Lenovo W520 Owner's Thread

Have you installed Intel Rapid Storage Technology drivers?

RST will report if you are using 3 Mbps or 6 Mbps.

PS: Lenovo's position about OEM SSD drives:
We have reviewed several cases of unexpected quirks when using generic OEM SSD devices. While OEM drives with standard interfaces may work on Lenovo products, Lenovo has established, tested, and is prepared to fully support a number of Lenovo offered SSD drives. While I would encourage us to continue to discuss experiences here and share any solutions developed in the community or that may become available from engineering in the future, we are not able to formally escalate complications with 3rd party drives as they are not officially supported.

I appreciate your understanding...

//JameZ
W520 - various SSD issues - Page 6 - Lenovo Community

 

I'd make sure it's set up ahci and it's aligned correctly, i'd also try it with intel drivers and microsoft drivers to see which works best. if everything is correct it should run at sata III speeds

 

I Ordered yesterday a OCZ Agility 3 120GB SSD. Now I have to figure out how I'm gonna go with the exchange. I'm seeing 3 possibilities for now:

1. Copy all the data from my current HDD and paste it to my new SSD
2. Use Lenovo's recovery discs for a clean install to the SSD.
3. Use Win7 Pro x64 disc i have for a cleanclean install without the Lenovo stuff.

Of course #1 seems the easiest way for me since I'm completely satisfied with my current configurations. All of my data would also fit on the new 120GB SSD straight. Is there something I'm not seeing?

If I have to install whole OS and stuff again, which way would you suggest and why?

Some other things I should do when on SSD? Some settings on BIOS and in Windows? This is going to be my first SSD drive so I really don't know!

-Aleksi

 

Just out of curiosity what are your setting to get 8hours..the best I've gotten so far is 5:30 and thats with about 9screen brightness and just doing basic surfing and microsoft word. Now I have the 2920xm and 12gigs with a owc 240gb ssd and nvidia 2000m

 

I recently accidentally bought two W520. I will be post one for sale soon, when it arrives. The system has already shipped. Here are the specs if anyone is interested:

Intel Core i7-2920XM Processor (2.50GHz, 8MB L3, 1333MHz FSB)
Windows 7 64 Bit
15.6" HD+ (1600 x 900) LED Backlit Anti-Glare Display, Mobile Broadband Ready
NVIDIA Quadro 1000M Graphics with 2GB DDR3 Memory
6 GB PC3-10600 DDR3 SDRAM 1333MHz SODIMM Memory (2 DIMM)
UltraNav with TrackPoint & touchpad
500 GB Hard Disk Drive, 7200rpm
DVD Recordable
9 cell Li-Ion Battery - 55++
ThinkPad b/g/n
Integrated Mobile Broadband - Upgradable
3 Warranty Onsite Warranty

I want $2000. If anyone is interested do let me know. When it arrives I can send you pics and sn. Instead of paying 15% restocking fee you can save a whole lot. thanks! Let me know.

 

Has anyone been able to compare the Dell M4600's FHD(1920x1080) Anti-Glare LED-backlit with the FHD offered on the W520. I am just wondering how the two non-IPS compare, since that and cost seems to be the biggest difference between the W520 and the M4600 (non-IPS).

From what I understand, the Dell panel is brighter at 300 nits and has a wider viewing angle (especially vertical), but the Lenovo panel has a significantly higher color gamut, by some 25% of AdobeRGB. I would like to know if anyone has seen the two side by side and can speak for their noticeable differences out side of the specs.

 

So I got mine today (yay), does the recovery media take forever for other people too? Mine is taking a longgggg time on "Files are being extracted. Please wait."

It also has 2 stuck pixels which are pretty annoying.

 

What color are the stuck pixels? I presume you mean stuck on?

 

Blue. I intend to try this later:
JScreenFix - Fix stuck pixels and image persistence

I'm hoping that fixes it.

 

Blue sub-pixels? How did you even notice them? Blue is barely visible...

 

Bright blue... I'll take a picture later.

Other question do I need "Lenovo Simpletap"? I looked online and it seems to be for touchscreens, is this for touchpads to or should I not install it?

 

If they're bright, then they're cyan, not blue. That is you have green/blue lit sub-pixels, which I must say is pretty rare, especially two on one panel. Usually, you get one green or red (on or off) sub-pixel. Dell has a premium panel guarantee on their FHD panels, so that if there is even a single lit sub-pixel within the 1-3 year warranty period, they will exchange the laptop.

 

Where is that link? I've been searching the forum with no luck..I keep getting IE9 crashing or freezing..want to try this registry fix but can't seem to find exactly where it is..any help

 

My mistake I should have said cyan. I guess that makes me pretty special huh. I'll look and see what Lenovo's policy is on the subject.

Should I leave it to optimize for battery life span or set it to start charging when below a certain threshold? I know I asked about this before but now that I have it I'm wondering what the best option is as I'm not really sure on all the options. I'm concerned because the battery is at 98% and it is still listing it as "charging".

 

If you really have two cyan lit sub-pixels, that's technically 4 dead sub-pixels, so you should be covered by their warranty.

 

Well, I can say that the W520 does run sata III...this is my OWC 240gb ssd 6g...and this is what I got from crystaldiskmark...the only think I seem to be having is with IE9...sometimes this website or other websites will freeze and when I push control alt delete I got a protection security screen for about 15seconds then it will go to the task manager...anybody run into this.

 

Hi

I've come across two listings on eBay, from newthinkpads and ellen_mouse (see LENOVO THINKPAD W520 i7-2720QM, FHD, 8GB, 500GB 7.2K | eBay and New Lenovo ThinkPad W520 Core i7 2720QM w/FHD,8GB | eBay, both of whom are selling the base w520 config with FHD (in fact, better, cause they come with 8GB RAM, instead of 6) for much lower prices (less than $1550) and no tax and with 3 year basic warranty compared to Lenovo, where using B+N discount I get down to $1750 including tax.

Question is, is it worth going for eBay sellers? Anyone has experience dealing with either?

Cheers.

 

I really doubt they'd have the seller rating they did if they didn't sell precisely what was in the description.

 

So I took some pictures:
https://picasaweb.google.com/114360034508466477340/July262011

Thoughts? I know they are kind of crappy but you can see the one to the left above the other stuck pixel.

Maybe they aren't cyan and are just blue? Blegh.

 

Here is an actual comparison with Aero on and off

http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/..._-and-Vista-Battery-Saver-is-very-useful.aspx

In this comparison a Dell Latitude D820 with Windows Vista Ultimate on it works one hour more on battery without Aero and Sidebar running. This suggests that Aero is a big battery hog

 

I wonder if I got something running that I'm not seeing because the most I've seen my battery meter go to is about 4:40 or so and go down from there...never seen it read 6hours and I have the power management on low and all aspects to low...hmmm

 

Do you know what video card he has? I would believe these results on an nvidia card. I can tell you that aero spools up the clock speeds on every nvidia card I own.

On all my machines with a dedicated nvidia card I actually do disable aero. I simply haven't found it necessary with optimus. Are accelerated on the integrated card hasn't had any affect on battery life for me from simple observation. I would need to conduct a timed test to verify however.

I didn't try to say you are wrong! Just putting it out there that it worth testing. I'll try to do some run times this weekend maybe. The integrated cards are very low power usage. With aero on I average about 10 watts. I don't see how it could get much/any lower.

 

I have a 2720qm. To optimize for battery life I run on minimum performance, screen brightness 8, no hardware monitors whatsoever (I have them set to only load on AC), and I killed all services and processes that used significant CPU. One way to find these, power up on battery, set your power plan to minimum, open process explorer, and look for anything that regularly uses more than .5-1% CPU. Anything that does is running often in the background. Consider whether or not you really need it. You want to buy yourself idle time to get your battery time up. Even while doing tasks, the more cycles your CPU can find to idle the better. Also, I don't run the sidebar. I found that most the gadgets suck cycles.

 

Can't say much for the tax, but considering you can get a 2820 QM / FHD / 6 GB RAM system for less than $1550 with some negotiation with the Lenovo salespeople, why go with an e-bay seller and get a 2720QM which is much less expensive for the same price? The 8 vs 6 GB of RAM difference is negligeble, because you can just buy another DD3-1333 module to add to the 4 it comes with (throwing out the two in the process, or perhaps even using it for a total of 10 GB), and you'll be right there at 8 for less than $50. Although I must say that the same-day shipping does seem appealing. But consider what you will do if it comes with two lit sub-pixels? Will they exchange? Lenovo, I'm sure will, despite their bad pixel policy, if you talk to the right people...

Change your eBay search to 2820QM and see that the (comparable) picture isn't so rosy after all.

 

I can get 8hrs+ surfing the web on WLAN (no Flash, includes IM'ing with Windows Live) with these settings:

- CPU set to Balanced
- Brightness at 9/15
- Run only what is necessary, the run time is still possible with HWInfo64, though
- Aero enabled, no gadgets
- Everything else is factory

I'm pretty sure that you can return unopened items without a restocking fee. Contact Lenovo about it.

 

I started a new poll to get a feel for peoples' experiences with bad sub-pixels on their W520 FHD screen from the factory:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/len...w520-fhd-screen-come-bad-sub-pixels-poll.html

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/lenovo-ibm/566338-lenovo-w520-owners-thread-238.html#post7528090

 

Can someone provide me the exact screen dimensions for the W520? I need to buy a privacy screen that would fit it well. I can't find the screen dimensions (not the bezel or the frame) anywhere on Lenovo's website

Thanks

 

I have three brief questions to owners of the W520 with the FHD screen:


1. Just how bad are the vertical viewing angles? Is a white or black screen relatively uniformly lit when viewed head on? Or, does the brightness of the screen change as you move your gaze from the center to the top / bottom edges?
2. How about if you are not looking from dead center, say from a level at about the top edge of the monitor (i.e., looking down slightly)? How uniform is the vertical brightness of the screen?
3. Does the anti-glare matting on the screen blur small text?

Thanks for your input

 

Nope I checked it was 15% restocking fee. Opened or not.
Anyways the above mentioned laptop has shipped from China and is due in Monday, if anyone is interested please let me know. It's an awesome setup with 3 year warranty (onsite) and so you are good to go. You will not find a better deal for $2000.

 

So I called told them I had 2 stuck pixels and they are going to replace the screen for me. While I'd obviously rather not have to do this I understand that not everything is 100% perfect all the time and I'm happy that I didn't have to fight the guy for it. It was "I have 2 stuck pixels" and then the support guy said "Ok we can fix that for you". They're also shipping the box to me so I should have the box tomorrow. So as of now I'm pleased.

By the way where do you download the 1.26 BIOS? I can only find 1.25 on their website.

 

It's linked several times earlier in this thread. I don't know that it's official yet.

 

It is official on the US site the last time I checked. I'm too lazy to use the Canadian site as it defaults to US every time I visit.

 

You can find it on this page in the Lenovo Forum: W520 TurboBOOST not working on battery or after up... - Page 22 - Lenovo Community

 

I have a W520 2820QM BIOS 1.26 with an Intel 510. I've recently experienced a slow boot up issue and wanted to let the readers of this thread know the cause and workaround. This is not the 40 secs delay on warm reboot with the Intel 510. This is a 5 minute delay during POST until the BIOS passes over to the OS upon which the laptop runs at normal speedup, which also happens on a cold boot. The laptop with sit for up to 5 minutes at the Thinkpad logo and another 3 Minutes after the BIOS fingerprint read.

The cause is my HTC Desire S, connected to the blue USB 3 port during bootup. The Desire is in charge only mode and I can reproduce the slowdown issue reliably by connecting the phone and fix it by removing it. The phone doesn't cause any problem after the OS was started. When the phone is connected to the yellow USB 2 port the laptop doesn't start at all, the Thinkpad logo never appears (of it boots even slower and I wasn't patient enough to wait for the logo to appear).

I'll be posting on the Lenovo forums to let the Lenovo staff know about this.

 

Anyone know how to uninstall Lenovo Thinkvantage tool? I have bought a laptop in Germany and its installed in german, so I need to reinstall it in English

 

Is the HKCU suppose to be in my registry because I'm not seeing this?

 

Ok, so I just happen to find it under something else but I already have this but my value is set to medium?? I wonder if maybe it already has something there for this

 

Thanks for the help finding the BIOS.

Is there a way to disable it from letting you power on the computer with the fingerprint reader? It seems like it's a waste having it sit there sipping batteries when the power button is good enough for me.

Thanks.

 

For diabling of fingerprint reader, go to control panel in the start menu and double click on Biometric Devices and on the left go to Change Biometric Settings and you can turn the reader off.

For the Lenovo Thinkvantage Tool, go to Control Panel, than Programs and Features and than to Lenovo Thinkvantage Toolbox and uninstall it. The only trick with that is most of the Thinkvantage stuff is in the Ts but the Toolbox is under Lenovo in the Ls.

 

RST Confirms SATA III.
Latest Intel Drivers
Proper Alignment

Here are my benchmarks, thoughts?

 

I should be receiving my lenovo w520 in the next few days. What things should i check for with it physically (hardware and the case) and what stuff should i do with it ones it boots up?

Thank you.

 

have you been doing a lot of benchmarks?

 

Will this disable the fingerprint reader for
1) powering up the computer OR
2) completely disable fingerprint reader

Thanks.

 

Looks like a problem with the OCZ Vertex 3. Perhaps OCZ can help?

See the reliability info at the top of this Anandtech test: ( AnandTech - The Intel SSD 510 Review)

 

Anyone know how to setup the duel mics to work in ventrilo? People say my quality is very bad I hoped it was awesome now that I had 2 which meant noise canceling

 

Looks like there is a new firmware for vertex 3 drives version 2.11
OCZ Technology

 

Hi again can someone explain me how blutooth works here?
In my old notebook I had an FN key (fn f12) to turn on and off the blutooth. While turned on I had a small system icon.
Is there something similar here?
Thanks!

 

FN + F5 its a computer with waves on each side

 

Is everyones fan going constant at the same RPM? Mine dont seem to change at all, I updated to the latest bios using the autoupdater (Might not be the newest) do I need to get it manually?