Y400 / Y500 Accessory reviews

[Uberperson]

I decided to create this post to enable others to find the accessories they may or may not need. Feel free to contribute any reviews and I will edit the main post to either link too or include them.NOTE: I quoted multiple people that have contributed to this forum, if you do not want your quote in this post please contact me and I will remove it.

1. FRU/Ultrabay/WLAN

a. DVD/Blueray

b. HDD/Caddy

• Universal 9.5mm SATA Hard Drive Caddy for hP lenovo
  

I purchased this HDD Caddy off Amazon.com

here The caddy itself does come with a faceplate, but it does not cover the entire area that the rounded DVD burner faceplate does, luckily the DVD faceplate can actually snap into the front of this caddy and you now have an undercover HDD *in case you are wondering, the button does nothing* Here are some pictures of my installing my own. I should also mention, like mentioned in this post by bedlam13 you will need to unscrew the plastic front plate from the dvd drive and attach it to the caddy to insert the drive into the ultrabay

The difficulty level of installing this caddy was maybe a 2/10. All you need to know how to do is use the right switches located on the underside of the laptop to remove the ultrabay(check your manual for this information).

c. GPU

Y400 - GT 750m Ultrabay

Lenovo shop linkY500 - GT 750m Ultrabay Lenovo shop linkThe general consensus about the GT 650m vs. GT 750m is that they are essentially the same except the 750m is clocked higher and has access to an extra .03 voltage

At this point I think we can safely assume with 99% certainty that the GT 750M in the updated Y400 and Y500 is the same GK107 core with voltage and clock speed boosts. I'm perfectly happy with my 650M SLI system and I got a screaming deal on it. 959 USD for everything in the sig. I haven't had time to overclock this puppy properly yet but I'm sure it can meet or surpass the stock 750M performance and with an overvolt they're essentially even. I'm actually glad I have the older model because there's a lot more support for it out there such as svl7's wonderful BIOS mods and the ability to use the latest Nvidia drivers none of which you have if you get the updated model. You can certainly return your current machine if you're unhappy with it and it's within the 21 days. I think after 21 days you have to pay a 15% restocking fee or they won't accept returns, can't remember which.

Currently their is better driver support as well as bios mods available for the GT 650m single and SLI, for more information visit svl1's thread as well as jester_socom's thread

Link to latest Beta driver 320.18 for 650m/750m Here I can confirm they work on the 750m

d. WLAN cards

• Lenovo IdeaPad Y500 WiFi Stock VS Centrino 6235 Advanced-N - by jester_socom
  

On a 802.11g network with 3.5 - 4.0 MB/s peak over ethernet:Stock: 8.5 MB/s DLIntel Centrino 6235 Advanced-N 13 MB/sUpload rate was nearly the same. Tests done on www.speedtest.net.Note you can buy an extra antenna cable and probably buy the 6300 Ultimate

• Lenovo ideaPad Y500 WiFi Stick vs Bigfoot Killer Wireless-N 1201 - by William Shadowruby
  

I purchased a Killer Wireless-N to replaced the Intel 2230 that my Y500 came with.

So I ran some quick tests, on the 5-ghz and 2.4-ghz bands using speed test and my NAS.

5-ghz

Speed Test

Ping 25 ms

Download 26.16 mbps

Upload 5.37 mbps

NAS

Download 12 mbps

Upload 6 mbps

2.4-ghz

Speed Test

Ping 25 ms

Download 15.97 mbps

Upload 5.22 mbps

NAS

Download 3 mbps

Upload 1 mbps

Ethernet

Speed Test

Ping 15 ms

Download 27.35 mbps

Upload 5.41 mbps

NAS

Download 9.1 mbps

Upload 15.2 mbps

All in all the Killer so far seems like a very good card, adding only 10 ms of ping when compared to Ethernet. I will probably update this post as I collect real world observations.

e. Other

2. Cosmetic/functional protection

a. Vinyls/Decals

• Original KH Special Laptop Carbon Cover Skin For Lenovo Y500 Series
  

Link to this product (ebay, took about 10-15 business days to arrive)First I want to mention how impressed I am with this vinyl, It looks amazing. It also provides some scratch protection and the biggest plus is NO MORE FINGERPRINTS!Before you jump on board I have to mention that this vinyl was not very easy to apply. It takes a steady hand and a lot of patience. There are not much in the way of instructions included. Here are some tips for installing it from my own personal experience:

• Do not remove the entire vinyl, peel back a reference point you can use(for example the "Lenovo" logo) Once you line up the lenovo logo it is much easier to slowly peel the rest of the sticker as it lays down.
  
• Use a credit card or something similar as you lay the vinyl down to avoid bubbles
  
• Don't work in a dusty area
  
• Wash your hands first
  
• Try to avoid stretching the material, it is fairly strong and resistant but not indestructible
  

**If you have a friend with a steady hand and some hint of OCD, ask them to do this for youI did purchase this vinyl, but I am going to post a few quotes of those who have also purchased it. Note, I am in no way affiliated with the person selling this on ebay...I live in Florida, enough said.

I probably ordered the same y500 keyboard cover from eBay... buy one get one free? Same about waiting time Takes long. Also, I have carbon fiber skin for Y500.... I just installed it 5 hours ago. Looky here.https://www.dropbox.com/s/kkjdtdy6dggi4g0/2013-05-21%2000.56.42.jpghttps://www.dropbox.com/s/szfibmb1hvhn6vo/2013-05-21%2000.56.55.jpgIt's awesome! I highly recommend it...

Finally masked everything off with Carbon fibre vinyl and also the TPU clear keyboard as well https://www.dropbox.com/s/rwe8iamu0cp80ol/2013-05-23%2011.50.43.jpghttps://www.dropbox.com/s/ocjy7ig6vvtj9r0/2013-05-23%2011.51.23.jpghttps://www.dropbox.com/s/2m7cdbuvl0sd4vz/2013-05-23%2011.51.29.jpg

Here are my personal pictures.

Also one of my favorite parts of this vinyl is it comes with a cover for the touchpad. If you are like me you like some texture on your touchpad, this takes the edge off the already terrible touch-pad that came with the Y500

b. Keyboard Covers

• Coolskin clear TPU
  

Link to this product (Amazon- from china 10-15 business days)This was my first keyboard cover, for a laptop, that I have ever purchased. It arrived with a crease in it , I would have liked if they could have shipped it with some sort of hard flat cardboard to keep the shipping from bending it. Although I was able to remove the crease, which I will explain later. This clear TPU(Thermoplastic polyurethane) is made to keep crumbs and small spills from seeping into the depths of your keyboard laptop. It seems to work well, it does make the keys a bit..mushy which takes a bit of getting used too. Because this cover is clear it does not block the LED back lit keys, which is nice. I want to note that this keyboard cover does not fit perfectly, if you turn your laptop over it will most likely fall off. For the price it is not bad, also considering the lack of products for the Y400/Y500.Here are some pictures I took

You can see the crease in the 4th picture I was referring too earlier. My method for removing the crease itself was to use a hairdryer and apply plenty of heat while letting it lay on the keyboard. Given time it may have taken care of itself. I do not suggest you do anything like put the keyboard cover in a microwave or oven, so if you do it is your problem. Before using a hairdryer I looked up the melting point of TPU just to be safe

c. LED Modifications

3. Cooling

a. Laptop cooling pads

• Uberperson's DIY Targus cooling pad
  

So I had a broken Targus cooling pad sitting around my house that looks similar to

this one. To put it simply, unless you are a light laptop user and use this pad more for something to put your laptop on, this cooler is pretty bad. The fans included with it are weak. Long story short the USB cord thingy broke and I decided to modify it. The plastic grating looked perfect for installing some Antec silent fans i had sitting around from my last build. Because these fans used rubber screw/plugs the holes worked perfectly to attach the fan to the underside of it.So I cut some of the top material off and unscrewed the pad, where I removed the old fans and attached these in their place. Because these fans are powered via molex and 3-pin I used this AC to molex adapter to power these fans. I didn't really care that I needed an outlet to power these fans because my laptop usually only overheats when I am gaming a lot. Once I had everything up and running I decided that I did no really have enough cooling power for what I wanted. I wanted to find a way to put a small fan near the GPU to exhaust the heat coming out, so i took a trip to lowes and picked up some metal 90 degree angle brackets and put a small fan that lined up next to my exhaust . it does not exactly look pretty, but I am more of a functional person so here are the final pictures!

The side fan mainly helps exhaust the hot air from the GPU/CPU, but it also helps move some of the hot air being moved below the laptop.

b. Cooling modificationsc. Average Y500 Termperature

This information is purely anecdotal and may vary from person to person. Because the Y400/Y500 use a combined heatsink & Fan for the CPU and GPU temperatures can really get up there. Here are my personal stats for running Y500 single GT 750m and I7-3630QM on high performance battery mode, everything else stock.*The following temperatures are recorded using Real Temp GT 3.70 and are approximate I also understand that some of these programs over stress components beyond the scope or use of a normal user or even a gamer. This is purely for science

**Room Temp - 25 - 26 CelsiusLight Office use: CPU 49-55 C GPU 41-42 CRunning Prime95 alone 10-min Blend: Average between 88-90 C. Peaks on each core 88/91/96/94 C. GPU reached 56-57 C without stressing any graphics*at this point I ran the dust extractor until I reached Light/idle temperatures and waited 15 minutesRunning Furmark Geeks3D 1.10.6 alone 10-min 1080p Burn-in: CPU average between 85-88 C. Peaks on each core 95/88/89/88. GPU reached 90-91 C*more dusting xD....I know what you are thinking lets do prime95 and Furmark!No.I ended up performing the heavens benchmark in a different location*New room temp 22.2 C or 72 F - temps for heaven are measured through the built-in temp programRunning Heavens 4.0 Basic edition 1920x1080 DX 11, Med shaders, no Tess, Anistropy 4, Anti-aliasing x4, Windowed screen 30 min- Averaged around 75 CPU and 68-70 GPU

4. Power-related

a. 170w power adapters

b. Spare batteries/Portable power

I decided to create this section just because I know a lot of people dislike the limited power usage of the Y400/Y500. Also because I happen to have an

external 33600mAh battery . Now as you can see this thing is not cheap, when I purchased it is was around $125. Anyway this thing comes with a whole assortment of laptop tips, similar to those that come with a universal charger. It also has the ability to change the voltage output meaning it can charge almost everything. To put into perspective how much energy this battery can store, the default battery that comes with the Y500 is somewhere between 6000 and 7000 mAh. This battery is 33,600 mAh, now this does not necessarily mean that it will last 5x longer because of some electrical stuff that I know little about. Another cool part about this battery is that it has a usb port as well. Here are some pictures!

Note: that awesome little black box did not come with it, I stole that from my mouse. As you can see it was probably originally intended for Mac users(Yuck )

4. Laptop Bags & Cases5. Laptop/Screen cleaning products

[octiceps]

Thanks man. This can come in handy. +1 rep.

[whatisit]

Thanks for the post! I would be really interested in a Blu-ray drive. Got my Y400 with the basic DVD burner, expecting I could only pay for the Blu-ray rather than a slightly different build which includes other things I didn't need. But after getting it, the only stores I could find that sell it have been questionable, and I didn't want to risk it. I suppose if people start selling on ebay eventually that would work, but I was wondering if you know of any other places for these at the moment?

[mrfrost91]

Have anyone tried ordering this carbon fiber vinyl? It looks preety nice and probably will solve the problem with fingerprints on the metal surfaces of y500.

Original KH Special Laptop Carbon Skin Cover for Lenovo Y500 Series | eBay

[Uberperson]

Thanks for the post! I would be really interested in a Blu-ray drive. Got my Y400 with the basic DVD burner, expecting I could only pay for the Blu-ray rather than a slightly different build which includes other things I didn't need. But after getting it, the only stores I could find that sell it have been questionable, and I didn't want to risk it. I suppose if people start selling on ebay eventually that would work, but I was wondering if you know of any other places for these at the moment?

Yeah I have looked around a bit for the Blue ray. I know for a fact that you need to use the caddy that comes attached to the DVD drive if you want to fit it into the ultrabay. Seems most people just go with External ones.

Have anyone tried ordering this carbon fiber vinyl? It looks preety nice and probably will solve the problem with fingerprints on the metal surfaces of y500.

Original KH Special Laptop Carbon Skin Cover for Lenovo Y500 Series | eBay

Yes I have it installed on my laptop, I posted a link to it in my default post it is under #2 Cosmetic and point A.

Also I will be updating this post with a review of the CM SF-19 laptop cooler soon.

[whatisit]

In regards to Original KH Special Laptop Carbon Skin Cover for Lenovo Y500 Series | eBay from your post...I was wondering if there are any skins for the Y400? I've been looking around and can't really find any. Only ones I can find are for the Y500 which are a different size. If you know a place that has them, please let me know!

[LanceTheeGamer]

You could try contacting XoticPC. They have a carbon fiber wrap that's offered on pretty much all the laptops they sell, and they take requests for laptops that they don't sell.

Custom Laptops, Gaming Notebooks, Custom Gaming Laptops | XOTIC PC