Lenovo W520 Owner's Thread

Aww crap! I didn't realize they paired them like that!!!!!

Well.... easy fix is to simply fill them all!!!!!

 

Im only putting 4 gigs extra of ram in (its probably overkill for what I need but hey it cant hurt). so Basically is this how you do it oh what size screwdriver do I need

turn off cpu
take out battery
unscrew the middle compartment the centre one on the back
put the ram in
put the screws back in
put the battery back in
start cpu again

 

I stand corrected. Thanks for the info!

 

Is anyone having problem with the W520 failing to wake from sleep ??

Mine would fail. I just get a blank black screen, and nothing happens. Only the powe light comes on.

I have to do a hard power reset to reboot.
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Send me the adapter and I'll test it.

Realistically the only way to know for sure is to test both. I do hope you are right. Having lived through the bottle-necked T61p days and the lovely pata adapters, I am a justly skeptical.

 

Install Windows XP Mode and run them under that.

 

Just wondering, 81C max CPU temperature under Starcraft II sound normal? I don't have a cooling pad or anything, the laptop is just sitting on my desk. Just for those who are curious, SC II demo has run without lag for me thus far (3vs3 very easy) on native resolution (1600x900) and ultra graphics settings with the 1000M.

 

stupid question how do you do that

 

I disagree. I have the T520.

I installed VMWare Workstation version 7.1.4
Then copied my Virtual Machines from my old laptop to the new T520.

I can't seem to get the password right, but I know the password.

Upon further investigation, the keyboard does not work, it is only typing numbers in sequential order, no matter which letter I type.

Has anyone seen this before? I am stumped.

TIA

 

Mine has been doing the same thing and it seems to be either stemmed to the memory being in the wrong slots or USB devices connected. I noticed it after I removed the original memory and installed 2x 4GB Patriot 1600MHz Mem. I installed them both to the slots underneath the keyboard. Then I read the lenovo suggested occupied slot installation. It also seemed to happen when either my android phone or USB Thumb Drive was connected too. Although I've had this issue since day one. I turned off things in the BIOS (Intel AT/AMT BIOS) and it appears to remediate the problem partially. I just started troubleshooting the memory variable by installing 2 more sodimms The first Sleep test has worked but now the finger scanner doesn't want to wake up and I have to login via a typed password.

I am booting Win7 x64 on o a 64GB C300 with UEFI only. It was a clean install via DVD with SP1 slipstreamed. So that could also be another variable . I've updated the UEFI to 1.22 and the firmware on the C300 to 007.

I'll report back more once I've had more time with all 4 dimms filled

 

It should be under Virtual PC, if for some reason you don't have this app on your system you can download and install it via Microsoft's Virtual PC website.

 

Please don't misquote me. This is the W520 owners thread, not the T520 owners thread. I have no personal experience with the T520. And in the sequence you are referring to, the virtualization product was not mentioned as I recall.

However, I will investigate VMWare on the W520. I do own a current license.

 

I used the Create Recovery Media Utility to create a Boot Disk (unverified but created without an error message); I also had checked to have the Utility create Data Disks but as the Utility was just about ready to "finalize" the first Data Disk the Utility complained that the DVD+R wasn't a DVD-RAM and aborted the creation of the disk. I attempted to restart the process using another CDbut the Utility terminated again. I am trying to create the Data Disks again; however I would like the security of being able to create them more than once given the problems I am having. There are no "visible" files in Q and I am wondering how to perform the editing above. Also, I would appreciate any advice about why DVD+R Discs might not have worked. My thanks in advance.

 

Got my Intel 310 today and installed it following the W520 owners manual. A little tricky with the keyboard removal but all went well.

Now comes the difficult part. I want to use the SSD as the boot drive but since I have dual 500gb drives in a RAID 1 configuration I don't have a DVD drive. Can I use an external USB hard drive to create the R+R media and then boot from it or should I try to use something like Acronis True Image to move the information to the SSD? Or use a different approach altogether?

 

I'm not sure if you can target a HDD or not. If it's possible, see if you can find BYTECC eSATAp cable in stock somewhere. Works great for booting external drives or copies.

 

I am also puzzled by this problem, but would 3 external displays w/ the W520 screen turned off work correctly (using the dock, Matrox, etc)?

 

I'm still in the process of setting up my W520, so maybe I haven't done all that I have to do yet, but there's a discrepancy in my warranty coverage.

I have done the following:

• Ordered "3YR PRIORITY ONSITE + 3YR TPP," as shown on order information.
• Registered the machine online (serial no., model type)
• Received an email & spreadsheet from Lenovo, thanking me for purchasing "ThinkPlus Priority Support for enterprise customers," and indicating that my registration of this extended coverage was "Registration Successful." The e-mail said that I needed to correct the spreadsheet and return it to Lenovo only if there were any errors in machine type/serial no./etc. indicated in the spreadsheet (none were indicated).

Despite this, ThinkVantage Toolbox and auto-detection of machine type and serial number insist that I have only 1 year of Depot Warranty, expiring on April 29, 2012. I presume that selecting an option to "Extend the term of existing service" will want to charge me all over again.

Did I miss a step? How do I update the 3-year status without having to re-purchase extended coverage?

Thanks for any guidance.

 

I would imagine if you are using a Matrox device or some other form of external help, you should be able to go above two external monitors. But I haven't seen anyone report success here.

See some of the Matrox options at DualHead2Go Connectivity Requirements

 

To anyone with Kingston DDR3 1866 plug n play ram: Have any of you experienced problems with suspend/resume? With this memory installed, my w520 won't resume from suspend. When I put 1333 memory back in the laptop, it suspends/resumes just fine. I performed memtest86+ for more than 3hrs with no errors.

Has anyone else experienced this problem?

 

Get an external DVD drive. NewEgg had one last week for $25. I built my own using an old slim DVD drive and this case today. It works and it's quite nice. I'll swap out that drive for a blu-ray drive soon. The benefit is that I don't have to worry about matching bezels so I can pick anything I like including the new Buffalo BDXL slimline blu-ray drive.

Beyond that you could always do a clean install of Windows 7 using one of the tutorials out there on how to copy the install files to a bootable USB flash drive. The Lenovo restore discs are a different animal and one that I'm not really willing to touch.

 

I am using the same 1866MHz memory and having this same 'resume from suspend' problem. I have two ram slots filled.

I will try and put in two more 1866MHz ram tomorrow for a total of 4 sticks, and see if this problem still occur.
.

 

For those of you having this problem, do you have SP1 installed? I ask because this hotfix is available but it doesn't fit the exact symptoms.

I also suggest reading this thread. I almost wonder if we have the same problem mentioned by "dilburt" in the W520. If the above hotfix doesn't work then it may take a Lenovo BIOS update. Again, I'd ask everyone experiencing this issue for please open a support ticket with both Lenovo and Kingston. Someone should also post this issue on the official Lenovo forums.

I've tested the Hibernate and Sleep functionality in Windows 7 (non-SP1) with 2 1866Mhz sticks in the bottom slots and 1 1333Mhz stick in the under-keyboard slot for a total of 12GB of RAM. Both functions work fine. Tomorrow I'll test a pure 4 stick 1866Mhz system on a non-SP1 system. Then I'll try again with SP1.

 

Wouldn't the presence of once 1333Mhz stick automatically mean that the whole system will default to 1333Mhz operation on the memory side anyway? That would explain the absense of the suspend/resume issue.

 

Totally unrelated. The suspend/resume issue in our case takes place at the immediate moment that the hardware is re-initialized. The issue you are referring to is one step further in the process, where the OS is "woken up" and activated

 

Last time I bought a machine it took a good amount of time before the toolbox reflected the warranty. I'd think you're fine, just give it a couple months.

 

Turns out it was easier than I thought. I simply used Acronis True Image to clone the RAID 1 array onto the mSATA. Then I removed the two 500 gb hard drives and the system started right up from the mSATA.

Performance of the Windows Experience Index for disk data transfer rate jumped from 5.9 to 7.6 and the overall score increased from 5.9 to 6.9, now limited by graphics.

Also with tpfancontrol and the mSATA the W520 now runs dead quite.

For anyone sitting on the fence on the Intel 310 SSD, I would highly recommend it.

Thanks for everyones help in guiding me through this process.

 

I'll retest today and check but that assumption appears to be sound.

I wouldn't go as far as to call it "totally unrelated." The differences between 1333Mhz and 1866Mhz RAM come down to a handful of variables. Either way, my hope is throwing out possible solutions pushes others in the right direction.

By the way, have you opened a support ticket yet with both Kingston and Lenovo? Let us know so we're up to speed with what is going on.

 

So I got no response to the tpfancontrol issue I posted earlier. I also posted over on thinkpads.com however and the author of the program chimed in that the Embedded Controller on the newer Thinkpads operates a little bit differently and was most likely the culprit. He posted a new version up, follow this thread: forum.thinkpads.com • View topic - W520 w/ tpfancontrol issue

For anyone with a 520 series, I recommend you upgrade and follow this topic to avoid incorrectly operating your fans with this program.

 

Anyone know if are issues with either Vertex 3 Max iops or Crucial M4 in the W520? Just which one to pick (120GB models)

 

So, I just read this article: AnandTech - Intel Z68 Chipset & Smart Response Technology (SSD Caching) Review.

Apparently, the QM67 chipset also supports this technology. Great! I can order a 40 GB mSATA drive instead of the 80 GB I was planning on, and I won't have to worry about managing programs/data on two drives. Except that the SATA controller has to be in RAID mode. And, from what I've read, since I ordered a W520 without RAID preconfigured, RAID mode is not an option in the BIOS. So, if I wanted to take advantage of this with an mSATA drive, I would need to cancel my order, order a W520 with RAID and an overpriced extra hard drive that I don't need, and then order a separate optical drive.\

Also, I just looked at Intel's datasheet for the QM67 chipset ( http://www.intel.com/Assets/PDF/datasheet/324645.pdf) and in doesn't indicate that there are versions of the QM67 without RAID support. Is it still technically possible, but just disabled in the BIOS?

 

Good to know. Thanks, infinus.

You know how it is when you get a new machine. You want to check out EVERYTHING while the return window is still open. Now, I'm off to find an Expresscard peripheral that operates by USB 3, Firewire, Wireless/N, and Bluetooth...

 

The 433830U mini dock is here. The only differences I can see between this and 433810U:
- 170w adapter vs 90w adapter
- socket to accept the 170w plug

Everything else is the same.

 

According to Lenovo ThinkPad W520 Battery Life, Heat and Noise, the W520 reached peak temperatures of 90C during benchmarks, so a temperature of 81C while gaming sounds reasonable.

Thanks for posting your gaming results. There is not much information about the performance of the 1000M right now, so any additional information that you could provide would be appreciated. I would like to see more information about the 1000M's performance in various games.

 

I received my RAID enabled W520! I took out the Seagate drives and replaced them with the Intel 510 from the non-RAID W520 and a second (blank) Intel 510. The system runs fine with the single SSD.

When I start up RST 10.1.0.1008 it recognizes both drives and suggests that I should create a raid volume. I follow the instructions, and it offers me the ability to create a RAID 0 while keeping the data from one of the disks. I click next, it says it is now creating the volume, which may take some time. A few minutes later it stops with the message:

"An unknown error occurred during the volume creation process. Please try creating the volume again."

When I re-boot, I get a Windows BSOD with a "Driver_Power-State_Failure: and a "Stop: 0x0000009F" error code during shut-down of the system.

I have the latest Lenovo BIOS (1.22) and RAID enabled in the BIOS. I have checked the SSDs using the Intel SSD Toolbox. Both SSD check out OK. All Lenovo and Windows updates are installed.

I have tried for hours ... no go!

Any ideas?

PS: Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: BlueScreen
OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.256.48
Locale ID: 1033
Additional information about the problem:
BCCode: 1000009f
BCP1: 0000000000000004
BCP2: 0000000000000258
BCP3: FFFFFA8006CD3040
BCP4: FFFFF80000B9C3D0
OS Version: 6_1_7601
Service Pack: 1_0
Product: 256_1
Files that help describe the problem:
C:\Windows\Minidump\051211-11107-01.dmp
C:\Users\......\AppData\Local\Temp\WER-796572-0.sysdata.xml

 

Thank you for your response. Do you have any suggestions for games? I'm not much of a gamer, so I don't really know which games are good for testing.

Edit:
Those temperatures are in Fahrenheit and are of the chassis, but I'm guessing anything up to the mid-80C is acceptable for a laptop while gaming because that's what I've seen from various sources at the moment.

By the way, does anyone else experience the issue where the battery charges to 100% anyways even though it is limited to charge only when below x% and max at y%?

 

Yup, I have SP1 installed, and the latest Power Manager and Power Manager Driver installed as wells.
Now it seems like it might be related to SP1 and not the Kingston memory.

I will re-load the original factory image that came without SP1 and test again.
.

 

So you were trying to enable a RAID array on the fly with the SSD that your OS was installed on?

 

May I suggest you try it without the change for multiple disks as mine was done with all DVD +Rs. Than copy the discs using diskcopy.

 

You can use a program like Fraps to record the fps while in a game. I'm most interested in the fps you get with med/high/ultra settings on Starcraft II. You could also a try more demanding first-person shooter, like Metro 2033 or Crysis (both have demos) and record the fps on various settings. I'm not much of a gamer either, so perhaps other readers want to weigh in?

My mistake on the temps. From my experience though, machines with quad-core processors will idle at a bit over 50C, with the temp rising to 70C or 80C under load.

 

I see. I'll try some more intensive scenes in SCII (I've never played it, so I suck) over the weekend. My W520 has a dual core, but since the TDP is only 10W lower, I guess they'd be similar in temperature. Thanks again.

I have to say, the battery life on the W520 is really good. I'm getting like 8.5hrs from surfing the web with brightness on 9 and power profile on balanced. I got 6hrs 50mins yesterday from doing random stuff ranging from 1080p video to entertainment to a lot of stuff.

 

I just got my caddy bay for HDD that I bought on eBay. I tested it with Vertex 3 MAX IOPS and sequential read shows 453MB/s. I bought this item if anybody still needs it. I know, listing says W510, but it works perfectly with my W520.

 

Just got my setup. The machine is wonderful. Except the power supply I thought you are guys exaggerating, but you can seriously build a house from these bricks

 

With the fans under BIOS control if you REALLY load the system (ie: CPU's under full load, and the GPU at 100% with some CUDA calculations, you can do this with an application like BOINC) the CPU temp will climb over 200 (I've sat around 201) degrees F. It takes a good 30-60 minutes running full tilt on everything. The max junction temp is 212, so even this hot I don't think it's a serious problem. The hotter it gets the more the CPU throttles back which makes it even harder to get higher. If I have the power brick plugged into a power meter during a run like this it draws between 115 and 130 watts, so the machine is really shedding a lot of heat.

Now, with tpfancontrol (be sure you get the new version) you can spin the fans up even faster if you want and keep your temps down in the 180-190 range under full load. This will let you keep a little bit of boost going on the CPU's.

Games will NOT punish a system as much as BOINC will. Under gaming I'd expect you to sit in the 165-175 F range on the CPU.

 

Yeah, let me echo that. I've been trying to figure out why my Bluetooth couldn't be activated for love or money, but that simple trick did it. I remember turning off BT last year because I never used it, but then couldn't get it going again.

Protect your gray matter.

+1

 

I am rather impressed with the battery life got about 8 hours with pretty much just internet browsing all day brightness about 10

 

It could take up to 30 days to update the warranty status. Just wait another week.

 

I can report success with matrox. I used to run six 24-inch 1080P monitors on my W700ds with external video card and two Matrox DualHead2Go. I do not have all nessesarry cables to try setup on W520. Hovewer, I connected matrox to VGA port and got 3840x1080 resolution (that is 2 screens). I was thinking try same setup with display port. But I do not have Dp to DVI adapter yet.

 

Just played some more SCII on 1600x900 Ultra, seems to run perfectly fine. I also ran Cinebench R11.5, the 1000M got 26.84 FPS, which is the same as what the GT 550M got according to NotebookCheck.

 

For anyone that is interested, this is a quick-and-dirty picture of my W520. You can see the following:

* 2 sticks of Kingston 4GB 1866Mhz RAM
* Intel Ultimate-N 6300 with 3 antennas
* Intel 310 80GB mSATA SSD
* UltraBay hard drive part of Lenovo factory configured RAID

I'm going to close it up now and do some tests. I apologize for the bad picture... I didn't feel like attaching a flash or changing lenses on my Canon 5D2.

Edit: So I tested both hibernate and suspend to ram with 16GB of 1866Mhz RAM installed. Everything works perfectly under the factory-default non-SP1 Windows 7 install. I'm cloning the system onto the Intel 310 mSATA right now and then I'll install SP1.

 

Just for those wondering about the difference of the hd+ vs fhd screen - I received my 2nd w520 the other day, and can honestly say that both screens were worlds better than any non IPS ThinkPad screen I've used in recent years. I despise the ratio, but both were pretty good.

I kept the fhd one for myself, but MAN that's a lot of pixels to cram in such a small area! My 24" monitor is 1920x1200, by comparison. I actually think I preferred the hd+ display.