Lenovo Y50 Cooling mod - 10c

Funtional Airvents:
Not for the average user:
en·thu·si·ast Modifications:

Hi I bought a Lenovo y50 Touch Refurb for $819. It was brand new. I think someone tried to change the hardrive to SSD and gave up. I was able to install a Samsung 840 Evo ssd for faster boot times and application loading times. I removed the material covering the intake vent to get more airflow and was able to get it to drop like 5c. Before I was getting 35c idle and sometimes up in the 70's celcius while hardcore game designing and gaming. Now I took a look at the vents and noticed they were non functional. There is an aluminum air shield blocking the vents/ holes under the display above the keyboard. Lenovo has glued these to the removable bottom cover and they are in there pretty good. I was able to remove them with a heat gun and a mini flat head. I heated it up without melting at distance. Then I used the flat head to lift up the little metal tabs and gently separated the aluminum shield from the bottom laptop cover. Now it is funtional and air can now be sucked in from the vents on bottom and back. My computer now idles at 24c and max while playing Arma 3 at 59C max. Just wanted to share this with other y50 owners.



See those three little holes for airflow what a joke....lol

 

Great tip !
NEED to try this one!
But I dont have tools to remove it as You do, is there any way to do it without it?

 

Yeah you can try a hair dryer and a thin butter knife or guitar pic or old plastic card...

 

Pictures of what it looks like now?

 

And the finished product. We don't make a lot of the products we make em better...

 

Aren't you worried about the dust that can fill in from there?

 

Not a bit. Other Gaming laptops like MSI gt70 ASUS 751 have fully functioning vents and they are not worried about dust. I cleaned the Fans , repaste the thermal and it's very easy to open up and blow out. Besides i like gaming Hard with 59 c max over 80c+ any day. It's like taking the muzzle off the horses nose. My y50 can breathe much better now. it definitely feels a lot faster and smoother. The y50 has a rapid reverse blow back feature on the fans that runs for 2 mins to clean out any dust.fyi p.s the keyboard bareley gets hot now....

 

Even with throttlestop enabled and High performance mode I'm still gaming all day and night 60C. Without throttlestop y50 will downclock itself during gaming and gameplay will not be smooth. With throttlestop I'm running 3.4ghz with no downclocking during gaming with solid game perfomance. If it was'nt for throttlestop I would have send this y50 back to China a long time ago.

 

my next y50 mod will be a post about how to carbon fiber wrap your y50 like I wrapped my COD MW3 Special Edition Trailblazer

 

This should work with the Y40 as well, right? My friend just got one.

 

I went to the lenovo website and looked at the y40 pics. It appears to be the same vent design so I am pretty sure it will work on the y40 and y70 also ...

 

I did some benchmarks and my y50 is performing better than the y50's being reviewed online iex cnet, pc mag, etc .... with no vent mod or ssd mod... Now my y50 is officially a true gaming laptop... Lenovo may have blown it with the superfish bloatware thing but they sure as hell made a solid build quality gaming laptop that's affordable...

 

Thats awesome, Hopefully I'll be able to find a blowdryer to take off the vents

 

Hello guys I am having issues with my Y50. I am getting stutters after 15 minutes of Call of duty AW. The stutter goes away temporarily when if I log off the windows user account or reboot my system. After the stutter start all my applications lag even Counter Strike 1.6 stutters. I am having the FHD non touch variant with 4GB 860m.

 

what temps ? cpu and gpu

 

what are your temps when this happens?

 

Most likey cause is the CPU is Downclocking itself during gaming when cpu reaches a certain temp. Do a google search on throttlestop and y50 to eliminate this issue with most gaming laptops....

 

Lenovo added this feature to their Y50 as well as their Y510P and probably quite a few other laptop models too. Lenovo decided that if you are gaming, you probably won't notice if Turbo Boost gets disabled in the background. As soon as you are done gaming, the CPU speed quickly returns to normal and most users are none the wiser.

Intel Turbo Boost is a feature built into Intel's CPUs. A user that buys a laptop with one of these CPUs should expect that it runs at the Intel specification. Imagine if an auto manufacturer decided to disable half of your engine. As you go to pass someone, you step on the accelerator pedal and all of a sudden cylinders randomly deactivate and your car starts running like a slug. Now imagine if a company did this, provided no notification to the user of what just happened and worse than that, never mentioned in any of their documentation that this feature even existed. You call to complain and the help desk people also deny that this feature exists. This little problem would end up on 60 Minutes and a class action lawsuit would soon follow. Computer manufacturers are allowed to get away with stuff like this because the media rarely talks about throttling so most consumers are in the dark. ThrottleStop has been around for over 5 years now for a reason. Throttling is not a new problem.

Many games are not very CPU dependent so Lenovo has been able to get away with this trickery. Games that are CPU dependent will run poorly when this feature kicks in. Intel designed the 4700MQ and 4710HQ to use full Turbo Boost right up until the 100C thermal throttling temperature is reached. Disabling Turbo Boost is a problem that Lenovo will never admit to let alone fix. It is by their design.

I have used ThrottleStop for over a year to bypass this problem in my Y510P. It still runs just fine. ThrottleStop can not prevent your CPU from thermal throttling if it gets too hot. No software can prevent an Intel CPU from protecting itself from damage. The warning message on ThrottleStop is so users will take responsibility for their actions. It is your laptop. If you do not feel comfortable running your CPU at its Intel rated speed then do not use ThrottleStop.

To fix this problem, check the ThrottleStop - Set Multiplier box and set that value to the maximum which should be 35 T for the 4710HQ or 34 T for the 4700MQ. Use the Windows High Performance power profile when using ThrottleStop. Make sure the BD PROCHOT box is clear and then click on the Turn On button to take ThrottleStop out of monitoring mode and you are done. Minimize ThrottleStop to the System Tray and then go play a game at the full Intel rated speed and enjoy. It can keep track of your maximum CPU and GPU temperature. As long as your maximum CPU temperature is under the 100C thermal throttling temperature, you are operating your CPU within the Intel specification.

Here is an example of how to setup ThrottleStop.

http://i.imgur.com/UsdwVPK.png

Intel included +2 bins of turbo overclocking with these CPUs so this 4700MQ is setup to use that feature. I can understand if a laptop manufacturer decides to turn off the overclocking feature but I disagree with turning off the entire Turbo Boost feature when gaming. That is cheating users out of what they paid for.

 

Throttle stop + JD's cooling mod = smooth stutter free gameplay

 

1. BD PROCHOT can stay turned ON. It won't change anything at all.

2. Your mod looks interesting, but it voids laptop warranty.

 

If I had to ever send it back in you can easily glue it back , there is no possible way lenovo would be able to tell. I bought this refurbished with 1 year Direct Lenovo warranty ...so not a big deal... Besides it runs like a dream and if it fails I'll just buy a Hp omen or MSi Ghost 970 m. This custom y50 been running perfect for 11 months now and many more years to come since it runs way cooler than when stock. Less heat on computer hardware = longer lasting parts....

 

I just got my and planning to do this but was wondering, does it affect at all the vent is held, I mean is it loos after this mod or does it still keep firm to backlid, thank you very much

 

Just did mine and it doesn't affect at all on lid, still holds very well, temperature on keyboard does improve a lot, mine has the i7 4720hq so it runs a little hotter, tried with mgs 5 ground zeroes max temp on cpu 70c gpu 65, you can defenetly feel air going in thru vents wich means it needed that airflow. thanks a lot for sharing this mod is great. it helps n performance and it makes it look better

 

I somewhat like this mod, but in a long run, I feel it won't be that good.
You basically opened a lot of "not that small" holes for air, that will include dust, fur and other unwanted stuff to enter your laptop.

 

Considering how easy it is to open up the Y50, and simply blow out the fans with compressed air, I say its easily worth it.

 

Lenovo has a habit of poor case design obstructing airflow. On the Y500/Y510p you have to cut the bottom cover to stop blockage of air intake for the fans.

 

Since the vents are attached to the removable back cover, you can find a replacement back cover on eBay for something like $50.

Worried about voiding your warranty? Buy a replacement, and mod that. Keep the original. Problems occur, swap it and no one's the wiser.

It could also be contributing to the hinge failures on the Y50... perhaps thermal expansion and glue that weakens over time due to these guys running hot?

If dust is a concern, why not mod the mod with filter cloth or foam?

Thanks for this mod. Its brilliant.

 

Hi
I tried this mod and removed the aluminum strips from the backvents, but i got no drop in temperature.
Not one degree.I still reach 78c after doing the mod which is the same as before.
I dont know what is to be done differently here but if i had to say.. the fan openings are in contact with the bottom filter so the only way i think to reduce temp. is to remove the filter or replace it with smthin else.

 

If such minor "mod" can drop 10C, what exactly were designers thinking when they made this thing?

 

Form over function

 

I dont see how that would be true, As it has no impact on the form what so ever.

Eric

 

You mean the laptop looks no different/worse with it removed?

 

Yes.

Eric

 

Looks great with the removed caps from the air vents. Actually it looks better and more natural. The blocked vent intakes have annoyed me from the first look, but now I might reconsider buying this thing.

 

Ha! Any gaming laptop worth a salt has open vents for best airflow, and many modders end up opening theirs up anyhow (regardless of brand) which helps temps greatly. It's easy enough to air blast it every once in a while to get the dust bunnies out.

 

Sorry to burst your bubble but those grills do not have any air ducts to them which means removing the plastic pieces will have NO benefit. You would have realized this if you looked at the cooling fan and heat pipe arrangement. All air intake is from the bottom of the laptop and all air exhaust is in the hinge above the keyboard. The only thing in the area of the grills is the speakers. You can see what im talking about here, and the bottom intake vents here.

Source: I'm an owner of a Y50 touch who has installed an SSD and regularly opens it up to clean out the fans.

 

It's quite easy to simply remove a dust filter, and blast all the dust out. Constantly opening up the entire laptop to remove dust, (and trying to get minute pieces of dust stuck on fan blades and in the heat sink blades) is considerably more effort.

 

It looks like an actual gaming laptop now! Good work!

 

More effort maybe, but more effective. Some dust-balls just don't go away with trying to blast them away. If the laptop supports it (and the Y50 does mor so than most laptops (except the even better clevo)) nothing speaks against opening it up and remove the big dust-mice.

I had to make a lot of additionaly air holes (with the driller) in my current old laptop, even on places which seemingly do not help cooling, but it helps a lot... a looooot. Now the fan sounds like it can breathe again, and the temperatures stay cool, even cooler than 5 years ago, when I first bought it. Crappy heat/air vent design. It's all around. I hope Lenovo changes on their next update some parts of the Y50 design.

 

I cant make those things to go off (my are grey not black)
Im trying with haidryer, but plastic around start to melting abit, but the glue is not giging a damn, anyone can give me some more pics/advices?

 

Can you guys please post whether this was a successful mod or what? Please if anyone's doing this mod, if you can post a pic by pic manual. I am very interested in doing this to my y50-70 but am paranoid if anything happens to my baby . To the person that said if any dust can come into the system from there, cant you buy a piece of filter paper from a computer store and put it there? I'm seriously wondering that, sorry if I sound noobish? Also what are those vents for anyways, intake or exhaust, since there's a exhaust in-front of where my screen is (poor design location for a vent (in front of the freaking screen )

 

I own a Lenovo Y50-70 and did this mod and didn't notice a single drop (not even 1c) temps nor it makes the keyboard area any cooler.

The is OP just trolling. As this guy explains the intake area is on the bottom.

 

dayum was hoping to do this. I appreciate it raclimja.

 

You can use a program called IdeaFan (just google IdeaFan Y50) and what it does it raise the fan to max rpm for a couple seconds at a time which drops the temps.

You could also use Intel Extreme Tuning Utility to undervolt the cpu and cache voltage offset by -65mv or lower which helps the temps tremendously.

As for actual physical mod, you could remove the dust filter for the intake on the bottom (the one beside the red circle) so there would be more airflow for intake.

 

cant find link to download, I'm trying to keep this baby clean as long as possible so no dust goes inside. Not sure how to do Intel extreme.

 

Hey guys i made a Fan cooling mod:

I used an old dell desktop fan, an office folder tray, and an old power adapter.









This did show some advantage when i did some temp testing logging

 

I did this mod to my laptop but did it in a slightly different way. I did not remove the metal piece completely, but dremeled out the middle bit to allow airflow, but keep some of the rigidity. I saw a 3.5C degree decrease on both CPU and GPU making this mod worth it for me! Thanks!
Check out what I did with pictures here http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php/768816-Functional-Vents-on-Lenovo-Y50

 

It seems to have helped me out, I would try it! It is not hard. Just use a hair dryer and a screw driver to pry those metal pieces off and the rest is pretty self explanitory

 

Sir, i used my hair dryer to heat it up for like 3mins but i still cant get to pry the aluminium shield up away from the removable bottom cover. Any ideas on this? Please help =(

 

Hi all,

Apologies for necro'ing an old thread but wanted to give my input.

I purchased the Lenovo Y50 about 5 months ago with the intention of intensive gaming (sale was on - and I'm saving for a desktop so wanted something fairly cheap whilst I save up enough £'s for my beast custom desktop build - if the wife stops nicking my savings). Like all(most) Lenovo Y50 owners I encountered heating / throttling issues.

I overcame the throttling/performance issues with the standard use of Throttlestop / unparking cores / overlocking etc but the heating issue was still apparent and more so since doing the above.

So.. I came across this thread about modding the "fake" vents and removing the dust filter on the back and chose to apply the modifications to my Y50 and wanted to confirm the positive impact modding the vents has made to the temperatures on my laptop.

I made the aforementioned vent modifications after optimizing my system with various Windows 10 and specific Lenovo Y50 optimization guides, so can confirm the positive change in temps is principally due to the vent mods.

Tools used:
1 x Crosshead screwdiver (screws on rear panel)
1 x Flathead screwdiver to (lift the fake vent panels)
1 x Wife's hairdryer (heat the glue to allow easier removal)
Alcohol cleaner to remove any unwanted glue residue

https://www.facebook.com/gamersunited.global/posts/368041386719808
(a rather brief but a decent guideline on what you can do to get the best out of your laptop, i.e overclocking / undervolting / Nvidia / OS tweaks etc)

Initially I'd reach anywhere up to 95° degrees CPU / 75-80° on the GTX860m (prior to the vent mods) and in some cases the inevitable shutdown of the laptop to prevent heat damage, even when using a cooling pad.

After the mods I never surpass 70-75° CPU / 65° - it's a massive drop in temps and the machine as a whole runs like a beast now without any worry of it randomly initiating the temp safe shut down.

Tested during 1-3 hour sessions on
Battlefield 4 / Dark Souls 3 (various other titles)

So if you're not worried about the warranty and cannot find other ways to reduce temps / enhance performance of this laptop then go for it. I was somewhat apprehensive about modding the laptop after reading the posts from peeps stating it didn't have any affect on their machine but I was at a last resort and it needed addressing. It's by far the best result I could have hoped for and will not hesitate to perform such mods in the future.

I can post a performance / temp video later (currently at work) should anyone have any doubts on the positive impact this modification has on the Y50.

Kudos to the OP and to those that took time to prep these guides.

FYI: I have the below specs
Lenovo Y50 / i7-4710HQ | 16GB DDR3L 1600MHz | GTX 860M 4GB | 1TB +8 GB Hybrid SSHD | 15.6" UHD 1920x1080 // HAVIT HV-F2056 Cooling Pad