Lenovo W520 Owner's Thread

Same here

the Crucial M4 fits perfectly in the HDD cage AND the HDD rubber spacers,
AND in the HDD bay itself. Perfect fit, secure, no movement.

Sigh of relief.

 

Well then I suppose you don't have any problem with the BIOS checking.
May I ask you a favor?
When you open your laptop to switch the cards, would you mind telling me how many antennae you find installed? I want to check if the third one is already there.
Many thanks and I am glad you don't have to suffer all the hassle of BIOS tweaking, I am a bit afraid of the results.

 

thanks for the prompt

did some checking, quite strange....

with Nvidia Optimus enabled in the BIOS (and the OS auto detect)

the screen issue happens with a SSD but not a HDD.

And this is with all options tried in Nvidia cpanel via desktop, auto select, intel or nvidia as default. Still the same.

in the BIOS switched to integrated, and then discrete, the same results.

DISABLE optimus in teh BIOS (went with discrete) and turn off OS auto detect

viola ! no more screen issues on plug in and out of power cord, zero, gone

so why ? Nvidia ?? Lenovo, ??

maybe the code monkeys give up after stuff runs kinda well ?!!



obviously needs to be rewritten for a SSD, duh

 

I had to do the same thing. I disabled optimus and set it for discrete and no problems. It does kill battery life but most of the time mine is in a port replicator or plugged in. I still get 3 hours or more unplugged with this setup.

 

The screen blanking is Intel's graphics driver switching between 50Hz and 60Hz when you chane power states. I think there's a setting for it somewhere.

 

I confirm this. I *am* using the Lenovo-FRU Intel 6300 from my former W510. It works flawlessly.

 

Hi thithiv,
Do you remember when you installed the 6300 card if the laptop had the third antennae installed? or did you install it yourself?
Many thanks

 

Any links for a good discount ? I want to pick up a new w520 .
Can someone please give me the new b&n link.

 

Lenovo - Barnes and Noble Gold

 

Hello there,
I am setting up my lenovo w520, and working with it since a couple of weeks ago. I have a question related to the battery.
On the Lenovo ThinkVantage Toolbox the Battery status says "% of Original Capacity" 96%. Is that fine for a new battery? If I am plugged after a while the battery power meter on the taskbar reaches 100% with the last couple of percentage points taking longer to charge.
Is that normal? shouldn't it say 100% the percentage of original capacity? should I be worried?
Many thanks in advance and thank you all for the previous posts, I read them all before buying this monster of laptop.

 

just like you and many other folks, same here with mine after a week

2 days in went to 98% and now after a week @ 96%

it did bounce up to 100% once or twice though

don't ask me what causes it

I am not going to worry about it myself

 

I'm still at 100%...

Then again, I haven't fully drained the battery, nor have I fully charged it.

 

The Power Manager profile and settings control this. Put power manager in Advanced mode then look under the battery tab.

 

mine's still at 99% and i've had it since may...

 

good to know...

 

I just checked the IBM parts website for a new w520 FHD screen and it was about $1400USD. So the Thinkpad protection warranty seem like a good idea for LCD replacement.

But has anyone broken their LCD under this warranty and had it replace? How was the service? The wording seem to indicate LCD Damage/Failure, I was wondering if they would replace a broken(crack) screen.

 

they also offer the 'extra protection' warranty which I believe would cover the cracked screen no prob

doing the math it seems to be well worth the price

 

Someone is smoking some good weed in wherever. $1400 for a screen is ridiculous.

 

no joke, thats a new w520 ez

 

I believe this is the website: https://www-304.ibm.com/shop/americ...rts_r&catalogId=-840&storeId=260785&langId=-1

And the FHD screen part number is : 04W1544

With B&N discount, you can get a base configure w520 with FHD screen for about $1200USD before tax.

 

and you have to call for availability of said part

maybe we should all call and say WWWW TTTTTT FFFFFF !!!!!!

 

I had to restore a previous image i made due to on mistake, but i'm having trouble with gpu again, going crazy... It's again steam, last time it finally worked, dunno how, but now it really refuse, i installed drivers, steam, all... many times! But it won't work!

EDIT: Ok when i add it to nvidia control panel, start with quadro always it doesnt work, i have to manually everytime "run with gpu"..? Hell..

 

Errrrrrr.... I'm not sure what you're trying to convey here, but I'm just going to go ahead and suggest you try the latest NVidia drivers.

 

What i'm saying is that steam won't use the quadro unless i start by right click>run with gpu; i'm of course running on last drivers, i even tried beta (total more than 4 drivers tried) so this is something else...

 

Hello,

I can confirm that the w520 4270CTO that came with the Realtek wireless adapter has 3 antennas, 2 of them are connected to the adapter and the third can be located under the black patch near the wireless card.

 

Hello,

I would like to upgrade my wireless adapter to Intel 6300 but I need to buy it from some place that has international shipping and I do not want to pay a fortune. It should also be compatible with w520 of course.

Can anyone that bought a Intel 6300 from e-bay (or any other shop that can handle international shipping) confirm that it is genuine and it is not an engineering sample?

According to Intel if the card works on Linux by default, without altering the drivers, it should be genuine. If so, I would appreciate it if you could post the link or vendor name from the place you bought it.

Many thanks!

 

Hey guys, I've been using my W520 for the past few months. Recently, I've found a small scratch on my FHD screen. If anyone knows what to do about the screen, I'd love to know. (see image below)

Spoiler

 

If you are under warranty, I'd call Lenovo and ask them to fix it.

 

You will probably need Thinkpad Protection for lenovo to fix the screen.

Anyone here knows how many times lenovo will fix/replace your screen under warranty?
Is it a one time thing, or is it as many times as long as you are under warranty?

 

I've gone from the following configuration:

1. 500GB Seagate Momentus 7200.4
2. 1TB Samsung HM100UI (5400 rpm)

To the following:

1. 80GB Intel mSATA
2. 750GB Western Digital (7200 RPM)
3. 1.5TB Seagate FreePlay (5400 RPM)

Both the 1TB Samsung and the 1.5TB Seagate were in the caddy. Ran the 1TB for about 6 months and observed 3-4 hrs on Maximum Performance power plan, about 4.5 - 5.5 hrs on Balanced.

Have just started using the 1.5TB Seagate FreePlay so will report back in a few weeks as to how I'm doing with that as I fly a lot.

Cheers, B

 

Many thanks!
I am about to open mine when I have some spare time. Any tip or difficulty experienced when you open yours?

Regarding your question of buying a 6300, where do you live?

Best,
Finfo

 

It took me about 5 minutes the first time I opened it and I had no difficulty whatsoever. It's very easy to open which is one of the reasons why I'm very pleased with this machine, but I recommend that you watch a Youtube video first to see how to do it.

I live in Romania (Europe), but the computer was bought from USA. As far as I know I can't buy the card from Lenovo as they don't ship to other countries and the Lenovo website from my country doesn't even show thinkpads as being for sale (this is a little bit awkward).

By the way, does anyone know if there is any difference between the intel 6300 wireless adapter with the 60Y3233 FRU and the one with 60Y3193? If not, I could take my chances with the 60Y3193 as they seem to be about 22$ on e-bay (compared with the other one that is about double).

Thanks,
Alex

 

Anyone have an overdrive utility for the FHD screen? Response times are in the dumps. =/

 

ey guys, does anybody here can tell me if your w520 exhausts release air that smells like a "burnin metal or plastic"? sad to say i just returned my unit to best buy because i got no time to ask from the thread but it seems like i have a problem with it unless someone will say it's normal

 

ummm no, doesn't sound good

you got a W520 from BB ???!!!

 

A W520, from Best Buy???

What the...I don't even...

But no, mine smells just fine.

 

lol, same reaction

gotta be a V570 or summtin, maybe he was not so coherently talking about 2 different machines

one is a w520 and another he got from BB

 

yes guys, check it online, it's delivered to me oct. 6. i enjoyed the machine for 14 days now, and good timing it showed somethin different while it's still returnable. anyway, got to order it again at least i made the right move

thanks for the replies.

 

huh ? c'mon

are you in another country ?

It doesn't come up for me thru the bestbuy website or a google search....

out of curiosity please provide a link !!

and also curious how much you payed

thanks.....

 

i'm in toronto.

Search Results - Best Buy Canada
or simply type "lenovo' on best buy search box

paid $1978 with tax

 

ahhhh, thats it, figured as much

down south here in the States not available on bestbuy website

just as well, its much cheaper for us if we order online and have it shipped from China

It is a nice option to have for you, I see they a have a few models 'in stock' and ready to ship.

We can get them like that through websites here like Office Depot (price blows) or Tiger Direct (crappy models and hard to trust)

Going through Lenovo's website I was able to upgrade my warranty to NBD Onsite Repair and for dirtcheap too though.

 

Well I'll be.

Mine had a new plastic smell to it for a few days, then it went away. A couple hours of high-performance games probably helped.

Plug it in, start a looping benchmark game or otherwise, and leave it outside for a while or something. That should clear out the smell quickly.

 

i hope it was just plastic smell..anyway, im ordering same unit again. i want to order it with 2 more sets of 4G RAMs to make it 16G. any suggestion what's the best (quality/durable) brand if ever u had an upgrade with yours.

 

most major brands are all fine

most go with Gskill, kingston, crucial

go with Mushkin if you can

I always used OCZ but they appeared to stop making it when I tried to buy some a month ago

btw, I have a 4gig brand new stick that came with my W520

I yanked it out upon arrival of my unit and stuck in 2 Kingstons

If you find it to a value/option. I could ship that to you for $25.00 USD

 

thanks for the offer tho if you'll make it $20 i'll be happier (for x'mas sake! LOL). if i'll take your stick, it means i'll be needing 1 more to make it 16. is it safe (performance wise) to install 1 more stick from other brand?

 

SO i'm the only one that got trouble with Steam games? I found solution, it's called Nvidia Inspector. Still in my previous install, i didn't need that so i'd really like to know what's the ...

 

It's not yet Halloween

Booooooowhahahahaaaaa !!

 

lack of comments in one thread doesn't mean others didn't experience it

I would like to know more about whats going on.

I might throw Half Life 2 back on here, and play it AGAIN

lolz

 

Uhh... just throwing it out there, ordering directly from Lenovo will get you a much better price (by that, I mean like $500 cheaper). I'm also in Toronto, by the way.

 

Do a Google search for Windows 7 symlink. I run the OS and my program files on the 80GB Intel mSATA, made a symlink to point my user profile and my documents to the main 500GB drive.

Cheers, B