Lenovo W520 Owner's Thread

Can you see with throttle stop 3.0 if the TRL and TDP are adjustable? I want to see if the system is overclock able, if both are adjustable (TDP AND TRL) you can overclock. I don't want you to overclock just see if can be adjusted with throttle stop and cancel out the option.

 

Thanks, I would appreciate the PM

 

Can't do it now but when I get to the house later ill give it a shot. Not sure if overclocking is a good thing though with this system..its pretty quick but the cooling isn't great..its definitely good just not great

 

i have a w520, a slice battery, and use linux.

the thinkpad embedded controller in w520 does not report itself, and force_discharge and set_start_threshold no longer work.

[ 1036.625025] smapi smapi: smapi_request: SMAPI error: SMAPI fuction is not available (func=2118)
[ 1036.625030] smapi smapi: set_force_discharge: get failed for bat=0: SMAPI fuction is not available

i use a nice gui frontend to tpsmapi that manages switching the discharging battery. ive decided to make it merely warn me to switch the battery off when it gets low, but i dont actually remember to in practice.

charge thresholds work fine, it switches nicely at 80. however, my slice battery drains all the way to 0, then my main battery drains. this is obviously ludicrously bad for battery life.



my question, if anyone happens to know: is there anything i can do about it?
can i contact the developers of the embedded controller? where can i file a bug report?

another question: is there a solution for this in windows? that would give me hope of being able to write a solution for linux myself, but i fear the bios actually doesnt present any way of picking the battery to discharge to the operating system.

 

Hi,

I'm considering buying a W520 and would appreciate feedback on my questions that I have posted here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/len...ring-purchasing-w520-have-some-questions.html

Thanks!

 

This is the way it works in Windows 7 as well. The slice drains first all the way to zero before the main battery is even touched.

 

thanks for the info. really disheartening.

 

I apologize if I asked this already, but I don't believe I did.

How does the recovery media work? Is it a factory image of the OS or what? I'm intending to partition, would I be able to use the recovery media that you create yourself to reformat this if I decide to? If not I'll just image the drive myself when I get it with Clonezilla or something, but if I don't have to I'd rather not.

Thanks

 

Yes, it is a factory image. Yes, you can, from what other forum members have said.

 

It's all good, I figured you didn't see it. There is another guy who is selling for $1399 with similar config (but without Windows 7) - I sent him an offer of 1300 and he accepted it - and was ready to install Windows 7 for me for free. I didn't want him to do that - so I canceled the deal. If you have Windows 7 - then it's a pretty good deal. You can message him and talk to him exactly how he will install the OS. Let me know if you're interested, I can send you the link.

 

Ok, thanks.

 

I agree. You've already got just about max horsepower in your rig as it is, taking the fan/cooling system to its limit. I'd forget about OCing. Unless you figure out a way to hook up a liquid nitrogen cooling system to your machine.

 

Can someone test it out.

 

I would like to know why we are punished this way in Belgium. Perhaps it is import tax. Whatever it is excessive and must limit sales. I for one cannot pay so much for this laptop.

 

The CPU is over clockable by design, but NOT in the W520. Lenovo chose to hide and lock any settings that are used by for instance Throttlestop. If you need an overclockable 2920XM then the Lenovo W520 should not be your choice, sorry.

PS I have one and I tried.

 

This is not the situation only in Belgium but generally in the whole European Union. Not only that the PC-producing companies are selling with US$ to € ratio of 1:1 (good for $, ha), not, the prices are even higher in EU. When I read here that some people are getting theirs W520 for US$ 1400.00 I can hardly believe it, similar configuration f.e in Germany is ~ € 2000.00 which is US$ 2871.40 - that means, one can buy 2 (TWO)! W520 in US for the price of one W520 in Germany, compare this Lenovo - ThinkPad laptops - W Series and this Lenovo - Laptop computers - ThinkPad W Series - Buy Direct - Deutschland (DE).
My dear fellow American W520 owners, be lucky to live in interesting times... and in USA .
There is a way to slightly reduce the price down by talking directly to sales rep. I do not have experience talking directly with Lenovo's reps over here in EU but 3 years ago I was buying the DELL beastly, all inclusive portable workstation, the price was € 4,900.00 and rep could go down only to € 4,200.00, that was his last offer.

 

Yes their prices are great, but atm they are in the worst economic crisis in a very long time, so might not be so nice in a few years if this issue is not resolved.

Anyway my laptop is now shipped from lapstars.de - Lenovo Notebooks und deren Zubehör, havent gotten a tracking id yet though :/

Thinkpad W520 4282W16/4282RH7
Lehre & Forschung i7-2720QM (2,2GHz), 4GB, 500GB 72, 15,6" FHD LED 1920x1080, 2048MB NVIDIA Quadro® 1000M, DVDRW, Intel Ultimate-N 6300, , FP, BT, UltraNav, Sec. Chip, 9-Zelle, Win7 Prof. 64, 3 Onsite Warrenty. huey™PRO Colorimeter by X-Rite® color calibration sensor in palm rest

+ DK keyboard and 170W dockingstation

 

Does anyone here use Real Temp to monitor temps on their W520? I like it better than core temp because it also has the GPU temperature but I'm wondering does this mess with optimus? I'm thinking that it constantly taking readings from the dGPU would mess with its off state, does anyone know if this is actually the case?

 

"Business" line electronics from major manufacturers (e.g. Lenovo) are far cheaper in the USA than even many parts of Asia and The Middle East. This is even more perplexing when you know that many countries in the Middle East have very low import taxes and NO sales taxes. Many of these products are also released much later in these countries. For example, I just browsed Lenovo China website (using Google chrome's built in translator) and apparently they are not even selling the W520 yet...

I've been building my own desktops for years now just so I could save money and still have a computer with quality parts. After looking at at the some Thinkpad prices on sites like Costcentral and Ebay, I've realized that in the USA the savings from building a computer is quite minimal unless you have some very specialized use for the machine (e.g. dual monitor gaming at 1080p on each monitor).

This is not the case in many parts of Asia an the Middle East. Laptops (even many consumer level ones) are priced at such a premium that building a desktop, or having a local shop build one for you, is far cheaper. For many the savings of a desktop is worth the loss of portability and space.

Considering the "global economy," the fact that everything is built in China, and the global reach of transportation carriers, I really don't understand all these price differences.

 

I do. It doesn't mess with Optimus, but it doesn't get a temperature reading from the GPU either.

 

Ok that works for me. I assume it gets a temperature reading from the dGPU when it is activated?

 

Hi,
Can you please PM me the sellers details? Where does he/she ship from? What about warranty?
Cheers.

 

If you do use a program that does successfully poll the GPU though then it is keeping the Nvidia card awake during that polling. Just an FYI if you use something that is optimus compatible.

 

As far as I know, nope.

I don't really see the point in getting the temperature of something that is supposed to be off, though.

HWInfo64 always reports 40C when I'm in Optimus and not using the dGPU as the dGPU temperature IIRC.

 

Alright thanks.

 

I completely agree! That's why I mentioned it! I used to have an Nvidia monitor running and when it polls it would wake the dGPU up. This had a significant impact on battery life. So my point was, be carefull about which monitor you are running. You don't want to keep waking your dGPU up when in optimus mode if you don't need to.

 

You can use the Nvidia Optimus tool to check and be sure that you aren't waking the GPU up during polling. I try to keep all polling to a minimum as it does consume resources (especially on battery).

 

RealTemp and ThrottleStop get GPU temperature information from the Nvidia driver so they don't poll the GPU temperature sensor directly.

RealTemp 3.67
http://www.mediafire.com/?jibd769x6z7n0c8

 

Question about upgrading RAM

My W520 (2720QM / 4GB RAM) will be here shortly. I got a great deal on it (~$1200) which gives me a little extra money to throw more RAM into it. Should I add one 4GB stick or two or three? And which slots should be utilized? I'm leaning towards two 4GB sticks from crucial.com. Thanks.

 

Optimizing memory in W510 - which slots to use - Lenovo Community

According to the Lenovo forums the W520 should have RAM placed in the same spots as the W510.

 

Ugggh, I don't know why that link you posted STILL exists.. it's wrong! The right slots are in this link Lenovo Support - What is the correct DIMM slot order to populate additional memory DIMMs - ThinkPad W510, W701, W701ds

This was tested by myself and verified in this thread on the Lenovo forums... http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/W-Serie...ID=1225267&SID=u147695t2227777f9fp38931c0s590

 

I ordered the w520 with a 320GB HDD. I want to put in a 500GB, and split the drive ~150GB for OS/programs and the rest for data. Can I split the partition with the recovery disk?

 

You can simply split the disk using Window's Disk Management utility (right-click on Computer > Manage > Disk Management).

 

I know I can split it in windows, but I want to know If I can split the HDD at the time of recovery. I want to separate the two partition before I recover/install windows.
If the recovery disk does not allow me to spit the HDD, then can I split the HDD first? Does two partition interfere with the recovery?

 

Recovery will not allow you to partition anything, but it will give you the choice between restoring the entire HDD to factory condition or just the Windows OS partition.

 

Ok, so I gave realtemp a try, and maybe I'm setting it up wrong, but as soon as I turn on the gpu temp the nvidia card goes active and pretty much stays active.

Unless I'm setting this up wrong it seems to me that it's keep the card on. Anyone want to clue me in on what I setup wrong?

 

Ok guys dumb question. I'm running on battery and for some reason my power management is saying I'm always running the Discrete nvidia card...how do I get this to utilize the integrated card so I can save more battery...can't seem to figure this simple issue out.

 

I am assuming you want to run 100% on the integrated graphics. In that case when you boot the machine hit the F1 key when you see the Lenovo/Thinkpad splash screen. This will take you into the bios. Go to the second menu from the left and go down to "display". Select integrated graphics. Press F10 to save changes and reboot. Then everything will run with the integrated graphics and the Nvidia card will be shut off.

When you get back on AC power you can repeat the process to enable Nvidia Optimus or discrete graphics.

 

My W520 will be delivered by tomorrow! And also my extra 2x4GB arrived today, life is so good

 

Well I'm just trying to get it to run the integrated card when I'm doing simple tasks while on battery but use NVIDIA card on more power hungry apps..is this possible without having to go into the bios?

 

Whats happening is in my power management my GPU is pegged...shouldn't this be reading a lot lower??

 

In this case you want to leave Nvidia Optimus enabled in the bios. To check whether a certain program is set to use the interated graphics or Nvidia card go look under "Program Files" and find the program you are interested in. Right click on the executable for that program and in the menu there will be an option to set the default graphics card for that program. This way you can make sure only the programs you want to use the more power hungry Nvidia card will do so, and everything else will use the integrated card.

Also, shut off the Windows Aero theme as others have indicated that this will force Windows to use the Nvidia card for normal windows operations like diplaying and moving windows. The transparent window frames and other enhacements in Aero are graphics intensive. I use the classic windows theme since it requires much less graphics power to run.

 

Well that kinda defeats the purpose of having windows 7 if u have to shut down certain pieces that are just basic windows settings to get it.to run the normal integrated card..I guess that's why my gpu dial shows its pegged under power management no matter what setting its on..but why under a/c power the gpu throttles or the dial moves up and down but not on battery? Just seems kind of strange how they manipulated these settings

 

I've never had aero activate my nvidia card. Go into your nvidia control panel and just set the default to always use the integrated card. Then, when you actually want something to activate the nvidia card, you can either change that setting in the control panel, set a setting for that specific application in the control panel, or right click on it and select, run with this video card. If you continue having optimus problems, update your drivers.

 

The Aero theme is not graphics intensive for a modern machine. I've seen it work without issue on older integrated graphics chips and video cards. If the W520 is using the nvidia chip for Aero, nvidia and/or Lenovo needs make better drivers.

 

I just received my W520 and placed a brand new Vertex 3 Max IOPS in the main HD bay and I am getting SATA II speeds (verified via Crystal Disk, Sandra, & HD Tune) instead of SATA III speeds.

Is there anything I need to do to enable SATA III? This was from a fresh system restore using the lenovo restore disks.

I started reading this this thread but have lost track of where I was.

 

Guys

Has anybody purchased the privacy screen? The 3M one on this page says it only supports resolutions upto 1366 x 768 while the w520 is a 1680 x 900

Not sure if it matters. Also, what do you guys have to say about the gold filter?

Thanks

 

If your only pupose in using Windows 7 is to have cute spevial effects in your desktop gui, then yes, this defeats the purpose. It does not in any way reduce the functionality of windows 7 however, and it extends your battery life.

 

I have not personally tested what you've proposed, but I do want to offer some observations. I've read (again, I haven't confirmed for myself) that this may not be true.

Windows 7 aero accelerated effects are driven through the video card. The GPU (both integrated and dedicated) are WAY WAY WAY more efficient at these calculations than the CPU. I've read reports that when aero is disabled, that most Windows video effects are no longer accelerated through the GPU. This may be wrong, again, I have not personally confirmed this. I mention this because I've read that disabling aero (depending on machine setup) can actually decrease battery life (ie: if you have an integrated card driving aero vs the cpu driving windows basic, the cpu actually consumes more power).

Let me say again, I have not personally tested any of these claims, I'm just adding some points of thought here. I use aero, it ALWAYS uses my integrated card, and I get 8-8.5 hours of battery life (W520, 16 gigs ram, quad core cpu, 2000m nvidia card).

I would need to test it, but regardless, I am highly doubtfull that aero has any significant impact on battery life. The integrated card is very low power use for trivial items like that.

Just my point of view.

 

I'm looking for an ultrabay sata drive holder for my w520. There are a bunch of them out there. Are there any that are preferable or to be avoided? (sorry if this is old stuff, but search is broken, I can't get results for w520, let alone w520 and ultrabay.)