W530 Owner's Thread

Definitely an issue. Probably, Intel knew that most customers wouldn't consider the 520, so more capacity is a good incentive to go for the more expensive (per GB) 520. Though imo, if I were in the market for a SSD again, I'd go for the Crucial M4 for $/GB or Samsung for the absolute reliability (everything being made in-house and all). Intel going to Sandforce and my experience with never receiving my 330 mail-in rebate doesn't make them special in my eyes anymore imo.

 

Thanks for pointing this out as it ended up saving me about $55-$95 as well. If you select the second Lenovo W530 option on the product page, it defaults to Windows 8. If you then select Windows 7 Home Premium, it drops the configuration price significantly as it removes the optical drive and the Windows 8 S/W royalty that goes with a Window 8 OS and DVD drive. I can get a DVD drive for this laptop for ~$55 and and a blu-ray drive for $80. Worst case I saved $55 ($15 + the cost difference between a DVD drive and blu-ray) and got a blu-ray drive instead of just DVD, and if I decide I don't need an optical drive, I saved $95.

 

Bummer...I ordered for Win8 PRO. I'd have gone for Win7 Home Premium if i'd known this before.

 

No, you can download and run the bare metal Hyper-V server if you like, but you would be dual booting. Hyper-V server is very similar to ESX in that regard. Once up and running, you remotely manage it.

The version of Hyper-V that is part of Windows 8 Pro is similar to the role you can install on Windows Server 2012. You install the feature, then you manage the VM's and setting with a MMC console (Hyper-V Manager). Think of it more like VMWare Workstation though VMWare Workstation has better support for things like USB attached devices. But the Hyper-V in Windows 8 doesn't cost anything extra like VMWare Workstation.

 

Thanks for the replies. The only reason I mentioned about reliability of SSD's is about the write performance. I heard that SSD's lifetime is based on the write cycles. For example samsung 840 pro series quotes a life time of 5yrs with an average of about 20gb of writes per day. This amount might appear crazy but imagine if I hybernate my system almost every day after work with a configured RAM of about 32GB. This almost halves the life time of the SSD. This is what worries me in going with SSD's.

 

Thanks mate, so the version that comes with Win 8 is not the bare metal version. That being the case I would much rather stay with the VMware solution, from my experience they are normally better supported and often have better performance than many other virtualization products.

Simple, don't use Hibernate with your SSD or at least not as your first option. Use Sleep instead, deep sleep uses very little power and in the worse case if your battery level gets critically low while the computer is asleep, Windows automatically puts the laptop into hibernation mode.

You can manage all this in Lenovo Power Manager. I have it set to shutdown if the battery gets below 4% but you could select Hibernate and use Sleep the rest of the time.

This way you are very rarely using hibernation mode. If you are not going to be using your laptop for a few days you could always just perform a clean shutdown but the sleep/hibernate option should have you covered.

 

Okay but can i travel while the laptop is in sleep mode especially when there is a mechanical hdd installed. I heard that hdd's are not parked in sleep mode and tilting or any jerk to it might cause the hdd to crash. Is that true?

 

I see no reason why not, I do it all the time. I throw (literally) my laptop bag around while my Thinkpad is in sleep mode and have experienced zero issues with my HDD. I am also not the only one in the office to do this, plenty of co-workers do the same while their notebooks are sleeping, all have zero problems.

To answer your question, when you put your laptop to sleep I am almost certain that the HDD is parked.

 

No, it should be parked and the contents of whatever you were doing dumped into RAM.

 

Thanks. I get it. I was confused between Windows XP standby and the Windows 7/8 sleep mode. Somewhere I heard that Windows XP standby mode doesn't park the hdd.

 

Forgot to ask one more q. My W530 will be coming with the Win8 PRO installed on the 500GB HDD. If I plan to use an SSD for my OS, should I just use the migrate utility that come with SSD's or should I do a fresh install? Which one do you recommend?

 

I typically use a fresh install of the OS, just out of habit. For the most part, migration is good to use as well, but imo nothing beats a clean install

 

First are you planning on staying with Windows 8 PRO or moving back to Win7? I recommend if you have a factory image of Win8 PRO already installed, that you at least give it a decent go. I prefer windows 7 but I will eventually move to Windows 8. It does have a number of performance improvements over Windows 7 and the performance gap between the two will only continue to grow as more resources are now focused on driver/software optimization for W8. I think it has the potential to be a very good OS once you get used to it and learn how to get around/use the new GUI. There is a number of guides with some good tips e.g. : You don't really need a Start Menu in Windows 8 | TechRepublic - Don't let the horror story reports put you off, most of these people haven't invested the time to really learn how to get the most out of the new UI. - That includes me.

I don't know of many migration utilities that comes with an SSD however I do know of some very good HDD/SSD backup and cloning tools like Acronis True Image 2013. This is a really good software package that plenty of forum members here, including myself, use to clone from the factory HDD to a SSD. There is nothing wrong with cloning from the factory HDD to a SSD, once the device drivers are installed which is normally after the first boot, there is no difference between a new factory install done directly to the SSD and a clone performed from the HDD to SSD. Performance wise it will be just the same.

Some people do feel better when the original install is done directly on the drive they are going to be using and there is nothing wrong with that, it's more a personal thing however, I am here to tell you that performance wise there will be no difference. If you elect that you don't want to clone, you will first want to create the Lenovo recovery media which takes about 4 DVD's, then swap out the factory HDD for your SSD and use the recovery media you just created to get you up and running like new again. There is nothing wrong with this approach and some people may find it easier and cheaper than having to buy cloning software and a USB3.0 SSD/HDD housing.

I would recommend you stay with the Lenovo Windows 8 factory image for now rather than perform a clean Windows 8 install. First of all I don't believe Lenovo put that much bloatware into their images, there is nothing a few minutes in control panel "Programs and Features" can't fix. Most of the Lenovo apps on the Windows 7 image, I found to be useful apart from Simple Tap, not sure about the Windows 8 image. I did remove most of the third party trail stuff like, Nitro PDF, SugarSync etc. Took about 15min to get rid of all this software. The 2nd reason is because some of the Metro Apps Lenovo have created are currently only available if your Laptop came with Windows 8 pre-installed by Lenovo, one of these is the Lenovo Windows 8 power manager utility. If you use a Windows 8 upgrade or retail disc, you won't be able to install these Lenovo metro apps. It's a retarded issue which Lenovo is blaming Microsoft for, I believe it is something to do with how the licensing works, they are trying to fix it but who knows long that will take.

Taking the above into consideration, if you use good reliable software like Acronis, I have no hesitation recommending a clone from the factory HDD to your new SSD. As mentioned earlier, you will just need something like a external USB3.0 HDD/SSD housing to mount your SSD while you clone from the factory HDD. I equally have no problems recommending you use the Lenovo recovery media which you would need to create first.

 

I was only worried about the bloatware that comes installed but looks like it's not an issue as you mentioned. Another thing i'm much concerned about is the learning curve for Windows 8. I now feel I should have gone for Win7 PRO which i'm very comfortable with. Just need to see how it's gonna work.

 

If you want to get the best out of Windows 8 there will definitely be a steep learning curve at the start. I am sure there is lots of new little tricks and shortcuts to learn and simply the fact of having to try break a number of very old habits may take some time and getting used to. All I can go from are the initial reports of people who have invested the time into really getting to know how to use the new Win8 GUI and a significant number of those seem to be positive. There will always be people who are resistant to change and will hate the new GUI, for them, there already exists affordable programs like "Start8" to get the traditional style Windows Start button and feel back.

Some people talk about skipping Windows 8 in an effort to try make Microsoft revert back to the classic Windows GUI on their next OS release but I personally feel the days of classic windows are gone. I don't think we will see a classic Windows style GUI officially released by Microsoft on their desktop OS for a very long time, if ever again. We are currently going through a massive period of change in the personally computing segment. I think the time of the traditional fixed flip-top/keyboard notebook device is limited. Wouldn't at all surprise me if in as little as 4-5years the majority of portable computing devices are touchscreen tablet/notebook hybrids that use keyboard docking stations. With this in-mind you can see why Microsoft is starting to move towards a more touch friendly GUI, I personally think they should have given users the option to disable the Metro style GUI for traditional desktops, however as I said earlier, I haven't invested enough of my time to really learning the new GUI to form a personal opinion one way or the other. For now Windows 7 PRO does the job for me and feels comfortable but I am sure I will need to make the jump one day.

As mentioned before, in my opinion the Lenovo Windows 7 factory image didn't seem to have a massive amount of bloatware, least nothing I couldn't remove in 10-15min of going through the installed programs list. I expect the Windows 8 image won't be that much different.

 

The first two things to learn are the Desktop tile, and the Windows key.

The Desktop tile is on the new start screen. Clicking it takes you to the traditional Windows 7 desktop. Pressing the Windows key takes you back to the "modern" desktop and tiles. Pressing the Windows key again flips back to the traditional desktop.

Once people figure that out, navigation becomes less of an issue now that they know where 99% of the current applications will run. I spend 99% of my time right now on the traditional desktop so the start screen is barely annoying. There are lots of little things to like in Windows 8. I've been running it for months and have barely scratched the surface.

 

I bought a used 6205 wifi card from an ebay seller:

Lenovo ThinkPad T420 Intel 802 11A G N Wireless Card FRU 60Y3253 | eBay

It installed easily, and worked right away -= I just had to re-enter my wifi password. Lenovo system update recognized that it needed to download the Intell wifi software, and is doing so as I type. As it turns out, I could have gone with the 6300, as there was a third antenna lead hidden under a piece of tape. If you decide to upgrade, check under that piece of tape for an extra antenna, you may be surprised!

Chris

 

Actually, it turns out this "trick" is better than expected. I just checked the details of my order as sent to manufacturing. Selecting the second configuration on the W530 page (Windows 8 OS) and then selecting Windows 7 instead does lower the price by $95 (at least in the case of the discount code/configuration I was using); it also appears to remove the DVD optical drive. However, I just discovered that the order goes to manufacturing with the DVD drive as an optical drive is included with all W530 configurations. If you configure with the first selection, it is preset for Windows 7 and this trick does not work.

 

Thanks for the excellent review. Your comments about Lenovo's customer service is causing nightmares to me. I just don't understand what good is a customer service if it keeps your laptop for one full month without fixing it. I just bought (yet to arrive) this laptop with the default 1 year depot warranty which means I have to send the laptop to them for fixing. I'll also be taking this laptop out of country for about a year and I'm sure Lenovo is gonna screw it if the system runs into any issues. Going for the onsite warranty is not gonna help since as per Lenovo, the onsite technician service holds true only within the U.S and not outside. I just hope I don't run into any major issues for atleast a year.

 

As an interesting note regarding service, one of the reasons I picked a Lenovo system was because they had such a good service reputation. Unfortunately, I've heard nightmare stories about support from even the companies with top-rated service (Apple & Lenovo, typically). Obviously, my experience with the repair depot left something to be desired. Still, it's a risk you're going to take no matter who you buy from these days. My replacement unit has been running perfectly since I got it, and I hope you unit will do so too.

 

Hi all,

Thinking of buying aftermarket upgrades for my HD and RAM. Is there a consensus on what the best SSD and RAM upgrades are for the W530?

 

RAM is RAM is RAM. I'd just get whatever's on sale that matches your RAM specs (DDR3-1600, iirc). G.Skill, Kingston, Mushkin are all good, cheap brands.

For SSDs, I'd suggest looking at either one from Crucial, Plextor, Intel, or Samsung. Wouldn't consider any of the others due to the stock Sandforce controllers and/or lower quality and/or low-quality aftersales support (especially OCZ).

 

I got Corsair Vengeance for my W530 because the price was right ($72 for 16GB with Newegg coupon last week):

Newegg.com - CORSAIR Vengeance 16GB (2 x 8G) 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Laptop Memory Model CMSX16GX3M2A1600C10
Amazon.com: Corsair Vengeance 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 1600 MHz (PC3 12800) Laptop Memory (CMSX16GX3M2A1600C10): Computers & Accessories

Another good choice is Crucial.

16GB kit (8GBx2), 204-pin SODIMM, DDR3 PC3-12800 upgrades for Lenovo ThinkPad W530 (Quad Core) Laptop/Notebook, CT3291640 from Crucial.com

 

I have an Intel 520 240GB SSD in my desktop - it's excellent
I have a 256GB Samsung 830 waiting for my W530 when it arrives - another very solid SSD

I have heard great things about the Crucial M4 as well.

Personally, I would go with one of those three (The Samsung 840 Pro is now released as well and is the fastest of them all according to recent reviews).

 

I'm thinking i'm going to update my W530 from Windows 7 to Windows 8 this week. What problems, if any, has anybody had with Windows 8 Pro x64? Mainly, I need to make sure all the hardware works - Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Fingerprint Reader, Webcam, Optimus, etc. Also, do the function keys work, like Fn+F5? And I've heard the Battery Manager doesn't exist with Windows 8. Is this a good enough deterrent?

 

I've got to quit checking the Lenovo Order Update page for status on my W530. It was supposed to have shipped every day this week and every day it has been rescheduled to the next day. The shipping/delivery date has been changed three times now. If I am lucky, I'll get it for Christmas (now saying delivery date of December 21).

Here's my configuration:

-Intel i7 3720QM CPU
-Quadro K2000M 2GB Graphics Card
-1920x1080 FHD LCD Display
-Intel N-6300 Wireless Card
-320 GB HDD
-8 GB RAM
-Backlit KB
-DVD/CD Optical drive
-WIN 7 Home Premium (will upgrade to Ultimate)

Price: $1352

Upgrades I am adding:
-Samsung 830 256GB SSD ($159)
-Crucial M4 mSATA 256GB SSD ($169)
-Corsair Vengeance 16GB (2x8GB) 1600 MHz RAM ($72) I'll add another 16GB once I verify RAM
-Blu-ray burner (possibly) ($81)
-Ultrabay caddy for mechanical hard drive (possibly, if I need to expand storage) ($47)
-500 GB 7200 RPM HDD ($0 - I have one sitting around from my dead T61p)

 

Should be very nice spending the holiday break with that config + upgrades.

 

I recently upgraded one of my Dell (N5010) laptops to Windows 8 PRO. I probably think that it's the biggest mistake I made. While the start screen is intuitive, besides that everything else sucks about Win8. Microsoft literally screwed the fonts and their crispness. It's very irritating to my eyes. Also the Aero glass interface is gone. The interface was excellent in Win7. Even the minimize, maximize and restore buttons in the window borders doesn't look good. Non highlighted window borders are pathetic. I felt very disappointed as i placed my W530 with windows 8 pro.

1. Is this the case with W530 too on Win8? Can anyone pls confirm?

2. I saw some discussion about color profiles and calibrating the same. Is a color sensor mandatory to calibrate the FHD screen? My system is ordered without a color sensor unfortunately.

3. Does it take usually long for W530's to ship? It's been two weeks since I placed my order and it's still in production.

 

It will be the same "biggest mistake" relative to the W530. You were offered the option to order your ThinkPad with Windows 7, and you should have taken it. (I am perfectly productive with Windows 7 SP1 and see absolutely no reasons to "upgrade.")

You don't strictly need to calibrate the T/W530 FHD screen.

There seems to be a production delay right now. Expected ship dates get pushed out. (It's usually 10 business days between order placed and product delivered. Once an order moves to "Production" state, it can be only 48 hours before it moves to "Shipped" state.)

 

My W530 has said "in Production" now for five days. Every day since I ordered it, including today, the expected ship date and delivery date has magically been pushed off into the future. See this thread below for many tales of woe in getting W530s shipped. Some have received ship dates in February 2013! Many who ordered in mid-November are still waiting.

I have ordered custom laptops from Dell and HP and they have always shipped within a day of the initial production estimate when I configured it. Lenovo, apparently, has a huge manufacturing problem right now.

W-series shipping thread-2012 edition - Page 19 - Lenovo Community

Here is what they told me in chat:

" I am really sorry about the delay , the delay is due to constrain on a few parts within the system , the order has already been escalated and is placed on high priority list , we will try our best to have the order shipped as soon as possible."

Oh, I am sure that my order has all of a sudden been "escalated and placed on a high-priority list" because I contacted post-sales support. Both chat and phone reps gave me the same info as on the order status page. Want to bet it changes again tomorrow?

 

Apparently so, and I feel bad for your situation. Things seemed to flow pretty well in the previous months. As I said, usually 10 business days and, in some cases, Lenovo beats its estimated ship date by a couple of days.

 

Will I be able to change this to Windows 7 PRO by calling them right now, since my order is not yet shipped?

 

Well, since "in Production" apparently doesn't really mean anything, you may still have a chance at getting it changed. If you really want to, you can get a $14.99 Windows 8 Pro upgrade (if you can get the OS changed to Windows 7) because you ordered a Windows 7 machine before January 31, 2013.

I got my machine configured with Windows 7 Home Premium (I will upgrade it to Ultimate) and then ordered the $14.99 Win 8 Pro upgrade to have if/when I want to try Windows 8.

 

Hey so I just received my W530 and its great. Only thing I found odd was the 9-cell battery is kinda loose when connected. It can wiggle about 1mm vertically in the battery bay. It doesn't seem to cause any connection problems when running on battery though. Anyway, is this normal or should I be concerned? Thanks!

 

Usually, the customer cannot "modify" an order. The only approach is to cancel and re-order with revised options. Please be advised that things are never clear-cut (i.e. tend to be messy) with Lenovo's order fulfillment process.

This has always been the case with ThinkPad 9-cell batteries. You can put some small pieces of Post-It in the battery bay (i.e. fill the 1mm gap) to keep the battery from wiggling.

By the way, don't accept any "scientifically-sounding" explanation for the "battery wiggling design."

 

You may want to put a piece of thin cardboard to stop it from wiggling. I did the same with my Dell Inspiron and it was absolutely perfect after that.

 

Thanks guys, guess its not really something to worry about. It doesn't really bother me so would it be ok to just leave it as is?

Also, I just noticed but I got 8gb of ram with the machine but windows is saying that only 7.5gb is usable? Is there a reason its not using all 8gb? Using Windows 7 Home Premium btw.

 

Suit yourself.

Because the integrated HD 4000 GPU must claim some RAM.

 

That makes sense, resource monitor reports 434mb as hardware reserved...but I looked at my girlfriend's Ideapad Z480 that uses an HD3000 and it reports a full 8gb of usable ram. Is there a reason why its different between the two systems? Thanks for all the help Kaso =]

 

Which program provides the report? If you do Control Panel > System and Security > System, you should see something like:

​

 

Using Control Panel > System and Security > System, next to Installed memory (RAM),

the W530 reads: 8.00GB (7.58GB usable)
Ideapad reads: 8.00GB

This link Why only 3.6 out of 4 GB usable RAM on X120e? - Lenovo Community says that the integrated card should take 384MB of ram by itself so I assume another 50MB is used by typical windows stuff. Maybe the Ideapad bios only reserves the minimum 64MB for the integrated card? Although, if this is the case, what is the purpose of increasing integrated video memory for the Thinkpad?

Actually just found a Lenovo thread specific to the W530: W530: 3.60/4.0GB of RAM usable? - Lenovo Community

Still curious why other laptops don't seem to have as much memory dedicated to integrated graphics.

 

Intel HD Graphics gets a minimum amount of system RAM to start and then dynamically allocates more as needed, up to a maximum. There is no "dedicated allocation," nor can the user manually "increase integrated video memory."

Some Intel info here.

There is always certain amount of "low memory" reserved for hardware interfaces and system software tables.

 

Thanks for the link, pretty interesting read. Anyways, seeing as everything looks to be ok with the machine, I think I'm finished obsessing over it and should get to doing things like the Lenovo slogan suggests I do lol

 

Don't hold your breath if you are waiting for a W530. I received an official communication from Lenovo today informing me that my order has been delayed and may ship sometime in the next 30 days. It directed me to the order status page for an update on shipping date estimate. Of course, all that does is move the date forward every time the new latest shipping date arrives. This is the sixth time the date has changed on me now. The order status page claims my W530 will ship tomorrow. Riiiiiiight!

Maybe it will be a Valentine's Day gift instead of for Christmas.

 

About two years ago around the holidays, I ordered a Lenovo and experienced the same sort of delays. After 30 days, I cancelled the order and went with an ASUS. I'm kinda happy I did now that I have my new W530.

 

OK... that was really informative . I think if people are going to give negative feedback about a product they should at least elaborate on why they don't like it.

I have owned a number of laptops during my time in the IT industry and can honestly say that the W530 is a solid laptop, is there better on the market... sure, do they cost more... often yes.

It all comes down to your needs. If you judge the W530 on factors like build quality and durability it gets top marks. The keyboard quality and feel is still top class, though some users of the traditional Thinkpad layout may not like the new configuration.

The Full HD screen is good, IPS would make it great. Light weight it is not, but this is a workstation not an ultrabook, however it is light enough to carry around to business meetings or presentations. The rest comes down to personal configuration.

Overall, for the price I think it's a very good unit.

 

For my usage and requirements, there are no better notebooks currently available. The combination of computational and graphics power, battery life, build quality, size, weight, and upgradeability is something I have not found in another system, regardless of price. The closest comparison is the Dell Precision M4700, which is a pound and a half heavier and throttles the graphics card when on battery (unchangeable) instead of the CPU (which is reversable with ThrottleStop).

 

I hear you there. For my needs, nothing beats the price/performance/features combination of the W530. I just wish I did not have to go through the current production purgatory to get it. Of course, today, it was delayed yet again. One more delay (which happens tomorrow or Monday I am sure) and I will officially not see it until after Christmas. Realistically, at this point, I do not imagine I have a chance of receiving it until mid-January given other reports of delays.

Sigh...

 

A month doesn't really seem all that bad in the grand scheme of things.

 

And I would agree had I been told up front, "due to the rush of orders at this time of year, we will be unable to build and ship your W530 until mid-January. We appreciate your patience and understanding." However, when I ordered, I was told it would ship in six days after placing the order (so said sales guy on phone). Then every day after that I have been told (via the order status page) a new shipping date, none of which are realistic. When I call or ask via chat what is going on, I get varying answers like:

- parts shortage
- it will ship tomorrow
- It will ship in February (I just got this reply)
- it will ship within the next 30 days

No one can give a straight answer. It truly is a three-ring circus at Lenovo. If they know they get a lot more orders than usual beginning in mid-November, why are they not preparing for this in advance rather than the continual misinformation or no information that they are feeding so many of us? It's all about expectations. They set unrealistic expectations knowing they cannot meet them and then just lie their way through. Had I been told up front what to expect, I would have been patient and understanding. I am much less so now.


Unfortunately, this page says it all: Lenovo customer service complaints, reviews, ratings and comments

I have purchased several IBM/Lenovo laptops in the past eight years. Their customer service and reputation has, unfortunately, been in a steady decline recently yet I think the W530 is the best option for my needs. I just hope I never need service.