Lenovo Y40-80

Not seeing much on this new release of the Y40-80, 5th generation Intel I7-5500OU, AMD R9 M275 2GB, 500GB SSHD for $700. Has anyone been able to review this laptop or impressions. I'm looking for a new laptop and light gaming abilities.

 

I bought the Y40-80 and I love it. Despite it only being dual-core, it's still quite fast. Mine came out to $666 out the door (since there was a coupon code). I through 3 games at it: Titan Fall, Dragon Age: Origins, and Crysis 2 - running 720p resolution with high settings runs fluid.

I am curious about the Radeon R9 M275 2GB -- notebookcheck says it is at least GDDR5, but the AMD control panel says it's DDR3. GPU-Z says it's 64-bit bus... Probably need to load the latest Assasin's Creed to see if bog down.

 

How is the Fans noise please? I heard they are constantly running even when there is no load on the CPU / GPU

 

I haven't noticed loud fan noise when running on battery. When plugged in, or gaming, you can hear the fan... a hum, but not freakishly loud.

My wife's MacBook Pro, now that's a loud fan when having several things run in the background, or Running/Windows-Bootcamp.


Anyone else pull he trigger on the Y40-80? So far, i'm quite happy with it, coming from a HP DV7T 5000 CTO. <--- that's a heavy mofo.

 

Did they improve the screen at all? I Had a Y40 first gen and the screen was do dim and "lifeless" that I sent it back.

 

The screen has atrocious viewing angles. It's plenty sharp and bright, but the colors are a little off.

That said, I got it for the horsepower and battery life. Just got it last week, updated to the 14.12 Catalysts, and haven't looked back. I've coded for 4-5 hours on mine and had over 30% of my battery life left, never even thinks of getting hot. The fan does kick on the instant the 275 revs up, so the AMD switching software isn't as nice as Nvidia's, but it's got enough CPU and GPU power to run Borderlands: TPS at 1920x1080 and medium details, 4xAF, sits around 40fps. I've been pretty happy with it, as I mostly got it to use for some side work and not have to retreat to the desktop dungeon in the basement, but it's definitely fast enough to do some light gaming on, and you can't beat the performance per dollar.

 

My Brother just got one and its making this sound... that can't be normal right?

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bxq2s4O9p9sDMXB2MmxXbVg0V1k/view?usp=sharing

 

No, that's not normal. It sounds like it's got something stuck in the fans, like a piece of plastic or something. Look into the bottom vent slots with a flashlight. It should be quiet except when the fan is going, and that should just be an air whoosh noise.

 

So I finally ordered the Y40-80 from Lenovo to upgrade from my reliable old Y470 (at the time, but best $600 I've ever spent).

I read (well skimmed) through the other Y40 thread and didn't find much in the way of information I'm looking for.

• Are there modified BIOS I should being using (e.g. to eliminate whitelist issues)?
• Any known, good screen replacements (IPS, PLS or similar)? Maybe even one at 1600x900 to tax the GPU less?
• Any Y40 specific tweaks I should be aware of (hardware, firmware, software, etc...) that aren't general Windows tweaks?

With the help of the Y470/570 thread, I had my old laptop running lean and mean, and I'd like to do the same with my new Y40.

Any help is very appreciated.

Thanks!

 

What kind of whitelisting are you talking about? I've installed the beta Catalyst drivers from AMD, so no need to worry about that. As for known screen replacements, I've been considering it, but it's not important enough to me to research it too much. It's a workable screen, and I've got better uses for the $75-$100 it'd cost. As for specific tweaks, nothing comes to mind, just make sure you do the normal cleanup of preinstalled software. If you need VT-d or anything like that, that's about all there is for the BIOS I've seen that needs changed. It's actually one of the most reliable and minimal change needed OOTB experiences I've had, all things considered. I've even got the Windows 10 beta running on mine, and it's pretty happy.

 

Thanks for the reply Pitabred!

Whitelisting... for my Y470 I found a modded BIOS that allowed installing different WiFi cards... I "think" unlocked some voltage controls too. (Honestly been so long, I forget the details.) While I don't know that I'll swap out the WiFi on the Y40, I like having options open.

I'm comfortable with BIOS settings and cleaning up Windows (fresh install most likely).

I'm sure the screen is around the same level as my Y470... which is fine... but I'm still fairly interested in getting an IPS level screen at some point.

Thanks again for the feedback.

 

Gotcha. Yeah, the integrated WiFi hasn't given me any problems, but I'd bet there's still a whitelist. And it's a standard laptop BIOS, not a whole bunch of anything to change when you get into it.

It's going to basically be as locked down as your Y470 is, there haven't been any huge culture changes at Lenovo since then that I'm aware of. Anything that's gonna happen will likely be aftermarket hackery, and the machine is too new for most of that, and likely not terribly popular because the m270x isn't as fast as the 860M that's in other competing machines. It fits my needs great, but only because I've got a beefy desktop for proper gaming, and the battery life and price mattered more to me than the raw gaming performance

 

I just pulled the trigger on a Y40-80, and wondered if anybody around here tried running Linux on one yet. This is the first time in ages that I've bought a gaming-capable computer, and I'm sure I'll keep Windows on it for the games, but I generally prefer working in Ubuntu. Does anyone know of any special issues?