Lenovo W510 Owner's Thread

no you don't have to! you can be me and try to send it for unsuccessful repairs twice , or follow my advice and just while its hot on wheels get it replaced. (sorry I like to be smart sometimes)

there's video I've posted with similar effects in this thread somewhere.
also Its not screen only I suspect (they blamed it on other two parts cable and RGB LED) so why bother?

after effects of repairs were "running hot" and video problems no pixel problems though, mustf healed one part and sacrificed another lol

 

The problem with unsuccessful repairs is that you burn through your return period then you are really stuck with the machine. I refuse to take that route. It either arrives defect free or it's returned. Period.

 

my thoughts exactly.

 

Hi all, it`s me again, the one with the freeze issue. I contacted lenovo Canada tecnical support. I was asked what was the problem and after explaining it, I was told my laptop has no warranty. I even bought the one year onsite warranty. Just would like to ask if this is normal and if someone has experienced this kind of problems with lenovo whe trying to return a defectuos item. I was told I have 21 days to return it for a replacement or a refund, I have the laptop for a bit more than a week, but this warranty issue is not solved yet.

 

Did you buy it directly from Lenovo? If not you might not have a warranty through them. However, since you are within your 21 day return period, you could avoid that issue altogether and just return it.

 

Yes, I bought it directly from lenovo by phone on a 40% discount sale. I told the guy on the phone the same, but he answered that I have to register my warranty first... He gave me an email, I wrote there but didn`t get a response.

 

Not sure about Canada, but in the US you do NOT have to register your warranty. Do some research about it so you know, but no matter what call them back and get on their until they give you a result. If the guy you're talking to won't do anything, ask for the supervisor, etc... You need to be firm about this (don't get mean though).

 

Thanks, you`re right, just found a website where I checked my warranty status, seems like I have one.

 

Another question: Just for any case when does this 21 days return period starts? On the date the person receives the laptop, on the date it has been shipped or on the date it has been purchased?

 

21 days from the invoice date which is generally the ship date. Considering it usually takes a week to get to the US from China, you have about 2 weeks to determine the machine features work. For some machines, that isn't a trivial amount of work.

See Lenovo - Shipping and delivery

 

I needed a new laptop that could tackle AutoCAD, 3DS Max (minimal work) as well as Adobe Suite (Illustrator, Photoshop, Indesign, Encore

So I'm hoping that the Lenovo Thinkpad W510 will take care of it...

What's soon to come
-Intel Core i5-560M Processor (2.66GHz, 3MB L3) I could not justify spending an extra $200 for Intel Core i7-620M Processor based on the use and I'm pretty sure that the i5 has ample power to get the job done

-Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64 Got a free upgrade for Win 7 Ultimate from my school so might install that if I hear about any advantages it might have

-15.6" FHD Display (95% Gamut, 270nit) with LED Backlight considering that I'll be working in the design field (Architecture) I figure that this would be the best thing for me

-NVIDIA Quadro FX 880M Graphics with 1GB DDR3 memory for Dual Core Processors No option here for this config. but again good enough

-No Color Sensor I figure anything worth calibrating I will do it on a more powerful desktop

-2 GB PC3-8500 DDR3 SDRAM 1067MHz SODIMM Memory (1 DIMM) I checked the prices for additional RAM on Newegg...not worth paying for it now...planning to upgrade to 8G for the fraction of the cost

-HD 320GB Don't need an additional space because I only use it for work and back up other files elsewhere and not completely sold on SSD yet
Rest is standard stuff....

Status
So right now my laptop is in the process of being shipped but if you are curious about it's destination path here it is:

??????, WA, US 10/13/2010 9:15 P.M. DESTINATION SCAN
10/13/2010 6:32 P.M. ARRIVAL SCAN
10/13/2010 6:18 P.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
10/13/2010 5:49 P.M. ARRIVAL SCAN
LOUISVILLE, KY, US 10/13/2010 3:58 P.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
10/13/2010 12:28 P.M. IMPORT SCAN
LOUISVILLE, KY, US 10/12/2010 9:54 A.M. ARRIVAL SCAN
ANCHORAGE, AK, US 10/11/2010 11:45 P.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
10/11/2010 11:45 P.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
10/11/2010 9:51 P.M. ARRIVAL SCAN
10/11/2010 9:43 P.M. ARRIVAL SCAN
SHANGHAI, CN 10/12/2010 5:42 A.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
10/12/2010 5:05 A.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
SHANGHAI, CN 10/11/2010 9:43 P.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
10/11/2010 7:02 P.M. EXPORT SCAN
10/11/2010 6:52 P.M. HUB SCAN
10/11/2010 9:39 A.M. ORIGIN SCAN
CN 10/11/2010 1:07 A.M. BILLING INFORMATION RECEIVED

Note: So at first I was thinking why go from Alaska to Kentucky then Washington...it has to go to KY to clear customs.

Billing
So when I ordered it I paid the $1700 using two credit cards. Checked statement right away and payment had gone through...so it seemed. I checked my online statement again today and saw that the money has magically appeared but i have not paid of my credit cards yet...so did some investigation and so far this is the best explanation that I have for what's going on

Lenovo Forgets To Charge Customers, Then Sends Them To Collection Agency - The Consumerist

 

What was the question?

 

question was weather he is cool and welcome here. to which Ican answer that - he is

 

I'm seeing an issue getting audio out on the displayport. I'm using an HDMI/DP adapter with and HDMI cable to my TV. I can get video just fine, but no audio. The exact same adapter and cable work just fine on a Dell laptop with both audio and video.

The HD audio device does not show up in the playback devices control panel (I have enabled both disabled and disconnected devices), and I can see the nvidia high def audio adapters in my Device Manager. I've reinstalled the nvidia drivers and am also up to date on the other Lenovo drivers. Nvidia drivers are official and most up to date ones from nvidia, released last week.

Anyone have any ideas?

 

I did find this post saying it should work for the W510, however your second paragraph leaves me with no idea on what to do. Maybe someone else has had a similar problem.

 

Hi,
I have just got hold of a W510 but due to spending contraints it had to be the 1600x900 model. This is a major step down for me as I am used to 1900x1200. Having searched around it seems like the difference between the screen res models is purely the panel

Does anyone know if I could just replace the Panel with the B156HW01 V4 panel which is 1920x1080 and then get the most res possible out of the machine?

 

I have audio with no problems using a HDMI/DP adapter in Windows... While I have not messed around with it much, I believe updating the nVidia drivers provided by nVidia OR the recent one by Lenovo will break the audio. I updated using both and found out that I had to uninstall them to get audio back...

 

you can, but it will set you back 200$. I remember someone has done so in this very thread. and I have provided the name and model of the panel somewhere as-well.

 

Hi all,
I join the owner's thread, just received mine! I'm very happy apart from two minor issues: a high pitched whining when battery powered, and I noticed in some images a bad quality in color gradation, seeing the stripes of colors for example in the logon screen of win7. the driver is updated, do you have any suggestion? bye, dario

The image degradation happens also in the desktop, when an image is put as a background it loses quality. I attach a comparison with the original image. I could have imagined that this is a measure to occupy less memory. But as mentioned earlier, the same bad stiped color gradations happens in the logon page, where the stripes are not supposed to show up obviously. So i guessed it's an issue of mine. What do you think?

 

Thanks for the tip. This definitely did it for me (luckily I still had my SWTOOLS folder laying around. Anyone know where to download older driver versions from Lenovo?). But these video drivers don't allow you to adjust the digital vibrancy, so now I'm back to neon colors.

The working version of the HD Audio driver is 1.0.9.1.

 

Anyone having issues with BSOD after the resent updates through lenovo and Microsoft?
It seems that ever since I installed the new updates Ive been having random problems all of the sudden.

 

For some reason my computer didi not download Windows updates after 9/4. I ran it the other day and there were about 60 updates waiting. Upon rebooting I blue screened, but I have not had it happen again. I tend to update to the latest Lenovo drivers manually as I check them every week or so. I have not had any issues with the Lenovo updates aside from the display driver crashing repeatedly a while back. I ended up running the beta from NVidia and have not had that happen since then.

 

Got it, it was just the windows setting of the bit color depth.
I have an additional question. I have 4 gb ram (2x2gb) and I'd like to upgrade to 8 gb. Is it possible to add just one stick of 4gb to leave room for eventually another one in the future? Otherwise is it necessary or for some reason better to put always two sticks, (2x2gb), and has this something to do with the dual channel? In few words, what you suggest me to do to upgrade, as 2x2gb or 4gb are about similar price?
bye, dario

 

Im goin to check Lenovo again and see if I missed anyhting. it seems like everytime I update something starts acting up, same thing happened to my VAIO

 

What kind of BSOD's?

 

BSOD is not something you should talk about in the public!

@dariocesare

make sure the latency of your ram is
CL9 with 1333 Mhz
CL7 with 1066 Mhz
these are tested to be compatible

CL7 1333 will result in BSOD's and data corruption eventually
especially if its 2x2GB+2x2GB so if I were you (and im not) I'd get 4GB stick
and then another 4GB.
data corruption and possibility of headache from bad ram is not good way of saving money.

and ram should be same brand and batch preferably.

 

Can anyone post the colour profile for W510 FHD wide gamut screen again? There were two links before but now expired.

 

i have still got the rukes ver. here you go

 

I havent had any problems lately, who knows what was going on. Other than that Im happy here, for now.

 

Thank you very much! I applied the color profile but it seems that it's applying only to color-controlled programs such as the built-in photo viewer and Photoshop. Other stuff such as my wallpaper color don't get affected. Is this what I'm supposed to see? If I use an external color calibrator would it be the same?

 

Hi,

There are 2 steps regarding calibration and profiling your display.

First step:

Greyscale and color temperature - you see positive changes everythere!

Second step:

Profiling - color and gamut tuning > you will see better, more correct colors only with software using this profile (Photoshop, IrfanView, Windows Mediacenter diashow, but not standard Windows diashow or as desktop background picture...)

Best, Walter

 

Hi all!

I'm in need of some help here, please.

The issue I'm facing is that the system is not able to run the "rthdribl v2" graphics stability test at 1920x1080 for anything more than 30 minutes without shutting down (overheated). Program link: rthdribl - Real-Time High Dynamic Range Image-Based Lighting -

I know the problem is to do with the graphics memory chips over heated (GPU core is around 78-83c), and would like to know if anyone else (W510, i7-720QM, nVidia FX880M, FHD display) would mind running the same test and see if your system can survive the test without being overheated.

Some say my expectation is too high, some say it's may just be this particular W510 that I have... :-(

 

Thanks Walter! I looked at greyscale before it seemed that white is very neutral and unbiased. The problem is over-saturation. Profiling solved that in ICC-aware programs but not elsewhere. Does using a calibrator solve that problem?

 

No the profile is only used in color-aware software. So I learned to use software working with the profile - Mozilla Firefox is now my browser and for my photos i use only suitable software.

Profiling not only solves over-saturation - it also adjust false color trends (for instance to yellowish Greens...)

Best, Walter

 

I haven't tried that program but after two rounds of 3DMark06 mine gets to around 65c. After some Starcraft 2 it nearly got to 70c. If you have owned your for some time it's natural to get the vent slightly blocked. My older T61p when brand new was around 40c when idle. But after only a year it was around 55c.

 

There are a few programs I use to test the graphics stability:

1. Test GPU core heat stability, I use FurMark, run in extreme heat mode. It heats up the core a lot more than one would do in gaming.
2. Test GPU memory heat stability, use rthdribl, it doesn't show the GPU memory temp, but if the laptop can keep on running throughout the test at FHD for an hour or so without shutting down, then that's pretty stable.
3. Test GPU memory integrity via CUDA, use MemTestG80 and MemTestCL.

Other usual tests include prime95, memtest+, BST5.

The laptop is slightly more than 1 month old. Under normal operations (multiple VMs with DB2, TDS (ldap), WAS servers in testing environments), the laptop has no stability issue. But it's just not able to run the rthdribl test for hours (every other tests were able to run for more than between 1 to 4 days each, non-stop). Room temperature is around 24c here, and I just really would like to have a laptop that I can say "It's stable with all the test I throw at it, and it can handle all the heat it generates".

 

If you're going for the most accurate colors, this might not help you, but for me this was sufficient. In the nVidia control panel under color adjustments there is an option for "Digital Vibrance". If you turn that down to about 35 or so, it seems to tone down the saturation.

However, this option is only more recent nvidia drivers, and those same drivers have bugs in them that causes audio out on the displayport to stop working. You'll have to pick your poison if you need that feature.

 

Hi all,
I have another issue...
The laptop turns itself on whenever I plug in the ethernet cable, one external hard drive, plug a vga cable.
The windows installation is cleaned, i just reformatted, and the bios and drivers are updated.
Also, in the device manager,i unchecked the flag on "allow this device to wake the computer ", at least for the usb and ethernet .
Do you have any suggestion on where the problem arise?
Many thanks,
Dario

 

get one of the solid gray colors as your desktop background image and apply the color profile you'll c the difference. then download latest driver from nvidia NVIDIA DRIVERS 260.99 WHQL

then do what OREV said he had same question a while back so now he answers it himself hehe

one thing straight is that pink is new black!

 

Does anyone know if the W510 has a Blu-ray drive available? I looked on the Lenovo web site and it doesn't list one for the for the W510. There is a general one listed for a ridiculous $1000+ dollars though.

 

I'm not sure what the story is. The part number in the tabook.pdf goes for $341 but it doesn't appear to be available. Go figure.

 

The only thing that would cause that is a static-electric shock or maybe improper electrical grounding between the devices. Make sure you discharge your static electricity by touching something metal before you plug in a device.

Yes, and you gave me the answer to that one! +++

 

guys I want to buy the following,
ThinkPad Serial ATA Hard Drive Bay Adapter III
43N3412

thers two choices for this one, legit from "lenovo" is 60$ the other is "ebay" about 30$
anyone have experience with them? comments suggestions
30$ is money if il have to add 60$ later to bail myself from possible mistake.

 

So I'm shopping for an SSD drive for my W510 and have tried searching - somewhat unsuccessfully - through this thread for recommendations. Are there any W510 owners who are thrilled with their SSD and could point me in the right direction? I only need about 100gb - 128gb worth of storage but am hoping this gives my W510 a big boost in speed.

 

Take the real one. What's the point of saving 30 bucks on an accessory for a $2000 laptop. It might bite you in the a**, too.

I think the easy, mainstream (but solid) choice is still the intel x25 G2. They should even get cheaper, now that the G3's are announced.

 

Get the real one from Lenovo! If you open up the adapter, you will find a print circuit board with components on it. The one from "ebay" might not have the same kind of quality and specification. You never know.

 

Hey guys, has anyone tried running the rthdribl test for 15 minutes or more (at FHD)? I really would like to know if I have a bad build, or whether it's a product design issue. Please, can someone run the test and let me know?

 

wasnt thrilled with my "Toshiba chip" based Kingston drive it was half the stated performance so it went back for refund and instead I got 500gb 7k drive

 

The one from ebay does not work at all. I tried it from a hong kong seller and now I'm trying to recoup my money and I'm getting the run around.
I should of spent the $60..

 

thats a nice feedback !^^ being sarcastic, so no cheap trains here ive tried the family and friends thingy and shareholders variant of it to no avail. got to pay-up.

problem is 60.00 GBP = 97.07 USD ,so you guys pay 30% less in $ than I am that's why I hassled asking about it