Emissions from Legion Y730 with disabled GPU

I'm considering the new Lenovo Legion Y730, despite that I don't need discrete graphics.

It is often reviewed for gaming, but I wonder:

1. How are the noise and heat emissions with idle/disabled GPU, but heavily loaded CPU?

2. Is there a BIOS setting for disabling the discrete Nvidia graphics?

3. Is the fan speed increasing and decreasing slowly or suddenly? Are there fluctuations in fan RPM, e.g. when idle and opening a web browser?

4. Are there BIOS settings for controlling the fans? If so, what parameters can be controlled?

5. Are there high pitch sounds from the fans?

6. Is your answer based on experience of the 15" or 17" variant? Which CPU? Windows or Linux?

Thanks

 

1. probably less if the dGPU is disabled
2. check user manual, I'm pretty sure this feature is not included and only reserved for the P-series thinkpad units but I coudl be worng
3. -
4. no, but software can ramp the fan to maximum if needed
5. check reviews, notebookcheck would probably have a noise frequency graph
6. -

 

There's no real reason to disable a GPU in an optimus laptop, because it will always be disabled unless you are running a 3d game anyway.

 

Maybe not from a power consumption point of view, but there are other potential issues with optimus, that can be avoided by disabling the GPU. E.g. optimus in combination with ICC color profiles, and optimus with Linux.

 

I've searched in the "User Guide", "Setup Guide", "Hardware Maintenance Manual" and "Product Overview" found at https://pcsupport.lenovo.com/se/en/...legion-series/legion-y730-17ich/documentation, but could not find any such information. Is there some particual "user manual" you have in mind?

 

If switchable graphics isn't mentioned on the bios section of the user manual I would assume it's not going to be configurable.

 

Most of the Optimus sold these days are MUXLess, so no disabling dGPU.

 

I’ll find out but it’s extremely unlikely that it can be disabled.

I have used the 15” 720s and if I recall correctly you could do this in the bios.

Either Optimus or iGPU as an option. Nothing to allow for the strict dGPU obviously. No MUX sucks!

That would make for an excellent T-shirt. I’ll add it to the list!

 

Mind that dGPU activation can also be triggered by most modern browsers. There's a good reason for this; gpu is much more efficient in handling certain tasks. Noise-wise, that's actually a good thing; it'll take the gpu much less resources to do the same task than the cpu would've required. That means less energy and, it is that simple, less energy = less heat = less noise (also sparing the environment).

Anyway, if noise is the prime concern in choosing a laptop then buy something that was designed for power (i7-ish), is ultra-bookish and yet has great battery life (better firmware making use of components' sleep functions). Swap the i7 with an i3, liquid metal it, replace fan with a Sunon maglev and enjoy using the world's most silent laptop. Heck, my lm'ed 57W i7 4930MX system's fan is completely off when just idling or browsing. If I'd purposely throttle it then it'd never speed up at all. That'd be even better than dropping in an i3 since the i7s are binned and more efficient at equal power levels.

There's passively-cooled systems too, of course. Assuming it's using an SSD and an adequate number or quality of inductors it'll be perfectly silent. Your blood pressure may rise a bit, but only if you haven't got the patience of a monk working on the Book of Kells.

Spoiler: The letter 'P'

But if you're dead-set on that Y730 and want that dGPU out of the way then simply short-circuit pin #1 on the vbios eeprom with a ground (pin #4) using a little wire. It'd be as if you never had that chip at all. Could also erase the vbios eeprom or, if it's an oprom, flash a modified bios with the gpu oprom removed. Probably need a programmer for that bit due to flash protection.