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

I have run into a few USB devices over the years that have caused BSOD and random shutdowns. None on win7 yet but this is still the first thing I tell people to check when they have these problems.

Thanks for the links and such. I have confirmed this issue with my system, even with the latest BIOS 1.30 it still doesn't step up the processor when plugging back in.

A quick fix is to put the system to sleep and then bring it back up, this is the quickest way I have found to kick the processor back up.

 

^^ great info !!

 

Is it kept on battery the whole time, or are you plugging it in while its sleeping? I previously tested what affect sleep and hibernate have on the throttling issue, and found that sleep kept the same state as before sleep, ie. if you boot on battery, then sleep, then unsleep, it's still stuck at 800MHz, even if you plug it in while it's sleeping. One possibly good thing about the sleep mode "remembering" the power state, is that if you boot on AC, then sleep, then you can unsleep even on battery and not be stuck at 800MHz, since it still "remembers" that it was originally booted on AC. However, even though you're not stuck at 800MHz, I've never been able to get turbo boost to turn on when on battery, even if I boot on AC, so it's "stuck" at 2.2GHz for me.

If you hibernate instead of sleep, and plug it in while it's hibernating, you can however get full power when it comes back on.

 

Do you have the latest BIOS 1.3?

I have tested it a few times and for me, it only locks when booting on battery. But in all my tests I have plugged it in before putting it to sleep, this puts everything into AC mode with the exception of the cpu, I think the quick power down lets the cpu kick into the proper setting.

It would fit your sleep theory, try it and let us know.

 

Perfect machine.

 

Posted by a Lenovo staff member on the Lenovo forums today:

It's great to see they've identified the problem and are working on solutions.

Edit: This is referring to the throttling/performance issues when (booting) on battery, not to the random shutdowns, it was posted on this page by Lenovo staff member "someotherguy".

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

New BIOS released that addresses some of the throttling issues.

Re: W520: Speedstep not working properly (on batte... - Page 22 - Lenovo Community

 

Just voted...

I too have been experiencing the sudden shutdown (3 times so far) and I haven’t even had this laptop a week yet!
In frustration I stumbled across this forum and was pretty surprised to see the number of others who are experiencing the same issue, as well as how long it’s been going on with no resolution from Lenovo!
At this time I’ve disabled the ‘cpu power management’ in the bios and will see if that helps.

I spent several months researching laptops to replace my aging, but reliable, MacBook Pro and thought that I had made the right decision, now I’m not to sure. I depend on this for my business and need it to be rock solid and not have it suddenly shutdown in the middle of me writing up an investigation report for a client.

Hopefully Lenovo responds to this and corrects whatever it is.

 

Jormunrek, do you have any usb devices plugged into the laptop? I've heard of a few USB devices causing BSOD and random reboots.

Also check your windows automatic update settings, for some updates it'll pop up with a message telling you that it's needs to reboot and options for how long to wait. But if you don't pay attention to the warning and just close it, it'll reboot on it's own in 10 minutes.

 

I voted no issues at all - superb machine.

Seriously, this laptop is one of the best computer investments that I have ever made! I use the machine a LOT - probably 8-12 hours a day and a lot of it is CAD work or other heavy duty type stuff. And - a few games get played on it as well. So far, no issues running most of the current crop of high end games - perhaps not all the newest FPSs can run at FHD resolution, but certainly at ~1360 hasn't been a problem.

There have been a few minor things, but nothing out of the ordinary for any high end computer and all easy to fix or have been addressed with Lenovo Update. I've had the machine since May and am seriously still super stoked on it!

BUY ONE!

Ps: my build is in my sig.

 

So you don't have any problems with getting stuck at ~800MHz when booting/running on battery? That seems strange, since Lenovo has confirmed that there is a problem with the BIOS that limited CPU speed when on battery. Even with the new BIOS 1.32, if you boot on battery and don't plug in at all, you are able to get full CPU speed? How are you measuring this?

 

Have the cpu throttle issue and whenever I disconnect the power cord the screen will go black, hang, flash, and then give me the screen back, with SSD installed. VERY ANNOYING and a bit scary imo. Put the HDD back in and doesnt happen at all.

I can tell you this, It has to do with something installed driver wise.

After a clean install on the SSD before I had any drivers in I unplugged and plugged the cord back in and had NO screen flicker, blackness, hang, at all. I am pretty sure it one of the graphics drivers, most likely Nvidia, and/or Optimus. Could be a power driver but doubt it. Or maybe Intels Rapid Storage Technology driver.

I heard it doesnt play nice with LPM.

I was too lazy to test after every driver install.

 

By default, it does limit it. And in many cases this behavior makes perfect sense. When it does not, one click in ThrottleStop restores full processor power.

Why is it considered an issue at all?

 

Here's Turbo working on battery:
http://img685.imageshack.us/img685/1666/turboz.png
No ThrottleStop magic here!

 

winamp and foobar ?? lol

have you tried Aimp ?

it rocks

 

It's an issue because that's not how it's supposed to work, Lenovo has admitted this themselves. If you have CPU settings on battery set to full/turbo then it's supposed to run just as fast as on AC, without requiring a third party program. Also, not everyone is using Windows and can therefore use ThrottleStop (ie. me).