Lenovo Y540 - main thread

is the temperature difference between the 6 cores normal or is it too much and i should repaste it? https://ibb.co/4ttWdjb

 

Does switchable graphics in BIOS mean that when the 2060 is not needed the integrated graphic card will be in use and because of that less noise and more battery time, am I correct? Do i need to do any configuration in Vantage for that? And how does the PC know when to use the 2060 and not?

Why do you recommend to disable auto updates in Vantage?

Any other things I should know/do?

 

Yes switchable graphics uses nvidia optimus to use 2060 in games 100% of time. While every non gaming task will use Intel GPU leading to 4 hours battery backup. Vantage has hybrid mode for this, but going in BIOS to see switchable graphics are on is most reliable.
Updates messes things up mostly so I do manual updates as mostly system is running fine.
Other things is i7 9750h will go in 90c and after Undervolting too 85+. So repaste is only option if you want to use 6 cores 3.8ghz power otherwise downclocking to 3.4 GHz brings acceptable temperature without Undervolt and no loss of fps in games.
And there is no option to disable Fn key in BIOS so f1-f10 multimedia controls will only work with Fn pressed.

 

Just ordered my own Legion Y540, super excited for it to get here, estimated date is Nov 4.
Got it for $1,488.64 CAD (roughly 1120 USD) from the Lenovo website with the TSM10 coupon, free shipping and student discount.
Configuration Details:
● Intel Core i7-9750H (2.60GHz, up to 4.50GHz with Turbo Boost, 6 cores, 12MB Cache)
● Windows 10 Home 64
● 8GB DDR4 2666MHz
● 1TB Hard Disk Drive, 7200rpm
● 256GB Solid State Drive, M.2, PCIe-NVMe
● 17.3" FHD (1920 x 1080) IPS, 300nits, anti-glare, 144MHz
● NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1660 Ti 6GB

By far the cheapest 17.3 inch 1660ti/9750h/144hz combination laptop I could find by a mile, with all the closest options being only 15.6 inches and only available from the states (which all had expensive shippings/duties).
I'm glad I was able to find something that fit what I wanted without having to pay an extra limb to cover for duties, brokerage or shipping.
I was looking at the Helios 300, but my cheapest option would have been to buy it from amazon US and pay some hefty fees for currency conversion, brokerage, duties, etc whatever else there was. Would have been stuck with 15.6 inches when I wanted 17.3 too.
The MSI GF65 caught my eye too at a similar price as the Helios 300, but had the same fees issues, looks like its cooling system is only single fan too.

It's interesting because I've spent quite a bit more on my current GTX970/i5-4590 desktop over the couple years I've had it than on this laptop, yet this laptop is probably quite a bit faster in both CPU and GPU. Nice to see how far gaming laptops have come. It was just a few years ago where everyone agreed it was impossible to get desktop gaming performance in an affordable gaming laptop that wasn't the size of a huge box. My current laptop is some HP 7th gen i5 ultrabook that I picked up as a 300 CAD refurb for school a year ago, going to be a big upgrade.

I plan to add 8gb of ram for 16gb dual channel if possible, and possibly upgrade the cooling with a repaste or pads. I have a 1TB HP EX920 that I plan to swap in too. Anyone do similar or the same upgrades yet?

 

hello peeps core i5 9300h and 1660 ti here, very good cooling, very pleased. -150mV on cpu and gpu undervolting (via afterburner curve) make the thing even better.

I took the i5 cause i didn't want a 6 cores toaster in may laptop. The i5 is always running at 4ghz on all cores, so it's plenty enough for that gpu i think. Running a 6/12 cores that throttles or a 4/8 cores at full capacity, i made my choice. Price/worth it ratio

Factory memory has crap timings 2666mhz cl19. Better buy your own kit if it matters to you.

Looking forward to exchanging tips and tweaks with u guys !

 

Lamim Rashid : i'll probably check pads and thermal paste at some point but my temps are so fine i don't feel brave enough right now A guy in the first pages stated he gained like 10 degrees by repasting !

 

Hi All,

I have the i7 9750H with the 2060, 1TB SSD and 16GB of RAM.

Great machine, I was able to undervolt to -130 but there was not that much of a difference. I played with some of the other features of throttlestop and it may be worth playing with it.

I do not get CPU throttle regardless of the games I play (mostly high end FPS).

Couple of tips...

Fn q is a fan control function key.

The system has a battery conservation mode to keep the battery around 60% so if you always game with the unit plugged in, you won’t fatigue the battery.

The hybrid mode makes a huge difference with the battery. If you use the system on battery for web browsing, work, etc, you don’t want the 2060 eating up the battery. I used a GPU detection tool and the switching works perfectly.

You may want to go into BIOS and turn the usb power off if you don’t want it to provide power when the system is off.

Easiest way to enter BIOS is to hit ESC when turning the system on and selecting the BIOS. You can also use a paperclip when the system is off to hit that little button on the right side of the machine. ESC works great though.

R

 

u can disable hyperthreading in bios (press F2 for bios) also it doesn't impact performances for 6 cores users, sometimes it's even better without it. Maybe u can have better temps and/or sustain higher clocks. Here :

 

i have a wattmeter and idling it's pumping 17W on the wall on igpu and 22W on the 1660 at 75% brightness wifi on. Basically igpu shoves around 5W at idle. it's probably even more beneficial when you use your laptop. Still 17W is a quite a lot. I tried putting the screen at 60hz on igpu it just shoves another 0.5W not as much as i expected. I don't expect more than 4 hours of battery life on this laptop, we'll see.

 

The 9300h is way better than it seems, especially for gaming. The 9750h has good specs on paper but it runs so hot that it thermal throttles in most laptops anyways from what I've seen. I took the 9750h anyways because I dont game too much anymore and will most be programming, it was only like $50 difference for me too.
I will probably sell the included ram and buy a seperate kit. Any idea how much the 8gb stick could sell for?

I already ordered conductonaut, some silicone modified conformal coating, liquid electrical tape and some thermal pads to do a cooling upgrade. Going to be my first time upgrading a laptop and using liquid metal so wish me luck haha.

This model particularly has a much higher CPU tdp/power limit from what I've seen than most other laptops of similar specs, could be why. Maybe you could play with some settings to limit how much power the cpu is eating.

 

best compatible memory kit appears to be HX426S15IB2K2/16, people reporting it's 100% compatible with Y540 and effectively running at 2666mhz cl15 as specified. I'm about to go for it but not sure if i really need it, except for scientific benchmarking purposes haha.

this video results on memory speed seems crazy, too bad we can't go higher than 2666 mhz on laptops


Going from cl19 to cl15 is a bit like having 500mhz higher memory frequency i suppose.

yeah people are sleeping a bit on the i5 9300h cause it's called i5, it actually beats the i7 7700HQ by a fair margin having 2mb cache more and higher frequencies. For gaming purpose, it's still rocking.

I tried everything for battery life, it just pulls quite a lot at idle state, just pretty lazy power design imo. Not a big deal anyway.

Can't wait for your modding !

 

This guy getting desktop temperatures after doing liquid metal on his y540

 

wow interesting

nice tuto here :

am impressed by the temp diff, it's huge, makes 6 cores totally worth it

my gpu is already at 55ich and cpu at 65ich when undervolted and the back lifted up, can't imagine with metal cooling, i need to do this

 

I dont know about your thermals, but i bought y540-17 model with i7 9750h, and i just elevated back side of laptop a little bit, unervolted for -140, and idle temps are around 38c, and under load they are bellow 75c...
When i put it flat, without elevating it, temps are going +10c...

I bought 17" model with i7 9750h, 8gb(i will add another 8gb), gtx1650, and 512gb nvme ssd, and with 60hz screen(it was 930e in Romania, which is great price, because laptops with this specs costs maybe 200e more).

-great design(i'm in love with this minimal design, just removed all stickers, and its great)
-great build quality(it's not cracking, everything is sturdy)
-great thermals(my last laptop had 10-20c higher temps)
-great screen(~95srgb, 300nits, great for photo and video editing, and that is main reason why i bought it)
-nice keyboard(lighting is great, it has nice feel to type, but I still not used to layout, but i think i will be used to it really quick)
-nice touchpad(it's nice touchpad, fingers flide easly, but i would like it to be bigger a little bit)
-speakers are okay(if you enable dolby, you can improve sound a little bit, but it lacks clearness and bass)
-It's easy upgradeable(just remove 2 fillips screews and that's all, but when i was removing bottom part, i broke 2 small plastic things that conects that part with rest of bottom panel)

I am very satisfied with this thing, it's great laptop, and it's prettier than y740-17, because it has smaller bezels...

 

I was lucky to get a refund when my order was delayed 2 weeks, I paid 1031 USD for this model:

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

 

nice, that 1650 is helping in cooling while gaming. I have 2060 model and cpu goes to 90c with gpu at 75c. I disabled turbo boost of cpu, now both cpu gpu get 70-72c. Have you played any heavy game like bf5, fc5, racing game like dirt?

 

Well, I didn't played any game, becouse I'm not gamer, i bought y540 for photo and video editing...

 

Where can I buy the 144 Hz panel for Y540?

 

After experiencing various issues with an Asus ROG laptop and a MacBook Pro, today I picked up the Costco-exclusive Legion Y545 (i7 9750H, 16 GB RAM, GTX 1660 Ti, 144 Hz display, 512 GB SSD, 1 TB HDD). Very impressed with it thus far. Great build quality and keyboard feel despite the odd placement of the numpad. I just wish Lenovo would have designed a slimline AC adapter like you get on a Razer Blade or HP Omen. That, and the lack of Thunderbolt 3 is a bit of a downer. I don't think I'd recommend it at its $1,200 asking price, but for the $1,050 I paid, it's a decent value especially since Costco automatically extends the warranty to two years.

Keep in mind liquid metal requires periodic changing. If you'd rather not deal with that hassle, you can use a high-quality standard thermal paste like Gelid GC Extreme. It might not be totally as effective, but it's definitely more "set it and forget it" than LM.

 

Yes great purchase. Who would have thought that $1000 could give such powerful gaming rig 6 months ago. The latest nvidia gpu generation has set the tone for powerful gaming in budget. This much amount was giving a 1050ti before which gives 40-50fps at 1080p ultra now same amount giving 80-90 fps from 1660ti.

 

Can anyone recommend a good laptop cooling pad or something similar for my Y540 17"? There's a jungle of them..

 

Hi. Did you get this kit? Any issues? Ordered the y540, was going to upgrade too.

 

Hi, I have a question if I connect an external monitor to this laptop using DP mini with G Sync (144Hz) support, then will G Sync work?

Thanks for the answer

 

Long as you're using mini-DisplayPort to full-size DisplayPort, it should work. Make sure you have a high-quality cable. I recommend this one. It's more expensive than others you'll find on Amazon, but it's fully certified and should handle high refresh rates with no issue.

 

I already have a cable that supports G sync (144 Hz), on the previous laptop I used this solution (on HP Omen with GTX 1070) and there were no problems. I am asking because I am thinking about this laptop and I would like to be able to use the advantages of the monitor.

Greetings and thank you.

 

Edit - SOrry wrong thread

 

I just got my Lenovo Legion Y540 17" and had a few questions, hoping for some help.

Where can I find the battery conservation mode I've read about that keeps the charge at 60%?

I'd like to do a fresh reinstall of win10 and drivers/software using the media creation tool off a USB. Where would I find the product key for my win10 version they installed?
On that note, I tried asking Lenovo support for the product key and they said they don't have it, and further said if I try to reinstall win10 using a USB and it wipes the system recovery already on the drive, it'd void my warranty!! Has anyone ever heard of such a thing, or can confirm that's Lenovos policy?

 

The battery conservation mode is in the Lenovo app... big L on a blue background.

Select power and you will see it.

Why not restore windows from the recovery partition?

Not sure about the warranty... I would double check that.

R



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

Thanks for the reply and info.

I'd like to repartition the drive, get rid of all the bloatware, use the mfrs drivers in some cases instead of the OEM. Since I haven't put anything on it yet, seems much simpler to just reinastall fresh.

 

Unless something is vastly different with the 540, the only thing I'd consider as bloatware on my Y545 was the McAfee antivirus software, and that was surprisingly easy to remove. Guess that's the by-product of McAfee being owned by Intel.

Everything else that was on the PC was stuff you'd get with a stock Windows 10 installation.

 

I'm planning to get the 15" i7-9750H/1660Ti 512GB SSD version. Thing is, my current laptop has a 1 TB SSD and I use it all (only 100 GB free). Thinking of replacing the 512GB with 1 TB. Any recommendations for a compatible 1 TB nvme pcie ssd?

 

Samsung 970, WD Black, pretty much anything that doesn't use QLC flash memory since you use most the space on your current drive.

 

Part of the yellow tip on my Y545's AC adapter cracked. Put in a support ticket online, and in less than week, I had a replacement unit, no questions asked. They don't even want the defective one back. While I'm disappointed that the unit broke, I'm more than impressed with the quality of Lenovo's service.

 

New owner. Upgrade from a MSI GS60. Bought the i7 RTX 2060 15inch version. Swapped out the 8GB SODIMM for 2 x 16GB Crucial sticks. Difference was immediately noticeable. Have a 1TB Samsung SSD arriving later today to accompany the 500GB SSD. Play a lot of Elder Scrolls Onlone and this machine has no problem with all settings cranked up. Anything from 50-100FPS.

Really impressed so far.

 

After ages looking around I plumped for the 17" last week.

It came down to one of the Clevo chassis, MSI GE75 Raider and Y540

Concerns about about build quality put me off the former two, so the Lenovo won out.

I’ve the i7-9750H with the RTX2060. The GPU is total overkill for my general needs but since the 1660 was OOS and I wanted to get the best CPU available, it was the only real choice.

While I’m getting fully set-up, overall impressions are good. It looks very well made, I’d say as close to a business class laptop as a gamer will ever get.

The screen has slightly more than average bleed on the right hand side. However, even with my many years of pickiness, I felt it wasn’t gambling for a better panel. It’s not so much in the corners, more the side. Brightness wise, I’ll probably have it in the 65-75 range, so unlikely to notice.

The panel is definitely on the cool side. I have used the profile from Notebookcheck’s review since it’s the same panel but I can’t discern a great difference. I’ll probably shift the display temperature down one or two notches to compensate.

The machine has both Hynix RAM and SSD. Wouldn’t be my choice but there you go. Looking at current RAM prices, I may just pull the trigger on 2x 16GB Ballistix. For the SSD, I tried installing an app from Hynix but it didn’t pick it up. I struggled to get any read on the SMART info until I tried CrystalDiskCheck. Yet to benchmark, but 1TB Samsung 970 is a likely upgrade when prices next drop.

I haven’t pushed it yet but very impressed with the cooling system. Barely a murmur most of the time. Have done a mild -125 undervolt on the Core and Cache.

Keyboard is decent, I’d like a tad more feedback TBH but will get used it. Having home/end/pg up/pg down on the arrow keys is awkward though. I can see a lot of dust and muck getting under the keys too.

Keypad seems bang average. Didn’t appear to have the right drivers out of the box. Just said HID pointing device. It’s an Elan, so I fixed it. I use one of my stock Microsoft 1.1a wheel mice anyway.

One thing that took me by surprise is the plastic wrap around the hinges. I thought an area was scratched until I saw what it was. I presume it will self destruct in time, so will resist the urge to pick at it further.

Looking good so far.

 

Anyone else tried the latest nvidia generic driver? The latest driver update from lenovo is from 2019. Not sure about the compatibility of the latest generic driver.

 

My y540 maintenance guide

 

hi

i heave y540 + rtx 2060



could you send me a screen with undervolt - msi afterburner settings and overclocked settings please.

 

I have not overclocked the gpu as i am getting decent fps. I have undervolted using throttlestop

 

Can someone provide me with color profile file for Y540 with 300 nits 60 Hz panel? I want warmer colors.

 

I use intel graphics settings to color tones

 

Hi everyone
a quick question
what is this black foam like thing on air intake mesh?
is it air filter?
can air get past it? im asking because it seems air cant get past it! and if its the case i will remove it
has anyone opened their devices to check it?


thanks

 

Do not remove it. It's dust barrier. Dust kills motherboard. Even new nitro copied this thing in new nitro 5. Only the air intake vents below fans matter. You can check yourself by placing a small piece of paper under the laptop intake vents when fans are running hard, the piece of paper will not stick in center but below the fans where air is being sucked.

 

Thank you
I just asked it because i have a custom coolpad which have 2 12cm fan facing laptop intake fans and one 8cm fan facing this dust shield and from my experience with my previous msi laptop coolpad and good air intake can make a huge difference.
my cpu temps hover around 85 (on 9750h with 78w pl1) during video encode so i want lower temps because it runs for a long time and plus i render in solidworks too (it can take up to 36hrs of constant cpu and gpu load).

maybe ill try removing and see the results and if it wasnt huge I will put it back. ill report the result if i do it.

 

Hello everyone
Update about this last post is that i opened my notebook but didn't remove it because it's using some kind of adhesive.

AND
If possible i would be grateful if someone could test his/her notebook with prime95 (not long for about 2min will be enough like my shots) and upload the temps screenshot here.
my core 2 and 4 temps are a lot higher that others and i want to see if its from thermal paste or not, and

I'm sure it would be helpful for a lot of people not only me.
Prime95 Link:
https://www.techpowerup.com/download/prime95/

or any other test that takes around 70w from cpu

 

Can you upgrade the 60 Hz panel to 144 Hz? Heard the 60 Hz version got 30 pins and 144 Hz 40 pins and the mainboard has to be replaced as well.

 

Hello,

i just bought a lenovo legion and i am satisfied with it

My laptop is a Legion Y540-15IRH / model 81SX (i7 9750H/RTX2060/16gb/512gb SSD/ FHD 15.6'' 144mhz)

I added an External monitor with the Acer XV240Y, a razer deathadder v2 mouse, a Crucial MX500 SSD with a UASP box from UGREEN (model 70499) for my games.

-----------------

I changed the 16gb RAM (2x8gb) by 32gb RAM crucial (2x16gb) and change the thermal paste with grizzly kryonaut.

I did an undervolt and I am satisfied with the result,

I used MSI afterburner with the scan / test and after a few tests I raised the frequency of the RTX2060 to 200 mhz, everything is stable.

------------------

The Legion is very easy to disassemble, it took me just a few minutes to change the RAM and thermal paste, with a kit for disassembling electronic devices (purchase on Amazon.ca for about twenty dollars)

------------------

I play Far Cry 5 and the Benchmark result gives me 94 Fps with ultra settings and HD textures, everything is smooth when I play.

-------------------

I tried 3Dmark 11 free, and I get around 6400 points

------------------

I tried Cinebench R20, and I get around 6400 points

------------------

Currently I deactivate the turbo boost because I do not need it when I play games like farcry 5, the FPS being above 60 and the temperature of the legion is low.


See you

 

Hi, does anyone know the latest nvidia driver compatible for our device? Thank you.

 

Best BIOS Version for the Legion Y540 with i7-9750H. (November 2020 Update)


I’ve read a lot of forums to find out which BIOS version of Legion Y540 is the best for thermals (and performance) and on almost all cases I got 26WW and 27WW as the answer. Someone tested all the versions till 33WW or something and came to that conclusion (26WW and 27WW being the best), but I couldn’t find any recent extensive test on it. As a lot of new BIOS versions came after that, I wanted to see how they stack up in comparison, so I did the tests myself. Posting this as it might help others who are curious. I got my Y540 15IRH with i7-9750H back in August 2019 and it came pre-installed with 27WW.


Conclusion (if you don’t wanna read the whole thing) – BIOS 39WW (latest as of 2020 November) is as good as 26WW and 27WW so I see no reason not up update to the latest version.


Testing procedure –

Stress tested by running CineBench R20 on loop.

Undervolting of -1.60mV offset (on both cache and core) using ThrottleStop 9.2

High Performance mode using Vantage Software.

Constant Ambient Room temperature of 23°C

Latest version of Windows 10 (built 20H2) and everything UpToDate with BIOS being the only variable.


Results - (same for all 3 BIOS Versions 26WW, 27WW and 39WW) –

Thermal limit of 95°C reached (hovering around 94°C most of the time)

TDP limit was of 70 Watts (default in High Performance Mode) reached only initially at 4.00 GHz later was hovering around 63-67 Watts throughout the test (This was due to the temperature being the limiting factor)

Clock speed stayed around 3.65 GHz (on all cores) after initially being 4.00 GHz but dropped gradually as temperature limit of 95°C was reached.


I observed one thing during the testing for 10-15 seconds the TDP drops to 50 Watts and clock speed adjusts accordingly (around 3.20 GHz on all cores) then boosts back to 3.65 GHz with 70 Watts being the TDP limit again (happened on all 3 versions of BIOS).

 

Super annoying issue when running an external monitor in hybrid mode (Optimus enabled) and second screen only:



At 1:32

Can anyone confirm this?