Lenovo W510 Owner's Thread

Just to let everyone know, my CPU has been whining/making a high pitch squealing noise when on battery. I called Lenovo and they're sending me a new CPU in a week or so, I'll report back if it helps or not.

 

Will they also perform the replacement or you have to do it yourself?

 

They wanted me to send it in, but I told them I wanted to do the replacement. The CPU works fine now, there's no need to be without it when I have no problem at all replacing the CPU myself.

Also, for those interested, I have replaced the CPU and GPU thermal paste with TX-3 and then with Arctic Silver 5. I saw no real difference in cooling performance with either. Although I'm not real impressed with the consistency of the TX-3, I like spreading things out so I know it is covering everything. Anyway, my $0.02.

 

So in other words it doesn't void your warranty?
If so - WhooaH! As I would definitely want to upgrade the CPU down the road and replace the thermal paste.

 

My W510 is being refunded, and likely my docking station too (unless I should happen to keep it).


Lenovo doesn't have any FHD screens available, and rather than give me a worse product, they're giving me my money back. Yay, I guess?


So what else is out there, available now, that I need to be looking at? I really hate to go away from Thinkpads, but I need something now, not 3 months from now.

 

What's your budget and what do you need the system for?

 

Don't know whether it has been mentioned already: The built-in webcam and microphone(s) are quite good.

Ironically, the webcam (perfect out-of-the-box linux support) has a resolution (1600x1200) that doesn't even fit on the damn 16:9 FHD screen.

 

Hold on a sec.. can you report on quality of default spread in w510 is it standard thick stuff and did it cover the surface completely or partially?

I would only go doing it if i had to i.e. the cpu replacement. I've done this with my old and trusty X60s and I was impressed with results so if the quality of paste is same as in X60s I'd recommend spending time on doing it for sure.

 

I guess, the question regarding the warranty in this case remains.
Am I allowed to replace the thermal paste on the CPU/GPU without affecting the warranty?

 

There was A LOT of paste on the CPU and GPU, most of it however was to the sides of the core so the layer between the core and the heatsink was pretty minimal.

Just so everyone knows, I used ArctiClean between each application of thermal paste.

I would expect my temps to lower a bit with the AS5 some more after it has cured. In fact, shortly I'm going to run a little test between having Hyper-Threading enabled/disabled to see if that makes any differences with temps.

 

Eagerly waiting for you results, though I'm quite positive you'll lower the temps by some nice 10c

 

In the US, making reasonable changes to a system cannot void your warranty. However, if your chip overheats, they'd surely point to that and you might have to go to court to fight it. I am not a lawyer.

 

TPFan Control
I found the CPU Temp. if controlled by the BIOS, the temp is about 47-50C, however if controlled by the TPFan Control, the temp will go up to 64C.
So it seems the BIOS control is really better than TPF Control, is it?

 

please keep us/me posted as this is interesting subject for me, as I think cooling equals longevity.if I find the pics I made when I've done the spread on the NV GT 8600m and the x60s revamp I'll sure to splash them as I think many would appreciate the know how.

 

The point of TPFanControl is to keep your fan quiet not cool your PC better. It has higher thresholds for activating your fan so it stays quiet longer so it increases your temperature in the process.

 

I see. Most likely however is the situation when their stock paste will do a bag job. In all the laptops I had so far the difference in temps between the stock and the aftermarket thermal compound would be 10c on average and in some cases up to 20c.

 

My W510 with the 15.6FHD DPY95%GM,270NILDBL came in Monday and I LOVE THIS LAPTOP! Next step is to load ColorMunki and Calibrate the Display.

OAKLAND, CA, US 03/29/2010 9:12 A.M. DELIVERY
OAKLAND, CA, US 03/28/2010 5:08 P.M. ARRIVAL SCAN
LOUISVILLE, KY, US 03/28/2010 3:51 P.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
LOUISVILLE, KY, US 03/28/2010 8:42 A.M. ARRIVAL SCAN
ANCHORAGE, AK, US 03/27/2010 6:04 P.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
ANCHORAGE, AK, US 03/27/2010 1:51 P.M. ARRIVAL SCAN
INCHEON, KR 03/28/2010 3:09 A.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
CHEK LAP KOK, HK 03/27/2010 7:47 P.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
HK 03/26/2010 8:07 A.M. BILLING INFORMATION RECEIVED

 

Congrats. Will be nice if you'd post/upload your icc profile(s).

 

Am I having a deja vu? This question was asked and answered many times. The profiles will most likely not work the same way on all displays. Why not use your own calibration and adjust it to your own eyes?

 

Yeah sorry for being repetitive.

I know they aren't the same. But better than nothing. I just need one that changes things a tiny bit in the right direction, and I don't have any calibrator.

 

Good Morning!

Can you post after calibration deltaE values for Adobe-RGB and sRGB and a graphic of native gamut too? Sorry I do not know if ColorMunki SW shows that all.

Best + Thanks in advance, Walter

 

My estimated shipping date for the FHD multitouch was 04/08 until today it tells me:

If no ship date is given above, there may be an issue with your order. If you would like more information on the status, please call .

So I gave them a call and was told to wait another 2 weeks from now. We will see...
btw: my order date was 02/19.

 

Well I hope my FHD Multi doesn't get pushed back again.

The warehouse is expecting 26 of them tomorrow. I hope its not an April fools joke on me.

If they get them in tomorrow, then I should have mine Monday.

 

HyperThreading ON & OFF Thermal Results

Test ran with Arctic Silver 5 applied to CPU and GPU
Ran LinX 0.6.4 - 64-bit - Normal Priority - Max Memory - 3 Runs
Laptop was sitting on flat wood desk with no additional cooling
Temperatures were recorded using HWMonitor 1.15.0 x64

Code:

ZONE     HT ON     HT OFF
ACPI     93        81
CPU1     91        80
CPU2     90        77
CPU3     94        81
CPU4     93        81
GPU      81        72

 

that sucks man, i ordered on the same day but mine shipped on March 27th, though tracking isnt working as yet.

Try complaining i complained and they were willing to compensate for the delay, i am supposed to get an additional 4GB of ram

 

Same here, no tracking and shipped on 27th. I think they have a new policy - shipping via Limbo

 

After making us wait so long this laptop better be topnotch (w/o defects)

 

10c interesting, so have you already swapped the paste?
one other thing I thought about is linking the cooling to the frame if possible that would take off some as-well when in heavy loads. no I dont think it will burn if done correctly. in x60s they cooled the wi-fi and other chip forgot the name... forgive me

 

Interesting, as I was told my last estimated shipping date should have been 28th or 29th March, can't remember exactly. But I've never seen this date, only 04/08 was shown in online status and checked it regularly during last weeks.

 

I hope these are not in Celsius

 

Don't trust the online info, call them. Also, they will send you an email when the order is shipped.

 

Those tests are done in Celsius. Quite hot, but when I ran Prime95 FFT I couldn't see much difference in temps (they floated around 80`C. Those tests were also done with Arctic Silver 5 already applied.

 

I called them 2h ago and was told 28th or 29th March (haven't understood exactly and don't cared about) should have been the shipping date and because of the fhd mt shortage there are further 2 weeks to wait for me.
Guess it would be a real surprise if there's a shipping notification flying in by mid-April but hope so.

 

everything below 95 is within limits but it doesn't prolong the life of your equipment.
did compound look like on this pic below (my x60s)



the w510^^

 

Looks like mine should be here tomorrow! Just checked on CDW and it says it has shipped, they've got my s/n listed on the invoice online now too. Ordered on March 4th.

 

Try a different monitoring tool, like Everest, HWinfo32, CPU-Z/GPU-Z. I don't believe that your temps are so high. Something is completely wrong. Your max shouldn't scratch 90C (after you applied thermal paste) even if running Furmark+WPrime.

 

Pretty sure ColorMunki wouldn't give that kind of info, I'll ask my color management person (wife); but I recall asking her if she could show me a gamut display for our NEC 2690WUXI, but never got one.

 

Tirell Corp Nice pics. FHD or HD+?

 

Got mine!!!!!!
and love it

 

How's the screen!!!???

 

gorgeous....

what do you want to know?

put it simply its not fhd
but its perfectly fine for my uses

it looks as good as (if not better) then any other laptop I have owned

 

That's a kind of feedback I was waiting for! Ordered the exact same screen.Coo!

 

FHD only hd is not for real users of quad core i7's
(off base) why our names turned red in color?

 

Attached are pictures I took today of the underside of the heatsink and processor. This is after the Arctic Silver 5 has been applied for a few days. When I applied the paste I made sure there was a thin layer of paste covering the entire core, I leveled it out with a credit card as per AS's instructions. There are a few spots where the paste is thinner, I assume it has better contact with the CPU in those spots. I reran all the test and had CPU-ID Hardware Monitor, Real Temp 3.40, and Core Temp 0.99.5 all running in the background. The tests come up with the exact same temperatures I posted earlier, the programs differ by +-1 degree Celsius. If you have any more questions please let me know. So, either Lenovo is reporting the wrong temps to these programs, or the processor just gets that hot running LinX.

 

Can anyone answer the Norton question?

 

here is a calibration profile i made last night that i said i would post a while ago.

As for screen, having worked with it for a week, i have to say that it is very nice. Its biggest weakness is that it is very sensitive to pixel walk. Which makes some off-colors flicker a bit. One particulary bad one is in the newegg website's background and some grays. Anybody else with FHD screen notice this?

 

Just got mine. Should the multi touch work right out of the box? I check my computer properties, and it says no pen or touch input is available on this device.

Am I missing something?

Thanks!

 

Lunux?
Could you switch to W7 and run HWinfo32 and see your temps?
Ilso how hot does the system's surface get (keyboard, bottom,etc) while running the tests? Is it impossible to place it on your lap?
I'm goona get mine early next week. And will follow your steps and post my findings. I wouldn't keep the machine if the temps are reaching 90c in normal working conditions.

I'd recommend removing it entirely and installing something lightweight and free (eg. Avast Home).

 

LinX is a CPU burn in tool, supposedly makes the CPU hotter than anything else.

I am running Windows 7 Ultimate x 64.

In my usage, the CPU never gets hot, this is just an extreme test. I doubt under normal or even heavy use it would get any where close to the temps I've described.

I haven't put the laptop on my lap during the tests so I could keep the variables the same. I would imagine it wouldn't feel too good to do so.

 

Thanks for the snaps, BTW I think you need to make more spread not less.

i.e halogen lamps if touched will burn out quick,why? thus oil only remains on the surface where you touched it making sides uneven,but if you spred it equally all over surface it will not burn out. same goes for CPU-heat-sink IMO

I had better results when the surface was guranteed covered and nothing was a miss thus again some may remember how Nvidias were getting burned from the edges where paste was not present, but youd notice that too late usually lol this mostly was with desktop cards after a year or so.

also there is oil-metal compound which is AC5 and there was some other don't remember the name non conductive one which you can spread everywhere without fear to short something (better be safe than sorry)


edit: found one "non conductive" http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=TH-002-AR&tool=3