Lenovo Y410P Dedicated GPU Issues

I was having some troubles with my Lenovo Y410P that I bought back in July. Not sure when the problem started exactly, but I play League of Legends and CS:GO frequently on this laptop and there has been a lot of freezes/lock-ups in game when I set them to run under my Nvidia GPU (GT 750M). When I set it to my Integrated Graphics Processor (Intel HD 4600), the problem is gone!

To further elaborate on the freezes/lock-ups that happen, in League of Legends the screen will freeze for 3-5 seconds but the audio will still continue to play. For CS:GO, the game will freeze up indefinitely and the audio will loop until I CTRL+ALT+DEL and tab back into the game playing until the freeze happens again another 2-3 minutes later.

I have tried other nVidia driver updates as well as the ones on Lenovo's site to no avail. I have even contacted Lenovo's support through phone and they insist it's not a hardware issue and that it's a problem with the games. I would really like and appreciate some insight on this problem.

 

From your post it's not clear. Were the games ever stable for you, or has this been an ongoing problem since you got the computer?

If you suspect it's hardware, you need to eliminate software as a possible cause. There are several things you could try.

Full factory wipe and restore from the recovery partition. Try it before any updates. Then after Windows security and Lenovo driver updates. Then try the latest official drivers from Intel, Nvidia, etc. Note if and when the problem returns.

You could also try some stressful GPU and CPU benchmarks. Monitor temps and see if there is any consistent factor when the problem surfaces (CPU temp, GPU temp).

Never hurts to eliminate the basics as well. Test the HDD and RAM.

 

Reinstall your game, try other games, try different drivers.

 

I believe it was stable for me back when I had the original Lenovo Windows 8 installed with all the drivers. However, I downgraded to Windows 7 and that's where I believe is when it started. Unfortunately, I did not keep the recovery partition, I thought I'd backed it up on a disk but I'm not too sure.

Now I'm on Windows 8.1 (legitimate copy from Dreamspark program). Is there any particular order in which the drivers need to be installed in?

Tried, and did not help.

 

I run Windows 7 without any issues. Over the past week or so I logged maybe 20 hours of Borderlands 2 without a single crash. Since getting the y410p I think I put in at least 100h of gaming with Skyrim, Fallout New Vegas, Bioshock Infinite and now Borderlands 2 never crashing on me.

I did not even bother doing a clean install of Windows 7. I simply swapped my SSD from the old laptop (Acer 3830TG), booted it up, and it ran. This is the third laptop that this particular installation of Windows 7 has been through with nothing more than removing the old drivers and installing new ones.

Are you watching your temperatures while playing? If it overheats, and it crashes in other games, it could be a hardware issue.

 

FYI,
I had this problem before CS:GO freeze and sound loop, so I returned my laptop Y410p to the manufacture. They had to change M/B for 3 times (3 spare parts ( ) to solve this problem. I think this is a problem with designed mainboard by Lenovo. After I got my y410p back. I can play CS:GO for few month without game-freezed problem and then the problem start coming back again.

I am so tired with this Y410p

Bye lenovo

 

Same issue popped up for me a couple months ago. Unfortunately I'm out of warranty nor can I be bothered to get it repaired. Alt-tabbing unfreezes the game 99% of the time.

 

I know I'm replying to an almost dead thread, but I recently found the most likely cause and solution. I posted my response to the Lenovo forum. I'll quote it here:

"Hi there,
I've been experiencing the same issue as yours since 1 year ago. It is most likely heat related (even though you said not), and also probably from the stupid NVIDIA GPU Boost (which automatically overlocks your VGA card to above the GPU frequency, hence adding more heat and instability)

My problems occur in these games that I'm playing now:
- League of Legends : suddenly froze mid game, had to Alt-Tab to get it back working, and had to limit the FPS to 60
- World of Warships : sudden black screen. Unfixable. Has to restart the entire client.
- Splinter Cell Blacklist : sudden drop in FPS when reaching certain temperature, and it won't go up anymore unless I restarted the entire system. Most of the time, it will just froze, need to restart the game AND system.

I've noticed the problem will occur at around 68-70 degrees, so I tried repasting it, putting a cooling pad, and even installed IdeaFan (which increases the speed of your Y410p. It works pretty darn well. Just google it). It increases the stability by a bit, but still not enough. So I had to do something with the NVIDIA GPU Boost (which, for me, is actually the main culprit).

Now the GT750M has a base GPU clock of 941Mhz. But when it is boosted, it jumps to 1035Mhz(!!!). That's actually quite too much for a mobile GPU. So initially, I tried to disable it by using the NVInspector. So the my maximum GPU clock will stay 941Mhz no matter what. Hey! It increases the stability!!! But still, I have several random occasion of crashes. SO, I DECREASED it further more, reaching the value of 928Mhz for the maximum frequency. Since then, I haven't had a SINGLE crash or errors for 1 week (so far)

I understood your desperation. Heck, I even want to throw this **bleep**ty GPU away. But kindly try my methods before duing that ;-)

PS: I don't know if there's a way to attach the NVInspector profile files. Basically you have to go to the Performance Level [2] - (P0) state, then change the GPU frequency offset to -130 Mhz and Memory to -200 Mhz. That worked for me. Cheers."

There you go. Using additional cooling pad and IdeaFan really helped.

 

Just chiming in: I'm having the same issue OP is having. Video blanks out and audio loops until either a total crash or I am able to kill the game. I find this is accompanied with a nVidia graphics driver crash, of which I can find THOUSANDS in my event history. I've tried Lenovo's Windows 8 and my own copy of 8.1 and several different drivers. It happens with and without SLI enabled on my Y410P. I also believe it to be a heat issue, with ~70C being the magic number where the GPU starts acting up. I suspect a hardware failure with my laptop, maybe the GPU solder cracking. For non-gaming usage my laptop works great, but it's totally incapable of maintaining a load of the GPU. I Said F-it and built a desktop for gaming. Lesson Learned.

 

Started to get this issue too. Temps dont seem to be too high but issues persist anyways, and only occur when using the dGPU. Driver loves to "crash" at random times. Havent had these issues for the last 2 years, strange how they only seemed to appear now (maybe because of system wear or new drivers).

Also i don't game on linux so i can't test this over there too well.

Note: After upgrading to windows 10 my laptop seems to recover from these crashes better. I'll try messing with the GPU clocks and possibly reapplying thermal paste on the system.

 

lol, I was surprised to see this thread on the first page after not browsing the forums for so long. Anyways, my problem was solved after I sent it in for repairs. They replaced the motherboard with the faulty GPU. A few months later, it started acting up again. I sent it in a second time and I had to wait for at least a month because they were short on parts. I eventually called them about the long wait and had my case elevated to a case manager who then offered me the new Y40 (at the time). Noticing that the specs were quite the downgrade compared to my Y40, I asked if they could give me a Y50 instead so they accepted the request. I've been using the Y50 since, and it's been a better experience. There are occasional stutters that I can't fix but still a lot better than my Y40.

So if you guys are still covered under an extended warranty, this might be an option for you. Granted, there's a lot of hassle involved. You need to deal with customer service reps for hours to be forwarded for repair and a case manager if necessary when parts aren't readily available.