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QuarkJets
Sep 8, 2008

J.A.B.C. posted:

From the OP:


My Asus G73 is three and a half years old now, and it isn't keeping up with games like it used to. I am in the military, and I end up moving around quite a bit in my job, so I usually end up dropping quite a bit on my gaming laptop.

I was directed here from the Gaming PC thread, but to be completely honest I am not well-versed in the magics that make these things work. I know basic terms, and I can upgrade my RAM (I think) but taking a look at the mass of info on the OP got me nowhere. Also, I tried reading the Wiki page on Haswell microarchitecture, and I think my brain melted a bit.

I'm thinking of getting one after the Holiday rush, having it shipped home and moving my stuff over once I get back from my current overseas stint. Aside from this digging a hole in my funds (which I am prepared for), anything else I should know about?

You've got the gist of it. The Y410p is constantly going on sale and is pretty great for a "gaming" laptop, it should last you at least a couple of years. Be sure to use the B&N link in the OP if you decide to get one.

You should also know that it's recommended to get an SSD for your laptop. Most laptops these days (including the Y410p) are coming with platter HDDs, but it has always been pretty easy to buy an SSD and upgrade your laptop yourself. This is basically an extra $200 added to the price of a laptop right now, if you want really good performance

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WorldWarWonderful
Jul 15, 2004
Eh?
Haswell Yoga 11S purchased. Retail therapy :toot:

Also I am never buying things in a store again :mad:

QueerPope
May 1, 2010

Meow.

Sir Bobert Fishbone posted:

Yoga 2 Pro has a new BIOS and Energy Manager, to try and alleviate some of the yellow issues:
http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/downloads/detail.page?DocID=DS035004

I installed it this morning before work, but didn't get a chance to check it out yet.
When it first rebooted after installing the new BIOS, it hung at a black screen with the keyboard backlight on, but a hard reboot fixed that up right away. Looks like one other person on the Lenovo forums saw the same behavior, so I figured I'd mention it.

e: and it actually looks like Lenovo mentioned that in the documentation: "If you find your computer is shut down with keyboard backlight on, you can keep press the power button longer than 8S and press the power button again to start the computer. The BIOS should be installed properly."

Thank you so much for posting this. I was having the black screen issue while reading the thread on my phone to see if it had come up. Well my computer is working now and I can confirm that I have yellows, oranges, and beautiful vibrant reds.

spwrozek
Sep 4, 2006

Sail when it's windy

WorldWarWonderful posted:

Haswell Yoga 11S purchased. Retail therapy :toot:

Also I am never buying things in a store again :mad:

Any reason why the store was such an issue?

WorldWarWonderful
Jul 15, 2004
Eh?

spwrozek posted:

Any reason why the store was such an issue?

I went to Future Shop to pick it up since it was on sale and the guy was just going on about the extended warranty and their monthly plan and I refused it three times. When he started trying to convince me again I told him to either sell me the laptop or find someone who could. At that point I was just incredibly annoyed and just wanted to get out of there.

It depends on the person I guess, because I bought a camera from the same store a couple of months ago and had no issues; the salesman even thanked me for listening to him talk about the extended warranty instead of interrupting him because his manager was standing right beside him. I usually try and be polite; I've worked retail and it's not fun when they pressure the staff into addons, but at the same time I shouldn't have to state exactly what I want and refuse something three times.

You know, your usual buying-in-a-store nonsense.

With regards to first impressions of the laptop: it's adorably tiny, feels solid, and is great to type on. Then again I'm coming off a four-year-old Acer Timeline that started falling apart three years ago. And in case anyone's wondering, it's a 128 GB drive that comes with 68 GB free, so a little tiding-up is in order.

WorldWarWonderful fucked around with this message at 21:34 on Nov 15, 2013

Klaus Kinski
Nov 26, 2007
Der Klaus

QuarkJets posted:

The nice thing is that you won't have to enter the license/serial number at all, Windows 8 will pull it directly from the BIOS settings, so all you need to do is start the installer. The not so nice thing is that it's easy to get the wrong ISO, in which case your key won't work. I'm not sure whether talking about which file is the right ISO is :filez: or not

Basically, you need a manufacturer/OEM/RTM version for it to work with your bios key. If you yell enough at lenovo support they will apparently mail you a thumbdrive or a disc.

evol262
Nov 30, 2010
#!/usr/bin/perl

Klaus Kinski posted:

Basically, you need a manufacturer/OEM/RTM version for it to work with your bios key. If you yell enough at lenovo support they will apparently mail you a thumbdrive or a disc.

Or use a key finder to pull the installed key before you wipe it like a sane person.

BonoMan
Feb 20, 2002

Jade Ear Joe
Well absolutely nothing will fix this WiFi issue. Just going to return it.

evol262
Nov 30, 2010
#!/usr/bin/perl

BonoMan posted:

Well absolutely nothing will fix this WiFi issue. Just going to return it.

Hint: I had a "wifi issue". It doesn't exist in Linux. It also doesn't exist if you wipe Windows and reinstall fresh without the Lenovo poo poo and use whatever drivers/settings are shipped by default in 8.1.

Edit:

The implication here isn't that you should run Linux, it's that it's not some unresolvable hardware defect. Reinstall Windows from a clean ISO and it'll probably resolve, than reinstall whatever Lenovo stuff you want from their website.

evol262 fucked around with this message at 22:12 on Nov 15, 2013

BonoMan
Feb 20, 2002

Jade Ear Joe

evol262 posted:

Hint: I had a "wifi issue". It doesn't exist in Linux. It also doesn't exist if you wipe Windows and reinstall fresh without the Lenovo poo poo and use whatever drivers/settings are shipped by default in 8.1.

Edit:

The implication here isn't that you should run Linux, it's that it's not some unresolvable hardware defect. Reinstall Windows from a clean ISO and it'll probably resolve, than reinstall whatever Lenovo stuff you want from their website.

I don't have a clean ISO file also neither do I really have time to mess with it anymore. He leaves tomorrow for a week long shoot and needs it so I'm just going to have to recommend that he return it and grab something else.

Also I did a "Clean Boot" where I disabled absolutely everything but native Windows stuff (services, apps, startup apps, etc) and it still had the problem.

evol262
Nov 30, 2010
#!/usr/bin/perl

BonoMan posted:

I don't have a clean ISO file also neither do I really have time to mess with it anymore. He leaves tomorrow for a week long shoot and needs it so I'm just going to have to recommend that he return it and grab something else.

Also I did a "Clean Boot" where I disabled absolutely everything but native Windows stuff (services, apps, startup apps, etc) and it still had the problem.

Welp, if anyone else wants to do it, use Belarc Advisor or some other tool to pull the key if you don't have one you can use, then get an image from Microsoft (which will conveniently make a USB installer for you if you want), reinstall Windows (you'll have to tab around because DPI scaling doesn't seem to work properly in the 8.1 installer and mouse clicks don't register right), install the Synaptics driver from Lenovo's website, and go. Wifi, sound, and everything else you want works basically out of box other than the touchpad.

bull3964
Nov 18, 2000

DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.


I didn't have any issue at all with DPI or clicks when I fresh installed 8.1 on my y410p.

evol262
Nov 30, 2010
#!/usr/bin/perl

bull3964 posted:

I didn't have any issue at all with DPI or clicks when I fresh installed 8.1 on my y410p.

The y410p isn't 3200x1800, is it?

bull3964
Nov 18, 2000

DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.


evol262 posted:

The y410p isn't 3200x1800, is it?

Ah, for some reason I thought you were talking about the y510p.

Tiny Timbs
Sep 6, 2008

QuarkJets posted:

The nice thing is that you won't have to enter the license/serial number at all, Windows 8 will pull it directly from the BIOS settings, so all you need to do is start the installer. The not so nice thing is that it's easy to get the wrong ISO, in which case your key won't work. I'm not sure whether talking about which file is the right ISO is :filez: or not

I swear someone posted a way to get the official Windows 8 ISO from Microsoft in this thread. That's what I used to do a clean install on my y410p, no :filez: necessary.

Nitis
Mar 22, 2003

Amused? I think not.
Got my y510p last night. My first laptop, aya. So, I spent the evening updating Windows, and installing 8.1.

Hardware aside, such as installing a SDD, is there anything else I should be on the look out for in terms of setup before I start transferring stuff from my old computer over?

Also, how difficult is uninstalling all the extra "enchancements" Lenovo has given me?

QuarkJets
Sep 8, 2008

^^^ On reinstalling Windows, you'll need a lot of driver's from Lenovo's website. Internet access will work even with a fresh install, so that shouldn't be an issue at least, but downloading and installing all of Lenovo's drives is kind of a pain

evol262 posted:

Or use a key finder to pull the installed key before you wipe it like a sane person.

You still need to download an ISO one way or the other; the installed key won't work with Microsoft's little downloading tool, so you're still back to bit torrent or begging Lenovo to mail you a thing. And if you're going to download something then you may as well just download the OEM ISO, in which case you don't need your key at all

Fallom posted:

I swear someone posted a way to get the official Windows 8 ISO from Microsoft in this thread. That's what I used to do a clean install on my y410p, no :filez: necessary.

I must have missed that, I would have loved to have had a direct download link from MS. The only one that I know of requires a MS subscription, which costs money so most people won't have one

QuarkJets fucked around with this message at 01:44 on Nov 16, 2013

MikeJF
Dec 20, 2003




There's no equivilent to the Lenovo B&N discount for Australia that anyone knows of, is there? I have to pay full price, right?

(Now to decide if going from i5 to i7 is worth AU$310. *sigh* I guess not...)

MikeJF fucked around with this message at 07:31 on Nov 16, 2013

QuarkJets
Sep 8, 2008

It's definitely not worth that much, no.

SurgicalOntologist
Jun 17, 2004

I'm trying to give away my old laptop (a Gateway EC1437) which hasn't been touched in maybe 6 months. I just reinstalled Windows 7 only to find that the hardware Wifi switch seems to be stuck. At least, it doesn't know it has a Wifi adapter and sliding the Wifi switch back and forth doesn't do anything. Any ideas here?

evol262
Nov 30, 2010
#!/usr/bin/perl

QuarkJets posted:

^^^ On reinstalling Windows, you'll need a lot of driver's from Lenovo's website. Internet access will work even with a fresh install, so that shouldn't be an issue at least, but downloading and installing all of Lenovo's drives is kind of a pain
The only driver you need is the Synaptics one. Webcam works. sdcard reader works. Audio works. Wifi works. Graphics work.

QuarkJets posted:

You still need to download an ISO one way or the other; the installed key won't work with Microsoft's little downloading tool, so you're still back to bit torrent or begging Lenovo to mail you a thing. And if you're going to download something then you may as well just download the OEM ISO, in which case you don't need your key at all
The installed key won't work with Microsoft's ISO, either, probably. Single-language OEM crap. It's just easy to forget that Microsoft makes this such a PITA for people who don't have fresh keys available.

mewse
May 2, 2006

SurgicalOntologist posted:

I'm trying to give away my old laptop (a Gateway EC1437) which hasn't been touched in maybe 6 months. I just reinstalled Windows 7 only to find that the hardware Wifi switch seems to be stuck. At least, it doesn't know it has a Wifi adapter and sliding the Wifi switch back and forth doesn't do anything. Any ideas here?

Try flashing the bios and/or reset bios to default settings

havelock
Jan 20, 2004

IGNORE ME
Soiled Meat
Anyone seen a review of the new xps 13 yet? I'm curious about the battery life of the non-touch win 7 version vs the touch win 8 one.

I've got a WHS classic that I think I can get to back up win 8, but I see no real reason to move beyond win 7 if it isn't necessary.

Das Volk
Nov 19, 2002

by Cyrano4747
Dell no longer allows you to configure laptops I've noticed, even for basic parts like hard drives, so they'll sell me something with a ton of good hardware and a 5400 rpm drive :wtc: Does anyone else have a configurator, or at least build machines with non-idiotic options these days?

Tavistock
Oct 30, 2010



I'm looking for a thin laptop, .5-ish in, that has a 13 in screen with pretty high dpi. Will a laptop like this be had for $1200? Can I save money by not getting windows because I don't really need it?

I've had pretty poo poo laptops for years so game performance at max settings isn't important but I'd like to be able to play source engine games (my current computer can't 2d side scrollers). I assume this will not be a problem for a laptop that fits these specs.

From what I gather a haswell would fit my use case because I'm always plugged in. Is there any compelling reasons other than battery life to pay extra for a haswell.

Vegetable
Oct 22, 2010

Das Volk posted:

Dell no longer allows you to configure laptops I've noticed, even for basic parts like hard drives, so they'll sell me something with a ton of good hardware and a 5400 rpm drive :wtc: Does anyone else have a configurator, or at least build machines with non-idiotic options these days?
Doesn't Apple do the same thing? It's either a fancy new SSD drive or a dogshit 5400 rpm drive. It's pretty god awful for people who aren't looking for SSDs.

mmm11105
Apr 27, 2010

Tavistock posted:

I'm looking for a thin laptop, .5-ish in, that has a 13 in screen with pretty high dpi. Will a laptop like this be had for $1200? Can I save money by not getting windows because I don't really need it?

I've had pretty poo poo laptops for years so game performance at max settings isn't important but I'd like to be able to play source engine games (my current computer can't 2d side scrollers). I assume this will not be a problem for a laptop that fits these specs.

From what I gather a haswell would fit my use case because I'm always plugged in. Is there any compelling reasons other than battery life to pay extra for a haswell.

Yoga 2 Pro, if you don't mind 0.61"

BonoMan
Feb 20, 2002

Jade Ear Joe

mmm11105 posted:

Yoga 2 Pro, if you don't mind 0.61"

And despite my wifi woes I'd still recommend it. That thing is insanely awesome for the short time I used it. Also holy crap a touch screen on a laptop is something I didn't realize I wanted so bad.

dissss
Nov 10, 2007

I'm a terrible forums poster with terrible opinions.

Here's a cat fucking a squid.

Vegetable posted:

Doesn't Apple do the same thing? It's either a fancy new SSD drive or a dogshit 5400 rpm drive. It's pretty god awful for people who aren't looking for SSDs.

I don't think they make 7200rpm laptop drives anymore. You definitely shouldn't be considering any Mac that comes with a spinning disk anyway - the ssd is just too big if a jump.

Klaus Kinski
Nov 26, 2007
Der Klaus

dissss posted:

I don't think they make 7200rpm laptop drives anymore. You definitely shouldn't be considering any Mac that comes with a spinning disk anyway - the ssd is just too big if a jump.

Yeah, even 256gb is quite cheap nowadays and I just keep a 1tb external around for swapping in new movies and other storage intensive stuff.

Britt Burns
Nov 24, 2007
Biscuit Hider

dissss posted:

I don't think they make 7200rpm laptop drives anymore. You definitely shouldn't be considering any Mac that comes with a spinning disk anyway - the ssd is just too big if a jump.

I just ordered a Lenovo with a 7200rpm drive :geno:

evol262
Nov 30, 2010
#!/usr/bin/perl

Tavistock posted:

I'm looking for a thin laptop, .5-ish in, that has a 13 in screen with pretty high dpi. Will a laptop like this be had for $1200? Can I save money by not getting windows because I don't really need it?

I've had pretty poo poo laptops for years so game performance at max settings isn't important but I'd like to be able to play source engine games (my current computer can't 2d side scrollers). I assume this will not be a problem for a laptop that fits these specs.

From what I gather a haswell would fit my use case because I'm always plugged in. Is there any compelling reasons other than battery life to pay extra for a haswell.

Honest question:

If you're plugged in all the time, why do you give a drat about thickness (which goes into weight, portability, ultrabook) instead of a T440 or something?

Klaus Kinski
Nov 26, 2007
Der Klaus

evol262 posted:

Honest question:

If you're plugged in all the time, why do you give a drat about thickness (which goes into weight, portability, ultrabook) instead of a T440 or something?

Because he might be carrying it around alot? I'm in the same position, I have a shitton of books, papers, assorted poo poo and a computer to carry around and I only use in in hotels - Anything to reduce that is good.

Hadlock
Nov 9, 2004

Yoga 2 pro is the new T430

shrughes
Oct 11, 2008

(call/cc call/cc)
Lolwut? More like the T440p is the new T430. And if you want a practical all-around laptop with the same crappy screen, there's always the T440.

sourdough
Apr 30, 2012
Yoga 2 Pro is real good. I've had mine for 3 days now, haven't noticed any wifi issues, the BIOS update or power software update seemed to fix the yellow issue, and I really like the soft touch material around the keyboard a lot more than the metal Zenbook I had. I'm really pleased with it so far. My one annoyance is the smaller sized right shift key, but I'm getting used to it already and otherwise the keyboard in general feels as good as the Zenbook's.

Shofixti
Nov 23, 2005

Kyaieee!

Damnit Lenovo why must all your Yoga 2 Pros sold in Canada have crappy multilingual keyboards. Do I really have to buy one from the US just to get a full sized shift key? :sigh:

Tavistock
Oct 30, 2010



I went out and bought the yoga 2 pro and the thing is really amazing. It's exactly what I needed thanks for the suggestion. If anyone wants the dl on how it plays with Linux I'll post once I've dicked around with it more

dyne
May 9, 2003
[blank]
Well, my wife didn't want to wait until 12/27 to get her yoga 2 from lenovo (2 months after the order date), so we canceled that and got a haswell yoga 11s at best buy. It's nice; my only complaint is a single blue stuck pixel thats really only visible on black screens with max brightness.

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GrizzlyCow
May 30, 2011

shrughes posted:

Lolwut? More like the T440p is the new T430. And if you want a practical all-around laptop with the same crappy screen, there's always the T440.

What's the difference between the T440p and the T440?

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