Lenovo W520 Owner's Thread

[wesmain]

Just ordered my W520 and need to get some more RAM. Is it advisable to switch out the original RAM if I were planning to upgrade it to 6 or 8GB?

EDIT: Has anyone installed 1600MHz RAM without problems?

I'm also planning on replacing the 320GB that it came with, with an SSD. But will still want a large storage drive which will replace my Optical drive bay. Has anyone who has used this before encountered any problems? 2nd HDD or SSD Caddy - Lenovo ThinkPad W520, W510, T510 [TP-W510-T510] - $46.75 : NewmodeUS, Hard Drive Caddys for Notebooks

And will this work with the W520? Lenovo - Batteries & Power - 57Y4536 - (US)

Just to check, swapping out HDDs and RAM won't void the warranty right?

First, swapping ram and hdds won't affect your warranty. Second, the 1600mhz hyperx PNP is perfect. The w520 still doesn't work well with the 1866, so just stick with the 1600 and you'll be happy.
Newegg.com - Kingston HyperX 8GB (2 x 4GB) 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1600 HyperX Plug n Play Laptop Memory Model KHX1600C9S3P1K2/8G

Hard drive caddies are sweet. I use one. You'll have to search the thread to find out more info on them - I don't remember which is which...

[Freelancer27]

Thx, for the recommendation and suggestions for the RAM and the SSD.

I do not need the SSD for special usage. i just think that if you have such a fast system the hard drive would become the ottle neck easily which would erase the whole speed advantage...

I think I will live with 8 GB and invest in a faster SSD. To be honest, all those reliability talkings make me a bit uncompftable. How likely is it that an SSD has a failure?

[badhabit_wb]

Thx, for the recommendation and suggestions for the RAM and the SSD.

I do not need the SSD for special usage. i just think that if you have such a fast system the hard drive would become the ottle neck easily which would erase the whole speed advantage...

I think I will live with 8 GB and invest in a faster SSD. To be honest, all those reliability talkings make me a bit uncompftable. How likely is it that an SSD has a failure?

if reliability is your main concern i would go with intel. right now i would stay away from ocz they are having firmware issues and i never could get the drive to remain stable in my w520. once they sort out their issues it is an extremely fast drive!

[iwantanewlaptop]

My W520 with RAID 0 was recently shipped to me. *Before* I boot into Windows for the first time, I'd like to make an image of the hard drives *as shipped*.

The BartPE CD I tried displayed a "blue screen of death," (BSOD) which I understand is not uncommon with recent hardware.

Clonezilla Live apparently did not recognize my RAID 0 volume.

Does anyone know what software I could use to boot from an external CD (or USB key) that:
1) would not BSOD,
2) would recognize my RAID 0 volume, and
3) would allow me to image the RAID 0 volume, preferably ignoring the blank space?

Thanks!

P.S. Currently downloading Windows Automated Installation Kit in hopes of trying a more recent version of the Windows Preinstallation Environment. Fingers crossed....

[Candull]

First, swapping ram and hdds won't affect your warranty. Second, the 1600mhz hyperx PNP is perfect. The w520 still doesn't work well with the 1866, so just stick with the 1600 and you'll be happy.
Newegg.com - Kingston HyperX 8GB (2 x 4GB) 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1600 HyperX Plug n Play Laptop Memory Model KHX1600C9S3P1K2/8G

Hard drive caddies are sweet. I use one. You'll have to search the thread to find out more info on them - I don't remember which is which...

Yikes, that's quite a stretch from what I was prepared to pay.

IRT using the optical drive bay as a boot drive or storage drive, I've read somewhere that some have reported faster boot times from using the optical drive instead of the hard drive bay, even though both are SATA III. Can anyone else comment on this?

[kuksul08]

Try HWInfo64 or CPU-Z. HWInfo64 tells you like everything, CPU-Z is good for monitoring the CPU clock speed, which HWInfo64 can do anyways.

Gotcha. I will try out HWinfo tonight. Last night I ran the Intel Turboboost monitor and most of the time it was at 2.2Ghz, but would randomly spike to anywhere from 2.8 to 3.1Ghz. When I tried to do the WEI rating, it jumped to 3.2Ghz and stayed there, but then the WEI failed for some reason.

So, do I need a more constant load to see if the CPU stays at the higher clock speed? Also shouldn't it jump to 3.3Ghz?

[badhabit_wb]

Yikes, that's quite a stretch from what I was prepared to pay.

IRT using the optical drive bay as a boot drive or storage drive, I've read somewhere that some have reported faster boot times from using the optical drive instead of the hard drive bay, even though both are SATA III. Can anyone else comment on this?

i tried both ways with a vertex 3 and an intel 510 and mine worked better in the hard drive bay. i always set my bios to boot to the hard drive first. if it is down the list a bit as far as booting it will take longer. if i need to boot to a cd or usb drive i change it in the bios at that time.

[kirayamato26]

Gotcha. I will try out HWinfo tonight. Last night I ran the Intel Turboboost monitor and most of the time it was at 2.2Ghz, but would randomly spike to anywhere from 2.8 to 3.1Ghz. When I tried to do the WEI rating, it jumped to 3.2Ghz and stayed there, but then the WEI failed for some reason.

So, do I need a more constant load to see if the CPU stays at the higher clock speed? Also shouldn't it jump to 3.3Ghz?

It will only jump to 3.3GHz if there is only 1 core loaded. Due to the way Windows schedules things, it will almost never be at 3.3GHz.

[iwantanewlaptop]

Where can I find the FAQ mentioned by hrana?

Thanks!

[cobrien]

I'm entering into first year engineering at university this September and Just ordered a W520. I got the i7-2720QM, Quadra 1000M, 4gb ram (plus another 4gb to add in myself), 1920x1080 high res screen and the 9 cell battery. I think this might be overkill for my needs but I feel pretty good about it being able to run everything I need well for 4 years.

Do these beasts have any known issues or quirks I should look out for?