Ideapad Y510P

And if your replacement unit dies like mine did...

Well I'd hate to be the victim of your wrath.

 

Interesting thing I found today. As of last week, my keyboard was exhibiting excessive flex to the point where it would pop out of the slots at the top. This was getting frustrating and I started looking for solutions that included double sided tape. Well, I got the sense into me that I should pry up the keyboard and see what's going on underneath. Turns out... the screws that held the keyboard to the backing weren't even screwed on all the way... Whoever made my laptop was a d-bag. Anyways, easy fix, no more flex, I'm happy again.

 

The newest model with Intel Broadwell and the newest Nvidia card that was at CES this year, is coming out in May.

 

IS this Con create time or sepculation?

 

It is legit. If you don't beleive me watch some youtube videos of CES and the Y50.

 

For those looking for a 170w adapter, this one works--I bought thisa couple weeks ago. $29.99 shipped from Lenovo (plus tax)
IdeaPad 170W AC Adapter (UL) | Lenovo | (US)

 

Will, I'm now a proud owner of a Lenovo Y510p. I was in need of something to carry around with me and that had some gaming prowess. I had an absolute max budget of about $1,100 (shipping not included but with Amazon Prime was able to get it next day for only $8 extra.) After looking at size, and power of which I needed a full power quad core mobile cpu and not a ULV cpu in Ultrabooks, I decided to give the y510p a try. I figured with Intel's new Broadwell coming out soon that maybe I could wait but I was in need of something far more portable than what I had now. (See sig)

Enter the Lenovo Ideapad y510p

Compared to what I'm used to, it's pretty dang thin!
Also is pretty light compared to what I am used to.
Battery life wasn't a concern as everywhere I wanted or needed to go has outlets.
The screen is nice though text looks a little washed out, not unreadable, but it's enough that I can tell the difference.
Boot time is pretty fast for a slower HDD.
I love the keyboard, it's feels almost like I'm typing on my desktop (Razor Black Widow Ultimate 2013) Not as much travel and isn't mechanical, but still it's the closest I can compare it to.
The speakers surprised me, they actually have very decent sound. I'm hard of hearing and they still sounded good!

Before I say more here is the specs I got for $1,108 after 1-day shipping.

Intel Core i7 4700MQ- 2.4GHz with Turboboost
16GB DDR3 Ram
1TB 5,400RPM Hybrid HDD w/ 8GB cache (Solid-state hybrid drive)
2x Nvidia GT 755M 2GB GDDR5 in SLI
15.6" 1920x1080p display.
Windows 8.1 x64
170W PSU

Now for gaming wise I've only tried Minecraft as one of my classes at school is doing a class 'project' on Minecraft, FPS was very acceptable at 40+ mostly jumping to over 100fps with pretty much everything active and maxed but v-sync. I'll be trying other games soon.

Forgive me if this has been asked but I just wanted to make sure (not to mention over 300 pages to look through WOW!)

What is acceptable gaming temperatures for this laptop on the gpu's and cpu? I know different games will be well different but while running the Heaven Benchmark on "High", DX 11, 2x AA, No Tessalation at 1080p fullscreen the 1st gpu hit 93C and the second hit 78C. Now I know the Heaven Benchmark is just a little un-realistic as it loads the gpus as much as possible and not all games will do that. (Scored 35 fps I think.) While playing Minecraft, the gpu's got to almost 70C (Cpu was at about 67C) but then the gpu's seemed to stabilize at about 65C. (Minecraft DOES need a decent computer to run properly, I've never let anyone sway me on this.)

Right now sitting idle, the gpu's are at 34C and 37C (Internal and Ultrabay respectably) and the cpu is at 40C across all cores. that is sitting on the desktop (not the Metro Interface, or Start Screen)

So what is acceptable for temps on this laptop?

Also, what SSD would these take? mSATA, M.2? and what size as I notice there are varying sizes. (42MM, 50MM) I planned on adding an SSD in the near future. How did anyone clone the HDD to an SSD?
I'll probably go with a 500GB SSD when I can as I'm using 334GB as of now and would rather do a complete clone than re-install everything.

Thanks for any pointers and help!

 

Regarding temperatures the y510p has a thermal shutdown point of 105C for both the CPU and GPUs. Anything less than 90C is okay, but I recommend aiming for less than 80C. Don't expect temperatures to be too low under stress, as both the CPU and built in GPU share the same heat sink, not to mention the 755M is basically an overclocked/overvolted 650M.

The y510p uses the 42mm M.2 format, but I heard stories of people not having the M.2 port if they purchased a model without a caching drive, such as yourself. Check the port yourself to make sure you actually have the port.

For cloning I recommend Mini Tool Partition Wizard. You can even make a bootable USB drive with this software. Best Free Partition Manager Freeware and free partition magic for Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Vista and Windows XP 32 bit & 64 bit. MiniTool Free Partition Manager Software Home Edition.

Oh and if you regularly play Minecraft, I recommend Optifine if you don't have it already: [1.7.4] OptiFine HD D1 (FPS Boost, HD Textures, AA, AF and much more) - Minecraft Forum

 

I have the M.2 Port! At least I think I do.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/sm4b2k2yi26use1/SSD%20slot%20on%20y510p.JPG

When I decide on an SSD (if this indeed is the slot) I will give that software a shot.

I'll also look into Optifine, I never used it as my computers usually could play Minecraft fine and even use 512x textures without much slowing down.

Thanks!

Edit: this is the only ssd with a decent capacity that I could find. would it work?

http://www.amazon.com/MyDigitalSSD-Super-Cache-Solid-State/dp/B00EZ2E8NO/ref=cm_cr_pr_pb_t

That is, if that is the slot I need.

Edit: I got the N-7260 for my wireless card.

 

Lucky you, that is in fact the M.2 port. The 128GB card you linked to is in fact the largest capacity 42mm M.2 currently available, and the one that every other y510p owner on this site uses.

Optifine is essentially an unofficial patch for Minecraft so I recommend installing it regardless of performance (it can only help).

 

I guess I was lucky, let's just hope this laptop doesn't give me any issues such as my old Samsung Series 7 Gamer did. (2x sent for repairs in the first year of ownership). Said goodbye to it when I got my Sager. Hardware wise it was good reliability wise it sucked for me.

Another question I wanted to verify is that you can install Windows to the M.2 SSD correct? As in it's bootable.

I'm trying to decide wither to get an M.2 128GB or keep the 1TB SSHD and just save up for a 500GB SSD and install Windows 7 to it and keep the 1TB as factory as possible. My games and such only take up about 325GB. The 1TB SSHD seems kind of speedy despite it's 5400RPM speed. I could probably buy 1 SSD then the other in time. I just don't want to mess with the primary HDD much in case I need to send the laptop in for any repairs within the year. (If I installed the M.2 SSD and used it as a boot drive I would need to use the other drive as my DATA drive and it would probably be wiped clean.

I will for sure check out Optifine now, as you said, it can only help!

Thanks!

 

Yep, the M.2 drive is bootable. How you wish to configure your storage is up to you, but with my y400 I plan to have a 1TB mSATA along with either 2x(2TB HDD drives) or 1 (1TB SSD) + 1 (2TB HDD).

 

Has anyone downloaded the new GeForce 337.50 beta drivers yet? Supposedly delivers significant improved performance on certain NVidia drivers, just wondering how it fares on the 750/755 configs....

 

Hey guys - does anyone with a second monitor ever have it flicker when plugged into a 510p SLI? Also, do you ever have your laptop and second display to black out for a split second then come back on?

 

Haven't watched anything on my Panasonic plasma with my y510p YET.... Have you updating your drivers to the latest version via the nvidia website??

 

Everything is as current as it gets, and the problem has occurred over a variety of drivers

 

Question:

Does anyone have an issue where the body is sticking up above the palmrest area creating a scratchy area for your wrists? I have the issue, mainly on the left hand side. As there anything anyone (if they had the issue) did that won't void the warranty to fix this?

Thanks

 

I definitely have never seen either of my monitors flicker or go black for a second. My y510p has pretty much been hooked up through hdmi since I've had it.

Only issue I have is my chrome browsers going completely white which happens too much. In order to fix my problem all I have to do is resize the browsers and everything reappears.


I hope for your sake its just the hdmi cable your using

 

@cliffB the blank chrome problem can be fixed by turning of hardware acceleration in chrome settings

@all has anyone had a problem with LAN card on their Y510? i'm aware of WiFi problems with falling connection but something simmilar happens even when i'm gaming on cable, even though it's only a 0.5-2sec in games it matters.

 

Yup mine is like this too. Pretty sure its like this with all y510p's. Its not fully flush.... doesnt bother me too much.

 

ELAN Driver
Elan TouchPad Drivers Version 11.8.19.3

I found a driver for the ELAN pad with a lot more features. This is a Toshiba driver but it installs fine on the Y510P with Windows 8.1. The download package is fairly big because it includes drivers for all x86 and x64 Windows operating systems as well as short videos to show you what each feature does.

To install these you need to unzip them, open up the device manager, click on Mice and other pointing devices, open up ELAN, click on the Update Driver button, click on Browse my computer for driver software, Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer, then click on Have Disk... and point it to where you downloaded the unzipped driver folder which for most people is going to be the x64 folder for the 64 bit drivers. Windows will complain that this driver is not for this device, blah, blah, blah but you can ignore that. These drivers install fine. Reboot and you will probably be able to adjust your ELAN pad so the track pad is not nearly as miserable as what is shipped from Lenovo.

Thanks Toshiba for putting some effort into this driver and unleashing the ELAN pad.

It is dated 2/18/2014 so is a lot newer than the Lenovo driver.



If I ever get around to using the Dremel on the edge of this laptop I will finally be 100% satisfied.

Edit - I have only just started using this driver and all I can say is night and day difference. I can use a paint program or scroll without the mouse jumping all over the place. I can highlight text or right click on something without needing the dexterity of a brain surgeon. I haven't bothered doing much fine tuning yet. It picked up most of my previous settings from the registry. ELAN should do everyone a favor and release full featured drivers like these directly on their website.

 

I have a weird problem with the HDMI port, the port doesn't work except when the VGA is also plugged as well, I tried connecting a few other laptops with the same cable to the monitor and they're all working :s

I tried many fixes, including:
Playing with Nvidia Control Panel
Screen Resolution
Display Settings
And none of them is making it work

 

@unclewebb by touchpad goes dead after instaling those drivers and restarting..any idea why?

not registering touch or button actions at all..uninstalling drivers solves it.

 

What more features is better than the ELAN driver off the lenovo y510p driver page? The only useful feature I myself use is the two finger scrolling (which I got used to). I hunted everywhere for edge scrolling but nothing worked. If the ELAN driver you've posted has a dead-zone feature that would be very useful.

 

Anyone with the stock 1TB/8GB SSHD having issues where Windows 8 freezes upon startup?

Edit: NVM, seems it was some software that I was just trying out that was causing it. I had an older version of Start8 but I'm just gonna actually give the screen a try as it loads just as fast as the Start menu did. It may have been some other software that I removed also, but I'm not 100% certain as that was bloatware. So word to the wise if you want to use Start8, make sure to try an updated version first.

 

Were you able to get this driver installed? I uninstalled them, removed the Elantech folder from the registry and then did a clean install using the method I posted in my previous post and I did not have any problems. Editing the registry is not necessary but I wanted to see what the default settings were like. If you install this new driver over top of the previous driver, it will use all of your previous settings.

Here are a couple of screen shots so you can see the differences. Not as pretty as the Lenovo driver but it has a few more features like access to the ELAN SmartArea feature. Lenovo disabled that in their driver for the Y510P







If you download the driver package from the link I posted, open up the x64 folder and inside that folder you will find a collection of videos that show you what each feature does. You can view the videos without having to install the driver. If you decide to install this new driver, these videos will show up when you are making your adjustments to help guide you.

If you hate how the Y510P track pad works then you should install these updated drivers and give them a try. These drivers were not specifically written for the Y510P so you need to manually install them using the Device Manager. If you need a step by step guide with lots of pictures, let me know.

For me it is not about features. For some reason the track pad just seems to work a lot smoother with these updated drivers. The track pad is a common Y510P complaint but Lenovo has been using the same drivers for the last 10 months. I finally gave up waiting for Lenovo to come up with a fix.

If you install these new drivers and don't like them, it is easy enough to open up the Device Manager and uninstall them, reboot and re-install the Lenovo drivers.

 

@unclewebb i tried updating drivers and also clean install and afther both i always ended up with dead touchpad..now im going to try deleting the registry entries. also when i try to update drivers via control panel/device manager it says that windosw decided that my drivers are up to date

will post update after registry cleanup

edit: ok so i tried clen install and wiped everything marked elan from registry still touchpad is dead..the driver installs itself only as SYSTEM DEVICES/ ELAN SMBUS DRIVER and in POINTING DEVICES it stays the same old driver.

 

I thought I would try to download those drivers and they wouldn't install, looked into the Mouse and Hardware areas and realized 'Huh, I have the Synaptics Pad on mine.' I'll have to look into all the features it has now.

Anyone else get Synaptics? Considering Lenovo has so many SKU's I'm not so surprised now that I look back on it.

Here was my model:
Amazon.com: Lenovo IdeaPad Y510p 15.6-Inch Laptop (59406648) Dusk Black: Computers & Accessories

But I didn't pay that much for it, I paid at least $100 less as I recall.

 

McMik - Look at the version number of the drivers that I installed vs the version number of the drivers that you keep installing. You are trying to install some other ELAN driver that is already on your computer that is not compatible with your Y510P. That's why your track pad freezes up afterward.

Go back and closely read what I posted when you are installing.

http://i.imgur.com/gTePfsF.png

You need to click on the Have Disk... button and then click on the Browse button, If you are using 64 bit Windows 7 / 8 / 8.1 then you need to find the x64 folder in the unzipped drivers that you downloaded. Find and select the ETD Setup Information file, click on the Open button and then keep clicking on OK until this installs the new ELAN driver that you downloaded from Station Drivers.

This driver only works with the ELAN pad. This will not work if your Y510P has a Synaptics touch pad.

Thanks for showing us the problems you are having. This will encourage me to make a thorough step by step guide that is easy to follow.

 

As I asked before. Do the drivers you've posted have a "dead zone" feature? Like for example to dead zone the buttons on the touchpad.

 

@oechikr even old drivers had deadzone option..this one has it also in some modified way

@unclewebb thx for the screenshot I was installing the right drivers but the way I was doing it was wrong..it works now

 

I installed this driver because I was looking for an adjustable dead zone area over the track pad buttons. ELAN calls this feature SmartArea. The second picture I posted above shows this adjustable feature. The funny thing is that I have not enabled SmartArea yet. The track pad works so well with this driver that I don't think I need to. With the new driver I can use the mouse buttons without the mouse cursor jumping all over the place.

The one finger Edge Scroll feature works great too.



I was able to adjust the width and speed of this feature so it works just the way I like. That's the thing. With this driver you can adjust it so it works the way you expect a track pad to work. Most users will probably find that the Lenovo driver does not have enough features available to do that.

One thing I didn't like is when I double clicked on the ELAN notification area icon, it would open up the Mouse Properties box instead of going straight to the Track Pad Properties box. This was easy enough to fix by changing this value in the registry from 1 to 0.

Code:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Elantech\OtherSetting
MustOpenMouseProperties = 0

No. The method you were using meant that you were installing the wrong drivers. Glad to hear that you finally got the new drivers installed and working

 

Hi, I'm thinking about buying this laptop but I would like to ask you guys if you recommnd it? I'm not into gaming at all. I only care about downloading big size files and watching high definition movies, I also do intense browsing, but I heard there was some problems with the wireless droping and changing the CPU from 4700 to 4702 , did they solve these problems?

I also wanna ask if I were to buy the laptop from lenveo website well they take tax money? (I'm from saudi arabia.)

 

Hi all:Just looking at GPUZ the spec of my GT750m and it is reported as currentely running at PCI-express x 8 v1.1 while the card support PCI express x16 v1.1 just wondering if that is normal? Do you have the same?It looks a bit strange she do not make use of the full bus band widh..

 

Anyone who got this:

http://www.amazon.com/MyDigitalSSD-Super-Cache-Solid-State/dp/B00EZ2E8NO/ref=cm_cr_pr_pb_t

Did it come with any screws for mounting? I have the slot in my model for it. But didn't want to buy it without screws. If it doesn't come with screws what do you do to mount it in?

Thanks

 

Send a message to "MyDigitalSSD" he should be able to answer that for you.

 

How about go to a hardware store and buy a screw? I am sure someone here could take a picture of it. I will pull out my caliper and measure one to the nearest 0.001 inch if you want to get precise.

 

Just simply use the screw that is already holding in the stock SSD.

 

So no response LOL, at least can I add another HDD or SSD ? if I can't, can I replase it with the DVD?

 

Here is what you need: Remove Start.qone8.com virus. Qone8 removal for Firefox/Chrome/Explorer « Software to Secure

 

I don't know if Lenovo always did this, but today is the first day that I noticed that they are actually selling the removable 755M graphics ultrabay themselves. It's heavily discounted too, so I wonder if they will start offering all the Ultrabay options themselves now (finally).

IdeaPad Y510p High-Performance 15.6" Multimedia Laptop from Lenovo | Lenovo (US)

 

Yes it comes with a mounting screw and screw driver.

MyDigitalSSD

 

Thank you!

I didn't have the Caching SSD in my model, but do have the slot. It doesn't have the screw in it. So I was wondering. I planned on possibly getting the 128GB model and a faster 7,200RPM 750GB HDD and putting Windows 7 x64 on the SSD. Then again, I've also been debating just getting a full on Larger capacity SSD. Something like a 750GB or larger (looking at a Crucial M500 960GB SSD) so I can either install Windows 7 or clone Win 8. (I know it's a 1TB HDD, but I've read of workarounds, which I was open to.) So now I guess I will debate the differences and go from there. Knowing more than I know now. Thanks again.



Edit: I decided to go with the Crucial M500 960GB SSD for the reasons of being able to use the full drive for whatever I wanted. Also reading on the differences between MLC and TLC Nand kind of set it for me, I'm sure TLC would last me long enough, but for the price of the M500 960GB Samsung had a 750GB 840 EVO that used TLC NAND. I should get the SSD tomorrow, so I will let you know how it goes. I also wanted to leave the factory drive as default in case a warranty issue arose.

On another note, has anyone had issues where the laptop would boot, and be at the start screen then when you click the desktop it wouldn't go to the desktop, I have to click it a few times. But then it get's stuck showing the desktop and half the icons are the white 'i can't find the graphics kind' Then it won't respond. I need to force shutdown. It may happen a couple of times, then it's fine as if nothing happened. I'm about to attempt an full restore to see what happens, unless someone has another idea.

 

Yeaaah... I wouldnt trust my os and drivers on a MLC nand flash ssd. They can wear out more and are less stable than a SLC nand flash ssd. Glad you went with a full on SSD that can handle what you want.

 

Yeah... But SSD's are just about as reliable as an HDD these days regardless of SLC, MLC or TLC. I do agree, I would trust TLC far less than the others.

Introducing the SSD Endurance Experiment - The Tech Report - Page 1

In a nutshell they got to like 600TB that is Terabytes of data and the SSD's where working still. I won't be writing that much data to mine. And plan on buying and HDD that matches the capacity to do a clone once a month for backup purposes. I would do this regardless of if it was SSD or HDD. My desktop is still all HDD only because I use it as a backup server also. Not to mention it's usually on 24/7 and I don't mind waiting on the occasional restart on it as I run a restart right before going to bed. I do plan on putting an SSD in my desktop in time though. I just wanted to get the laptops up to SSD's first since I usually turn them off a lot more than the desktop.

The SSD I order is MLC so it's not as good as SLC, but is better than TLC. It has an rated of endurance of 72TB and a 3 year warranty. I would have to write 24TB a year or 2TB a month to it just to meet that limit within the warranty. Yet if you read the article and the links talking about endurance (100TB, etc) even the TLC Samsung Evo would last most users. But in my paranoia I would rather have an MLC SSD. Not to mention, from what I read, the M500 960GB actually has 1024GB, which means a whole 64GB of over provisioning. Which is like half the size of the SSD I have installed in my primary laptop!

There are pros and cons to SSD's but to say an SSD isn't as reliable as an HDD these days isn't one. You can get bad HDD's too. I've had a few newer ones fail on me prematurely. Unless you do heavy video where your dealing with 100's of GB a day chances are just about anyone would upgrade to a new SSD before their current one fails.

I would trust SLC the most, MLC second and TLC last. The middle ground is MLC so I would rather deal with an MLC drive over a TLC drive any day. Specially when the capacity is somewhat better. (Samsung 840EVO 750GB is TLC and was $1 more than the Crucial M500 960GB which has MLC.)

Just thought I would share a little info in case anyone else was thinking of upgrading to a full SSD on the Y510p

Looking forwards to my new SSD and will report back on how everything goes once I get it installed!

 

Edit: I managed to clone the drives finally! I used Easus Todo Backup's clone tool. After about 2 hours, maybe a little more, the clone finished and I shut down and swapped drives.

Things are working good now, other than I needed to disable Fast Boot, it was causing the drive to hang up. Not that an SSD needs that. I don't like Fast Boot much as I read that it saves some stuff to the Hibernation file. While on paper it seems nice, but so far all my experiences (my friend included, of whom disabled Fast Boot) has caused issues from not being able to boot unless you force shut down (hold power button down until off) or multiple reboots while the system figures things out. Also when you have a hybrid drive such as the 1TB one or a caching system it become redundant. That stuff will most likely be in 2 spots now.

Question:

Not that the Windows Experience Index is important, But I scored a 6.0 on both graphics settings. I would have thought a better score would happen. I checked and SLI was enabled. I may re-check it though after the files copy.

Edit: NVM The score, it bumped up to 7.9 for both now. I don't know what happened there, but it is higher now.

 

I dropped my laptop the other day and damaged the always on USB port on the right side of the computer. I cracked it open and found the part number NS-A036, but I could only find this on eBay but it's way out of my budget. Does anyone know of some other sites, or have a broken Y510p they could let me salvage?

 

I snagged one of those up -

So I bought my y510p for 789.00 - Bottom of the line plain jane

In the last few months I bought the SLI card, added a 250GB SSD, and it now has a 1080 screen, Total cost 1100 dollars. so its cheaper to buy the bottom line and upgrade at this time with the sli card so cheap.

Hello battlefield 4 ultra settings

BTW someone needs to make us an awesome bottom plate for the laptop. Maybe one with some nice fans in it to help with temps. It would thicken up the laptop but i dont care

 

Where did you get the 1080 screen from? eBay?

How much?

Thanks.

 

is there an extra spot for a drive? because I notice some models comes with hdd plus ssd