Lenovo W520 Owner's Thread

Does anyone have a newish w520 4282-A34 with i7-2720q, will the 135w work with the laptop. Will the 90w charge the laptop with computer off? I'm hearing that the 135w won't work with some of the w520?

 

Hello. I'm having some pretty severe issues with my W520.

It randomly freezes within miuntes of booting (or even during boot), and I have to remove the battery in order to restart the device. The freezing feels completely random - it happens under GPU or CPU load or when idle, and it often crashes while booting (before the windows welcome.screen).

Ive made sure the RAM is seated correctly as that was my first instinct as i thought it felt like a hardware problem but that has not fixed it.

It only started happening after I updated the BIOS a few weeks ago, not sure if this is a common problem? I also have a Samsung 830 SDD - could this be failing?

Thanks

 

Have you run memtest? One of your memory modules may be going bad.

 

I got the GTX Titan working. It is not an effective solution for now.
Forum Post
Benchmarks

 

Incredible. The Titan is a beautiful card just to look at. And you're right about the benchmarks, most probably we'll need 20Gbps Thunderbolt ports to get the most out of it. Its awesome you got it working but in a way I'm also happy that I can get around 85% of that performance with just a 670.

Btw, some posts above, huussi mentions getting a 55W processor heatsink for the w520. Its for around 30 to 50 bucks on ebay. I would recommend getting that for your W520 and using throttlestop to stay at max turboboost all the time. Although I don't think that anything above a 2820 or 2860 would be beneficial, and and XM processor will get you in a similar position like it did with the Titan vs the 670. i.e. too little benefit for too great a cost.

He did say he will be putting up benchmarks soon so lets see.

 

Hey guys, quick question.

Where can I get the cheapest deals for mSATA drives suitable for W520 and 16gm ram kits? Will be bought from the US.

Thanks in advance.

 

I use this Crucial mSATA SSD and this pair of G.Skill RAM sticks.

 

How about this for a mSATA boot drive? Will this do? Its $30 cheaper than the other one.

Newegg.com - Plextor M5M PX-128M5M mSATA 128GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

 

There is no such thing as "mSATA boot drive." In any event, that Plextor should do.

 

heh. Was just trying to say that it will be used as primary boot drive. Went too economical with words I guess. thanks again.

 

Sad to hear that. I hope you figure out the issue and can get it working soon or get a replacement. I myself am on the verge of ordering the new heatsink and was waiting to hear of your experience with it. In case you want to do some comparisons, you can run CPU only benchmarks whilst switching heatsinks. Please do let us know if there is any noticeable difference between the physical appearance or performance of the heatsinks.

 

Well, the new system board is dead. So no luck there.

I have compared the old heatsink with the new one - they are identical.

The old ones FRU is 04W1576. The only difference i could see was, that the old heatsinks fan model number ended with AG06, and the new one with AG10(iirc) - so i suppose they differ in some way. I can't tell a difference though. They sound the same to me.

So, don't bother spending any money on that

 

Don't know what lenovo was thinking by assigning different model numbers to the same parts. I was so disappointed to hear that they even look the same. People have replaced their stock heatsinks in the Alienware M18x with triple pipe heatsinks and seen incredible performance gains due to greater heat tolerance of their machines.

Maybe some forum member can elaborate further on any differences between the heatsinks (such as fan power) and if it is worth getting the one for the XM models. I am also thinking of re applying the thermal paste myself and seeing if that makes a difference. Is there any video or simple guide that shows the process of thermal unit removal? There is a W520 maintenance manual and it does look like a bit of work and just about disassembling most of the laptop.

Its on page 91 of this: http://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub/pc/pccbbs/mobiles_pdf/0a60078_01.pdf

 

It is fairly simple to get to the cpu/gpu/heatsink.

You have to remove the keyboard, the keyboard bezel and the left speaker (that's about enough).

I took some pictures of the heatsinks. Old 45W left, new 55W right.

Top view: http://i38.tinypic.com/2vdf9k5.jpg
Bottom view: http://i37.tinypic.com/34qjx21.jpg
New fan (AG10): http://i36.tinypic.com/w2bols.jpg

Getting to the system board itself was another story
http://i38.tinypic.com/29o0hon.jpg

 

doesn't it void your warranty by doing this heatsink upgrade?

 

Yes, just like upgrading the CPU or any other component that isn't a CRU (e.g keyboard, RAM, HDD)
I just keep all original parts and put them back in, if there ever is a warranty case.

 

Thanks a lot huussi. And considering what you have shown in the last pic (the whole disassembled laptop), I don't think anything would be hard for you. Its not the disassembly that scares me, its the putting everything back together part that is not so fun or easy.

Thanks for the pics, and there is no difference whatsoever in the heatsinks physically like you mentioned. The third pic of the fan, could you also check the fan of the 45W heatsink and see maybe something different than the 0.4A power rating? Would really appreciate that.

+rep

 

Same power rating as well

Anyone need a spare W520 heatsink?

 

Disappointed in Lenovo. Thought I might finally see a solution to unreasonably high temperatures.

But thank you huussi, for saving me some money. Hope you manage to get your upgrades working. If you want a graphical power upgrade, you might want to look at:
DIY eGPU experiences [version 2.0]

 

For anyone worried about the thermal performance: your first step should be installing TPFanControl, and the second one would be to replace the thermal paste! With these two, the performance of the stock cooler should be enough for every real world scenario in normal climates (OCCT or Prime + Furmark is NOT a real world performance, and are considered a power virus!)

The problem is that the Thinkpad BIOS doesn't push the fan to it's maximum, even when over 80 degrees! With TPFanControl you can push it to the max (manual mode 64), meaning much better cooling performance.

Also, by replacing the thermal material with something easy and flexible, like Arctic Cooling MX-4 (cleaning with alcohol in advance of course!), + TPFanControl can make your W520 max, 82-85 degrees! OK, I'm not in a very warm climate, in warm climate it might be a might higher.

If you are interested in using TPFanControl, here is my ini, optimized for quiet (but slightly warm) cooling:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/uu66k4q62u8colp/TPFanControl.ini?m

 

For the people who do not want to blindly go into opening up your ThinkPads. Download the Hardware Maintenance Manual for your model from 'Lenovo Support.' Save this PDF as it will come in handy time and time again! If you are afraid of losing screws when applying new thermal paste then get a blank sheet of paper(s) and draw a diagram of the area you are unscrewing. Stick the screws you take out and push into the corresponding part on your hand drawn diagram. You might want to use tape if you want the screws to stay in place. This will ensure you place the screws back in the right screw hole. Crude method but it works for me

 

thinking about putting some artic silver 5, if you do a parts lookup on your laptop the cpu is listed as user serviceable. I have a lot of warranty left on mine so I don't want to chance putting in new paste if lenovo thinks it voids the warranty. But I'm confused since on their site the CPU is listed as CRU.

 

Taking a look at the W520 System service parts list indicates that all CPUs have a "N" in the CRU column.

 

I'd recommend Arctic Cooling MX-4, it's really easy to apply. And more importantly it looks exactly like the official Lenovo paste, so they would never find out that you've changed yours!

 

Thanks for the advice guys, I already have some MX-4 lying around and will give it a shot as soon as I get some time. Will update with results.

 

Still didn't fix my issue with wlan delay... Would everyone reading this mind to answer? When you wake device from sleep, does wlan reconnect directly, without delay?

 

yes, what wifi card do you have?

 

You might want to find a better method of keeping dust from accumulating on the fans.

 

Has anyone gone from the newer bios back to 1.36 bios (this has 1600mhz speed?) without problems?

Thanks

 

As my W520 is a bit over 2 years old, my memory is failing me. I have the Intel 6300 wireless adapter and would like to add an mSata drive now that they are getting much bigger. However I recall that by having the 6300 adapter that it uses an additional antenna that keeps me from using the mSata.

My X220 is very happy with its mSata, but I bought that back when there was nothing larger than 80 GB. I suppose I could try and install it in my W520, but I am betting someone on this thread knows the answer off the top of their head.

TIA, for your help.

 

Undo 2 screws underneath. Slide and pop out the keyboard. Undo a screw in one corner of the PCI-express mSATA/WWAN slot. Insert the mSATA SSD, pushing it in at an angle, then pushing it down. Redo the one screw. Slide the keyboard back in place, nicely, squarely and tightly. Redo the 2 screws underneath.

Done. Nothing to do with 6300 WiFi adapter. Nothing to do with 2 or 3 antennae.

 

Thank you the Intel 80 GB mSata has been moved from my X220 to the W520. More trouble pulling if from the smaller laptop (also must pull the palm rest) than putting it in the W520.

Working well. Now will order a larger Crucial.

 

What are you using that mSATA SSD for? 80GB of storage is not that much, given the labor effort. If the main drive is a spinner, you could use the mSATA SSD for OS and programs, and enjoy the speed difference.

 

In many games, the FPS drop half as soon as smoke shows up, even little. Other graphic bugs occur but this is the main one. Updating driver doesn't change anything. Probably there's an option someone, and probably someone here knows..?

 

is there anyone running bios 1.36 or lower with 4 dimm slots filled running at 1600mhz or if it's filled with 4 slots it automatically drops to 1333mhz?

 

Aren't the ThinkPad **20 laptops limited to max RAM speed of "1333mhz" due to them having an Intel Sandy Bridge cpu???

 

In the original shipped version, it was capable of supporting 1600 mhz ram, but in the recent (near recent) bios update, the 1600 mhz ram support was removed for unknown reason.

 

7200rpm drive in the ultrabay drive. Hi I was wondering if anyone has a 7200rpm drive in the ultrabay and can feel the vibration from it, even on the palmrests?

I can feel the vibration even on the left palm rest which has the ssd underneath it. That or the ebay ultrabay I got isn't very good because I've had a 7200rpm in my t61 and I don't feel the same vibrations.

Thanks

 

I feel a slight vibration, nothing serious. Possibly it's your ebay adapter. I'm using the nimitz one.

But more importantly, set the HDD to sleep after 2 minutes. I only have my HDD when I actually work with big files stored on it, everything else I do SSD-only.

 

ok thx, I run test esxi and hyper-v on my ultrabay drive. I have nested virtual machines under that. Right now there isn't enough space to run those in my ssd. It could be the toshiba 500gb that lenovo shipped with my machine. I've heard that is less desirable than the seagate in terms of noise.

 

Ensure that both intel hd3000 drivers and nvidia drivers are updated.

Ensure that game is updated and patched.

When starting game, right click on its exe and select nvidia graphics and also set it as default.

Your game is likely running on intel graphics rather than nvidia gpu.

Edit: Would appreciate it if someone could point me to a display port to hdmi cable to output video from W520 to tv or external monitors.

 

For only $6.56 each when QTY 50+ purchased - DP (DisplayPort) Male to HDMI® Female Adapter + any HDMI cable.

 

This is a very good, well made one.

Amazon.com: Cable Matters Gold Plated Premium DisplayPort to HDMI Male to Female Cable Adapter: Electronics

 

Wrong... I'm in discrete mode (NVIDIA only).

 

Maybe its just the game then. You could drop down settings and see if there is an improvement in performance. Nvidia quadro drivers aren't really optimized for gaming. The issue may have been fixed in driver updates in the consumer gaming cards, but probably not in quadro drivers.

 

As said, this is a problem with SMOKE and seems to be occuring in ALL GAMES, even those from 10YEARS AGO...

 

The only time I experienced problems with smoke is when running Knights of the Old Republic, a 10 yr old game, on intel hd3000. You could install tpfancontrol, set fan speed to maximum and then install throttlestop, turn it on and choose the 'disable turbo' option. There is a chance that your system throttles a lot in case of smoke. I have to do the above if I want temperatures to remain below 91 degrees.

What I mentioned above will prevent the processor from turbo boosting, keeping temperatures down.

 

Would a displayport to hdmi male to female adapter or a displayport to hdmi male to male cable be better suited to hooking my computer up to my tvs at home? I've seen both recommended and just want to make sure before I buy anything.

 

I figure that a DP-to-HDMI (male, both ends) would be the cable to get. Plug the DP end to the W520, and the HDMI male end can plug in directly into a TV or whatever you're trying to connect.

 

Something like Amazon.com: High Quality Black DisplayPort Male to HDMI Cable Male - 6 Feet / 2M: Electronics
should work correct?