Who still uses a T520 as a daily driver. And why ?

[TPFanatic]

I've always been apprehensive to update the BIOSes on my personal Sandy Bridge machines because of that speed limit imposed on the newer versions. I usually update the BIOS to the version just before the speed limit and leave it at that.

Whether it makes a difference in day to day performance or the limited intensive tasks I do with the 2520m, I sadly don't know.

[freeagent]

Checked Lenovo Solution Centre. For my T520 model 4243WD1, i5-2540M(2.6GHz) it reports 1333Mhz for both 4Gb memory sticks and say it passes! Maybe try running your T520 on LSC and see if it does too.

[kfzhu1229]

I've always been apprehensive to update the BIOSes on my personal Sandy Bridge machines because of that speed limit imposed on the newer versions. I usually update the BIOS to the version just before the speed limit and leave it at that.

Whether it makes a difference in day to day performance or the limited intensive tasks I do with the 2520m, I sadly don't know.

Wait so is this actually a known fact that newer BIOS versions have limits on these according to Intel's official specifications? And that the 1333mhz limitation is in fact totally artificial?
Well personally I don't like updating BIOS unless I absolutely have to. On some earliest UEFI laptops, like the Latitude E6410 for instance, UEFI does not work correctly at all until you update the BIOS, and it's only then I want to update the BIOS. And yes somehow that Arrandale laptop has UEFI despite T410/T510 not having it at all and Lenovo claiming that it's not possible for that generation to have UEFI!
Sadly I can't test thoroughly on my T520 because the motherboard is faulty and all of the cache as well as the RAM is running slower than on my E6420 despite the same processor same RAM. But it still shows up as 1600mhz just like on my E6420.

[TPFanatic]

It's better to flash your BIOS less than more... I read somewhere if not here than on the subreddit, someone decided to upgrade to the latest BIOS incrementally, as in one version at a time, and in short order burnt out their BIOS chip.

[TKuser]

Just about to switch daily driver from T420 to T520 (16gb RAM, quad CPU, 1920 screen, 2tb SSD, eSATA external drive, 9 cell battery, Ultrabay drive caddy).

Why? Keyboard, power, screen, and runs my older OS of choice. I researched newer machines (wanting more RAM), but either couldn't cope with switching to a chiclet keyboard, or found that CPU chipset support was missing for the older OS in question. Or, too few ports or port options too modern. Or, terrible reliability reviews.

The only thing I particularly don't like is 16gb RAM ceiling, as I have virtual machine-running needs. And of course, it isn't especially fun to carry around.

Edit: I see now that there are possible solutions to the W7 chipset support issue for newer models: viewtopic.php?f=81&t=133015

[talkybro1]

I still have an even smaller sibling - X220 - which is sort-of used as a daily driver: watching shows and light gaming when attached to the TV, or light browsing on-the-go. It is still perfectly usable, both with Win7 and Win8.1, although it does get hot during certain heavy tasks...
stream videos

[mikemex]

The whole Sandy Bridge platform shipped broken.

I do remember, when they first released it to the market, that it wasn't hard to get around 6-7W of idle power consumption. But as time went and bugs were discovered, and intel issued "workarounds", they began reducing the original functionality. Specifically, they disabled some advanced platform power saving features, which made the same machines consume 2-3W more at idle. They also restricted the memory frequency and the like.

That's pretty much the standard way to handle issues in the industry. If a somewhat older product becomes a problem, they just selectively cripple its features to mitigate it. Intel, at the very least, has been doing the same for years. For example, the Skylake platform wasn't properly tested and it was shipped with a lot of bugs, some of them quite serious (problems with hyperthreading and cache coherency). It's one of the main reasons why Microsoft didn't want to include it in the official compatibility list for Windows 11.

[axur-delmeria]

Also, the Intel 6-series chipsets (part of the Sandy Bridge platform) had a design flaw that led to the SATA ports dying after some time, which was fixed in the B3 stepping of affected chipsets. Apparently, even the mobile chipsets were affected, as this Lenovo forum post asking if his SSD failure is related to the B2 stepping SATA issue.

That said, Intel silicon isn't the only guilty party: AMD Phenoms had the infamous TLB errata, the workaround of it reduced performance by 15%. It was fixed in the subsequent Phenom II CPUs. Also, Spectre and Meltdown affected CPUs across different architectures: x86, ARM, and even POWER.