After a one year run, how's the W520 holding up? Would you..

[vtohthree]

Has it been pretty solid, are the bugs* fixed? If you could do it again(well not factoring in tomorrow's releases, ie: W530, etc.), would you still choose the W520?

What's there to know? I recall some issues with fan noise, overhearting, and PSU problems(but that was solved with a bigger power brick, if I'm not mistaken).

I know/understand not all releases are perfect, but I've been eye-balling the W520 and the Dell Precision M4600 for a while. As an avid Thinkpad user I'm still leaning towards it.

I'm coming from a T500... 8GB's just won't cut it for me..among other things, though it's been very solid, very reliable.

[geoffrey]

I actually just got a W520, with Core i7, SSD and the best quality screen. It's the quietest, coolest, fastest machine I've ever had, but bear in mind that I was coming from a T60p (I wish I could have had the T60p extremely high density display with this machine, but I got the next best thing). Also bear in mind that I don't use it for gaming, but more for general office work plus video encoding. I also love the battery life of this machine -- 5-6 hours on the 6-cell and 9-10 on the 9-cell (I got both).

Bugs I noticed on Win7 Pro 64bit, having installed all the latest updates from Lenovo:

* The mouse pointer would arbitrarily freeze on a regular basis for a few seconds, giving the impression the machine had locked up. On further investigation it turned out that it was an issue with the mouse pointer, and more specifically with the interaction between the touchpad and the trackpoint. The problem continued even after I turned off the touchpad (which I never use) in the Lenovo software. So I turned off the touchpad in the BIOS, and problem solved (so far, no recurrence).

* The hotkeys software seems to hang from time to time, especially after resuming from sleep. Several times I have been unable to change the screen brightness using Fn-Home/End keys after resume. I've had to reboot to solve the problem. Seems strange that Lenovo would still be issuing buggy software when Win7 is very mature and about to be replaced by Win8.

But that's all. Hardware wise, this thing is amazing. I can't hear the fan unless I put my ear right against the vent. And it only becomes slightly noticeable, as a whisper in the background, if I stress the machine's CPU or GPU. It feels fast and responsive on battery. The screen brightness is "painful" on full (indoors), so I keep it on about 8 or 9 (out of 15) for indoor use. Love the new one-swipe way of starting the machine from off or sleep. You just swipe the fingerprint reader and the machine turns on, logs in the passwords, loads up Windows and logs into my account. Don't even need to press the on button...

Oh, one downer is the enormous size of the power brick (175W), and brick is the word. On another thread we're trying to find out how to get a 90W adapter to work with it (currently it runs off the battery if you plug in a 90W, and will only charge the machine if it's asleep or off). Someone has had success by splicing the 175W tip onto a 90W adapter. Obviously this is for light use only.

[WA2SI]

I bought my W520 in early Sept. 2011 and haven't experienced a single hardware/firmware related glitch yet. The machine is well built and, to be honest, quite a bargain if you add the SSD and additional RAM as aftermarket items. The icing on the cake would be if I can upgrade my i7-2820QM with an Ivy Bridge CPU. We'll see, I suppose, as some say yes while others say no.

Sent from my ADR6400L using Tapatalk 2

[vtohthree]

Thanks guys. I appreciate the feedback and sharing your experiences.

That's interesting about the trackpoint/trackpad glitch. I agree..seems rather strange for Lenovo to not have that down when they seemed to have nailed it with their other systems in the past using Windows 7...perhaps something with the chipset. I switch off using the trackpoint and the track pad... I used to love the trackpoint, but I have carpal tunnel...and it really messes up my wrists and forearm to use it for a prolonged period of time.

I plan on using the system for some coding, video rendering, and server testing. I don't game, but I admit I wanted to try SC2 at some point...but that's a side note. I'm sure the W520 has more than enough power to handle it, I'd get the i7 quad variant, and considering the nvidia 2000.

Was just hoping the W520 would be reliable, durable, and relatively cool+quiet...if possible. Before delving into it.

[zsero]

The 1 sec freeze what you are talking about is intentional. What it does it that if you are using the trackpoint, then it disables the trackpad for cca. 1 second to avoid accidental clicking with your palm. It's quite annoying for some, but at least we should know that it's intentionally implemented this way. You can fix it by uninstalling the Lenovo touchpad driver.

[Kaze22]

Rocking the extreme quad with msata ssd and 32gb ram, its been pretty good.
But occassionally, i get memory stuttering issues when under heavy load.

[zsero]

Rocking the extreme quad with msata ssd and 32gb ram, its been pretty good.
But occassionally, i get memory stuttering issues when under heavy load.

Are you sure it's not because of UEFI?

[Kaze22]

Don't think so, I have uefi on both my x220t and w520.

[zsero]

Don't think so, I have uefi on both my x220t and w520.

Yes, but not with this much RAM, I'm sure

[Kaze22]

No first time with this much ram.

[vtohthree]

Anyone else experience this too? With 32GB of ram? That's one of the main reasons for me to get this machine... I'm limited to 8GB's on a C2D.

[zsero]

I'm quite sure it won't happen, there are lot of people using this machine with 32GB ram with absolutely no problems. There could be many other things why Kaze might experience such things, for example because of using mSATA SSD, or a bad virus scanner or a driver or anything else.

[jdrou]

Had mine 9 months and I'm happy with it. 8 GB DDR3-1600 RAM (the Kingston HyperX 2x4GB kit). Still has the original 320 GB disk right now but I have a 750 GB hybrid I'll swap in one of these days. Maybe mSATA down the road.

[KelleyW]

Had to wait to get this last April, as the new chips weren't in it yet. This is my fifth T'pad since the mid-90s, my main machine.
i7-2820QM, 8G, Win7 64-bit, 500G HD

Small issue: every once in a great while, it completely loses sound output. Reboot corrects it. Maybe happened three times in a year.

Big issue: does NOT play nice with an external monitor.

First: Connected w/ VGA to a 27" 16x9 format monitor, the Nvidia control panel can extend my display across both monitors, both at 1920x1080, but Win 7 keeps reminding me that it can do this even after I've done it. I have to 'agree' rather than cancel to get the notices to stop. Afterwards, all is well, very stable,

Next: Wanted to set external up as the primary, close the Tpad's lid, and tuck it at the back of my desk. Mind you, I'm connecting through the VGA connector.
1) Only way to set it up so it can reboot using only the external monitor is to set the Boot in the Bios to use the VGA output (because it's the only other one allowed). But this only allows 1600x1200 (?) which is a 4x3 format. This looks like crap on a 16x9 27" monitor.

I tried it connected this way, but without the change to Bios. Instead, I set "desktop on Monitor '2' only", which blanked out the laptop screen. And when I closed the lid, that blanked out the external monitor. Neither came back when the lid was reopened, so I couldn't make any setting changes. Had to reboot.

Like I said, does not play nice with external monitor...otherwise, this box rocks.

If anyone has a solution (other than 'buy a docking station') let me know.

[zsero]

Had to wait to get this last April, as the new chips weren't in it yet. This is my fifth T'pad since the mid-90s, my main machine.
i7-2820QM, 8G, Win7 64-bit, 500G HD

Small issue: every once in a great while, it completely loses sound output. Reboot corrects it. Maybe happened three times in a year.

Big issue: does NOT play nice with an external monitor.

First: Connected w/ VGA to a 27" 16x9 format monitor, the Nvidia control panel can extend my display across both monitors, both at 1920x1080, but Win 7 keeps reminding me that it can do this even after I've done it. I have to 'agree' rather than cancel to get the notices to stop. Afterwards, all is well, very stable,

Next: Wanted to set external up as the primary, close the Tpad's lid, and tuck it at the back of my desk. Mind you, I'm connecting through the VGA connector.
1) Only way to set it up so it can reboot using only the external monitor is to set the Boot in the Bios to use the VGA output (because it's the only other one allowed). But this only allows 1600x1200 (?) which is a 4x3 format. This looks like crap on a 16x9 27" monitor.

I tried it connected this way, but without the change to Bios. Instead, I set "desktop on Monitor '2' only", which blanked out the laptop screen. And when I closed the lid, that blanked out the external monitor. Neither came back when the lid was reopened, so I couldn't make any setting changes. Had to reboot.

Like I said, does not play nice with external monitor...otherwise, this box rocks.

If anyone has a solution (other than 'buy a docking station') let me know.

Do not ever ever ever ever connect an LCD over VGA. That standard should have disappeared decades ago. Just use the latest nVidia drives + a DP link cable or DP->DVI adapter and everything would work absolutely perfectly! VGA cable to a 27" LCD, it must be a joke!

[cros]

* The hotkeys software seems to hang from time to time, especially after resuming from sleep. Several times I have been unable to change the screen brightness using Fn-Home/End keys after resume. I've had to reboot to solve the problem. Seems strange that Lenovo would still be issuing buggy software when Win7 is very mature and about to be replaced by Win8.

I often have the same problem on my X61 with Win7.

I guess it's an ACPI issue, but I don't know whether it's the BIOS, hotkey driver or Win7.

In any case, closing and reopening the screen (with the machine on - only works if not set to sleep on close) brings the hotkeys back to life.

[jdrou]

Do not ever ever ever ever connect an LCD over VGA.

Unless of course it's a cheaper/older LCD that has no digital connection available.
I also had lots of problems trying to connect a widescreen LCD through VGA port on other computers (never tried it on the W520). It mostly worked but there were issues like getting it to use the full screen resolution on boot.

[davidhbrown]

In general, I've been pretty happy with the W520. Having the mSATA SSD available for booting / apps is great.

Thermal management can be a little tricky as I've mentioned elsewhere. I created a power plan that disables turbo boost to get me through a long render queue in Premiere/Adobe Media Encoder to avoid hitting the thermal limit when docked.

The Optimus NVIDIA+Intel has been a mixed bag. Premiere won't start under Optimus mode if I'm not docked with external monitors. Gets confused about the GPU, I think; bug report submitted to Adobe. Docked in Discrete mode, I can have only two active displays -- can pick any two from my external monitors and the notebook's screen. In Optimus mode, Intel handles the built-in display while NVIDIA gets my two docked monitors. (Connected via DVI-D.) Haven't tried the connections on the notebook itself.

I'm having this weird random issue where for no apparent reason, the two external monitors suddenly disconnect, moving all windows to the notebook's main screen. I can go back to the Screen Resolution control panel (or just press Windows-P) and turn the monitors on again right away, but it's fairly annoying. I suppose it could be a mechanical dock issue, but the Ethernet, eSATA HDD, and USB devices aren't complaining.

[zsero]

In general, I've been pretty happy with the W520. Having the mSATA SSD available for booting / apps is great.

Thermal management can be a little tricky as I've mentioned elsewhere. I created a power plan that disables turbo boost to get me through a long render queue in Premiere/Adobe Media Encoder to avoid hitting the thermal limit when docked.

The Optimus NVIDIA+Intel has been a mixed bag. Premiere won't start under Optimus mode if I'm not docked with external monitors. Gets confused about the GPU, I think; bug report submitted to Adobe. Docked in Discrete mode, I can have only two active displays -- can pick any two from my external monitors and the notebook's screen. In Optimus mode, Intel handles the built-in display while NVIDIA gets my two docked monitors. (Connected via DVI-D.) Haven't tried the connections on the notebook itself.

I'm having this weird random issue where for no apparent reason, the two external monitors suddenly disconnect, moving all windows to the notebook's main screen. I can go back to the Screen Resolution control panel (or just press Windows-P) and turn the monitors on again right away, but it's fairly annoying. I suppose it could be a mechanical dock issue, but the Ethernet, eSATA HDD, and USB devices aren't complaining.

Have you tried clean installing the latest nVidia drivers?
http://www.nvidia.com/object/quadro-not ... river.html

[davidhbrown]

Thanks for the link, zsero... I have been reluctant to move away from the Lenovo-supplied driver package because of the need to keep Intel and NVIDIA playing nice with each other. But I'm actually at a good point to risk playing with alternate drivers right now, so I'd been thinking I might give it a try. Hopefully I don't blow things up

If anyone else is trying this, there's also a nice Intel Driver Update page which auto-detected that the wifi/ethernet software was also out-of-date along with the graphics driver.

[zsero]

Thanks for the link, zsero... I have been reluctant to move away from the Lenovo-supplied driver package because of the need to keep Intel and NVIDIA playing nice with each other. But I'm actually at a good point to risk playing with alternate drivers right now, so I'd been thinking I might give it a try. Hopefully I don't blow things up

If anyone else is trying this, there's also a nice Intel Driver Update page which auto-detected that the wifi/ethernet software was also out-of-date along with the graphics driver.

Thanks for the Intel link, I didn't know about it! For nVidia, you can trust them, their official drivers are very reliable. Just tick "Clean installation" when installing, and it'll be ok.

[davidhbrown]

Just tick "Clean installation" when installing, and it'll be ok.

So far, so good Awfully hard to tell whether a randomly occurring problem has gone away, but I'll try to remember to post/update if it doesn't rear its ugly single head after a week. Not wanting to completely hijack the thread topic, though...

UPDATE: The monitors did blink black for a moment and I thought it was about to collapse to just the internal like before... but a few blinks later, all three came back with all the windows where I left them. So, it hasn't completely eliminated the glitch, but it is much improved.

Update #2, just in case anyone ever searches for something similar... with the drivers I downloaded from NVIDIA, Adobe Media Encoder was mangling some of the more memory-intensive renders. I tried reinstalling the software, reopening an old file with the same sequence that had rendered okay... no improvement. Went back to Lenovo's latest and it rendered okay. And promptly disconnected my external monitors. Sight. I guess I'll get used to that.

Has anyone found a compelling use for the ExpressCard slot? Seems like most of the things you can usually get for it -- Gigabit Ethernet, eSATA, USB 3.0, FireWire, flash reader -- already are included in the machine itself. Other options -- audio, TV, serial ports -- seem to be done more commonly by USB. I guess it has a little more potential than the Wireless USB in my T61p

Would be really cool if someone made an ExpressCard to mSATA flash drive adapter. If it can do eSATA, it should be able to handle this. There are a couple ExpressCard flash drives, but they are generally slow, low capacity, and about $7/GB(!).

[zsero]

Would be really cool if someone made an ExpressCard to mSATA flash drive adapter. If it can do eSATA, it should be able to handle this. There are a couple ExpressCard flash drives, but they are generally slow, low capacity, and about $7/GB(!).

That ExpressCard slot is the best part of the whole laptop! You can connect a desktop videocard to that slot!
http://forum.notebookreview.com/e-gpu-e ... ences.html

[Kaze22]

That expesscard can be used for a soundcard or a rendering io unit like a Matrox or a Red Rocket.
I wouldn't waste it on an external gpu, since the Quadro 2k is already pretty fast.

[ausmike]

Hi everyone;
I have good experiances (well lets not talk about USA Tech Support etc) in general - its OK GRADE

1) Took lenovo 4 different times to get the Inital Order to me due to incorrect config etc ...RAID missing, two diff HDs shipped , Office missing ,, blah blah ,, etc etc ,,,,?
2) )nce I finally got the personal machine - FHD was pure delight to watch ( have had IPS TP for long time)
3) XM pro + Raid + FHD - was upgraded to 32GB (long before anyone else (think at that time those chips werent for public release even and intel's 600GB SSD) and 750GB Hybrid drives with various Combo config etc ,,, machine was jsut mainly 'play box' at home.
4) Also tried Linux and OSX with Win7X64 ...-few issues with non win OS -but never had one issue - rock solid ! most 'necessary things worked' ....

Lastly ; I think was lucky enough to work for company that often gets free-bee from Lenovo & Intel to do some of the B/testing etc.. with TP + SSD's .. Often able to load "trillion rows" of data in SQL DB , and machine does get tad warm ! , but never dies like other laptops with same/as close setups !

My only peeve = NO HDMI - for easy connect to HDTV/Displays for ppts (business use)

Cheers

[sethstorm]

Generally good, but only for there not being a peer to the W520. If I had to do it all over again, I'd avoid the dock.

I'd recommend the W520 for as long as they'll sell them new despite the issues - the W530 is no Thinkpad.


Bad side:
Suffers from the lingchi that the Lenovo folks have afflicted on the Thinkpad platform.
Multiple screen glitches that don't seem to follow to external heads (large picture link):
https://twitter.com/#!/sethstorm/status ... to/1/large

Good side:
Doesn't mind the hotter ST9750420AS that's in it.
Does quite well for a Virtual Machine box on the go - especially one that has long battery life.

[sysiphus]

Generally good, but only for there not being a peer to the W520.

Why would you rule out the HP 8560w or Dell M4600 as peers? Labels/case designs aside, they seem rather similar, with the same chipsets/processors/graphics available?

[sethstorm]

Why would you rule out the HP 8560w or Dell M4600 as peers? Labels/case designs aside, they seem rather similar, with the same chipsets/processors/graphics available?

Service plans, feature sets, and expense. $3000 is about my target price, and HP/Dell cannot deliver at that price.

The closest equivalent configuration for the Dell to my w520 was $500-1000 more, including the IPS display. That, and I've been burned with Dell's support once too many times.
The closest equivalent configuration for the HP 8560w was about the same, but slightly less than the Dell. In addition, it has the chiclet keyboard and lower battery life.

You have to all but ignore price to consider them as peers.

[ausmike]

... $3000 is about my target price, and HP/Dell cannot deliver at that price.

...was $500-1000 more, including the IPS display. That, and I've been burned with Dell's support once too many times. ....

IMHO... the 15.4 inch = is well worth lane the money for IPS SCREEN !!
((we have a couple of that config --- just to compare with Current W520))

Most all the testers ( teckies and bean counters included) have had "much better then W520"....
FHD screen compared to HP's-IPS (15inch 16:9) is close 2nd in my view !
Rest of configs including RAID and RAM ( both have 32GB) etc etc ,,,, seems pretty much on par.

(wish I was ALLOWED to take pictures of two side by side!! the powers of be WOULDNT LET ME TAKE IT!)

Only MAJOR BENEFIT for us/me = TP has World Wide Warranty - and they not too bad when u compare EASYSERVE to rest of other Mfg's offerings..

cheers

[wolfman]

I would pay a premium for an IPS panel, but $500 is way too much in my opinion. I would be hard pressed to pay much more than $50-$100.