Lenovo Y400 Owners lounge

There seems to be questions about this laptop on multiple threads but there doesn't seem to be a y400 owners thread despite some being interested so let's start a main one for this laptop.

I'm getting mine by the 22nd but I saw one at an office depot near my home so if anyone has questions, feel free to ask. Other owners jump in.:thumbsup:

 

I'm really looking forward to receiving mine! I already have the SSD I'll be throwing into the mSATA slot, then I get to transfer Windows 8 to from the HDD to the SSD... should be fun.

Lenovo site says it ships on the 21st. I just hope I get it before January 4th.

 

I plan on getting the msata ssd later down the road. It seems like next year prices will drop more than this one and I'm looking forward to purchasing an intel 520 along with a crucial msata for maximum ssd storage.

And mine is one its way to its destination, but since I'm buying a US model (not from the US) I'll get it the 22nd.

Does anyone know when we could be able to purchase the SLI video card? Or if this laptop supports the ultrabay battery? I know it supports HDD caddy, fan and video card, but a battery would be great!

 

The sli's are coming into stock again next week and hopefully the ultrabays. Tempted to pull the trigger on this one for $750 (Lenovo barnes & noble + tax) but gotta sell my T420 system first.

 

I'd say make the jump. For 750 it's kind of a steal and lenovo makes quaility computers from the experience of various acquaintances. The only caveat I can see with the y400 is the screen's resolution but oh well. Besides, it's a nice looking gaming laptop. Nothing too gaudy or tacky like an alienware or asus ROG.

Does anyone know what the power supply for this one is? I suppose it's 120W because of the unboxings and how huge the brick is.

Would a slimmer PSU kill it? I found a nice thermaltake one but it's 95 W. I could take the slim one with me and leave the big one at home.

 

It comes with a 120W AC adapter.
I thought I read the SLI would require the 170W adapter?
Guess we'll have to wait and see.

 

You guys have probably looked at the thread about the Y500 touchpad issues but I haven't heard anything about that from the Y400. How's the quality of the touchpad on the 400 and have you guys had any problems?

 

Is the mSATA slot easy to get to on the y400? Also, where is it? lol
I remember seeing it being easily accessible on the y480. Hopefully it's the same on the y400.

 

Lenovo has been running a variety of discount codes for orders through their web site.. The amount and specific configuration have changed from week to week since Black Friday, but there seems to consistently be at least one in the $700-800 range. Definitely worth checking there.

 

Y400 touchpad is ok, 2 finger scroll you need a lot of space between fingers. Likely something easily fixed with a driver update.

 

Hey guys. I'm debating between a y400 and u410. I know they're two different classes but their price difference is only 50 CAD (on sale). I love the specs of the y400 but the only issue is the battery life. Is it really that bad? 2-3 hours?? I thought the y400 also has an intel 4000 HD which should highly reduce power consumption...
Any thoughts?

 

They're both entirely different beasts. The y400 has a gaming grade GPU and apparently, we cannot force the intel HD 4000 due to the SLI capability. I just got it yesterday but the battery indicator said there were about 5:30 hours remaining. Mind you that was at mid brightness.

It's the thing with gaming laptops: battery life will always suck.

 

Quick question, does the Y400 really have a glossy bezel around the screen? Thanks!

 

Yes it does! Now looking at it, the 14" model could be a 15" one because it's not packed very tightly. It's about the size of a 15" macbook pro.

 

i made a thread for this a couple days ago, but anyone here noticing a low pitch humming noise coming from their y400? It goes on and off depending on how hard the cpu is working. I think it could me a dusty fan since the sound goes away when the fan turns off. i asked for a replacement device and lenovo is shipping me one in a couple days. anyone else notice this in their laptop?

 

I haven't noticed anything like that. the only sound I hear are the fans while gaming. Not much else.

 

Where did you get a US model not from the us? I am very interested.

 

How is the glossy screen when it comes to light? My school's library is fairly bright and I saw myself on the screen more then I did anything else back when I owned an M14x.

Though it is a bit of nitpicking on my part, having a glossy bezel around the screen is a bit of a turn off. I am guessing that the area is going to have many scratches after owning it for a short period.

 

Alright I installed a 256GB mSATA SSD but my y400 is not recognizing it :s I suspect I need to update the bios? Anyone know how to do that or can help me out here?

Update: I got it working finally, Windows probably just had to finish updating. I don't know exactly what solved my problem, it just appeared finally.

 

I have a very close relative on the US. That person came back home on the 22nd.

 

I'm curious if this is a common issue. I'm receiving my y400 soon and plan to get a mSATA SSD as a boot drive and use the 1TB drive it comes with for storage. Has anyone had luck with such a configuration?
Thanks.

 

It doesn't seem so, I think the SSD I bought was just DOA. I tried it in Lenovo's Ideapad y480 and it didn't work in it either.

Update: I finally got it working.

 

How did you install the OS on your SSD? Were you able to get install-able media from Lenovo?

 

Just a quick question for Y400 owners. So is there a MSata slot in addition to a regular Sata slot for an additional hard drive?

 

Yes there is.

 

Im getting stuttering in games and its not a frame rate issue. Im monitoring my hard drive through the task manager and it shows my hard drive activity spiking to 100% quite frequently. It didnt have this stuttering issue the last 2ish days and I have been gaming ever since i got it. Is this a y400 issue or a general laptop thing?

 

what games?

have you been monitoring temperature? it could be throttling due to overheating

is this an internet game? could be your connection as well....

 

Mainly diablo 3 and team fortress 2 which are not very demanding compared to more recent releases. I monitored my temps through core temp and it shows my cpu maxing out at 80C but is usually around 70-75ish when gaming.

I dont think my connection is the issue but throttling could be a possibility. I usually get 100+ fps in diablo but noticed it was hovering at 64 consistently today. Is there any way to know if im being throttled or not?

 

Mine hasn't shipped yet but if you are playing on battery there should be some type of throttling, try playing with power connected and see if that helps.

 

Ive only been playing plugged in with the battery out as im still on winter break and dont have to take my laptop anywhere. The weird thing is that the stuttering problem hasnt happened the first 2 days ive had the laptop and only decided to act up of as of yesterday. I didnt download anything suspicious in mind and nothing in my task manager is showing a lot of resource usage. The hard drive activity shows a lot of use and constantly spikes to 100%.

 

Is it easy to replace the main hdd for an ssd??

 

Hmm that is strange. You have the single GPU model correct? Does the hard drive spike to 100% even if you idle? Did you notice any other problems like the issues with keyboard and mouse pad like Y500 models?

 

Yeah i have the single gpu and the hard drive doesnt spike on idle. I cant comment on the mouse pad since ive been using a mouse but i have had no problems with the keyboard.

Everything about this laptop is great except that its starting to bog down for no reason. Ive had the power plan on high performance the whole time so im not sure what the problem could be. Im going to try system restoring to an earlier point and if that doesnt work, resetting to factory settings. Does anyone think this could be the beginning of hard drive failure and should I consider asking lenovo for a replacment?

 

Yes try that and see how it works. If the problem is still present maybe try and contact Lenovo support and see their opinions on your problem. If you are sure its a hard drive issue I would ask for a replacement.

 

Did you update your drivers on NVIDIA?

Yes it is easy to replace the HDD for an SSD. The only thing would be since the Windows 8 key is on the BIOs, you will need to find a way to transfer over the data or somehow get the product key.

Also for those wondering about the touchpad, I haven't had a problem with it for the 5 days that I have had the laptop. Small sample size but it is what it is.

 

Not yet. Ive used their automatic driver detection on their page and it says to download the drivers from lenovo instead. How did you update yours?

 

I actually have been using the default driver from Lenovo. Does it not let you download anything off the NVIDIA website?

 

No it does, they just recommend you go find the drivers off of lenovo for some reason. I tried the system restore and i got an error that said it failed however the stuttering problem is games went away which is strange. My boot up times are still slower than before and the system still feels slower overall but games run better now.

 

How is the screen quality going for the Y400 owners? From 1 to 10 how would you rate it?

Any complaints about the screen ??

Thanks.

 

Theres no reason for it to bog down what so ever, I run a server on my Y460 and Ill have it running without shuting down for months at a time and it never slows down one bit. Sure, if its been siting for weeks without my touching it and I all of a sudden want to max out the GPU it will slow a bit or after i get done playing an intensive game like how it returns to windows, it will slow for a few seconds but thats just cause its a 5400 rpm factory HD in it. Its probably you have to many processes or there is some process that is doing something that you dont know about, that can happen and slow stuff down. A lot of times anti virus or other programs can run maintenance or what ever the program does without you knowing about it.

I like to use system mechanic and game booster togather for my server, they both can help with maintaining a fast PC by closing unessasary programs and freeing memory, things like that.

 

Yeah I thought about that because i use avast and it has real time scanning but ive been watching the task manager constantly and it uses hardly any resources. And if that was the case, it wouldnt explain why I was getting stuttering in games. Since i got the laptop, i havent downloaded anything other than 3 games, antivirus/malware and coretemp. So im at a lost here for now.

 

yeah that is strange, cause i've done almost the exact same, i've downloaded 3 games, i run mine on a targus dual fan chill pad, i also set my max processor state to 80% to avoid any temps over 75*c during gaming, but even with that i haven't run into any stuttering or frame rate issues on swtor, which is pretty stressing at all highest settings in the busy areas

 

anybody think it would be possible to order the ultrabay Hard Drive and swap an SSD into it, then plug it in the ultrabay, voila, any size ssd and you keep your 1TB hard drive, any thoughts on if this would work?

 

Should definitely be possible, but very expensive, since the ultrabay hard drive is around $200. Maybe some other caddy will fit or be released soon by another company...

 

Just received my Y400 today. Has anyone been able to make physical recovery disks or are you guys putting it on an external HD?

 

I have the ultrabay fan and it is absolutely worthless as far as additional cooling goes, maybe i'll look at it and see if i can gut it to fit an ssd, then i would only be out 30 bucks lol

 

My y400 is supposed to be shipped next week. but i have to admit that im a bit scared with all the negative comments, are y400 users experiencing the same issues y500 are facing ? i heard a lot of complaint about the touchpad and keyboard on y500 but strangely very few about y400 does it mean less y400 were sold or that they have less problems ?

It would be great if some y400 users could tell us more about their appreciation on this computer

also, i plan to get a mstata ssd how hard is it to install ?

 

I have had no problem with the touchpad or the keyboard. The only thing bad that has happened to my laptop so far is my laptop came with the brushed aluminum paint scratched or unfinished around the keyboard. Kind of looks like screw driver marks that etched the paint but is not dented in any way. I have called them and am supposed to be getting a replacement laptop.

The mSATA is not hard to install. It is right underneath the back cover once you remove it.

 

Let us know when it arrives. Was it difficult dealing with customer service? I'm a little shocked that they would send a whole replacement laptop for a cosmetic issue but I'm relieved at the same time as maybe they'll be lenient on returns and such.

 

Wasn't too difficult to deal with them. They did say that it takes 3-5 business days for them to get a replacement order out so I am waiting for that as we speak.