Thinkpads Forum

I recently read a review that the W510 will not perform as well if you use a power adaptor brick of less than 135W.

I have two questions:

1) Is this an accurate statement?
2) Independently of this, if I use a ThinkPad MiniDock Series 3 (the Plus model or the regular one) will I have performance issues due to the power adaptor?

Thanks for any inisghts you can provide.

According to thinkwiki:

The W510 ships with a large (nearly doubled size of the 90W version) 135W power supply. However, it is possible to plug 90W power supplies, but they get rather warm. Upon boot there's a notification message, that a power supply with reduced performance is connected. Note: In order to avoid overloading the weaker power supply, the CPU is throttled drastically and usually does not go above 400 Mhz.

Regarding the dock, the Plus model ships with a 135w adapter so there shouldn't be an issue there. I would imagine that a 90w adapter attached to a dock would yield the same results as above, if not worse since you're also powering extra ports.

To Superego. Great! Thanks for your insights. That's exactly what I needed. It sounds like I shouldn't have any performance problems as long as I use the adaptors that come with the units. Thanks again.

I use my W510 with both adapters and have found little to no difference in performance. I use the slim 90watt adapter in the field and other than the warning upon boot, you will be hard pressed to find a difference.

I use both Photoshop and AutoCad and see no difference but I am sure if you are pushing the envelope, there might be a difference. I know my 90watt slim adapter surely gets a lot warmer.

Greg:
Thanks for the info. That's helpful as well. I will push it but not to the extent that I think it would affect perforamnce based on what you are saying. Thanks again!

jfguerrap wrote:I recently read a review that the W510 will not perform as well if you use a power adaptor brick of less than 135W.

Thanks for any inisghts you can provide.

Just my experience, and I realize I'm a power user, but I found using the 90w adapters completely unbearable. My old machine that I was replacing seemed to perform better -- what I often would do is just yank the 90w adapter, and run off battery as that seemed to be faster than running on a 90w.

I never did benchmark anything, but video playback was noticeably sluggish (easily < 10 FPS), sometimes scrolling windows and such was very slow as well.

So, getting add't 135w adapters, despite their size, was necessary, unfortunately.

I found on the lenovo forum, some hint in regards to turbo mode and battery which I can reproduce on my machine.

1) Starting up the machine on battery disables the turbo mode. I do not get maximum performance with this condition
2) A reboot (real reboot from windows) will enable the turbo mode with battery and also with 90W adapter

I am using the intel turbo mode gadget to display the setting.
So I am able to get full performance on a 90W adapter, and the adapter does not get too hot as well.

Wolfgang

I tried the reboot option (Option 2 above) with an Ultraslim 90 watt adaptor & can confirm that the W510 operates at virtually full performance.

I tried the reboot option with an Ultraslim 90W adapter as well and could not get my W510 to operate at full performance.

What is the exact protocol to get the W510 + 90W adapter to work?

~David

Wow I know this topic is really old but is it possible to make the cpu throttle to 400mhz?

Seems we have a Necromancer on our hands.

I have never seen my 720QM go below 933MHz so I feel pretty confident saying that no, it won't go any lower then 933MHz.

Why all the strange questions? what are you trying to do?

Superego wrote:According to thinkwiki:

The W510 ships with a large (nearly doubled size of the 90W version) 135W power supply. However, it is possible to plug 90W power supplies, but they get rather warm. Upon boot there's a notification message, that a power supply with reduced performance is connected. Note: In order to avoid overloading the weaker power supply, the CPU is throttled drastically and usually does not go above 400 Mhz.

Regarding the dock, the Plus model ships with a 135w adapter so there shouldn't be an issue there. I would imagine that a 90w adapter attached to a dock would yield the same results as above, if not worse since you're also powering extra ports.

No, there are eight versions of the "plus" dock:
with eSata, w/o adapter
with eSata, with 90 W adapter
with eSata, with 135 W adapter
with eSata, with 170 W adapter
with USB3.0, w/o adapter
with USB3.0, with 90 W adapter
with USB3.0, with 135 W adapter
with USB3.0, with 170 W adapter

And for all I know there are some more versions, having to do with the keyed power connector for the 170W adapter; as far as I know some supplied with 135W adapter have that keyed connector while others (still with 135 W adapter) dont.

In the end, if you ever end up with a 170W adapter and need to get rid of the "keys" in the adapter tip: use a security torx bit #35 and then #40 to "drill" them out.