Y410p [full review]

1. You should be able to boot Ultrabay with a boot managing software like PLoP boot manager. Nevertheless, i do recommend placing the 2.5inch SSD into the laptop's internal bay, and then you can move the HDD to the Ultrabay with a Caddy. You can find caddies on Ebay for 10$, and all you need to do is then mount the faceplate of the ODD to the caddy.

2. Unless you want to run Linux or have a random 24GB partition to store data on, then no.

3. The sales haven't ended since June. Don't panic, you can always buy this laptop later on.

 

Thanks for your help. One more question: Have you noticed significant battery drain even when powered down, as is discussed in this forum?

Battery drain when powered down Y410P - Lenovo Community

 

Yeah i did. Fortunately for me, the drain seemed to lower after i started using the battery more. Also, this is fault of the battery, not the laptop. Reason? The battery drains even when it's not plugged.

If buying a new battery, i recommend purchasing a 72W/h one off the Lenovo site, they have 1.5x the battery life of the supplied 48w/h ones.

 

I don't think that necessarily means that the battery is the problem. Could be always-on components in the laptop, such as always on USB (even though it doesn't seem to be the always on USB - they turned it off via BIOS and it still drained). People writing in the thread conclude that it is not the battery. If they remove the battery from the laptop, it does not drain.

 

I'm telling you *my* experience. My battery drained regardless if it was plugged or not. Anyways, nowadays the drain is now only 4% a day, so it doesn't really bother me that much.

 

Gotcha. Thought you meant the power adapter when you said "when it's not plugged". Thanks for your help! This whole thread has been amazingly helpful.

 

By plugged, i mean my battery drained even when it was being pulled out of the laptop.

 

Are you saying use a USB wifi adapter? Kinda defeats the point.
Yes, you are right it does appear that way, so I guess what they need to do then is to use a working driver.
I talked with two tech's, and neither one suggested your "roll-back" option.
But still, they should have a dual-band option, and for us to be able to swap cards if needed.

Well, not everyone has Win8, so everyone wouldn't know.... I didn't even know at first until after further research, and I'm a computer geek, though I haven't really used win8 so, it happens.

Also, I'm not sure I understand your "caching" point. The 24g is actually a separate drive for storage if I remember right, so I don't see how it's used for "caching" thus not accessible as storage, because if it was used as storage which it is able to be, it can't be used to "cache" if I understand correctly? Of course, I'm new to SSD's, thus I'm not up on entirely how they work other than in general. Not familiar with the cache part.

 

Nah, i was referring to an actual compatible adapter. Anyways, inside the user guide, there is a list of working adapters, one of them includes Intel's AC card.

All Y410p's ship with Windows 8. Windows 7 is supported, but not officially.

Time to give you a lesson on SSD caching:

All your apps load off the hard drive. Everything is stored to the main HDD. However, that is slow. What caching does, it makes ghost copies of your most used data and loads it to the SSD, on a special partition that is managed by a caching program, so it can be read faster, however, all the work you do is saved to the HDD. You can disable disk caching without any file loss whatsoever.

Bottom line, SSD caching will give you very fast read speeds for your 24GB of most commonly used data, but won't improve write speeds like having your files actually stored on the SSD.

 

Thanks for helping, I installed the newest drivers. Is there any way to check if turbo mode is working? And should I be running CPU-Z while 3DMark11 is running? I'm getting a Core Speed of around 3300 Mhz, Multiplier of around 32, and bus speed of 99 MHz, is this normal? Thanks again

 

Can one simply roll back the WIFI driver to access the stable Microsoft drivers? Or is manually uninstalling the stock drivers a requirement?

Many thanks in advance.

 

You have to uninstall proset to be able to access 14.8, otherwise proset will keep reinstalling 15.x

 

So then my question is will we at some point, or can we now, buy a larger m.2 ssd and replace the 24GB in our systems and use it as an OS and program drive and just use the HD for storage?

 

M.2 drives aren't public yet. You will have to wait a while. But yeah, you will be able to buy M.2 drives with not only more storage, but improved storage controllers that can outspeed any existing Sata based SSD, because M.2 is based off pci-e.

 

Hey,
I'm getting my Y410p next Tuesday. I wonder about the SSD though: How do I actually use it? Does it just activate by itself and load things faster or do I need to do something to make it work? I'm really not familiar with this. Been stuck with my Dell XPS 1340 for 4 years, now the cooling fan on that one stops working, leading to forced shutting down after 15 mins playing LOL. Finally realized that it's time to get a new laptop for years to come. I got the Y410p model but do not actually know much about laptops and bench mark and stuff.

 

If you bought a model with SSD, the cache will start learning what are your most used programs, and, after a while, it will save them to the cache. Note that the cache does not improve write performance, only read.

The GPU in this laptop is perfectly fine for anyone wanting to game at 720p. My recommendation is to get the 1600x900 model, but when playing intense games, lower them to 1366x768, so you will be able to crank up the settings, sometimes even to Ultra

 

Yes I bought a Manufacturer refurbished y410p from ebay. That one came with the same spec as the one you have in your signature and 1 year lenovo warranty . I need a machine that can max out Dota 2 easily and not lagging when Im in combat.

 

LOL. My 2 year old Y470 with NVidia GT 550M maxes out DOTA 2 with everything ON and AA ON at 40 (super heavy combat) - 63 FPS 1366x768. Y410p is overkill for DOTA 2, but it has very nice specs for the price.

 

Haha I hope so at first I was just looking for something just enough to max out Dota 2 but then I think maybe I need something strong that can last for a few years so that I can have all other options available (newer games/ video editing...) and cheap at the same time. The only thing I'm worried about is whether or not this can last for 3 or 4 years.

 

Dota is a CPU intensive game. And there is only maybe ~15% difference in performance between a i7-4700MQ and a i7-2620QM.

If my Inspiron 1525 with Intel Celeron and integrated graphics lasted my 5 years, your y410p will probably last you 4 years. Just don't expect to play games on Ultra. Also, the NGFF will be really beneficial in the long run, as M.2 is becoming increasingly common.

 

I agree with that! The y470 with stock 2-year old thermal paste can barely keep the CPU below 100 degrees on a non-air conditioned room (24 degrees Celsius room temp) while playing Dota 2. The game really loves to consume CPU resources since this is my only game that makes my CPU boil.

Hardware failures aside, the Y410p should last 5 years easily, especially with the M.2 SSD as well as the second GT 750M SLI ultrabay which can match a GTX 770M on SLI optimized games.

 

Yeah, i'm still waiting for that to come out, though right now i've pretty much given up on it

 

If it lasts anything more than 3 years, I would not expect anything more from it. I thought with this y410p can play many games on ultra, including skyrim? Also what does NGFF mean? Sorry I'm really new to all these terms. Also what do you mean M.2. is becoming common? ><

 

NGFF (also called M.2) is a SSD standard, kind of like Msata. The advantages with NGFF are multiple sizes for various needs, and freedom of controller, so technically they aren't restricted by Sata, thus they can achieve very high speeds. Lots of companies (namely Apple) refer to M.2's as "PCIe Based Storage", and the Lenovo T431/E431/X1 were one of the first computers to implement this standard.

 

I got the laptop today. So far it is great but I have a few questions:
1. Is the cooling fan turned on automatically? When you run the laptop is the fan already on or I have to turn on the "Dust Removal" thing to activate the fan?
2. How can I see the name of the GPU in this laptop? I know it is a GT750M but how can I find it in the laptop?
3. Where can I find the 14.8 Wifi Driver?
Thank you very much.

 

1. It's a really quiet fan. Don't worry, once it kicks in you can feel it blow air out
2. Install GPU-Z
3. Uninstall Intel PROset for Wifi, then head to device manager, find the card (Intel 2230), properties, driver, uninstall the 15.x driver, reboot twice, voila.

 

Thank you very much I did the uninstall for PROset and mine went straight to the 14.8 version of the intel 2230 card .
However, I wanted to download skype so I went online and click on a link that I think is a virus. I decided to do a full reset (for all drives) just in case. Now it has been 3 hours and I'm at 25%. It is supposed to be this slow? Also, after I do this reset on the SSD drive, will it still be able to saved cache and speed up the reading process of my laptop? Thank you.

 

Download Skype from here:

Download Skype 6.7.0.102 - FileHippo.com

 

WOOT! Just ordered my Factory Refurb y410p on the FleaBay! Got the one with the cache drive as well for a pretty decent price. Should be here Friday, so I'll let you all know what I find when I crack open the box. Anyone else go for one of these from a source other than Lenovo?

Since the 'sticker' is already broken, I'm considering re-pasting the CPU and GPU, but not 100% sure yet. Will probably just leave it as it for a few weeks to see what kind of improvement it'd make.

Also, considering swapping in a WB Scorpio Black for the TB drive. I know it wouldn't make much difference on read since most of my 'favorite' apps will eventually live in the Cache drive, but would I see any improvement with gaming and whatnot with increased write speeds? Mostly planning on using this for some medium to light gaming, with some Solidworks peppered in.

 

Nvidia 6xx/7xx GPUs are not really good at CAD, if you bought this for SolidWorks you might wanna rethink your purchase. But if it is only minimal CAD, you shouldn't have a problem.

 

Yeah, it's more of a hobby than anything. This'll definitely be a Gaming/Media system primarily. I do also plan on swapping in the BD-ROM from an LG external drive. Anything I need to be aware of on that? I've pulled the drive out before and used it with only minor annoyance on one of my other projects, so I figure it'll be easy enough to swap out the face plate and drop it back into the ultrabay.

 

Open up user "Kirkydaturkey"'s profile, and look at the pictures he posted of his ODD disasembly in the Owners lounge. This will save you from flipping through 100+ pages.

 

Hey just an update based on my purchase for those of you considering on buying the y410p. I got mine a week and a half ago, its is the upgraded display w/o ssd cache, gt 755m model:

I am actually very pleased with my purchase, it has exceeded my expectations in almost every way, i had briefly considered the hp quad series but it was a piece of crap tbh, the keyboard flexed a ton, overall it just felt cheap and massive (it was 15.6 inch, a little thinner but huge dimensions even for a 15.6 inch laptop).

1. Shipping wise it came in one business day before it was supposed to which made it come on a Friday which was wonderful. So shipping was not a problem for me, takes them about a week and a half to two weeks if there are no setbacks.

2. The build quality is fantastic for a laptop in this price range, it is quite sturdy and will easily withstand normal wear and tear. It's not military grade like the premium think-pads but that doesn't matter since laptops don't last more than 4-5 years anyway. It is surprisingly light considering whats inside, but correctly intertwines plastic and metal finishes to give it a premium feel without putting metal everywhere.

3. The keyboard (chiclet) is fantastic, the spacing/feedback is perfect, it looks great, has its own compartment that is indented inward and has no flex.

4.The speakers are pretty damn good for a laptop, i am no audiophile though.

5. Okay, my biggest concern was the trackpad; mine shipped with the elan one. At first i was disappointed because of the overly rubberized surface, it didn't feel sensitive enough and it hurt your finger after constant use. However after one or two days it smooths out and the trackpad becomes perfect. This was the biggest surprise, i was expecting an unusable or definitely an irritating to use trackpad, but this is not at all the case. After the surface smooths out it is great (it is no longer rough anywhere). Since it had a rubberized texture it isn't glossy and doesn't feel like your finger is just sliding all over the place, it actually feels just right. Also the trackpad is very sturdy, it doesn't move around like the one in the u310. It also isn't flimsy so it feel like one piece non clickable pad, but still has the ability to be clicked. It is probably ideal if users get used to tapping and two finger scrolling and such, but even the clicking becomes easier/less resistant over time with use. I am using the stock elan drivers right now, and they are perfectly fine for the standard tapping scrolling features. I think synaptics does a better job on zooming based on my experience with the u310 which had a synaptics touchpad, but i believe that it is not a big deal and you can probably get other drivers to work with the elan touchpad or use updates/ect.

6. The led display is quite nice, it is not anti-glare but its not overly glossy so the glare is minimal, and doesn't bother my eyes. I don't really have any other displays to compare to it but this one is definitely not bad, i don't like super bright glossy displays personally. Ok so a note about how the bezel is attached to the laptop, if you are in a vehicle, the display will wobble a little bit. This is because the display is so thin that it cannot withstand much force and is only attached to two hinges on either side. This hinges allow for some flex so i'm not concerned about the hinges being under to much stress or anything though. Because the lcd is so thin and there is no room for a long central hinge due the battery compartment, i believe lenovo made the correct design decision. Also the quality of the hinges,they are pretty good. I don't have any concern about the display becoming detached or anything but it won't "feel" that way.

Overall the laptop looks great, the size is great, it's laptop size, not desktop size like the 15.6 inches out in the market these days. The bezel is slightly big but it keeps the screen from getting too much dust on it and is necessary for other components such as the keyboard and touchpad/handrest areas to have proper spacing which is more important. 14 inch is industry standard so they didn't really have any options of making the screen bigger without making it 15 inches which is too close to the 15.6 inch industry standard. The performance is great and little features from the lenovo brand such as one key are a a great addition.

The y410p definitely offers the highest value in terms of build-quality/specs/reliability over any similar laptop, and there is hard to find anything to dislike about it (you would have to be nitpicking).

Side note: The edges of the laptop are not sharp but they have a very thin layer that isn't particularly smooth in the beginning so u will feel indentations and microscopic cuts on your skin (not enough to pierce the skin though), but these edges will also smooth out over time.

 

Yo guys! im new to this page, Considering purchasing the y410p, until I discovered that the SLI card isn't out yet.. I also noticed that 2 of the models now have a GT 755m? I contacted lenovo about this and they said that "the SLI card is slightly delayed due to internal issues." I also asked if the gt 755m was a typo, and they said "no it is correct". I then asked if the GT 755m will also have its own SLI card, because that would mean that a GT 755m sli and a GT 750m sli card would have to be produced. I was then told that "The card is compatible with either one".

In conclusion, the SLI card will definitely be coming out sometime in the future, I trust lenovo on that, however the GT 755m being compatible with the GT 750m sounds like complete bullocks. I did a bit of research on the epretty new GT 755m benchmarks etc, and couldn't find very much, but what I did find was that the GT 755m is non-compatible with SLI. Your move lenovo. I don't really know what to expect.

 

Awesome review. Love the looks of this laptop. Planning on getting one once my AW17 and desktop sells.

 

Going from an AW17 to a Y410p is a huge downgrade

 

Hey all,

New member of the forum here. In need of a new laptop and was browsing around. My initial choice was the Z400, only to find out about y410p a week before the purchase. Fall in love, dig the whole internet about it (including here!) and after looking at my budget, i had extra and finally get the Y410P.

This is my 2nd day using the laptop, remove majority of the bloatware. It doesn't hurt the performance just my habit not to have software i don't exactly use. Planning to coat it with clear coat sticker to protect the surface including area around the keyboard & touchpad (i had sweaty palms). Overall, impressive laptop at such prize. Haven't get the chance to play games on it. I don't usually games, but downloading several now to try it.

Looking around only to realize that mine come with qualcomm wifi adapter which is working super fine as internet specs said it usually be intel centrino and people gone through severals problems.
I live in Indonesia and bought the laptop through Lenovo dealer. In the box mentioned that the stuff assembled in China. I don't know if we are getting the same stuff.

One thing I would like to ask, what is the thing below the battery? It looked like fans, there is a lock but i have no idea how to open it.

 

Under the battery, there is an Ultrabay release latch, which is required to swap between the ODD/Fan/Caddy/SLI addon.

 

What's an SLI? why does it add so much weight? Do you lose a lot of processing power without it?

 

1. SLI is a special framework that allows two identical video cards to compute in parallel, essentially one frame being processed by one GPU and the next one is processed by the second. This essentially allows two weaker video cards to work together as one stronger card. In the case of the Lenovo Y series Haswell (Y410p/Y510p), both GT750M's can work together to achieve the performance similar to a GTX 770M. However, to get SLI, you will need an add-on card (which goes into the Ultrabay) from Lenovo. Currently, Y410p add-on cards for the GT750M SLI module are only availible in China.

2. SLI add-ons only add roughly half a pound to the weight of the laptop, compared to the stock ODD. They are composed of a mini video card and heatsink, after all.

3. You lose GPU power, which means less frames per second in most GPU intensive games. The difference in performance from 750M to 750M SLI varies from game to game, however you can expect much better framerates from two video cards rather than one. However, the single 750M, when overclocked, has no problems handling the large majority of today's games at a 720p resolution. Thus, the only reasons you would want to upgrade your Y410p to SLI would be for gaming on an external/custom monitor or future-proofing.

*However*

SLI does have one major disadvantage over the bearly-noticeable 0.5lbs gain. SLI is not compatible with Nvidia Optimus, which is Nvidia's intelligent graphics-switching. This means that your battery life will be SIGNIFICANTLY hampered when the SLI addon is inside the laptop. An example is the larger Y510p, which hosts a respectable 62W/h battery, and thus can hold 5 hours of web browsing with Nvidia Optimus. However, when both cards are in, the same laptop's battery life drops down to 2:30, because a) the laptop cannot use integrated graphics when SLI is present, due to Optimus being incompatible with SLI and b) two nividia cards consume more power than one.

However, because of the form factor of the Ultrabay, switching between performance (your SLI add-on card) and mobility (your ODD or HDD Ultrabay caddy, which in turn allows the laptop to use Optimus technology to double battery life) is quite simple, and i praise Lenovo for this concept.

 

Hey Jobine, do you suggest overclocking the GT750? and if so what is the easiest means of doing so?

 

Yes. MSI Afterburner.

Play with it until you get acceptable temps.

 

Have been setting up the laptop and using it on daily basis.

Few things that amazes me :
- super quite! I always leave the laptop on with screen & keyboard lights off when i went to sleep to keep the download running. There has not been a single noise, not even a sound! It's like had been turned off. Trully amazing.

- battery life very good, getting 6,5hours during work use (browsing,word,excel,downloading)

- good looking. the more i look at it, the more good looking it is. Now i am planning to cover it with clear sticker to preserve the body. (top cover, bottom cover, screen bezel, and keyboard area), put some screen & keyboard protector.

- very good performace. no complain.

Some users says the bezel are too thick, yes it is, but it doesn't matter for me. Doesn't really affect anything.

The weight of the laptop it self is OK, but when you carry it with the charger,battery, and other stuff you put in your bag, the weight become quite heavy. But it is not a problem, I switch from slingbag to backpack which really help with the weight distribution.

Few things I would like to ask :

- I had this habit of turning my laptop forever. Is it a bad thing? If yes, what is the recommended rest & use time for a laptop? I am really concerned about this as I love the laptop so much and wanted it to last long.

- i read around the internet that y410p came with intel centrino wifi adapter and wonder if only my laptop came with qualcomm wifi adapter. Why is mine different? And what is the difference between intel & qualcomm in terms of performance. (it has been doing fine so far)

- is there a sim card slot for y410p?

 

1. I shut down mine when i don't use it, and because of a combination of a SSD and Intel RST (rapid start technology), i can boot up fast when i need it. I do recommend rebooting and powering down every once in a while, but that's just me.

2. The Qualcomm one is superior to the Intel one.

3. I don't think so. WWAN is generally reserved for the Thinkpad line.

 

I got curious on this myself. I checked the whole body, didn't find any place to put one in easily, however I do know that there are mini pcie cards WWAN cards that have the SIM card onboard. No idea about compatability, but if you're really in need of it that might be an option. Found an Option Gtm671wfs on Alibaba.com that supports 4G.


In other news, I received my y410p last friday and have pretty well only shut it down so I could get some sleep. Played Borderlands 2 for a few hours at work on Saturday and it played like a pro!;
Coming from a tech support background I was a bit leery of Windows 8 (having had more than a few complaints about how cumbersome it is for business purposes), but I've been surprised at how well I've adapted to it from Win7. I know it's not *that* different, but as we all know it's different enough that MS has decided to fix it with a major patch. In any case, my workflow has really adapted well to the new way of doing things, and I've even found an app that lets me create tiles for my Steam games, which is pretty cool.
Setup went okay at first, but the thing BSOD'd shortly thereafter. No prob though, used the one-touch recovery and I was back in business within the next hour. After that, ran a few backups after updating the OS and she's kicking butt better than the ITX box she's replaced :-D

 

Oh, also I have to comment on the keyboard. I thought I knew what love was, but that was before I lay my fingers upon this beauty. I've always been a big fan of Thinkpad KB's but this was a whole new experience. Understand that I'm a mechanical keyboard fiend, and for anyone who has typed on a DAS, you'll understand... This keyboard is probably the closest thing to Cherry Browns/Reds that a laptop will be able to manage. There's a bit of resistance, but not much, and there's almost a tactile feel to the keys. I'd really planned on plugging in a CM Quickfire for most of my gaming at home, but so far I haven't seen the need. The KB is responsive and crisp in a way that Thinkpads actually kind of lack.

 

Yes, i'm starting to like my laptop's keyboard better than my desktop's mechanical... and i've been using the latter for 12 years now!

And i've typed on a variety of keyboards, from Apple to the IBM Model M.

By Thinkpads, are you referring to older Thinkpad keyboards (T420) or the new Chiclet Thinkpads (like T430)?

 

What would be considered "acceptable temps" for this laptop?

 

85C GPU 90C CPU max.

Something like that.

 

Jobine, Since youre basically the go to guy with y410p problems.... I was wondering if you could help me out with mine, the dvd rw isn't reading any disk I put in and its really frustrating.