Lenovo W520 Owner's Thread

Battery life as in how long the battery will last before you need to replace it? Probably the one where you take the battery out of the laptop and store it somewhere nice, dry, cool, and away from sunlight.

Optimus is automatic. It depends on the application(s) that you are running. If the driver detects that a program needs the dGPU, then it will use it. You cannot explicitly state to use the iGPU for everything when on battery and the dGPU for everything when you are not, as far as I'm aware. You can specify which GPU an application uses at launch time, though, as well as set a global default GPU for that program.

But yes, the power options for the system are under Power Manager. Time to bug Lenovo about the 1.27 BIOS.

 

LOL^ Thanks for the info. If there is anything specific you'd like me to check that they have put in version 1.27, I'd be glad to check it out.

 

I can't be 100% serious at 1:30 A.M., unfortunately.

But, yeah, if you are not too concerned about battery longevity or if your system suffers from throttling without the battery in, just let Power Manager manage it automatically. Saves a lot of hassle.

Can you post the specs of your system in your signature? I personally would like to know if the CPU can go up to its rated speed (i.e. without TurboBoost) on battery, with CPU performance set to "Balanced", and if the CPU Turbos when set to "Maximum Turbo" on battery.

 

Sure will do. How can I monitor the CPU speeds and tell if it's throttling? TPfancontrol or something else? I'd also like to monitor CPU and GPU temps.

 

Intel turbo boost monitor: http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?DwnldID=19105

CPU/GPU temp (Download HW Monitor/Pro): CPUID - System & hardware benchmark, monitoring, reporting

 

Put in an SSD and see your disk score and overall score rise!

 

Just ordered my W520 and need to get some more RAM. Is it advisable to switch out the original RAM if I were planning to upgrade it to 6 or 8GB?

EDIT: Has anyone installed 1600MHz RAM without problems?

I'm also planning on replacing the 320GB that it came with, with an SSD. But will still want a large storage drive which will replace my Optical drive bay. Has anyone who has used this before encountered any problems? 2nd HDD or SSD Caddy - Lenovo ThinkPad W520, W510, T510 [TP-W510-T510] - $46.75 : NewmodeUS, Hard Drive Caddys for Notebooks

And will this work with the W520? http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/...F20B94413B5AD6E684D2848E9&&hide_menu_area=yes

Just to check, swapping out HDDs and RAM won't void the warranty right?

 

Discussing hours and minutes is not a good benchmark for comparison. Some of us may be surfing the web 50% of the time while in a meeting, and others may be surfing 100% of the time or constantly using MS office. It makes more sense to compare watts used while the laptop is just sitting there. I can get 10-11 watts at idle. You should shoot for 8-11 watts at idle as a good goal.

At these low power levels even muting the audio can save 1.5-2 watts. I played with the mute button and the effect was obvious. Here is what I do to get down to 11 watts:

Boot into the bios and disable the Nvidia card. Use integrated only. In power manager push the setting bar (in basic mode) all the way to the right. Then bump up the brightness to where you need it. Mute audio. With wifi and my 3G gobi 3000 modem both powered up I get 11 watts. I have bluetooth off. I can get less than 11 watts if I use the battery extender settings. Normally I dont use them because with a battey slice I can go 12-14 hours using wifi and MS office. (I leave my 3G modem on in case wifi drops out).

I have used my W520 with battery slice and went 9 hours of use, and the battery meter still showed 4 hours left. If you experiment with power settings you can probably get even lower. I have heard of people with dual core W520's getting down to 8 watts with ease.

 

Is there anyway to boost the performance of the quadro cards, even at the expense of accuracy? I don't do any cad or rendering stuff so I'd rather get a couple of extra FPS's out of the machine.

 

Go into the bios and select discrete graphics only. Optimus is not always as efficient as one hopes it would be. I get much better performance on some graphics intensive applications by going this. It is a very noticible improvement. On other applications it does not seem to matter as much.

 

Try HWInfo64 or CPU-Z. HWInfo64 tells you like everything, CPU-Z is good for monitoring the CPU clock speed, which HWInfo64 can do anyways.

Yep, if I just let my W520 sit there with a webpage open and not doing anything, I idle at like 8.5 ~ 9.5W with screen brightness at 9/15. If I let the screen dim it goes down to like 8W. I haven't played around too much with the power settings, though. Mainly because I don't see a need to with how much battery life I'm getting.

 

First, swapping ram and hdds won't affect your warranty. Second, the 1600mhz hyperx PNP is perfect. The w520 still doesn't work well with the 1866, so just stick with the 1600 and you'll be happy.
Newegg.com - Kingston HyperX 8GB (2 x 4GB) 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1600 HyperX Plug n Play Laptop Memory Model KHX1600C9S3P1K2/8G

Hard drive caddies are sweet. I use one. You'll have to search the thread to find out more info on them - I don't remember which is which...

 

Thx, for the recommendation and suggestions for the RAM and the SSD.

I do not need the SSD for special usage. i just think that if you have such a fast system the hard drive would become the ottle neck easily which would erase the whole speed advantage...

I think I will live with 8 GB and invest in a faster SSD. To be honest, all those reliability talkings make me a bit uncompftable. How likely is it that an SSD has a failure?

 

if reliability is your main concern i would go with intel. right now i would stay away from ocz they are having firmware issues and i never could get the drive to remain stable in my w520. once they sort out their issues it is an extremely fast drive!

 

My W520 with RAID 0 was recently shipped to me. *Before* I boot into Windows for the first time, I'd like to make an image of the hard drives *as shipped*.

The BartPE CD I tried displayed a "blue screen of death," (BSOD) which I understand is not uncommon with recent hardware.

Clonezilla Live apparently did not recognize my RAID 0 volume.

Does anyone know what software I could use to boot from an external CD (or USB key) that:
1) would not BSOD,
2) would recognize my RAID 0 volume, and
3) would allow me to image the RAID 0 volume, preferably ignoring the blank space?

Thanks!

P.S. Currently downloading Windows Automated Installation Kit in hopes of trying a more recent version of the Windows Preinstallation Environment. Fingers crossed....

 

Yikes, that's quite a stretch from what I was prepared to pay.

IRT using the optical drive bay as a boot drive or storage drive, I've read somewhere that some have reported faster boot times from using the optical drive instead of the hard drive bay, even though both are SATA III. Can anyone else comment on this?

 

Gotcha. I will try out HWinfo tonight. Last night I ran the Intel Turboboost monitor and most of the time it was at 2.2Ghz, but would randomly spike to anywhere from 2.8 to 3.1Ghz. When I tried to do the WEI rating, it jumped to 3.2Ghz and stayed there, but then the WEI failed for some reason.

So, do I need a more constant load to see if the CPU stays at the higher clock speed? Also shouldn't it jump to 3.3Ghz?

 

i tried both ways with a vertex 3 and an intel 510 and mine worked better in the hard drive bay. i always set my bios to boot to the hard drive first. if it is down the list a bit as far as booting it will take longer. if i need to boot to a cd or usb drive i change it in the bios at that time.

 

It will only jump to 3.3GHz if there is only 1 core loaded. Due to the way Windows schedules things, it will almost never be at 3.3GHz.

 

Where can I find the FAQ mentioned by hrana?

Thanks!

 

I'm entering into first year engineering at university this September and Just ordered a W520. I got the i7-2720QM, Quadra 1000M, 4gb ram (plus another 4gb to add in myself), 1920x1080 high res screen and the 9 cell battery. I think this might be overkill for my needs but I feel pretty good about it being able to run everything I need well for 4 years.

Do these beasts have any known issues or quirks I should look out for?

 

How do I input video/audio to perform video editing on my W520?
Is this what the DisplayPort is for? Do I have to purchase a USB device, and if so, what is the best one to buy?

 

The FHD screen my laptop needs to be replaced is apparently on backorder. Anyone have any idea what this means in terms of delay?

I don't get what you mean, you just want files so you can edit them? Just use networking or a USB drive.

 

Throttling on battery. Some users (including myself) experience throttling on battery, where the CPU is capped at half of its rated maximum frequency.

 

It depends on the camera you use for recording video, what brand/model of camera do you use?

 

I was reading about that and I think for my use this will be somewhere between OK and ideal. I figure I will be running on battery throughout the day while running between classes and such when my main usage probably won't require full power, but max battery life would be ideal. In the evenings when I'm in the library or sitting at home doing homework ( or maybe slacking off and playing a game or two ) and I need full power I can just plug it in.

I have never had a laptop at school before, does this assessment sound about right?

 

Yes, all W520 have the throttling issue on battery, where you get less than 50% of A/C performance. Most users aren't aware of it, since they use their W520 on AC mostly. Until Lenovo fixes it, I use a great little program called "Throttlestop".

 

Do people get best batterylife with windows on balenced or lenovos battery software?

 

I use the factory image with my own custom settings for power under Power Management, but the CPU is set to Balanced on battery.

I'll be an engineering student in September, too, and I think so, too.

I don't mind it that much as I rarely if ever do anything that CPU intensive on battery. Though, I just pointed it out as you asked for quirks/issues with the machine.

 

Quick question for anyone who bought their laptop in California, were you charged an electronic recycling fees?

 

I don't believe I was, unless they lumped it in with the Sales Tax

 

Yeah I have power management tools installed...

 

I don't know about California, but here in Canada, they just randomly charged the amount on top of the finished bill. It didn't even show up, and it was just charged.

 

if you look through huberth's posts you will find his settings for throttlestop. if you use these settings you will see a dramatic improvement on battery

 

There's really no need to make an image of the drive BEFORE booting into Windows for the first time. After you boot into Windows, you have the opportunity to create "rescue" discs onto 4 discs. These discs contain the factory image for your system such that if your HDD crapped out and you replaced it with a new one, you'd be able to restore to the same image that left Lenovo.

 

Where can I find these posts?

 

these are the settings he gave me, about mid-page

http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/W-Serie...-battery-or-after-updates/td-p/442909/page/29

 

I am a bit disppointed, I only get 6-7 hours reported life with 5/15 brightness and only playing a mp3 this is on balanced without lenovo power manager. I read of people getting 8-9 hours on balanced with 9/15 brightness and web browsing I know 5-6 hours is still good for a quad core, but when others report 1/3 higher I get a bit disappointed

 

Can I use my hard disc out of my T61p in the baydrive in my W520?

 

Hi, can someone help me with color managament?

start -> color management

can you tell me your choices and your system defaults? Thanks

 

Does this mean you idle with no apps open at all or do you leave your browser, etc open?

 

Last time I checked, decoding a MP3 file takes more processing power (and actual power draw) than browsing the web. I believe with hardware acceleration enabled, playing a MP3 file takes about as much power as playing a 1080p H.264 video.

 

I kinda hope thats not true :/ that would seem pretty dumm :/ you should think it was more demanding to play a 1080p with 7.1 than a stereo mp3

 

Sandy Bridge has a dedicated video decoder, which can decode 1080p video using very little power. My 1080p videos are all 5.1, so I don't know about 7.1.

 

How does this computer run games? I mostly looking to play Skyrim, Rage, etc. Granted these are being designed for 5 year old architecture (360, PS3) so they should be able to run decently, but I was wondering users experience gaming on this machine.

 

I play RCT3, CnC Generals and Zero Hour, and I toyed with Black Ops and it worked fine (except it didn't have sound...).

 

Yes. The both use SATA drives.

 

Does anyone know what 'nvidia high definition audio' is used for? Windows detected that when I changed BIOS settings to Quadro 1000M.

I'm trying to find out if that would provide better audio quality in any way

 

I also noticed that^. In fact it told me about 10 times that the driver had been updated... kinda annoying.

On a different note...
Something I noticed when watching HWinfo64 and playing with power settings. When set to Maximum Turbo, all 4 cores hover around 3-3.1GHz. On Turbo mode, the cores jump rapidly (several times per second) anywhere from 900MHz up to 3.1GHz. On Balanced mode, core speeds switch anywhere from 900MHz up to 2.1GHz. On Low mode all 4 cores go to 797MHz and the screen dims despite not having changed the screen brightness at all (It dims equivalent to about 1 brightness step).

So...
I wonder why it jumps around so much in the middle settings, and why does the screen dim on Low setting.

 

I'm going to guess audio out over DisplayPort.