How long should I keep my W520 running?

Reasonably speaking, is it worth it to keep fixing it until forever? So far, I use it a lot on road trips but sparingly at home. Occasionally it will just quit...screen goes dark...it shuts down. Maybe a cpu overheating? It needs a new battery but I use it plugged in mostly.

I retired a T61 years ago when I bought the W520 (used). I put another 4 GB ram in it, put a HD caddy in where the DVD player was. Other than thinking that "I need a new laptop just because" when is it time to just say it's time to retire it?

 

I mean this is a question only you can answer. If it does everything you need it to do and you can fix it without spending much if any money than it's probably worth keeping. If you have a bad motherboard or something than probably not.

It may be worth using hwinfo64 to see what your temps are like and even try running something like Prime95 to see if it gets too hot and shuts down. It could also just be an issue with too much dust/hair/whatever in the fan/heatsink.

Sorry it's not helpful, but really it's up to you when it's time to retire your laptop.

 

Yeah, I didn't want to go on and on in my first post on this thread but the question is ultimately what's going to give out just due to the old age of the components, like the mobo, that would just not be economically feasible to repair. I check the cpu temps on my desktops all the time, never done it with my W520.

It does what I want it to do. I'm a photographer and I do all my work on my desktops so I don't need a laptop to do that. I have more a case of "upgradeititis" with my desktops than with my venerable W520.

 

Yeah I totally understand. If that's the case then it's probably worth while to try to troubleshoot your issues here then. I'm happy to help if you would like, my hope is we could narrow it down fairly quickly.

 

That's like asking what part on your car is going to break next. Surely something will, but which one is a mystery. More than likely, it'll stop meeting your performance needs than something breaks.

 

Considering that I have been in this EXACT situation for the past year or so, I can hopefully give you some insight.

I purchased a brand new W520 in May 2011: 2000m Quadro, 8GB ram, HDD. I upgraded it with 2 SSDs and another 8GB of ram. It has been an absolute workhorse machine for 7.5 years and I make my living on this machine. I figure all said and done I probably paid about $3-3.5K US for this workstation at the time.

About 4 years after I purchased it, one of the SSDs died: my information is backed up, so it wasn't a huge deal but did cost me a day or two of work to get things sorted.

Fast forward to 2017 and I started getting concerned about the longevity of the W520. Overall, it has been absolutely awesome and I have ZERO regrets with my purchase. But things do wear out and a failure - especially on a trip to visit a vendor or a customer - could be very expensive. So, I started watching sale prices initially on the P50, then P51 and finally the P52...

Last month (November) I jumped on a P52 Black Friday sale. The machine I purchased is:
i7-8850
8GB Ram
Win10 Pro
Quadro P3200
FHD 1080p display
500GB HDD

I purchased a Samsung 970Pro SSD and another 32GB of ram off of Newegg and installed them into the machine (super easy) last week when the P52 arrived.

Overall I am happy with my decision. The W520 was showing its age: while it still worked, the battery was toast and I needed to keep it plugged in at all times. Also, the spacebar on the keyboard wasn't registering taps 100% of the time and there were a few other niggling issues starting to pop up. I'm sure a complete re-install of the OS and all software would have improved some of the performance issues, but I did not want to invest more time or money into the W520.

The new machine is awesome. Productivity is improved and I'm really happy with the machine overall. Having stupid things like USB-C ports is nice given modern cell phones. But most importantly, if the P52 is reliable for the next few months, I'm confident that I'll have many trouble free years out of it like I did the W520.

Ultimately for me, peace of mind was the deciding factor and I'm happy with my recent purchase.

Hope that helps!

 

biff2bart, sounds like you've used your W520 as your main work computer all this time. And it still works! My W520 gets sporadic usage (I'm mainly a desktop guy, I build my own desktops) and so far the only pressing thing I'm needing is a new battery. Unless, of course, it just flat dies on me.

Your P52 is quite the upgrade but you need that sort of horsepower if it's your main rig. The cpu you spec'd it with is 10 times faster than my i7-2620M! I wasn't even thinking of another laptop when Black Friday came and went. Enjoy your P52, maybe there's one in my future.

 

Clean the fans and grills with a can of compressed air and most likely your machine will last a while longer. On the other hand, you could spend 500-600$ and get yourself a new and powerful laptop. Check out the E485/E585. Those are AMD based but more powerful than the comparable Intel chips, especially in the graphics sector.