Lenovo W520 Owner's Thread

I think I massively screwed up. Installed the SSD (mSATA), it went fine. It asked if I wanted RapidDrive to continue to manage it. Thinking it was already managing something, I said yes. So far, so good.

My new drive E: shows up. I see a bunch of folders on it--Users, Program Data, etc. I decide I want a clean E:, so I use Disk Manager to format E:.

BIG mistake.

Turns out RapidDrive had redirected some of my folders from C: to E:. I didn't know this, and when I formatted E:, not only were they wiped out, but now I can't boot properly. The data loss is no big deal, as I kept most of my data in my own folder, not Users (although I did loose everything on my desktop). But the booting is a problem.

It won't boot. Once past the Lenovo splash, it just freezes. It looks like the HD light is flickering, but barely and faintly. I can only boot by hitting ThinkVantage Blue during bootup, then F12 to choose boot device, then selecting SSD0.

What have I done, and how can I fix it?

Some other symptoms:
* Power Manager no longer works? Have no idea if related.
* Starting RapidDrive Manager brings up "searching for server", and takes about 2-3 minutes to load

I noticed in Disk Manager that Partition C: is not active, but SYSTEM_DRV is. Could that have an effect? Should C: be active? Or is SYSTEM_DRV what it boots from?

HELP......!!!!

 

Yeah but if you wait 6 months more then you'll get a complete refresh which will be even better... then another 6 months later for the next one! Most users do not need the newest technology and will never notice the higher performing CPU since they will not stress it significantly. Things will always get better and I'd rather buy it now if I need it now then wait a few months.

 

Made some progress. Went into the BIOS, and found that the 2nd SSD was set as the boot drive. Have no idea how that happened. Changed it to SSD0 and it boots fine. Recovered my lost desktop files from my Mozy backup.

Have two problems left. Could use some advice:

1) The battery no longer charges. It is stuck at 97%, which is what it happened to be at when I started this fiasco. I can run fine off the power cord, or the battery, but it won't charge the battery. I installed the latest Power Manager from Lenovo, it made no difference. Any ideas?

2) RapidDrive pops up about 5 minutes after any reload. Tells me it can't find the 2nd SSD, and do I want to recover lost files. My question here is do I need RapidDrive for anything? If not, how do I disable it?

My primary drive is the Intel SSD. The secondary (which is working fine now) is the MyDigital SSD.

 

New Nvidia beta drivers avalaible, pretending +25% performance in Skyrim, has anyone tried them yet?

 

Having your battery stop charging at 97% is how the charging system is designed to work, so don't worry over that number. I think if you bring your battery down it may charge up to 100%. The idea is the charging system does not overcharge your battery, shortening its life.

 

Ivy relase date is shifted again a couple of months, theres no official date of announced right now (or im wrong), then you need wait another couple of months to take new W series...

 

Having issues with intel 6300 wifi again, "limited connection" while all other device doesn't get disconnected from the same network... I had to disable/enable the card in device manager..

 

Those are only for GeForce, not Quadro, right?



Regardless, I've tried them on my desktop system and they did provide a nice performance boost for Skyrim! I just didn't even think they'd work on my laptop.

 

When W520 working on the battery the quadro GPU is using or not, cus i read the CPU is working on 800 MHz im worry about the quadro during battery.

 

nVidia Verde drivers work for Quadro mobile products too.

 

Shifted a couple of months? To what? August?

 

You learn something new every day! I've just installed the 290.53 betas on my w520, we'll see how it goes.

 

My fault. Postponed from January to April, but it is still unknown ... Then there is a bit of time until there will be the first notebooks with them. Anyway for me waiting in computer world is endless... And most of the users dont even realize the diffrence... In their type of work of course.

 

Our department is switching to a 3d drawing program - from AutoCAD to Revit - and because we are a Lenovo shop, the best machine we can get appears to be W520 with the 2000M graphics card. We've been told by consultants that we'd be better off with a gaming type card but doubt we can obtain one installed by our supplier. Is it possible for a non-techie to install another card in a W520 and if so, are there known physical size requirements? Any thoughts on what card to get for this particular application?

 

Hi, new to the forum. Been doing a lot of reading about the T 420/520 and the W-520. The 420 seems to have fan issues and the W-520 is having shutdown issues. I kind of like the W for the GPU and USB 3 ports. I can't seem to find any issues with the T-520, but I'd prefer the W. I also don't know if I'd like the FHD screen because of the res. and 95% color. I use a 24" ips panel now with 1920x1200, how does that text size compare to the FHD?
Is the color easy to tame for normal use? Anyone that could give me advice on these models would be most appreciated.

 

For your 3D work the quadro should excel. It should be certified on both... I know it is on Autodesk AutoCAD and Inventor and though I do not use Revit I think it may be certified for Revit as well. The video card is soldered to the board and hence not easily changed or altered. You can run external GPU however if you desire. This card can game with the best of them, but you would need to install the Verde driver available from NVidia.

 

The W530 was never slated for January that I know of. I was under the impression Ivy Bridge machines were out in May or June. At least that's what I've been hearing for months now. Sucks.

I want to see the ThinkPad X2. I'm not sure I care about owning another W class machine. Especially now that I can get 16GB RAM in a thin/light machine. The 4 slot W510 and W520 only solved one problem for me but they created others.

They are going to have to slim down the W series and FIX all of the issues before I buy another.

At least that's what I keep telling myself...

 

No.

The Quadro-class cards will significantly outperform a similarly classed GeForce-class card.

 

I assumed it is an MXM module, well I guess we all learn something every day.

 

Me too, I had enough headache with my w520. I won't look for another W serie. X1 is not really meet my expectation, so I'll be waiting for Ivy bridge X2

 

Omg im almost 100% sure to buying W520 and You say you have problems with this machine ?

 

I love my W520. I use it for photo editing (CS5, Lightroom) and CAD. It's my sole machine at this time, I rely heavily on it.

Not a single issue, I really think the few complaints come from people who won't leave good enough alone, they are installing non-Lenovo drivers and tweaks to get more performance. Or, they have esoteric needs that any stock system would hiccup at.

Granted, I don't push the envelope with my uses. But if you are content to run a stock machine (sure, I added RAM and will switch over to mSATA boot in a few months, that's pedestrian stuff compared to some users) w/ Lenovo drivers, you shouldn't get into trouble.

 

That may be true for some people but it certainly wasn't for me. My original W520 used nothing but the certified drivers from support.lenovo.com. My software mix wasn't unusual either.

 

I've had great luck with my w520 as well and i've played around with a lot of things. Hardware has been rock solid and drivers have worked fine as well. any problems i've had I caused.

 

I love my Lenovo W520.

Best laptop I have ever owned - and I am running some very demanding apps on the system.

Great performance - excellent screen - very good battery life - not too heavy

(Because of this, I forgive Lenovo for not fixing the slow warm boot issue - I just do hard re-boots.)

As far as I can see, there is nothing that beats the W520 in price/performance. My suggestion is to go ahead and order the W520 and give it a good workout during the first 30 days. (I usually run the diagnostic test in stress mode for the first day after I unpack it.) If you get a bad unit, return or exchange it.

 

Think the Ivy Bridge W520 will have thunderbolt port? Havent found out if its standard on Ivy Bridge

 

While the USB 3.0 chipsets will be integrated on all Ivy Bridge systems as standard, Thunderbolt in comparison will be on selected systems. It's up to the manufacturer whether to implement it the ports on their systems or not.

 

Go for a Quadro card.

Check this PDF from Nvidia. Its information about the differences between the Geforce and Quadro cards.

www.nvidia.com/object/quadro_geforce.html

Enjoy

 

The random power shutdowns are occuring with unmodified systems. I personally know that a unit, which was experiencing frequent shutdowns, was sent into the lab for analysis with the only the factory preload. There are a significant number of W520 users who have blown away the factory image in the vain attempt to stabilize their systems. Usually the only fix is to replace the motherboard (in fact there was a shortage several months ago due to the number of boards being replaced). My personal system is running fine since June, 2011, but that hasn't been true for some of the users. It's not an imaginary problem and, most important, there's currently no resolution after 8 months of the issue being raised. Installing the latest BIOS level (1.34), power management driver and utility, etc has not affected the problem.

 

So what about Skyrim with the last beta drivers?

 

After doing a full reinstall of Windows and getting all the tweaks from Lenovo (I think) I've noticed my batter life is 3/4 to 1/2 of what it was. Does anyone have ideas for things I missed or didn't get?

I didn't use the Lenovo partition to reinstall, but I think I recovered all my settings to where they were previously.

 

Skyrim with the latest beta drivers is a bit smoother. I was on the BF3 beta drivers previously.

You should give Windows a few days to settle down with pre-compiling .NET binaries. Also check all your power management settings to be sure they're set to an optimum setting.

 

A bit is like ~+3FPS?

 

If quadro 1000m is in the use when we working on the battery?

 

The graphics are used when an app requires it, battery or not.

 

TY. Im worring about it cus the CPU on battery have limited power.

 

How does the app determine which graphics card to use?
I assume there is something like a whitelist.
I just ran the SF VI benchmark demo and it chose to run on Intel Graphics.

 

Yeah, that's i'm worried about. Cuz if the quadro is not use many times on battery maybe i no need the w520 only something with HD3000 and eGPU at home. Quite confused.

 

You can change settings in the bios to only use the discrete graphics card.

 

Anyone considering buying Lenovo think twice, my GF bought a W520 for traveling, because it's supposed to be so tough etc... All military spec'd and all that jazz they advertise about but it came with a non working webcam which seems like a simple problem to fix but eventually after 6 months they haven't fixed it and to top it off they broke plastic parts by the screen and keyboard and to add insult to injury they won't answer for it, so far just giving her the run around after her stressing out to the point of tears for way too many hours on the phone with non helpful agents.

This is the short version of the story of course but I tell you think twice and take heed of the bad customer support warnings, I'm not a huge fan of HP because of the DV9000 series problems but I thought I'd give the Elitebooks a chance and wow their support was amazing, I'm traveling in Chile right now so it was going to be hard to send in my machine back to the States for a couple different problems it had so they told me to call local support to see if maybe they could do something and to my surprise they sent a technician to my house 4 hours later with the parts that needed changing, cleaned my machine etc updated it and told me to call if I had any issues and they would come back right away to fix it! Amazing to say the least Thank you HP! And this whole time my poor girlfriend is suffering like crazy because she bought a Lenovo that I had recommended based on the specs.. do I feel bad!!

Bottom line Lenovo BAD especially because the support is AWFUL! and this was supposed to be one of their top of the line machines!!

 

Wait, why did Lenovo handle your W520 support? Warranty and support issues for the Thinkpad line is suppose to be handled by IBM.

I've personally had no issue with support for when I needed a replacement part (battery stopped charging). Called up, and a few minutes later I got a free replacement battery shipped to me in less than 24 hours. Didn't have to jump through any tech support loops or anything like that. I have to say that from my personal experience, I love their support.

I'm not a kind person to my W520 either; I abuse the crap out of it, as far as laptop care goes. It goes in bookbags with textbooks and binders, I keep it on while bike riding with said bookbag over rough terrain and street curbs and stairs, and I've dropped it twice. No serious damage, and the only cosmetic damage suffered after seven months is that one of the grill pieces is broken off, and the left locking hook is missing.

Anyway, if you were treated this bad over support, then you should probably contact Lenovo and try to see if they can compensate you for this problem. Maybe they'll throw in a free accessory?

 

I just checked a review of the HP Elitebook 8560W. Looks like a good machine, BUT:

"During the LAPTOP Battery Test (continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi) the 8560w's eight-cell Li-Ion battery clocked in a disappointing 2 hours and 30 minutes, 51 minutes short of the 3:21 desktop replacement average. The ThinkPad W520's nine-cell Li-Ion battery lasted for an epic 9:05."

http://www.laptopmag.com/review/laptops/hp-elitebook-8560w.aspx

 

I'm looking at a W-520.
One has a i7-2760QM, and the other has the i7-2640M.
Would there be a noticable diffrerence in battery time between these two processors? I see the QM is 45 watts vs. 35 for the M one.
Also, I remember reading something about the Quadcores throttling or something, is this true or a concern? Should I just go for the 2640M?
Thanks

 

Hm I called in to IBM since you mentioned that (in Chile that's where we are right now) and the lady didn't give me an exact date but told me that they no longer support Lenovo? I asked her if that was only in Chile or if it was that way also in the USA and she couldn't answer.

I guess we're gonna have to keep calling and submitting a report with the BBB etc.. it's a bit more frustrating when you have a problem and you're traveling because it really seems like their turnaround time in south-america is ridiculously slow

 

yeah the battery last really long on the W520 and it runs pretty cool with that extra big battery that sticks out the back, maybe about 6 hours (although on battery it really runs a lot sluggier), which would be ideal for traveling if only their customer support wasn't so unhelpful.

 

I've never had bad support with lenovo. I had my keyboard in my w520 go bad and called at 4:30 pm and had a new one delivered to my office at 10:30am the next day. Ibm is still handling support in the us unless they just quit. Best service i've seen.

 

In the US, IBM still handles Lenovo Thinkpad tech support, although in other nations I believe support has been contracted to various other companies that may or may not provide very good service.

 

Hm maybe it's different in different countries, while the warranty works in different countries it seems the quality of the service centers varies because man it's BAD in Colombia and it's also bad in Chile they take forever to get pieces in and then to top it off damage parts in your machine? unacceptable.

I just called Lenovo in the states and they told me that I'd have to be there in order for them to help out out so I gotta rule that out for a few more months, I just wish I could talk to a manager that can do something about it

 

Send your laptop to a friend/relative in the U.S., call Lenovo, have friend/relative have it repaired in U.S. by Lenovo, then ship it back to you.

Cumbersome, but would probably work.

 

Sorry to hear about your experiences Zuperloco, Lenovo should be able to support you in Chile considering the W520 are normally eligible for IWS.

If it helps this the direct line to them in Chile if you're struggling to get contact of Lenovo:

Lenovo Chile
800-361-213 or 188-800-442-488 Toll Free

As for experience personally I got stung by IBM which handles Lenovo repairs in the UK, it took over a month of correspondences before they finally relented to repair my hinges under warranty. It really does seem the quality of service depends on where you're based which is a shame.