theagent

But what's the point? I've done this in the past, and every time I've wondered why I'd even bothered. I'm reducing my performance AND functionality, considering that all the worthwhile programs and apps are Windows only. I end up jumping through hoops to use the software I was already using on Windows. Is there a reason you prefer running OSX?

I repasted earlier today.... laptop was super clean. Repasting lowered temps a bit, probably as good as it's going to get with this machines design. The cooling pad is still a failure though. I'll continue to use it because it props my laptop up near eye level when gaming, however.

Just an FYI... i just repasted the CPU / GPU + the 750m Ultrabay. Temps reduced a few degrees... my Ultrabay drive went from 84-87deg C to 79deg C with my last test. Also, there is a warranty sticker covering one of the screw holes.

Don't waste your money on another cooling pad. See my post here http://forum.techinferno.com/general-notebook-discussions/4387-cooling-pad-not-cooling.html, I modded an ultimate cooling pad and it did absolutely nothing for the Y500 temps. 0 change. The only thing that seemed to slightly help was placing a fan to help exhaust the hot air from the side vent. 70-80 while gaming would be great for me... I often hit 97+deg.

Thanks for the tip, I'll give that a try. @djsharkpt: Not sure what you mean by "remove all the parts down from the notebook then use that." Use what?

I've used this stuff Amazon.com : Inland 05119 Pro LCD Display Cleaning Kit : Laptop Cleaning Kit : Electronics, which is great...but I only paid a few dollars for it ($3-4 I think, when it was discounted heavily). Never had streaking or issues with it, and left the screen perfectly clean. Now that I'm out, I use eyeglass cleaner from Costco. It's made for anti-glare screens, so it should be safe to use on LCD's... anyway, that works just as well I think.

Actually, the internal always said MODIFIED, oddly enough, even before flashing, but yes, now I see, it was normally 941MHz at stock. Thanks for clearing that up. I need to get myself a new wifi card so I can re-flash the bios and get that little extra bump in performance.

Once I flashed this bios I started having bluetooth issues when putting the laptop to sleep. It's a known issue with the Y500, where bluetooth fails to work when waking the computer... however, I didn't have the issue before flashing. I use a bluetooth mouse, and prefer to keep windows quickboot, or whatever it's called, active. Since I have no plans of overclocking, I'll be flashing back to stock, until I pick up a different wifi card... but just wanted to let it be known. Perhaps it was just a fluke with my machine, if not, hopefully it can be fixed in a future release. I was on 2.02 stock.

The speed issues I've noticed with the stock card has to do with Bluetooth being enabled. When disabling Bluetooth I notice that my speeds are pretty standard, while with Bluetooth enabled, my speeds are awful. I wonder if a different wifi + BT card would do any better. I must have BT for my mouse, and I'm not a fan of dongles.

Hello all, I haven't really been using my laptop for gaming, but I'm getting set up to play FFXIV: RR, and just noticed that the Default Clock for the Ultrabay 750M is lower than the internal 750M. Am I missing something, or is this normal? The Default Clock for the 750m should be 1058MHz.

Well, I've tried having the fans pull air away from the bottom, push air into the bottom, have one push air in, while the other pulls... nothing. So, it's a bust. What a shame too, this thing has such great reviews. At the very least it props my laptop up, so that's it's slightly more eye level, but I do feel burned paying so much for 2 fans that I don't need. Positioning a fan at each side vent does help, but I'd need to find the best way to prop them, not to mention what a hassle it will be to deal with... but at 97deg on average, it's better than nothing.

I feel that it's just a really poor design in terms of cooling. The temps are the same from when it first arrived a couple of months ago... and pretty much on par with what others have reported from their dual graphics Y500's. I'm considering re-pasting with quality paste, but not sure that would do much. What I did try that helped was positioning a fan to exhaust the hot air coming from the side vent. The Y500 draws air from the bottom for both GPU / CPU and vents it out on the side. So sticking a fan right in front of that vent helps a bit, but it's not very ideal. I even tried removing the bottom cover, so the grate / dust filter aren't blocking air flow. Didn't do much of anything.

You know, I was thinking the same thing. But I did test it with High Fans, Low Fans, and No Fans... the temps remained the same... within a couple of degrees of each other, but any temp change corresponded pretty regularly with voltage change... so, if one result was 2 deg hotter, you'd see that the voltage was also slightly higher at that time. So, now that the "cooler" is bust, I don't know what to do with the thing. Restocking fee is 15% + shipping cost. Seems pointless to keep though, it doesn't cool my laptop, and the thing just keeps sliding off the U3. The reason I went with this setup in the first place was because I read a few success stories of 10+ deg drops with adding larger / better fans.

So, my laptop gets very hot during gaming. I have a Lenovo Y500 with SLI GT 750m's. The GPU's reach 97+ deg C easy, after about 10 minutes of gaming, so I just bought a Cooler Master Notepal U3 Cooler, and bought 2 140mm Vortex HDB fan's to mod the cooler with. I made sure the fans were positioned right where the vents are. Whether idling, or gaming, the temps don't budge a single degree with the fans on or off. Seems like a huge waste of money. $62 spent after $10 off coupon (Newegg). Is there something I'm missing, or can anyone provide any suggestions? Thanks. Here are a couple of pics of the cooler setup. The 140mm fans are running at 12V.

Interesting... I'll have to look into the overclocking. I'm not sure I'd go with the skin... I'd imagine it would reduce quality quite a bit. I was looking at the AUO B156HW01 v4, which should work, and is a high quality panel (for a TN panel), but I've read of others having issues with adjusting brightness. edit: Just adjusted to 108Hz using EVGA Pixel Clock Tool. I see no issues so far. Pretty cool.

Anyone know of a compatible 1080p matte LCD panel I can replace this glossy thing with? It's becoming incredibly annoying to game on. I don't mind doing some soldering / re-wiring if need be. Edit: I may have just found an answer to my own question, if anyone else is interested... https://www.laptopscreen.com/English/model/IBM-Lenovo/IDEAPAD~Y500/index.php?section=products&model=IDEAPAD%20Y500%2059360242&brand=IBM-Lenovo, thanks to a thread on the Lenovo forum. Priced just right too.

Would love to see pics of your heatpipe mod when you get to it. I'm trying to get ahold of a keyboard to mod... when I do, I plan to add some copper heatsinks / shims, and repaste... do it all at once.

But how were your temps running that? Stock, my temps hit 93C or so on the CPU, and 87-90+C on the GPU when gaming. That thing must have been cooking!

Wouldn't need a driver, it should just work. You said in your OP that the original ribbon cable was frayed... did you check to see if any part of it was still stuck in the connector? Otherwise, it could be that the connector itself has been damaged (the pads inside the connector that is - thought, it's not very likely). If that's the case, you'd have several options... which would all require soldering. As silly as it seems, the first thing I would check is to make sure you've connected the ribbon cable the right way around. Typically the pads face down toward the board. (Just covering all the bases). Also, how frayed was the cable? Could it be that the original keyboard wasn't working for a different reason? I may just do that, swap the red for white... the white looks nice as it is... much preferred over the red. But definitely, let me know if you find the time, and manage to get yours working. Would be grateful to pick your broken one up.

If you have a large enough SSD, where you don't mind losing 40GB to backup partitions, it's probably better to just clone your hard drive to the SSD. That way you'll retain your UEFI install, and your two backup partitions, and your one-touch recovery will still function. I wanted to keep my one-touch recovery functional, since I sometimes like to wipe the slate and go with a fresh install from time to time. I deleted only the OS partition, and reinstalled WIndows 8, then installed the drivers and sofware (including the one-touch software), setup a base Windows install to my liking (updates and all), then created a backup using one-touch. You could use something like this to clone to hdd to ssd. Apricorn SATA Wire Notebook Hard Drive Upgrade Kit ASW-USB-25

Hopefully you can get a discount, because the parts are ridiculously expensive / overpriced. This 90200841 - CASE UPPER W/TP QIWY4 is what you're looking for I believe. If you don't have any luck with Lenovo, you may want to contact this supplier. Replace new palm rest/top case for Lenovo Y580, View Perfect palm rest for Lenovo Y580, Product Details from Shenzhen Jinmetair Technology Development Co., Ltd. on Alibaba.com. I'm not sure if that includes the TP, but it doesn't hurt to ask. These parts are so scarce. I've personally been scouring the net looking for a cheap Y580 keyboard to dismantle. I just purchased the Y500 with the red backlight, but I'm not a fan of the color, in fact it's incredibly irritating... though I use the backlight a lot. So, I wanted to pick up a Y580 keyboard, and see if I could somehow retrofit it, or swap keys at the very least, then remove and solder new LED's. I have quite a bit of experience with SMD soldering, so it wouldn't be an issue... but being that I don't want to dismantle my brand new laptop keyboard and potentially destroy it, I don't know if it will be possible to access the LED's without causing permanent damage. Let me know if you'd like to sell or donate your broken keyboard in the name of science!

You should give Windows 8 a try, since it's already installed, and generate your own opinion. Personally, I was able to look past the interface for the most part. What had me switch back was all of the driver conflicts I was dealing with... but, I'm using hardware that a normal user wouldn't (JTAG reader's and such). There were also so many bugs. It wasn't playing nice with XBMC. It's also so restrictive that you have to jump through hoops if you're an "advanced" user, and want to do more than surf the web, install games, and check your email. As far as installing Win7 on the mSATA... If you're referring to the 16GB mSATA drive that it comes with, you will not be able to do so. It's not large it. It's intended use is as a cache drive only.