Lenovo W520 Owner's Thread

He'll probably also appreciate the TrackPoint as well, which will make mouse movement much faster than using the trackpad; I use the point stick a lot in lectures where desk space is nearly non-existent and not having to force my hand in an awkward position to reach the touchpad is a major plus in my book.

@Ndyslvr: The W520 out-classes a MBP altogether. Better construction, screen, and keyboard. I also find that using the fingerprint reader is great, since I am somewhat paranoid about computer security and not having to type my login password is awesome (also, take a look at KeePass so that you only need to Crtl-Alt-A to login to websites, et. al., instead of typing the username/password). User maintaince and upgrades are much more easier on a Thinkpad than a MBP. From one college student to another...

 

Definitely. I find it's proximity to the keys makes it really good for re-placing the caret in case you've made a mistake or need to add something. Reduces the context switch time that would be incurred by switching to and from the touchpad, and it's rather important that you don't miss what the lecturer says.

 

I m going to call Lenovo tonight to order a W520 before the labor day coupon is ended. Can you guys suggest me a REP who did succesfully help u in the past?

 

Those who have purchased a CTO W520 from Lenovo and live in the US...
Is it typical for your shipment to go from China -> Alaska -> Kentucky -> Germany???

Also, what stage in the process do they actually charge your credit card? Lenovo only had an authorization during the building process, but I haven't seen a charge on it yet and it has been several days.

 

Dear community, I would like to ask you visiting this forum if you have experienced the BSOD with random shut down out of idle? The growing number of W520 owners running W7 are reporting on issue W520 shuts off intermittently, no BSOD or shut dow... - Lenovo Community, what even worse is, users are reporting that Lenovo support is for whatever reason not able (willing?) to dug deeper and to solve the issue. I somehow suspect W7 faulty drivers - was running Ubuntu for 3 weeks in the row without such random shut downs and then I was running W7 for 5 weeks and yesterday the random shut down happened to me. Would be nice to share your experience.

 

Germany? What...?

 

Your credit card is usually charged when there is a confirmed delivery of the unit.

 

Just ordered my W520 with i7-2720QM, Quadro 2000, and 1600*900 display. Looking to buy some aftermarket ram and msata ssd for the time.

 

Btw, lenovo's spp pricing plus the laborday sale discount rocks!

 

My thoughts exactly. Well, it shows its back in Kentucky

 

I'm unsure if this has been mentioned, but BIOS v1.30 fixes the sleep issue that occurred with the 1866 Hyper-X ram.

 

Whew! Finally! (too late for me, I returned my 1866Mhz RAM a while ago)

 

This has been happening to those who received a w520 with the seagate hdd. People who got a w520 with a hitachi are not having this problem. I believe lenovo is aware of this, so give them a call and they'll ship you a new hdd and that should solve the issue.

 

Hurray, finally got my hands on the w520, after a rather long wait... I ordered the laptop back in mid August in the states and by friend has just bought it over.

So far so good on all areas over the w510 I have from work, however, there's one major issue... the graphics.

• 
  Intel HD3000: Performs poorly on battery. Flash videos judder, even slide shows on Flickr coughs up! Am I missing latest drivers or something like that?
• Color calibration: Horribly horribly wrong. The w520, without any color management or sensor gives a really nice balanced picture. On the w520, despite my many attempts at calibrating color, I'm stuck with a screen with too much green saturation. For example, if I add the clock gadget, the white dial looks greenish. Please help! Right now I've uninstalled the Pantone stuff and explicitly switched to 1000M, but the color issue remains...

​

Any help, tips would be really appreciated.
Thanks!

 

1 4270CTO THINKPAD W520 - 1 YR DEPOT TOPSELLER WARRANTY $1,031.98
1 0A68269 SBB 2NDGICI7-2620M IHDGR200 $0.00
1 45M3092 VBB GENWIN7HOMEPREM64 $0.00
1 0A68718 SBB GW7 HP64 US ENGLISH $0.00
1 0A68534 SBB 15.6HD+ (1600 X 900) LED $0.00
1 0A68893 SBB NVQ1000M GR $0.00
1 45M4572 VBB 4GBPC3-10600DDR3 1333SODMM $0.00
1 45M4839 SBB KEYBOARDUS ENGLISH $0.00
1 0A68526 VBB FINGERPRINT READER $0.00
1 0A68558 SBB 720P HD CAM INT MICR $0.00
1 0A69620 SBB I RAID-NOT EN $0.00
1 0A68552 SBB 320GB HDD7200RPM $0.00
1 0A68547 SBB DVD RC8XMXDLLRULTEHATA $0.00
1 0A68529 VBB ECS+4IN1CR $0.00
1 45M4816 SBB 9CELLLI-ION BATTERY $0.00
1 0A68904 SBB CPNAMLC+ 170W AC AD $0.00
1 0A68261 SBB BLUETOOTH 3.0 $0.00
1 75Y1724 SBB THINKPADB/G/N $0.00
1 44C7950 SBB INT WRLSSWDAREANTWRK UPGR $0.00
1 0A68564 SBB LANG PCK US E $0.00
1 0A68537 SBB FINGRPRNT READER $0.00

Merchandise Total $1,031.98
Sales Tax $69.66
Shipping / Handling $0.00
Total $1,101.64


Is this really a good deal?

 

Hi all, I know I asked this before but I would like more inputs from those with the FHD 95% gamut screen, are you experiencing such issues with your screens as seen in my videos below? It's a different laptop model but the screen is still the LEN40b2. Much appreciated!

Here are the vids:
Color Cycle with Red cloud ghosting from color to color
Red MS Pain Trail

 

Are you running your machine in Optimus mode? What do you have set in the "Battery settings" column of the Power Manager profile for System Performance, CPU Deeper Sleep, and Lower display refresh rate?

Regarding the xrite software, can you override settings in a fine grained manner? I don't use it but wondered. I am using an external sensor and software.

 

The HD3000 should have really good performance, for an integrated chip. Tried using 280.26 from NVidia?

 

i tried both things on my w520 (with fhd) but couldn't see neither the 'ghosting' from your first video nor the red trail on black background

 

Guys

I suspect my W520 has some memory problems but not 100% sure since my organization plants some bad images at times as well
Is there any self-diagnostic built-in utility that I can run to check memory & HDD at startup? Pressing F1 just got me to the BIOS. If there isn't one, can someone recommend me a CD/DVD that I can burn?

Thank you!

 

You can run memtest86+, that checks the RAM. You can also try the blue ThinkVantage button, to run their diagnostic test.

 

Sorry guys, not sure if this has been posted or answered, I'm not going to go through 443 pages.

So if someone could kindly answer whether this thing has a modular bay battery or not?

Yes I've tried the search.

Thanks!

 

Txh for reply. For the record, Seagate hdd is not involved. I have my experience running Ubuntu for 3 weeks in the row without sudden shut down and at least one feedback from another Ubuntu user negating such shut-downs.

 

Nope, it does not. Probably due to the 12.7mm height.

FYI, bookmark Lenovo Quick Pick. Cool site for finding accessories fast.

 

Don't see any of it on my FHD.
It's possible the Sager has the screen in overdrive for faster response times in gaming.

I got a Hitachi 7mm drive, and it didn't shut down on me for the few days I used it. I've had the WD Black in for a while and it hasn't shut down either.

 

Looking for memory recommendations....I have read all 443 pages, over time!
Still, not gonna try to wade through and find where the consensus came down on good quality reasonably priced memory.

Recommendations for 2 or 3 4Gb modules?

 

It's just RAM.

 

Can someone help me with the scrolling on this device, its so wonky/laggy.

 

No problem at all with my FHD. Love this screen.

 

I have had the W520 since May with the Intel 80 GB mPCIe SSD and 750 GB WD black running mostly OpenSuse 11.1 with some occasional Windows 7 and have never experienced an unexpected shutdown or BSOD. The FHD display actually looks much nicer on Linux than it does on Windows.

 

Really, it doesn't matter what you get, so long as it's 204-pin and DDR3-1333, -1600, or -1866. Just buy whatever is on sale at Newegg or Amazon and be done with it. I have a 12GB Samsung/Mushkin mix and it works just fine for my needs.

 

Thanks privatejarhead, useful reply.

 

My computer has started to make 5 "bips" every 1-2 minute with a 1 sec pause between each bip. Think it started after I updated the firmware to 1.30 and my crucial c4 hardware to 009. Its pretty low pitches so pretty annyoing :/

 

I ran PC doctor and all tests passed on my W520 but the Fixed Disk benchmark test seems to get stuck right after starting - is that due to the laptop containing an SSD and not a regular HDD?

Thanks

 

It really doesn't matter for RAM. Get whatever is compatible and cheap on newegg with decent reviews.

 

I have a W520 2820 with FHD 95% gamut and have no issues with the screen.
Knock on wood...

 

Hi,

Sorry for the delayed reply. Yup, I was running the machine on Optimus mode (BIOS I mean UEFI enabled).

After getting fed up with the color issue, I decided to uninstall both the HD3000 and 1000M drivers, along with the Pantone software.

This made things better, no more green tint on screen, however, the colors still don't look as good as it does on my w510 :cry: Red is overly emphasized!

The other thing I've noticed is with Optimus enabled, there are a couple of screen blank-outs when logging into windows... If I disable Optimus, it's not an issue.

Finally, with the laptop on battery is sluggish... scrolling isn't as good as it is when on power, another issues that's not present on the w510.

Cheers.

 

Yup, I am using 280.26 downloaded directly from nVidia website. I'm also using the latest HD3000 driver downloaded directly from the Intel website too.

Cheers.

 

I already asked this before, but can anyone tell me why the screen dims when I put the performance in 'Low' setting on my W520? The brightness setting is not changing. The brightness is the same in Balanced, Turbo, and Maximum Turbo modes, but dims I'd say 1-2 notches when in 'Low' mode.

 

Dunno... Umm, maybe "low" implies power saving mode...

 

Thanks for the replies guys, now I know the screen issues are strictly Sager related.

 

Are you having problems with the touchpad or with scrolling in general?

Under Smart Check settings, disable Palmcheck, edge tap filtering, starting zone, and scrolling region filtering. See if that helps.

Personally, I use the Trackpoint for pointing and one-finger (thumb) scrolling on the touchpad. The touchpad always lagged before I disabled those "features." Now it's snappy.

One of the reasons I got my W520 was so that I could get smooth scrolling on my 3840x2400 IBM T221 monitor. I am not disappointed. 1920x1080 scrolls pretty well on battery, and 3840x2400 is smooth on A/C power.

 

When you set it to low it also sets the intel adapter to low performance and ticks on an option to dim the screen to save power.

Look in the Intel control panel for these settings.

 

finally shipping a week early, I guess my plans for next weekend are made. now if the extra memory and 128 ssd will show up before the w520

 

New W520 4276 with toshiba SSD and I have this issue.
Re: W520 shuts off intermittently, no BSOD or shut... - Page 34 - Lenovo Community

The intregted graphic kept crashing especially while using CAD apps; switched to discrete in BIOS.

Given these issues and inability to connect to HDMI I would not recommend the machine so far.
Anyone else have problems if you use touchpad scroll in autocad?

 

So as some of you probably (don't) remember I had to send in my first W520 with the FHD screen in for a replacement because of the stuck pixels. So after about a month of waiting (screen is on backorder, which is why it took so long, so they sent me a replacement instead of repairing the old one)

I got the replacement a bit ago and it has, go figure, the wrong screen on it. It has the 1600x900. So I contaced the person who put it together and now I am getting ANOTHER replacement and stickers to send this one back. I will also be using this one while I am waiting for the other laptop to arrive. On the plus side I got a 500 GB HDD out of the deal as a free upgrade for my troubles, but this is kind of irritating.

Anyway the way they are handling sending it back means that I will have the two laptops (1600x900 and FHD) side by side for a couple of days, which means that I can answer questions if anyone has them. I unfortunately don't have a good camera with me (just my crappy cell phone camera) but I can ask my roommate to borrow his if anyone is particularly interested in seeing a picture of the two side by side.

And random question, I tried searching for this a bit but couldn't find it so if anyone would be nice enough to answer that'd be great. How do you get into the BIOS? On my old machine I recalled it being the Thinkvantage button but that just takes me to the recovery partition, I also tried delete, f1, and f2 to no avail.

 

F1 should be the button. Jab it repeatedly after the ThinkPad BIOS splash shows up.

Could you poke the area around the indicator lights (between the hinges) on the FHD and HD+ models and see how far it flexes? The FHD is supposed to be a bit thicker IIRC, so I'm wondering if it has less flex. Thanks!



Anyone here tried this on a W520 while running Optimus? I'm fairly clueless as to the instructions.

 

could anyone say how hotter is 2000M compared to 1000M? I'am going to buy w520, but can't decide about video card. I'am going to use 2 external monitors, so seems laptop will use Nvidia card to drive it - so does it mean, that if I'am not doing any video extensive tasks 2000M will be hotter than 1000M and as results laptop will be noiser.

the same question about 2820qm vs 2720qm CPU's

I want to buy 2820qm + 2000M, but....I want quiter laptop, so this way 2720qm + 1000M the way to go?

 

or maybe CPU produces the same amount of heat, so then 2820qm + 1000M?

 

It's the basic good deal ... I just configured the same basic lappy but with the FHD screen, upgraded intel wifi less the fingerprint reader, webcam and bluetooth for just under a hundred bucks more. 1127 CAD before taxes. I'm thinking about that one.