Does the case of the W700 become hot after long term use?

I usually leave my computer on all day. Does the area in front of the keyboard of the W700 become hot after being on for a long time? Is the fan on it loud? I did read the review on NBR of the W700 but wanted other opinions.

I am considering the P8700 processor.

 

I haven't seen it getting hot on the W700 we have at sites, which are left on 24/7 in the design office. The p8700 is only 25 watt TDP.... which doesn't get hot even in a T400.... also i remember that W700 have two or three independent fan working to cool the laptop innards....

Considering the CPU you want in the W700 this will be a none issue. The fan would probably be off for half of the time you idle the laptop.

 

I'd only be worried about heat if you had the quad core Extreme and the Quadro FX 3700 GPU. Both of those can throw out a lot of heat when under high load.

With the P8700 and the lower GPU option I doubt it would get even remotely hot.

 

Thanks guys. What if I were to get a T9600 or T9900?

Would that impact the heat?

If I am just surfing the internet and using Word, would I notice a big difference in performance?

Is there a big difference in these CPU benchmarks?

P8700> 1,778
T9600 1,957
T9900> > 2326,

 

T9xxx only put out 35 w of power, not much... even a X61 could handle it with their small heatsink and fan....

The benefit of T9xxx over P8xxx is that it has 6 mb of L2 cache versuses 3 mb of L2 cache. Also, if you are worried about heat output you could get the P9xxx series of CPU with 6 mb of L2, and 25 w to 28 w of TDP, but if i am you i would just get the slowest T9xxx, since you would benefit more from L2 cache then a few more mhz...

Also, these CPU benchmarks are not representative of the real life usage.

 

Alright, I'll be the one to ask. If you're just surfing the internet and using Word why is the w700 your first choice. It's a bit overkill for those things unless you really want the 17" WUXGA dispaly.

 

I want the display and I want to be able to carry it around if necessary.

I want the small footprint.

I was thinking about the Lenovo all in ones, but the fan is loud on those and they don't have great processors.

 

Talk about an ultimate desktop replacement machine.... if you are using for these light apps, then just go with a P8xxx CPU and mid range GPU, this should cut down the cost significantly.

 

Not exactly a small foot print...

 

I was thinking similar to you, but went for W500 instead, as I also wanted the option of total silence. The W700 does not have switchable graphics, so you have to use the quite powerful dedicated gpu all the time. For word processing and web surfing etc the W500's integrated gpu is ample, and cuts power and heat in half compared to the sole gpu in the W700 or the switchable-to dedicated gpu in the W500. With a SDD, and using the integrated gpu, the W500's fan almost never comes on. Utterly silent. With a powerful dedicated gpu, the fan does have to be on a fair bit, even with an SDD - though the fans are quiet, the result is not silence- but then you also need a SSD also for that. Perhaps the quiet sound of the fan and the quiet sound of an HDD might just cancel each other out?... and the W700 would be an awesome general purpose machine!

 

What would be 'bigger' (A.K.A. wider), a W700 with its 17" panel versus a 16:9 16" laptop. One of these days I had in my hands a 16" Satellite 16:9 which was very wide compared to my 'tiny' 4:3 Thinkpad.

 

The only issue is not getting a 17 inch monitor. I wanted that.

I am surprised you say that the W500 fan never runs. We have a Dell with an integrated gpu and low end processor, and the case can get warm.

I am looking at the W500s on the Lenovo website, and there is nothing mentioned about about switchable graphics in any of the configurations. It says dedicated.

What is the HDD you are referring to?

I wasn't clear. I meant compared to a desktop.

 

1) The W500/T500 family has excellent thermal properties - perhaps better than the Dell you have observed? I would think it is more accurate to say it "almost" never runs. Not in "normal" use, but some operations do seem to create more heat, even with a SDD, forcing the fan to come on briefly. Not anywhere near in the case of using the dedicated gpu or when using a conventional spinning hard disk.
2) W500 definitely has 2 gpu's - an integrated and a dedicated - and they are switchable on the fly in vista. I use the integrated gpu (intel) 99% of the time. When i do heavy graphics work, I switch to the big dedicated gpu.
3) By "HDD" I mean any internal 2.5" hard disk drive, rather than a SDD. A HDD is mechanical, and makes some sound, at least. A SDD is non-mechanical, and is silent - as well as making less heat. Moving from even a quiet HDD to an SDD on these things is a very noticeable change, in performance, acoustics, and thermally.
4) I too would love the W700's 17" WUXGA, but finally went for the W500. There are compromizes in each case. If I could get a W700 with switchable gpu's I would have gone down the W700 path, definitely! Maybe the next 17" Thinkpad line will have it! And hopefully an LED screen...
5)The W700 is thermally markedly superior to the W500, according to figures I have seen, as Dell 17" notebooks generally are compared to their 15" sisters. But that overall better coolness has to be considered in relation to the always-running-gpu being powerful, and therefore runs hot. What a machine the W700 would be for business use if one could switch the big gpu off when not needed....

But if you really want 17" screen of the W700; if you are going to use the dedicated gpu most of the time anyway; then by all means go for it! The 17" WUXGA has twice the backlighting of the 15.4" WUXGA; so is twice as bright; must be some screen! For heavy graphical work, and the dedicated gpu running, the W700 should be cooler and quieter than the W500 using its dedicated gpu, all other things being equal.

So I guess the answer to the initial question about how hot the W700 case will get with long-term use, is that, with some fanning, not very hot at all, compared to most laptops - and even the W500- and the cooler the cpu and the gpu and the storage drive choices, the cooler and quieter the W700 will be with long use. These beasts are designed to cope with heat very very well.

 

Great information. Thank you. I am going to think about it for a few days and make my decision.

 

I just contacted Lenovo. They told me that the W700 is switchable as well.

Are they wrong?

http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/...-category-id=95F811B4EF37447BAA6A66969FB312CF

They told me any system that has discrete graphics is also switchable.

 

I think the Lenovo rep is wrong, but you should ask CrunchDude (he has a w700).