2 questions, RAM upgrade and OS downgrade on a W520

[NoPyro]

Hopefully it's okay to ask 2 questions in one here, I was hoping for information up/downgrading parts of my w520.

First: I've been planning on upgrading the RAM for a while now, currently it is using 4x4GB DDR3-1333 SODIMM PC3-10600S RAM, I was hoping to upgrade it to 32GB, I have an i7-2760QM so I should be able to do 32, I was wondering however about speed, I have heard that my system should be able to support up to PC3-12800 DDR3-1600? is this true, will anything like BIOS version mess with that? If it's fully supported, what brands/models should I be on the lookout for?

Second: I was hoping to downgrade my system from the Windows 10 it came installed with to the Windows 7 it would have had stock, what would be the best way to go about this? I understand that there are recovery disks/media but Lenovo no longer seems to provide it, are they the best bet and if so is there a trustworthy place I can still obtain it if legal, otherwise what other method should I use and are there any hurdles I should be aware of either way?

Hopefully both of these questions are allowed in one topic,
Any info I can be given would be super helpful and I can provide any further info if needed, the more I can learn here the better, thank you so much for any help provided!!

[TPFanatic]

In response to RAM:

You can install the DDR3-1600 without problem. I recall 1600 being the most populous ergo cheapest RAM to acquire. Doesn't matter if it's 1.5v PC3 or 1.35v PC3L, it will run properly.


In response to Windows 7:

On Dec 27 your account age will meet u/theterminator93's criteria to ask him for a copy of his T420 recovery set which will work on W520.
https://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=128170

Alternatively, use any of these:
https://archive.org/search?query=lenovo+windows+7

In my experience, only the OS restore disks are necessary to get Win 7 up and running, you can skip the supplemental drivers and software disks, and utilize the drivers available on this forum https://thinkpads.com/support/Thinkpad- ... index.html or Lenovo's EOL portal https://download.lenovo.com/eol/index.html.

Alternatively you technically can start with a vanilla retail Win 7 image and convert it to utilize volume licensing, which should respond to the Win 7 key in the battery bay of the laptop. Instructions are around and about on the Internet.

Of these I favor the archive.org method most.


Windows 7 Ultimate x64 is personally my favorite Windows operating system, but even as I retain time-capsule PCs from my history with fully functioning and Internet-compatible Win 7 environments, I don't actually recommend proceeding with Win 7 on any new installs due to lack of compatibility with modern software including Internet browsers and Direct X12. I favor continuing with Win 10 and adjusting it to behave more like Win 7. It is still Windows NT on the inside, it can be modified, corrupted, manipulated, and customized to be whatever you want it to be. Telemetry, Edge, arbitrary program incompatibilities, out of control Defender, and forced updates can all be neutered.

[NoPyro]

Thanks for the help with the ram, I thought it would work I just wanted to check in case!

I don't actually recommend proceeding with Win 7 on any new installs due to lack of compatibility with modern software including Internet browsers and Direct X12. I favor continuing with Win 10 and adjusting it to behave more like Win 7. It is still Windows NT on the inside, it can be modified, corrupted, manipulated, and customized to be whatever you want it to be. Telemetry, Edge, arbitrary program incompatibilities, out of control Defender, and forced updates can all be neutered.

As for W7, it's partially about giving it something it had at release, making it more original, but also partially to do with drivers, the newest OS Lenovo lists for the Modem driver, which I believe and hope is for the 56k modem, is windows 7, I do not believe there is an option for Windows 10 and all my searching has led me to believe there are NO fully functional drivers available for linux at this point, which is what I daily drive anyway, W7 would be a secondary OS so modern compatibility there is less of an issue, but if there is a way to install the 56k drivers on Windows 10 or if I'm lucky linux, please let me know and I'll be happy to read into it, as it may well be the preferable option in the end, thank you for your help thus far!

[TPFanatic]

I'm showing my age here, but I've never used 56k modem. Curious now how this tech even plays with Win 10.

I would try installing the OEM Win 7 driver on Win 10 anyway, sometimes the older software and drivers actually work on Win 10 despite not being officially supported. This winds up being a necessity when dealing with these laptops that were already EOL at 10's release. For what it's worth, my anecdote is I have Win 10 running very fine on an X61 that is 5 years older than W520.

Otherwise, you are on point that period-correct OS will probably yield the best experience for functionality of all hardware.

I have Win XP on a Toughbook CF-29 with Pentium M. I think it technically can run latest Win 10 32 bit since it has the NX bit. But it only has drivers for XP, so it still runs XP today. We use it to talk to 1980s General Motors ALDL interface over the COM port.

[NoPyro]

I suppose it would be worth just testing it, tbf I've never had to use 56k/dial up myself, and even if I installed the drivers rn I'd have no way to test their effectiveness (honestly my use case might be super fringe, can't even test it till a family member digs out some old hardware of their own), but before I try w7 I suppose just sending it and seeing how it goes on 10 is the best option.

[NoPyro]

In response to Windows 7:

On Dec 27 your account age will meet u/theterminator93's criteria to ask him for a copy of his T420 recovery set which will work on W520.
https://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=128170

Alternatively, use any of these:
https://archive.org/search?query=lenovo+windows+7

In my experience, only the OS restore disks are necessary to get Win 7 up and running, you can skip the supplemental drivers and software disks, and utilize the drivers available on this forum https://thinkpads.com/support/Thinkpad- ... index.html or Lenovo's EOL portal https://download.lenovo.com/eol/index.html.

Alternatively you technically can start with a vanilla retail Win 7 image and convert it to utilize volume licensing, which should respond to the Win 7 key in the battery bay of the laptop. Instructions are around and about on the Internet.

Of these I favor the archive.org method most.

How would I go about making use of the recovery disc ISOs? Can I use a USB drive or am I gonna have to buy some blank DVDs? As long as it's okay to ask about this ofc.

[TPFanatic]

YMMV. I was only successful with the Lenovo ISOs burned to blank DVDs.

You can also start with a vanilla/retail Windows and follow the following instructions to convert it to use OEM licensing. Vanilla Win 7 I believe can be installed from USB one way or another.

http://www.squidworks.net/2015/03/how-t ... ctivation/

In windows Vista, 7, server 2008, 2008r2, and server 2012 OEM activation is accomplished by the combination of 3 elements.

The bios of the system must contain what is called a “SLIC” string, all systems made by a major OEM such as Dell, HP will include this. Home built systems will not (unless you modify the bios yourself)
A certificate file that matches up against the “SLIC” string that is stored in the BIOS. These certificate files are unique to each OEM so Dell has their own, HP has their own, etc. and are not interchangeable.
A Windows product key that tells the system to use OEM activation instead of the traditional Microsoft activation process. These keys are not specific to a particular OEM and are interchangeable.
If all 3 are present the system is instantly activated, does not communicate with MS to determine if activation is valid or to activate against a MS server. The activation is already trusted.

windows-7-activation

When you rebuild a PC component 1 is still present but #2 and # 3 are missing.

Attached in the SLIC.zip file you will find the certificate files used by Major OEM’s such as Dell, HP, Lenovo, as well as product keys that can be used for Windows 7 Professional, and Ultimate.

SLIC Zip File Download http://www.squidworks.net/wp-content/up ... 3/SLIC.zip

To use this, for example if you had a Dell.

Open an elevated command prompt, extract the Dell certificate to C:\temp

The certificate is called Dell-Dell-2.0.xrm-ms

So issue the command slmgr –ilc c:\temp\dell-dell-2.0.xrm-ms

Then issue the command slmgr –ipk 2QTV2-3CMPP-FQBYK-XXXXX-XXXXX (For windows 7 Pro)

Wait about 5 seconds and if you look that system is now genuine and activated.

[theterminator93]

I am still using the factory image I installed on my W520 back in 2016. Aside from the soon end of security updates to Firefox, I haven't had any concerns with it that have made me consider upgrading or switching its OS.

It may be possible to use Rufus or a similar utility to create bootable USB sticks with the DVD images of factory recovery discs, but I haven't done it personally. I keep a cache of DVD and CD rewritables around for this purpose.

I know some people have tried; depending on model, success has been seen.

Starting around 2014 Lenovo started providing USB recovery stick files and a media creation utility, but W520 was a few generations prior to that.

[TPFanatic]

Well I'll chip in. Me x230 runs a clone of an old Win 7 Pro install that I've migrated between systems dating back to 2018, and last night it was my weapon of choice to do a data recovery using TestDisk off my Expresscard NVME drive that spontaneously broke its partition data. Win 7 doesn't natively have support for NVME and Microsoft pulled its drivers for NVME, but Lenovo still hosts the drivers to add NVME support to Win 7. It's certainly still a competent OS and on old enough machines, I can see how it's favorable to the newer Windows, much like XP is favorable on the even older hardware. I think my A31p with XP might beat my T470 with 22H2 in a boot race.

[mikemex]

Windows 10. Believe it or not, unless you computer is really ancient (which is not), you're better off with the new OS because ever since M$ pushed the componentized driver model, whenever they update a driver for some other obscure device, you can usually benefit from it. And they update the catalog often: I don't remember which device I checked recently, but the driver was a 2024 release.

In the Lenovo, say-classic days, drivers were nearly machine-specific. For example, things like the fingerprint scanner were pretty obscure in the W7 days, and now they have become generic things that just work out of the box.

There is no device on any of my machines that doesn't work on W10 and the oldest one I have is a T61, which is a few generations older than yours. So not sure about the modem drivers, but I'd expect the W7 drivers to simply work. Windows 11 still has telephony stuff, I just checked.

Really, I like the simplicity of W7 but I don't really see any important disadvantage to run Windows 10 and I see way too many advantages.

Unless, of course, you're a purist. Then I have nothing to say.

I'm showing my age here

Yup boi.

I've never used 56k modem. Curious now how this tech even plays with Win 10.

I'll have to dig into my old boxes. I may still have my old 56K modem (I don't remember what I did to it). I had a real one (connected via serial port).

In large cities this stuff isn't really used anymore but if I was in a really remote area, I'm sure it'd be quite useful. If I remember correctly, you can establish a network connection between two machines over the phone. It's not just for connecting to Internet.