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    W520 long boot time and low WEI score 4.6

    Discussion in 'Lenovo' started by X301_NCBI, Apr 18, 2011.

  1. X301_NCBI

    X301_NCBI Notebook Enthusiast

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    Hi, there are two potential issues with my W520 which is equipped with i7-2720QM, FHD, 4G RAM, 2GB NVIDIA Quadro 1000M Graphics, 500G 7200RPM.

    1, the boot up time of my W520 is about 1 and half mins whereas W510 boot up time is very short! Do you guys have any thoughts on this? How should I make it faster?

    2, the desktop performance of Graphic is only 4.9.

    Here is the windows experience index:
    Processor: 7.5
    Memory: 5.9
    Graphic: 4.9 !!!!!!
    Gaming Graphic: 6.6
    Hard Disk: 5.9

    I have seen several posts with similar issues:
    W520 long boot time 1 min 30 sec and low Windows E... - Lenovo Community

    Could you give any suggestion?
    Thanks
     
  2. bherila

    bherila Notebook Consultant

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    The graphic score is probably low because of Optimus, which turns off the discrete GPU when it is not needed. If you disable Optimus in the BIOS (such that the discrete GPU is on all the time) and re-benchmark, then you should get a much higher score on the desktop graphics. However there is no real need to do this since your desktop performance will be fine. The GPU will activate if and when it is needed.

    As for boot time, I recommend that you do a clean install of Windows 7 (format drive and install) to achieve the optimal boot time. You will have to re-install the drivers though and back up any data on your hard drive.
     
  3. X301_NCBI

    X301_NCBI Notebook Enthusiast

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    Thank you very much for the comments.
    Actually I installed my system when it came in. Do you mean that there is something wrong during my last installation?

    Anyway, I will reinstall it as you suggested.


     
  4. thinkstone

    thinkstone Notebook Enthusiast

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    Increasing my RAM from 4 GB to 8 GB improved the Intel(R) HD Graphics Family WEI index from 4.9 to 6.7 (surprisingly!), in addition to taking the RAM index from 5.9 to 7.6.

    Well invested $40 for me.
     
  5. xerais

    xerais Notebook Enthusiast

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    Isn't the bios UEFI? My T520 boots in about 10 seconds with an SSD, and there's no way the SSD trims over a minute off the boot, hehe.

    I'd make sure UEFI is enabled in bios and install win7 in UEFI mode.
     
  6. inu945

    inu945 Newbie

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    Open the start menu, type in msconfig and press enter. Click the boot tab and change the timeout to 3 seconds. Basically windows is set up to wait 30 seconds to start. Its dumb. If you click 'no GUI boot" it will disable the little spinning colors and the 'windows is starting up' logo, that helps it boot up quicker too.
     
  7. vinuneuro

    vinuneuro Notebook Virtuoso

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    I replied this on thinkpads.com.
     
  8. X301_NCBI

    X301_NCBI Notebook Enthusiast

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    change the timeout to 3 seconds. But boot up still needs 1:30 min.

     
  9. X301_NCBI

    X301_NCBI Notebook Enthusiast

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    You may be right.
    Now I have one 4 GB RAM.
    I saw T420 or T520 with 2*2GB RAM have much higher WEI index in graphics.


     
  10. ebolamonkey3

    ebolamonkey3 Notebook Consultant

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    Hmm.. never heard of that before. Is it b/c WEI measures graphic card (at least partially) by the amount of RAM it has, and going from 4gb to 8gb allowed the Sandy Bridge IGP to increase the size of its allotted RAM?
     
  11. Thors.Hammer

    Thors.Hammer Notebook Enthusiast

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    The iGPU uses RAM as it's shared memory, right?
     
  12. GomJabbar

    GomJabbar Notebook Consultant

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    This is from my X220 with Intel Graphics.

    Graphics
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Display adapter type Intel(R) HD Graphics Family
    Total available graphics memory 1696 MB
    Dedicated graphics memory 64 MB
    Dedicated system memory 0 MB
    Shared system memory 1632 MB
    Display adapter driver version 8.15.10.2321
    Primary monitor resolution 1366x768
    DirectX version DirectX 10
     
  13. ebolamonkey3

    ebolamonkey3 Notebook Consultant

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    Soo.... yes?

    1696 + 64 + 1632 = 3392mb. The other 704mb is probably running Windows and other programs.