New owner of w520

[Masi_K]

Hello.
I'm probably shifting over from my current T61 to W520. I've having it here for test and I ran to two issues. Is either gma hd or quaddro 1000m capable of running youtube etc at 1080p @ 60hz? This unit has a lot of issues. Intel side plays only first seconds of the video, but sound plays along nicely.. When I force quaddro to be the only gpu from nvidia panel videos starts to play but pretty far from perfect. Every ads what comes to screen every now and then jerks framerate badly. Sometimes I even get picture issues in video and not anywhere else on screen. But when everything goes okay from the beginning of the video, it starts to play it more evenly. But it is still not the same smoothness what I got on my desktop pc wich has a lot of more gpu.

Second issue is with the windows sticker under battery. It is branded to Lenovo and microsoft didn't allow me to download oem software. What to do? I somehow guessing that mentioned video issues is related to this for selling purpose windows 7 install.

Installed newest optimus drivers what lenovo site has to offer. With them I'm at this stage.

W520 is 4276

[Tasurinchi]

My guess the issue is due to under optimized OS install/gpu drivers.

I have two T520 with Intel only GPU's and both play FHD videos without a single issue, one with Win7 Pro (using Windows drivers) and the other with Debian Jessie.

My W510 with Nvidia GPU (an older generation than yours) and Debian Jessie has also no issues playing FHD movies and FHD trailers from Youtube.

All three machines have FHD panels.

[RealBlackStuff]

Driver-problems are most likely.
Also do a proper memtest of the RAM. http://www.memtest.org/
As for W7, get a set of Lenovo's W7-Pro 64-bit Recovery Disks.
Either buy from Lenovo (~$50) or put a WTB in our Marketforum.

[TPFanatic]

You may find that Youtube's HTML 5 player is the source of choppy framerate and poor playback. I had this annoying issue, I needed to use my T500's Radeon graphics to get only 720. It seemed wrong so I did some research. With T500's graphics,

Intel GMA 4500:
- HTML 5 player is choppy in full screen, any quality.
- Runs smoothly only in small window

ATI Radeon 3650:
- HTML 5 player is choppy in 1080, any screen size
- Runs up to 720 smoothly


I don't know what's the correct way to do it, I installed a Firefox addon to use Youtube's Adobe Flash player and now both GMA 4500 and Radeon 3650 play 1080 videos, full screen, as they are advertised to do.

Youtube (and the rest of the web) love making not-the-latest-and-the-greatest computers look slow.

[brchan]

Use chrome for watching youtube and media content (including html5). This gave me the single biggest improvement in performance. Don't know why, but Firefox is just much choppier. In fact, only on single core systems does firefox seem to be more responsive. If you haven't already, set the power mode to 'performance' and update gpu drivers.

[Masi_K]

Oh yes! we were all right about faulty windows and or driver install. I managed to install fresh, genuine and clean win10 from usb stick.
Now html5 works great even with intel 3000 chip. It doesn't even get hot anymore when idle and doing basic stuff.

This leads me to another question. I'm trying to color calibrate integrated display. Colors are truly over bright. I can not achieve gamma 2.2. It is alvays way off. No matter what I do. Is there some setting to it ? Black level, white saturation and contrast are good. Atleast to this gamma level.

As of test material. I use this http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/

[ajkula66]

There are several profiles for these panels floating the web, I remember some of them being posted on Lenovo Forum as well as on NBR.

You could start a new thread in this section asking about a calibrated profile, someone around here is bound to have it.

Good luck.

[Tasurinchi]

There are some profiles on the German Wiki, scroll down to the end of this page

[Masi_K]

Thank you. Now picture is so much better. Slightly blueish but easily acceptable.

Corrected subject too..

[Tasurinchi]

Slightly blueish but easily acceptable.

I Agree! Still much better than a not calibrated one, the panels I had without calibration were to whitish for my taste.

Corrected subject too..

Congrats! With enough RAM and SSDs this machine will serve you well for years to come!

[Masi_K]

Thanks. It has 16gig ram and I swapped to an ssd when installed win10. Also bought sata ultrabay adapter for the 500gig spinning one.

[theterminator93]

These also have an mSATA slot under the keyboard (assuming you don't have WWAN) for a third storage device. It's limited to SATA-II whereas the 2.5" bay is SATA-III though.

[Pokrzept]

Guys if you want to watch high-definiton content on your older thinkpads I may recommend you installing SMTube+SMPlayer combo available for both windows and linux OS. It also may be configured to run videos directly in VLC player. I do use it on my A31ps and R50p and it work like a charm on such a vintage hardware.

[Masi_K]

These also have an mSATA slot under the keyboard (assuming you don't have WWAN) for a third storage device. It's limited to SATA-II whereas the 2.5" bay is SATA-III though.

Okay. This don't have wwan. That would be nice addon to allready cool machine.


Is there way to make hotkey features work on 64bit win10 ? 8.0 software didn't work (of course. had to try it still).

[Masi_K]

Now after four years. W520 is still going strong I guess. Screen works and it has no faults. Only issues what has only recently arrived are bluetooth module and wifi modules that both started to behave badly when they get warm. Had to buy usb bluetooth module to make sure that either module or MB is getting faulty. Don't know yet what to do with wifi as there is no easily acquire whitelisted bios. Quadro 1000M is useless and I got annoyed by Optimus flicker so I only use IGPU.

[RealBlackStuff]

BIOS V1.43 Whitelist removed, etc.: http://www.mediafire.com/file/dzoxy6h86 ... 19.7z/file

[Shredder11]

I obtained versions 1.45 and 1.46 last year from trusted uploader Serg008 on the MDL forums, and both have WLAN WList check removed + RAM Speed Unlocked.

Lenovo ThinkPad W520_1.45-(8BET65WW)-8buj24us__nWL_RAMunl.rar

https://mega.nz/file/AQYmTbDS#HBTrEB9BV ... i6Ob51SlLM * NEW LINK - PREVIOUS ONE ON MEDIAFIRE EXPIRED


WLAN WList check removed + RAM Speed Unlocked
Lenovo_ThinkPad_W520_1.46-8BET66WW-8buj25us__nWL_RAMunl.rar

https://mega.nz/file/gJZiGA4Z#mHGvc3lQn ... ERHC7x6cfo * NEW LINK - PREVIOUS ONE ON MEDIAFIRE EXPIRED

WLAN WList check removed only
Lenovo_ThinkPad_W520_1.46-%25288BET66WW%2529-8buj25us__nWL.7z

http://www.mediafire.com/file/bd8lralhglw49pl/ LINK DEAD - NEED TO FIND A NEW WORKING SOURCE

[Masi_K]

Wow! I used couple of hours to google this out and found nothing but dead links or money requests. Thanks. I'll try whitelisting after christmas and try intel 7260 out.

[kiterunner]

Hello.
I'm probably shifting over from my current T61 to W520. I've having it here for test and I ran to two issues. Is either gma hd or quaddro 1000m capable of running youtube etc at 1080p @ 60hz? This unit has a lot of issues. Intel side plays only first seconds of the video, but sound plays along nicely.. When I force quaddro to be the only gpu from nvidia panel videos starts to play but pretty far from perfect. Every ads what comes to screen every now and then jerks framerate badly. Sometimes I even get picture issues in video and not anywhere else on screen. But when everything goes okay from the beginning of the video, it starts to play it more evenly. But it is still not the same smoothness what I got on my desktop pc wich has a lot of more gpu.

Second issue is with the windows sticker under battery. It is branded to Lenovo and microsoft didn't allow me to download oem software. What to do? I somehow guessing that mentioned video issues is related to this for selling purpose windows 7 install.

Installed newest optimus drivers what lenovo site has to offer. With them I'm at this stage.

W520 is 4276

1. have you been try to do a clean install? im doing it by myself several months back in my T520 QM and W520, judt download the ISO windows from Google, then use the serial keys behind the battery to activate the OS, and everythinf works like a charm with windows 7 and even 10 pro. ( now im using W10 pro lastest updated in both device and work like a charm )
2. what is the processor on your W520? because my T520 with i7 2860QM, 16GB RAM, 500GB SSD, iHD3000 & Nvidia NVS4200 windows 10 is running perfect for youtube 1080p smooth, even the thermal is under 55C on that load.
Same thing with my W520 i7 2760QM, 16GB RAM, 500GB SSD iHD3000 & K1000 windows 10 lastest update, running smooth for youtube streaming in 1080p calmly under 55C, if i try to stream 4K it will be suddenly load 70C in a heartbeat.

[Masi_K]

1. have you been try to do a clean install? im doing it by myself several months back in my T520 QM and W520, judt download the ISO windows from Google, then use the serial keys behind the battery to activate the OS, and everythinf works like a charm with windows 7 and even 10 pro. ( now im using W10 pro lastest updated in both device and work like a charm )
2. what is the processor on your W520? because my T520 with i7 2860QM, 16GB RAM, 500GB SSD, iHD3000 & Nvidia NVS4200 windows 10 is running perfect for youtube 1080p smooth, even the thermal is under 55C on that load.
Same thing with my W520 i7 2760QM, 16GB RAM, 500GB SSD iHD3000 & K1000 windows 10 lastest update, running smooth for youtube streaming in 1080p calmly under 55C, if i try to stream 4K it will be suddenly load 70C in a heartbeat.

I'll bet that you didn't see first post date.

[Masi_K]

Yeaaaah.

Intel 7260 module works.

Had to move to cable user coz previous module broke totally., Meanwhile Memory card reader driver broke itself or reader broke for some reason. I had some bad thoughts about mobo state just because all of broken modules are at same corner of the motherboard. But so far it looks like it turned okay with new wifi module and physically removing separate bluetooth module.

[Shredder11]

That is good news. So which of the three BIOS updates did you decide to use, or did you use another one from elsewhere?

[Masi_K]

Unfortunately it turned out that module wasn't the fix in long run. I think heat is the problem here. It seems to be that when bottom of the laptop under touchpad gets warm. Then the wifi starts to cut out. In otherwords laptop can be turned on and idle for hours and there is no any issues. But after few youtube videos and normal usage, bottom is heating up and there we go. As we know this unit has failed card reader and failing bluetooth too. Is chipset thermal pad/paste replaceable?

I used 1.46 wlan whitelist only.

[Masi_K]

Went and took it apart. Found nothing wrong. Only little of dust. Thermal goo what was at cpu and gpu cooler was something watery brown goo. Replaced the goo with basic silver thermal paste and it improved cooling significantly. Left off nowadays totally useless modem. I didn't have new thick thermal pad for the chipset. So I just put small amount of paste both side of the pad. Works or not. Lets see what happends. Cpu nor gpu has never been too hot. But 60fps videos causes heat..

[jursky]

Went and took it apart. Found nothing wrong. Only little of dust. Thermal goo what was at cpu and gpu cooler was something watery brown goo. Replaced the goo with basic silver thermal paste and it improved cooling significantly. Left off nowadays totally useless modem. I didn't have new thick thermal pad for the chipset. So I just put small amount of paste both side of the pad. Works or not. Lets see what happends. Cpu nor gpu has never been too hot. But 60fps videos causes heat..

Nothing relevant to the post but I noticed that you are possibly missing a greater-than sign ">" in your signature, just before W520: 600A->T20->T43->T61->W520
:)

[Masi_K]

Nothing relevant to the post but I noticed that you are possibly missing a greater-than sign ">" in your signature, just before W520: 600A->T20->T43->T61->W520

Not anymore.

[Masi_K]

All the issues is fixed by my total dismantle. After that screen brightnes started to vary when using battery only. Windows screen brightness slider doesn't move with it. It is gently move from dimmer to brigter. But it doesn't go any further than what is set. What is this ? This machine shoud not have auto dimmer ?

[Masi_K]

Hello
Desided to install latest Ubuntu to the ssd in ultra bay. I'm not linux guy at all(not included parted magic etc) so this is just for kicks. It works and it boots okay. But what is beyond me is that clock goes haywire every time I change between OS's and usb bluetooth works but I have to re pair devices every time after OS change. Has anyone encountered this ?

Managed even get videos tear free with driver fix via terminal and that was unrefreshing memories from the dos era.

[Masi_K]

Yep..

http://ubuntuhandbook.org/index.php/201 ... indows-10/

[axur-delmeria]

But what is beyond me is that clock goes haywire every time I change between OS's

I know the reason forthis: Linux treats the time in the PC's clock as GMT / UTC, while Windows treats it as local time.
The solution is to have Windows treat it as UTC.

Adapted from https://superuser.com/questions/975717/ ... -bios-time

Create a WIN-UTC.REG file using Notepad with the following content and double-click it to import it into registry:

Code: Select all

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\TimeZoneInformation]
 "RealTimeIsUniversal"=dword:00000001

If the above appears to have no affect, and a 64-bit variant of Windows is being used, using a QWORD value instead of a DWORD value may resolve the issue.