Lenovo W701ds with Lenovo 230W adapter - Reduced Performance

[shidevil]

bladesan so u will have turboboost enabled using 90W?

[GALVAOL]

tested and it actually puts away the VERY slow behavior, however it still does cut down the processor to lowest if you go to the advanced and check the settings. If you move the processing power back to maximum it will give about 80%-90% of the processing power, but will still have some freezes... Now I have put it to adaptative and it is working acceptably. Not a perfect solution, but definitly better than before.

[BMGRAHAM]

Yes, as long as it comes with an airplane adapter too.  This whole issue is very troublesome as it's preventing me from working efficiently on an airplane with the 90W air adapter I have.   Unfortunately nobody seems to make a 135W air adapter.

[PanEuropean]

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BMGRAHAM wrote:  Unfortunately nobody seems to make a 135W air adapter.

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I think that aircraft adapters that are designed to plug into a proprietary outlet on an aircraft are becoming obsolete.  Most major aircraft manufacturers now provide an outlet accepting a standard North American or European plug that delivers 110 volts.  Last week I flew from Singapore to Canada (via Europe), and all three aircraft that I travelled on (A380, A340, B767) had standard domestic outlets at each seat.

Having said that... I work in the engineering department of an aircraft manufacturer, and when I was tasked to do a flight compartment upgrade on the aircraft we manufacture, I specified a 14 volt outlet (car style cigarette lighter socket) that was capable of providing 90 watts.  Although the primary use foreseen for this outlet was charging phones and portable radios, I specified 90 watts so that I could plug my W500 into it.  Now, I have a W520, and I can't plug the darn thing into the outlet that I did the specifications for!

Grrrr....    But I guess I only have myself to blame for this.

Michael

[BMGRAHAM]

Michael

Funny story!

I fly mostly American, and most of their planes have the cigarette lighter style adapters.

[apeg]

100% performance on a 90w! thanks SUN

if you install "Intel(R) Turbo Boost Technology Monitor 2.0" its very clear what the problem is:

- on battery you get a max of 1.6 GHZ

- on 135w power supply you get what’s called "turbo" that takes you up to 1.73 GHZ

- but on a 90w (after being pushed) the CPU stays in "Energy Saver" mode, i dont know the GHZ but its much less than 1.6

http://sunhongyi.outuo.net/w510/2.jpg

http://sunhongyi.outuo.net/w510/1.jpg

Once you do the wire trick SUN posted the 90w power supply works EXACTLY like the 135w, I am unable to notice ANY difference between the two (perhaps batter charge time?) but even then my battery is charging just fine. I have some soldering experience but the method I used is very simple:

1. Cut a small piece of wire like in the pictures posted by SUN
2. Away from the laptop dab a little solder on each end of the little wire (coat the exposed wire tip, don’t blob)
3. Now take the wire (cold) and pull the blue/black wire in the picture a little back giving you space to jam the end of the new wire in (no heat required yet)
4. It should be nice and snug, all you have to do now is press the iron up to each wire, that will melt the little solder you had on there right to the bracket. And you are done!

In my mind this is an issue that should have been fixed via bios the day of release, it’s clearly a problem with 90w keeping the CPU in saver mode for no reason. This is the last Lenovo product I will be purchasing, what’s the point of these fancy power controls if it comes at a HUGE cost of performance. At a minimum if they really cared they would have released a slim 135w power supply, the entire point of a laptop is portability and the current 135w brick does not cut it.

This isn’t a budget laptop, this is (at time of purchase) top of the line… and when im paying top of the line prices I expect cr*p like this not to be a problem.

good luck,

-aPeg

[sscanf]

I have been suffering with the 90W PS problem and I was about to throw this W510 into the dumpster. I gave this mod a try and it turned my pig into a screamer. Thanks!

[donkracho]

And still.. theres a better way.

I did the same mod from sun. (short-circuit both cables, thank you for that idea SUN!) In the battery-manager it now recognizes the 135W power source, even if the 90W is plugged in.

What did i do different?

I didn't change anything at the computer!

I measured a lot with my multimeter and found out, that the small pin in the (135W)connector is connected to mass with ~0,1Ohms. (That is about the resistance of the cable....)

When testing the 90W adapter, the resistance was infinity. (no connection!)

So i opened the Lenovo-tip of the 90W adapter. And i was nearly shocked. The middle pin of the connector is not even soldered to the circuit board! And on the circuit board inside the Lenovotip there is already a conductive path to mass!

you only have to:

1. open carefully the (deconnected!) tip (not really easy, but you can buy a new one pretty cheap if you failed...)

2. solder the tip to the board

3. solder together the bridge on the circuit board to mass

4. check all pins for right connectivity and test with a multimeter if there are any short circuits!!!

5. put together the plastic of the tip

I give no guarantee for working!

For the pros: The "bridge" on the circuit is probably for a resistor in (pretty small) SMD! Perhaps someone can try several values and look if the notebook recognizes a 90W adapter without freezing the machine.

[ColonelONeill]

I wonder if this works on the W520...

Don't particularly want to blow out an adapter though.

[blazing_grey]

I just did this mod today, and I can confirm that it successfully charged my W520 from a completely drained battery (enough to make the machine emergency shutdown) to 100%, while I was using it to do Java development. I was using a 90W adapter from my T400, which got warmish, but seems fine now (it's powering the T400 I'm using to post this just fine).

When I have a little more time I'll try and post back with a pictorial guide to what I found.

Thanks for trailblazing donkracho, you saved me falling a day behind on my work project.

-Leander