The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Yep, just the standard 2.5" SATA form factor as all the other Crucial m4 SSDs. Fits in either the primary notebook HDD slot or in an UltraBay HDD adapter.
Is anyone playing SC2 on their W520? Do you have any issues playing it? What are your in-game settings? I seem to have some issues during multiplayer only. It seems like an internet connection thing but I can't seem to find the bottleneck.
I have played it on single player with pretty high settings (not ultra) and so far no problems... CPU and GPU (the 1000) get to around 55 degrees at most.
I can play high in single player but multiplayer, even if I go low, I sometimes have connection issues. Blizzard support says it's because of my GPU but I'm hesitant to agree because I don't have issues on single player...
I was browsing the Internet when suddenly my FHD display started to turn off and on like three times displaying a message in the taskbar that your graphics driver has stopped responding referring to the Intel graphics. Just FYI, I am on battery power. Then, suddenly my Firefox stopped responding and the display stopped this unexpected thing and the message disappeared. I restarted Firefox and everything is fine. What this could be?
First, I would like someone to tell me what is the difference between those two "Intel 520 Series 240 GB SATA 6 Gb/s 2.5-Inch Solid-State Drive". For me, they are exactly the same but the price from Amazon itself is different between the two?!
Second, I recently got the Samsung 830 256GB but I wonder if I can get the Intel 520 Cherryville 240GB for a lower price, should I go for it or are they comparable or may be the Samsung is even better?
One more question, does the W520 actually allow SSDs to run at 6gb/s if assigned to the internal primary bay?
The Intel 520 drive is the same but the packaging will be different. The "Drive Only" version is exactly that, you get the drive and nothing else. The reseller (or retail) version on the otherhand will get you not just the drive but all the fancy packaging, screws, bracket, marketing sticker and documentation. For some reason the retail version is cheaper so I would go for that out of the two, you get more for less.
But since you have a Samsung 830 already I wouldn't bother going for the Intel 520, the Samsung 830 is a very good drive and it's Proprietary Controller is proven in speed and reliability. It's still early days for the Intel 520, while Intel has a good track record in reliability the Sandforce controller that it now uses has a sketchy reliability record from various vendors such as OCZ, Corsair and others.
And to answer your last question, yes the W520 will support SATA III 6Gb/s if your drive supports it (which in the case of the Samsung 830 it will run at those speeds).
Typically the OEM and Reseller drives only have a single year warranty instead of 3-5. This is a key buying factor for me. The last thing you want to do is buy an expensive SSD and have it blow on month 13.
All of the Sandy Bridge based ThinkPads are SATA III in the primary bay, and Ultrabay (where applicable).
Did you see the crazy price of $199.99 for the 256gb crucial M4 today. It makes one tempted to return the Samsung 830 but I guess the Samsung has a much better quality. Do you think the Samsung is worth the money vs the crazy low price of the M4?
pchome, the Crucial M4 is just as good as the Samsung and I would even say better then the Intel 520 as it has been out for a long time and has all it's problems fixed by now. It's an absolutely reliable drive, while for the 520 no one really knows long term results.
i still have severe and annoying soundproblems with my w520. One of the many examples: Everytime i click on a folder in windows 7, you hear this "click" sound, right? Well, in my case, every click is also accompanied by this very ear-unfriendly "bip sound", like when your wearing a headset and push the connector inside (sorry, dont know how to describe it better).
This random annoying sounds also happen at usual soundplayback.
Did anyone had the same issue? Any idea how to fix this? (cause im tired of it by now...)
Apparently this is caused by the energy saving of the soundcard.
I tried the profiles just to see if they were any good - they didn't work on my w520. I calibrate all my monitors using a Spyder 4 Pro so I know how to calibrate and how to use profiles. Why it didn't work I have no idea.
Never mind, lol. I just got them to work properly.
Didn't follow the thread recently but still reporting : Remember the power issue with the AC adapter suddenly seen as disconnected by the system for a short period while it's not? Anyone who had that too found the reason? On top of that, i just got a new one : Suddenly battery is not detected..! A new one's already on the way.
I'm looking at buying a w520 for my son. But I have found a couple websites with people complaining about a shutdown problem or defect. Does anyone know how serious of a problem this is? Does this problem only affect older models? from the number of complaints, it sounded like this might be a problem with only a few units, but then I found this website about a lawsuit.
Lenovo Thinkpad W520 Shutdown Problems - Class Lawsuit.
And there are quite a few complaints on Lenovo's forum. Should I buy the w520 or find a different model???
This problem is very unlikely to happen, I'd recommend buying it and if anything goes wrong you can still return it. But before buying a laptop like this, I would definitely ask him if he is comfortable with the 1920x1080 resolution in this screen size. Also, maybe he'd prefer a much lighter T420s with the 1600 screen, if the strong graphics card is not a requirement.
Intel 520 has AES encryption (it is unclear whether it is present in the consumer version of Samsung 830).
For a laptop, which can be potentially lost, stolen or forgotten in taxi, it's a big benefit. Loss of laptop is unpleasant enough to worry about the data too. Software-based encryption, like Bitlocker, is not very efficient on SSDs, especially those with Sandforce, as software-encrypted data is incompressible and results in significantly more SSD wear. Plus needs Windows 7 Enterprise, it's harder to change BIOS settings etc.
With Intel 520/320 full AES encryption is as simple as setting a long password in Thinkpad's TPM-protected BIOS. Single power-on password and/or finger swipe on boot, and that's it.
I have two issues that are related to power with the W520 and I have tried everything I can and could not find anything that works.
First, when the machine is on the docking station and I try to shut it down, all what it does is restart instead. I tried it tens of times and it does the same thing. This only happens when the machine is on the docking station.
Second, whenever I try to put the machine to sleep, it wakes up on its own after 30 - 60 seconds. Believe me, I made sure that there is nothing that wakes it up. The lid is closed and though I have wireless keyboard and mouse, I turn them off (as I suspected they might be the cause). I am not sure what wakes it up. I do need this function as I move and have a bunch of things open and cannot shutdown and do not want to hibernate since I have an SSD.
Any help with any of these issues will be greatly appreciated !
I don't have this problem, but AFAIR there was a BIOS setting to "Power on when power is connected". Perhaps it's turned on? I'd double check all power-related BIOS settings.
If you have a SSD, especially a relatively modern big and fast SSD capable of writing faster than 200MB/sec, it's a perfect reason
to hibernate. It's a big sequential and well compressible write operation, so added SSD wear is insignificant even if you hibernate a machine with 16GB RAM, fully used, several times daily for years.
Does it still happen with all external devices physically disconnected?
It may be worth checking Device Manager, if there are any devices that have "Allow this device to wake up the computer" checked in power management tab, and uncheck if that's the case.
Running "powercfg -lastwake" in the command prompt may help determining the culprit too.
I am only suspecting the wireless mouse and/or keyboard especially that I leave the dongle in the USB port all the time. It seems like I will have to do some further diagnostics. Thanks for the advice.
The 2 usb ports on the left side of the W520 are not recognizing any device since 2 days ago. I can't charge my iPhone from those ports except the one behind.
Can anyone help me? I've checked the device manager and everything is fine
Try re-installing the latest USB 3.0 drivers. Also, try if it detects a USB stick on those ports, when booting. I mean outside of windows, when the computer starts push ESC and see if the list of devices includes the USB stick or not.
Hmm, interesting. How can I test if it is the wireless keyboard and mouse. IS it enough to turn both the keyboard and mouse power off and try the sleep? Is it Ok to leave the dongle on the USB port when trying this to rule out the problem? What is they are really causing the problem, any suggested solutions?
Right click "my computer" click manage
click on "Device Manager", expand the keyboad tree, double click the device for your wireless keyboard (the built in one is called "HID Keyboard Device" so not that one. Make sure the keyboard is on and working or it might not show up in this list)
click on the "power management" tab of the new window and uncheck the box that says "allow this device to wake the computer"
The battery remaining time announced by the Power Manager is not very accurate, is it..? While testing 720P playback, battery remaining time announced by Windows is +1hour compared to PM if not more... It's also closer to what the online review show. Which is ~5h30, just in case.
Have anyone here purchased or heard about the "Keep Your Drive (KYD)" service by Lenovo? If so, what do you think about it and how much does it usually cause?
Is it very hard to clean the inside of the screen (Dangegous) I have something that looks like a smuge, its one centimeter long and 1/3 wide, but its not dead pixels, its just "smudgy" and washing the screen does nothing to this spot
3M Scotch-Brite Microfiber Cleaning Cloth is what you need! It's about 3 pounds/dollars at Amazon, and is recommended by photographer for cleaning their crazily expensive lenses. I keep it always in my notebook sleeve!
None of the normal battery gauges are accurate. Use BatteryCare with statistical method to calculate precisely!
Hey guys my laptop should be here tomorrow, i have never owned a windows based laptop before, i was wondering how Lenovo is on installing things that i dont really need? Are there any programs that I should automatically uninstall or should i just do a clean boot and start from scratch.
If you feel confident, doing a clean install is by far the best way. It will give you a faster system with better battery life, as well as the newest versions of all drivers and software. Personally I prefer to have a minimal setup, so I didn't install any util from Lenovo, other then the drivers.
There is an extremely useful clean install guide in the T420 thread. Most of it applies directly for the W520.
The only thing what I would advise is to download and install the video card drivers directly from Intel.com and nVidia.com.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.
