a little perturbed, I own an X61s and although it is a great machine I am surprised that heat issues are not dealt with if such extensive testing is done on Lenovo machines. Run an X61 for an hour and you may not even be able to stand having your wrist on the right right palmrest.
October 24th, 2007 1:11 am
wow,the lab seems pretty cool!
Matt, how is it going, your business travel to China?
October 24th, 2007 4:41 pm
Heat:
I have same heat issue with my X60 tablet, after about a hour use (web surf, MS Office, nothing heavy), it is getting realy hot on the right palmrest.
October 29th, 2007 2:35 am
Wow, really? I have had this machine (X61s) running for 13 hours straight, slightly warmer than room temp (22-24*C) and its not uncomfortably warm…feels like clothes just out of a dryer or a seat you’ve been sitting on for a short while. Are y’all sure you haven’t been blocking the fan? It warms up a bit if you do…
October 30th, 2007 9:16 am
@the X60/61 users with warm palmrest problem:
Retail XP
check your ‘Power options’ under Hardware/Network devices/Intel or Atheros card 802.11 etcetera – under properties.
For Preload
ThinkVantage >> Access Connections.
- point of ‘Advanced Configuration’ change Power Save Mode to “High (best power savings).”
might be a work around.
October 31st, 2007 1:08 am
@Michael Jung
That’s not a work around, that’s gimping your machine because it was designed by monkeys.
I had a few problems like this, then i removed any and all Lenovo software and it was much better. Still problems inherent in the design itself, but software-wise, none of it is needed really.
The way things work in China is 60% done = done.
November 1st, 2007 3:04 pm
“Thermals are a major area of ongoing research. Our engineers not only have to worry about removing heat from the processor and chipset, but also have to design systems with enough cooling and power.”
Well, that’s all very impressive.
Given all this wonderful testing nous, how did you lot manage to sell me a 3000 V100 which overheats and triggers its automatic shutdown when I use the CPUs at 100% for more than five minutes (like, for e.g…compiling anything?)
November 8th, 2007 11:16 pm
Adam, at least your machine’s screen doesn’t come unglued from its retaining bezel because the panel is held to the bezel with glue, heats up when it is lit. And you didn’t buy (and paid the premium) for their flagship product.
November 10th, 2007 3:25 am
“and its not uncomfortably warm…feels like clothes just out of a dryer or a seat you’ve been sitting on for a short while.”
^^the latter comment doesn’t really reassure the reader of the former.
November 13th, 2007 7:30 am
Some interesting pictures, some interesting text, but as people already pointed out,
what were the engineers thinking about thermal aspects when designing my T43p?
Even more important, where were the engineers responsible for the noise (fan) and the certain frequencies and sounds that are really annoying (pulsating fan on the T43p again)?
December 2nd, 2007 6:11 am
Guys!! I have bene lucky enough to visit this testing lab of Lenovo in Beijing. what they have shown in photographs is really true..they do test the machines very ruggedly ..i loved the thermal lab and the acoustic lab..over all a great effort on Lenovo’s part for customer satisfaction and quality. Keep the good work going Team Lenovo !!!
May 23rd, 2008 5:11 pm
Does lenovo do EMF testing on their laptops?
September 2nd, 2008 3:29 am
@Brian:
On some of the X61 and on the X61s, there is a second fan that take out the heat from the wireless card. Unfortunately, Lenovo decided not to install it on all X61 (although some specific models have the required connector and place for it), but only on the models that are equipped with WWAN. Maybe someone can explain the reasoning behind this?
nice lab photos, anyway!
September 2nd, 2008 1:31 pm
This lab looks like a univeristy electrical engineering lab.
April 30th, 2009 6:27 am
It looks like good but still can not see shock, vibration, drop or even HALT.
For ESD test, the isolation seems not good and need to check IEC 10000-4-2 is better.