Lenovo Legion Y740 17" 15"

Replying to myself: after a first replacement motherboard that turned out to be dead, it has been replaced a second time. Lenovo didn't send a heatsink for this one, so the tech had to re-attach heatsink #2 to mobo #3. The thermal paste it had was blue and non-excessive in quantity, while the original factory paste was gray and very excessive--but since it never booted up I don't know how the blue stuff would have performed. He put on some unidentified gray paste.

Initial tests had the CPU (9750h) hitting 95C, same as before. However, after a few hours (does thermal paste have to set, or something?), putting -150mv undervolt back on, and propping up the back end, it can now run Cinebench at under 80C, without needing to screw around with boost wattage limits. (With that much undervolt it doesn't go above 65 watts anyway, but previously it needed a 45-watt limit just to keep it below 90 on the same test.) Scores around 1280-1290 with UV, so that's much better than before, where it only got around 1150 even if I let it cook itself. (Highest recorded for this CPU on Notebookcheck is 1306.) Time Spy CPU score is also very high, and also only hits around 80C. Gaming tests had similar results, getting close to 90 only briefly in ridiculous circumstances. GPU seems no different from the factory version, around 45 at idle and 60s under heavy load, low-ish bench scores but I think that's because most people overclock.

Most likely, replacing the mobo (twice!) was completely pointless. It's possible the over-pasting was the issue, but I think it's more likely the original heatsink was defective; putting on way too much paste seems like a hard thing to do by accident. They may be putting a ton of paste on there intentionally to try to make up for those uneven heatsinks talked about a few pages back. I doubt the blue vs. gray paste matters in and of itself, but it may be an indicator as to whether the heatsink is a dud.

In the process of all this, it did end up downgraded to 1.03 bios. I don't think this is the cause of better thermal performance, in the default mode the fan behavior is basically the same as Auto in 1.06. Fn+Q does max out the fans, though, which does keep it 10+ degrees cooler... if you can stand the noise. Hopefully I can keep it from updating itself, really don't understand why they changed this setup, the Quiet and Performance modes in 1.06 were pretty useless. As Sacks mentioned, Quiet inexplicably seemed to run the fans faster, while reducing clock speeds. Huh?

Whether I want to keep or re-sell this Laptop of Theseus is still up in the air, but hopefully some of this information is useful. If you can somehow buy a new fan assembly, that might work better than just repasting. Still have yet to see a report that a simple repaste helped with anything... another reason to suspect that the heatsink itself is the problem. Being able to max the fans would probably help mitigate the issue, but fans can wear out too, so this seems like a poor patch for a problem that shouldn't exist in the first place.

 

New here but to my understanding bios 1.03 is the bios to have? Is this laptop worth it over the other the Alienware m15 or zephyrus s? Thanks for the time and effort you guys put into researching all of this. Helps a lot of people make informed decisions

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On a 2060 and while I haven't specifically kept an eye on FPS, I can say that I've never had any dips or issues which made me want to turn the graphics down, I imagine 2070 wouldn't even break a sweat.

 

Try with Optimus enabled

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But why? You're not gonna get any decent FPS at all with the integrated chip... You're bypassing the GPU entirely and that negates the whole gaming aspect. If you want to game on the iGPU, you could have gotten a MacBook.

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I have an Alienware m15 with 8750h + 1070 Max q and no gsync.

The reason why is so I can compare vs what you have. I want to know if you get dips in fps like I do playing league with Nvidia pushing frames to the igpu. If you don't get dips than my machine is the problem possibly. But if you get dips and less performance than I am STRONGLY considering switching to the Lenovo legion y740. The studdering and fps drops give me a headache after 2 hours of playing league and is unbearable.

Please let me know and if possible get the fps you run at using the league in game fps counter if possible in both scenarios. I deeply appreciate the time you are taking giving me any info at all.

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This is all with hybrid/Optimus enabled. Majority of my time on the laptop is spent programming and stuff so I just leave it on.
Never had any issues with games, including league, dota 2, Apex, and lately Control.

If you're running a game using Nvidia gpu the igpu shouldnt be getting utilized at all, if it is *clean* reinstall drivers for both GPUs.

 

And with Optimus disabled you get higher fps still correct? I'm considering upgrading to the legion y740... Does anyone know if it plays nice with Linux?

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Not really, whether you're in Optimus or not shouldn't effect your fps, the Nvidia gpu is gonna run at full chooch either way.
Main difference is you can't have gsync in Optimus with the laptop screen, but that mainly matters for games where you can't maintain a stable 144fps, as the screen still runs at 144hz with either gpu.

 

Anyone with Optimus seems to disagree

As an example
https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforc...s-50-performance-loss-when-playing-on-intern/

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I'll run some benchmarks to compare when I get a chance.

Even so, this laptop has a mux chip so you can disable the igpu if you want performance, only annoyance is restart is needed to enable or disable Optimus.

And like I said before so far I've not had any noticeable performance issues even with optimus enabled, so any noticeable performance loss would depend on how demanding your game is, or if you're a professional level player.
League being a 10 year old game is not very demanding for this gpu.

I imagine Nvidia or Intel might be able to improve this with a driver at some point, so it's good that people are talking about it.

 

Ohhh boi!
So I finally got the rounded screw out from the heatsink. I ordered "Screw extracting pliers" from ifixit, and those were perfect to grip and get the screw to unscrew. I got the "GT" size from EU store, dont know what size that is for US. Maybe small ones would have been good too.
Changed the paste to thermal grizzlys kryonaut and ALL thermalpads to 0,5mm thick pads.

A short and brief testing showed a 10-15C (!!!!) drop in cpu temps in cinebench R20. Before temps maxed out around 92C @3,6Ghz with 60W and got a score of 2790p.
Now I got 2930p with MAX of 82C with 3,7- 3,8Ghz @ 65W. So thats a pretty hefty improvement. I think its mostly from the thermalpads, as some of the original thermalpads were overlapping others and like a bit rolled up (hard to explain...).
Aida64 with cpu and gpu load when stabilized didnt throttle at all, as it used to.

In timespy and in firestrike the temps were also max 80C. Scores were about the same as i got before (didnt have any hard OCs on the GPU thou), but the temps are noticeably lower. Im really clad this whole rounded screw episode is over for me now. Have to play Battlefield V for a little and see what the temps are in a longer gaming session, but the initial results are very good! Thanks to everyone for the helpful tips!

And btw still using the 1.10 bios for the 8th gen (with the profile settings, no max fan option), maybe could get even better thermals with the max fan option...

 

My keyboard lights stopped working ... not sure why , When I get home I will try and re-install the corsair app.

Actually I think this may have happened :

https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Gaming...0-17inch-keyboard/td-p/4464481/highlight/true

 

I recently purchased the Y740 i7-9750H w/ RTX 2070 17" model and it came with Bios 1.03 which included the Max Fan Option.
Even after disabling update on the Lenovo app AND in Windows Updates via SERVICES (because Win Update also showed the BIOS update), it STILL updated me eventually to 1.05

Now, after testing it on 1.03 with games like Anthem on Ultra, I noticed that my CPU temps reached at about 80 while GPU hit 75 range - Max Fan helped drop these temps a bit (5-8 less).
After I was forced to 1.05 update, I was upset for losing max fan as I though the 3 new fan settings were useless.
Well to my surprise, I'm playing the new COD MW on Ultra along with Anthem on Ultra and on the Fan Cool setting, I'm no where near the high temps I was on 1.03!!
My CPU is now at about 56-69 Max and GPU at about the same..

So what changed and did they gimp my 2070 a bit for me to see these reduced numbers or under-volt something within the BIOS?
There's the newer 1.06 update and I won't dare update to that since I'm not prompted to.
Would I be able to tell if they under-volted my GPU/CPU in any way after this update and if so, could you gents chime in on how to check?

Bob/Husky - Just an FYI, let me know if you gents have any info on this as well.
It would be nice to start new threads for the different Gen CPU's since we're constantly talking about 2 different BIOS' on here.

 

What are you playing on? Performance or Auto?

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Kalen - I forgot to mention I'm in performance Mode with latest Geforce Drivers, so G-Sync is always on. On Fn+Q I either use the 2nd or 3rd option and they both give the same results.
Hope this helps.

 

Hi, just bought y740 15inch 9750h 500nits, my unit just came and currently testing it out, can you guys tell me how to keep the sound profile on dolby atmos? I choose the "dynamic" settings on dolby atmos, because i think it is the best sound profile overall, but after a while, the sounds setting always switching to "voice" "movies" or "games" profile, how do i keep this "dynamic" profile and make it stop switching to other profile, because it driving me crazy, the sound keep changing make it sometimes high, low, and no bass at all.

Thankss

 

So can you guys tell me if you had to pick between the lenovo y740, alienware m15 and mag 15; Why would you choose the lenovo y740? would you choose any of the other 2 now that you have experience with the y740?

 

Lenovo for sure, it’s cheaper the the AW and the Mag 15 has a unusually low 75c GPU throttle limit.

 

It's odd you'd have to mention price point. I'd think you'd mention the performance or the fact that you have G-sync lol

 

The 500 nit Gsync screen is awesome and I would not get a laptop that does not have it and would not even consider the AW M15 due to the soldered on RAM with no upgrade options.
I only mentioned the AW price is because it’s like $500+ more for a similar equipped Y740 and you’ll get pretty much the same performance with a 2070MQ with both models.
That’s a pretty significant bump in price worth a mention I think.

 

I talk only of alienware m15 r1 with none soldered ram

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The above still applies even when you compare it against the M15 R1.
Most reviews have the R1 CPU running even hotter than the Lenovo with some reviews I’ve seen at 99c-100c with extremely loud fans and thermally throttle.

This is a review with the GTX 1070MQ but it still applies to very high CPU temps because it has the same chassis

 

What Bios is the best for performance and cooler temps?
Is it easy to backflash and any links to download the best version?
Currently it’s on v1.05.
Not sure if to keep it here or change it to a better one.
Currently pressing FN+Q just changes profiles from Quiet, Balanced and High performance, don’t really notice if max fans are enabled since changing profiles only briefly spool up the fans then settle down.

 

Question, do you know if the corsair iCUE SDK works with these lenovo machines? Like is there a way for me to make the per key lighting change based on CPU/GPU temps for example? Please let me know.

 

Sorry but I have no idea. I just got my laptop not to long ago and have yet to dive too deep into the settings for iCUE.
In general settings I’d does have a opyion for temperature units but not sure if you can bind those to the Y740 keys.
Maybe someone more experienced with the software could tell you more.

 

Im in the software now.

Under general it shows temp units in degrees C as an option, can be changed to F.

has a check box for "Enable SDK"

Under "Sensor logging" you can choose CPU 1-6, CPU package, CPU load, HDD/SSD 1/2 Temp, GPU temp.

Hope that answers your question.

 

So it does have an sdk, I just wish I knew which one.

On a separate note, has anyone installed the 76 WHr battery on the 15"? What's your battery life like in Optimus mode? Anyone have a link to buy that battery?

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A question - has anyone found a solution to keyboard rainbow lighting, after a restart or when laptop turns screen off? I find it really annoying. Pressing fn + space solves the issue for me, but I am curious whether there is a permanent solution.

 

Alright just a update on CPU temps, I used TS to set the TDP and Turbo limit to 45W and it lowered temps by 10c.
Temps used to be in 92c when gaming and after playing for 3-4 hours straight yesterday highest temps reached 82c without noticing much if any loss in FPS.
.

 

You must have the 9th gen cpu?

i expect average frames similar but min 1% prob took a bigger hit.

 

Yes, sorry I didn’t point that out. Even at 45W it’s still pretty good.
I’ll try raising it to 50W and see how that affects temps.
Stock 60W just gets to hot when gaming. High temps don’t really affect performance but I’d rather see lower temps.

 

Agreed, lower temps im sure will pay off over time.

Have you undervolted?

Does your CPU stay pinned at 4GHz when the temp spikes?

Ever try disabling a core or two?
Run as 4 core at like 4.2GHz, games like high clocks if you run very high fps. (above 144ish)

I run my 8th gen as quad core 4GHz, lock 200FPS easy on OW, stays under 40W at all times too.

 

Nice
Yeah it’s UV also at 140mv, much better temps than when I first got it.
CPU still hits 4+GHz most of the time.

 

I have my 9750H UV at 150mv, and I clock all 6 cores at 3.5ghz to lower temps. Performance only takes a minor hit, like 2-3%. I think doing CPU undervolt and then choosing either underclock or changing short/long power boost max watts is a good choice. I like underclocking since it keeps the CPU clock speeds at a stable 3.5ghz, vs. underwatting where the CPU clock speeds will change based on temps and usage.

With just a 150mv UV, all my cores stay at 4.0Ghz even with no underclock. With the above I get CPU temps max 80-82c, and average 65-75c depending on the game. Just wanted to share my settings and add to the discussion.

You can OC + UV the GPU as well and it'll decrease temps for both CPU and GPU by another 3-5c. That's interesting about disabling the cores though, never thought to try that.

You can also try underclocking all the cores to 3.5-3.8Ghz and it'll have a similar effect as changing the short and long power boost max values. I prefer doing the underclock as it keeps all the cores at the designated clock speed, so they don't go up and down based on temps and usage. I have my 9750H UV to 150mv and I usually underclock all 6 cores to 3.5Ghz, leaving the short/long power boost max values at default. With the back raised and these settings, I get max temps of 80-82c (which are spikes), and averages 65-75c depending on the game. Underclocking to 3.5Ghz only has a minor performance hit as well. Division 2 High benchmark I get 102fps all cores 4.0ghz, and 100fps all cores 3.5ghz. So you might wanna try that as well if you aren't happy with the TPL settings. I have a little x-stand and the back raised 2 inches lowers my temps 5-10c by itself, do definitely try that if you haven't yet. Anyway just wanted to share my settings to add to the discussion.

I've also experimented with doing an OC + UV on the GPU. And this lowers CPU and GPU temps another 3-5c. I usually just set it to +150 core +400 memory on my 2070MQ though, since GPU Boost always messes with the voltage/frequency curve and it is kinda tedious keeping the flatling stable. I've gotten my best temps and highest benchmark scores by doing this though.

 

I like to set the v/f curve myself.

Found .7V at 1575MHz is stable.

.725V at 1620MHz is stable.

These give no power limit even on the 80W gpu mode.

Unless i need more juice I just play at 1620, low temps, no noise, cpu pegs at 4 in games like OW locked at 200FPS.

 

Did you add positive voltage to "Uncore" in Throttlestop? This works like bumping the VCCIO/VCCSA voltage, which is often necessary for overclocked ram. 1.25V is safe for every day use.

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I have the 76Wh battery, bought it from here https://www.b2c-laptop-batteries.com/laptop-battery-lenovo-8039.html
I can average close to 4 hours with optimus enabled, about 70-80% brightness, keyboard at lowest brightness, turbo disabled, and screen set to 60Hz using custom resolution.
Without disabling turbo and custom res I average closer to 3-3.5 hours.
Largely depends on what I'm doing, what peripherals I have plugged in, I.E. an external monitor bumps the drain rate considerably.

This annoyed the heck out of me when it updated and no longer remembered the last setting, or at least not going to a frigging rainbow every time. Gotta love updates that make things worse, but that seems to be the Lenovo way with this laptop.
Flashing the previous firmware seems to fix it: https://download.lenovo.com/consumer/mobiles/kyb15fw02u/kyb15fw02u.exe
But now I have another issue where occasionally the backlighting will freak out and show the wrong colors, stay on when it should be off, etc, but this seems to be unrelated to the firmware as I never had an issue with that firmware before.

 

I just changed the default profile to what I wanted it to be and it has stuck. You have to turn "Start on system startup" on in iCUE settings

I have to say, after using the Logitech lighting app on my desktop, I am finding iCUE to be pretty bad, unless I am missing something are aren't built in gaming profiles?

 

That only works for those of us who have iCUE installed and set to launch on startup. I keep it disabled on startup as the options suck and it would either hog resources or cause some odd crashes. The old CUE worked better but not by much, it also doesn't help that the built-in keyboard doesn't have the full options of a regular keyboard.

Either way, Lenovo shouldn't have changed the default behavior of the keyboard to switch to rainbow lighting on every single boot. They could at least add a memory function so it remembers what you set it to, without needing iCUE since it stinks.

 

Fair enough, I completely agree there should we a way to set this.

 

So my Legion Y740-15IRHG with RTX2080 has arrived and have been very impressed so far. I had the prev model with Intel Core i7-8750H & RTX2070 and my main points so far are:
The 500 nit screen (the main reason I sent my old model back was for the screen) Its bright, no black light bleed for me, great quality and colour out of the box. My panel is a BOE083B

I can't say I have noticed a huge difference in frame rates but the GPU temps are a lot lower than what I had with the 2070.

Does anyone have a standard bench-marking template or something I can work off and I will try give my results

 

I returned my Y540 to get a Y740, which just arrived. Super happy with it, apart from the AUO panel it came with which had backlight bleed. Spent a few hours talking to support and now they've ordered a new LG panel for me, as it was the only other panel choice for the 17in Y740. From what I see in the specs it looks like the LG has better response times, color, brightness distribution, and viewing angles because its full IPS over this AHVA AUO panel. I think the LG had slightly lower contrast but I like this trade off. Anyone have any experience with the LG panel?

I want to replace the thermal paste with conductonaut and the thermal pads with K5 pro, should I wait till the tech replaces my panel or can I go ahead with it now? How are the stock thermal pads anyways, will the K5 pro be better?

 

I got the new one too and I was also upgrading from the 8th generation. The panel is a huge improvement over the last one (LG) which is the most noticeable thing. Do you have the Division 2? If you don't, then perhaps 3DMark (for Timespy)? Thanks!

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I would like to know what kind of scores you guys get in timespy also Just to compare your newer CPU and the rtx2080 version VS the 8th gen with 2070 version. I get (with the 8thgen & 2070) 7405 points in Timespy so would like to know how much better score you get. Although I havent ran the test with any oc etc after replacing the thermal pads, could get more points thou....

 

I don't have Division 2 unfortunately, will keep an eye out for a sale on the game and will get it.
Farcry 5 is downloading so will edit this post when tested

Timespy results:
7692 i7-9750H & RTX2080 Max-Q
7042 i7-8750H & RTX2070 Max-Q

 

Here's my best results so far with 9750H and 2070MQ.

TimeSpy: 7,485
Fire Strike: ~16,700

This was with a +200 core +400 memory OC + UV 1,785Mhz @ 693mv I believe. I haven't tested much recently but I was really happy with the results when I was tweaking the laptop. Also Driver version 431.60. I may test again soon and post results because the drivers have changed a lot since then with significant improvements for some RTX cards and Dx12.

Also I'm not sure how but my Userbenchmark score is consistently at the 100th percentile for the 2070MQ with a +150 core +400 memory OC, which is what I keep it on 99% of the time while gaming. I also only use Performance mode to get the 90W instead of 80W. Also 150mv Undervolt on the 9750H.

The only thing I've had a crash with using +150/+400 is Destiny 2, which for some reason is extremely sensitive to overclocking... Anyway hope that helps.

Division 2 High Benchmark I get 102 fps on average since a few people have asked and posted about that. Haven't tried Ultra yet since I usually just prefer high frame rate.

Also the highest Y740 2080 Max-Q Time Spy I've seen is 8,400 from someone on Reddit. Which is a pretty amazing score, even though it's only about a 12% improvement over the 2070MQ. 10-15% performance gain is my guess on average though for Y740 2070MQ vs 2080MQ. I'd like to know other users scores with the 2080MQ as well. I almost went with that but would have had to customize the 15in model to get it, so it would have been 300$+ more for the upgrade. Definitely happy with the 9750H 2070MQ though. I owned the 8th gen 2060 before and my best Time Spy was 6,400. Returned for the upgraded screen and 2070. So it seems like for the Y740 at least each tier from 2060 > 2070MQ > 2080MQ is a 10-15% performance increase, which isn't bad considering other companies charge 300-400$ while Lenovo charges 250$ and 200$.

I also found it interesting they changed the upgrade price for the GPUs a while back. It use to be 200$ for the 2060 > 2070MQ and 250$ for the 2070MQ > 2080MQ. Now it's 250$ and 200$ respectively for each.

Also curious, how is gaming at 1440p with the 2070MQ using an external monitor? I may end up getting one eventually but am not sure how well it can handle it.

 

Purchased the Y740 (RTX2060) directly from the lenovo website and was wandering if there was some way to get the free game detailed here:
https://www.nvidia.com/en-gb/geforce/gaming-laptops/20-series/
https://www.nvidia.com/en-gb/geforce/campaigns/call-of-duty-modern-warfare-bundle/
I called support, got redirected to sales, who kept asking where I saw this promotion, then they said they would look into it for me and put me on hold, then hung up while I was waiting on hold..
Anyone else have any more luck?

 

The keyboard lighting fix , just install the latest firmware for your model laptop there is a 15-inch and a 17-inch apparently the update that went out flip-flopped

Did you try this : https://www.nvidia.com/en-gb/geforc...odern-warfare-bundle/redemption-instructions/

 

Wait there is a 2080 Max q 15" variant for sale? Where? I haven't been able to find it on lenovo's online store in us

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