Coming soon - Y470P!

Ah, yes you see you've completely confirmed my suspicion: given my experience with battery estimates on Android phones, I rarely trust the "built-in" battery meters, and tend to go for third-party. I can't help but wonder whether our native Windows battery-life estimates are biased too.

Sounds like a very cool conference!

-Matt

 

A follow-up question to my earlier post:

LINUX USERS: I am getting the impression that the NVIDIA GT 550m on Lenovo under Linux is a major problem. I'm finding lots of threads which suggest that while the NVIDIA drivers would ordinarily work, Optimus on the card creates lots of trouble.

Question: one solution seems to be (where available) to turn off integrated video in BIOS. I understand that is NOT an option on the Y470/Y470P. Can someone check and confirm that?

-Matt

 

You can turn the dGPU off in the BIOS on the y470p. The options are:

- Switchable graphics
- UMA graphics

The 7690M creates no trouble under Linux, at least not with Archlinux. The only drawback is that because the switchable graphics do not work and the catalyst Linux drivers don't detect the card, it is active all the time and has no power management, thus consuming ~15-20W doing nothing. I tested power consumption with a Kill-a-watt.

 

Ah, thanks! Remember that I'm tilted heavily (for technical reasons) toward the Y470P version (at least the way it's currently listed) with the NVIDIA 550m. I assume it's the same BIOS with either Radeon 7690 or NVIDIA 550m. But you confirmed what I suspected: no way to just turn on the discrete card (which I am beginning to understand is essentially taking "piped" input from the integrated card).

I might have noted this earlier but it's the same problem with the 550m: under Linux, no "true" software switching between video modes. There is a route for turning integrated video off once booted (with Bumblebee, https://github.com/Bumblebee-Project/bbswitch/tree/hack-lenovo) but the process looks clumsy -- what I'm looking for is something as "seamless" as the way Optimus runs under Windows. I guess dual-graphics systems are still in their infancy!

-Matt

 

Im anxious to see the results of this one. I just got an ideapad a few days ago and still waiting for it, but this one could be much better.. Would love to see a great review.

 

Well, try my review: Random Gorp: Lenovo Y470p Initial Impressions

 

Hey everybody,

I've had my Y470p for a few weeks now, and I've really enjoyed using it and reading all of the information that everyone on here has shared.

I've got a couple of questions:

• I recently purchased an SSD (the Crucial M4 64GB) from Staples because it was a great deal ($60 including tax). I purchased it with my desktop in mind, but I'm now wondering if it would work with my Y470p. I'm not sure if it's mSATA or whatever that is, but does it need to be to go in my laptop?
• Also, does anyone know if the Y470p is hackintosh-compatible? I would like to install an OSX Lion / Windows 7 dual-boot on here if it's possible, because I want to use XCode for developing apps. My current hackintosh is a very weak Lenovo S10e netbook that is becoming much too hard to program on.

Lastly, does anyone want to see some Battlefield 3 gameplay from my Y470p? I recorded a little bit of gameplay a couple weeks back on the first day I got the laptop. Would anyone want me to upload that on YouTube?

Thanks!

 

Sure, if it's not too much trouble. I'd watch it.

 

I played Bioshock a while today, and CPU temps tend to go too high for my linking, hitting 90C. This game does not tax the CPU that much, and the laptop is on a cooler that allows for good airflow on the bottom. I'll apply a decent thermal compound to see if things get better.

On a side note, I was able to enable overclocking with MSI Afterburner, although with the observed CPU temps (GPU and CPU share the same heatsink), I preferred not to do so.

Anyways, here's how I managed to enable overclocking:

This was taken from here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-pavilion-notebooks/639355-definitive-dv6z-llano-overclock-optimization-guide.html#post8247084

 

The crucial m4 is a standard 2.5 inch drive, so you could replace the hdd with it, but it can't go in the msata slot. Basically you can use a 2.5 inch drive AND an msata drive at the same time. You install them in different places.

Also just a heads up, I believe discussing using apple OS on non-apple products is against the forum rules--apple isn't a fan of that discussion apparently.

 

This was one of several oc methods I tried. It does not work for me. MSI Afterburner remains locked on the stock clocks.

Wow 90 seems pretty hot. My Vaio Z gets close to there, but I haven't seen the Y470 crack even the 60 mark. Granted, I've only tried to play an older game on it, and not for very long.

 

I did a clean install of windows and used the AMD/Intel drivers on the Lenovo site. Maybe the clean install has something to do with that?

 

I just removed the heatsink to clean/reapply thermal compound. From the factory it has excessive thermal compound, which is counterproductive. I'll post some pictures later.

I cleaned the goop and applied Arctic Silver 5, which is what I had in hand right now, but that'll do. After reassembling the computer I started Furmark and Intel Burn simultaneously and I can see an improvement already.

GPU temps stayed about the same at about 76C, but CPU temps are around 85C, which is 7-10C less than before.

As it came from the factory, playing a game got the CPU at around 90C. Using s CPU stress program temps would go as high as 96C.

In a few days when the AS5 sets, the temps should improve a bit.

EDIT:

Here are some shots of the CPU, GPU and heatsink with the factory goop:



Here is a shot of the VRAM, in case you're curious:

the spec sheet says it's rated for 900MHz, so not much overclocking room.

 

Pictures would be great, I just ordered the y470p and have been debating about doing the same thing. How difficult did you find the whole process to be?

 

Good to know!

Does anyone know where I can find information if dismantling and reapplying thermal compound will affect the warranty at all?

I have a few tubes of AS5 lying around and might as well use it! Since I hear it goes bad every few years and needs to be reapplied.

 

I believe as soon as you open the case that it voids the warranty, and when I get home. I can post a link on the manual for taking it apart. If I remember it's battery removal, couple of covers, optical drive, keyboard and system board. Doesn't seem like the easiest thing to get to but the results seem tempting.

 

Is anyone else getting an error when you try to install the updated AMD drivers from Lenovo? I get an "access is denied" message about halfway through the install, the installer closes out, then the Catalyst updater pops up.

I too am getting consistent CPU temps in the upper 80s Celcius and touching 90 C often. And I'm playing a super old game Dragon Age 2. I heard the CPU is rated up to 100 C, but I'm thinking 90 C is cause for concern over the long run?

 

I'm still waiting on my Y470P, I do have an Asus g74Jh, and from day one it got high temps on the i7 and the ati card. After research I learned it was from "imperfect" cooling an could remedy it a little bit with better pasting. But on the flip side, the temps were still within the cores threshold. I do believe the i7 is rated to 110c +/-, and the ati is 100c +/-. Don't quote me on it, just google, if I wasn't on my phone away from my pc I would find the links to the actual values.
If your worried about temperatures that bad, do a repaste, it's nothing to be scared of and any of the tear down guides an parts manual on this notebook I read, show me this is one of the easier notebooks to access that area. And pasting is easy. Do it an watch yur temps for a day or 2 till you feel confident.
Realistically don't sweat over 90c temps till you get on the higher half of the 90s, buy a cooling pad if you plan on gaming long an hard. I personally when I use my asus on the go, turn my CPU to run at 0-50% and the gpu to 250/500 an it fine for desktop function and anything source engine, ut3 engine, and older. Temps don't go past 60c (stock paste, as asus made it too hard to access for my patience) and battery goes for hours.

 

Well, because some heatsink screws are hidden behind the bottom case, you can either cut a bit to get access to the screws, or dissasemble the whole thing. I opted to do the latter. I'll say it was moderately difficult. If you've dissasembled an apple product before, then you'll find this to be a piece of cake

One of the screws under the keyboard has a warranty sticker, you have to break it to fully dissasemble the computer. So yes, you will void your warranty by doing this.

Here's the maintenance manual, which has diagrams that will help you with the process:

Lenovo Ideapad Support & downloads

 

I've successfully overclocked the 7690M to 800core/1000mem without a significant increase in temperature and so far it has been stable, with no artifacts and/or lockups.

 

Why don't you guys just disable turbo boost on your cpu when gaming. After disabling it I found that my max cpu temps dropped 15-20 degrees and this also led to a cooler gpu which rarely hits 70 degrees, even when overclocked.

Simply go into your high performance power plan and change the settings so that the max and min processor state only goes upto 99%. You can also download a utility from Intel which tells you when your processor is turbo boosting. Mine was automatically boosting them to 2.8 ghz from 2.2 during gaming and hence the temps were hitting 90s. I noticed no fps drops in modern games, like skyrim.

 

Also it's too bad you can't undervolt sandy bridge. In my old laptop I had my core 2 duo undervolted so that the performance was the same but the temps were significantly cooler and the battery life also longer. However my dedicated gpu sometimes used to hit 105 degrees lol, but it still managed to survive 4 years and still works. Just goes to show that the chips can handle temps greater than what we perceive as too hot.

 

I did just this, and my CPU temps never went above 70 C while playing Mass Effect 3 at 30 FPS and Dragon Age 2 at 60 FPS whereas they were hitting 90 C before. Thanks for the advice.

 

So I am a new owner of the Y470p which is gonna get shipped on Monday. I got a noob question, I am planning on getting a 1080p external monitor to use with my laptop. Will I still be able to run games like Skyrim smoothly with that resolution?

Also, what cooling pad do you guys use and recommend? Thanks.

 

I just bought the Y470p

Planning to put M4 crucial SSD 128GB replacing the internal HD

Glock thanks for confirming it's a SATA3 6GB/Sec port!

How did you overclock your video card?

 

Congratulations! You'll like it a lot.

The answer depends on the settings you want to use. I've got an external VGA 1920x1080 monitor. On that, running Skyrim at various settings, what I found is this:

- ultra high: I can see the frame updates, and they're annoying.
- high: If I look closely, I can see the frame updates. Very playable.
- medium or low: smooth as butter.

Sorry, never touch the stuff.

 

Great. Time for me to look for a good cheap 1080p monitor then. I am still on the fence about getting a SSD, I'll see how my laptop performs first. And I need to get an mSATA one so I can still use my 500gb right?

I am trying to learn as much as I can on my brand new laptop and how to do stuff on it so I'll be checking on this thread often. I've actually read the whole thread a couple times now. I'm still learning all the basic stuff. Any tips on what I first need to do when I finally get my Y470p? Thanks.

 

Fix the idiot trackpad settings. See my review - Random Gorp: Lenovo Y470p Initial Impressions

 

I did this. I lost around 6 FPS in Skyrim and BF3(when it doesn't crash) and a helluva lot more stuttering.

My temps only went down 4-8 degrees C.

 

Great review. I'm not having any problems with the trackpad though, at least for now. I uninstalled some of the junk programs that I don't know what they are for like the Veriface and the one that has the robot like shortcut. I can't seem to uninstall Power2Go for some reason. Wasn't able to update the video card driver on the Lenovo website. Still trying to figure out this switchable graphics stuff. Testing on whether to play videos using the dedicated video card.

 

Just a quick question - with the Y480 out, is the Y470p still a worthwhile option in terms of the specs and whatnot?

 

How do you save the settings on Lenovo Energy Management? Everytime I put the battery mode to best battery health after a while it goes back to optimize for battery runtime. I have done it a couple times already and after applying the settings that I want when I check it again it goes back.

 

The Y470p is still worthwhile. The Y480 is overpriced for the time being and the performance between the two is comparable.

 

There's a great deal at Lenovo currently. The only thing I would want is to upgrade the DVD drive. What's my option for putting in a Blu-Ray drive?
Thanks!

 

I put this drive in no probs: http://www.ebay.ca/itm/250992630148?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649

 

Great, thanks for the reply.

 

Speaking of, did anyone else notice the recent coupon that takes the Y480 (1TB/8GB RAM/Core i7) down to $850? At the moment that beats Lenovo's prices (admittedly nonsale) on the Y470p handily.

Lenovo Y480 on Sale for $849 with $550 Off Coupon

FYI, there is some indication that Lenovo is putting out additional options on the Y480 on Monday.

-Matt

 

Depends on what you pay for it. I paid $469 + tax for my 470 (original model with 550m) and I think that was an excellent price for what I got.

 

Whoa, I'm curious when you picked up your 470...? Was that with a Lenovo coupon, or a third-party discount? Very nice price!

-Matt

 

I got it from the Lenovo outlet. It was listed as "refurbished," but I sure can't tell it's not new.

 

What should my next upgrade be for the Y470p?

 

add an msata card, upgrade the hard drive to a hybrid 7200rpm drive, upgrade to a blu-ray, upgrade the wifi to an intel 6250.

 

Is this laptop worth it? I'm going to University in September for Computer Science and will be using it for programming and other stuff.

 

It might be slightly annoying to use for programming due to the keyboard having a half-sized Shift and Enter key. Hardware-wise though, everything's sound.

 

MSATA SSD - Check
Blu-Ray - will do
Intel 6250 - I take it that it doesn't use the same slot as the MSATA card?

Although the keyboard is one of the best I've used on a laptop, I would suggest using an extra keyboard. It's good for portable use and productivity, and the palm pads were designed well. I have a Steelseries 6Gv2 that I use at home, and it's ah-mazing, lol.

 

No, it replaces the existing wifi card
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/180658982079?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649

 

This is getting so annoying! Every time I play Battlefield 3 the damn drivers crash on me! I've tried it with 12.3, the current 12.4 from the Lenovo site, as well as a newer build from Leshcatlabs, which worked even worse! UGH! Anyone else play BF3 and have this issue?

 

I've nearly got my 470p. Its shipping now. Hopefully I can play bf3,diablo and stuff at decent frame rates.
Now I'm buying another laptop, preferably a ivy bridge one with a kepler graphics card, with a screen of 14" or above at a price of below 1000$. Any tips on which one to go for guys?

Sent from my Lumia 710 using Board Express

 

This seems a very useful forum, I'm glad I found you all.

I have a question. Does anyone know if the Y470P will be released in the UK? I've been Googling lots and coming up with nothing. Lenovo's UK site is a mess with a bunch of dead links and old products on their pages. It shows the Y470 (minus the P), but not any of its details, just details of older models. I can't find the Y470 or Y470P for sale anywhere either.

If no one knows I might have to phone them up or something. God.

 

what stress programs you run?