Lenovo W510 Owner's Thread

Hmmm, no idea how to cope with dual monitors as I've never used that setup. However, the i1 Display2 works fine on my X201 running windows 7. Ideally for an LED backlit screen you'd want something like a colormunki, but the i1 Display 2 still does a pretty good job with an LED backlit screen (and when I bought it there were no LED backlit screens on laptops that I knew of, plus it's a lot cheaper than a colormunki).

I would think the dual monitors issue is more an issue of what can Win 7 do.

 

Looking for a quick reply here hopefully. I just got my machine with the i7 and im trying to load 64bit into it. Where i purchased it it would have been $60 more to get 64bit with everything else exactly the same (still alot cheaper than lenovo direct) Problem im having is both of the drivers that lenovo says to use for sata drivers to load windows 7 dont work. They show the proper chipset but dont detect my drive.

6mir25ww.exe
6mio25ww.exe

Both of those seem to work but cannot find any devices. Anybody else had this problem? Hard drive and everything is factory but I will be upgrading to ssd one day and this will help for than too.

Lenovo tech support says my machine is too new and cannot see any specs

 

After you clean install, download and install the network drivers and then the Thinkvantage System Update 4.0. It will detect and install all the other drivers you need.

 

I cannot do a clean install because i need the sata drivers to load windows to begin with. Thats the problem im having. I could do the other drivers manualy myself once I have that.

 

Download RST 9.6 from Intel and load the drivers from an usb stick

Link to Intel (select the 64bit drivers for F6 install)

 

I did a clean install (Win7 64-bit) right from the DVD and it had no problem finding the drives. It should detect and use the correct SATA drivers with no additional drivers needed. Unless you are trying to install WinXP 64bit?

 

Already tried downloading the full 32 and 64bit package before this post. It scans for a few min than says it couldnt find any new devices. It pulls up the same exact driver as the lenovo downloads section gives me.

 

You were prob using the lenovo dvd. They wont sell me one because the machine came with 32bit. made em think that a 4gb machine needs to come with 32bit?

From what ive read beginning of june they did a new revision. Maybe a new ahci driver? My machine was built june 10th 2010

 

I recall having some issues when reinstalling, do you still have the original HDD?
All necessary drivers should be on the original HDD, possibly in the DRIVERS folder.

I'm using W7 Enterprise x64 and so I did not use the lenovo DVDs when reinstalling.

 

Amusingly enough i just noticed something. When i goto browse for the driver to the flash drive. It shows the hard drive with the current load on it along with my recovery partition and whatever the 3rd partition is. But it wont let me tell it to install there. Any new ideas?

 

The original drive has 32bit. Not 64bit drivers.

 

Just tried another drive. Had a brand new empty WDC 320gb black edition. it also did the same thing. showed as there with a empty partition but wouldnt come up to where i could load to it.

Does this in both AHCI and Compatability mode.

 

No, I used a stock MS DVD. Maybe they did a new revision, but I just received my W510 last week, so hopefully I got the revision.

Everything should be AHCI mode these days, Compatibility is only for much older OS.

Did you happen to have drive encryption or anything like that? Maybe a hard disk password?

 

Nope, no passwords or anything. Drive shows up fine when i goto browse it just wont give me the option to use that drive to install.

 

I solved the audio with DP -> HDMI issue just yesterday! I am using Slackware64 13.1 with kernel 2.6.34.1 and the 256.35 drivers from nVidia. Not sure what is package with 10.04 of Ubuntu, but the "fix" for me was quite simple. If you issue the command "aplay -l" in a console, it should hopefully list the sound devices you have on your system. For me it listed one for the sound device that controls the Lenovo speakers and a bunch for nVidia's HDMI interface. I do not have my machine in front of me now, but it was similar to this:

Code:

**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: ALC275 Analog [ALC275 Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 3: NVIDIA HDMI [NVIDIA HDMI]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 7: NVIDIA HDMI [NVIDIA HDMI]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 8: NVIDIA HDMI [NVIDIA HDMI]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 9: NVIDIA HDMI [NVIDIA HDMI]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

In the above you can see that the HDMI device is seen as card #1. So what I did was create/edit the file /etc/modprobe.d/sound.conf (in my case I had to create it) and added the following:

Code:

options snd-hda-intel probe_mask=0xffff,0xfff2

The "probe_mask" string (here "0xffff,0xfff2") depends on the card number of your soundcard as listed by aplay -l. If you have card number 0, add:

Code:

options snd-hda-intel probe_mask=0xfff2

if you have card number 1, add:

Code:

options snd-hda-intel probe_mask=0xffff,0xfff2

if you have card number 2, add:

Code:

options snd-hda-intel probe_mask=0xffff,0xffff,0xfff2

etc.

After adding this one line to sound.conf, exit KDE or GNOME and "rmmod snd_hda_intel" to unload this module. Run "modprobe snd_hda_intel" to load the module, which will read the change you have added to sound.conf. "aplay -l" should now list one HDMI device and this should be all that is needed. From here you will need to tell KDE or GNOME in the settings to use the HDMI device rather than the other one!


It is rather weird that you received a 3 prong AC adapter especially since it is not as prevalent as 2 prong in your location. I actually thought I received the wrong cord when I saw it was 2 prong.

Without the air conditioner on my temps run around the high 50s slightly touching the really low 60s with minimal usage and thought those temps were high!

 

If you want to fix your color issues manually do what Tyrel said and install some of the newer Nvidia drivers. You can use NVIDIA & Laptop News | Latest NVIDIA drivers and related news | laptopvideo2go.com to get some. The newer drivers set the vibrance control to 50% so that you can actually lower it and reduce the color saturation. I have mine set to 37% and it looks fantastic. I also had to drop my brightness level a touch to compensate for the extremely bright back lighting on this display. The photo reproduction I get now though is very good.

As for color matching, I've got a spyder 3 elite in the mail. You need to be very careful about what you choose to go with here. Not all the color calibrators are capable of accurately measuring wide gamut screens. The I2 Display 2 can do it IF you get the right set of filters for it. Most of the packages do NOT come with these filters. It will still work, but it will not be all that accurate. The Spyder 3 comes with wide gamut capable filters. Another option if money isn't a hurdle is to get a Color Munkey. It's a different kind of color calibrator and can be used on prints and computer screens.

 

why does the w510 have problems too

I wanted to buy it but I'm scared and it will crash or something. Im afraid it might not handle what I'm gonna do: Be it personal explicit research on the unknown (hard to explain, mind consuming :confused2: ) or something else (using sensors, real life data, audio/video manipulations, etc), school research (CAD, CFC, science, space, propulsion, etc.), school work (Labs, reports, 3D modeling, CAD etc.), multimedia (music, HD movies, editing, photoshop and all that stuff), gaming (new games like crysis 2, fear 3, GRFS, etc.). Will it be able to handle? or is these problems gonna be effecting me .

 

Well, it's one of the high-end workstation laptops available, so if it can't handle what you need, you'll have to be using high-end desktops or servers to crunch your data.

 

He's just scared of the unknown.
It's not that bad, most of his "tasks" will be done on relatively old computer farm dekstops.
I took quite a few cross classes with Aero-Space Eng. and am quite sure, - there's nothing scary and/or super-mega-heavy in there

 

Are you sure Aikimox..are your really sure
What happens if i wanna go beyond :confused2: ?

Also all the software in my nit are updated to the new version and new hardware coming in. So don't underestimate mate. but lets hope i get to use the new hardware for explicit reasons

 

I am sure. I've been there and done that many times. In fact, most of your school stuff can and will be done on obsolete hardware. Trust me, I worked in software&hardware deployment (IT system administrator) for one of the most technologically advanced universities in the world.
If your faculty/school has just upgraded to the latest hardware (I doubt it, usually it's a long step by step process, and you still end up with half of the puter farms
and labs running a 4-5 year old software), then no Clevo will save you. Software that cannot be run on i7-720QM and mediocre Quadro GPU, will probably require a multi-cpu workstation/server environment.
The best hardware level found in laptops is only available in Clevo D900F and the upcoming x7200.
But even those do not have the true server/workstation multi-CPU power, and they are beyond your budget.
In addition, you do not need a workstation or a high-end gaming laptop as those are impossible to drag along with all the paperwork you'll have by your side during the day.
You can try, of course

You've asked enough questions all over this forum to know the answer - there's no absolute solution.
But from your infinite and at times contradictorily sporadic
questions, it's not hard to realize that you simply don't know what you really need. The best advice was already given, but I'll repeat - you don't really need a laptop. Most of my parallel stream classmates from Aero-Space Eng. never even had laptops as all the work was done in their labs. I was one of the few who had notebooks at that time but it was in the dorms most of the time and basically served a desktop.
I could just buy a 3x more powerful desktop for the same price with less risk of it being stolen or lost. That's what most of the students do. If you type faster than you write you might wanna consider a super slim and light notebook for the classes, but that's not always convenient.
If you feel the urge to have it anyway, - buy something cheap that won't hurt to break/get stolen/etc.
When you get there and actually begin the studies - things will change, you might even totally forget about laptops

 

Hey man, since u have IT experience I'm listening to you. So for one thing, the infinite amount of times I asked this questions, a lot of people said I need a mobile workstation. So that's why I ask to clarify. I'd like to game so I'm gonna be taking a laptop for notes and gaming either way. Yes I'll take up the challenge of carrying a laptop around campus . So of the people you know who did aero-eng, what did they use for computation. Was there works done on super computers and clusters? Or was it done on a lab pc (which is outdated?). Hey so from what I got from your post, your saying that even the hexacore isn't enough for the task of an aero eng, we need super computers and super scalar processors to do it? And tesla gpu and stuff? I mean I'd like to do research (besides propulsion on the unknown: its a hard to explain/mind consuming thing). So I thought maybe a mobile workstation would help. But from the looks of it, it can't handle it. So bro, I'm hoping to get access to these super computers when ever I need it. And for a laptop, I'll probably get a light, powerful laptop that can game and do work. So i hope I understood you right. I wonder what type of computers scientist/engineers use for "research"? hmm

 

90% of your first degree you will not need anything stronger than i5 with integrated graphics.
I like your passion for the unknown and beyond, but get ready
for 3-4 years of boring maths, physics, statistics, etc, - like in every other engineering degree. Most of the time your Mathlab/etc homeworks will be done on averagely spec'ed desktops in the labs.
Honestly, you might never even see the "supercomputers" .
At my university, only selected few post graduates, enrolled on a few interesting projects, were lucky to see the GRID's and other complex systems. So, by the time you get there - Ivy Bridge will be long forgotten.

The only reason for a powerful laptop is gaming.
But think of the two important things:
1) Reduced mobility and extremely troublesome maintenance.

If you ever hope to run Crysis2 on high/max - your laptop is probably gonna weight 6kg and will be pretty bulky. You'll need to have a constant monitoring of its temps and clean the system of dust much sooner than a regular system. Routine TIM replacement will also be a must.
Also, gaming systems are prone to preliminary hardware problems
and you'll need to keep that in mind.

2) Easy target for thieves.
That's right. Regardless of the level of your school, there always will be some percentage of those watching for you to lose your vigilance.
Even at our university, with an extremely sophisticated security system - some students occasionally managed to steal workstations Infinite number of laptops get stolen from dormitories each year.

 

Thanks a lot. I am inclined toward W510.
I think M4500 has only 2 DIMM ram slots.

If I buy a W510, I will get 4MB RAM with 2x2Mb ram configuration so that I can install one or two 4Mb RAMs on the remaining slots. Any recommendations as to what brand and where to get them? I mean, is there any compatibility issues with combining more than two different brands of RAMs?

 

ooo, I'll have to take care of a heavy gaming rig then eh. Unless I got for an envy 14 XD. it can game right? and oh that sucks...well I'll sneak in to the grid :lol: So what engineer are you...lemme guess Computer and electrical engineer or system engineer? Anyway you like my passion eh, how so? wait if laptops get lost..what about desktops? they probably get stolen. Well I'm just gonna take a laptop that is easy to carry, not shiny, powerful and can do my work for here in the present. wait, isn't it usually like you use the computers to connect to the grid? So couldn't i connect to the grid myself and not be there physically and do all the computation and get all the data i need :laugh:

 

Funny...
envy 14 for gaming?

GRIDs are used for some serious crunching, simulations, etc.
You'll have the basic access to your faculty's limited resources, so don't get your hopes high there.

Now back to the topic:
W510 might be an overkill for ya.
I'd say lower end R or T series might suit your needs.

 

aww why do you have to always shoot me down :laugh:

So you said u admire my aspiration, how so bro. and LMAO did i guess your profession right? Well my campus card allows me access to every room, its just that in order to log onto the GRID I need especial authentication, Unless I access is remotely

And LMAO, so the envy 14 aint good for gaming? Anyway I never got the whole overkill thing? do u mean over kill with the money, weight or the power? cause power is good . Also what about the Y series? The T series is alright I guess.

 

I enrolled for my Materials Engineering and Physics degrees with hopes of exploring black holes, time&space travel and creating a device that would allow for teleporting living creatures to any point in the universe.
After 2.5 years of useless and completely irrelevant maths and physics, I realized that Einstein's never appear within the schools' walls.
To go beyond you have to go outside the system. Schools create fresh screws to support and slightly improve the existing system of existence. They never meant to help you break through, - quite opposite actually

I teach Aikido and have an IT business

I doubt you can use it to access other faculty labs, that would be a total disaster for the school's security.
GRID, campus public network, and the faculty segment are 3 different things. You will understand it soon. All faculty related research projects (that utilize the supercomputers) are restricted/locked away from undergraduates even if they are from the same faculty.

What kind of gaming?
Even though W510 can run most current games at medium/high details, the system will suffer from overheating after long gaming sessions. It's not meant to be a true gaming machine, the card will die very soon if you stress it with Crysis and similar games, the screen suffers from minor input lag making the online FPS games a total frustration.

So, when you're tired of idealizing and need to make a decision -
grab a T510 and checkout ONLIVE

 

word...yeah i hear this baby overheats. Yeah t510 should be the way to go, lets hope the gpu will be able to game. And oh cool I'm similar to you like instead of teleportation, I want to create a time flux, which will let us travel faster then light. (as we reach the speed of light time slows, at the speed of light time stops, so if you exceed the speed of light theoretically time should reverse) I crazy I know. but for me i think my aspiration goes deeper then that...thats why its hard to explain and mind consuming :confused2:

btw what about the Y series? aren't they good Also is nvidia even good at gaming, or are u just saying nvidia so u can let me have fun exploiting CUDA and physics will owning in Crysis 2 , ghost recon, Starcraft 2 and the likes?

and aww..what if you make contact with the prof in the research..could he let you in

 

Hm, actually my HDMI device is already listed by PulseAudio (which is what Ubuntu uses) but I simply can't hear anything when choosing it for audio output. Anyway, I will give it a try.

Oh, which one?

 

Sent you a PM

 

If using PulseAudio, add the following line to /etc/pulse/default.pa:

Code:

load-module module-alsa-sink device=hw:1,3

Where 1,3 is card#,device# for the nVidia HDMI output given by aplay -l.

 

Hey Aikimox, I was awating your reply for my previous post

Anyway hey why don't u also tell me which IT place your work for? Because if I take aerospace electronics and systems, I have the same courses as in Electrical and Computer Engineer but I do more advance stuff, so If I ever need a job, i can work with you guys and work with your GRID

 

Hey guys my IT department wiped my entire drive when they upgraded my 32 bit Win7 W510 to 64 bit. Drivers aside, what software am I missing out on? Can someone burn me a copy? I'll be your BFF if you do... LOL!

 

All the bloatware can be downloaded along with the drivers from Lenovo.

For antivirus, I recommend either Avast or MSE (both are free and very powerful but the later is a tiny iota heavier).
Office? The Latest Open Office (free) is almost perfectly compatible with MS products.
What else do you need?

If you wish to continue on the "beyond" subject, - PM

I don't work for a single place anymore. Nowadays it's an international level with frequent travelling
I prefer to keep our company's name confidential.

 

first aww..yeah keep ur privacy...and oh PM shall i

 

More specifically, I was looking to know what cd burning software was included and any other applications that were OEM'ed with the system. Updates for these applications are made available sporadically, but the applications are not. As far as productivity and protection go, I'm quite happy with MS Office Enterprise and Symantec Endpoint Protection. Thanks though!

 

I'll check my wife's W510 and give you the list.

 

Thanks a bunch. My motivation is that software like Roxio and Nero have become too bloated and all inclusive in their retail forms. The trimmed down oem versions would while basic will likely fit the bill for my needs.

 

how about this


thanks for ignoring btw

all I can say the display FHD is garbage for gaming and video editing it has tearing in many apps also jitter only solution is external display.

 

Your CPU portion of the score is too low. You should be able to hit 3k. try minimizing all background apps/services/processes and try again.

 

HEY! I am going into first year, and although I know I won't be doing CAD, I will be doing more and more as the years go by and I just purchased the W510. It's an excellent machine and the multiple cores + FX880 will render very fast. You can see everything on 3DS and AutoCAD fine on a screen 15 inches in size, I have yet to recieve it but I'll update you. BTW I am going to Carleton University for architecture.

 

Congratulation man, I myself am going to Carleton University for aerospace. Are you going to game? because if you scroll up the thread, my dear friend Aikimox says that w510 is overkill. it can heat up quick..but hey if you love the machine, then take it

 

Thanks,
I am excited about your update.

 

W510 heating up quick? I can only get mine to 81C using furmark burn mode. Thats not very high at all for a stress test. This is one of the cooler running laptops with dedicated graphics that I've used in recent years, not bad at all for a quad core with reasonably powerful GPU.

 

I have been doing some tests in recent to determine the possible problems with My LCD on W510 so I would appreciate if some of you could run the cross talk tests and confirm that I'm hypochondriac.

CROSS TALK TEST 3 Crosstalk test3 (make sure you run it full screen as in f11 )

If you see the pink on green, call 999 and give them my address.

 

81C after how long? What is the ambient temp?
I played a few relatively undemanding games like King's Bounty TAP, Sega Rally and hit up to 85-86C on all cores and GPU after just an hour. Crysis and other heavy stuff would be above 90C for sure.
Also, Notebookcheck did a Furmark+Wprime test and hit above 95C on both CPU and GPU with a low (~20-22C) room temp.
I'm not saying the system has a bad cooling, quite the opposite in fact. But for gaming purposes it might not be the best choice. Remember, one thing is using CAD for 2 hours, another - running Left4Dead for the whole day
This is an excellent workstation and should be regarded as such. When you push it deep into the gaming arena - it might fail.

 

and please add that TN screen they used is S..

 

it was for about 40 minutes at regular room temperature. And GPU actually stayed degree or two below one of the CPU cores (for some reason one of my cores runs hotter then 3 others).

Notebookcheck also found that this temp is perfectly acceptable, and resulted in no throttling, so even if I could get mine up 95C i wouldn't have a problem with it. I believe throtting starts when it hits 105C and shuts down at 120C. 95C is way below safe limit for me. Modern Macbooks run at 90+ under load all the time with no problems.

I can't comment alot about games, the only time i play on my laptop is when I am traveling and rarely for more than an hour straight. When I did play some games, I did not find it lacking in performance or comfort levels at all. In any case, I never do serious gaming on a laptop...thats what desktops are for.

 

Totally agree.

While the system doesn't throttle @95C it doesn't mean the components' life expectancy is unaffected. Good example is the FX880M. The 80-85C you see in the temp monitor is only a core temp. It's perfectly normal to have 80C on the core but keep in mind that the most fragile part of the card is memory chips and those get way hotter during load. Nvidia doesn't provide any MEM/IO sensors like those found in AMD cards. It's common for memory chips to run 10-15C hotter than the core and we also know that those are much more sensitive to high temps
Plus, you never know the actual core temps either as both AMD and Nvidia calibrate their sensors differently.