TP Yoga 12, 14, or Yoga Pro 2 / 3?

Standard operating procedure for me now when I help someone upgrade computers is to convert their old computer into a virtual machine, and put it on their new one. That way if there's a file or program on their old computer which 7 weeks later they realize they desperately need and forgot to copy, they can still get it. (Browser bookmarks are the most common one.)

VMWare converter (free) will create virtual machine files which will work with VMWare Player (free) or VirtualBox (free).
https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/in...ement/vmware_vcenter_converter_standalone/5_5
https://www.virtualbox.org/https://...#desktop_end_user_computing/vmware_player/6_0
https://www.virtualbox.org/

 

anyone notice any creaking in their TPY 14? when there open the display theres an unusually loud creaking in the left hinge...
may have to get this replaced.

 

Haha. Yes, true. It may just go WITH her laptop bag, then. It will be a bit heavy, though.

I purchased it directly through lenovo, actually. It doesn't matter either way for me since I'm out of town. I didn't ship it to my own house otherwise she'd figure that out, its going to my parents place.

I need to come up with a fun reveal plan. As I'll have a 1tb hard drive anyway, I could copy about her whole computer over to it, and she doesn't have a ton, it wouldn't be so bad. She's in school, but graduating in mid December.

That sounds like a very good idea, though I've never done this before. I'm only slightly familiar with VMs due to using one on Linux for windows, though I've never had to set one up myself. it isn't particularly difficult, is it?

Cheers,
nick

 

Looks like the deals are still there today.

 

And really, it looks like it applies to all kinds of laptops, not just thinkpads or yogas, actually. Might want to re-update the barnes and noble gold thread, somewhere in the depths of this forum. Really glad I knocked over 200 off the price. Like someone mentioned that's the cost of my SSD, so I call it a free SSD upgrade with a portable HDD. Not bad.

I'm glad I was worried over nothing, thanks for the VM tip. That should help out immensely. Does this also save all files, photos, videos, and content as well?

http://www.techradar.com/us/news/so...ate-a-virtual-machine-in-windows-1148275#null

 

It's kind of stupid in this day and age not to have an option for an SSD in the TPY 14. the 1TB is total overkill. i would gladly pay $150 extra for a $256gb ssd configuration. its just a hassle to buy a new ssd, clone it and open the laptop. Last time i opened by hp envy 14 to clean the fans i lost a screw...

the gt 840m/i5 4210u is okay in gaming. playing the witcher 2 1600x900 medium settings got about 20-25fps. In crysis 1 with 1080p (high settings) i got about 20-25fps avg as well.

 

Got to try them all today. Far too much flex in the Pros for serious typing. The Yoga 14 has a great keyboard IMO. It's just heavy. My X301 feels much lighter.

 

Usually the conversion is pretty straightforward, just takes some time (budget about 3-5 hours). VMWare Converter's error logs are rather cryptic so figuring out problems if they occur may be impossible if you don't have experience with VMs.

I've had the best luck creating a new admin account on the PC you want to convert, then running Converter from there. Select the source as "current running machine" and select the target as an external HDD or a network share. This will have a large impact on the speed of the conversion. USB 3.0 or a second internal HDD is fastest, then gigabit ethernet. I've had some conversions using these finish in about 30-45 minutes. USB 2.0, 100Mbps ethernet, and wifi (not recommended) are much slower. I recommend using an external HDD as a target, because you're going to want a backup of the VM anyway.

In the options, reduce the memory to something that'll run in the new system (2-4 GB usually). Delete any disks you don't want copied, like system recovery partitions or SD cards. Then let her rip. It's worked for me on the first try about 75% of the time. After tweaking some of the options 20%, and failed 5%.

The system you're going to run it on needs to support VT-x if you're going to run a 64-bit guest VM. Most CPUs have it nowadays, but some of the older i3s and lower did not. You may need to go into the BIOS settings to enable it (usually listed under Virtualization). Without it, only 32-bit guest VMs will run. Google "list of i5 processors" or whatever and go to the wikipedia page listing your new CPU. Its entry should tell you if it supports VT-x.

Copy the VM from the external HDD to the new system in the directory you want it to reside. Install VMWare Player (or whatever other VM software you're using), and open up the VM. Create a snapshot, then turn it on. Once it's running, install VMWare Tools for a more seamless experience.

Windows and Office may bug you to re-activate since they've detected a hardware change. You should wait a few days before doing this to make sure everything runs ok, and so you can dispose of the old machine (reformat, restore is what I usually do). Or if you just want this for peace of mind and don't plan to use it frequently, you can just use the initial snapshot. If the lack of activation ever locks you out, you can simply revert to that snapshot and once again you'll have a few days before you need to reactivate.

I won't say it's easy, but it's not particularly difficult either. Most of the time it works without any special intervention. I even converted my brother in law's Macbook to a VM so it'll run on his new Thinkpad. My sister had been trying to get him to upgrade from his 2006 Intel Macbook for years, but he kept saying he was afraid he'd be unable to access an important file or program. Running a Mac in a VM technically violates Apple's license agreement, but it's not like he's using it so his Thinkpad is a Hackintosh. He only uses it once every few months if he can't find a specific file (we copied all those to the Thinkpad as well, but the Mac tends to tuck files into odd places and he only knows how to get to them by the program used to access them).

 

I expect they'll have SSD options. This is the initial model release after all.

I've had two days to use mine. It's a fantastic machine. Very solid build quality, great keyboard, nice screen. I swapped the Fn and Ctrl keys on my Thinkpad ages ago, but I found I didn't need to on this one. I guess 14" gave them enough room to make the end keys a bit larger, so I hit left Ctrl with the side of my hand like I usually do. Still, if you want them swapped, there's a BIOS setting to do so.

My only gripes are:

• Lack of SSD. The 16GB SSD cache definitely helps, but it's noticeably slower than my old (first gen SSD) laptop. Especially when multitasking programs doing a lot of disk access. I will definitely upgrade the cache to a full size SSD if I keep it (see next).
• Lack of memory. 8GB is very marginal for my uses. As the machine only has one memory slot, the only upgrade option would be a 16GB SODIMM, which doesn't yet exist. If they release a model with 4GB built-in for 12 GB total, I may return this one and buy that one instead. As is, I may (reluctantly) return it and look for a laptop I can bump to 16 GB.
• Backlight bleed. Mine is particularly bad, with the spots where the bezel clips onto the screen clearly visible on a black screen with triangles of white light. It's not visible with anything than black, but I may exchange just for that reason alone.

Yeah, I'm surprised how well it can game. I'm getting 25-40 fps on high settings with Guild Wars 2 at about 1600x900 (playing in a window). I was expecting to have to use it at medium settings, but dropping it to low-medium results in 50-70 fps. Definitely better than I expected, though nowhere near as good as the MSI GS60 I tried for a week (i7 with 860m).

If all you're looking for is the occasional gaming session, The TP Yoga 14 is more than up to the task. The bottom does get very hot while gaming though - gaming on your lap is out of the question.

 

Looks like the deal ends on 12/7.
I now seem to be stuck looking at the Y2P w/i7 and 256ssd vs the T440s with touchscreen i5 4300U and 256ssd.
The Y2P seems like a great value compared to the 440s however I really like the build quality and keyboard on the thinkpad.

 

Sounds like the TPY 12 is the match for you.

It has a thinkpad keyboard and size factor of the Y2P. Better battery life too.. around $600ish on the outlet.

 

I saw an i5 8gb unit on the outlet for sub $600, which was my second choice.



ARK | Intel® Core™ i5-4210Y Processor (3M Cache, up to 1.90 GHz)

Glad to see the i5-4210u supports VT-x. May have to check it in the Bios, but not big deal. Still haven't got my hands on it, waiting to get home in a few days to do so.

The 8gb min memory is unfortunate, but as I mentioned, I've very rarely if ever reached that plateau. I hit 9gbs the other day running a game w/2 screens hooked up and browsing/youtube/microsoft outlook/word and a few other things, all at once. It takes serious work, unless (so I'm told) you are Vm'ing, doing heavy video editing or graphic design, cad, etc. Which relegates a high-end business laptop, anyway. Even so, shouldn't the Nvidia card help out a bit with the 8gb memory cap?

Heck, guys, I'm on my company rig, and it only has 4gb with its haswell i5 4200, and I survive the day. Oh, the horror.

 

On the Yoga 14, there's a BIOS option to enable virtualization. So I expect the original Yoga has it too. (It's disabled by default to block an obscure form of malware which makes the entire system run as a virtual machine with the malware in control. Hides the malware from any virus scans.)

That's why I ordered it - 8 GB is marginal for my needs, but usable. My old laptop had 8 GB.

Unfortunately, I don't know what Lenovo did but this thing is using almost 3 GB from a fresh boot, over 3 GB if you run a couple apps and close them. My old Win 7 laptop only used about 1.5 GB from a fresh boot. The clean install of Win 8 I have in a VM only uses 0.8 GB after a fresh boot.

3 GB + 4 GB VM is fatal. Once you account for disk cache (since I haven't yet put in a SSD), there's basically no more RAM for any other programs. I'm going to have to spend a weekend uninstalling stuff and disabling startup apps to see if I can trim down the excessive memory footprint. Hopefully I can do it without destroying vital tablet and Thinkpady features.

Hmm, interesting thought. My initial reaction was no, VRAM is inaccessible to the CPU. But I googled it anyway and there's some work on using VRAM as a ramdisk. So theoretically you could set up some of the 2 GB VRAM as a ramdisk, put a swapfile on it, and let Windows' swapfile management handle using it as extra memory.

Unfortunately, most of the work seems to be under Linux. And I suspect even if you got it to work under Windows, you'd have to keep the nVidia GPU active to use it, which would kill battery life.

 

My thought is that the Intel GPU borrows system RAM to run, while the Nvidia one might not. For what it's worth, on my t440s (Intel HD4400, no dGPU), I get 11.9GB/12GB usable in Windows 8.1 (UEFI), and 11.7GB/12GB usable in Win7 (legacy BIOS). I used to run 7 on it, but run 8.1 now (mostly because I was hoping 8.1 would be a little more efficient). And I suspect dynamic video RAM allocation might have something doing. I also get ~1.7GB used on idle in Win8.1, and recall that 7 was similar.

 

Looks like the 300 dollars off for the TP Yoga 14 through Barnes & Noble is over. Now they have the same model for around $1025. Seems most of the B&N prices have increased.

 

Ah, I was referring to actual memory use by the OS and software, not how much memory is available to Windows.

After a bunch of poking around and disabling just about every program and service I could get my hands on, I'm pretty sure the culprit is IntelliCache - the app for operating the 16GB SSD as a cache drive. From Lenovo's website, it sounds like it will dynamically allocate up to 1.5 GB as a disk cache. That is, it caches using both the SSD and system RAM. Supposedly that 1.5 GB is released if a program requests it, but my programs are still thrashing the HDD as I start to approach 8 GB allocated.

Good news is that if you replace the 16GB SSD with a 128GB or 256GB SSD and use that as a system drive, you can dump IntelliCache and the problem goes away. I would highly recommend that (or replace the HDD with a 2.5" SSD). Coming from a SSD laptop, the lag, hesitation, and poor performance of a HDD system are intolerable, even with a 16GB SSD cache. Heck, this weekend I worked on a friend's 4 year old laptop with an ancient SSD (64 GB, about 200 MB/s peak speeds, about 15k IOPS). Even that ran like a dream compared to the HDD + cache SSD.

 

okay im returning my TPY 14. the glossy display makes it annoying to work. Also In games when the scene is dark the reflections makes the gaming experience unpleasant. wished they had a antiglare option.

 

For what it's worth, I never actually used the stock Win8.1 install. I installed an 840 evo and loaded 7 (set to legacy BIOS mode), and later wiped the machine and installed 8.1. I formatted the M.2 cache drive, and didn't see any BIOS settings for it. And that's where I got the RAM use numbers from.

Edit: the stock HDD is sitting in the closet, almost completely untouched - the stock install is still on it.

 

Purchased my TPY14 from Lenovo, and I am disappointed at the laggy performance. Even my former U530 touch with 8GB hybrid drive was snappier than this computer. I really like the build quality of the TPY14, but at this price, I was expecting better or equivalent performance. In task manager I noticed system RAM consumed at 38% - sheesh!

So to improve response, my options are:
1) Replace the M.2 with something that can hold the OS, and use the 1TB for data.
or
2) Replace the 1TB with an SSD and reinstall OS.
or
3) Both

What is the purpose of the M.2? Is it supposed to behave like a hybrid HDD + SSD drive? Or can be configured as an additional drive? Sorry for the amateur questions, but I just want to know what I need to do and how much it will cost before the return period ends.

Thanks.

 

The M.2 is supposed to be a cache drive - like a hybrid HDD. The system manages it for you, and all you see is the main hard drive. That said, you can uninstall the cache software, format the M.2, and use it yourself for whatever. I put the pagefile and random crap on mine since I replaced the system drive with an SSD.

You mind want to keep in mind that 2.5" SATA SSDs tend to be cheaper, and if the TPY14 is anything like the t440s, you're limited to 42mm M.2 (SATA based not PCIe) drives, which limits capacity options. I don't know about the TPY14 in particular, so check on that if you decide to go that route.

 

Thanks for the reply. The hard drive capacity is not important to me. If I purchased a 2.5" 256GB SATA SSD, will a portion of my RAM still be reserved by IntelliCache? I'm guessing yes...

 

I don't think so - I took out the original drive and formatted the M.2 in my system, and I haven't seen any sign of any caching, aside from that Windows does by default (Vista and on, taking otherwise free RAM and using it as cache, but giving it up when needed).

 

Many are taking out the M.2 drive, uninstalling the caching software program and then cloning the HDD to a new SSD. This approach seems to be working well for most people especially given the prices during Black Friday when one could get a 1TB 840 evo for about $320 or 500GBs for less than $200.

 

Yeah, the disk thrashing I'm seeing reminds me of disk caching with Windows XP. In XP, memory pages got swapped out in order of least use. So if you were close to using all your RAM, had a browser open, then hit the disk a lot (e.g. stepped away from the computer while copying a bunch of files), the disk cache memory pages from the copy were "newer" than the browser memory pages. And XP would swap the browser to disk and keep the disk cache in RAM. Meaning when you tried to switch back to the browser, you had to wait while it read all the browser memory pages off the disk.

Vista and Win 7 fixed this behavior, and programs are correctly prioritized in RAM over the disk cache. I get the feeling IntelliCache is making the same XP mistake. Win 8 doesn't realize what's going on because to it, IntelliCache is just a program using 1.5+ GB of RAM, not a disk cache.

 

Oh I misunderstood (thought to replace HD with SSD, and leave the M.2 with intellicache). Let me get this straight. Since the small M.2 was designed to assist the HDD, some people are simply removing the M.2 and just going full SSD. I suppose I could uninstall IntelliCache and reconfigure the M.2 as an additional 16GB drive, right? Kind of useless, but better than collecting dust.

This seems similar to what I am experiencing. My boot time is fast ~15 to 20 seconds, but I find laggy behavior when switching between tabs or programs. Even the auto-fill in my browser (from history or favorites) seems slow at times. Shoot, adding an SSD will put this computer over $1000. Should've came with one already!

 

Yep, exactly. Check out Lisa's review on mobiletechreview. Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga 14 Review - Laptop and Convertible Reviews by MobileTechReview

She even benchmarks the system before and after (after = Samsung 840 evo SSD, no m.2 drive, no caching program). After is a significant upgrade in overall performance. Of course a lot of that is just coming from the SSD. You can still use the m.2 SSD or even replace it with a higher capacity one. Amazon has a few options available. However, the write speed on all of those half size m.2 drives is significantly slower than a normal SSD so that will likely steer me in the same direction as the reviewer and simply remove the drive and caching program completely.

When I purchased the TP Yoga 14 for $880 through B&N's program with Lenovo I had already budgeted $200-300 for an SSD so the extra cost to get true SSD performance wasn't unexpected.

Btw, B&N program now has the new yoga 3 pro at a significant discount - $1099 with a 256 SSD.

 

If you do that, then you don't need ExpressCache as its main purpose is to cache the slow HDD access to a small SSD. You can just uninstall it. Follow the instructions on this page to reformat the 16GB. You can use it either as a second drive, or you can use it for your hibernate file and save 8GB on your 2.5" SSD. (Actually you should be able to do both). And yes, I confirmed that ExpressCache is stealing 1.5 GB of RAM.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/lenovo/705681-howto-configure-large-32gb-ssd-work-expresscache.html

I've played around with uninstalling ExpressCache and reconfiguring the 16GB cache SSD. But I'm going to be posting about it in this other thread since it's Yoga 14-specific.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/lenovo/763871-anyone-looking-forwards-thinkpad-yoga-14-a-9.html

 

Hey all, thanks for all the input. If I have more time and feel up to the challenge, perhaps I'll reconfigure the M.2 SSD per Solandri's instructions.

My left hinge is creaking too, though I wouldn't consider it loud - it is noticeable and annoying, though. Anyone else?

Any recommendations other than this SSD:
Amazon.com: Samsung 840 EVO 120GB 2.5-Inch SATA III Internal SSD (MZ-7TE120BW): Computers & Accessories

Want to order it before the return period...

 

Just scanned the usual places and didn't see any great deals on SSDs. They might start falling again as we get closer to Christmas. Your price on the 840 evo looks okay. For 15 dollars more you could get the new 850 evo but would have to wait 10-15 days. Amazon.com: Samsung 850 EVO 120GB 2.5-Inch SATA III Internal SSD (MZ-75E120B/AM): Computers & Accessories

If you are on a very tight budget then the crucial mx100 is a much loved option as well. The 256GB is going for $109.00 on newegg and amazon http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-MX100..._sbs_pc_9?ie=UTF8&refRID=02RJ8DFBC6MVSWKCV063

Best bet might be to check out the daily specials on Amazon.

Edit: Just saw this deal on Tigerdirect. Crucial 500 256GB for 94.00 http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=7869889&csid=_61 Definitely a better value than that Samsung 840 evo.

 

I see everyone's discussing the SSD swap. Had a bit of trouble with mine as well. Got the SSD in but couldn't use a traditional recovery drive without the Cache drive installed. Running the 16gb drive and a 500gb EVO now, still haven't removed the cache software. So I'm now going to go back through and take care of that. I have only installed the SSD and put in office and done a round of updates. So far, I'm happy with the laptop as it sits, only using it one day.
I do have screen bleed on the lower left, on startup its very noticeable, but anything other than black, you'd never see it. I can probably open the screen and put in a piece of tape backed felt to solve it, or just deal with it. Its a very minor issue to me. Other than that, the build quality is top notch. Only thing I miss from my HP is the one button to open the hardware pannel underneath. Really nice feature on the zbook.

Cheers everyone, thanks for helping us to choose this notebook. I'm quite happy with it thus far.

 

Interesting. Sounds like you didn't clone the HDD to the SDD using Samsung's software and a usb to sata3 cable - is that right? Guessing that approach would have been a bit smoother keeping the recovery partition and allowing you to ditch the cache drive and software earlier than later.

 

Didn't even know that was an option. The way I've always done it was make a recovery drive, take out the old drive, and use the recovery drive to reinstall. I suppose you just Download the samsung stuff and run it, didn't think of that. And I dont have a usb-sata cable, but close enough, I have USB 3.0 HD caddies. Probably would have worked.

It is finally all running now, and I'm going to remove express cache, put a hibernation partition on the M.2, and leave the rest for storage.

 

MYSTERY: does the Yoga 2 11 i3-4012Y model have a Fan or NOT??
I have read "reputable" online sources that say both.... one says it has a fan and even measures the noise level, and another credits the glorious Fanless design

 

Pretty sure it does not have a fan. There is the yoga 11s that DID have a fan as well as an i5 and i3 both y series, but to the best of my knowledge the Yoga 2 11 did not have a fan in any configuration.

I just wanted to add 2c to this discussion and note that I just got another Thinkpad Yoga 14 and really forgot how great a machine this is. I had one when they were semi new and ended up selling it bc it was one of many and pretty much all my stuff is on CL (buying problem and I like new/different things). Either way, I missed having one and found a well priced one on Cowboom and decided to go for it. Let me point out that this computer was clearly a display model and has some odds and ends missing and its fair share of scuffs. For that I am actually kinda thankful, it lets me know how well built this computer is. I do wish this one had broadwell and the updated trackpad/pointing stick, but being more of a trackpad user anyway, its not a big deal. After owning every computer on the thread title (except the pro 3 which has core m and does not interest me for the price), I really think the TP14 is a winner. Great screen, build quality, keyboard, trackpad, yoga ability, and most importantly a dedicated graphics card.

Kinda funny how my ideas changed from about 9 months ago, lol. (I was also post #3 in here).

 

Does anyone know how many external monitors the Yoga 12 can support with the Onelink Pro dock? My IT had two external monitors connected to the dock and the Yoga screen itself was still functional. Can I plug-in one additional monitor via the mini hdmi or can I daisy chain 3 off of the displayport on the dock? Thanks!

 

According to Lenovo:

"OneLink delivers data, driver-free dual video, and power through a single convenient connector"

So, probably a dual display capability, with perhaps the computer display as a third screen.

Unfortunately, the displays will have dissimilar maximum resolutions, depending on the port used.