W520 is disappointingly slow

[novice973]

In May 2011, my new W520 was delivered with the i7-2720QM, 4gb RAM, and 500gb 7200 rpm hdd. I bought 3 additional 4gb sticks to bring the RAM to 16 gb. I had expected speed on this laptop. But since day 1, I was not impressed. My friends’ had bought other laptops with i5s and they seemed to run faster than my W520. My husband just bought the Envy 17 with i7-2760QM. He got it with 80gb SSD (told him to get that since everyone said it is much faster) + 1tb 7200 rpm hdd. Everything works so much faster on the Envy than my W520 (scanning pictures with HP Solution is faster, viewing pictures using explorer is faster, MS Office programs run faster, etc). My W520 seems to be constantly i/o-ing. When I close my laptop, it takes a few minutes for the hd to stop writing (I mostly hibernate and shuts down maybe 3 or 4 times a month). Sometimes, I am so frustrated with the waiting, I just put the laptop in my bag and go. Every time I do something, it feels like there is a lot of i/o going on. 9 cell battery lasts about 3 hours before requiring charging. Just writing this post is a pain. I would type and sometime it takes a few seconds of the letters to appear on screen. Don't know if it is the website or my laptop. The disk light is constantly flashing. Is it because I don’t have a SSD? I do have the Lenovo bloat ware on the laptop, will a clean install be the answer? If yes, please advise on how to do it. I don't have Window 7 cd. How can I make this laptop run with the speed it should be running? Thanks.

[V_Chip]

Is there any chance that you received a faulty HDD?

If you're looking to do a clean install, follow the links/steps in my signature.

Make sure you read and you'll be fine.

[S.SubZero]

Lenovo ships their laptops with an unusual amount of their own custom apps that are redundant to Windows 7 native functions.

My first suggestion is to remove the Lenovo Power Manager (unless you are really getting something from it) and the Thinkpad Toolbox thing. If you don't use Simpletap, dump that too.

Go through Programs and Features and review anything you never use. I think they use CorelDVD or something, I typically remove that from the T520s at work. Those laptops are very fast when they are tweaked up.

You could have glitchy hardware, I think they come with diagnostics with the blue button on powerup.

[novice973]

Thank you for responding V Chip. SMART indicates a healthy drive. Is there a tool you would recommend to test the HDD?

If I want to do a clean install, is there a quick way for me to see all the drivers on my laptop?

[ZaZ]

System Update.

[Kaso]

If I want to do a clean install, is there a quick way for me to see all the drivers on my laptop?

The drivers are in the C:\SWTOOLS folder. They came with the machine as delivered. You can choose to update them later.

Copy that folder to a USB flash drive. After the clean install, go down the Device Drivers, point to that folder and tell Windows to search its subfolders for the right driver for each device.

It may be helpful to read the Hearst Guide.

PS. Constant drive access may possibly be caused by antivirus software. In general, check the Startup list (msconfig.exe) and Processes list (Task Manager).

[novice973]

Thanks everyone. I will make an image copy and follow your instructions for a clean install Will let you know how things go.

[zhaos]

I don't recommend clean install. It's a waste of time. Uninstall the software you don't need. Toolbox, maybe access connections. You should keep power manager. Disable unnecessary programs from starting using msconfig.

Why wouldn't you expect your friend's computer to run faster than yours? It has a solid state drive. A Core 2 Duo computer with a solid state drive can load programs faster than your computer with its normal hard drive. You ought to replace the hard drive with a solid state drive.

Why do you hibernate the computer all the time? Hibernation is slow; standby doesn't use much battery life at all. If you hibernate, you end up frustrated, put the computer in your bag, and then as you carry it, you're jostling the hard drive so it's having a difficult time storing data. Have the computer go into standby.

As for power usage, you should watch what's using your processor cycles. Battery life is bad when things are using that powerful processor. Your usage habits may be bad for battery life as well.

I think your expectations should be different. A really fast processor won't make programs load that much faster. You'll be able to process things faster (e.g. compressing a file), and the quad core enables better multi-tasking, but it seems the slowness you're talking about is because you're using a mechanical hard drive.

[Colonel O'Neill]

Of course it will take a while to hibernate.

16GB at a generous max of 100MB/s sequential write will take 2.73 minutes to write completely. Compression and empty RAM will help somewhat, but if your hiberfil.sys is heavily fragmented, it won't write nearly as fast.

The 9-cell will last 6-8 hours under reasonable usage for me. Make sure you're not running CPU intensive programs like iTunes, Chrome, Skype, etc. Find resource lighter variants like foobar, IE9, or Trillian. Also make sure nothing is running on the discrete GPU when it shouldn't: Optimus test tools finally in users hands - News - LaptopVideo2Go Forums

And do defragment that drive regularly. Use MyDefrag (free) or UltimateDefrag (paid) over the Windows defragmenter.

You can get a software hybrid drive solution too, if you have some spare SD cards lying around and RAM to spare.

[turqoisegirl08]

+1 for system update with one suggestion. I would advise against letting Windows update the BIOS if needed. System update will divide what drivers and updates it has found into critical and recommended (or suggested). I have found that a BIOS update will show up under one of the options. On the Lenovo support website there are bootable ISO images you can download and burn to a CD. This in my opinion is more reliable and less prone to be problematic judging from many threads I have read over the years about bricked motherboards from letting Windows update the BIOS. I've used the burn to CD images on several ThinkPads and they've gone smooth and easy. I hope you get your W520 in tip top shape!