Lenovo W520 Owner's Thread

I would check for updated audio drivers and possibly re-install skype. I know that I am regularly using skype on my w520 and it is flawless. The dual microphones and the high res webcam really shine in a video conferencing setting.

 

You need at least a 1600x900 screen to see the 2000M option, or at least that's how it was when I ordered.

 

What comments do you guys have on buy.com's W520 configuration? Here's some information about my requirements: 1, 2. Can I expect to get exactly the same product that is advertised on the website? Would you recommend buy.com for making such a purchase?

 

I found the answer. I opened up both units. My i7-2920 has a different fan and heat sink than the i7-2820 - perhaps to be able to handle the extra heat resulting from the higher wattage of the i7-2920.
i7-2920 fan: FRU P/N 04W0437 Workstation 55W Furukawa Electric Co.
i7-2820 fan: FRU P/N 04W1574 Rev 1.08

So if you have sensitive ears (like I do), listen out for that!

 

i'd configure a system like i wanted on the lenovo website and then chat with one of their salespeople on the online chat and see what additional discounts you can get. it saved me several hundred dollars.

 

Likewise. I was able to knock down $500 by using the B+N discount and calling a Lenovo rep. Saved me enough money for 16GB RAM and a 160GB SSD bought aftermarket.

 

Using the B&N offer and configuring with the same specs on Lenovo's website gives me slightly more than buy.com's price. A representative told me there were no additional discounts available.

 

Send me an instant message. I may be able to help.

 

Interesting that your graphics scores were 7.3. At 1920x1080 with overclocking I can manage to get a 7.1 with the Quadro in discrete-only mode.

 

I wonder if the fan/heatsink for the 2920 could be put on a lower processor for perhaps lower/cooler computer usage? If someone could find one for sale I'd order it and try it.

 

You wouldn't want the one from my i7-2920. It is noisy.

 

How can i swap fn and ctrl on w520 ?

 

Go into your BIOS and there will be an option to switch the mapping of those two keys.

 

Done thanks. By the way my laptop shipped to me today. It was bios 1.25 installed already. Until now there is no problems

 

New kid on the W520 block. Got a preconfigured 4276-37U for $1518.

Would have preferred the 3x3 network card and the 2000M graphics option, but couldn't get god rep pricing. FedEx delivers tomorrow, so taking the day off. Going to be a big step from a T43p.

 

Welcome to the club. Boy is that the understatement of the year.

 

I'm thinking of getting an SSD drive, but was afraid it would be too fast.

Reminded of an old Steven Wright joke - "I put instant coffee in the microwave ... Almost went back in time!".

I am upgrading the memory to 16GB, so maybe that will be fast enough for a while. Also got the onmoreUS caddy for the Ultrabay.

 

If you are going to use skype for business communication you should be using a headset to keep from sounding like you are in a tin can or that hollow sound when talking from some distance away. I've never heard a good sounding built-in microphone (I used to do a bit of sound work for television so am sensitive on this subject).

 

Have you confirmed that turbo boost is working when plugged in? Also, when you are on battery power and then plug in your laptop, can you confirm that all cores return to full speed?

 

Once you go SSD, you'll never go back.

Too fast? Is there such a thing?

 

The side effect is increased productivity. That might be a problem.

Speaking of SSDs, I just passed on the Intel 510 120GB and ordered a Crucial C300 128GB instead. I guess that my avatar doesn't make much sense after all.

 

The 510 is a screamer in sequentials but the random read/writes are about the same and Crucial is a whole lot less expensive.

 

Hi I'm ready to purchase my first lenovo, w520 and pretty excited about it. Quick question. What is B+N code? How can I get that code?

Sorry I'm a self employeed consultant so I don't have any company discount so I would really appreciate your help. Thanks.

 

hi huberth I coudln't send a instant message because I don't see message option anywhere. Maybe I don't have sufficient previliage in this forum yet? Hmmm how can I contact you?

 

Although in synthetic benchmarks other SSDs perform better, according to this review
Lenovo ThinkPad W520 Review | StorageReview.com
as well as my own tests (EDIT: with the PCMarkVantage Benchmarks, which measure real-life scenarios), the Intel 510 seems to be the SSD that works best with the W520.

Maybe this is because Intel knows how to optimize all the parts working together.

Also, the Intel 510 SSD uses the Marvel controller, not the Sandforce controller which has issues.

Intel SSDs also have a very good reliability record. Check this out: AnandTech - The Intel SSD 510 Review

 

I just added 8 GB (2x4gb modules) from Lenovo to my W520. The original memory installed at the factory is Samsung. The additional memory is from Micron.

When I run CPU-Z, Slots #1, #2 show:
JEDEC #2 457 MHz, JEDEC #3 533 MHz
JEDEC #4 609 MHz, JEDEC #5 685 MHz

Slots #3, #4 show:
JEDEC #3 533 MHz, JEDEC #4 609 MHz
JEDEC #5 685 MHz, JEDEC #6 761 MHz

Does this mean that the new memory is faster than that originally installed? Please advise. Thanks

 

That's what I'm thinking.

I would like to get an Intel 310 80GB PCIe drive, so I can leave the default HD in for data.

Can anyone tell me if the standard W520 factory load will fit comfortable in 80GB?

 

FWIW - I bought that same item (pre-config 4276-37U) from buy.com two days ago. FedEx just brought it to the door. Well packed, double boxed.

Unlike the CTO configs direct from Lenovo, it has the built in modem (not a big deal, but still nice).

It was cheaper than any price I could get from a Lenovo rep on a similar config. It wasn't my ideal config, but close enough. And I didn't have to wait. Also, buy.com will price match (I found a slightly cheaper price elsewhere).

I've bought from buy.com a few times over the years - never had a problem.

 

Intel 310 mSata SSD 80gb card back in stock at Newegg. Just placed order.

 

I've got to get Intel Ultimate-N 6300 to hook it with my new router.

If I get original lenovo part, will it work with my W520 witout BIOS mod?

Also is there a difference between W510, X201... version of adapter and the one for W520, whitelisting or so?

W520 should be having one spare antena in there for it, right?

Thanks!

BTW: I've got Intel 6205 right now.

- ngm

 

My system with all applications, restore points (sans paging file) is currently using 59.2 GB. All Lenovo tools installed, Adobe products, Norton, Office 2010 Professional, etc. WinDVD, Photoshop. I have the 16gb paging file on my D: drive (partitioned the 500GB into 3 partitions).

Hope this helps.

 

The above is the "Timings Table"
What does it say for the "Max Bandwidth" for each slot.

 

PC3-10700 (667 MHz)

 

Looks good. 2 x 666.5=1333. For the different values in the timings table, check this thread: DDR2 Timings issue. 2 different timings? - Overclockers Forums

 

Newegg Business has the Intel 310 with a 15% off promo code B2BSSD15 - limited offer.

 

To answer my own question - yes. Order placed at newegg.

 

The answer is yes. As i recall Windows + Lenovo software only comes up to about 12GB. There are several optional item you can get rid of AFTER you create the factory recovery disk set.

 

I understand W520 is not a gaming machine but I was wondering if any W520 owners tested/played games with it. I'm particularly curious if NBA2K11 or BFBC2 can be run smoothly on this machine. (mid setting is fine too) I'm trying to decide whether to go with Q1000M or Q2000M. Has anyone tried any games on it?

 

Looks like we may have something coming...

@All,

Good news guys~! ETA of new BIOS to fix this will be releasing in July. They are preparing it now for further testing.

As for the battery mode, the Turbo Boost will be disabled, that is the spec of W520. Because the W520's battery is roughly equivalent to the 100W AC adapter and is not enough to enable the Turbo Boost in the W520's quad core CPU.

//JameZ

 

I find that second part surprising. My 2620M Turbos fine on battery. And the only time I've seen my power draw climb to 100W-ish (and that means like, 98W) was when I was running Furmark + Linpack on it, for over an hour, never saw anything above 100W. So that means that there should be plenty of power for the quad cores to Turbo as they only use 10W more, as long as you are not stressing the CPU too.

 

Both games run extremely smooth on the 2000m with high settings.

 

Bad company dont require that much gpu power but benifit a whole lot from quad core cpus!

 

I would like to share my experience with throughput using eSATAp versus eSATA + power over USB cable, screenshots are attached.
Setup:
- VERTEX3 PRO 240 GB SSD
- Delock external HDD enclosure with eSATAp ( Amazon.com: 2.5" USB 2.0/eSATA Aluminum External SATA Hard Drive Enclosure (Black) - Supports up to 500GB!: Electronics) with eSATAp cable
- RaidSonic ICE BOX enternal HDD enclosure with eSATA IB-266StUS-B ( RaidSonic IB-266STUS-B Festplatten-Gehäuse 6,4 cm: Amazon.de: Computer & Zubehör)
- W7 test on NTFS
- Ubuntu 11.04 64-bit tests on NTFS and EXT4.
Generic statement: meanwhile it should be clear that eSATA port on W520 supports only SATA II, i.e. up to 3GB/s.
Test conclusions:
- eSATA + power over USB is far superior then eSATAp, ICY BOX with eSATA + power over USB delivers double the speed in comparison to Delock with eSATAp.
- in one test previous posted the USB 3 did not perform well too, similar to eSATAp.
- Therefore my choice for external HDD enclosure is still RaidSonic ICE BOX IB-266StUS-B with EXT4 for better write speed. My 2nd Vertex3 Pro in caddy is also partitioned to EXT4.
- as expected, under Linux the read speed from NTFS partition is comparable to those under W7 but the write speed is ~50 MB/s.
- NTFS partition provides (little) more usable space from the Vertex3 Pro 240 GB SSD - 223 GB, EXT4 with some tweaking (sudo tune2fs -m 0 /dev/sdXY will free up the Linux reserved space in sdXY) 219 GB.

 

This is not good news!

When I bought my W520, I was not told that it would not work with TurboBoost in battery mode.

The original thread with //JameZ (Lenovo)'s answer can be found here:
W520 TurboBOOST not working on battery or after up... - Page 19 - Lenovo Community

Thank you for sharing these benchmarks. That's good to know.
I am using the Accomdata eSata enclosure and it works great
Amazon.com: Acomdata 2.5" Tango USB/eSATA Hard Drive Enclosure Kit
Have you done any tests with it?

 

I just started setting up my new W520 and installed a 80Gb mSSD two days ago and then did a little trimming of unwanted programs. My screen is showing 52.5Gb free of 73.3Gb

 

huberth, I do not have that one HD enclosure. Could you be so kind to perform a test and share the results, i.e. what read and write speed over eSATA do you get?

 

My W520 i7-2820 works fine on battery with TurboBoost even with BIOS 1.22. Why would Lenovo want to disable it?

Instead of disabling TurboBoost, Lenovo should give the user the option to turn it (and other power saving features) on or off.

I am VERY disappointed.

Come on Lenovo engineers! You are "the inspired thinkers who roll up their sleeves and make things happen."
Lenovo: "For Those Who Do": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJJJaDMpCn0

 

i'd take his advice on this. i have a vertex 3 and have just ordered a 250gb intel 510 to replace it. have spent the last several weeks trying to keep the v3 working without bsod's and freezes and have not been able to keep it stable. will post pcvantage results next week when 510 comes in

 

I know this has probably been beaten to death, but here another discussion on the Intel 510 vs OCZ Vertex 3 which helps explain why the Intel 510 has better performance in real world applications.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...510-120gb-sata-iii-m17x-r3-2.html#post7354820

In the end, the real world differences are negligible so why not go with the brand that has a better reputation for reliability?