W530 Owner's Thread

I am considering either a T530 or a W530. The T530 would more than meet my current needs but the W530 would be more future proof and I tend to use my laptops until the is nothing left. I am currently looking to replace my 6 year old Asus. Anyway, I have a couple of questions about the W530. I have read that the T530 battery fights rather loosely and it appears that the W530 and the T530 share the same case/chassis. So, my questions is how does the battery fit in the W530? Is it also loose fitting?
How is the fan noise with the W530?
Those of you who have the HD+ display, do you have any complaints or do you wish you got the FHD display?
Other than faster CPU and GPU is there any reason to choose one over the other? Thanks for any help and opinions. This has been a hard decision as I have also considered an Asus N56-VZ which has an i7 3610QM and a Nvidia GT650M for about the same money. My main hesitation with the Asus is the customer service and this model has a few minor issues. Enough rambling, thanks for the help.

 

1) The 6-cell batteries are not loose fitting whatsoever. Only the 9-cell batteries may have that issue. My 9-cell would be (in some definition) loose, but it really doesn't bother me (or a lot of other people) much at all.

2) It's silent when you're just browsing, though when you're putting the laptop under load you'll be able to hear it a bit.

3) The W530 I reviewed had an HD+ display, whereas my personal W520 has a FHD display (both XX20 and XX30 use the same model displays). As a non-color specialist (professional photographer, digital artist, etc), the only difference between the HD+ and FHD that's noticeable is the resolution itself. While the HD and HD+ are 220 nits and the FHD is 270 nits, the HD+ display didn't subjectively feel dimmer. Probably depends on the lighting in your environment.

4) Do you game, use CAD, etc? The W530 only really offers an advantage over the T530 only if you need more GPU power. Depending on configuration, the W530 might be cheaper than a decked-out T530 (quad core, NVS 5400M), but generally the T530 is cheaper. As for the Asus, they stuff more computing power in there with the sacrifice of build quality (business v consumer) and support.

 

What do you use the notebook for? If you don't need a desktop replacement, don't do heavy computations, don't run 5 concurrent virtual machines, don't do complex CAD projects, don't play games that require intensive graphics renditions, then a T530 will serve you well enough.

As you wrote "the T530 would more than meet my current needs," I recommend an Ivy Bridge i5 processor with integrated HD 4000 graphics, 6-cell battery, 65W power adapter -- and FHD display. It will run cool and quiet.

Put in another 4GB RAM stick and a SSD as boot/OS/apps drive: now, we're talking. Why deck out on things you don't actually need?

 

I just fresh installed everything on my new W530. Now the fan kicks in hard randomly even in power save mode, any ideas ?

 

I did the same, haven't noticed the fan yet but my fingerprint scanner is not working even though I used the legacy boot option to do a fresh install.

I don't know what to do.

 

Ordered my W530 August 14th and it shipped yesterday after a 3 day delay.
INBOUND.....!

 

You need to install the ThinkPad Vantage Fingerprint software.

By the way, just found out a way to control the fan. Try this utility
TPFanControl by troubadix

 

Thanks - I uninstalled the driver and installed it again and it worked on the 3rd try.

I'll try the tpfancontrol - I remember using it before on my pc before.

Btw...how is your windows experience index after the installation. I wonder if anything changed. These are my scores:

Processor - 7.6
Memory - 7.6 (16gb)
Graphics - 5.2 (Nvidia) K1000
Gaming Graphics - 6.5
Hard Drive - 7.9 (Samsung 830 256gb - 75gb partition for OS)

Graphics seems a little low...

 

How do I install these settings?

 

Glad to say that I am a happy ThinkPad user. Everything about the W530 is just great, my CPU stays around 35 celsius ! while plugged in surfing the web and listening to iTunes.

 

Oh man, I love my W530!!!
I'm sure glad I bought it with the colorimeter. The before and after views of the desktop are amazing. Colors are much more warm and skintones are just amazing. I have the 1080p display and WOW............. wow wow wow... I wanted a 14" laptop for traveling but I also do quite a bit of post processing on my photographs using lightroom. I'm glad I went ahead and bought this instead of the T430. Love the keyboard, love the screen, love the ivy bridge I7, love the 16 GB memory.... nothing not to love. Thanks everyone for helping me with this purchase.

Craig Bryant

 

What's a good 500 or 750GB hard drive to put into my generic ultrabay?

Thanks,
Craig

 

I've been using this one.

 

Well I received this laptop and so far it's been pretty stellar. The screen is good and the build quality for the most part is solid as expected. The keyboard feels awesome and though the layout is questionable, definitely manageable. Remapped the print screen key to context menu and Fn+b to be print screen instead. Haven't done too much performance testing yet but I will see when I run the robot simulator that I need to use for work.

My issues with the system so far are:
1. Battery is loose. Quite common and some even say it may have been designed that way. Whatever the case pretty insignificant since I could always tighten it up with some electrical tape or something.

2. The screen release latch has some play, as in I can push it inward just a hair. This is enough to make a clicking sound whenever I happen to hit it which can become annoying. I may have to investigate and see if it's possible to tighten that up as well.

3. Keyboard flex on the top left corner. Also kind of looks like that portion is raised more than the rest of the keyboard, but I think it's just playing tricks on me since I've reseated the keyboard and OCD-checked it. The keys themselves have an inclination to be higher on one side it seems, and that may be why. Doesn't affect typing feel or anything though.

4. Keyboard backlight is uneven so the top right keys hardly get any light. Minor annoyance since I never look at the keyboard anyway, but aesthetically lacking. Could just use the thinklight.

5. Would have liked a physical caps lock light but OSD does work fine and is unobtrusive.

6. AC adapter doesn't have a light.

Otherwise it is a solid laptop and I don't regret my purchase. Thanks to those who helped answer my questions prior to buying. I'd be happy to help answer anybody else's questions.


Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2

 

I would like to say I am extremely happy with my purchase also. My W530 has being handling nearly everything I throw at it. The only problem is that I don't have a color calibrator to use on my FHD screen, and that's a problem I chose.

 

Regarding the battery being loose, I just did some testing and I can hold the computer only by by battery and rock it back and forth without any issues at all. The wobble may create a less than optimal feel, but it doesn't affect the stability or connection at all.

 

My review of the W530, for those interested: clicky

 

i think i found one more thing to nitpick at. the hooks to keep the screen closed are plastic and look like they could break if they get snagged on something. i don't really foresee that happening but i guess i worry whenever i can.

 

I found the plastic hooks that lock the screen closed aren't as solid as the T61's as well...not enough damping or the fit isn't tight enough so the lid moves more after closing it. Minor though.

Has anyone tried putting Windows 8 on it yet? Curious if all the drivers are available yet and whether I should just do an install from scratch...

 

I put Windows 8 (from MSDN) on my W530 a few weeks ago. It was working well the first day, then the wifi started acting up -- randomly dropping the connection, and wildly varying speeds when working. I determined that it was caused by an updated version of the driver pushed through Windows Update, so downgraded back to the out-of-the-box driver. Only other oddity is that Lenovo's power driver/software set the maximum CPU speed on A/C power to "Low", causing poor performance. But that was easy to correct. No problems since.

I do not have the Nvidia driver installed.

 

I have located the setting in the registry which controls the time period for the transition from S3 to S4 (which is currently 180 min/3 hours).

change the decimal value to the number of minutes for the key S3TimerForIFFS in the registry:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Lenovo\PWRMGRV\Data\ISSC

I have set this value to 5 and have tested it and it works.

 

PROBLEM with Mini Dock Plus Series 3...

I have 3 monitors running off the Mini Dock, 2 use the DVI ports and 1 uses the VGA. I just got a Display port to DVI adapter so I can move the 3rd monitor off of VGA. The problem is that the Display Port monitor does not wake up. If I have just the Display Port monitor connected to the dock it will work. If I plug in a DVI monitor only the DVI monitor will work and the Display port mon goes dark. Lenovo claims in their guide that any combination will work. In a different forum a problem sort of like this was solved by making the Display Port monitor the main monitor. I tried setting the boot monitor in Bios but it didn't do anything. It always booted off the DVI and never the DisplayPort when both the Display port and DVI were plugged in. I've gone back to 2 on DVI and 1 on VGA.

Any sugestions? I'm out of ideas. I know the adapter works because it will work when it is the only monitor. I have the latest bios, all windows updates, and lenovo updates. I didn't see any updates for the K2000m on Nvidia.com

 

There are two banks of digital ports on the Series 3 dock you have. In each bank there is a DP and DVI port. You can only use one port from each bank. If you want three digital connections, you would need to use the mini DP port on the W530.

 

Well, my T60 seems to have finally died (10yr old son used it to play World of Tanks), so as a concerned dad, I am considering letting him use my W520, but that means I get to upgrade to a W530.

I reviewed the whole thread, but did not see this topic discussed. On my W520, I've been very happy with the IBM mSATA drive in the WWAN slot as a boot drive (Win 7, Office & WoW are the only things installed on it). As I've looked at NewEgg I noticed that both Mushkin and Crucial have SATA III mSATA drives. I intend to leave the optical drive in the W530 and will probably keep a spindle drive in the main bay. Does anyone know if the mSATA slot on the W530 can use one of the two SATA III available or is it only going to be SATA II or is it changeable by the user?

It's certainly not a deal breaker, but it may determine which mSATA drive I get for the W530.

Thanks.

 

The W530 mSATA slot supports 3Gbit/s speed and is compatible with any mSATA 6Gbit/s SSD you put in it. (The SSD will, of course, operate at 3Gbit/s speed. Still much faster than any spinner drive for OS booting and application launching.)

 

I was afraid of that (kind of expected it to be the case). Oh well. Not a cause to abandon the mSATA OS drive, but may alter which one I buy.

Thanks for the info.

 

I'm just curious why would that effect which drive you buy?

 

anyone can say if W530 can drive 3x30" monitors with this resolution 2560x1600?

if yes, all 3 monitors will be connected to DOCK station? what ports?

or better to go with ViDOCK route? for this setup?

 

I suspect that is quite possible using the two DisplayPort connectors on a Lenovo Series 3 dock, and the mini DisplayPort connector on the W530. The W530 will drive four external LCD panels so driver three at those resolutions doesn't seem like to big a stretch.

 

I did a clean Windows 7 install on my W530...and recently I was using the mini-displayport to hdmi and didn't get any audio. How do I make the audio work???

 

Did you install Realtek High Definition Audio Driver for Window 8 (32-bit, 64-bit), 7 (32-bit, 64-bit), XP - ThinkPad ???

 

Yes, I went to control panel and into audio settings and it says Realtek High Definition. I installed the dolby home theater as well - but not sure why it's not working. I could be the cable?

 

I had the same issue. I went into the Nvidia control panel and it said that the external display did not support HDCP and as a result, it could not export audio. Have you checked to see if your external display is listed as HDCP-compliant?

 

Hi All,

I just got rid of my new Sony VAIO S15, took it back to Sony. I could not stand the orange-gate issue on the display, everytime I would edit photos or video it would drive me nuts.

I decided to buy a W530 and I think I got a good price for my specs here in Australia. What do you all think?

SPECS:

Processor Intel Core i7-3820QM Processor (8M Cache, up to 3.70 GHz)
Operating system Windows 7 Professional (64 bit)
Operating system language Windows 7 Professional 64 - English
Display type 15.6" FHD (1920 x 1080) LED Backlit AntiGlare Display, Mobile Broadband Ready
System graphics NVIDIA Quadro K2000M Graphics with 2GB DDR3 Memory
Total memory 4 GB DDR3 - 1600MHz (1 DIMM)
Keyboard Keyboard Backlit - US English
Pointing device UltraNav with Fingerprint Reader for Color Sensor, Smart Card Reader
Camera 720p HD Camera with Microphone
Hard drive 500GB Hard Disk Drive, 7200rpm
Micro hard drive (mSATA) 16GB mSATA Solid State Cache Drive
Optical device DVD Recordable
System expansion slots Express Card Slot & 4-in-1 Card Reader & Smart Card Reader
Battery 9 Cell Li-Ion TWL 70++
Power cord 170W Slim AC Adapter - ANZ
Bluetooth Bluetooth 4.0 with Antenna
Integrated WiFi wireless LAN adapters Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 AGN
Integrated mobile broadband Mobile Broadband upgradable
Language pack Publication - AP English
1YR Onsite Next Business Day

Total $2136.00 inc GST

Can't wait for this new laptop, I think it will have a much better build quality than the Sony VAIO, not that the VAIO was bad, it's just not a business laptop but this is.

 

Pretty good, though the -3820QM isn't worth the upgrade cost over the -3720QM imo.

 

I agree with you but guess what... It was $200 more expensive for me to go with the 3720QM than to go with the better 3820QM, crazy. The consultant told me it is because Lenovo have a special at the moment where the more you spend on the spec of the PC the more discount they can give you. So by me having selected the 3820QM it seemed to tip the total price before discount into another bracket which allowed for a greater overall discount. So if a 3820QM is going to cost me $200 less than a 3720QM, i'll take the 3820QM thanks.

If it was not for this crazy discount system they have and I had to pay extra for the 3820QM, I agree, it is not worth the extra cash but in this case it was actually cheaper.

 

Ha, that's pretty weird. Oh well, you got q slightly more powerful CPU for dirt cheap then. Sweet

 

Hey folks.

Just got my W530 and loaded it up with two SSDs and 32GB of ram. I clean-installed windows 7 and everything went relatively smoothly with one issue.

Optimus seems to be turning the discrete GPU on/off every second or so by itself, with no applications being listed in the status tool.

I'm honestly baffled as to why this would happen and I'd greatly appreciate any suggestions as the battery life gets killed with this...

 

This is really a shame there is only 3GB. Is it confirmed information? Any chances that version with K3000 will have 6GB bandwitch for m-SATA slot?

 

This has happened with my W530, but only in one circumstance. It only happens when I'm using the basic view of Power Manager.

 

Actually you are right. There seem to be a few applications that do that with the GPU. I noticed that it happens with the Lenovo Power Manager and also when moving around in the NVIDIA Control Panel.

On another note, what kind of battery life are you folks getting on your W530? When I'm on the intergrated GPU, it reports around 3 hours of runtime with the 6-cell battery which feels on the low side of things since I've red about 6-7 hours of WiFi web browsing on reviews online...

 

The reported battery life is going to change according to how much power you're using at the time of calculation (every few seconds), and can greatly vary, especially at the beginning. My system, with a 9-cell battery, can report battery life at anywhere from 4 hours to 11 hours over a span of a couple minutes, depending on what I'm doing. I've found that the battery estimates tend to get more accurate (and stay a bit more consistent) when the battery is not all the way full. If you want to get a good idea of light use battery life, let the system idle for a minute or so at your preferred screen brightness and then see what it says. It should have a fairly accurate estimate of the battery life you can expect at that point.

Of course, there is also no substitute for real-world testing, so the absolute best way to determine your battery life would be to use the computer unplugged for a while and time it.

 

Can somebody kindly update on prices paid for w530?

My specs are as follows for $1657~

ThinkPad W530 - 1 Year Depot Warranty
Processor: Intel Core i7-3720QM Processor (6M Cache, up to 3.60 GHz)
Operating system: Windows 7 Professional (64 bit)
Operating system language: Windows 7 Professional 64 - English
Windows XP Mode: Windows 7 XP Mode - English
Display type: 15.6" FHD (1920 x 1080) LED Backlit AntiGlare Display, Mobile Broadband Ready
System graphics: NVIDIA Quadro K1000M Graphics with 2GB DDR3 Memory
Total memory: 4 GB DDR3 - 1600MHz (1 DIMM)
Keyboard: Keyboard Backlit - US English
Pointing device: UltraNav with Fingerprint Reader
Camera: 720p HD Camera with Microphone
Configuration option: Primary SATA RAID 1
Hard drive: Dual RAID HDDs, 320 GB Hard Disk Drive, 7200rpm
Optical device: RAID via Bay Adapter
System expansion slots: Express Card Slot & 4-in-1 Card Reader
Battery: 9 Cell Li-Ion TWL 70++
Power cord: 170W Slim AC Adapter - US (2pin)
Integrated WiFi wireless LAN adapters: Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 AGN
Integrated mobile broadband: Mobile Broadband upgradable
Language pack: Publication - US English

I do not know the use of Raid? is it necessary?

What is the use of windows XP mode. Is this a dual OS boot?

Thanks all

 

Answered your question in your WNBSIB thread. As for the price paid, I think you could do a bit better for that configuration. Maybe $1400 or so would be a better price.

 

Yes, I read it. Thank you

 

No, not dual OS boot. Windows XP Mode is the virtual system running within Windows Virtual PC, similar to, say, Ubuntu 12.10 running within Oracle VM VirtualBox -- all under Windows 7.

​

If you include Windows XP Mode in your config, you won't have to download/install Windows Virtual PC and Windows XP Mode.

I run them to fall back to Windows XP to handle certain drivers and applications that are not (likely never will be) migrated to Windows 7.

If you plan to put a SSD in the main bay for boot/OS/programs and put the stock HDD in the UltraBay for file storage, there is no need to pay for RAID.

 

Hi All,

I posted this in it's own thread but thought I would also ask here seeing that it is related to the W530.

Just purchased a W530 with the mSATA option and was wondering if I place another HDD in the Ultrabay by removing my Optical drive, will the mSATA cache also work to speed up that drive or only the primary drive?

I was wondering if you could maybe add the ultrabay HDD to the cache array if there is such a thing?

Thanks in advance.

 

If you're using the mSATA drive as a cache, it works similar to memory and speeds up the system access for commonly used data, no matter where the data being accessed comes from. The point of a cache is to have some frequently-used data on a faster access medium. It would not make sense to use another hard drive as a cache because it would access data at roughly the same speed as the existing hard drive. An SSD is much faster and can therefore be used as a cache. Of course, the ideal way to get access speed would be to just put everything on an SSD, but not everyone can afford an SSD with large enough capacity to hold all their data.

 

Great, so going from that it will also speed up any applications I install on the second Ultrabay HDD like photshop etc.

I was worried that the mSATA cache drive only worked for information coming from the primary HDD and didn't monitor the Ultrabay drive.

Would I have to enroll or change any setting so that the mSATA cache drive also monitors the Ultrabay SATA connection?

The mSATA obviously needs to monitor a SATA link to learn what is the most frequently used data and seeing that my W530 originally came with an optical drive in the Ultrabay, the mSATA may not have been setup in bios or software to monitor the Ultrabay SATA data link for cache.

 

Hey there,

I am considering buying this computer after horrible experiences with Dell XPS 15 and the Vaio S 15".. I am a visual artist and need an awesome display. Is there any criticism on the display of the W530? Any orange-gate issue that I should be aware beforehand?

Thanks!