Y50 Thread

It still boggles my mind how lenovo could have messed up a matter such as the refresh rate. You go through the effort of equipping the laptop with an 860m, clearly meant for gaming, but don't see such an obvious issue that essentially downgrades the 860m to a much weaker GPU.

Companies really need to get real, consumer opinions on aspects of a product before they release them...

 

I've been following this thread closely as I almost went ahead and purchased the Y50 UHD until I saw the 48hz refresh lock which caused me to pause. It is my understanding that the fault isn't with Lenovo, but with Intel's display driver. Can someone please confirm whether or not this 48hz refresh lock also plagues the Linux driver as well? The first thing I will be doing after getting the laptop is installing Linux as my primary OS alongside Windows 8.1.

 

Someone who installed Linux said its limited to 48hz as well.

While it is due to Intel's restriction and lack of driver, lenovo is likely the only one that could convince Intel to update it to 60hz. Similarly, they are the ones that did not request Intel to put 60hz as a supported resolution. That's just negligence on lenovos part

 

That is disappointing. One thing that I am unclear on, is this 48hz refresh lock only when the screen resolution is 3840x2160? Can we have higher refresh rates with 1920x1080 for example?

 

Nope, 48hz on all resolutions

 

Hey Brian,

Do you have a predicted cost on the Touch UHD and do you know if that screen will also be locked ad 48hz?

 

xrandr reports 59.9/60Hz refresh rates for lower resolutions, but glxgears still reports 48 fps when using one of those resolutions...

 

any g sync monitor can go up to 144hz, it's not that hard. monitors that are rated at 60hz can go easily up to 75hz without any issues. there's no point to even talk about long term damage, nowadays you know whether it will work instantly or not. if it works, it will staying working, if it won't, it'll black screen, simple as that.

 

I don't see why you are blaming lenovo here.
samsung is more to blame for having to mess up the refresh rate. why would lenovo purposely set it to 48hz?they are just reading off the spec sheet samsung gave them, just like how reps are reading off a spec sheet their manager gave them. just like xentar said before, lenovo probably just got a shortlisted spec sheet from samsung. arguably you can ask why lenovo didn't question such specs, but ultimately samsung is the one determining the refresh rate. lenovo isn't gonna be like "oh we'll purposely screw our product over by limiting the refresh rate"

moreover, whose fault is it that refresh rates are locked?
intel should be blamed even more for locking the refresh rate and keeping everything away from users. from either point of view lenovo wouldn't be the one to blame here, although it certainly has to fix this issue

indeed companies need to get real, but consumers too, if you don't like it, simply don't buy it, it'll go away, problem solved

 

That's probably the bigger problem - they could be passing it off because everyone views it as someone else's issue.. Lenovo may think it's a Samsung issue, Samsung may think it's an Intel issue, Intel may think it's a Lenovo issue, etc - so this probably makes it a bit harder to get a solid answer. Maybe technically it is Samsung that needs to go to Intel to get them to update the driver, and not necessarily Lenovo directly .. Hard to tell. Ultimately it is Lenovo's problem since they are the manufacturer, but it may be a bit harder than simply Lenovo deciding to "unlock" it themselves.

 

well I agree that lenovo has to fix this because it's still their problem, although they are the less to blame here. what I'm saying is that they still have to resolve this, but it's not all their fault that this is happening.

on the other hand, Brian, I appreciate the fact that you are the most active of us to get a solution, you probably have more representation than typical consumers and reflecting this problem to lenovo directly is certainly more helpful than anything else.

 

Hehe, yes it is really nice

 

For those, who want to buy Lenovo y50 4k notebook and are worried about the 48hz Screen, could you not just higher the hz rate in the nvidia control panel? Here is a thread: http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/660283-you-guys-know-you-can-overclock-lcd.html

 

It doesn't work with optimus.

 

I originally posted this to owners info thread!

I bought the Y50 4k HD model - 16gb ram , 256 SSD and can confirm that the screen is locked to 48hz. I did however stumble upon something interesting which could further point to Intel's driver as the root cause. I immediately popped in a flash drive with Windows 8 and proceeded to wipe the laptop due to the massive bloatware that came with it. Immediately after re installing the machine and before installing and drivers, I checked the screen again. It was set to full resolution but showed 64 HZ. I thought wow maybe that fixed the issue. I went into windows update and updated software and drivers from there first and after it installed a new Intel driver, my screen turned off and on and I went back to check and it was once again at 48 HZ. This leads me to believe that the issue is with the intel driver.


Other than that. The machine is amazing. Screen is beautiful at all angles. I have a little bit of back-light bleed but nothing too crazy. I wish there was a way to turn of optimus so that I can just use the 860m all the time.


Edit! Just went back to Device manager and rolled back the intel 4600 driver. Its now back at 64HZ!

Take a look at these screen shots.
View attachment 113841

View attachment 113842

 

Did you buy y50 online or in-store? I thought mover's coupon is for in-store purchase only. I can't find any store that carries Y50 near Seattle, WA.

 

I've been thinking about this for quite some time, although can't find the exact specs so this is just a pure speculation on my part. Isn't it possible that Intel HD 4600 isn't able to run 4K display at more than 48Hz and that's why there's such hard bottleneck present in this machine? I think it would explain a lot. I know that Intel HD 4600 is able to run 4K, but I was unable to find the maximum refresh rate possible. Moreover, to be completely honest, I'm not exactly sure if that's even a restriction that could be imposed by this chip. Could someone more HW oriented maybe comment on this and correct/disprove my speculations if they are unfounded?

 

48Hz at 4K is not the issue - it's pretty much expected that you wouldn't be able to get more than 48FPS at 4K anyway - the issue is running it at a higher Hz at a lower resolution than 4K.

 

My theory is that at some point in the architecture, even though you are drawing at 1080p, the image is scaled earlier, and all the pixels are still being sent to the display, resulting in a bandwidth bottleneck. If that's the case, it's a hardware architecture issue and cannot be fixed.

 

I was still able to get 60Hz when removing the Intel driver though.

 

Just because it says it is running at 60 Hz doesn't mean it actually is. If you remove the intel driver and run a vsynced application, what framerate does it run at?

 

While the 64Hz reports on Microsoft's generic graphics driver is the most hopeful yet, unfortunately member PickleHead is right that we cannot be sure.

There seems to still be some confusion on the entire subject, and I took the liberty of posting some display system basics here in the Owner's thread. I hope it doesn't add to the confusion, but rather clarifies some.

 

Well I didn't mean playing games at 4K, but output any type of content at more than 48Hz, for example windows main screen. You know that display refreshes its image all the time and content has nothing to do with that right?

 

Yes, but there is no real gain in outputting a Windows Main screen at 48Hz or 60Hz. You aren't going to be able to tell the difference on a static display.

 

Fraps or a similar tool with help with the refresh rate reading

 

Yes, although the gain in this instance is not noticeable, there could be areas where it would lessen the experience. For example model rotating, animations comes to mind. However, I agree it's very individual, if that's gonna be a problem. I myself would have preferred a good quality Full HD display and I would probably jump on this laptop like, well since there's profanity forbidden here, female dog in eve

 

Fraps only reports what the program puts out, not what you see. The only true way to find out refresh rate is to use a dslr in conjunction with an assisting refresh rate app

Edit: When I had my unit, I was also able to get 60 Hz when I duplicated the screen on an external monitor. I used a dslr and shot pictures at 1/60 of a second and verified that my monitor was indeed putting out 60 Hz, but the laptop screen showed missing frames roughly 1 out of every 5 shots. Mathematically that verified the screen was only putting out 48 fps on the laptop. I'm really regretting not verifying this when I got 60+ Hz by rolling back and uninstalling the intel driver. Since there wasn;t an external display attached at that time, I'm a little more confident that it really was 60 Hz, but the only way to know for sure is to verify it. I've never heard of a screen being visually capped even if the settings were set higher, so I didn't think it was a big deal at the time. Maybe the other owners who played with rolling back the drivers have a dslr and can verify it. PM me and I can give directions.

 

Sure, but when windows says "60Hz" and a VSynced application is reporting 48 FPS, you already lose. It's a good first test.
For example I can easily set the display to 1080p @ 60 Hz in linux, but when I actually run a 3d application, it is locked to 48 FPS.

If someone can do this in windows with the intel driver removed, we can see if the application is locked to 48 FPS. If the application reports 64 FPS, then we can move on to a DSLR test.

 

I already had the software report 62 fps when I tried it. That's how I knew.

 

As an update, I think this whole 48 hz fiasco is pretty useless. I just got done playing Diablo 3 downscaled to 1080p, max settings and played for a good bit. Did not notice it playing any differently than it does on my more powerful desktop. If anyone is worried about it my advice to you is dont worry. This laptop is great and the 4k screen is amazing. I managed to pick it up on newegg for $1299. Currently 1399 and its worth every penny.

 

http://www.digitaltrends.com/laptop-reviews/lenovo-ideapad-y510p-review/#!bb2hsT

Review is in by digital trend. Disregard the y510p, thats a typo. As expected, the FHD screen is blasted and the keyboard issue is also noticed. A 90:1 contrast ratio on the screen? My god, I would really recommend people to replace it if they go FHD version.

I can't help but laugh at how the speakers are praised just like the general consensus has been. They were really out of touch with the intended audience; headsets exist for a reason.

 

I'm surprised that tigerdirect still advertises their Y50 as an IPS display.

 

I just installed a fresh copy of windows 7 on my y50. Everything works except the nvidia card.

I've followed heibk's instructions as closely as I could but still no luck, and I'm getting the same old "the graphics driver could not find compatible hardware" message.
Has anyone gotten window's 7 working fully? There was one other guy who followed heibk's instructions, but I have no idea how he got it to work.

 

Hi there. Where in Malaysia did you buy this laptop? I'm also in Malaysia, would like to know where it is available.
Thanks!

 

Perhaps it would be helpful if someone with the Y50 4k edition could make a thread on the Intel official forums notifying them of the 48hz lock and see what their official response is. I would do it myself but I don't own it so I'm afraid they would ask for computer generated hardware info or something of the sort

 

I just tried the yoga 2 pro screen in a store. It ran at 3200x1800 or something like that and the intel driver offered 2 refresh rates: 60 & 48hz. I couldn't notice any difference but then I was limited in what I could do: scrolling around & dragging windows. No 3d app or anything. I used to be very sensitive to refresh rates on CRTs. 60hz was a pain. 75h felt acceptable and 85hz was the best... No noticable difference afterwards. Here the difference seems barely noticeable. My 2 cents.

 

Anyone here that knows which SSD-brand is used in the UHD, 16GB, 512GB SSD-version of the Y50?

Really struggling wheter I should go for this or get the Asus N550JK with Samsung EVO 840. I prefer the design and portability of the Y50, aswell as the GTX 860, but all this screen-talk has made me unsure.

The Asus looks solid with a nice touchscreen, but a weaker GPU.

 

It's an OEM Evo

 

I got 200:1 but it's dependent on the brightness level. It's still pretty bad. That's why the darks are so hard to distinguish. I had a similar experience with the reviewer when playing Skyrim for that short amount of time. At night, it was much harder to distinguish what was what. As for speakers, I welcome it. I don't care for headphones unless I'm travelling. There's a market out there for laptops with nice sound quality. That's partly the reason I would lean towards the NX500 over the GX500(assuming the GX500 will have standard tinny sounding speakers like I think it will)

 

At least they put into words what I could not. I also noticed the issues with black levels - on a background image, I had a hard time distinguishing between a window and the wall it was in, because the wall was black and the window was grey-ish.

 

I think it's really going to depend on the end user .. Look at the review that was just posted on the regular Y50 - they talk about how getting 30 FPS on high/ultra settings is pretty impressive for the price point, talk about some games being smooth at around 30FPS, as well as talking about getting as much as 155FPS on other games, which many have said is pointless to go above the refresh rate. They don't seem to mind a lower FPS playing games, as well as getting FPS above the refresh rate as a positive ... so it seems it really depends on the user and how sensitive you are to the FPS.

 

I've ordered my Y50 UHD like one and a half month ago, in germany, now the shipping dates are finally getting closer for me as well, so I thought it'd be a good idea to check up on reviews, as the US UHDs are getting shipped now...

As a gamer, I'm certainly going to need more than 48 Hz. What are my choices now - cancel the order, go for a TN version that everyone claims to be really bad or stay on my UHD-IPS order and hope for a fix.

What do you think - will they fix that issue? I don't mean to be playing on 4k, but I thought down-scaling to FHD would be totally fine, as it's exactly half of the resolution and won't cause any blurring... so I'd still have UHD to do programming and stuff.

Kind regards
- Retalian

 

I agree. I'm just stating that before I tried playing a game I thought there was going to be some crazy choppiness but the only thing I experienced was a smooth game.

 

I think that really depends - the consensus would probably be split. You are getting a much better display in almost every way except 48Hz by getting the UHD ... If I had to take an educated guess, I'd bet the majority would say in your situation:

1. Go with the TN if you can replace the panel yourself with a good IPS panel
2. Go with the UHD if you cannot do #1 because the UHD at 48Hz is still much better than the TN panel and will look a lot nicer.

 

Frankly, that reviewer seems to not really know what they're talking about. For example, one of the cons listed was "Laptop runs a bit warm." Like a guy in the comments section said, give these guys a Macbook and they'll never mention that the thing becomes an absolute nuke if you try to run many games (that the Y50 handles admirably), even at low settings. Compared to any other gaming laptop with this form factor (Razer Blade 14, MSI GS60 Ghost) the Y50 actually runs amazingly cool and should have its cooling listed as a pro. The bias on DigitalTrends is just ridiculous.

Another con was "Boring design." - what? In my opinion the Y50 is one of the best looking machines on the market right now! Perhaps the reviewer prefers atrocious blinking lights or Alienware-type design that a lot of gaming laptops are plagued with? The subtlety of the red rimmed keys is another pro that he unfairly criticizes! I'm sure aesthetic preferences are all subjective but regardless I have to heavily disagree with the reviewer here. For me, the feel and appearance of the Y50 is one of its biggest selling points.

Maybe even more shocking, the gaming capabilities of the laptop were sort of glossed over. The review made it sound like they were just okay and didn't sufficiently praise the fps this machine is capable of outputting on even very demanding games. The reviewer definitely doesn't sound like a gamer to me...There isn't any other laptop that stays this cool and quiet with this form factor that can deliver this kind of gaming experience right now.

I admit that some keyboard problems exist and that the screen could be better, but both cons are really exaggerated. Apart from keys not always registering with weak corner presses, the keyboard is definitely very nice. I would count it as a pro despite the occasional issue. For the screen it sounds like he didn't bother doing any calibration or even switching the video setting to movie/picture mode before measuring his 90:1 contrast. I have the Y50 Touch and an AUO display so I guess I don't know for sure that the matte display isn't that bad, but I can't really believe it. It just doesn't sound like the reviewer went to any effort to improve the colours or contrast before whining about it. Anyways, what he said definitely doesn't apply to the Y50 Touch. I don't have a device to measure my screen specs but subjectively I can say it is both bright and vivid after tweaking and is at least a decent TN panel.

Extremely unfair review overall. At least he admitted the speakers were great...

 

Funny you mention the appearance/design, because that struck me as a kind of WTH moment as well - if there's one thing that is pretty much universally accepted with the Y50, is that it has a really nice and sleek design. First time I think I've heard it described as "boring".

 

The statement that ruined all credibility of that review for me is:

Because we all know that you can't run games at less than native resolution!!!

 

Yeah I didn't agree with that aspect of the review. Their reports of high temps are also very curious to me since user reported temps have all been very good.

They nailed the negatives of the laptop but that probably made them biased to the good parts.

These days I don't really trust reviews unless by notebookcheck; they seem to be the most thorough and objective

 

Looking at Digital Trend's review of the Dell XPS 15 further confirms that they're ridiculously lazy. The XPS 15 is known for having an amazing screen but Digital Trends listed it as a con and described it as "disappointing". They complained about red push and lack of contrast because they didn't figure to turn off Splendid Mode, which instantly fixes the problems on that machine...If they weren't willing to go to the effort of minimal display tweaking on a laptop known for its great screen, I wouldn't bet on them having done that for the Y50, lol. The FHD display isn't a strong point but it really isn't as bad as some reviewers say.

 

Finally, something we agree on, haha. Notebookcheck rocks! They provide the only display measurements that I can actually trust and describe the screen both before and after calibration.