Y500 Owners and Questions Thread

Hello all, I heard the Y500 has a keyboard issue as well. Is it true that when you type for awhile, the keyboard stops responding and spits out random characters?

 

Yes, but the issue is much less widespread then the touchpad issue. I have experienced the keyboard issue myself.

 

Can give us some more detail as to what the keyboard issue is?
Is it frequent (several times a day) or occasional (once a week/month)?

I don't need to do a lot of typing so this laptop is still at the top of my list but it would be good to know all the ins and outs before a purchase is made.

 

At it's worst, it was immediate. You can't type a paragraph without it throwing in random characters, spaces, and other silliness. So, it wasn't like it fails after so many hours, it was doing it from startup and there is no way around it like with the touchpad where if you put the laptop to sleep the issue would go away for a while before coming back. I would really recommend you look for another laptop and stay away from Lenovo because it is not only the Y500 that is prone to this. This is an electrical interference or grounding issue. I've managed to fix most of the keyboard issue by putting electrical tape in certain areas with the intent to shield/ isolate electrical parts. Right now, the only issue is when I type the number 6 on the numpad, after so many times it will throw in an extra "`". It is much less than before but that is how I know I have not completely fixed the issue.

 

Is the CPU soldered in or can it be upgraded later?

 

has anyone found a way to clean install our official OS?

 

CPU can be upgraded later, socketed. I pulled it out for the fun of it when I had it apart. Incredible how much power is in that little chip.

 

For anyone intending to buy today or return a faulty y500 rather than get a refund I strongly recommend checking out the now 80 page y500 touchpad thread on the lenovo forums. They've really screwed things up. I sure hope they can fix it soon because it is a nice laptop.

 

I have two quick questions that I don't think anyone has mentioned in this thread.

1. What touchpad command works as alt+tab? When I am gaming, quite often I an alt tabbed out when I do something like scrape across the touch pad. I would prefer to not have to turn it off because I do use it when I have a mouse plugged in.

2. Has anyone had any success with an odd caddy that fits the ultra bay? Without having to modify it, I am not a very handy person!

 

I suggest everyone with a y500 or intel centrino 2230 to go to intels website and get the latest update for the wlan card. Made mines so much better