whoaaaaaa... new thread already... long time hasn't come here... XD

ya laaa... we all busy with responsibilities already... how to handle threads... see, i didn't come in that often anymore...

mess up the BIOS, your laptop will not boot anymore... backing up BIOS is useful if you somehow don't like the new BIOS but it's useless if you somehow messed up the flashing procedure and your laptop becomes a super-duper-expensive-paper-weight, thus the saying "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"

but nowadays, the only way I can think of to get the flashing procedure wrong is by having the power supply interrupted while flashing, so as long as you good battery running in your laptop no need to worry much... Other than that, maybe if you're using removable drive to store the flashing utilities, make sure it won't get removed accidentally... got this covered, usually not much can mess you up....

the power supply interruption always haunts me when I'm flashing new BIOS on desktops since I dont have UPS and there's no guarantee the power in my house going to be ok...

This post has been edited by mrl: May 9 2013, 02:35 PM

What do I have in my Lenovo?

Simcity (2013)
Guild Wars 2
Just Cause 2
Assassin's Creed 3
Battlefield 3
Elder's Scrolls V: Skyrim
Star Wars: The Old Republic
Hitman: Absolution
Sniper Elite V2
Simcity 4 Deluxe
Sleeping Dogs
The Sims 3
Star Wars: Knight of the Old Republic
Torchlight II
Tropico 4
ArmAII
Ace Combat: Assault Horizon
Borderlands 2
Dead Island
Dragon Age Origins: Ultimate Edition
L.A Noire
Portal 2
Plants vs Zombies GOTY
Unstoppable Grog
World of Goo

and I still complain I dont have games to play

p to the s: all legit copies...

Give me free-for-life McAfee, I still won't use it... I've had enough of it on my office's laptop (and IT won't allow me to remove it )

I won't recommend AVG if you want to go free... but Defender/MSE is good as well... if you still not confident in them, you can always use Avira or Comodo. I've used Avira, pretty good but somewhat annoying because exception doesn't really work last time I tried... Comodo, never used it but heard it's good...

nowadays, I just rely on Defender/MSE.

here's my take...

1. hard to predict, but expect these lenovo will need to be replaced as early as 2 years, as late as 3 years.
2. I would suggest Y400 for this, unless graphics capability is really not that important for you.
3. Touch on Win8 are most welcomed, but I would say on a laptop like these? touch is not important... probably you'll use touchpad more than the screen
4. light and not bulky, don't know how it goes comparing both Z400 and Y400... but expect Z500 to be bulky and heavier. I would recommend either Z400 or Y400 if size is an issue.
5. I dont know about Z400.
6. I'll prefer larger screen, smaller will need some time to get used to for me coz I'm from desktop scene. but if you're from laptop area, 14" should be good enough. Larger doesn't mean better as well, usually larger screen comes with FullHD and you won't game with FullHD anyway with that graphics. So maybe smaller will reduce the aliasing (I think...), but really... it boils down to your preference.

Normal displays has refresh rate of 60Hz... if the picture on your screen is changing more than 60 times per second (the 60Hz) the image will tear because the graphic card and monitor is not in sync and the image on monitor is updated parts by parts which cause the tearings.

So, V-sync will wait for new data for whole screen before telling graphic card it can send to monitor. Since monitor can only show 60 screens in 1 second, so the framerate by graphic card will be limited to 60. Since the update is now image of whole screens instead of parts by parts the tearing is eliminated.

I know this is pretty much oversimplified, but that's more or less how it works.

Not necessarily... V-sync also depends a lot on how the game is programmed as well... it can cause micro-stutter (e.g in Hitman Absolution)... it also can cause less responsive inputs (casual gamers might not mind, but competitive players always complains about this)... and I don't think V-sync helps to reduce the GPU loads, instead it can cause the load to increase and reducing the framerate... You should try first and see if it cause any trouble... if it makes you more uncomfortable than screen tearing, just disable V-sync... I disabled it in Hitman Absolution simply because the micro-stutter actually bothers me more than screen tearing...

As for the monitor, normally monitor comes with 60Hz... but some rare-breed expensive gaming monitors does comes with 120Hz (which usually compatible with nVidia 3DVision)

If I'm not mistaken, GT750M doesn't have official driver right now... So you are left with no options except the one included in the CD... the driver probably a modified version by Lenovo for early support... so, all you can do is either wait for the official driver by nVidia, or change the OS to the compatible version...

You'll notice this if you have experienced smooth 60FPS before.

When a game is running 60FPS as measured by any software capable of doing this, the game is running real smooth... Under micro-stuttering situation the animation is measured to be 60fps, however it's not as smooth as it should be...

mobile SKU are usually designed and tested at higher parameters than desktops. so unless nvidia and lenovo is that stupid I won't expect it to fail that soon if you don't turn on 24/7

This post has been edited by mrl: May 22 2013, 08:53 AM

When I use my Y580 in US before, it never gives me any connection issue... probably because the router is right beside me that time... but now I'm back in Malaysia, the wireless does drop quite often with Win8... never encounter such thing in Win7...

And it also happened with my desktop wifi as well. I never check into the details but I'm guessing my laptop and desktop's wifi is using the same chip thus the same problem, even ping to router gets dropped... Right now I'm using cable on my desktop... so, either the router doesn't work well with Win8 networking or the drivers really are sucks...

as for touchpad, my only gripe with it is the real navigation area is so small that it always mistake my intention as gesture instead of moving pointer

This post has been edited by mrl: May 22 2013, 06:50 PM

As bad as Y580's thermal design, still better than average laptops... and my first laptops I've owned that has pretty good differences with external coolers, might not be much but for laptops, it pretty good..

Since Y500, the thermal design has improved so much...

That's what I feel when I first migrate from my i7-2600K (which idle at 38'C, my Y580 idle at 55'C) as well...

read the article in the link and you'll know...

That thing helps if you find dust stuck to the exhaust, not intake... if it's at the intake, you're just sucking more dust into it... so, go clean the intake if your intake is dirty....

Actually, I was like hoping that I can always turn that thing on... because your temp can drop around 2 or 3'C more from that... XD

I think I do hit 80'C occasionally, but so far haven't reached unplayable framerate...

or, do disk image with any imaging software and restore...

within penang island, in Komtar got one Lenovo Concept Store... pretty sure they will entertain warranty claims... I do saw a shop with lenovo label (i think it's lenovo concept store as well) in bukit jambul complex...

Get a ODD caddy, you put your HDD to ODD using the caddy and SSD in the HDD bay.

1 & 2) I haven't tried, but if I'm not mistaken 16GB is the total limit (means you can put in 2x8GB SODIMM)
3) this is depends on how you use your laptop. Huge RAM capacity will only helps you in multitasking and executing applications that demands high memory. If you are seeking to improve framerates or something else, high likely it won't help. I would suggest you at least go into Task Manager and check how you use your memory. If the free memory is getting low all the time, then go increase your RAM. Else, just stick with whatever you have right now unless you got extra money that you don't know where to spend. However, when it comes to laptops/notebooks, not so much things you can do to upgrade...

Except for Y400 & Y500 where they use UltraBay for ODD.

It does look to me the driver is the one having problem... if it's hardware, it's high likely you won't get the 2nd graphic to turn on at all... what's your driver version?

All I can think of is to do clean installation of driver (I think there's an option for that while installing, or better to remove all remnants of old driver before installing new one).

I placed one directly blowing into the intake, one below the first one, and one blowing to another vent what I think HDD...