I bought myself a T520

[rolierop]

Hi all,

I wanted to introduce myself, since I bought a ThinkPad T520 from a reseller in refurbished laptops. This one is in cosmetic good shape.
My name is Rogier and I am from The Netherlands. I am 46 years old and as a hamradio enthousiast I needed a laptop for this hobby. Because I love 'vintage' equipment and don't like the 'every day' laptops I wanted a ThinkPad.
Also because these are so upgradable and there is a large community of Thinkpad enthousiasts.

What did i buy?

ThinkPad T520 (NW929MH)
Intel Core i5 2520M
4 GB DDR3 memory
160 GB HDD drive
15,6" 1600x900 screen
Original power adapter included, and a fresh Windows 10 Pro installation for just 235,- euro's (approx 285,- US dollars)

I guess this is a good price.
Since I love to tweak computers i am already planning to upgrade this system. Starting with adding 4GB of extra memory and replace the 160 GB HDD for a 240 GB SSD.
I am thinking of buying a dockingstation for it as well.
Maybe you can give me some advice on what to do more .

Regards,
Rogier

[ajkula66]

Welcome to the forum!

T520 is still a usable system, typing this message on one right now...

You have it figured out pretty well, I'd just go for more RAM - an 8GB DIMM in the spare slot - but that's about it.

Enjoy the ThinkPadding !

[RealBlackStuff]

Welcome to the Forum.
You can begin with getting the manual from the HMM link above.
CPU can be upgraded to quadcore.
RAM can be upgraded to 2x8GB.
LCD can be upgraded to FHD (1920x1080).
CD/DVD can be replaced with an Ultrabay adapter for a 2nd HDD/SSD.

[atagunov]

Welcome to the club - I daily drive a T520 and another serves as a family laptop. Nice sturdy machines.

I'm wondering why it is that nobody is mentioning the SSD? Makes a massive difference for any computer. Here in the UK the best deals I've seen were 2.5" Samsung EVO 860 drives on amazon.co.uk, 256 or 512Gb - up to you which one to choose. Somehow deals on ebay were worse than what Amazon offered. They were old drives of earlier generations that costed just as much. Full system reinstall would be needed. Windows licenses have lately been sold on ebay for a few $$, it's so different from past years.. You'd need this kind of rails to mount an SSD which will be 7mm thick into T520 which was designed for 9mm thick HDD-s. Look at 2nd photo to see the trick. Otherwise you can use 9mm rails you already have and put in some paper/foam to prevent the drive from wobbling around and wearing out SATA connection.

BTW I'm running my T520-s maxed out to 16Gb of RAM. 4Gb of RAM is surely not enough these days. 8Gb are enough. 16Gb are for show-offs like me Or if you're running a Linux with virtual machines on it. I actually do that, so 1/2 of my RAM is given to virtual machine and the other is left for the main OS. But if you don't mind the expense - DDR3 RAM isn't that expensive why not? Interestingly while the best way for me to purchase an SSD is Amazon the best way to purchase RAM is still ebay. Better buy used branded DDR3 SO-DIMM-s from ebay, the prices are reasonable.

Consider a 4337 dock - they cost around £10 and are very useful. If you do need a dock - consider what monitor connection you need - there are with DVI with Display Port and with HDMI. Actually there are two Display Port lanes going into the dock so docks have 2 display connectors each - of varying types. Choose whichever one if you find most useful. In theory you should be able to connect Display Port on the dock to either HDMI or DVI on monitor so long as you have the right cable.