Lenovo W520 Owner's Thread

Thanks man. I just googled, that TPfancontrol can enable bluetooth (!) too, so I did it via TPfancontrol and it works fine now.

 

Noticed that too. I was forced to use the Windows supplied backup solution so I could cover two drives.

I'd look at these http://lifehacker.com/398229/five-best-windows-backup-tools Syncback only does file copy (might as well use robocopy or synctoy). Another alternative is Clonezilla Live but you can't use your laptop while its running. This one looks promising ... http://news.cnet.com/8301-13880_3-10469489-68.html

 

It's been recommended to me to use Acronis. I did a search online about Acronis Home True Image 2011 and it appears that quite a few people are having issues with it.

Does anyone hear have specific experience with it that they can share?

 

I love Acronis.... never had any issues with it. I've used it many times over the years to switch hard drives about in machines.

 

The guys at storagereview.com use it for their SSD testing. The 2011 version is SSD aware and does not mess up the "alignment". ( TIH 2011 and SSD drives | Knowledge Base )
I found it on sale today at Newegg at a 50% discount: $19.95 after rebate Newegg.com - Acronis True Image Home 2011

 

Thanks for the info...based on some reviews, I'm wondering if the Acronis Backup and Recovery Workstation 10 is a better solution. Does anybody have experience with Workstation 10 and True Image Home 11?

 

i'm using true image 11 and it works great. the bluetooth update last week gave me a bsod and i had to reimage the ssd and it worked without a hitch. money well spent in my opinion. i saved more in time than i paid for it.

 

Mine will sleep and wake up in all 3 modes: integrated, discrete and Optimus (I changed them in the BIOS to test it for you. I normally just use Optimus).

(Since I have SSDs, I have the hibernate file disabled.)

 

BTW, the free SSD Data Migration Software Intel provides is an OEM Version of Acronis. It works only with Intel SSDs, but unfortunately the free OEM version does not recognize that the SSDs are made by Intel when they are in a RAID, so Intel RAID users will have to buy the full version from Acronis
Data Migration software doesn't install ...: Intel Communities

 

I've been using Acronis 2010 for 1.5 yrs; works great. I don't have experience w/RAID, so can't address that. However, it works well for backing up/restoring multiple partitions, drives, etc. Should work with any device that appears to be a 'drive' to your system.

Couple little quirks w/my system that I figured out:

* select 'signature' when backing up drive and boot info. Small place to tick when going through the panels...

* use the standalone boot DVD for restores, as I had some sort of issues trying the restore from Windows.

Other than the above, it works FAST and has been 100% reliable on many restores I've done. I only do full backups and then either rebuild the entire partition(usually C:\) or browse through the backup if just grabbing a file or two.

 

For those who are interested, the "MEMORIALDAY" code gives a 15% discount off the W520.

 

Hey I've got a couple questions regarding my new W520.

First off, the system is telling me to back up my system in the thinkvantage toolbox. Do I want to do this in the Lenovo recovery drive?

Also, I've noticed some issues with what I think is the sound card. When starting some applications (mostly games) the sound seems like it's flickering. When the music plays it seems to jump between the full (set) volume and a much softer volume on its own (it's kind of hard to explain). It's quite irritating that this is happening on a new machine. Has anyone else had similar issues that can help me figure out the problem?

 

Which version of tpfancontrol is that? Mine doesn't have that and I think that I have the latest version.

 

Thanks for all the input on Acronis. I'm gonna go with it but I think I might go with the workstation version.

On a side note, for anyone who wants to do a secure erase on their SSD, the Intel Toolbox can't perform a secure erase in AHCI without power cycling your SSD (power it off and then back on).

Per Intel, their recommended approach is to perform a clean all command through diskpart which effectively writes every sector on our SSD with 0's. There are various thoughts on this approach on the internet as some people think this generates more wear on your SSD than secure erase.

 

The lenovo recovery partition is to make discs so you can restore your laptop back to factory setting. You definitely want to create the disks and then you can recover the disk space. If you restore back t factory settings, you will lose all programs and files on your computer.

The backup that the toolbox is referring to is backup your system regularly so if something goes wrong, you can restore your laptop from a backup which should save you from losing all your data and having to reinstall all of your programs.

I haven't experienced any of the speaker problems you are mentioning. However, my speakers were really soft by default and I have to go into my sound properties and check one of the boxes under enhancements. I can't remember exactly which one it was but I think it was loudness equalization.

 

I configured one through the site with the Memorial Day coupon and one through the Mastercard marketplace and the marketplace configuration came out about $250 cheaper after applying the coupon. Just some info for anyone considering a purchase this weekend.

 

That $250 difference is the difference between 19.25% and 15%. If you can find my "Lenovo Memorial Day is no different from the previous Deals" thread, you'd realize that you only receive 5% in the Mastercard Marketplace.

 

Hello w520 owners, I just recovered my win7 64 bit prof. using the Lenovo recovery discs on a new 7.2k 500G HDD (the factory stock one just died within 2 weeks and Lenovo sent me a new one for replacement), and then did a bunch of updates including win 7 sp1.

However, I noticed that the startup time is quite a bit slower than the original HDD with the factory default image. Although both HDD are 7.2K rpm, the original one was Seagate (which i had really bad experience with this brand including the one in my w520 which died within 2 weeks), and the replacement is a Hitachi.

I understand that the Seagate one may be intrinsically a bit faster than the Hitachi, however, the slow bootup time just makes me feel like the Enhanced Experienced 2.0 or Rapidboot is not activated or installed ... Is there anyway to check if those 2 functions are activated or not during windows startup?

Thanks!

 

Frankly I like the Hitachi 7200 rpm. I did replace it with a couple of SSDs from Crucial but it is a good drive and I will use it in an enclosure.

Also on Acronis. Please let's get this straight. TIH 2011 is not alignment aware. It won't change alignment but it won't recognize alignment good or bad at all. That they hope to get in 2012.

If you are working with Win 7 it is the one that maintains alignment. If you start out with bad alignment in TIH 2011 you will end up with bad alignment. If you start out good (most Win 7 installations) you will continue to be good.

It is XP that is the problem. It won't maintain alignment like Win 7 will.

So it is not Acronis that is working for you it is Win 7 that is easier to align. Once aligned TIH 2011 will not screw it up.

However for most of us working in Win 7 that have properly aligned disks than we will continue to have properly aligned. disks.

When I first installed the C300 120 GB SSD I used the Lenovo R&R disks and I was confident that (being Win 7) alignment would be good. I checked it with AS SSD and found out I was correct.

Had I been installing XP I would have had to take extra steps.

TIH 2010 will do the same thing.

If you like spend some time on the Acronis forum and you will get this straightened out.

All that being said, I cloned a 120 GB C300 to a 256 GB C300 last night using TIH 2011. As I started out with an aligned disk I ended up with an aligned disk. But I thank Win 7 for that not Acronis.

 

My replacements were both Hitachi too. The drives are faster in my testing. My suggestion is that all things being equal it might help if you used a disk defragmentation program. It may help.

 

The 5% is taken off of the "employee pricing" that you get when you enter the site through the marketplace. It ends up being lower than the otherwise configured price + memorial day coupon.

 

right click on the TPFC icon in the taskbar, second option from the top.

 

The newest version doesn't have it anymore.

 

Linux fans rejoice... we may have a solution to using Optimus under Linux using bumblebee. I obviously haven't tried it yet but I may give it a shot.

 

You first.

 

It disables turbo boost. Reverting to 1.06 restores turbo boost functionality.

Went through most of yesterday wondering why my machine was dog slow never going above 2.2 ghz, and a quick Google search revealed the answer. Oh well, so much for rigorous testing before release....

 

Turbo Boost works fine for me after the BIOS update. Maybe they only tested with dual cores.

 

WOOO! Just ordered my W520, which should be a huge step up (I come from HP consumer notebooks). It was also (relatively) cheap thanks to the Mastercard discount and MEMORIALDAY coupon code.

Specs:
Core i7-2920XM
Win 7 Pro x64 w/XP Mode Preinstalled
4GB RAM (which i'll upgrade for cheaper later)
1080p screen
Quadro 2000M
Color Sensor
500GB HDD
Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 (3x3)

I can't wait! Do they usually ship before the estimated date?

Also, do you guys recommend clean installs or is Lenovo pretty good with keeping bloatware down?

 

TurboBoost works fine with Quad Core and BIOS 1.25 (mislabeled as 1.24) as well.

 

How much did it cost?

 

In my experience Lenovo tends to be quite pessimistic about their shipping dates! However it’s not unusual for them to ship well before their estimated dates assuming the transaction and supply chain is all smooth, I had my ThinkPad shipped within 3-4 days of ordering.

Lenovo generally is one of the better brands in terms of not installing unnecessary bloatware but personally I still think some of the things they put on the system is a bit too much. In terms of processes I usually able to halve that with my clean install compared to the factory install.

 

Roughly $2250

Awesome! Hopefully it works out that way for me too

 

I can notice some sort of mouse pointer lag in Windows 7 64bit. Anyone else the same? It's strange, sometimes the mouse is just laggy. Or if I click the titlebar on any window and moving the window, it is sometimes laggy. I am using Logitech G700 (its the same on wireless/wired setup).

It is also possible that it is not a pointer lag, but system lag, because when scrolling I can PROBABLY feel the same.

Any ideas?

 

I use the Anywhere MX and the only time I notice lag is when the system is under heavy load or sometimes low load on the battery (CPU throttling).

 

I cannot see any relevance to the load. But I don't like it, since I have Intel SSD and am working super-fast and this slows me down

 

For some reason I can't get wireless N to work at a friend's house, any ideas?
It's stuck at 54.0Mbps and I can't figure out what's wrong.

Edit:
Is it possible to set up a router to limit the speed of unknown computers? If it is, this would explain why.

 

Try Windows 7 Resource Monitor to see what is going on. I only get mouse delays when the CPU is fully stressed out.

 

Just a quick update: I know some people were saying that Bios 1.25 fixed their problems with Kingston's HyperX 1866 memory, but my problems were persisting.

Putting my 2 sticks in slots 1 and 2, rather than 1 and 3 where they'd operate in dual mode, has fixed my problems. I get no errors, and suspend/resume works perfectly.

As many of you know, dual mode actually does very little for memory performance so this counts as a fix in my book.

 

Make sure that the cloning application obeys the alignment that Windows 7 uses. Some cloning programs write the old 31.5KB partition just like old XP does and ruiins both your RAID performance and that of the SSDs.

 

Ok, yeah, wireless N still doesn't work, no one has any clue at my end. Any ideas?

 

Maybe this will help:
The most likely cause of this issue is due to the security configuration set for accessing the wireless network.

Excerpt from Intel support..

Symptom(s):
Client device's Wi-Fi data rate will not exceed 54 Mbps when Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) or Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP) encryption is configured.
Cause:
The IEEE* 802.11n Draft prohibits using High Throughput with WEP or TKIP as the unicast cipher. If you use these encryption methods (e.g. WEP, WPA-TKIP), your data rate will drop to 54 Mbps. Newer Intel® wireless adapter client drivers connect using a legacy IEEE 802.11g connection rather than failing to connect altogether, which complies with the IEEE 802.11n draft.
Solution:
Contact your Wi-Fi access point (AP) or router manufacturer to download the latest firmware version, or to obtain information on particular models supporting High Throughput.
Disable 'packet bursting' or similar feature that may be enabled on the AP or router.
Configure the Wi-Fi client device's profile to use Wi-Fi Protected Access* (WPA2-AES or WPA2-TKIP). You may also choose to configure an unsecured profile, but this option is NOT recommended.
Configure the AP or router to match the client profile.
http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=615317

 

Thank you!
Set it to AES instead of TKIP in Windows and it's up to ~300Mbps (I don't think the router supports the full 450Mbps the 6300 can do).

 

I prefer to go with the stock Lenovo Windows load. For my purposes, the utilities are very handy and the bloatware is at a minimum. Also, very little(negligible) amount of cpu resources are consumed by the Lenovo code running in the background, so not a performance hit either.

Brush up a bit on the hidden recovery partition and be aware of the need to create the restore/recovery CDs immediately after you receive the unit(so you won't forget and be hosed later).

Only modification I usually make is to get rid of the recovery partition(after making restore CDs), as I use Acronis for all of my backup/restore needs and don't need the partition(and therefore, can recover some disk space by not using it).

 

My W520 had an Order date: 04/12/11, with an Original Ship Date :04/22/11
(8 business days /promised on the web)
The ship date changed to 05/09/11.
I called them, and told them I was disappointed, especially since I pasd for the expedited shipping (which is of course after the system is built).

The refunded me $100 (They term it a "Concession refund").

The unit ended up shipping April 29, and I got it May 2.



The moral of the story is they slipped a few days, but more than made up for it.

As to the 'bloatware', I had used the factory install and was not too disappointed, but there were a few things I didn't think I needed, so I did a fresh install once I got my 250 gig Intel 510. I see that with Acronis the alignment should have been fine with a clone of the factory image, but I had some issues with a prior OCZ vertex 3, and didn't want to take chances. Also, I installed Ultimate, and no, I don't use any of the features additional from the WIn 7 Pro, at least that I can tell!

 

Hello,

I have ordered a w520 about a month ago (from hidevolution as it was much cheaper than buying it from Europe, i hope to get it by next week) and i have been reading this forum ever since, and i have a few questions.

1. Does this adapter (the one from newmodeus) works at 6gb sata 3 speed? I know that the caddy itself should not limit the speed, but i guess there's no harm in asking.

2. Is there any difference between putting an ssd (haven't really decided which one, i'm waiting to see how corsair force 3 behaves) that will also be the boot drive in the mainbay or in the ultrabay?

3. I know that w520 has some kind of accelerometer that stops your hdd when the sensor detects movement/falling. Does this only work for the mainbay sata port? Or it will also work for the ultrabay.

4. Is there any shop in US that sells the kingston 1866 pnp memory and ships to Europe? I've looked around but i haven't found one yet.

 

is it normal for the gpu to be throttled once it reaches 90C? seems to happen to me after an hour of gaming

 

In the Dell laptops, CPU throttling based on a high GPU temperature is common and it is usually triggered at around 85C to 90C. You can run ThrottleStop with the Log File option checked to get a better idea if this is happening to you.

When you are finished gaming and have had one of these throttling episodes, stop ThrottleStop and upload the log file to MediaFire and post a link so I can have a look.

 

making the log won't disable the throttling right? i'm just not sure what a 'safe' gpu/cpu temp is

 

CPUs and GPUs are designed not to go beyond a safe temperature. When they get too hot, they automatically throttle and slow down to protect themselves from damage. If this does not prevent the CPU or GPU from getting too hot then it simply shuts itself off. This protection is built in at the hardware level so no matter what software you run, you will always have this layer of protection.

 

ah ic. now that my cpu / gpu are back to 40C, things run smoothly again. i'm pretty sure this is throttling, but since you say there's nothing i can do, then i'm not gonna worry about it. probably a good thing i can't play games for more than a few hours at a time any way =P

Just curious if other people have experienced this as well. I have 2720QM and quadro 2000m

Edit: I installed the latest verde drivers from nvidia and it seems my steady state gpu temp is 83-85... no throttling anymore...