W520 shuts off intermittently, no BSOD or shut down

[harrisb]

Did the CPU get replaced as well as the motherboard or was it just swapped from the previous board? Swapping the memory around might also help.

[biznatch]

Keep calling them and having them send a tech until it gets fixed. I know it's annoying but you can't let them off the hook if the problem is faulty hardware. Ask if they can just replace the entire machine.

[vukicevic]

No idea if the CPU got replaced; I'll definitely call again.  I'm about to leave on a week-long trip, so I'll do some tests while I'm away.

Going to try leaving the bottom two memory bays empty first; then later I'll leave the hard drive bay empty (and use the ultradrive sled), then will try leaving ultradrive empty.  If I still see the problem at least I'll have some more data.

But yes, I'll definitely be arguing for a whole new machine at this point.  Hell, I'd happily pay to upgrade to a w530 too, if they would give me that option.

[Us3r]

Update.

R9xx93A <- repaired
R9xx9AD <- repaired

R9xx9AM <- repaired

 R9xx93C <- new one

[boomer4d]

Just curious, how many here that have been having the sudden shutdown/reboot issue are using an SSD as your primary drive? I was having the problem to the point of trashing the device and saying the hell with it and swapped the SSD that I was running as a primary with an eSATA drive I was using as the secondary and have not had a problem since.

[SR-71]

Im just using the standard 500GB drive from that factory. No eSATA or SSD

[wolfindersteppe]

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boomer4d wrote:

Just curious, how many here that have been having the sudden shutdown/reboot issue are using an SSD as your primary drive? I was having the problem to the point of trashing the device and saying the hell with it and swapped the SSD that I was running as a primary with an eSATA drive I was using as the secondary and have not had a problem since.

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Hard to say for you specific case with SSD as primary drive but in total 18, according to this Please vote: Do you have any issues with your W520? non-representative enquiry.

[vukicevic]

Haven't called Lenovo yet, but so far I've left the bottom two memory slots open and have had no shutdowns in a week.  Before I was having one a day.  I'll call Lenovo this week with that info and see what, if anything, they can do.

I'm using a SSD primary, though I also had some of the shutdowns when I had the SSD in the ultrabay caddy as well.

[Skyhorse]

Just adding my issues to the thread.  My W520 has had the unexpected loss of power about once every two weeks since brand new.  No BSOD ever.  Because it was always at low load, I was often not present and thought perhaps I had turned it off but forgotten about it.

My machine has differences that I think are significant - it runs Win2008R2 server and the barest minimum lenovo drivers.

I contacted Lenovo in Australia and whilst they first wanted me to restore to the factory Win7 install, they agreed without too much fuss to come out which they did and without testing replaced my mainboard.  I think this suggests they are aware of this problem exactly.

I will post up again if this fixes the issue.

[vukicevic]

Update: no shutdowns ever since I left the bottom two memory slots open. I did various workloads that have caused shutdowns almost 100% in the past.

I'm going to call Lenovo, but I'm also going to replace the two DIMMs in the top slots with the two that are now sitting out for the next few days -- just in case it's a physical issue with one of the DIMMs that I've taken out.