Lenovo W510 Owner's Thread

I ordered additional 135 W adapters, because I was not happy with the sluggish performance of the laptop while using the 90 W adapters. From what I read here the computer goes into a power saving mode that cannot be overridden when the 90 W adapter is used.

 

That doesn't make sense to me. How can Lenovo sell W510 with adapters that don't allow to work at it's full power?

 

They don't. A lot of less powerful Lenovo laptops probably use the 90-watt power supplies, including the slim travel types. The Lenovo comes standard with the 135-watt. If you want an extra and still have full performance, you have to purchase another 135-watt, which isn't cheap. It is also bigger than the 90-watt making it somewhat bulky for some.

 

Exactly, it's so large that I want one at home and one at work and one for travel. The extra one will be on a shelf for the most part, but I like to keep one routed at home to my favorite seat.

 

Oh, I see. Thank you.

 

Well, I posted the other day that my computer wasn't going to "sleep" properly and that I had to force a shutdown to get it going again. Yesterday, it worked once, and then failed again. The next thing I know the computer won't even boot. Twice I was able to get it to at least show the initial Thinkpad startup logo (dimmed for whatever reason), and then it would just be frozen. This morning, after calling Lenovo and having them tell me to do the remove battery, press power button 10 times, and hold for 15 seconds, I got it to start and get into Windows. Unfortunately, Windows loaded in non-Aero mode, started showing a bunch of "new hardware installed" notifications (task bar) and only had weird resolutions available. When I tried to restart...it wouldn't boot again. This is getting frustrating as I thought Thinkpads were supposed to tbe standard in durability and reliability. Mine had screen issues when new (purchased in May) and now won't start.

 

Sounds like some kind of hardware issue.... you'll probably have to send it in. Those kind of issues can be a bear to troubleshoot over the mail in service. That's why I got the on site warranty.

 

I'm also wishing I got the on-site, but I didn't want to pay the extra. Instead I put it towards the Thinkpad protection. I'm in the military and will be bringing my laptop on deployments, so I wanted that. I should get my box on Monday and will get my dead laptop in to them. At least I have my desktop.

 

I had exactly the same problem like what you described after installing the latest Power Manager software from Lenovo's driver update web page. My W510 will not function properly (become very slow in opening application software, will not reboot after restart, hang at the Thinkpad startup logo when restarting the W510, and etc). Rather than sending in my W510 for repair, I thought I give it a try by doing a complete reinstal using the recovery disks. Installed all Win 7 update first then install all driver updates except the latest power manager. My W510 is back to normal and runs fast again. No sleep or reboot issue any more. People having problems like mine could give it a try and see if it is worth the time to reinstall everything.

 

What version of Power Manager is causing the problems? I have 3.25 installed and see occasional hangs on shutdown but haven't started investigating the cause.

 

I wish I could get that far, but I can't even get it to let me "push the blue button" to get into the reinstall stage. When I turn it on all I get is a blank screen. The fingerprint reader light doesn't even come on anymore when I open up the top. I'll try again later today by taking out the battery and seeing if I can at least get that part going. The version of the Power Manager software that may or may not be at fault is 3.30 (I think).

 

Yep, looks like 3.30 was released 10 days ago and I have not downloaded it. Not gonna either.

 

I'm running it and have not experienced issues. I've been running it for several days and have power cycled, slept, and awakened the cpu many times. I'm not sure I'd blame the pm utility. The driver version stayed the same after all.

Note: I meant to say NOT above. Sorry but sometimes my typing outpaces my thoughts.

 

Power manager 3.30 is the one giving me problem. I can not find the version prior to 3.30 on Lenovo's driver update website anylonger. I am using ver. 3.13 as that is on the recovery disk / partition.

For power manager ver. 3.30, the readme file does point out that user interface will become slow after installation. However, it does not say what user interface it is referring to. I found out the difficult way. It is the Win 7 user interface !! Everything get slower and the W510 simply hang at restart. Even powering down the W510 takes a long time after ver. 3.30 installation.

 

Okay, I made the leap: I ordered my very first laptop. I've been using desktops since the dark ages (I've been using PCs since well before the IBM/PC existed). My new machine was ordered on the evening of 10 September. Scheduled delivery is 23 September.

Next order of business: tricking it out! I want to max out the memory. I'm open to suggestions as to whose fastest 4GB dimms I should order.

Edited to add: It seems to make sense to buy the $60 drive bay adapter III in order to add a second hard drive when needed. It also seems to make sense to add the desk-style mini-dock 3 which includes an extra 135-watt power brick so I can leave one at home and one at the office. So no real questions about these two items; however, what about batteries . . .

Lenovo seems to have two 9-cell batteries at $180 and one 6-cell battery at $150. Then there are 3rd-party solutions (although they seem to be rare and no less expensive). Suggestions? I want a spare; but I'm thinking 6-cell -- not 9 -- as a machine of this caliber is not likely to be used a great deal away from the power mains and the 6-cell is less weight.

 

So I ran the thinkvantage update tool, and installed the applicable updates. Now my power button wont put the computer to sleep, like it has always done before I did the update.
I checked my system settings, and they are still set to put to comp to sleep when the power button is pressed. If its pressed too long the comp shuts down.

is going on here, its almost like they should attach a warning that states, "Install updates at your own risk, we are not responsible for your laptop no longer working properly".

 

Hello,

I ordered w510 with windows 7 64 and 2g ram 1067, and I'm planning to buy 8g ram (2 DIMM). To have a total of 10. Someone could recommend me where I could find the cheapest price. And what would be better 1067 or 1333?

Thanks in advance.

 

I found the difference in the 9-cell batteries: one (the "55") is the same as the one shipped with the computer and the other (the "27") is a "plate" battery that attaches in addition, allowing the use of two batteries simultaneously.

I'm still hoping for a recommendation for fast 4GB dimms. Suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Thanks....

 

I can't compare with other RAM but I got 4 of these Newegg.ca - Crucial 4GB 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Laptop Memory Model CT51264BC1339
Had no stability issues, it was recognized right away and system is damn fast.
Not sure how much this helps but my WEI for memory is 7.4

 

Hi All,

I think there must be lots of people using all 4 memory slots on the W510. Can anyone share some experience using the full 16G (4x4G)? Any stability issue? over heating issue? and performance improvement on Win7 x64 environment?

I am considering upgrading my W510 from 8G to 16G. I think DDR3 memory price might be sliding in the near future and might as well take advantage of it while I can.

Thanks in advance.

 

I picked up 4 4GB Corsair 1066MHz 204 pin DIMMs from Newegg. No issues to speak of. If you use multiple apps that are memory intensive simultaneously then go for it. But, honestly, if you are not sure then 8GB would probably be fine for you for years to come. Have you had out of memory errors?

 

Thanks for the reply.

I have not had any windows error msg such as "out of memory" any sort. However, I have noticed that task manager is telling me that I have only less than 100MB for free memory after watching some streaming video.

I am thinking of four 1333MHz 4G sticks. For some reason, I recall reading somewhere that people are having overheating issues when using 4 1333MHz DDR3 memory sticks at the same time. I can't remember where I got that information and hope someone can confirm if that is really an issue.

 

My new W510, ordered the 10th, scheduled for shipment the 23rd, has shipped TODAY -- the 16th!

 

I did my homework, but got a C in this regard. I was of the impression that the 1066 MHz was the fastest that the MB would allow the RAM to use so I bought that variety. I later learned of my mistake. I have not read of the issues you raise though. I can say that I often use CAD and CAM software simultaneously and I need the extra RAM as both can be quite the memory hog. I also use Adobe MC CS5 and some other rather intensive applications. I have had no issues with mine, so maybe i got lucky...

 

I ordered on 8/25 but I haven't got mine yet. The initial shipping date was 9/7 but later was removed from the order status page. I called and Lenovo said this is due to a specific component shortage. A couple of days ago, the shipping date appeared again with the new date of 9/21. I'm crossing my fingers for the best. Certainly this is not a good buying experience for me from Lenovo although I have been using Thinkpad for more than 10 years.

 

Should I start a separate thread for issues concerning my W510?
Seems like this thread is solely for ordering information and "what memory should I buy".

Along with my power button not putting my laptop to sleep, my internet connection keeps disconnecting then reconnecting at random times. My router is still connected and I never had this issues before with other computers.

 

I'm seeing the same issues with connections. It seems like it shuts down the wifi after it's idle for a while. I've disabled all the power saving I can find that would do this, but it still seems to happen.

 

Are you using Access Connections by chance?

 

I don't think so. I connect to the wireless using the built-in Windows 7 tools, however, I do have the icon showing in the system tray (not the toolbar though). I've set the options in there to not disable wireless on idle.

 

I don't use nor do I have Access Connections installed, and I do not have the issue. I'm grasping at straws, but hey if your not using it, remove it. And, see if the problem goes away or is at least improved. Just a hunch...

 

Good idea. I removed Access Connections, so I'll see how it goes.

 

I know the W510 wouldn't kick in turbo boost if only battery or only AC is plugged in. The only way to have turbo boost working is to restart the machine after power on or have both battery and AC plugged in at the same time.

I found out something very interesting today that I could get turbo boost working regardless of the battery or AC status. This is done by changing the number of processor in MSCONFIG -> boot -> advanced options -> number of processors. I found my Win7 has it set to 1 originally (by default). After changing it to 4, turbo boost kicks in right after Win 7 boots up and I do not have to restart. It even works with only battery attached. Of course, I have performance set to max in the bios-> speedstep for AC and set to balanced for battery. However, instead of going to the max turob boost frequency of 3.0GHz, it will top out at 2.0GHz (I have the i7-820QM CPU).

Anyone that is interested can give it a try. If you don't like the result just change the setting back to whatever it was before, and it will go back to the way it was. Any one has any thought on this?

Thanks

 

Ill try that as well, I just jsut the plain and simple windows connection.

Now if I could find out whats wrong with my power button lol

Thanks for help

 

Quick question: Are you using the Lenovo factory image with your W510? Turning on the CPU number option isn't a Windows 7 default and I was wondering if Lenovo did this in their image.

 

Yes, I am using Lenovo factory image with my W510. I have noticed the difference in turbo boost behavior after making the change in MSCONFIG parameter.

 

Keep in mind setting the processor number to 4 turns off hyperthreading from what I can tell.

 

Just got my W510 this past week, I freakin love it, it is replacing my tablet PC Gateway C140X which the battery just crapped out on me and upgrade long overdue.

For anyone not witnessing the turboboost properly reboot into bios settings and change the Power settings to Maximum Performance.

My configuration is
•Intel Extreme Core Processor i7 940XM ES (2.13GHz boost 3.3GHz [software overclock to 3.8GHz])
•16 GB OCZ PC3-10666 DDR3 SDRAM 1333MHz
•15.6" FHD Display (95% Gamut) with LED Backlight and Multi Touch Screen
•NVIDIA FX-880M
•Color Sensor
•240GB OCZ Agility 2 SSD
•Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300
•Bluetooth
•multi card reader
no WiMax or what not, as I have my own Sprint MiFi.

I upgraded the CPU myself with an Engineering Sample originally shipped with i7-720QM, 2GB RAM, and 320GB HD.

Yes the battery life on these pretty much suck compared to my tablet which was configured with 18 cells and lasted just over 11 hours. But for my personal experiences and usage, if the battery doesn't last for close to 8 hours normal use then I'll need my power cord and this is a notebook workstation and bought knowing it to be such so the batter life is a non factor.

 

I tried to set the number of processors to 8 and Win7 runs just fine. I can not tell the difference between having the number of processors set to 4 and 8. I am now wondering if setting the number of processors to either 4 will some how enable all 4 "cores" running at higher frequency while keeping the overall power dissipation at the same (lower turbo boost frequency). Just a guess.

 

I am having this same problem! Lenovo sent me a second machine b/c they couldn't fix - the new one is having same issue. Have you had any luck with this since your post?

 

Anyone else done a HDD performance / benchmark?

 

I received my w510 yesterday finally. Everything looks beautiful. But this morning, I ran into a problem. The machine cannot be restarted after Windows 7 got the latest updates from microsoft. Later I found the root cause was my logitech mouse receiver plugged into the blue colored (USB 3.0 port?) USB port. With anything plugged into one of those blue colored USB port, the machine stucks at the very first screen (not even into bios yet). The other 2 USB ports seems fine (the yellow colored powered one and the shared one with eSATA). I remotely remember someone else in this forum ran into some similar problem before. The weird thing seems that it only happened after I got all the latest Windows updates. Before that, it seems fine.

Has anyone else run into this problem?

-Dennis

 

This is a known issue and it has been around since the w510 started shipping at the beginning of this year. You would think they would have resolved it by now, but I can only speculate the issue is deeper than a driver or BIOS update.

 

Thanks for confirming it. Yeah, it's a shame for such a beautiful machine. Another whining I have is the FHD display. Don't get it wrong. I love the screen quality. The color, the resolution, second to none. But the font is a little too tiny to me. I know it's personal preference. I have to adjust the windows font to 125%. Even with that, I have to manually adjust some software and browser to increase the font size there. It would be much better to have a 4:3 FHD screen.

-Dennis

 

Dennis,

I have been using my FHD at 110% DPI. You can set custom levels. 125 is too large for me.

I tried 110, 115, 120 and 125 for periods of time. You might experiment with different custom settings to see if something greater than 100 but less than 125 better meets your needs. It did for me.

Regarding the USB3 boot issue, keep in mind once booted and Windows is up and running with the drivers, you can plug stuff into those ports.

I plug my mouse transceiver into the powered USB2 port on the back right. Works fine at boot there.

 

Perfect example of a case where no single solution will fit everyone's tastes. I leave mine at 100% as that is the ideal size for me. I don't have any USB devices that I leave plugged in, so hearing about this on the forum is the only way I knew. I hope that it can be fixed via driver/firmware... as when I get my T4xxs this one will get major desk duty and I'd imagine this issue could become a problem for me then...

 

There are updates for both USB3.0 driver and controller firmware on Lenovo website. Don't know if that solves anything.

 

Nope, the May and June updates you are referring to didn't fix the issue.

For those of you that need to plug something in at boot time, I use the combo USB/eSATA port for my KVM, and the powered USB 2 port on the back for a mouse transceiver when I am not docked.

 

Some listings I see for the w510 list the FHD display as just 15.6” FHD (1920 X 1080) LED and some list it as 15.6” FHD (1920 X 1080) LED (95% Gamut, 270nit). Are there two different displays or are these just different descriptions of the same display?

 

More and more issues surfaced up in my 3 days old w510. I don't know why so many issues. My old T60 never had so many problems. Here are the issues I ran into

1. Cannot come back from sleep mode. If immediately start from sleep, it's fine. But after a while, say 15 min, it cannot do it. It seems trying (because I hear the fan start rolling) but stuck on black screen forever. Looks like it's a known issue for long time but without solution. I followed the KB some Lenovo guys suggested (update BIOS and power mgmt software) but no success. Some other folks claims hibernate mode has the same problem. However, I tried many times and didn't find it happen in my w510. So hibernate is my current "sleep" mode. Not convenient but not too bad. I couldn't imagine it would be called "laptop" if both don't work.
2. touchpad sometimes doesn't work. I found a pattern though. When it stops working, CPU usage goes up. When you look into task manager, you would see a process called "synapsisTouchPadEnhancer" or something like that takes up quite some CPU time. Kill that process and the touchpad works again.

Both problems are pretty annoying. I don't know who to blame, intel, microsoft or lenovo. But obviously, Lenovo doesn't have the same quality as I expect from the Thinkpad name, at least for this w510 model.

 

I tend to agree the quality assurance and testing of units coming off the line seems nonexistent. Sure would be nice if they could hook up something that does a full check before they ship.