Lenovo W520 Owner's Thread

If you pre-partition your disk (as a single partition), Windows 7 Installation does not create the 100MB partition and installs everything onto the single partition.

You could use a Disk Management utility program to delete the 100MB partition and merge its space to the primary partition. After that, you boot from Windows 7 Installation DVD and do a System Repair, which will put the necessary boot information on the primary partition. Now, you can boot normally from the main drive.

If you feel unsure after reading the above, don't try it.

 

That makes perfect sense. I have had both experiences and wasn't able to reconcile why... Thanks!

 

You can copy (show hidden and system) the contents of the 100MB partition onto C: and then delete the partition. That said, you need that partition to be distinct for BitLocker to work in certain cases (I think full drive encryption).

Not that a 100MB partition by itself really matters, though.

 

Hmm, I actually deleted it and it did not cause any problems but its space is still unallocated? Did I cause any harm? Should I reinstall Windows or what? By the way, is this something specific to Samsung 830 because I did not experience it with Crucial M4?

 

I tried deleting the partition D: but Disk Management would not show the option to "extend" C: The same happens with the Magician software. Not sure if I can get rid of this drive after the fact!

 

Windows Disk Management only allows the user to "extend" a partition to its "right" (or to "absorb" the space of a freed partition that sits "behind" it). Earlier, when I said a Disk Management utility program, I meant a third-party program. Partition Master, for example, is much more flexible.

Try these things at your own risk.

 

If you never wanted to use Bitlocker and wanted a single partition, the time to do that is at setup time. You can create a single partition, format it fully, then use it as the target for Windows.

At this point fretting over a 100MB partition isn't useful. It will have no bearing on the performance of the system.

 

I guess I am gonna live with it as long as it does not affect the system. May be I take care of it when installing Windows 8 when it launches this year

 

A lot of the issue arises in that extending will only work at the tail, rather than at the head of the partition. You'd have to technically move (and shuffle all 200 to 300 or so GB of data) the partition to the front, then extend it.

There's really no point in trying to merge that 100MB partition.

 

anybody here used this?
lenovo's w520 neoprene sleeve
opinions on the fit (6 cell? 9 cell?) and protection?

 

If you want protection I'd recommend Zeroshock III 15.4. It fits the 9 cell perfectly.

 

Guys I was about to go and order my laptop, but I came across this thread:
https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/W-Seri...tly-no-BSOD-or-shut-down/td-p/459785/page/115

Is this a common issue that you w520 users experience as well? That looks very serious.

 

It seems to exist in some unknown portion of W520 owners. One cause has been more or less pinpointed involving the RAM door and static discharge with a temporary fix for it.

 

But to be hones, it doesn't happen for most of us. And if it happens, I'm sure Lenovo would replace the machine, wouldn't it?

 

Can't say it's happened to me in the year I've had this machine.

 

Lenovo barely acknowledges the thread on their own forum server. Most of the folks that have a constantly reproducible sudden shutdown syndrome (SSS) machine have had the motherboard or machine replaced.

If you buy a machine and it exhibits SSS, you have several options. Inside the return period you can always exercise that right. Inside the warranty period, you can have it fixed IF it is easily reproduced.

Where you run into issues is when the SSS isn't so easily reproduced. If support can't see the problem, they can't fix it.

In my case the SSS would only manifest every 4-6 weeks. Most of the time it was at a time when it wasn't much trouble. But one of them cratered my machine right before a backup so I lost some work from that week. That tends to make you mad.

My second W520 arrived DOA so I decided not to buy another one. At least not until the W530 emerges + 90 days of early adopter reports.

 

But isn't it possible that the have fixed all these problems by the newer and newer revisions of the machine? I mean my W520 left the factory at February 2012 and I am genuinely surprised how trouble free my experience with this machine is. The W520 now had one year to mature. I strongly believe that during this one year the product matured a lot and a lot of the early problems are solved by now.

It's like with car makers, if you read a service manual you'd be amazed how much change they do within a model's period. The last models are usually much more refined and reliable then the early ones.

 

I don't know if the "car makers" analogy is apt, but I always love an optimist. Should the term "recall" be banished, then?

There will always be problems. Not all factors remain the same: Ivy Bridge and Kepler may bring their own sets of new problems, er, "challenges." Remember the Intel "recall" of early 2011?

 

Within the last couple years at least, I've found that Lenovo has been far more receptive to issues in its Thinkpad line than the vast majority of manufacturers. They're not perfect, and some issues have produced delayed responses, but you do have to give credit where it's due:

With the Tx00 series' unique GPU switching system, there were issues in Windows 7 where the discrete card would be active after sleep even if it were previously disabled. Lenovo took a few months, but fixed drivers were released (and later updated a few times).

With the same line's new perforated keyboards, Lenovo responded quite quickly with T61 keyboard replacements and later chassis bracing changes.

In the X220, the IPS screen was updated to one where ghosting was drastically reduced.

In the X120e, Lenovo released several BIOS fixes that resolved several issues with screen flickering, within a few weeks of the issue being reported by many issues on the Lenovo Forum.

Bottom line: So, I think there's definitely some good advice behind not being an early-adopter, especially if perfect reliability is something that you place great importance in. Personally, I think Lenovo does an above-average job of resolving issues with the Thinkpad line over the production cycle.

 

And I think it's the only manufacturer who resolved the TOLUD issue to help us DIY ViDock! And that's clearly an unsupported feature, but still they solved it.

 

I rather doubt it. Some of the most recent incidents that have been reported in the year long thread are new purchases (JAN-MAR).

It seems the SSS problem is a low percentage issue. If it was a high percentage, more people in my company would complain about it and I would certainly hear about it.

If you want a W520, roll the dice. The chances of having SSS seem relatively remote.

 

Thors.Hammer has thankfully helped me with step-by-step fresh install of Windows on my W520. However, I am still having a missing driver in the Device Manager (PCI Serial Port). I searched and found that it is probably the Intel AMT but not sure what this is and if I need to install it or not. If I have to, should I install both Intel AMT 7.1 - IPT and AMT 7.1 - MEI and SOL Driver?

Also, I have an SSD. Do I need to install any of the following (RapidBoot, Intel Rapid Storage Technology Driver, or ThinkVantage Active Protection System). Will any of these improve the performance or protect the SSD?

 

Use the Control Panel | Windows Update applet to scan for drivers on the update servers. The Intel AMT driver comes down from the update servers. At least it did for me.

The SSD does not need any additional software. The Intel Rapid Storage Technology Drivers are good to have in place if you intend to use the eSATA port with external drives.

 

I just installed another 16GB of RAM.
My mSATA went from a free 34.4GB to just having 10.1GB Free. ...

Is there a file that was automatically created by windows when I installed the ram that should be deleted?

Its a MyDigitalSSD mSATA 128GB, and 32GB 1333 of RAM.

Thanks for help.

 

Do you have hibernation on? The higher the RAM amount the larger the OS hibernation image will become which consumes a lot of space. It's generally advised to turn this feature off for SSD's. You could also disable the pagefile to reclaim some more space given the amount of RAM you have, have a read of this article for more info.

 

This forum is priceless. Thank you Hearst.
I went from 34GB free to 42GB free on the mSATA. Awesome!

and Thanks for your T61 Thermal Paste walk-through. My T61p Nvidia chipped unit is still running strong and cool.

 

thanks. i was really happy with my old 14in zeroshock. they're getting hard to find here though. in fact i dont see memory foam sleeves much nowadays.

 

Hello - I have an SSD installed in the primary bay and a regular drive in the ultrabay. I don't need the platter drive constantly spinning and making noise, so I set the idle timer "stop hard disk rotation" to 30 seconds. It does stop, but then a few seconds later, I hear it spin up and start again. It just contains documents and music files, so nothing should be running from that drive. Is some windows process causing it to spin up? How can I find out?

Thanks !

 

Indexing, Superfetch and antivirus are a few things that come to mind.

 

Hi again all,

Wondering if one should go for the recommended Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 AGN, or should I opt for the Intel CA-N+WiMAX 6250 MOW - what is the actual difference between the two - can anyone advise?

Thanks.

 

There are a couple of shops. There is an eBay shop in Asia, there is an eBay shop in the USA, there is Gearzap for the UK and it's really cheap in continental europe: Elecom Zeroshock 3 15.4" sleeve black (10109) | Skinflint Price Comparison EU

 

The latter offers WiMax + WiFi, the former doesn't.

 

if you don't need wimax get the ultimate n it has better range. i've used both in a w520 and you will see a difference.

 

That might be true, but since the GPU is located so close to the CPU, could it be possible the CPU is getting some heat on top of what the CPU is already generating?

 

About 9 months ago it might have been interesting to get the W520 into the hands of some of the game developer companies performance specialists to see what they thought of the NVIDIA/Intel Quadro Optimus combination in the W520.

I keep seeing people state that Quadro is designed for OpenGL but I have never seen anyone really analyze what happens when using a modern game.

It seems odd that the top portable workstation from Lenovo is such a gamer dog with flees.

 

i was checking out yap2528. he seems to have built up a nice rep selling zeroshocks. will probably get from him.

you'd think that being in asia you'll have access to cheap electronics and computer accessories. but no... i had to get my thinkpad from the US and then my sleeve from dallas.

 

yap2528 is a known good seller for Zeroshock with positive feedback on this forum also

 

Hey Guys,

I installed a new SSD in my Lenovo w520 with a copy of Windows I got from work...however, it mustve been used a maximum number of times because it says I only have a couple more days before deactivation....My questions...is there anyway to use the activation key from the original installed copy of Windows Professional that came with my W520...I already tried to use the product key and it didnt work. Suggestions?? I don't have $200 to drop re-activation

 

Read the Hearst guide.

 

Complimenting Kaso's answer:
1. Boot into the old HDD
2. Save your activation data using ABR Backup
3. Boot into the new SSD
4. Restore your activation data using ABR Restore

 

What product key did you try? The one under the W520 battery?

The method of using the previously installed key in the posts just before this is a good idea but I thought I would mention the key under the battery.

 

It seems the OP tried the product key (presumably taken from the sticker on the battery bay) but somehow it didn't work.

(That product key is per-machine. The one retrieved using the other method is per-manufacturer.)

 

Yes, the key shown in Control Panel != the key written on the bottom of the machine, for OEM installations.

 

Product ID != 5x5 key.

I was asking for clarification from the original poster on what key(s) he used that didn't work. It would be a shame to have the 5x5 key under the battery already run through all of it's activations. That really should not be occurring anyway if they've only been used on the same machine. If all of the activations have only been on a single machine, then a phone call to Microsoft will get another activation approved.

 

Like Thor.Hammer said, its a good idea to phone Microsoft so they can reactivate the your license. If you follow the steps ( here), you'll be linked to a customer service representative if your activation failed (10).

 

How-do all, I have a W520 which is keeping me pretty happy... I do have a question that I have seen asked on several forums, but never answered!

Is it possible to boot from the SDHC (multi-card reader)? I do not see any speciic options in the bios, and the chip works in other laptops.

Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Lenovo W520 (2960XM/4x8GB DDR3-1333/512GB M4 SSD mSATA/1x500GB 7200/2000M DDR3/HD+/6300N/9 Cell)

 

What operating system? Windows 7 - I'd be surprised if you could. Possibly with a VHD trick, but I've never tried this. With linux you can pretty much boot from anything, but it requires endless ours of reading and experimenting.

 

Actually, the reason it works on other laptops is because they are connected internally on the USB bus. The BIOS will treat it as a USB device allowing boot from SDHC cards. (Those are also the same laptops that usually don't need drivers for the card reader.) The card reader on Lenovo laptops are connected on the PCI bus and require support in the BIOS to boot from it.

 

Where you bought 512GB M4 SSD mSATA?

 

It's available on Amazon...

Amazon.com: Crucial 512 GB m4 2.5-Inch Solid State Drive SATA 6Gb/s CT512M4SSD2: Electronics

It's not an mSATA form factor, but it is SATA 6Gb/s.