Lenovo W520 Owner's Thread

[kevinlau]

and a 40 second start-up delay with the Porsche W520 with the Intel 510 carburetor

Basically we got a 'handicapped' Porsche W520 with a 40 seconds engine warm-up timer for all Intel 510 carburetor, and a malfunctioning Turbo unit.

[hrana]

The only way I managed to do it is to return it to Lenovo and get a motherboard RAID enabled configuration.

I had to do the same thing. I'm sure their is a way to do it because I've inspected both motherboards and they're exactly identical.

[commander]

I had to do the same thing. I'm sure their is a way to do it because I've inspected both motherboards and they're exactly identical.

so it is probably some software thing... Bios/jumper/firmware thing I guess. Is it possible to turn off the RAID in BIOS, when you have RAID configured machine?

[huberth]

Is it possible to turn off the RAID in BIOS, when you have RAID configured machine?

Yes, you have 3 options: RAID, ACHI and SATA

PS: If you look in the Lenovo Hardware Maintenance Manual, there are different types of motherboard. Those with and those without RAID.

[huberth]

Basically we got a 'handicapped' Porsche W520 with a 40 seconds engine warm-up timer for all Intel 510 carburetor, and a malfunctioning Turbo unit.

But a Porsche is still a Porsche, so we still love it nevertheless, hoping the factory will come out with a fix soon.

[huberth]

Basically we got a 'handicapped' Porsche W520 with a 40 seconds engine warm-up timer for all Intel 510 carburetor, and a malfunctioning Turbo unit.

And if you have the 8-cylinder 2920 cc engine, do not put on 1866Mhz HyperX shock-absorbers. It will crash!

[huberth]

Interesting W520 review, published 10 days ago (10 June 2011):

Lenovo ThinkPad W520 Review | StorageReview.com

[Kuroi-Tsubasa]

Just ordered 4x4gb Mushkin ram and Intel 320 160gb ssd!

[E30kid]

Has anyone had any problems with Sandforce 2 drives? I'm planning on getting an Agility 3 120GB soon.

[dimm0k]

Here's an update from a Lenovo employee:

Here's an update for everyone that is patiently waiting on this fix just like I am:
Lenovo BIOS team has found the cause of the problem where processor gets stuck at idle speed while on battery. BIOS contains modules from other companies (such as Phoenix, AMI, Intel, nVidia, etc) and the problem is in one of those modules. We have reported the problem to the other company and are waiting on a fix. As an interim solution, Lenovo BIOS team tried to take the working module from version 1.06 and merge it into version 1.25, but this did not work as hoped. Sorry that there is not better news today but we'll just have to wait this one out, or else go back to 1.06 which many users report works correctly (I have not personally tried it).