so, i ordered a regular old T430 on ebay and called it a day, until I saw this offerup listing for this W520 with a fan problem. the classic design and the promise of the lowest-spec variant of the W520: the i7 2720qm, Quadro 1000M and 16gb of ram; had me interested. and for only $40 including a charger, it's better than the $50 T430 i bought; so i decided to risk it all on whether i could fix the fan problem.
so, i canceled the T430 order and drove 30min across town with my 2 girlfriends to the east end, driving past a literal raging fire at a trailer park (before any fire engines showed up) and past several abandoned houses with broken windows and cars without tires, i made the trade for $40.
After driving home, pizza from an actual red-roof pizza hut in hand, I started fixing the fan issue. I played with it in various ways like dusting and wiggling the fan connectors, i got it to post (i don't know what exactly i did). And checking lspci from the debian install menu shell, I got WAY more than i bargained for.
first off, this laptop is in beautiful shape except for a little crack at the edge. honestly everything is fine except i need a new fan (it's inconsistently not working), which isn't much anyway.
second off, the CPU is not the advertised i7-2720QM. it's the i7-2960XM, a 4c 8t 3.7ghz 55w CPU; the highest spec CPU you can get for this generation. It's not stock either, it's an aftermarket upgrade. this thing is worth more than the laptop itself.
The GPU isn't the promised Quadro 1000M, it's the Quadro 2000M, a much better GPU, this is actually the highest spec gpu the W520 can come with and a 50% upgrade over the 1000.
and the display - it's a 1080p full hd display, the best the W520 comes with, and one of the best in this generation.
so; holy shit, I got this behemoth of a classic-series thinkpad on an actual gamble for $40. I fucking love gambling and risk taking. I need an SSD though, debian is currently running off a shitty laptop hard drive.