Lenovo W520 Owner's Thread

I do not have a W520, but the 27++ 9 cell slice that works on the W510 works on the W520. On my W510 it buys me about another 2.5 hrs of heavy use. I will be buying a W520 within the next 3-4 weeks and I expect that number to at least halve again on the new machine.

 

Ordered laptop on the 13th said it wasn't suppose to ship until august 8th..it shipped the very next day..Crazy!! It shows as of today that its in lousiville,ky...hopefully that means I'll see it on Monday or Tuesday at the latest..check profile for full specs..got a sweet deal and anyone want my reps name more than welcome to give it.

 

vegas3416: I see your W520 shipped on the same plane as mine

 

Can you please send me your rep's name and email id?
I would like to order a laptop before the deal ends

What deal did you get?

 

I used my student discount but I don't want to ruin what I did out in the open to mess everyone else up later...pm me for details

 

I guess so...I just hope to see it Monday..that would make my day and week!!

 

Thanks for your response. I will PM you.
(Where do I find the PM button? Newbie to these forums.. still trying to figure out the design) Thanks.

 

Click on my profile name..if not u can email me a

 

Email sent. Thanks for your help.

 

I purchased the battery slice around the same time as the W520 and have to say, it makes the W520 feel much heavier than I would have liked. From the default factory installation of windows with no tweaks, the battery indicator shows anywhere between 9 and 11 hours for me. This is with both the battery slice and the 9 cell battery. If I do nothing, it hovers over the 11 hours, once I start any programs or surf the web, it goes down to 9 hours.

The slice does not fit snugly under the W520. It moves slightly when tugged or pushed, in the same way the 9 cell battery does not fit snugly. Whenever I move the laptop, I have to support the slice to make sure it does not break up the tiny spring that holds it in place.

 

Just FYI, if you decide to get the docking station and plan to use the laptop without the battery, you need to jimmy the laptop on the surface the of the docking station. I plan to maximize the battery life so when I don't travel, I take out the battery.

When I took it out and set it on the docking station, the laptop shuts off whenever I touch it. Without the battery in place, the laptop is not balanced on the docking station. I found some objects to jimmy up the right side of the laptop to stabilize it. I suggest using an external keyboard or mouse if you plan to use your W520 on a docking station without the battery.

 

Does anyone know if the FHD screen is 6 bit or 8 bit? Where to find such information? The Tabook doesn't tell.

 

When I had a slice briefly I was getting 18 hours of battery life, I get just shy of 9 with just the 9 cell alone. My power plan though is set to minimum performance (max battery) while on battery though.

 

Does anyone have any recommendations for how to charge the battery? If I am not going to be running on battery should I charge it to 40% and take it out or what? Also what's a good charge amount for when I will be needing to run it on battery for longer, 90%? Also when I first get the laptop should I charge it to 100% then use it to 0%, or do you not need to do that? This is my first laptop so I'd like to not mess up the battery.

 

Li-ion batteries don't like to be over or undercharged. My suggestion would be to not run the battery under 10% unless you have to, and stop charging at around 95% max. If you do not suffer from throttling with the battery out, then you should store the battery at 40% charge in a dry and cool place away from sunlight if you really want to maximize the lifespan of the battery. Don't ever run a Li-ion battery to 0%, it damages it a lot. I think a lot of forum members have their charging thresholds set to start charging 35% and stop at 95%.

 

Here's a great guide from one of the other forums:
Notebook Battery Guide

 

I'll say what I've said in numerous other threads. I believe that if you aren't using the battery, it's worthwhile to store it partially discharged. Most guides will recommend 40%. If you are actively using the battery capabilities of the laptop, I see no reason to not just fully charge. Are you giving up a few cycles by fully charging? Perhaps, but you bought it to use it right? Why give up 30 minutes of possibly needed run time? There isn't really any hard data that says you gain any significant cycles from a 95 vs a 100% charge, and you bought it to use it. If you use it on battery, and in a year or two the battery isn't what you need it to be, you buy a new one. Sometimes it's just not worth micro managing everything.

That's my personal opinion though, I'd say, read the guides, make your own choices, none of the solutions mentioned is wrong by any means.

 

If you travel a lot, dust does accumulate in there; moreso than if it were a flush fit.

 

I've been having problems getting Skype to work correctly using the built-in mic and speakers. Speakers and mic are recognized as Conexant 20672 SmartAudio HD and my laptop properly recognizes them (Under Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > Sound > Manage audio devices, the mic is picking up my typing and I can also hear sound from the speakers from music, Youtube, etc). Skype, however, will not recognize my mic nor speakers. Can anyone help with this?

 

hey Privatejarhead,

I am having the same issue as you. Do you like your W520? I just got mine on 6/13. Two days before you. I cannot get the internal microphone working. Yesterday I reformatted my laptop and now it is running smoother but it seems like there's a lot of drivers problems for this laptop. And they didn't mail me any drivers discs which is a pity.

 

I don't think that any computer company ships out driver (or OS) disks anymore, not just Lenovo. And yes, I like my W520. I'm only having a problem with Skype; everything else works perfectly. I might update my BIOS to 1.26 over the next weekend, however.

 

Update your audio drivers. The one that ships won't work with Skype.

 

It's 6-bit. Here is the specs sheet:

B156HW01 V.4

 

Thanks very much for that. +1

 

Can anyone test out with Throttle Stop 3.0. if the TRL and TDP can be adjusted, on the Extreme CPUs on the W520? I can tell you it is certainly adjustable on the 920xm W510 which I have right now.

 

That's the time I was hoping to have when I purchased the slice, around 20 hours combined. But 9 hours is good with me since most of my laptop with extended battery usually dies at around the 6 hours mark. I also use the max battery configuration when I saw the time estimation.

I will check both the slice and internal battery again next week when I get a chance. I'm pretty sure that both the slice and the main 9-cell batteries were at 100% charged when I unplugged and noticed the time estimation. I charged the battery slice using an external charger that has a level indicator too. Both are new and have been charged just a few times.

 

Is it true for the W520 FHD displays that there are some strong red, yellow and green hues missing in AdobeRGB as well as in sRGB like it was measured for one Display in the Notebookcheck review:

Review Lenovo ThinkPad W520 Notebook - Notebookcheck.net Reviews

Maybe it was just an faulty panel, maybe of a different pre series type or even an error in measuring. Normally wide gamut panels cannot be measured with colorimeters, but only spectrometers.

Would be great if an owner could measure and post DeltaE and Gamut with a spectrometer like Eye one Pro or Colormunki, or maybe even a colorimeter like Eye One Display.

 

Thanks for the advice on battery life everyone, I'll keep this in mind when I get mine.

 

What is the color depth of the FHD on the W520? My ancient FlexView (can't stop talking about it 'cause it's so nice a panel compared with the TN screens I see today) has a "color depth" of 16 Million. The newer IPS panel on the Elitebook 8760w and 8560w is 1.1 Billion (at least for the 8760w). I've finally seen the the new FHD on the new Thinkpads, but I cannot find it's color depth, but I know I've seen it mentioned somewhere on NBR. Anybody know?

EDIT: OK, I found it here: http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Lenovo-ThinkPad-W520-Notebook.53220.0.html. It's 1.13+ Million.

 

It's easy to calculate since it's based off of the number of bits the panel is. All 6-bit panels have (2^6)^3 = 262,144 colours, 8-bit = (2^8)^3 = 16,777,216, and 10-bit = (2^10)^3 = 1,073,741,824. How a 6-bit panel is "enhanced" is by dithering. Either way, there is no such thing as any number in between.

Understanding Colour Depth | bit-tech.net

 

Ok, guys. I finally installed my intel 310 (80GB) yesterday and got a windows wei of 7.7. Is it up to spec? Furthermore, I used Lenovo's Restore DVDs to install win 7 Pro and use the 310 as a boot disk. Is there anyway to get rid of the 15GBs of dead space that Lenovo uses as a restore point?

What would offer better performances?

Win 7 Pro Only = intel 310 (Boot disk). + Lenovo 500GB (7200rpm) = All other Applications + Storage.

or

Win 7 Pro + Applications = intel 310 (Boot disk). + Lenovo 500GB (7200) = Only storage.

Thanks for helping a ssd newbi

 

One more question that came to mind, is it better to download the graphics drivers from Lenovo or Nvidia?

 

i deleted that partition, i think it was z, and the expanded the c drive into it. i also disabled hibernate, and only use a 1gb page file. that also saves quite a bit of space. i have a wei of 7.8 with a 510 so 7.7 seems good for a 310. i had a 7.9 with the vertex 3 but had issues with the firmware that couldn't be resolved. there are lots of tweaks that are supposed to help but i haven't noticed much difference with any other than the ones i mentioned. setting up a ramdisk for your browser cache will speed that up if you have a lot of extra memory otherwise i'd just run it like it is. good luck.

 

You can recover the backup partition by clicking on it from my computer. As for performance, anything that is on the SSD will run faster than stored on the HDD. But the problem is space. So you need to figure out which programs get installed on your SSD vs HDD.

 

both work well. if you download from lenovo typically they have been tested by lenovo and may have less issues than the ones directly from nvidia. you might want to avoid the beta drivers but i'm running the latest nvidia release with no problems so far.

 

Ok, thanks. I'll probably just get them from Nvidia then because Lenovo apparently doesn't offer drivers for Win7, and only Vista.

Drivers and software - ThinkPad T420, T420i, T420s, T420si, T520, T520i and W520

 

I am using my W520 in a meeting today, with the slice attached. I have used it for 5 hours so far today on wifi doing web browsing about 50% of the time and the battery meter is still showing over 10 hours left. I will easily make it until later this evening before I run out of power. I have the power setting all the way over to the right, but then brightness back up to 5. I shut off the Nvidia in the BIOS when booting this morning, and my Gobi 3000 modem is shut off. I haven't yet enabled the battery stretcher options as they won't be needed today. So, my DvD drive, background processes, color depth, etc.. all remain powered on or at normal settings.

The slice makes it easier to type as it props up the laptop nicely. I just carry my W520 around in a Lenovo sleeve as I don't need to worry about having the power brick until I get back to my hotel. To me the slice is nicer to carry than the power brick if you need to compute during very long all day meetings.

 

I really liked mine while I had it, but it suddenly stopped charging within a week or so after I got it. I returned it and decided I can live with the 8-9 hours I get without it.

 

Just FYI,

I installed WinDvd 2010 Pro to support my Plextor BD-R PX-LB950UE Blu-ray eSata external drive. The unit performs flawlessly on my i7-2820QM system. The processor speed is a steady 3.2GHz on TurboBoost when playing a HD movie. The hyperthreads are "parked", the other CPUs are idling. Core temps are running 67 C, fan noise is still low.

 

You may want to create a restore point, in case the drivers from nvidia don't install correctly I've faced similar issues with my Thinkpad earlier.

 

I'm about to cop this deal I got for the w520

i7-2720qm
6gb RAM
FHD
quadro 2000
centrino ultimate
intel 160 ssd

for $1784.04 after taxes.
good deal?

also what intel ssd is included? is it the 320 series or the x-25m series ? If it's the latter, is it first or second gen? Thanks

 

A better deal would be to buy the stock 4GB RAM and add a 2GB stick later, and buy a SSD aftermarket. You'll get a better deal that way.

 

plus one on the restore point. if you have the ability to image the drive that works even better. i loaded the lenovo update for my bluetooth a month or so ago and it wiped my drive. if i hadn't done an image i would have had to reload everything. as it was i lost a weeks worth of data, which thankfully wasn't all that much. It always pays to do a backup before loading drivers from anywhere or anybody.

 

just turned on my w520 for the first time... my first word of advice would be to seriously invest in the FHD screen--this thing is amazing. I can't stop looking at it and it is undoubtedly leagues above that of my old laptop.

what is that black icon in the lower right corner of my desktop though? it's a black square with a house that has an "A" inside of it?

 

That's "Caps lock".

 

simple enough, thanks haha

Now for another issue: When I try to connect to the internet, it says that I am connected with limited connectivity. How do I fix this? I know it's not the router, as my vista laptop connects without a problem. I purchased my computer with an Intel Ultimate 6300 wireless card, if that matters.

 

I have just received my W520 system. I would like to add some memory and am wondering if this
G.SKILL 8GB (2 x 4GB) 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)

would be work fine in my laptop assuming that I would install only those 8GB and discard the 4gb originally shipped with the computer.
Does anybody has some experience whit this kind of memory?
Thank you

 

Can I put the W520 in the dockingstation and have the lid open and then use the duel mics in Ventrilo (For less noise) even if I type on a normal keyboard next to it? Or do you have to sit directly infront of it for it to work and do the duel mics even work with everything or do the software have to support it officially?

 

Hey, that's what I'm looking for!! Muchas gracias!

Now, let's see: the 6, 8, and 10 seem obvious (bits per pixel), but does the 2 in (2^6)^3 indicate .... well, where does that come from? The 3 I guess comes from the three primary colors of RGB, or is that wrong?

Nice link, too. +1

 

My guess is that since this is the first time you connect to a network, windows wants to figure out if it's a private or public network. You should receive a prompt asking you what type of network it is.