Please vote: Do you have any issues with your W520?

OK's I'm trying to understand, what are the chances to get today not faulty W520. If you own one, please feel free to vote!

P.S.: if your answer is superB machine, please answer these simple questions

CPU: 2720qm or 2820qm e.t.c.
VIDEO: 1000M or 2000M
BATTERY/AC: 30%/70%
USAGE: few hours per day or 24/7
LOAD: Idle, Middle (photoshop, visual studio, few vmwares e.tc.), Hard Load (some high CPU computing video encdoing, rendering, math things)

 

There were some LCD issues reported also if I recall correctly, so might want to include this choice to the poll as well.

 

I have the Throttling Issue [cpu stuck issue] but ThrottleStop can fix this problem. In summary it's superB machine I ever had!

 

The Throttling Issue seemed to be a setting for me (keep turbo boost on maximum and it's fine even on battery 2.4Ghz on AC 3.4Ghz 2820QM). For the rest I had no problems so far, hoping to keep it that way

 

CPU: 2720QM
VIDEO: 2000M
BATTERY/AC: 2%/98% (haven't taken this thing out for a spin yet)
USAGE: Many hours per day.
LOAD: Surfing the internet, and games.

 

To be specific, on my first machine the Ultimate N 6300 card didn't work. After replacement that machine has worked great ever since.

I picked up a second machine and it had a stuck cyan pixel. No other problems.

 

The configuration in my signature. I have the CPU throttling issue (1.2 GHz on battery).

Battery/AC is probably like 5%/95%, though do note that I can actually take the battery out and have my machine perform at full speed.

Usage is as much as I can, probably like 6 hours a day.

I do mainly light tasks (I consider 1080p video and Flash web browsing as light tasks with hardware acceleration), and play the occasional game.

 

huberth and mozi could u explain what other issues do u have?

 

BrendaEM, see the "atm" part in that last poll option? It means "at the moment". I think the poll is meant to suss out relative stability of people's W520s after having had a chance to tweak and work out the kinks a bit.

 

I have had throttling issues corrected by flashing to BIOS 1.30. Great machine, but it has certain limitations I wasn't expecting: No USB 3.0 on docking station, 2 external monitors only.

So, yes, superb machine but with a few reservations.

 

Oops, forgot about the Optimus limitation. Yea, that one is puzzling.

 

I started this poll more oriented to the new buyers (as me), so anyone who is going to buy this machine - could check, what problems 6 months later still exist with current W520 users. so if you had something in the past, but now you are OK - plz vote it as superB machine.

P.S.: Admins at lenovo.com locked thread with link to this poll, as they think that so polls are useless, as they are not accurate enough to show how great (or bad?) their products are.

 

I think to find out a representative user opinion, we need to wait and and encourage people to vote.

When Lenovo admin block that thread, the thread will be pushed to the end of the pages in their forum no time and less people will be able to see it unless you know what you're looking for. My guess is: they are trying to prevent its impact as much as they can and at the same time, doesn't make it look too obvious, just my speculation...

We need to get as many W520 users as possible to vote if we really want a more objective answer.

 

All we ask here is for W520 users to vote, no matter you have good or bad experiences, if they can't stand democracy, well then, there is nothing much to argue here anyway right?

 

it has nothing to do with product feedback or hiding issues.   if the goal were to hide issues then you'd see all the long W520/X220/T420/etc. threads pulled off the map.   instead, they're left in the open for discussion and addressed as well as possible within the methods available to provide feedback with engineering.

again, it's not about hiding the facts.   if you read both of my responses you'll understand that the goal is to bring issues out into individual threads rather than see a blanket poll with little useful info in expounding and mitigating issues.

Re: W520 shuts off intermittently, no BSOD or shut... - Page 42 - Lenovo Community

Re: W520 Issue Poll on Notebook Review - Lenovo Community

it's more a matter of the integrity of the users.   if things remain civil then i suspect the thread will remain open.   again, no one is trying to hide anything.

see above.

 

(Thank you. It's appreciated.)

 

erik maybe you know where from I can buy not faulty item? or it's pure lottery?

P.S.: u can PM me if it's information not for public

 

I removed a number of bickering, personal messages. Stay on track, people.

 

Again we have deleted off-topic posts
Stay on topic
Final warning

 

W520 is a superb machine. Some issues with Optimus, so I mostly run with graphics set to discrete in BIOS.

CPU: 2920XM
VIDEO: 2000M
BATTERY/AC: 20%/80%
USAGE: 10 hours/day
LOAD: Mostly middle load (Photoshop, Maya, C4 game engine, Visual Studio), and occasional high load (Crysis 2, Witcher 2)

 

just for the record i didnt experience any problem with my machine...
everything workin fine... i didnt check much for cpu stuck problems... since i dont run monitors all the time.. but when i did it didnt seem stuck..
other than that all seems to work well
one problem i did have was that the computer was supplied with Segate drive
and as all Segate drives they suck and had Reallocation events count increasing daily so i had to replace it with Toshiba...

btw the Toshiba HD is noisy abit more then the Segate...
i suggest is you find out now you have a ty Segate drive.. demand that it will be replaced to Hitachi

 

For those of you reporting "Throttling Issue [cpu stuck issue]" in the poll, be sure to check your Lenovo Power Manager settings while on battery. If the System Performance setting is LOW (see attached pic), then the max CPU clock that will be reached is 800 MHz.

The other three settings should allow you to get to at least 1.5 GHz. If the machine isn't doing that, and you are on BIOS v1.30, then it would appear to be a bug in your system (hardware or software).

Anyone know if Lenovo is still testing to see if they can remove the caps (throttling) completely? I was under the impression they were testing but haven't seen an authoritative update in a while.

 

i had some random power off events, several BSODs and cpu/gpu throttling/overheating with temp up to 98c (but never thermal shutdown).

i ran also pc doctor dos bootable cd diagnostics sw from lenovo, seatools for seagate hdd and memtest dos version, no single error identified.

i installed now completely clean win7 (running ~30 processes after boot) trying to rule out sw/os/drivers problem.
[in fact i had to reimage it 2x, because first attempt ended with centrino6300 wifi card unable to load driver code 31 error which i wasn't able to fix nohow]
for about 2 days now running fine with just hci memtest (windows app) which produces also quite high cpu usage (75%) and some mstsc.
i'll make dvd backup of this clean win7 with all drivers installed, then install my apps and start using it normally.
then i will see... so for now no vote.

________
i7-2820qm/nv q2000m; i added 2x 4GB ram myself some month after purchase, so all 4 mem slots are in use

 

My Power Profile is currently "Energy Saver", the System Performance is currently set to "Maximum Turbo" for battery, "Turbo" for AC. The original settings, I believe were "Turbo" on battery and "Turbo" on AC. As I received my system, the CPU was firmly stuck at 797Mhz on battery on BIOS 1.25. I tried a CMOS reset (procedure documented in another thread) to clear things out, and this, plus changing the System Performance to "Maximum Turbo" allowed the CPU to go to 2.3GHz on battery when it had been stuck as described. Updating to BIOS 1.26 allowed TurboBoost to go to 3.4GHz on AC, but battery had no TurboBoost. With BIOS 1.30 and Power Manager 3.62, there is a small TurboBoost now seen at 2.4GHz on battery, 3.4GHz on AC. Others have reported this as well.

 

never ever trust seatools! they report everything is fine because the hd is brand new and the numbers are still small
but infact you should never have reallocation event\sector counts
thos 2 should be set on 0 if they are starting to increasing then something is wrong!
and if you notice that they're increasing daily like 20 counts a day then something is really wrong
i had the same problem (never experienced any real problem that disturbed me with my work but i did demand for HD replace just to be on the safe side)
download HD tune check your s.m.a.r.t readings

 

I'm pretty sure the throttling issue is independent of their power manager software. I'm running Ubuntu and have the throttling issue after resuming from sleep. I'm also on the 1.30 bios and it doesn't fix the issue.

 

It's interesting that this thread is so provocative that is caused so many people to join Notebookreview just to comment here.

 

Thank you. My 2960XM goes around 1.5 GHz on "Maximum Turbo" system performance setting. 3.0+ GHz can be obtained with ThrottleStop launched.

 

I didn't test sleep/resume this weekend nor report on it, so we might be talking about different issues.

 

The 2620M is capped at 1.2GHz on battery.

 

anyone who bought W520 and has shutdown issues - did U buy it as preconfigured item or did u order it from Lenovo.com as custom builds?

 

I have ordered it from reseller as custom build, with 2 OCZ Vertex3 Pro á 240GB etc. My reseller has built it all together and delivered to me. I have even paid extra money for pixel error free guarantee.

 

I don't usually bump things--even my own, but seeing that the survey critics also want a wider polling, I will. (Bump)

 

A rough check indicates so far approximately 30 people have responded. I'm not sure this poll will ever have enough verified owners to support a thesis.

 

The most scarring thing are custom shutdowns, their amount pretty big compared to throttling issue what I thought is most popular problem with this W520, at least on every notebook forum you can find topic about this issue and lenovo. Custom shutdowns for business notebook means lost documents, projects, time and money - for me its much worse then throttling issue, as usually I have many applications opened as anyone other with workstation notebooks.

Also I don't see how to check it before buying, I could run benchmark on notebook in shop before buying it, during some days - but as I see most peoples have this issue without load and some weeks later after they bought their machine. Weired.

 

Thors.Hammer, the statement is a little bit polemical. Any effort leading to solve the issue and help the customer stay happy is welcome.
Current there are 36 users voted and I see that figure as representative enough. Here are the points to support my opinion:

• Very few people buy private laptops in price range from and above $2K (USA) to and above the €4K (EU).
• The majority of such flagship laptops are sold to companies and company users tend not to use such forums very frequently. And the affected IT admins even less, and I know that very well, such issues are being negotiated direct with Lenovo enterprise customer care and not being publicly discussed in forums like this one, not healthy for carrier .
• It seems that only 10% of W520 are affected by the random shut down.
• There are two motivations to use forums like this one which further narrows down the number of users who can vote - either to inform myself before I buy specific model, here W520, or in case I have an issue myself or Lenovo hotline "cannot" solve, than as private user investing so much money, I will start seeking desperately any help I can find and, if lucky, land here in this forum.
• And last but not least, there are still users outside not even noticed they have a problem
• All this above narrows the number of people who are aware of the issue and can take a part in voting. So 36 people, for now, are representative enough for me, and, as I can see from Lenovo forum, more users are coming in and joining the club of affected owners.

BR
Wolf

 

Ok, this post has been sitting out here for 8 hours so I am going to assume a response is fair game and should be given equal time. Since you singled me out, here's my response:

1. I'm not sure about Austria, but the word "polemical" is not in common usage in the USA. Comical is probably more appropriate now.
2. 36 users are representative? Take that to the Wall Street Journal and see what they say.
3. If 10% of the ThinkPad W520's were indeed defective with the sudden death syndrome, then production would stop and there would be a recall. Or a class action suit.
4. Using this poll to extrapolate a 10% number is foolish.
5. There are more than two motivations.
6. I don't care about your taxes

Put more productively, forums are good for several reasons:

1. If you have a problem it's nice to know you aren't alone. There is safety in numbers.
2. The community often provides a solution before a vendor or OEM. This is certainly true for configuration or integration issues.
3. Really widespread issues become apparent fast. For example, I would rate the X220 IPS panel issues more widespread than the W520 sudden death syndrome. At this point I wish the W520 issue WAS more widespread so it would get the attention it deserves.
4. Owners typically know more about a machine than the review tech blogs.

Polls don't typically offer a whole lot of value. This poll does a decent job of summarizing a few of the major issues with the W520, but it far from being something I would call proof you could use in court. Being good enough for you isn't really a high enough standard for me.

As they say, everyone has an opinion.

 

Well, SOME (native) English speakers butcher the language, so some linguistic variety is a nice change. Different topic for a different thread. Learned a word today. XD

36 users is hardly statistically significant in a population of at least thousands. Standard deviation will kill you right there.

There's also confirmation bias, sampling distribution, and all that other fun stuff we're told to watch out for epistemologically.

Back on topic, it seems I have a 1.2GHz cap on battery, but I keep it forced at 800MHz anyway, so I don't count it as an issue.

 

I've had none of the above issues on a 4276-2QU (2720QM, Quadro 2000M,) except I've had absolutely terrible and annoying CPU idle-state whine since day one. Most annoyingly, the only way I've managed to silence it is to disable CPU power management in the BIOS. Battery life, though, hasn't taken too severe of a hit (it's not like I was ever actually expecting it to last for the estimated 11-or-so hours it would say with power management on, versus the 6-7 it says now.)

Other than that, no issues, other than the standard fair Vertex-3-hates-anything-current-gen-from-Intel issues.

 

40 second warm-boot startup delay with the Intel 510 SATA III SSD

If you turn on Diagostic mode in BIOS you see the message during those 40 seconds:
"ThinkVantage Active Protection sensor diagnostics start /"

(It appears the Lenovo "Air Bag" Protection System is waiting for the platter to spin down, not realizing it is dealing with an SSD, so it just gives up after 40 seconds)

Lenovo says "we don't support 3rd Party SSDs" (but is not offering any SATA III SSDs) and is making no effort to fix it.

 

do u know if it has the same issue with Crucial M4?

 

If you do a Google search on

ssd warm-boot startup delay

it appears that it is only the W520 with Intel 510 that has that issue.

 

Have any of you guys resolve your throttling Issues yet?

 

With CPU power management disabled in the BIOS are you able to still get Turboboost? When I disabled mine, I could then never get over my standard CPU speed (2.2GHz) even though turbo boost should be able to get to 3.3 GHz. You can use HWiNFO64 to monitor CPU speed and Intel Turbo Boost Technology Monitor to see when turboboost is engaged.

HWiNFO64 Download
Processors — Intel® Turbo Boost Technology Monitor Overview

If you turn CPU management back on in BIOS, then boot while on battery, are you able to get over 800MHz? I was under the impression that all W520's had this problem: if you boot on battery, you're stuck at 800MHz, even if you then plug it in (I was actually able to get 1.5GHz speed if I boot on battery then plug in, but never over that).



For anyone saying they're NOT having CPU throttling issues, how are you testing this? I think the proper way is this:

1. Cold boot on battery.
2. Stress the CPU (eg. using the CPU stress test in Lenovo ThinkVantage Toolbox).
3. Check CPU speed (is it stuck at 800 MHz?).
4. Plug in AC while stress test is still running (does CPU speed increase? if yes, to what?).

You can monitor CPU speed with these tools:
HWiNFO64 Download
Processors — Intel® Turbo Boost Technology Monitor Overview

Also, you will get different results depending on what power settings you set in the BIOS and in the ThinkVantage power settings, so make sure to specify what these are set at.

For the record, I just voted in the poll that I AM having throttling issues, but so far (after 1 week of daily use), no other issues, including no unexpected shut downs.

 

I had random shutdowns for months until I stopped using my USB hub. Either it was the hub, one of the attached devices or working in dual display mode. Cause now it's rock solid after losing the hub and secondary LCD. I'm on it 8-10hrs sometimes and mostly sleeping otherwise. I restart maybe once a week for the good of it. For me I bet it was the hub or one of the devices attached.

 

^^ good info

 

Yes, Intel Turbo Boost Technology Monitor is an excellent tool.
It is simple and accurate.

 

Ok, I had a random shutdown last night and if I could change my vote, I would include myself in that group.

Now if Lenovo will just acknowledge the issue and communicate what they intend to do about it.

 

Is that the first one you've gotten Thors?

 

No. This first one was at the end of July.

And I just had another sudden death failure. So that's two in less than 24 hours. Lovely.