Lenovo Y50 Owners and Information Thread

Again thanks for the replies. ATG sorry I missed your first post about the drivers I just didn't see it. I figured that much anyways I just thought I remember seeing people complaining that they were having problems with video drivers off of nvidia's site on their gaming lenovos.

All makes sense rickards and I think first thing I will just swap out the HDD for my own 256 gb SSD. Not thrilled about downgrading to 256gb in size but I have a 1tb external that has more than enough room for blurays or whatever else will take up a lot of space. Or I guess I could sell the unopened SSD + the HD that comes with the laptop and then buy a new 512gb...hrm. Though I'll really only be playing csgo/d3/q3 so I should be fine.

Seems standard enough though just changing those BIOS settings to get the usb drive to boot up. Do you keep all of those settings the same after installing the Win7 on it?

Also not exactly sure what LAV is or much about hardware video decoders. Is there a fix for that if I do keep win 8?

 

Yeah I know the questions seemed silly, but I was just preparing myself for any surprises ... For example, I cannot find "Gigabit" mentioned on any retailer's site for the Y50 model, however many other laptops still explicitly mention it ...

Also, as the OS was just being discussed, is it Windows 8 or Windows 8 Pro that comes with the Y50 ?

 

it should be windows 8.1 Single Languange oem, the pro one should be an option

 

What do you mean by the pro being an 'option' ?

 

more like an upgrade if u buy from shop or tell the lenovo online shop if u want the pro one with oem

 

Okay thanks.

 

the 1tb drive is a WD black, so it'll hopefully outlive any external drive you could ever buy. it's sitting in a usb3 enclosure for storage while an ssd is in the machine.

i haven't touched the settings since

the intel HD 4600 still worked for video. i'm not sure if the issues i had with the nvidia card is the same that everyone has experienced. i couldn't get the 860m working properly with win8.1, even after updating to latest drivers. it may be user specific? regardless, for me, the issues with stuttering, terrible upscaling, video decoders, etc all vanished with win7.

 

Any one have the throttlestop settings for y50 i7-4710hq uhd and wouldn't mind posting a screenshot of it ? All the ones I've seen on this thread is for the 4700hq, I'm a bit of a newbie at this and like many others I don't really want to mess up my lapptop.

Thanks

 

here, i got the fhd model but with the same cpu as yours

 

Thanks for the settings

 

Hello everyone, how do you manage your laptop's battery? usually plugged in or drain then charge? I would usually do the latter, just because the Energy Manager keeps bugging me that staying above 70% / 100% is not ideal for the battery.

TIA for the advice.

 

Since I don't do a lot of traveling, I usually keep it in "Conservation Mode" which keeps the battery between 50% and 60% at all times. Much more convenient than charge/discharge but I don't know if charge/discharge is better for the battery.

 

Yeah that's what confuses me, there are times that I keep it at 60-70% in Conservation, but then after 3-4 days, drain the batteries to 30% then fully charge it again.

 

Hi guys,


I have Lenovo Y50 and have few questions. I'm reading this thread through, but it is insanely long, so someone might have answer for me. My model is with Core i5 (4210h, 47W TDP), base clock is 2.9Ghz and max turboboost is 3.5Ghz (3.4 for max load with both cores).
Strange thing I noticed is, when I use start Throttlestop and use the included CPU benchmark in it, it loads all cores to 100% and speed of all cores is 3.4 Ghz as it should be, wattage consumption is about 30W. However, when I use Prime 95 and use any test in it, clocks go to ONLY 3.1 Ghz, never higher, wattage is around 37W. I do not understand why it does this, GPU is basically idle at this point, so definitely not throttling because of too much power it's taking from supply.
Anyone have idea why this happens? I'm aware I will probably never load CPU like Prime does, still it bothers me and I would like to know the reason.

Second thing is, I have laptop for like 10 days, so far pretty happy with it, but I just noticed that fans (or one of them, probably bigger one, but that is only a wild guess) make weird sound when laptop is under load. First few days it was making that typical "fwooosh" fan sound under load, which is okay, but now I can also hear some weird higher frequency sound and my guess is it goes from the bigger fan, as it happens only under heavier load, on idle or low load I cannot hear anything at all. Also, funny thing seems that when I use the included "fan dust removal" utility by Lenovo, I cannot hear this sound too.
Do you think my fan can be already defective?

Thank you for your help

 

The ThrottleStop - TS Bench does not use AVX instructions so power consumption is significantly less than Prime 95. Intel CPUs are limited by power consumption but they can also have turbo boost limited based on how much current is flowing through the CPU. It is possible that it is hitting the current limit before it is hitting the 47W TDP limit. If you are using ThrottleStop 7 then you could try reducing the CPU voltage. A CPU voltage offset of -50 mV can free up some additional headroom to help you avoid this throttling.

The latest versions of Prime 95 are overkill for a laptop. The load that ThrottleStop creates is more real world. If you can run the ThrottleStop bench at full load and full speed then your CPU is probably going to be OK as is in most apps and games.

 

Thank you for you answer and also, for your amazing application, I use it for some time already and there is nothing like it, you did an amazing job.

I actually have my CPU undervolted, -75mV in every profile, so far it seems stable in Prime, TS Bench, gaming, no problems whatsoever. When I tried -80mV, machine rebooted once while playing and I assumed it's the undervolting, so I guess I found my sweet spot and -75mV is quite good result in my opinion.

I'm still reading through this thread, but I think I made a good choice buying i5 instead of i7, while using TS Bench and running with full turbo boost, my CPU temps does not even hit 70C, hovers around 65C. Of course, while running furmark too simultaneously makes it run for around 80C on CPU and 65C on GPU (no throttling), which I think is pretty good result, only Prime + Furmark made it go to 94C but it did not go higher than that, while keeping the CPU at that 3.1 Ghz stable. Not to mention, fans does not run at max even at these temps, laptop is still quite moderately quiet. After gaming (LoL, Skyrim, etc, all on highest settings, CPU is Throttlestopped to 2.9Ghz at all times), my max temps reached are like 65C CPU and 58C GPU, which is really, really good and games run fluently.

In conclusion, I may have lost some negligible CPU power by choosing i5 over i7, but it is barely noticeable while using this laptop and/or playing games and temps are definitely nice.
This Lenovo laptop definitely has it flaws, but for the money, I think it is a pretty good machine and people that are able and willing to tweak the system a little bit, live with the screen (or replace it) will be happy about it.
I have traded this for my old Macbook mid 2012 with 3rd gen i7 and 650m GPU and I have to say, in overall, I'm happier. Yes, Macbook is more sturdy, better build quality, screen, touchpad, better design and better life battery (under Mac OS), but still, for me the Lenovo wins in the end.
I have repasted my Macbook many times because of temps, but it helped for like 1-2 months, after that, temps were getting higher and higher again, which was really tiring. It was running bootcamp for games, CPU had to be Throttlestoped to 2.3 Ghz all the (base clock of that i7) to keep temperatures bearable, fans were at 80-100% all the time and it did not help at all. And it was barely capable of running LoL at medium settings with occasional hiccups - note, that temps while playing LoL on repasted and cleaned Macbook with MAXed fans were 78C CPU and 77C GPU in average.

If Lenovo made separate heatsinks for CPU and GPU, threw out the stupid default throttling setup (although TS will override it) and had better screen from the start, this laptop for the price would be total overkill and probably would not have any competition. Still, it does this job very well and for the price, it is hard to complain at all. Only competition in this price and comparable performance is the new Acer Nitro, but the fact I would have to buy 17" to have good temps, the much more complicated maintenance (HDD to SSD switch, cleaning) and somewhat worse looks made the Lenovo Y50 pure winner.

 

I have to say that, having gotten a Y50, it's a disappointment that just keeps on disappointing. As if it wasn't bad enough that they used a fake 4K screen that only has half as many RGB sub-pixels as it has pixels, I just discovered that the crappy RealTek WiFi module they ship with it doesn't support the 5GHz WiFi band, which I would expect to be on any laptop sold today for more than about £50.

They have cut so many corners on this thing it's spherical. Great shame. If they did it right it might have jacked the price up by £100 or so, and they would have had the most awesome laptop in it's class. Instead they chose to produce a turd for the sake of shaving 10% off the retail price. It seems most of IBM's legacy of engineering excellence has finally disappeared from the brand and Lenovo is now just another manufacturer racing to the bottom.

 

Just bought a Y50 a couple days back .. It's still on its way but I had a question ..

When you first power on a Y50, you arrive at this screen where you register your OS and laptop .... Question is, can I revert to this state again later on ? That is, I activate it, get into Windows, etc., but then I 'reset' it to go back to that state that when you power it on, it again asks you to register, as if you're turning it on for the first time .. Is this possible to do ?

 

Yes if you restore it ie wipe it.

 

You mean a complete system restore (ie restore original partitions, etc.) ?

Does the laptop come with recovery CDs or will I have to purchase them ?

 

Can anyone confirm that this laptop, as other optimus laptops, is incapable of playing 3d games on a HDTV? (The hdmi port seems to be wired to intel's 4600 gpu, not the 860m). Optimus is such garbage... Had I known...

 

What do you mean? That is nonsense, HDMI port uses both, iGPU and GPU and it switches correctly.

 

please tell me the throttlestop settings for Y50 - i7 - 4700HQ

i tried 34T and my system shutdown immeditely

 

I mean that Nvidia 3dtv play says that my computer is not compatible.

 

If it shutdowns on that setting, something is definitely wrong. Post the pic of your TS setup and post more information like - does it shutdown when you set it up, or when you set it up and start some benchmark, etc.

I do not know what you are using exactly and cannot replicate, however the output signal from HDMI is not locked to iGPU, that would be hyperlame.
It will be different reason, problem with TV, HDMI compatibility problems, etc. Hard to say like this.

 

NV 3d vision is turned off for all optimus units, which means it's not compatible with y50

 

I've got a system without OS but I'm pretty sure the ones with OS should come with recovery partition.

 

I have actually bought a 1TB SSD which I plan to immediately start using in my Y50 when I get it. So how would I move the hidden partition to the new SSD ?

 

Hyperlame indeed it is... The whole optimus thing is bullcrap. My tv is hdmi 1.4 compliant. I did see something about intel's intru 3d but is some even more obscure crap.

 

Optimus is not "bullcrap." Why couldn't you do some simple searches to help solve your issue?

http://forum.notebookreview.com/gam...cards/585648-3d-does-work-nvidia-optimus.html

 

Take it down a notch, please.

 

that only works if your HDMI output is controlled by dGPU, which is not the case here.

 

Oook, I had already seen the post... So how does it help? You can't play games in 3d on your hdtv with the y50, can you?

 

Apparently so.

Apologies for the previous misinformation. (Also, I do not have a Y50.)

 

That would mean that 3D gameplay won't work on any laptop that has Optimus.

 

That's what some people are saying. Very poor design choice.

 

Ok maybe I just don't get what you guys are talking about so ignore the following if its not related:

I just connected my Y50 to external display(1080p) via HDMI, switch to external display only and played some Sleeping Dogs(1080p and all on High) and Shadow Warrior(probably same settings as SD or better) and I get exactly the same frame rate as if I was using the Y50's display. The games are perfectly playable with this config - a config that the iGPU wouldn't handle - so I'm sure the laptop was using the dGPU while on external dipslay..

 

I guess they mean 3D capabilities of it. dGPU does all the work when gaming, but it is iGPU that transfers the signal through HDMI to external display. It is not about performance, but about 3D capability.

 

We're talking about playi'g games with 3d glasses (google nvidia hdtv play 3d)

 

Someone explained it like this:

Unfortunately the way the Optimus technology functions prevents you from being able to use 3D Vision with an external 3D display or even 3DTV Play with an external 3D HDTV. The implementation Nvidia uses has the integrated Intel graphics active all the time, no matter if it is the GPU rendering the image, or only visualizing what is rendered from the discrete Nvidia GPU. When you run a game, the more powerful Nvidia video card gets activated and starts rendering the frames and as soon as a frame is being rendered it is sent to the integrated GPU’s framebuffer for visualization. So the integrated Intel graphics actually shows the image on the laptop’s screen no matter if it rendered the visual data or not, and so all the extra video connectors, such as HDMI for example, are usually connected to the integrated Intel GPU and not to the discrete Nvidia one. And if you connect a 3D HDTV for use with 3DTV Play or a 3D LCD monitor for use with 3D Vision you will not be able to use them in stereo 3D mode as they are not being properly detected… they are not physically connected to the Nvidia GPU, but to the Intel one. Although there are a few models that have the HDMI on the GeForce that will work, so be sure to check for that before choosing an Optimus laptop with the idea to connect it to a 3D HDTV and use 3DTV Play!

See more at: Nvidia Optimus Technology and 3D Vision Don’t Go Well Together - 3D Vision Blog

 

Hi all. I am new to this forum and I am writing here solely because in October I purchased a Y50-70 with the SSHD. I have been totally loving it and it was my favorite laptop up until four days ago.

TLDR; After quickly becoming slow, PC does not even boot anymore, HDD is sometimes recognized, sometimes not. Can not get into Windows anymore. Have done 1 system restoration, 1 lenovo recovery factory reset, and 1 fresh install of Win 8.1.


The first problem I noticed was that the computer was becoming completely slow four days ago, while I was only using a single tab in Chrome and trying to open a new tab. Suddenly, Windows-processes such as Task manager and Explorer became so slow that they stopped responding. I noticed that a few processes were taking up lots of disk usage: svchost, MsMpEng.exe and Search indexer. The PC stopped responding, and I got the error message "Microsoft Windows: The application is not responding. The program may respond again if you wait. Do you want to end this process?". I clicked "Yes/OK" and the PC would be OK for a while. Then, these freezes would not end so I shut it down by holding the power button (something I don't want to do, but I had no choice). When booting back up, the PC would be slow. And, of course, I would hear two sounds:

1. A regular clicking from the right side of the laptop.
2. A spinning-up sound, that kept spinning up, stopping, spinning up, etc.

So I did a system restoration back to 10 days before the issues started. Did not do any difference.

But then, finally, after many freezes and reboots, the HDD is not found while booting up. In BIOS, the HDD is sometimes found, sometimes not.

I decided to try and get into the Lenovo recovery. I did, and I managed to do a factory reset. However, the problems persisted. Freezes, sounds, and no bootable device found like 80% of the time I boot the PC.

So I did a reinstallation of Win 8.1 using Microsofts own startup disk creator. Installed a fresh Windows copy without all the Lenovo crap on the OS partition (THE ORIGINAL PARTITIONS ARE INTACT!). Seemed to be going well. I started installing updates through Windows Update, and rebooted the PC after a batch of the 45 first updates. Aaaaaaaaand, the PC was freezing again. When I boot up, the lenovo logo lingers for a long, long time. Then I get the "No bootable device -- insert boot disk and press any key" message. In BIOS, sometimes it can recognize a HDD, sometimes it is Not Detected. I've tried changing the boot order and priority, but that doesn't make any difference.

I'm not sure how I should even begin to diagnose this problem. Should I open the laptop and check whether the HDD is properly seated? (I have very limited experience working with hardware, so I am very hesitant about this. Also, I don't want to break the warranty). What else, other than the HDD, could be at fault here?

I am going to contact Lenovo support tomorrow but thought I should give this forum a try. Advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading.

 

Alright thanks. Before the 3D talks in the last posts there were some speculations in this thread and in the Owner's Lounge thread that Y50 uses only the iGPU when there is an external monitor connected. It seems that's somewhat true but only for 3D so for me personally its not a big deal.

 

Thanks for linking this reference post (I was too lazy to do it).
The mysterious Intel Intru 3D (3D to TV through igpu, and YES, it does mention gaming), if anyone understands the gibberish:
Graphics Drivers — Intel® InTru™ 3D Technology FAQ
Theoretically, could a modified Lenovo driver for the nvidia chip and/or intel's igpu fix this mess?
(PS: I've long uninstalled lenovo's drivers on both gpus for generic ones).

 

You better take it with Lenovo. Don't open the laptop up, especially if you're not sure what you're doing. That SSHD is pure crap in my opinion - despite being a WD black - so if you have the option and the money when you send it to Lenovo and they confirm bad HDD ask them put an SSD instead.

 

Okay, thanks for the advice. I had no idea that SSHD was so bad. Will it cost me money to change the harddrive? Would you recomment getting a oldschool non-SSD drive? Or won't it be good with the rest of the laptop's components?

Thanks again for taking your time.

EDIT: Would anyone suggest that I do a complete wipe of the SSHD and re-partition it? The original partitions are intact as I want to interfere as little as possible. Would completely wiping the drive break the warranty?

 

The SSHD is not so bad, most people seems to be OK with it. Its crap in my opinion and experience but maybe I got a bad drive, just like you. I use mine as an external drive and I can hear it spin up and down all the time, that affect its performance and probably its lifespan.

Lenovo would definitely charge you if you request a swap for SSD.

Personally, if I can't afford SSD I would get a normal, fast regular HDD instead of SSHD.

 

Did anyone else remove the gray dust filter off the inside bottom intake cover?

My GPU was 75C while gaming, with the dust filter removed, it's now down to 65C

I'm having to play WoW in DX9 to make the game brighter on this 4k display, tweaking gamma in D11 is buggy and just causes whiteout. DX9 natively is much brighter to play the game. Was getting video artifacts (large black sections) after playing a while, thinking GPU heat, I removed the bottom to blow out the fans, and found the odd dust cover.

-ND

 

Hi guys,
Week ago I bought Y50-70 FHD without system - 4710HQ, GTX 860m 4GB Maxwell, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD. Installed fresh W7 64bit and all the drivers - no problems here.
So far eveything is good, the "fan thicking" noise doesn't bother me that much, the screen is not so bad at all. When you krank up saturation a bit the colors are very vibrant - for games it's totally enough (I bought it for games)
Got few qestions though...
1. What is the driver/software responsible for OSD for volume/brightness? I want to disable it as when playing some games it goes to windowed mode when using it (FN + arrows).
2. Everytime I close W7, I got 10 sec delay because he has to shut down something running in background (although everything is closed) and gives me a message (you know, with the "force shoutdown" button"). How can i check what is he shutting down? It doesn't tell me. Is there some kind of a log file?
3. InTS 7.0 beta 3 I can only set multiplier to 35T maximum, while I saw here few people can set it to 36T on this processor. How come?
4. how much points in Firestrike you have ? I got ~3950 with GPU clocks +50 on core and +600 on Vram (this is max I can get before artifacts). I'm running on 344.75 drivers.
Thanks a lot!

 

Can you elaborate what you meant by buying it 'without system' ?

 

What is to elaborate on here? - you can buy with W7 or W8 installed or without anything.
I had a legit copy at home and didn't feel like paying extra for another so I ordered my laptop w/o a system.