if it's malaysian unit, serial number should be enough as warranty are registered online.

The GPU is soldered down, not using MXM module like some other high-end notebook... so, not possible...

RAM is not soldered, SODIMM is used... I've never saw any laptop with soldered RAM actually... is there any?


I heard that the latest driver gave problem... last R331 version should be ok to use.

I dont think I heard lots of complains, but I do heard failures after a while owning it though in my view it's not that often... I could be wrong cause it's been a while since I'm here...

aaahhhh... well, I didn't consider Apple products when I mentioned it... not familiar with them anyway...

though I'm surprised that MacBook Pro 2013's RAM is soldered down...

I use Win8.1 Pro on my Y580, no fault found from there. I use Win8.1 Pro on my gaming rig as well, I didn't find any fault as well. Though I dont know if there's any model specific issue but I bet it's caused by the driver, get a proper driver and you should be fine...

as for wifi issue, it happens on any Win8 machines... I have trouble with wifi on both of my machines, Y580 and my desktop, forced to run on LAN right now... I've tested multiple machines, observed my friends' Win8 PC vs Win7 as well I can confirm Win8 pretty much has wifi issue unless you have full wifi signal...

last time I tested, I have the router right beside me so that I always full signal (all bars highlighted in your taskbar) and ping is always <1ms...

7 meters away, I guess your wifi will be affected though the performance of the wifi varies greatly with how many walls it has to go through as well... my room is probably less than 7 meters distance but separated by 2 rooms, even with high gain antenna it's hard to keep stable connection in my room, though to be fair to the laptop my Nexus 4 can't even get signals at certain spots in my room.

though my friend in another room, separated only by 1 room to the router, he can manage his connection pretty fine though lately even he is convinced that Win8 got problems with wifi and changed to LAN as well...

This is only per my observation, I could miss something... though if your phone can get stable connection, chances are you will be able to get stable connection as well on your laptop...

As for the DVD writer, as far as I know if you are on single GPU you will always get the optical drive. Hot-swappable, may be not... I'm not 100% sure...

This post has been edited by mrl: Jan 26 2014, 12:44 AM

anything 1600MHz should work as long as it is SODIMM... lots of them out there...

I think 1833MHz works as well... not sure about anything faster than that...

in short, nothing specific... any DDR3 should work...

I dont see a reason it's not compatible, unless the BIOS has whitelist which I dont think it has one. the caching is controlled by the drive itself, not the BIOS like mSATA + HDD combo. So I guess it should work out of the box.

If you are on Win8 already, just update it... it's better than Win8 anyway... if you are still on Win7 somehow, I'd say try it yourself first before comitting to Win8.1

yup, 2.5"

You need the power adapter to run the laptop to full performance. I think Lenovo knows their capacity is not that big and limit the performance so that you wont run out of juice while gaming...

I usually use the lenovo power management thingy to lengthen the battery life (stop charging at 60%). I dont know what theory is behind it but so far it does looks like it works...

but it is actually best practice to remove your battery when not using it (either to charge or powering the laptop) as the heat from the laptop can actually destroy your battery faster.

You sure it's Intel's WLAN? AFAIK Malaysian set is using Broadcom (IINM). Try all the wlan driver in Lenovo's website, one should hit...

as far as I can recall you just need to do clean installation, no?

I dont even know why Win7 wants to see the key in BIOS to activate when it doesn't even know there's a key in the BIOS...

but still, i doesnt work... must mean something... did you try call Microsoft Customer Service for that?

Also, have you tried disable the Secure Boot/*whatever thing called in the BIOS related to Win8 function*.

Seriously, they need to standardize the name already...

hikari85 is one of the seller in Penang.

Other than that, in KBJ got one Lenovo concept shop. Prangin also has one concept shop. Last time I bought my Y580 from Prangin's shop. I think Prangin has better chance of having ready stock. KBJ might need to place an order.

You can upgrade the RAM and the storage as you wish.

You can upgrade CPU on your own, if you can outsource a compatible CPU which is any IvyBridge PGA packaged CPU. (though IINM the cpu is already top tier CPU). You cannot upgrade to Haswell because of the pin and chipset compatibility.

IINM GPU is soldered down, i might be wrong but at least it is non-upgradeable.

So, the real upgrade you can do with it is just RAM and Storage.

If you are still running with 4GB, it's better to add 1 more.

Once in a while I do hit the limit with 8GB which I believe due to the turbocache of nVidia's GPU, but 8GB should be comfortable enough.

As for storage, if you don't have any external storage (external HDD or NAS) probably it's a good idea to upgrade the storage. I'm running on 500GB just fine but it's all games in there...

For me, 14" HD and 15.6" FHD doesn't really matter. Like what slimfox said, FHD on 14" will have horribly small interface. And I dont think 1080p video will have noticeable lower quality on lower than 1080p screens because of the screen size. So it really doesn't matter for me.

But, from there which one to choose? Which one you will find convenient for you. If you're willing to sacrifice a little bit of mobility for better screen estate, 15" might be right for you. But if mobility is so important for you, 14" is much better choice.

Let me tell you one thing.

Letting the laptop turned on in your bag even for idling has never been a good idea. Do you want to turn your bag into oven? Coz that's how you get one. And putting your laptop in an oven is not a good idea.

1. You can get compressed canned air and blow the grill. You can find disassemle manual as well. Disassembling Y series laptop is fairly easy...
2. Not much you can do on the keyboard, send it in for fixing.

1. External disk drive is for DVD? I'm not sure if DOS version will have optical drive or not, I do see one model on US site they have one model with optical drive... Though Malaysia site doesn't have any info yet. So, if it has optical drive then you don't need it. But if it don't, you can try installing OS using USB as well. Should work just fine, but if you prefer using the disc you will have to grab the external drive. But, if what you meant is storage drive as in HDD, depends on how you use it. If you need extra storage, go for it...
2. Probably you can ask the shop to install it for you if you are comfortable with it. Go for the DOS, once you get the laptop on your hand do new clean installation of that Windows 7.
3. Probably need to wait either Lenovo themselves release more info on their site or you can grab the hardware specs and google to see if there are drivers for Win7. I think compatibility won't be a problem but just check them out to make sure.
4. I prefer to do it that way rather than using OKR since I can use latest driver that I downloaded from the site and with OKR I have to do the same thing anyway, but I'd say that's more of personal preference. I upgraded to Win8.1 Update 1 now and I don't even have OKR anymore.
5. By all means, install Windows. Else I feel like it's a wasted potential but if you want Linux, why not... Not DOS though...