Getting ready for the long haul with the W520...

[cheetahdriver]

Well, with the dearth of new Thinkpads (that I am interested in) and the probable decline of the T/W series into commodity oblivion, the next question for me is, how long can I be happy with the W520, and what can I do to extend the life of it.

My thoughts are,

1) Already running a 250GB SSD, and running out of space. Would going to a bigger SSD be better than putting a mSATA drive in? Is there an advantage to running 2 smaller drives to one bigger one in the W520?

2) Have a 4276-23U, with i7-2920XM. Is there a CPU update that would be noticeable, or am I already maxed?

3) Already have 32GB of DDR3-1333. I understood that they revised the BIOS so -1600 would only run as 1333, is that still the case?

4) Any advances in the network card side that are worth taking the plunge on?

I have a Surface for Win8 and at some point in the future, I will probably take the W520 out of service and replace it with a desktop. Right now it does dual duty as a travel machine, and driving 3 monitors at my desk, which IMHO is the best of all worlds. I just don't see Lenovo coming out with a W540 that would take it's place. What I expect is a W531 with all the same faults as the T431, in which case I have bought my last Thinkpad...

[Adda]

To make it last you have to keep it cool, so no XM CPU's, and the Quadro 2000M's won't contribute to longer life either.

Dead GPU's have already popped up here and there, for both the W510 and W520, I'm quite convinced it's heat related.

To reduce the heat, here are a few tips.

First undervolt that GPU, this thread explains how:
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=108366

Then disable core parking, this will increase idle temps, and lower battery life considerably, but lower the maximum temps by more then 10C in most situations.
Without core parking, all CPU cores will be running all the time, so turboboost frequencies are limited to the max frequency when all cores are active.
To keep performance up, the CPU resorts to load balance on all cores, rather then run on fewer cores but higher clock rate.
But in the end, I think the CPU is actually faster when core parking is disabled, games may not run at higher FPS, but framerates are more stable, less stutter.

A few apps to help do this:
http://bitsum.com/about_cpu_core_parking.php

http://www.coderbag.com/Programming-C/D ... ng-Utility

I didn't try those apps my self, I disabled core parking permanently in the registry.

Lastly, go disable Hyper Threading, it makes the CPU run a bit cooler, lower DPC latency and make little difference in terms of performance.

[cheetahdriver]

Not so much worried about equipment failure as I am about keeping it up to current speeds (or at least close). Loose the GPU or CPU (which has happened to me once in about 12 years) and I will just switch to backup unit. I figure I can make it past Haswell with the W520, but by the time Broadwell hits, I will be in the market for a new machine. What I don't want is to be sitting with a slow machine in a fast world. The nice thing is that Win8 doesn't seem to need as much overhead as 7, so converting the W520 to 8 might speed things up a bit. I find the Surface with 8 to be quite acceptable, and that is an i5.

As I say with the airplane...I didn't buy this thing to go slow...

[pianowizard]

...at some point in the future, I will probably take the W520 out of service and replace it with a desktop...

...What I don't want is to be sitting with a slow machine in a fast world...

Upgrade to a desktop and make the W520 your backup machine, now. I migrated from laptops to powerful desktops a couple years ago and that was probably my best computer-related decision ever. Desktops have so many advantages over laptops, and performance is just one of them.

[cheetahdriver]

Unfortunately, I travel a LOT, so the W520 gets a lot of miles on it. The Surface has replaced my iPad on the road, but in the hotel, I want a real keyboard and a full size screen. The Surface can drive a TV in the room, but it has some quirks I haven't quite worked out yet. I have a good desktop at the office, driving a 29" screen, but I still use the W520 for my treadmill workstation.

[jcvjcvjcvjcv]

Put a 1TB 7200 rpm single platter drive in the HDD bay and a 256 GB or lager SSD in the mSata slot.



But yeah, the GPU will stay slow, but the keyboard will remain great.

It's a real shame they went with that handicapped layout. Part of the overall dumbing down of everything it seems.