Lenovo W520 Owner's Thread

My Series 830 Samsung 256GB eats your puny Crucial for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

 

First, this battery is not compactible with W520. I tried it over the weekend and it doesn't fit.

I've been using mine with my T500 for 6 months now. For me, it doesn't last up to an 1 hours although my Power Options is always Maximum. May be 40mins.

If your power option is high like me, don't bother.

 

Hey everybody. Could anyone tell me whether the following quote is a nice deal? I just talked with a US sales rep yesterday and got a quote like this:


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W520 (with 4-year onsite + TPP, $1,983.26)
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Intel i7 2860QM
15.6" FHD (1920 x 1080) LED
NVIDIA Quadro 1000M
4GB DDR3 - 1333 (1 DIMM)
Internal RAID 0
Dual RAID HDDs, 500 GB 7200rpm.
Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300
Gobi 3000 (TM)
4 Year Onsite + Accidental Damage Protection
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Battery ($118.15)
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4Yr Battery
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Accessories ($229.49 + $31.03 + $41.65)
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ThinkPad Mini Dock Plus Series 3 (170W)
ThinkPad Bluetooth Laser Mouse
ThinkPad Business Topload Case
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Thanks.

 

Select the cheapest HDD without RAID, and swap it out for an SSD! 100x faster than RAIDed HDDs! Also, you'd better spend the money on more RAM (possibly aftermarket), then this CPU. Buy a cheaper quad.

 

Thanks for your reply.

Yes, I'm thinking about purchasing RAM on eBay for a considerably cheaper price.

And sorry I didn't explain clearly in my previous post. I'd like to build a SSD RAID by myself later. These dual 500GB HDD will be used for a media server.

 

I installed the Windows 8 Consumer Preview last week and I have issues with ThinkVantage Toolbox and Lenovo System Update.

- Once I launch the ThinkVantage gives me error with Un-identified OS.
- Lenovo System Update gives me error once I start scanning for the new updates.
- Battery draining fast on the W520 system with the Windows 8.

Does anyone have similar issue with Windows 8 Consumer Preview? I'm looking for a solution.

 

And don't spare on the RAM, buy good quality one, I'd recommend: Kingston KTL-TP3B/4G (specific for Thinkpads)
Memory Search

BTW, do you understand that RAID doesn't give you any advantage in random seek time? SSD RAID is only worth it in very few cases, like extreme video editing with lots of HD or 4k channels in real-time. On the other side there is the possibility of losing all your data if one drive drops from the RAID.

 

Thanks for the recommendation.

First of all, my rep told me that due to the 15% off promotion today, the price of my configuration drops to $2,323.75.

Personally I don't feel comfortable with RAID 0 as it's indeed risky. But with a RAID enabled W520, I guess I can easily disable the feature and use the SSD + UltraBay instead.

Besides, I need to replace the system HDD with SSD anyway. With a RAID configured W520, I get two 500 GB HDDs covered by Lenovo 4-year warranty that can be used in other ways.

 

My W520 has a 15.6 FHD screen, Quadro 2000M, i7-2760QM, and 160 SSD, and it seems that even on balanced power plan, and screen brightness at 9-10, the lenovo battery manager says that my power usage is just over 20 watts, and goes to 25-28 when running on higher brightness and using more graphically intense applications. Occasionally, the power usage will drop to 14-16 watts, but this isn't too often. Also, it appears that my CPU usage is stuck at around 33% even though the task manager shows it at close to 0%, and it also shows my GPU usage at 100% even if I'm just on chrome. Does this have something to do with the FHD screen and is this level of power usage typical for W520's? Or is it just my computer?

 

RAID 0 in the W520 rocks:
Intel SSD 520 RAID Review | StorageReview.com - Storage Reviews

I have had the Sony Vaio Z (with 4 SSDs in RAID0) for two years and the W520 (2 SSDs in RAID0) for almost one year and never had any problems. SSDs (especially from Intel) are more reliable than HDDs, since they don't have any mechanical moving parts.

 

Rocks or doesn't rock, I would never put SSDs in RAID for that 5% performance benefit. Maybe with a decent RAID controller I'd consider, but not with the Intel "hack" what they call RAID controller.

 

I have sold my stock 500GB HDD 7200RPM as I replaced it with an SSD and now I am thinking about, what will happen if at some point Lenovo had to replace my machine, will they deny to do that for me since the HDD is not present? Will they offer the option to replace it without the HDD? I hope someone has some experience with that or if you have an advice for me. Would buying any Hitachi similar drive do the job if this scenario happened?

Thanks

 

Never sell parts of the original configuration I think your best bet is to send your computer into warranty without any hard drive or SSD, you have the right no to share your private files with them. It's a standard practice for laptops.

 

I know that was a big mistake. But what if they needed to replace the whole machine. Will they ask for the HDD or just send me a new machine without an HDD?

 

They will just give a replacement without it. You are not sending in your battery, charger, bag, accessories, etc. anyways.

 

Is that based on an evidence or personal experience or just an assumption?

I would also love to hear from others' experience. May be I should contact the buyer to get it back

 

All the better brands are doing like this, you just say that you don't want to give them your private data. Hard drive is a CRU = Customer Replacable Unit

 

I understand what you are saying but I am just afraid that they would say, backup your data as they cannot provide a replacement and just eliminate the hard drive from it. I just 'personally' believe that they cannot build you a new replacement machine and ask the people in China not to put in a hard drive but I may be wrong!

 

First, it's extremely unlikely that they will have to replace your whole laptop... Second, unless the HDD is part of the issue reported to tech support, they will not need it for a depot repair. I have onsite warranty and I remove my HDD before they begin working, I've never had any issue with that practice. I have to reinstall it at the end of the work to boot the computer to verify for them that it is working properly, but that's it. As a standard practice I never sent in a HDD when onsite wasn't available either. You should be safe, but of course your mileage may vary... If you can get it back go for it... As I don't know if your experience will parallel mine.

 

Thank you very much. That is a helpful advice.

 

Thanks for the heads up. would have hated to put down US$100 and have it not work/be worth it.

they needs to change the compatibility sheet as it says it works with the w500 series.

Now i can focus on SSDs and getting the dock + two external monitors.

 

Thanks a lot for referring me to this thread. I read the CMOS reset procedure and it really did help. Here is what I exactly did:

I shut down the machine and removed the battery and then pressed the power-on button 10 times (5 sec intervals in-between). I rebooted and voila! The machine is running very fast, the same speed that it would run on the charger. I have not tried yet to plug in the charger and then unplug it to see if the problem recurs but do not think this should happen. Oh, I also wanted to let you know that I have maximized the performance in power settings on everything when on battery. However, please, not that this did not solve the problem until I did the CMOS reset.

I was not sure what you guys recommend to measure CPU speed but I used some software from the internet called "CPU Speed Pro" and the results came (2492 MHz) on battery. If there is a better way to test it, please let me know. I will post an update when I plug and then unplug the charger to let you know if the problem comes back.

 

CPU-Z, don't use anything which has a "Pro" in it's title (and a buy link on it's website)

 

I have installed it and what I can see and do not understand is the following:

Core speed (most of the time shows 797.55 MHZ and the multiplier is x 8.0. What does this mean. Also why it shows my CPU as Intel Core i7 Extreme 2920XM while mine is the 2860QM (it shows it in the specs). I got confused with this one. Does it mean that I still have throttling because I actually feel the machine is as fast as being plugged in by now?

 

What is important is the multiplier. Turbo boost, power saving, throttling all affect the multiplier. If the computer is idle, it is low, like 8x. If you are browsing the internet, it goes slightly higher up. If you are computing on a single core, it goes to Turbo. When throttling, it goes lower. Look at that value and see what happens with different usage.

 

It goes up very high when I do any process like browsing the internet or launching a software (something like 3289 MHZ) and the multiplier can go up to x 33 but again how should I interpret this objectively and also how people know exactly what is their processor speed is with at battery and charger?

I have connected the machine to the charger and checked the software speed and also the multiplier and it behaves exactly the same way when it is on battery.

 

If it goes up till 2.5+ Ghz and doesn't feel slower, then it's not Throttling. Also, are you sure that your CPU is not the XM, I've never seen CPU-Z misidentify an official CPU.

 

I am sure that mine is the 2860QM 2.5GHz

 

I have never heard of that happening with CPU-Z. Can you post a screenshot of Device Manager (with the Processors tab expanded like this) and CPU-Z so we can see what's going on?

 

The processor specification is correct and consistent with my Device manager. It is only the processor name that is incorrect. Yours actually just shows (Processor Name: Intel Core i7)--this the place where CPU-Z inserted the extreme processor name for me. Anyway, I do not care, I just think it is a glitch or something especially that it shows the correct model later in the specification.

 

IMO, Random seek time means squat for most users, people care about how long it takes to load the programs that they use daily, RAID0 speeds this up immanency. As for the "losing all your data" BS, most people "loose all their data" when their single drive fails. Most places charge way too much to recover the data as it is, yes, you and I know that data recovery can be easy and cheep but 99% of people are either backing it up or willing to loose it. And so, RAID0 is a good, cheep performance option, IMO.

 

What is the throughput of a couple of decent 7200rpm HDD's in a W520 RAID0 configuration?

 

I was very disappointed this morning when I unplugged the system from the charger to find that it throttles again. I could touch it myself when using the apps and also using CPU-Z, the highest it goes is around 900MHz and the multiplier is x10. I am not sure what to do now. It seems like that the reboot is what made it OK in first place. Is that true that reboot while on battery would not make it throttle. should I contact Lenovo at this moment or is it a problem with no solution?

 

Are you familiar with the throttling threads at W Series ThinkPad Laptops - Lenovo Community ??? I think you need to do some research to understand the history on this issue, and Lenovo's design.

For instance, read the monster thread at http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/W-Serie...perly-on-battery-BIOS-v1-26/m-p/585885#M21625

 

Thors, I promise I am doing my homework and reading as much as I can about the issue. In the meantime, would you please give me a definitive answer whether there is a FIX for this from lenovo (either software or hardware) and is this an isolated issue that happens only to some defective machine?

If there is no solution from Lenovo, is Throttlestop the only third-part solution?

I do appreciate your help in advance.

 

I am not in a position to give you that advice. I never tested the problem and the BIOS changes that came along. Lenovo has never fully removed the throttling on battery but it was my understanding that turbo boost does work under the right conditions, depending on your CPU.

I suggest you contact the Lenovo employee, someotherguy, on that forum with your questions.

 

I contacted Lenovo and as expected, they just offered the on-site warranty for someone to come and check. I wish they had acknowledged the problem and walked me through some diagnostics first. Anyway, I will see what the warranty guy will do and keep people updated (if anyone is interested).

I just thought that owners here had the machine for enough time to give me the 'final word' on that.

I have also noticed the following right now. I selected only the Intel Graphics in BIOS (as I do not need the discrete graphics) and no throttling on battery. However, the crazy thing now (though it may look intuitive for many people) is that when I connect a monitor through VGA to the machine, it does not work. Do I have to enable the discrete graphics to use the VGA port?

 

Anyone tried gaming Diablo 3 beta on the laptop? Just wonder if I can pull it in max with my 1000m

 

On my T420 Optimus, the VGA port works when the BIOS is set to Integrated only. But the Optimus implementations on the two machines are very different and it could be a W520 bug. I really don't know.

If you are using the latest supported BIOS and video drivers from support.lenovo.com, and haven't ized your machine so badly it isn't in a supported state, then I don't know what to tell you.

I bring up the supported state comment because there's this dude on W Series ThinkPad Laptops - Lenovo Community that goes by the eos userid that has his machine so butchered it never seems to run right. I feel sorry for the poor machine. I call it FrankenW520.

 

The drivers are for Windows 7...

I contacted Lenovo and they said they will support Windows 8 when its released. So don't hold your breath during the beta period.


Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

 

Do you see battery drain faster?

 

NVIDIA released a tenative Windows 8 driver a few days ago. You should use that one.

I hope you made restore disks before installing Windows 8.

 

Final word: "Throttlestop".

 

I just finished reading through those giant threads and want to make sure I have the throttle issues figured out.

Case 1: On AC, iGPU or dGPU active
CPU changes speed based upon use but can reach full turbo freq
Case 2: On Battery, iGPU active, dGPU disabled via BIOS (nVidia CP disable reported to not be enough)
CPU changes speed based upon use but can reach full turbo freq
Case 3: On Battery, dGPU active (Games/CUDA use on the go)
CPU is locked to lowest multiplier

These seem to be Lenovo's power management cases? The only way to defeat the throttle lock in Case 3 is to use some 3rd party software called ThrottleStop?

One of my prime intentions is to use my laptop on the battery while in a usage scenario that requires the use of the dGPU. In these circumstances it seems I'm out of luck unless I'm willing to use a 3rd party application that doesn't seem to have very good support. Thats to be expected from a freeapp but still makes me uncomfortable.

 

Thanks. Are there certain options to choose in it?

I just wanna assure you that the problem is the NVIDIA. The throttling stops once you disable it in BIOS. However, the VGA and the DPORT would not work if you disable it, so I cannot do that since I have the machine connected to an external display at both home and work.

Anyway, I will appreciate it if you can share with me customizations for the Throttlestop. Also, do I have to choose maximum performance for the battery if I will use Throttlestop?

I have a technician scheduled to come tomorrow for this issue. I honestly do not have time to waste tomorrow, so if you do not believe he will have a solution from me, let me know so I can cancel this appointment.

Thanks

 

You have succeeded to summarize the situation very well. That is the exact scenario that happens. I wish we could find a real FIX from Lenovo. I cannot imagine paying for such a powerful machine and then get along with the fact that it throttles that bad on battery. I hate it when it throttles. It should not throttle at all.

By the way, in order to get the full turbo with battery, you have to disable dGPU from BIOS and not just from the device manager.

 

Is it not possible to create a Lenovo Recorvery yourself?

 

Unless I'm wrong, full TurboBoost with a quad core takes ~67 W of power at most. The dGPU takes ~45 W for the 1000M and ~55 W for the 2000M. The rest of the system uses something like ~15 W. The battery can only supply 9.5 A max continuously if I'm not wrong, which would mean 105 W max continuously. The power usage has to add up to <105 W mathematically speaking, and if I was the one designing the power management software, I would not want the system to go anywhere near <10% to max continuous power draw, so the actual max power is probably limited at like 90 W or so. Now, why the quad core would be at 800 MHz is beyond me, considering that I can get at the very least full normal clock (2.7 GHz) + dGPU on, and while I haven't done it much, I'm pretty sure that my CPU can TurboBoost to the full 3.4 GHz with the dGPU active on battery.

 

Would you be wiling to test this? As posted earlier there are several threads about this issue and the consensus seems to be as I posted above. If this is not so it would remove the one problem I have with the w520 at the current prices.

I don't think I would even need the full TurboBoost but just the default clocks would be enough for the situations where I must have the dGPU running on battery power(I would be using the slice battery).

 

That is what I am talking about, guys. I keep on raising the issue and trying to see if it is an isolated issue with some defective machines or some software fix that need to be done since some guys say they do not experience the issue even on dGPU