Lenovo Y540 - main thread

Tech Specs
Processor

• 9th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-9750H
• 9th Generation Intel® Core™ i5-9300H

Operating System Windows 10 Home
Graphics

• NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 2060
• NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1660 Ti
• NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1650
• NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1050 3G

Display 15.6” FHD (1920 x 1080), IPS, up to 144 Hz, 72% color gamut, and 300 nits
Memory

• 8 GB DDR4 2666 MHz
• 16 GB DDR4 2666 MHz (2x8G)
• 32 GB DDR4 2666 MHz (2x16G)
• 16 GB DDR4 3200 MHz

Battery

• Up to 5 hours
• 52.5 Wh

Storage Up to 1TB PCIe SSD or up to 2 TB HDD
Audio Harman® speakers with Dolby Atmos® for Gaming
Dimensions (W x D x H) 14.4″ x 10.2″ x 1.02″ / 365mm x 260mm x 25.9mm
Weight Starting at 2.3kg
Color Raven Black
Connectivity

• 2 x 2 802.11 ac + Bluetooth® 5.0
• 1 x 1 802.11 ac + Bluetooth® 4.2

Ports / Slots

• USB-C
• Mini DisplayPort™ 1.4
• 3 x USB 3.1 Gen 1
• HDMI™ 2.0
• Ethernet
• Kensington® lock slot
• Audio combo
• NOVO hole

Keyboard White-backlit

 

I'm currently torn between this and the Y7000P/Y545 (same model, different markets).

Seems mostly to be an aesthetic difference.

 

Y545 cools worse than the Y540. It's not mostly aesthetics, it's the literal internals being that of the Y7000, a model that cooled poorly. Lenovo's just calling it Y545 in the US, probably to mislead people.

 

Do you have links/references alluding to its poor cooling? The only two reviews I looked at both praised the Y7000P for its cooling, which is something I value greatly in laptops. The YouTube review looked at the new 9th gen, and even mentioned it was relatively quiet for a gaming laptop with good thermals.



https://www.techradar.com/reviews/lenovo-legion-y7000p-review

 

This is the Y540's heatsink

This is the Y545's heatsink


As you can tell, there are two less vents on this machine, making overall less surface area that the fans are cooling. Everyone I've talked to that has one of these units, be it the chinese version or the US version, faces high temps at 45w (like 85-90C under gpu/cpu full load) as opposed to lower temps (75-85C, sometimes higher on combined load) on the y540, at 55W or so. Keep in mind the wattage increases are WAY more important than the temperatures alone, as higher speeds result in higher wattages, and vise versa.

YouTube reviewers generally do a poor job of determining how well a laptop performs thermally, and I'd say the Y540 is a better option performance wise in ANY situation.

Tech Radar is no exception, either.

 

Any update on 76Whr battery mod? Cause if it works this might just be my next laptop.

 

Battery and laptop still have yet to arrive.

 

What do u mean by battery mod?

 

Replacing the small battery with a larger one from the 17 inch model

 

Well my order of the Y540 just shipped, once I've gotten it and played around I might post a quick review.

 

With gf1650 or 1660ti?

 

1660ti, i5-9300.

 

What about temps? My i5 version is pretty hot.

 

Laptop is arriving on Thursday, I'll let you know then. I'll likely re-paste and undervolt it, like I do to pretty much all my laptops.

 

Turns out you have a point, seems the Y545 does get hot. I wonder if this is limited to the i7, or if the i5 also gets this hot.



Sent from my SM-G970W using Tapatalk

 

Also, did you undervolt your CPU? Seems to be a general consensus that the 9th laptops (especially the i7) really benefit from an undervolt. The laptops that run cool are often shipped with a factory undervolt.

 

This channel has good y540 videos

 

Y545 review

 

The laptop arrived yesterday, started playing around with it and doing some testing. Undervolting the CPU made a huge difference, about 10C drop in temps under load. Mine came with Optimus turned off by default ("hybrid mode" turned off in the Vantage software), turning it on made a difference too (no need for the 1660ti to be used when not gaming).

Using a cooling/laptop pad also made a difference. I'll see if changing the TIM (thermal paste) on the CPU/GPU has any effect at some point.

 

Instead of using cooling pad try elevating the rear of laptop by placing small object, 1 inch clearance should be there. Using balanced thermal mode will also lead to less temperatures than performance mode.

 

I am very interested in this config (9300h + 1660ti). Can you say anything about the cpu temp compared to the i7? All reviews seem to be with the i7, and a bit hotter than I hoped for. If the i5 is not cooler I might as well choose the i7 instead.

 

I just ran Unigine Valley for two hours, got the following readings (-0.13v under-volt, laptop placed on a pad, ambient room temp of 25.5C)
Average CPU: 74C
Average GPU: 64C

 

Thanks! Not sure what the corresponding values are for the i7 setup, but seem good just considering the temp. I will check back regularly too see if you post any more.

 

Undervolted y540 -125mV - crashes.

 

Yes, each CPU is different as to how much it can be undervolted. Some people reach as much as -150mV (which caused mine to crash). I'm currently at -130mV, which seems stable. The silicone lottery will determine how much of an undervolt your chip can handle.

Played some WoW (1080p, high settings, ambient room temp 25.5C, laptop direclty on desk, -130mV UV).
Average CPU: 63C
Average GPU: 58C

Keyboard temps:
WASD area: 34C
GHJ keys: 38C
Right-side arrow keys: 32C

When playing "modest" games, seems to run relatively cool and quiet. But when the CPU+GPU are stressed, it gets somewhat hot and quite loud. You'll definitely need some headphones if you run some more demanding games - the fans are very noticeable.

 

Nice, thank you. At what frame rate? I don't really plan to play the most demanding games, so I think this would work for me.

 

I turned VSync on, so it capped at 60fps. When I get home I'll run it unlocked, see how high it goes.

 

Right, wasn't sure if you had 60hz or 144hz screen. Looks like it is difficult to get hold of the 60hz screen with the 1660ti in Sweden where I live. So I was thinking I would go with the 144hz screen, but realistically not play games in 144hz very often. 60 hz is what I am used to. Maybe I can cap the game at about 60 hz anyways.

 

I noticed the y540 with a 17" screen wasn't listed in the original post - I happen to own one.

my laptop has the 17" 144hz 1080 screen (matte), i7-9750h, RTX 2060, 16gig ram and 256 ssd + 1TB HDD

I've tinkered with it a bit and I've managed to UV cpu by -0.250 core/-0.130 cache with Throttlestop, and for GPU I've OC'd to +185 Core, +1185 on the memory using MSI afterburner.

Seems pretty stable, no bsod, only a rare window closing if the laptop gets too warm.

I'm not sure if the 17" model allows for more air flow compared to the 15" chassis, but based on what I've seen on posts about the more common 15" model - I can get similar if not better thermals with my laptop with the same oc or uv applied.

 

Looks like 65-85fps depending on the zone/amount of players.

 

Meanwhile repasted the laptop. Used GC Extreme and now temps went down around 10C.

 

has anyone replaced their SSD yet? If so, which brand/drive? I was on another forum and someone said y540 is single sided so we can't use the double sided ssd.

 

You mean replace the M.2 SSD? Personally I would leave the default M.2 in place for the OS and add my own 2.5" SATA SSD.

 

Like I did myself.

Switching to PCIe x4 won't change a thing. Stick with the original SSD.

 

Yeah, because my configuration is only a 256gb, I am thinking about getting an external enclosure to use that and put in a 512gb or 1tb. Also going to swap out the 1tb HDD to a sata ssd, more research to be done...

Yeah, just upping the size but wondering which M.2 people swapped to.

 

Anyone has sound crackling issue from speakers while on battery in y540 like watching youtube?

 

No, mine's totally fine. The speakers aren't so good as my previous ASUS UX533FN but still enough for me.

 

ok, and have u tried connecting it with hdmi cable to any other display? Is the sound from other display is ok?

 

Connected with a 55" TV Samsung KS7000. Works great. No problems here.

 

Another quick comparison between the two.



Sent from my SM-G970W using Tapatalk

 

Need Max fan option back from Lenovo, then y540 can beat Helios 300 for best laptop of 2019

 

And why is that? It's already cool enough? No thermal throttling on my side.

 

I just ordered 81SX0001MX, which is 15 inch 144hz, 9300h, gtx 1660 ti, 2x8GB RAM, 512GB 2280 SSD.
Thanks for the help!

Pretty excited, I hope it will be perfect for me.

 

Hi all.
I hope this is okay to ask, how would you rate your battery life in 'hybrid mode'? That and possibly how you gauge the laptop with regards to durability. (to be carted around daily or travelled with)
For my half my usage, this laptop seems to offer the best performance for the money (in my region), above average speakers and fan noise are a plus too. Still for the other half I'm concerned about how it'd stand up to being taken everywhere and the better screens and batteries in the X1E and XPS 15 sway that but their thermals and price aren't nice. (not to mention questionable everything for the XPS)

Gotta compromise, and am leaning towards this. Any reports of it are appreciated.

 

I can't answer your questions, but there are 3 reviews of different configurations of the y540 on notebookcheck. And they test the battery too, so you should be more informed after checking them out.

 

Ah I must've missed one. Went over two but was hungry for some more insight. Thanks, I'll look back.

I was somewhat hopeful that some users had eeked out a bit more battery run time from them than seen in the reviews but I guess at this price point that's hoping for a bit too much.

 

What's the general build quality like? I'm in need of replacing a v. old 17 inch HP Probook. Gaming is low down as a priority and the spec is overkill but I like the styling and all black design of the Legion as opposed to the current business grade machines. My only concern is whether it would be even close to being as rock solid.

 

Yes build quality is rock solid

 

I have ordered a Y540 from Lenovo's homepage with these specs:

Intel i7 9750H
17,3" FHD (1 920 × 1 080), IPS, 300 nit, 144 Hz
32 GB (16+16) DDR4 2 666 MHz SoDIMM
256 GB SSD, M.2 2280, PCIe-NVMe, TLC
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 6 GB GDDR6

I paid about 1274 USD for it (No OS included), I think it's a good price for that performance. I will add a 500GB SSD to be the secondary drive.

I'm going to install Win10 Pro from a USB flash drive and I'm wondering which Lenovo applications I should install? Lenovo Vantage seems like a must-have.

 

Yes vantage, select switchable graphics in bios, disable auto updates in vantage