Lenovo Y400 Owners lounge

I have had no issues with the keyboard or touchpad, i do however prefer to use an actual mouse so i don't use the touchpad too often. my only gripe, as you can see if you research on this forum and look at some of the other y400 threads, is it runs a bit hot under full stress gaming, I have remedied that however by lowering the max processor power state to 80% essential turning off turbo boost when i play that specific game.

I should state here that I have never had it fully overheat, or throttle, the highest CPU temp i've hit is 95*C which is still 10 degrees away from the max, the gpu has never gotten past 65*C. The last laptop I had got fried from overheating, so i guess i am just being overly anal about monitoring and making sure this one never gets up too high for too long, I would like this computer to last as long as possible

beyond that, I think this computer is great, i am very pleased with my purchase, the build quality seems top notch, the whole machine seems very sturdy, didn't even come with too much preloaded crap which is a great plus! I would recommend this model to anyone that asked me

 

Did they let you keep your y400 and send you're damaged one back once the new one arrives?

 

Yep I still have the first laptop on hand. Returning once the new one gets here.

Here is a picture of what my laptop came with. I have more than one picture but just to let you guys know what I received. Nothing too bad but it is supposed to be a new computer...

 

Yeah I agree with you there. I had a similar experience once with a different situation. Did they ask you for photos?

 

Yes they did. I sent them about 5 photos. I counted and there were about 15 of these kind of marks. About half of them as noticeable as the one I showed above and half of them lighter.

 

Thats pretty awesome that they did that for you. I googled around and it seems like lenovo has a ton of bad reviews regarding their customer service from various websites.

 

it's not the fact that they have a bad customer service that scare me the most. what's really scary is that so many people had to go through their post sale service.. which mean their quality control ( if they have one) should get some improvement.

But still you'll never find a laptop at 750 $ with these specs so i took a risk and ordered one. hope everything goes well

 

Tell me about it.. I had to replace my sisters thinkpad and calling their post sales was like a maze.

 

My y400 has a problem with its keyboard that persisted so I'm exchanging it. 2-3 times per paragraph I type, the keyboard would press a bunch of random things on the keyboard on its own. Lenovo diagnosed it as a hardware issue after they got me to restore the system back to default and the problem remained. I called Lenovo January 2nd and haven't yet received anything in the mail or an email update since the 3rd.

 

hey everybody, i just joined the forum because i had a few questions about the lenovo y400. i am very intersted in the y400 because im due for a new laptop and i need something that will handle CAD well, and this one fits what im looking for. i was wondering how the wifi signal is on the y400. also how is the weight and thickness to carry around. any info will be great. thanks.

 

how long does the order status stay in 'released to manufacturing' mine is supposed to ship tommorow but order status is still the same since day 1 im a but worried i made my order on dec 30. did you guys face the same thing ?

 

When I originally ordered my y400 I ended up finding this thread on the Lenovo forums a day later, scared the crap outta me

Re: Ideapad U & Y & Z Series Shipping Discussion (... - Page 92 - Lenovo Community

but i ended up getting my y400 1 business day after the original estimated delivery day, so i really didn't have any complaints, it did stay in "released to manufacturing" for majority of the order though

 

thank you for your answer i was scared too with all the horror stories on lenovo forums

 

I just got this laptop a few days ago, and I must say it is amazing. Since this is my first laptop, I am not quite familiar with laptops' GPUs. I saw that you can add a second GT 650m, and I wanted to know what would be the equivalent desktop and laptop graphics card to Two GT 650m. I searched all over the net and found very scarce information. Is it worth the 200 extra bucks? Also, I read in other forums that this laptop has problems with overheating when gaming and wanted to know if any of you guys had problems with this. One last thing, if I do get a second 650m, will this increase my chances of overheating? Thank you in advance.

 

I was wondering is anyone knows if sli would require more than the provided 120watt power supply for the y400?

 

hey guys i have a dilemma, i plan on overclocking my 650m sli and im thinking about installing a I7-3820QM and selling the I7-3630QM, but if i do the temps will go up pretty high and im scared that i wont get the stable overclock that i would with the I7-3630QM, and than ironically the less powerful system would than be in fact more powerful when overclocking comes into play. please help!!!

 

yes you need to buy the 170 watt adapter for it to work properly, kinda sticks I would assume that it would come with the additional 650m sli card but guess not....

 

just received mine this morning everything is perfect exept that i find the screen bezel a bit loose on the bottom is normal or is a deffect ??

 

biscuit26, the lower part of the bezel is kinda loose but I guess it's a small design flaw.

Has anyone updated the nvidia drivers? Since it's supposed to use only the lenovo drivers, it might run into a problem or two but I think it works pretty well except for the fact that it can't seem to work with HDMI.

Anyone got a fix for that?

 

I'm surprised this thread has such low activity considering that the Y400 is a great gaming notebook at the sub-$1k budget.

I was hoping someone could provide further commentary on the touchpad's quality in terms of its ability to prevent random palm swipes.

I've also been seeing some mention a way to prevent heating issues by lowering the CPU's max clock to some lower %. Could someone comment on that?

 

I don't have the same model but I had to apply that setting to my Ideadpad Y470..lowering the max processor state to 90% from 100 to stop intel turbo boost from running.

This is how i did it.

1. right click the battery icon in the notification area.
2. click power options..
3. choose change plan settings (i personally applied it for only high performance since I only game on high performance)
4. click change advanced power setting towards the left corner
5. scroll down and click the "plus sign" next to "processor power management"
6. click the "plus sign" next to maximum processor state" and lower it to 90% for both for the "on battery" and "plugged in"

 

Hi everybody

Do you know if the y400 is available in Europe? I can't find any y-series laptops in Denmark, and when I press "buy" on the Danish version of Lenovo.com, it sends me back to the front page.

 

Alright so the replacement finally arrived on the 7th of February, but they shipped it to the wrong address after I specifically asked them to ship it to my university residence address. Luckily I'll be back on the 19th. If all goes well, it will have been 1.5 months to get a replacement and 3 months from order date to delivery of a working product. At least it works fine with the USB keyboard I have so have done some light gaming on it and can say it works great!

 

Ouch, I really got off easy then. My Y400 want at my door 5 days after ordering it last Wednesday and I haven't had a problem since.

 

Does anyone know how to replace the y400s boot drive with an ssd and if installing an ssd would cause any problems with the 16gb cache?

 

Just for clarification the Y400's 16GB cache is actually a mSATA SSD. That means that you can replace the 16GB cache itself with a larger mSATA SSD, such as this one: Amazon.com: Crucial m4 256GB mSATA Internal Solid State Drive CT256M4SSD3: Computers & Accessories. If you want to repace the HDD with another 2.5" SSD, then you can do that as well. If you installed both, either could be used as a boot drive.

To answer your original question however, I'm not sure lol

 

Haha thanks for clearing that up. The 5400 rpm hdd is really bottlenecking me in some games. Itll spike to 100% every now and then and cause me to stutter in game when that happens. Im hoping an ssd will eliminate that problem as well as improving battery life slightly.

 

Hey everyone! I have 2 questions,

1. Is it true you cant enable the HD4000 gpu? This would save battery a lot
2. How do you guys feel about the weight and the thickness of the laptop.

I'm very close to buying this badboy!

 

1. I believe it is true that you can't enable the HD4000 GPU. But even without it, I have been able to get around 4 hours of battery life which is enough for me.

2. The weight and the thickness of the laptop is all a personal preference of course. But to me personally, the weight of the laptop is great. I don't really feel the extra weight of the laptop when I have it in my backpack with a textbook and some notebooks. The thickness to me is also very good. Before this laptop, I was running the MSI 16F3 which was huge compared to this so I am very happy with the amount of power I get from this laptop for the size.

 

did anyone put a msata ssd on their y400 im planning to do this but i can't find some kind of guide ( im a noob). So basicly i want to put a ssd on the msata slot and migrate the os and use de 1tb just for storage.
so did anyone tried this and what is the easiest way to clone the os on the new drive ??

thank you

 

I haven't purchased my mSATA SSD yet so I don't have first hand experience but, these guides/videos should be sufficient.

Lenovo Y400 Y500 Full Disassembly - YouTube
Lenovo Y400 Y500 Full Assembly - YouTube
IdeaPad Y400/Y500 Service Training
http://www.lenovo.com/shop/americas/content/user_guides/y400_y500_ug_en.pdf

As for a guide to cloning the OS take a look at these guides. Check Youtube as well.

Solved How to Migrate OS to new Hard disk.
How to Migrate to a Solid-State Drive Without Reinstalling Windows

Good luck, and let me know how it goes.

 

Thank you for your reply doesnt look that hard. I dont muche time this week so i will probably do this next week and i'll tell you how it goes

 

Honestly it's not hard sat all; you simply unscrew the SSD from the motherboard and then remove it as you would RAM. I wasn't sure how much help you needed if you considered yourself a "noob".

 

yes you need the 170 watt power supply like some one else mentioned.

 

I have the 1tb + 16gb mssd. Would it be more beneficial to get a 256 gb ssd to replace the hdd or go with a 256 gb msata to replace the 16gb one?

 

Hey Forum,

I was looking at getting the lowest end Y400 and noticed that the more expensive versions have an option for a SSD boot drive (I'm assuming its for the OS because it's only, what, 16 gigs) With the lowest end Y400 is there even an option to add a SSD later (in addition to the HDD in already) or does Lenovo change the Mobo for the new hardware?

Thanks!:thumbsup:

 

hello everybody, quick synopsis about me, going to college at the university of minnesota twin cities for engineering, i need a new laptop as my mac book pro is starting to get out dated with the software and such... lenovo really caught my eye with the low prices and very good line up of hardware. i have a few questions to ask about the y400 (i've really fixated on this model for some reason) and just the lenovo brand in general.

if there are any recent or current engineer students right now that would like to chime in about their experience that would be awesome, college websites just don't give you any information about computers.

i'll say up front i'm not a gamer, and i don't really intend to become one, but i did take a class in 3d modeling software and i think i'd like to be able to do this on my laptop. so thats why i'm looking at gaming level computers. the 14in seems ideal for carrying around so thats why the 400 and not the 500 (besides the trackpad issue), but i'd definitely consider the 15in size if there is any reason to recommend it over the 14in.

i'm willing to spend around $800 on a computer, but less is always better

another major concern is how my battery life is going to be affected by running a quadcore and a high power graphics card if i don't need it. i'm not sure how often the typical college student has to go between charges, but the advertised 3 hours seems pretty short... the biggest thing is knowing how much i need, if i'll be fine with a dual core i5 that uses half the power then i'd probably take that instead. in that case the z series has slightly lower power consumption, cheaper, and less powerful computers.

and maybe the biggest thing i'd like to ask about is what's up with all the awful reviews of lenovo's customer service? i'm seeing them all over the place, much more than the occasional dud. is it something i have to worry about? i mean at college i can't afford to have my laptop crap out on me in the middle of the semester and not get it back for over a month...

thanks for any help with these questions, or recommendations to new models. all input is greatly appreciated

 

I successfully used Macrium Reflect (free). ~23 minutes to clone it so about 30 minutes total. I recommend a 256GB SSD, 64GB absolute minimum (~34GB space needed to migrate a fresh install of Win 8).

You can install the SSD! I installed a Crucial 256GB SSD to the mSATA slot and set it as the primary drive. 10 second boot time and fast game loading! The HDD in there still works great too.

The 15in has a numberpad on the right of the keyboard if you'd prefer that.

Mine gets around 5 hours with very basic usage (taking notes).

My experience, I received a Y400 with a defective keyboard. I arranged for an exchange within a week of receiving it and did not get a replacement for just over a month. Luckily they let you keep your current one for the time being. I had also asked that they send it to an alternate address (university residence) but they still sent it to my home so I ended getting it another 2 weeks later when I returned home for a week. I feel like I was quite unlucky, this probably won't happen to you.

If you decide on this model, I highly recommend installing a SSD into the mSATA slot (some configurations come with one already installed).

 

if you're lucky, you will get a perfect unit and won't bother calling lenovo. if not, then you're gonna have a bad time. mine arrived 2 weeks early and i was very happy for that, and no problems or anything. touchpad and keyboard are great! i guess i was lucky.

i don't know if it's true, but i think having a customer rep oversee your order may help speed up the process. chat with some rep and they will email you that entering their rep id on checkout will let them manage your order in their end. i forgot to enter this one guy's rep id when i checked out, but everything still went fine.

 

Correct me if im wrong, but the optional 16gb mssd is not a boot drive at all. On my y400, windows 8 is installed onto the 1 tb drive while the other drive only contains drivers that lenovo predownloads onto the machine.

Whats strange is that the other drive, which i assume is the 16 gb mssd, is showing up as 24.9 gb. Im pretty confused now as I wanted to replace the mssd for a larger one but was worried about cloning windows 8 onto the new mssd. Im not sure if I can take out this mssd and replace it or not anymore. Anyone have any info on this?

 

I came across this forum as I was looking for more info on the y400. I have received more info here than anywhere else! I am trying to understand how the msata drive works. I was informed that it( I don't mean specifically the y400, but in general the concept..) works as a cache drive that has various applications moved on and off of it automatically as determined by usage. If that is the case would I get a different experience if I purchased the model without the 16gb ssd and bought and installed a larger msata ssd myself? Also, does anyone know what the maximum supported size is (or is it not an issue because they either don't exist or are prohibitively expensive)?

Also, I am not a gamer and intend to use this laptop for various applications including Photoshop, Lightoom and some HD video editing. I don't need a super portable, but one that I transfer from home to work daily. I also have 22" external monitors at home and work and only use the laptop screen as a second screen (not to say it doesn't matter but it is not a primary concern, if it gave me a better experience I would use it alone more often). I would like a touchscreen but only if it can be used with in a way that I don't have to reach over the keyboard to reach it (like the Lenovo Yoga and Twist..). I have large amounts of video and pictures that I want to be able to work on at any given time and I don't want a 128 or even 256 ssd because I assume it would mean a lot of transferring locations. Also, I don't want to spend more than $1,000 so I have almost given up on the touchscreen concept, which leads me the y400. In your opinion is this the right laptop for me?

Once again thanks for the information you guys have already provided, the Lenovo reps that I spoke to have no clue...

 

From my understandings, storage speeds can be classified in three ways:
1. HDD only
2. HDD + mSSD
3. SSD

Going from slowest to fastest of course. If you bought the y400 without the 16gb mssd then I would assume all the applications on the harddrive would run slower than the harddrive + mssd combo. However since you plan on buying a larger mssd then you would just install the programs you need on the mssd versus the hdd. Hope that makes sense. I think mSSDs are made in the same size as regular ssds which I believe is up to 500gbs right now? Not sure on that one.

If you dont plan on using the screen on the y400 then I would suggest you get another laptop with a higher resolution, possible the y500 since it has 1080p. 768p is going to look pretty bad on a 22 inch monitor and wont give you as much productivity which you seem to be aiming for. Most 1080p screens are usually in a 15.6inch+ form factor laptop so that is something to take note of.

 

Yes, HDD is slowest, an HDD + SSD in hybrid (cache) is quite a bit faster and a pure SSD is even faster.
mSATA drives are usually a bit smaller, I have a 256GB SSD which you can get for around $200. There are ones bigger but they are quite a bit more expensive.

The resolution is dependent on the physical screen, not its native resolution. The y400 would have a 1080p resolution on a 1080p resolution monitor or the 768p on its own screen.

 

The second option the poster above suggested (HDD + mSSD) can be as fast as a pure SSD, as slow as a HDD or somewhere in between. Let me explain. Depending on the size of the mSSD, it can be used independently from the HDD, with 32GB being the minimum needed to store Windows and an additional program or two. Larger sizes (with the max being 256GB) would act as any other SSD and are able to be used independently from the HDD. If you have a small cache mSSD however (such as the 16GB version Lenovo ships outs) then the OS cannot be installed on the mSDD and you are relying primarily on the HDD. The small cache mSSD does not have any programs installed on it, but holds temporary files from you most used programs (that are actually installed on the HDD) so they can be accessed quicker than the HDD itself would allow.

So in conclusion a decently large mSDD (I would go for at least 64GB) can function as it's own independent drive with Windows installed on it. so not only do you get the fully benefits of an SSD, you can still use the larger HDD as storage for files that don't need the extra speed of the SSD. Of course you could replace the HDD with a large SSD so you'll have the incredible speeds throughout, but I don't think that's really necessary and you lose half your storage space. (Actually there are 1TB 2.5" SSDs on the market, but they cost $2,500+)

EDIT: Quick question, does anyone know if the y400 supports RAM clock speeds of over 1600MHz? Such as 1866MHz or 2133MHz? If so do these higher clock speeds provide any real benefits for a gamer such as myself?

 

How everyone systems going? Just ordered mine with the specs in m sig. Made sure it came with the Semantics touchpad. Is there anything else to check? How the SLI performance of this machine?

 

Hey Guys I need help,
I have a Ideapad y400 with a 1TB 5400rpm HDD but i have no mSATA SSD inside. Assuming i am going to buy one. Can anyone instruct me on how to use the mSATA ssd as a cache drive OR even a drive to put the windows 8 in? and will warranty be voided?

 

I installed a drive and transferred windows and all my applications to it. This is a good link for directions.
As far as warranty, I guess it would depend on the nature of the problem, but they might be able to claim that you voided the warranty.

 

Can anyone tell me if the y400 has an sli option ?
I want the y400 with the nvidia 650m sli.
Is it possible to get such a configuration ?

 

Question on installing the mSATA drive on a Y400:

I've removed the 8 screws and the back cover is loose in places, but also seems to be connected by little plastic snaps all over. In the dissasembly videos it says to slide back and lift up, but there seems to be no give to slide the cover back. (The snaps do look like they would be loose if the cover could be pulled back a bit. Anyone run into a similar issue? Is there just some way of manipulating the cover so it comes off more easily? Thanks!

 

I had the same issue you refer to. It did not seem to work to slide it, they will simply pop out with enough pressure. You just have to be careful to do it slowly and one at a time to make sure you don't break the plastic.