Y500 Owners and Questions Thread

Hey man, to each their own.

 

o.o how and who did you call? What did you say? thats like a 200$ discount

 

Is this a really good deal? Is it possible to bargain with customer service to get the y500 sli 750m down to $1000 and keep the 16gb ssd too?

 

I don't know, I'm pretty good at bargaining and that's the best I could do.

 

Could you share some tips with the rest of us? That'd be great

 

Awesome. I just talked to customer service yesterday and scored the 750m sli version for $950 before tax complete with the 16gb ram and 16gb ssd. It really goes a long way to be polite and persistent when bargaining. They said they would "never" go below $1100 but eventually it worked out. I think what helped was saying I was really torn between this and the gx60 and price would be the determining factor. I found a seller that was selling the gx60 for $950 and I made sure to mention that.

 

is the brushed metal on the palmrests painted dark or is it natural color? my first-gen Envy 15 has painted magnesium and with time the paint has noticeably faded where I put my palms.

 

I am in search for an off the shelf laptop solution to use as an music production/DAW workstation and I consider this laptop as a potential purchase.
Has anyone performed any DPC Latency tests in this laptop? If any DPC Latency spikes come up is it possible to make them go away by disabling Wifi or something? What about the fan noise, is it loud enough to cause problems while recording vocals in the room? I'd really appreciate it if anyone could help me (especially with DPC Latency) as I really like the specs but these two factors could make the difference from getting a great laptop for my intended use to absolutely wasting my money. Thanks a lot.

 

Question about the dual graphics cards.

Last night, I was playing a one-year-old game on maximum settings and I noticed that no hot air was coming from my right GT-650M, although plenty was coming from the left. Is the explanation:

1) This is normal, even when the right card is running,
2) The right card was not running, because the game did not require it, even for max settings, or
3) Something is not working right?

My NVIDIA control panel says that SLI is running normally. Thoughts?

 

GT350 ? you mean 750M?

Anyways, every game that has SLI support will use both cards (I think?!?) but in this case it sounds like that game does not have SLI support. That's all.

 

Thanks. And I've now fixed the typo.

 

By the way, who has successfully installed Windows 7 on their Y500 in here? I heard it is possible and that THERE ARE drivers to be found but I've got some questions.

 

Why go to an outdated OS? I have never understood that. Want w8 with a start menu? Download the change. Want no more metro start screen? Download that too. Windows 8 is a faster boot up and I personally think it's beautiful.

 

Yeah I know all about third party applications allowing classic interface. My main issue with Windows 8 is that it seems it doesnt perform that well with audio applications which is the reason I want to purchase a new laptop in the first place. Not proper support/incompatibilities for some audio interface drivers, plugins and additional problems with DPC Latency, actually I really try to figure out whether you can get a DPC Latency free Y500 out of the box or at least with some tweaking but noone seems to be able to help me out with some testing so I know whether I could go on and purchase this laptop.

 

I know none of this stuff. The speakers are rather impressive though.

 

So there is a deal for the SLI 750m Y500 for $980 but it comes with the English-French Keyboard. I googled for some pics but couldn't find exactly what it looks like. I think it is still QWERTY but there are some additional keys and accents and stuff. Does anyone have any experience with this keyboard and know if it easy to adjust to?

 

For the same reason people stuck with XP when Vista came out. Every other OS seems to be the way to go.

The fact that you have to download several add-ons (many not free) just to make your windows experience normal on a non-touch computer is ridiculous and really means bad design IMHO. Windows 7 for me.

And yes I have had extensive experience with Windows 8 as a power user and for me, the cons far outweigh any pros.

BTW you might find Windows 8 beautiful but compared to Aero, I prefer the glass and the see-through-polish of Windows 7.
Windows 8 looks like a 5 year old coloured it and then threw up after, no offence.

 

Why don't you just say "Im afraid of change"? Windows 8 is completely normal without a touch screen. All of us use it without touch..

 

Nope. Not afraid of change. I use Windows 8 too. Still dislike it. It is an ugly OS too.

 

I agree. Windows 8 is pretty bad. I will use it in hopes that 8.1 changes things, but yeah it's pretty bad as-is.

Anyone defending it is just being a fanboy.

 

I do not see how it is being a fanboy. I respect every ounce of effort people put into things. I don't like macs but I know how many hours have been spent perfecting them so I don't rag on them. this applies here too. complaining accomplishes nothing and if you really do not like what windows is doing with the progression towards the future then gather a team and make your own OS. I will respect the hell out of you (anyone who does so..)

Basically, appreciate what people do for us in the technological business. Stop looking at Windows 8 as a flop and start looking at it like a work of art; you may be surprised how well it performs.

 

Finished both Tomb Raider and Bioshock Infinite on my GT750M SLI - both great - but slight edge to Tomb Raider for GOTY (so far).

Few things though, Tomb Raider was running off a single card since I guess the 314 drivers don't have an SLI profile for it yet. I was playing on High @ 1080p without TressFX (hair) and Tesselation and was getting 35-40+fps while playing on Ultra dipped down to 25-30fps. Game looks amazing and I can't wait to test it on SLI once the GT750M gets a driver update.

For Bioshock Infinite, played using both graphics cards at 1080p on High getting over 40FPS however there was a HUGE issue I was having with what looked like screen tearing (lines that constantly flickered when in motion). I thought this could be the "micro stuttering" problem people were talking about (since I haven't seen any issues yet) BUT even after I turned SLI off the same problem persisted. Framerates were smooth otherwise and finished the game regardless, not sure if anyone else can vouch for this.

About to try NBA 2K13 and Battlefield 3, will update those that want performance on GT750M SLI when I get a chance!

 

After two weeks of loving my Y500, I have just started gaming without being plugged in. I have to say, from the battery, this thing performs worse than my office computer, which "only" has a 1GB of video RAM on an outdated graphics card.

What gives? Are there some setting that I have way off, or does this thing stink as a battery-powered laptop? Please tell me there's a way to improve this situation.

 

Just found this post, which is related to my post above. Is there any work around for this? If not, that seriously diminishes the value of the system for me. It's a great machine, but I play games during my commute... or, at least, I used to.

 

Possibly you can try unlocking the system but that can cause harm

 

No workaround. Laptops simply can't draw enough power from the battery alone to run a discrete graphics card, especially a powerful one, at full speed. It doesn't diminish the value of this machine as all laptops are like that.

 

I hear you, but my Lenovo T420 (office computer) has a 1GB discrete card (NVS 4200M) that runs fine on the battery. It's not ever a powerful gaming machine, but it's adequate while commuting. The Y500 is a monster when plugged in, but seems to be inadequate while commuting (so far).

 

Play some minesweeper.

 

Bummer. I hope that's not the final answer I have to accept, but something tells me it will be.

 

I think it is just a sign to not be playing games at work

 

Because the NVS 4200M is much weaker and lower TDP than the GT 650M/750M (SLI) so it doesn't get throttled back as much on battery and the CPU in the ThinkPad is probably weaker and lower TDP as well. So the ThinkPad has lower power draw on battery and relatively speaking can perform better than the Y500 in the same scenario. I have an old HP workstation with a Core 2 Duo and Quadro FX 1600M (8700M GT) and it gets about half the graphics performance on battery as it does on AC, whereas the Y500 gets 1/10th or less.

 

Anyone defending is a fanboy, pff lack of arguments on this one.

 

No. As I stated I will be using windows 8 simply because I hope 8.1 will make it better. At the time being Windows 7 is better than Windows 8 from a power users perspective. Honestly it's better for anyone not using a touch screen/tablet.

I'm generally very unbiased in my comments.

 

how can i make this touchpad better?

 

Buy one of these . ;-)

 

Lol. This ^

Seriously, the touchpad isn't fantastic. And trying to make it better is an exercise in frustration.

The best thing you can do in software is to disable all of the multi-touch settings in Windows Control Panel --> Synaptics Touchpad. At the very least, that will remove all of the "fancy" gestures that Synaptics tried to put into the touchpad, and make it function like a normal touchpad.

 

Hi,
Can You test NBA2k13 and Battlefield 3 and also Far Cry 3 if You have it.
Both SLI and single 750m.
Thanks!

 

How can I make the right side scrolling work?

 

For anyone who, like me, wants a blu-ray drive from their Y500, and didn't buy one in the first instance, Octiceps suggestion led me to the answer. Using the hardware manual, I got the part number, I had then had to contact Lenovospareparts.com (Lenovo itself won't sell you this, even with the part number). Though you can't buy the drive straight from lenovospareparts.com, after I exchanged several chat messages with them, they put one blu-ray drive on the site for me to buy.

It arrive today, I popped on the ultrabay bracket from my DVD drive and the bezel (faceplate) from my DVD drive, and it appears to be working perfectly. No blu-ray discs with me to test actual playback at the moment, and I will need to buy something like PowerDVD to make it work, but it looks like my quest (which involved buying and returning two other BD drives that didn't work) is at an end.

 

Install latest synaptic drivers from www.synaptics.com

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

 

There is a thread I made in this forum that showed how to improve the trackpad even though I love it as is.

 

can someone tell me exactly how much he can last using the Y500 (single GT 750M or disabled 2nd Card) surfing on wi fi with mid Brightness and 50% CPU power in Windows power settings ?

 

About 3 to 3.5 hours of battery life.

 

can you fit a m500 960gb in lenovo y500

 

As long as it is 2.5"..

 

The y500 is using Sata 3 right ?

Clone to SSD or clean install ?

But how to clean install when Windows 8 website need to buy in order to get the download link

 

DO NOT CLONE! Do a clean install, find the win8 ISO somewhere, I had it from a friend. I put that in at it pulled the key from Bios.

 

I seem to be having a problem. I just picked up my y500 16gb 5400 1tb + 24msata ssd, sli 650 tonight. I've ran all the applicable windows/nvidia updates. I seem to have SLI enabled in the nvidia control panel, but when I run unigine heaven 3.0 I get like 15-25on relatively mild settings fps and according to cpuid the 2nd video card never goes above 39C so I'm assuming its not working. I know next to nothing about SLI and I've tried to find if I'm possibly missing something but don't know what.

 

Can you check Device Manager and see if GT 650M shows up twice under Display Adapters? If only one shows up or there's an exclamation mark next to one of them then the second GPU hasn't been recognized yet. You could try rebooting and seeing if the second one gets recognized. That's what I had to do when I first installed my Ultrabay GPU. This is my first SLI system too and I didn't have to do anything special; it was just plug-and-play for me.

 

I installed the Samsung 840 SSD and used the Samsung Software to clone the HD no problems. Ive had the laptop for 4 months....