Just acquired a W520...

[theterminator93]

... and I'm irrationally excited about it.

I've been using my FX570m based T61p (dated 10/2007) since I bought it new eight years ago as my primary. I had acquired a T420 at the beginning of this year in hopes to finally retire it, but the T420 is just a little too different than the T61p for me to be able to finally put it into light duty. The last year or so the poor thing has been showing signs of its age with various quirks that persist through clean OS installs (who can blame it with over 65,000 hours of runtime on it?), so I came to the conclusion... get a W520.

Looking into the configuration my only real desire was to find a unit at a reasonable price with the Quadro 2000M GPU and any flavor of quad core CPU (to get the 4 DIMM slots), but prices have been a little out of my league (most $550-$600) - and when one did appear (with the 2000M) it would usually get snatched up pretty quickly. Finally, last night I managed to win an auction for a "mystery W520" for $440 with shipping. It wasn't very well described but I was able to get detailed specs via the photo of the MTM/Serial number tag. Additional photographic evidence provided by the seller confirms a mint system with an i7-2860QM and the Nvidia 2000M GPU (despite the MTM lookup indicating a 2820QM), and a Lenovo Serial number lookup confirms all that information as well.

I doubt I'll upgrade the CPU since it's already equipped with the top-of-the line 45W quad, but I'm definitely going to upgrade the RAM to 16GB and add an mSATA SSD to run the OS from. I imagine I'll be doing an IPS mod at some point if I can find a screen for it too.

Now the agonizing wait for it to be dropped of by the mailman this Friday.

[RealBlackStuff]

Congratz!
Hope the mailman doesn't drop such a nice machine!

[MikalE]

Congrats to you. Before buying my T520 I wanted a W520 but I found a T520 with an i7. The W520's were a little pricey too.

[MisterB]

I should have one arrive tomorrow or Friday. It was an impulse buy. The 16gb ram and under $300 price got me. It is a 4282-4UU. i7-2760QMP quad core processor and dual Intel Graphics/Nvidia Quadro 1000M GPUs. I've been getting more and more fond of my W510 and this W520 has the same form factor and display but should be much faster and at the same time use less power and have a longer battery life.

There have been several W520s for under $300 this week but most have been bare bones with 4gb of ram. This one just needs a hard drive. I have several mechanical Sata drives to get it going and 256gb mSata drives are going for prices well below $100 these days.

[theterminator93]

Sounds like a pretty good find to me as well. I agree - the market appears to be saturated with many base-level config systems in varying states of completion. I was actually planning to wait until I sold a few systems I recently recycled before I bought it which would have given me more time to "reel in" an even better deal. Despite all that... I still feel as though I did fairly well in my find in terms of what I got vs. what I paid (considering how long I'd been searching).

My decision to buy now was somewhat impulsive, but fueled by the fact that I've known for a couple years now that I would need to find a replacement. I really got "thrown in" to the buyer's market due to the slowly-getting-flaky wireless card taking a turn for the worse on the T61p. That, combined with general HDD sluggishness due to age, a slowly dimming and yellowing display, and a few minor "driver disagreements" with some applications I run finally pushed me over the edge.

Unlike my T420 which was also kind of an impulse buy... at least this system leaves me with less bits and pieces to "need" to upgrade in the long run. So much the better for my bank account.

I do need to find a 170W A/C adapter for it though - I understand it will severely throttle itself when running on battery alone to limit the total current draw from battery. At least I know it will charge on the lower wattage adapters when off or in standby.

I suppose I should ask - what's involved in adding the color sensor, just swapping palm rests for a unit with?

[MisterB]

I've been running the W510 on a 90 watt adapter with no problems. I get the warning screen at boot that requires pressing the escape key to continue the boot process. Rebooting is supposed to remove the throttling. Even throttled it is the fastest Thinkpad I have. I rarely get beyond 50% CPU use even running VMs. When I check the temperature of the adapter, it is warm but not hot to the touch.

I'm getting a 135 watt adapter with the W520 according to the listing. It should be enough for the moment.

[Temetka]

Congrat's OP!

The W520 is the system I am looking to get to replace my T410. I too wan't the quad and pretty much for the same reason you did - 4 RAM slots. I already have 2 8GB DIMMS ready for it. I plan on buying 2 more and an mSATA SSD. With 32GB of RAM I'll be able to run all the VM's I need and still leave plenty of RAM left over for the host OS as well.

I certainly hope your machine serves you as well as your T61 did.

[PandorasThinkpad]

Well!

Congratulations!

I will have to pay for an W520 in an very good condition...unused Touch-Pad, unused Keyboard AND AUO, B156HW01 V4 without any faults or scratches...dots....668,456 USD

Specs of the machine...4284-AP2......changes Crucial C300 SSD and Intel Core i7-2760QM...6 Cell Battery with 39 cycles and nearly full capacity...

So what you found was an very good deal....


Nice greetings,

PanDoRA

[jcvjcvjcvjcv]

Yes, prices on used Thinkpads seem to vary quite a lot. Also depends on seller's feedback and clarity of the ad of course.

Not sure why you would want the colorimeter build-in. You're better off with a separate one, like a X-Rite i1 Display pro. Then you can also use it for desktop screens instead of just for the laptop screen. The default panel isn't that good anyway to be worthy of a dedicated colorimeter. But definitely do calibrate it at some point, because the standard FHD panel has a nasty greenish hue over it. At least mine does.

I've been running the W510 on a 90 watt adapter with no problems. I get the warning screen at boot that requires pressing the escape key to continue the boot process. Rebooting is supposed to remove the throttling. Even throttled it is the fastest Thinkpad I have. I rarely get beyond 50% CPU use even running VMs. When I check the temperature of the adapter, it is warm but not hot to the touch.

I'm getting a 135 watt adapter with the W520 according to the listing. It should be enough for the moment.

W520, when on, will do nothing with a 90W adapter. Off / in sleep it will charge on it, but that's it.

If you plug a 170W into a T61, it will be recognized as a 120W, hehe.

Note that the European adapters are sold with 3-pin "mickey mouse" (C6) A/C side connector, while the US adapters are sold with 2-pin C8 connector. The latter one is said to emit more electromagnetic noise. I do know the 2-pin leads for the US adapters are way more compact than the 3-pin leads of the European adapters.

[theterminator93]

I suppose my desire for the colorimiter comes more or less exclusively from the fact that it was an option that this system didn't ship with. For what I'll likely be using this machine for I don't have a need, per-se.

However, I will need to wait for tomorrow to see it in person because the postal service goofed up in the dispatch and sent it to the wrong DC, which in turn sent it to the wrong local office, which had to return it to the DC which then, after a four-day weekend and holiday hiatus, sent it to the correct DC. Two-day service delivery in six...

[MisterB]

W520, when on, will do nothing with a 90W adapter. Off / in sleep it will charge on it, but that's it.

I found that out right away. It just disconnects when it senses the 90W adapter while the W510 goes into throttle mode. The W520 looks like the W510 but inside it is a different beast. I am just blown away by how much better it is. The most amazing thing is that while it it is much faster than the W510, it is using about 1/3 of the wattage running. The W510 averages around 75-90 watts according to the Power Manager while the W520 uses 20-50 doing the exact same thing. That makes for much longer battery life and much quieter operation since the fan doesn't run that much.

Theterminator93, I'm sure you will be happy with yours. I'm more than happy I finally got one, my expectations have been more than exceeded. I haven't felt this excited about a Thinkpad since I got my 770X 14 years ago.

[MikalE]

Well!

Congratulations!

I will have to pay for an W520 in an very good condition...unused Touch-Pad, unused Keyboard AND AUO, B156HW01 V4 without any faults or scratches...dots....668,456 USD

Specs of the machine...4284-AP2......changes Crucial C300 SSD and Intel Core i7-2760QM...6 Cell Battery with 39 cycles and nearly full capacity...

So what you found was an very good deal....


Nice greetings,

PanDoRA

Where on this planet besides Berlin are looking at pristine W520's at that price?

There is a slew of pristine W520's on E-bay Deutschland starting at around €500 and under.

[PandorasThinkpad]

Hi!

First, don't know what u are going to search..

I've searched quite a long time....but any W520 have had nVidia Quadro 1000M and/ or HD+.....at such machines i have no interest at all....

So i will pay an good price for an machine in real good condition + FHD (AUO, B156HW01 V4) and nVidia Quadro 2000M...

And just a couple of words more...the W520 i am going to buy is sold by some one in the german thinkpad forum....so i will really see what i am going to get.....plus all my questions will be answered....and if there are any problems....there is no problem at all to handle them on a friendly way...

Kindly,

PanDora

[MikalE]

Good luck.

[PandorasThinkpad]

Hi again!

So your personal opinion is...that this is much too much money for such an machine with such specs?

Right? But where have you found an W520 with FHD and Quadro 2000m....in good condition for the 500€ and under....will you please be so gentle to give an example...or even two or more?

Thanks!

Kindly,

PAnDorA

[theterminator93]

Well, it finally showed up yesterday in practically mint condition. The A/C adapter should arrive before the end of this week, and I am certainly looking forward to that so I can really see what this machine is capable of. I've already stuffed a pair of 4GB DIMMs I had lying around into it to bring the total up to 16GB.

It's a little weird having to constantly put it on charge, but having the slice battery off the T420 in addition to the 9C it came with really helps me get through a full day with it.

My first impressions overall are quite good, however the screen seems like it has exaggerated contrast. Battery life seems to be about 60-70% of my T420 in similarly configured 'power save' modes, which I find good considering my poor T61p was fizzling out after a touch over an hour.

Slowly getting my files transferred over, but I think this will be a pleasant transition. I think I'll leave the 500GB platter disk in it for storage, but I've got a 500 mSATA SSD on my Christmas list now.

[hhhd1]

to fix the extra contrast saturation, you should calibrate the screen, you can also try to search for preset color profiles available online, if nothing helps, you can reduce the saturation of the screen colors.

[jcvjcvjcvjcv]

Since when is extra contrast a problem?

More likely your T420 screen suffered from low contrast. What contrast are we actually talking about anyway? Notebookcheck.net measured 656:1 for a W520 with FHD panel. My U3014 desktop monitor achieves > 1000:1 without dynamic contrast and across it's entire brigtness range.

[theterminator93]

I found an .icm profile that greatly improved the overall appearance of the display. For now it will suffice. Saturation is a better word for it; the colors just popped off the screen with a nearly artificial vigor before.

I have the FHD AUO IPS panel in my T420, which I consider a fine example of what these screens should look like.

[hhhd1]

Since when is extra contrast a problem?

More likely your T420 screen suffered from low contrast. What contrast are we actually talking about anyway? Notebookcheck.net measured 656:1 for a W520 with FHD panel. My U3014 desktop monitor achieves > 1000:1 without dynamic contrast and across it's entire brigtness range.

the problem is the extra saturation, which looks like extra contrast.

[theterminator93]

Spectacular, this machine.

Got the A/C adapter this afternoon and have been running the usual suite of tests and benchmarks on it as I would any "new" machine. As it turns out, it will draw about 150W from the wall outlet at full load (Furmark running while encoding video in 8 threads), and the temps will pretty quickly shoot up into the mid 90s. I think it may need some fresh (better) thermal paste since I recall there being a few degrees difference in peak temps when I re-pasted the T420.

For the curious, it draws just under 90W with all four cores pegged, and about 120W with a single CPU core and the GPU pegged. If it was charging the battery at full load... I can clearly see where the need for the 170W adapter comes into play. I'm not certain how efficient the adapters are but I figure with 150W wall draw the laptop is actually consuming at least 135W, so that leaves a healthy 35 additional watts for battery charging at full load.

I finished moving all the data I had on my T61p over to it today as well, so I've finally shut it down in favor of a different laptop for the first time in over eight years...

All in all, very pleased with this unit. I should have no problem using this as a primary for the next five years or so.

[MisterB]

I haven't gotten anywhere near full load. I got to around 25% CPU last night while watching a movie while downloading the Windows 10 1511 update iso. It actually got the fan going towards the end. Under light loading it draws between 21 and 50 watts. Even running a VM while doing some browsing just pushed it to around 30-35 watts. Simply amazing compared to the W510 which would burn 75-90 just being on and idling.

I've moved everything I was doing on the W510 to the W520 over the last week and sold the W510 yesterday and shipped it off today. The W520 is so much better. I am very pleased as well.

[theterminator93]

I decided to replace the thermal paste with Arctic Silver 5 this evening, and while I was at it I decided to do some temperature measurements before/after the reapplication. The results speak for themselves. The heat sink and fan was already cleaned before either of these trials, so the only variable was the thermal paste.

Conditions:
CPU: Core i7-2860QM @ 2.5 GHz (3.6 GHz Turbo)
GPU: nVidia Quadro 2000M
Ambient temperature: 19-20C

Multi-threaded Prime95 CPU and FurMark GPU torture

Before AS5 application, I loaded 8 threads of Prime95 for small FFT testing (maximum heat). After a short time the CPU temperatures stabilized at 80C, with CPU-Z reporting the clock at 2.5 GHz, occasionally jumping to 2.6 GHz. TPFC fan speed was 64 (maximum) at roughly 4700 RPM. To load the GPU after this, I loaded FurMark. After five minutes the temperatures stabilized with the GPU at 89C (or 75C as reported by FurMark) and the CPU up at 96C, although the CPU had throttled back to 2.4 GHz, occasionally dropping to 2.3 GHz.

After the AS5 application, I repeated the same series of tests. 8 Prime95 threads for small FFT tests had the CPU stabilize at 72C - with the fan running at level 7 (3800 RPM) AND the clock rate was 2.6 GHz, occasionally dropping to 2.5 GHz. Five minutes after loading FurMark, the GPU ramped up to and stabilized at 91C (or 77C as reported by FurMark), although the CPU only reached a peak of 87 at a steady 2.5 GHz. Quite an improvement (at least in CPU temps)!!!

Single-threaded FurMark GPU torture

Five minutes after unloading the CPU of the Prime95 torture (only FurMark running), the CPU was mostly 3.3 GHz, occasionally jumping to 3.5 or peaking at 3.6, regardless of pre or post application. Temps before application were CPU - 81C, GPU - 71, after application CPU - 73C and GPU - 72.

Conclusions

Overall, the GPU temperatures didn't change enough to warrant any claim that the AS5 paste reapplication improved or worsened its temperatures. The reapplication of AS5 to the CPU, however, showed impressive results in both temperature and throttling. The multi-threaded tests ran 8C cooler while at a lower fan speed setting AND a higher clock frequency. Multi-threaded tests with a loaded GPU allowed the CPU to run 9C cooler without throttling back to less than full clock speed.