Ideapad Yoga?

I had to take mine back to Best Buy. Like clockwork, after it was on for about an hour, the display image would flip 90 degrees, at which point the automatic rotation would stop working, and the keyboard/touchpad would intermittently stop working until you suspended/resumed. Tried a reinstall, even tried installing Windows fresh from an MSDN image and just adding necessary drivers, still happened. Which makes me think it has to be a hardware failure in my unit -- a sensor or i/o chip heating up after a period of use and failing.

Alas, Best Buy didn't have any to replace it with, and nobody else makes anything comparable, so I'm back to my old notebook for now.

I'm going to give the Yoga another shot and see if I can get a good unit this time when BB gets more in, as I really liked it. The only comparable design I can find is the Asus Transformer Book 13, which I'm going to consider if it releases before I can get another Yoga. It's a bit heavier when used with the keyboard, but it's lighter in tablet mode, and it has a 1080P display.

 

Have anyone figured out a cover/skin to protect your Yoga against scratch, collision with a hard surface? Since most Ipads and Andorid tablets are protected by a cover/skin, I don't see why Yoga should be different.

 

So, I've got the second hard drive in (256 GB Crucial), and had already combined the C and D drives. I ran the Lenovo Hot Fix to reduce the size of the recovery partition, and it all worked well. Didn't mess up my second drive (that's now known as D, replacing the original D).

 

Only a few weird issues for me - no paint chipping (yet), but I do have a problem sometimes where, under normal operation in laptop mode, and usually in the middle of typing, the on-scree keyboard will pop up. And it might stay up or it might slide back down on it's own. When this happens, it usually happens repeatedly every few minutes for about an hour or so. I think this has happened 3-4 times in the 3 weeks I'm had the Yoga. Any ideas? I don't seem to be doing anything to trigger it - normal typing. And they are isolated occurrences.

 

The Yoga 11.6 RT is now for sale, starting at $679 IdeaPad Yoga 11 Ultrabook

 

Size might be good for some people but being stuck with ModernUI apps would be a deal breaker for me.

 

Oh, I'm with you 100%... Full Windows is a necessity for me. Just thought I'd pass the news along.

 

Sorry to hear it, man. Maybe the second one will work out better. I had a number of issues with mine that aren't there on the second one.

 

The Yoga is an ultrabook, and is not designed for hardcore gaming. However, I was wondering if someone tells about the performances of the internal graphic card of the i5-3317U or i7-3517U. I am actually interested in games such as Team Fortress 2, Left 4 dead or Call of Duty 4.

Any feedback will be appreciated.

 

My situation is worse now. The keyboard won't work right anymore. It let's me log in to windows (i can use the keyboard to enter the password, but as soon as windows comes up, the keyboard is completely disabled. All other interfaces work fine. I tried a refresh and that did nothing. About to do a factory restore. I have a law school final tomorrow so this is very interesting timing.

 

I was going to ask, in response to your original post, if the keyboard was disabled when the touch keyboard would become active. This now seems to be the case and that the Yoga thinks it is going into one of the convertible modes even though it is in clam shell, sounds like a hardware issue.

 

Disable/Stop ymc service

 

I've been having hellish wifi problems for the last 48 hours. The first three weeks I had no problems at all with wifi. My range is fine, unlike others.

My recent wifi problem is the wireless becomes disabled (red X over the wifi symbol). I can reboot or right-click and "troubleshoot" to fix, and it fixes it every time. I've updated the drivers from Lenovo to the current version http://download.lenovo.com/consumer/mobiles/0twb28ww.exe but no effect.

Oh, and 48 hours ago, when the problem started, I added a 128gb SSD and 8gb RAM stick, and installed Dropbox (which has been downloading constantly).

Anyone else with a similar wireless disable problem?

 

Something is seriously wrong with the Wifi... I am literally 2 feet from the router. A second Asus laptop is having no trouble along with two phones. I know it's not the router.

 

Okay, sorry for so many posts, but I'm freaking out over this Wifi issue. I just checked the calendar, I'm on day 29 from the purchase at BestBuy, so if it's faulty, I only have one day left to return.

SO, I just ran a system restore and undid the latest Lenovo wireless drivers, also uninstalling the latest Windows Updates; there are four, two drivers (Intel HD4000, Synaptics touchpad) and two Windows compatibility updates.

The good news is it appears to not be related to the fact that I updated SSD and RAM. There is definitely a software/driver problem with our wireless. There's another thread on Lenovo forums I've been following that has more detail: Re: yoga 13 wifi issues - Page 5 - Lenovo Community

 

It's intel HD4000 (actually, the ulv version). Call of Duty 4 will not be smooth on it.

 

You can try to uninstall the dropbox to see if it makes any difference.

 

I had seen that issue and I had already tried it. It did not help. My trackpad was working fne, too. And the keyboard worked, but only on the Windows login screen I was locked out of a functioning keyboard once before, but it didn't even let me log on to Windows that time, so, it was a bit different. And a reboot did the trick that time. This time the "Refresh" didn't help, but one-touch recovery to a fresh Windows install did fix it, just fairly destructively. I can't afford to have my keyboard lock up like this i the middle of my law school exam. It seems this is isolated to me, but I am inching closer and closer to ditching this for an X1CT when it comes, price be damned. I am very frustrated by this problem on a $1000+ machine.

 

Yep, I know that, but depending on the CPU model, this HD4000 graphic chip will have different kind of performances. I am wondering how good or bad they are.

 

Can anyone share expressions about using Yoga as a daily laptop(I want to use Yoga as my main laptop)? Is touchscreen useful ? performance? I am talking about browsing, typing etc.

 

you might actually have a bit longer provided Best Buy don't need to see a gift receipt:

 

I would say that the Yoga is currently the best Windows 8 laptop available. It's versatility due to the 360 hinge really enhances the Windows 8 experience. Now as a laptop, the keyboard is only serviceable and the NIC not supporting 5GHz is disappointing. If the X1 Carbon Touch gets a IPS screen then that could be a very enticing choice depending on what you need in a laptop. It becomes keyboard/NIC versus 360 hinge/upgradeable. My Yoga has been with me since I purchased it, I just slip into my messenger bag whenever I head out the door. Performance has been great, really the only weakness for me thus far is wishing the keyboard was better.

 

Except that if he's on day 29 on November 28, then he did not meet the requirement of buying on or after Nov 4.

 

Sorry I missed that!

 

someone on lenovo forum found a new wireless driver from lenovo, see page 5

yoga 13 wifi issues - Page 5 - Lenovo Community

 

I had similar issues to yours. My guess is that there are many factors. Drivers might be an issue, interference from other networks around you, perhaps the card performs erratically when/if it gets hot (I'm just guessing, I have no clue if this could happen).

In any case I ended up returning mine; Dont think one should have to live with no dual band, weak wifi, paint chipping etc when you've spent $1k+. Reliability is a big concern for people who use these things for their day jobs, and I'll probably end up picking an x230t or an Air for their proven track record.

 

Not sure about other games but I played Starcraft II on this low/med settings and it ran fine.

 

Didn't Lenovo learn anything from the Iphone4 fiasco? Hand placement on wireless devices must be taken into account during the design process.

I'd love to purchase a 13" Yoga, but lack of 5 ghz support (2.4 ghz doesn't work well in my home possibly due to too many wireless phones that use the same frequency in my area) and apparent poor 2.4 ghz performance suggests that I wait until those issues are resolved or another vendor has a better solution.

 

You're exactly right... I bought it on 10/29, so I missed the Holiday shopping deal. ...and I missed my 30th day, I decided to stick with the Yoga, despite the wifi probs.

For me, the latest Lenovo driver update is what caused the problems. I rolled back and have been fine ever since. So, it wasn't dropbox and it wasn't installing the new SSD + 8gb RAM. That's a relief.

Drivers will always improve, I believe the hardware is more stable than it appears... we just need better software, and we'll get it.

 

Can you tell me what driver version you are using that seems to be working best???

 

I sometimes like to surf in stand mode using desktop internet explorer as I hate the Metro version - too many swipes to get to your favorites etc. Anyway I was wondering if there's anyway to get the touch keyboard to pop-up automatically when entering text like it does in the Metro version of IE?

On a side note it kinda sucks that Chrome supports pinch to zoom so poorly in WIndows 8 - doesn't work at all on the touch screen and jerkily with the trackpad.

 

Totally agree... I wish Chrome had a Windows 8 style app that was touch friendly, zoom, etc. I use Chrome exclusively in Desktop mode, but have found IE10 to be so good in "Modern UI", I keep it the default browser... also best for showing off the Yoga to others.

 

1021.2.904.2012
9/4/2012

That's the stock driver that I had when the Yoga was new on October 29. Updating to the newest driver rendered my wireless completely useless... rolling back to this one fixed it. Here's a screenshot:

 

I use Firefox as my default desktop browser, and when I installed it, it changed the Metro IE shortcut to take me to the desktop version of IE so now I have no way of getting to Metro IE. I found an article on getting it back, but when I followed it, it had changed IE to my default desktop browser - no thanks. Any tips on having Firefox or Chrome as the default desktop browser and not losing Metro IE?

 

I have the EXACT same problem, but I have not figured out how to get IE back yet. Could you link me to the article you used to get the touch IE back? Thanks!

 

There can only one "metro" browser. So, you must choose between browsers. Which ever browser is your system default browser becomes the "metro" browser. So, the only solution I've found is to leave IE10 the default browser, but use Chrome or Firefox manually for your own browsing in the desktop.

 

Unfortunately I have to concur dan76

 

Exactly. I'm hopeful that Google will eventually come out with a Metro/Modern touch friendly version of Chrome, but until then I've also left IE10 as the default browser, and then just have Chrome pinned to the task bar on the desktop.

 

For chrome, there's an option in the menu to "restart in metro mode" (I think thats what its called). Its a little bit more touch friendly with bigger menus and also launches in full screen in metro. Try it out.

 

Yes, but it doesn't have pinch to zoom... that's the best feature of IE10, and enough for me to keep it default. Chrome Desktop for productivity surfing and IE10 Modern UI for browsing and reading. I'm actually starting to really enjoy the quick controls, also using the trackpad swiping a little more now and getting faster, it's no so bad. Now if we could just get Adblock!

 

Quote from Google support re Chrome Windows 8 Modern UI:

1.) Pinch to zoom doesn't work.
2.) Voice chat and Hangout don’t work in Gmail.
3.) Updated from Chrome version 22 to 23 and lost all my bookmarks from Chrome in Windows 8 mode

We are working to bring this feature to Chrome in Windows 8 mode.
Launch Chrome as a Windows 8 app - Google Chrome Help

Hopefully they will release v24 soon that has all these fixes. For now, stick with IE10

 

Good to hear!

 

Anyone find that the color reproduction on the yoga 13 is slightly off? Whites are slightly off white ( greyish and yellowish).

 

you can calibrate the color. Search for "color calibration" in the help menu.

 

Is anyone seeing these in stock at Best Buys anywhere? Haven't seen them back in Seattle or Portland since I picked mine up a few weeks ago. Had to return that one (failed rotation sensor) and wanted to give it another shot, but with Lenovo quoting January from their site, and Best Buy continually out of them, no luck so far...

 

Why not just order from bestbuy.com and have it shipped?

 

Best Buy isn't allowing online orders for it yet.

 

I'm also monitoring BB Yoga stock. Hoping to do an exchange and getting a more fortunate draw when it comes to the screen's back light consistency. At this point however it is looking like I will have to do a return as my 30 days is running out.

 

I've been monitoring stock for 2+ weeks now in Central Texas (Austin, San Antonio), Houston, San Jose/Santa Clara, CA and Boston, MA and Manchester, NH. They've been out.

 

tried to calibrate the screen before I commented about the way it is slightly off. thanks.