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Y500/Y510P spring mod with spacer guide


ghoul

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So to anyone that is thinking about doing the spacer mod, 2 words of advice:

first, it DOES work. those springs are crummy. I was able to lower temps by around 5-7 degrees at load.

Second, be careful. i got it extra tight, and eventually the tension ripped the part you screw into from the PCB. I had to go all macguyver to fix it, and probably can no longer achieve the same cooling level as when i first did the spacer mod

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So to anyone that is thinking about doing the spacer mod, 2 words of advice:

first, it DOES work. those springs are crummy. I was able to lower temps by around 5-7 degrees at load.

Second, be careful. i got it extra tight, and eventually the tension ripped the part you screw into from the PCB. I had to go all macguyver to fix it, and probably can no longer achieve the same cooling level as when i first did the spacer mod

Did you lower temps at the integrated GPU/CPU side or at the Ultrabay too? Because I did the mod with the Ultraybay and I don't see any difference in temperatures.

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Did you lower temps at the integrated GPU/CPU side or at the Ultrabay too? Because I did the mod with the Ultraybay and I don't see any difference in temperatures.

were the spacers you used wide enough so that the fat part of the screw could pass into it, allowing the springs to really do their job? I only did this on the ultrabay. it helped, but still wasnt the answer, i think ultimately it just delayed the death march to 97. ultimately, in trying everything i could find/think of, the most effective cooling methods are running the fans at 100% and/or undervolting the GPUs. repasting/spacing did not seem to help much.

ultimately I ended up wtih a solution where i undervolt the gpus, and installed a switch on the side of the laptop that I soldered into to the fans so that I can turn them to 100% when playing really intense games and turn off when i want it to run at its normal non obnoxious nouse level. i'm planning to do a writeup w/pics later today maybe

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were the spacers you used wide enough so that the fat part of the screw could pass into it, allowing the springs to really do their job? I only did this on the ultrabay. it helped, but still wasnt the answer, i think ultimately it just delayed the death march to 97. ultimately, in trying everything i could find/think of, the most effective cooling methods are running the fans at 100% and/or undervolting the GPUs. repasting/spacing did not seem to help much.

ultimately I ended up wtih a solution where i undervolt the gpus, and installed a switch on the side of the laptop that I soldered into to the fans so that I can turn them to 100% when playing really intense games and turn off when i want it to run at its normal non obnoxious nouse level. i'm planning to do a writeup w/pics later today maybe

I believe ya because when I was screwing it in it felt a lil tighter than usual. Yeah the only real way is undervolting tbh. I'd love to hear more about yer tweaks etc..

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Spacer mod on ultrabay is extremely dangerous,because the pcb is so small and weak, it will bend. Not saying it will crack, but eventually will, but traces inside can be broken via bending.

There is 3 solution with ultrabay, undervolting, mine can do 1124 with 1V, or do the fan mod, which is tricky, and it will make it louder. ( combining these two is funny, 6x temps and acceptable loudness, pitch is higher)

Not unbearable, but loud. It will be an abomination, but it will work :)with that, around 1300mhz gpu speed is doable. ( To be able use that speed, maybe you should mod internal psu cable as well)

Or make the fan work @ 100% always by detaching rpm signal from board.

Check the beginning of this thread for some hardware mods.

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  • 2 months later...
Can you guys show me link with washer which is the right one. I don't see any of those in market. 0.27...mm outside, can't find any,

0.27mm inside, not outside, just look for M3 washers they fit perfectly, like this one | Zinc Plated Steel Plain Washer, 0.5mm Thickness, M3 |

- - - Updated - - -

Can you guys show me link with washer which is the right one. I don't see any of those in market. 0.27...mm outside, can't find any,

0.27mm inside, not outside, just look for M3 washers they fit perfectly, like this one http://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/plain-washers/0560338/

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  • 4 months later...

I just cut out some of the plastic under the grid on the lower side of my Y500 as mentioned above. It seems till now that my temperatures droped a few degrees with just a couple of minutes of work and not investing any money. I can clearly recommend this mod to anyone who can handle a file and a saw :encouragement:

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Cutting was quite easy to make, I really just used one file to do so.
I did cut that plastic around the Ultra-bay videocard, drilled nicely some holes (so it looks like original, huh) in lower cover of laptop (where the fan of Ultra-Bay is situated), cut out some plastic around copper pipes from CPU.
After that temperatures for the Ultra-Bay were quite good, not reaching more than 89-92 degrees (before 95-97 stable in heavy games).
But it was not enough for me, and I did repasting and Spacer mod for both Motherboard and Ultrabay. Funny thing...now Ultra-Bay have lower temperature mostly, than main Videocard, and CPU now looks like heating also more.. interesting for me, if the reason is bad quality of thermalpaste or Spacer mod. But still, it does not reaching more than 90 deg C, so it's OK.
Keep monitoring now, later hope to make Bios Mod and try undervolting also.

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On 28/5/2015 at 9:37 PM, ghoul said:

Spacer mod on ultrabay is extremely dangerous,because the pcb is so small and weak, it will bend. Not saying it will crack, but eventually will, but traces inside can be broken via bending.

There is 3 solution with ultrabay, undervolting, mine can do 1124 with 1V, or do the fan mod, which is tricky, and it will make it louder. ( combining these two is funny, 6x temps and acceptable loudness, pitch is higher)

Not unbearable, but loud. It will be an abomination, but it will work :)with that, around 1300mhz gpu speed is doable. ( To be able use that speed, maybe you should mod internal psu cable as well)

Or make the fan work @ 100% always by detaching rpm signal from board.

Check the beginning of this thread for some hardware mods.

Hi, Ghoul.

 

Why do you say he should mod the internal PSU cable too? There's not enough power transmission with the stock one?

 

Thanks in advance.

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9 hours ago, ChrisBeck said:

Hi, Ghoul.

 

Why do you say he should mod the internal PSU cable too? There's not enough power transmission with the stock one?

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Could be. I've noticed from overclocking my own Y500 (i7-3630QM, 650M SLI) that it starts draining battery when power draw at the wall reaches 155W-165W, depending on the efficiency of the PSU used. I've already tried the stock Lenovo 170W, Clevo 180W, and Dell 240W bricks--same behavior on each. So assuming 85-90% PSU efficiency, it seems the Y500 (and assuming Y510p as well since I've heard of similar behavior from @kh90123) is limited to pulling ~140W. So there's no point in getting something with more wattage than the Lenovo 170W brick as the laptop will be limited elsewhere to far below that.

 

BTW I was running my 650M SLI @ 1150/1125 and 1.05V, CPU was stock speed 3.2x4 (3630QM is locked) but with TDP increased to 56W in ThrottleStop, although even in Prime95x8 threads it only reaches 47W which is barely more than the stock 45W. I observed the battery drain in TSBench/Prime95+Heaven/Valley and even in CPU&GPU intensive games like Battlefield series, particularly since my screen has also been OCed to 120Hz so the increased frame rate increases CPU usage. Although the battery drain is very slow, Prime95+Heaven overnight for 8 hours only consumed 50%.

Edited by octiceps
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1 hour ago, octiceps said:

 

Could be. I've noticed from overclocking my own Y500 (i7-3630QM, 650M SLI) that it starts draining battery when power draw at the wall reaches 155W-165W, depending on the efficiency of the PSU used. I've already tried the stock Lenovo 170W, Clevo 180W, and Dell 240W bricks--same behavior on each. So assuming 85-90% PSU efficiency, it seems the Y500 (and assuming Y510p as well since I've heard of similar behavior from @kh90123) is limited to pulling ~140W. So there's no point in getting something with more wattage than the Lenovo 170W brick as the laptop will be limited elsewhere to far below that.

 

BTW I was running my 650M SLI @ 1150/1125 and 1.05V, CPU was stock speed 3.2x4 (3630QM is locked) but with TDP increased to 56W in ThrottleStop, although even in Prime95x8 threads it only reaches 47W which is barely more than the stock 45W. I observed the battery drain in TSBench/Prime95+Heaven/Valley and even in CPU&GPU intensive games like Battlefield series, particularly since my screen has also been OCed to 120Hz so the increased frame rate increases CPU usage. Although the battery drain is very slow, Prime95+Heaven overnight for 8 hours only consumed 50%.

 

Wow. This laptop seems to be a big power eater. I've got a Y50-70 and sometimes I feel the power limitation. For example, if you overclock the GPU and put the CPU at the highest Turbo frequency available, any graphic demanding software won't start as the computer seems to need more power. But I can't say if it's something hardware related or it is some kind of soft limitation implemented by Lenovo. I got something similar in my old Lenovo z500.

 

Btw, why do you want to increase the TPD in the CPU?. Having in mind how hot are these processors, CPU must go past 90ºC usually, is it?

 

Finally, I don't have knowledge in electronics but maybe a prolonged setting of negative power offset could harm the battery in the long term. Please, correct me if I'm wrong.

Edited by ChrisBeck
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22 minutes ago, ChrisBeck said:

 

Wow. This laptop seems to be a big power eater. I've got a Y50-70 and sometimes I feel the power limitation. For example, if you overclock the GPU and put the CPU at the highest Turbo frequency available, any graphic demanding software won't start as the computer seems to need more power. But I can't say if it's something hardware related or it is some kind of soft limitation implemented by Lenovo. I got something similar in my old Lenovo z500.

 

Btw, why do you want to increase the TPD in the CPU?. Having in mind how hot are these processors, CPU must go past 90ºC usually, is it?

 

Finally, I don't have knowledge in electronics but maybe a prolonged setting of negative power offset could harm the battery in the long term. Please, correct me if I'm wrong.

 

Not really, it really doesn't use that much power compared to other gaming notebooks. It's just Lenovo gimping it. I could OC my GPUs much higher if there was no power limitation because temps are fine.

 

I increased CPU TDP because 45W is too low to maintain full Turbo Boost (3.2 GHz for the 3630QM) in Prime95 8 threads. It would drop down to ~3GHz after a little bit to stay under 45W. It actually doesn't get that hot. Ivy Bridge runs cooler than Haswell, but to be fair Haswell has FIVR and can consume a lot more power due to AVX2. And I also repasted with CLU and cut the chassis to increase air intake. This is after 45 min Prime95 small/large FFTs 8 threads:

 

nAJ0CmA.png

 

About the same temps while gaming. I can only make CPU break 90C if I simultaneously load GPUs and back Prime95 down to 4 threads (since 8 threads would bottleneck GPU hence reduce GPU usage and heat).

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On 02/01/2016 at 11:05 AM, ChrisBeck said:

Hi, Ghoul.

 

Why do you say he should mod the internal PSU cable too? There's not enough power transmission with the stock one?

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Hi,

 

Means original cable got burn marks on it, turned brown and due to heat, insulation became hard and started to crack. Before there was any short circuit, i bought one from ebay.

Sorry, i don't have pictures currently, but you can imagine, i think.

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  • 11 months later...

My heat sink moves if i press lightly with my finger on the North bridge area, is it normal to be able to push it like that?

If I hold it pressed like that, i thing my temps get higher.

Does the heat sink move on the area of screw 6? or it rigid? how can I tell i need this spacer mod?

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  • 2 months later...

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