Lenovo W520 Owner's Thread

[Mech0z]

ThinkPad W520 Model 4276-37u
Processor: Intel Core i7-2720QM Processor
Operating system: Windows 7 Professional 64 English
Display type: 15.6" FHD (1920 x 1080) LED Backlit Anti-Glare Display, Mobile Broadband Ready
System graphics: NVIDIA Quadro 1000M Graphics with 2GB DDR3 Memory
Total memory : 8 GB PC3-10600 DDR3 SDRAM 1333MHz SODIMM Memory (2 DIMMs)
Keyboard:Keyboard US English
Pointing device: UltraNav with TrackPoint & touchpad plus Fingerprint reader
Camera: 720p Camera
Hard drive 1: Intel 320 160GB Solid State Drive
Hard drive 2 via Ultrabay : 500GB 7,2k stock hdd
System expansion slots: Express Card Slot & 4 in 1 Card Reader
Battery: 9 cell Li-Ion Battery - 55++
Power cord: Country Pack North America with Line cord & 170W AC adapter
Bluetooth: Bluetooth 3.0
Integrated WiFi wireless LAN adapters: Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6205 (2x2 AGN)
Integrated mobile broadband: Integrated Mobile Broadband - Upgradable
Language pack: Language Pack US English

my w520 arrived at April 1 st (no joke)
been playing whit it for a while now and i can say it has working Sata 3!! i had a ocz vertex 3 120gb in my w520 this Saturday, which ran blazing fast but...
i was getting random freeze and crashes form the ssd.
tried to fix it but gave up after two full days. So i returned the vertex 3 for a Intel 320 160gb which runs fine and boots to the desktop in 15 sec.

i also did some stress testing whit prime95
CPU temps:
idle: 41 max
load 71 max

ill will post some screens later on
any request for test/benchmarks/info just let me know

Are you going to gaming and could you do a 3dmark 06 ?

[halobox]

Do all of the W520's come with a RAID capable controller and BIOS now?

[Flazo]

the vertex 3 had no problems in my desktop on sata 2
tried all the fixes/tweaks that are know to work for the isues whit ocz ssd and dell laptops.
wiped the ssd some times.
turned all power features off and did a clean UEFI instal of windows 7 whit achi whit did not fix it.

i ran mark06 optitmus off on battery 7827 3DMarks whit puts the 1000m on par whit the GeForce GT 435M
Result

it did't go whit out issues i whas only able to complete the benchmark whit Lenovo Tubo Boost+ on else it whould power of in the final test, probably overheating protection.

there does not seem to be raid option in the UEFI bios but i stil need to get my Ultrabay for my hdd from the mail.

the fan is off on boot up
the fan is at whisping level when idel whit a anoining spinup/spindown every 10 sec for only 1 sec but you need a quiet room te hear it.
the sound level sounds like a bit like a hair dryer on low when Lenovo Tubo Boost+ is on (a bit like modern gpu card coolers).

pro/cons so far

pro
-case of the laptop stays cool
-7 to 9 hours of battery life on browsing
-great tn screen
-stata 3

cons
-battery wobbel (makes the latop less sturdie)
- fan profile

[Mech0z]

the vertex 3 had no problems in my desktop on sata 2
tried all the fixes/tweaks that are know to work for the isues whit ocz ssd and dell laptops.
wiped the ssd some times.
turned all power features off and did a clean UEFI instal of windows 7 whit achi whit did not fix it.

i ran mark06 optitmus off on battery 7827 3DMarks whit puts the 1000m on par whit the GeForce GT 435M
Result

it did't go whit out issues i whas only able to complete the benchmark whit Lenovo Tubo Boost+ on else it whould power of in the final test, probably overheating protection.

there does not seem to be raid option in the UEFI bios but i stil need to get my Ultrabay for my hdd from the mail.

the fan is off on boot up
the fan is at whisping level when idel whit a anoining spinup/spindown every 10 sec for only 1 sec but you need a quiet room te hear it.
the sound level sounds like a bit like a hair dryer on low when Lenovo Tubo Boost+ is on (a bit like modern gpu card coolers).

pro/cons so far

pro
-case of the laptop stays cool
-7 to 9 hours of battery life on browsing
-great tn screen
-stata 3

cons
-battery wobbel (makes the latop less sturdie)
- fan profile

Thats some wierd issues and I am very surprised if the laptop shuts down do to overheating :s this is a workstation but that should be fixable with fan profiling I suppose through a bios update.

The Quadro 1000 score is nice though

[unreal25]

Just one thing - don't run benchmarks on battery. Even at "Max performance" profile there will typically be some throttling. Can you run it when its plugged into AC power?

Thanks!

[rajeev16706]

Re: Is SATA III / 6gb/s suppported on the W520? - Lenovo Community

SATA-III-6Gb/s supported as per above link.

[rajeev16706]

anyone has new status?

[LoG!K]

Order date: 4/1/11. Ship date: today! Got the confirmation this morning. I'll post a brief review when I get my hands on the machine later this week.

[RyanHurtt]

Order date: 03/30/11 Est. Ship Date 04/11/11 . anyone has new status?

Ordered 3/29. Mine still has the quote about calling the customer service number as there may be a problem with my order.

I've called once a day since this came up (3 days ago now!) and they swear it's shipping the week of April 7th! Has anyone else had this happen and had their laptop still ship on time or am I looking at a delay?

[cpm22]

@LoG!K, did you customize it much or was it more of a "stock" machine? Glad for you that it shipped so quickly!