New Batch of W520's shipping with W7 SP1

Hi all,

I got my W520 yesterday, my order was placed on April 14th and the order was built and shipped on April 29th. Looks to me like these new batches come shipped with SP1 preinstalled. That goes counter to all reviews on the net that I read so far which complain SP1 is not installed.

This is is also different than what members have reported on W520's shipped out in the "first wave". Looks like while Lenovo was waiting on supply chain for building W520's they updated the factory install to bundle in SP1.

This might also mean that people thinking of using PnP 1866Mhz RAM might be out of luck,since the W520 Owner's thread has members reporting issues resuming from sleep when using 1866MHz Kingston RAM with SP1 installed.

Notes:

• I did not run Windows Update, SP1 was already preinstalled. I also saw SP1 in the welcome screen during first time setup
• Looking at my Windows Update history the only thing updated since I got the laptop was the Windows Defender definitions
• Even with SP1 installed IE8 is the preinstalled browser
• Windows Update reports 20 Important Updates + 9 optional updates.
• The oldest update Windows Update identified is dated April 12th, so it looks like new laptops are shipped with updates up until early April 2011.
• The 9 optional updates were slightly older, some were from Feb 2011 and one relates to the FHD display

if you're interested I took a screenshot of what updates were not preinstalled already on my W520.

 

Good for you. Welcome to the W520 owners. Quick question, what is the BIOS version on your machine? What is the version of the NVIDIA video driver?

 

Keeping in mind I have the 1000M the driver date is 01/04/2011 and the version is 8.17.12.6802

How's that compare to yours?

BIOS as reported by ThinkVantage Toolbox is 1.21 (8BET41WW).

Btw I don't have the 1866MHz RAM and I don't intend on getting it (considering 1600MHz). The 1866MHz RAM here is $50 more per 8GB kit and it's not practical to pay the premium for the small boost.

 

I recieved my W520 yesterday as well, and can report that I have the same BIOS version as well.

 

I am running Lenovo Support - BIOS Update Bootable CD for Windows 7 (32-bit, 64-bit), Vista (32-bit, 64-bit), XP - ThinkPad W520

and

Lenovo Support - NVIDIA Optimus Display Driver for Windows 7 (64-bit) - ThinkPad T420, T420i, T420s, T420si, T520, T520i, W520 (NVIDIA Optimus models)

I see your machine arrived with a video driver Lenovo hasn't released to the download area. Sneaky of them. Thanks for confirmation of their sneakyness.