Lenovo Y510p Issues

[dubious]

Hey all,

I'm kind of torn between putting this here or with software... Kind of a combination of the two.

So I recently purchased a new Lenovo from the studenttech.co.za site. I got the Y510p which actually isn't really to relevant to my actual issue, but anyways... The laptop was finally delivered on Friday afternoon. I rushed off home as quickly as possible after work to start setting up. That's when the frustration began. And it's been one long Saturday of it now too.

Whey buying it you can choose Win7 or Win8 with Office 2010 or 2013 respectively. I went Windows 8 because of the news of the more mouse friendly updates. Decided to give it a go seeing as I can always go back to Windows 7 on our company's Enterprise license. When going to through initial set up, it quickly became apparent that whichever IT tech geniuses that work at Pinnacle (the providers of these machines for studenttech.co.za) really know what they are doing (see how that sentence is dripping with sarcasm?).

It seems what they have done is used an image they have with Windows 8 Enterprise and Office 2013 installed along with all the drivers and crapware that would usually be on a new Lenovo Y510p. In using this image of theirs it seems as though the have gone and completely screwed up the way the UEFI set up works. From what I can tell from doing some research over the last 48 hours, this notebook is supposed to have shipped with Windows 8.1 Standard. The product key for this is embedded in the BIOS some how, such that when you do a recovery it pulls it from there (there is no sticker on the bottom of the machine with the product key). This would ordinarily work out fine, however, as I mentioned genius IT techs earlier, what they seem to have done when using their Win 8 Enterprise + Office 2013 combo is completely wipe the hard drive. The UEFI partition setup has been completely removed and they have overwritten it with this image of theirs using MBR of GPT and then enabling legacy support and boot to legacy first in the BIOS. I no longer have a recovery partition on my drive.

Basically what I'm getting at is I cant upgrade my installation from Windows 8 to Windows 8.1 because it's Enterprise. To do it with enterprise is made very tricky because you need installation media. They haven't provided me with that, nor have they provided me with any product activation key. So I cant even do a restore to factory image. In fact, these guys have done such of fantastic job of poorly executing this and breaking the partition tables etc that I cant even clone my drive myself so I have a personal "restore point" if you will. Does anyone know if it's possible to get Lenovo to restore the hard drive to factory state with the original partitions and recovery areas so that I can use the OEM installation of Windows 8 and the key that is still embedded in the machine?

I'd really appreciate any help. I've been trying to get this sorted out since Friday afternoon. But not finding anything concrete.

Sorry for the long post. Had little sleep the last two days and am super frustrated with this.

 

[Venomous]

Have you looked under the battery for the windows activation key?
Not sure where you will find the office key - check the paperwork.

 

[dubious]

Have you looked under the battery for the windows activation key?
Not sure where you will find the office key - check the paperwork.

I've checked everywhere. Absolutely nothing. I've emailed Pinnacle to find out what the heck they did to the machine and why they formatted the whole drive but it was Saturday. I'm just trying to figure out if I can get the drive and all it's recovery stuff restored. I've read on the Lenovo forums that you can apparently get them to restore the drive in case some idiot goes and wipes the recovery partition. Just trying to find out if that is true.

 

[Nirv]

This is troubling news. My GF is considering getting this laptop through the same vendor, so I hope you get an answer from them soon and can have it sorted out with little fuss.

 

[dubious]

This is troubling news. My GF is considering getting this laptop through the same vendor, so I hope you get an answer from them soon and can have it sorted out with little fuss.

Shucks man. Look, this is a very nice machine for the price and for an average student who isn't in IT I'm sure it would work fine. But yeah - I'll post the outcome of the whole thing.

The laptop (according to the box at least) ships with 8.1 standard. I saw on the MS South Africa site though this morning that a student that can verify student status can pick up 8.1 Pro R480. Normal retail for Pro is like R2500 right? So I've gone with that. Still want my recovery partition though... just on principle.

 

[biometrics]

We bought a second hand Lenovo recently and the recovery partition was also scrubbed. Phoned Lenovo and they were prepared to send us recovery discs. But we realised we had a set already since a colleague had the same model so we didn't take them up on it.

So two options:

1. Find someone with the same model and get them to burn recovery discs. You can do this with Thinkpads.

2. Phone Lenovo and request they send you recovery discs. Don't know if there is a fee. If you're in Joburg perhaps you can collect them?

 

[Nirv]

Alright cool, looks like it should be fine. Just want to avoid problems if it can be helped

 

[ItherNiT]

I'm using that exact laptop, also got it from student laptop, I wasn't aware that I could choose between w7 and w8, got it with w8. I used it for about 3 months, tried to update to w8.1 last month, couldn't find a fix. Only reason I tried to update is to play some of my *legit* games, some of them wouldn't work on my laptop, but worked on my friends w8 computer, anyway long story short, upgraded to w8.1, games still didn't work, I'm now running W7 with games working

 

[Rickster]

Why dont you format and install your own windows and office?

 

[Venomous]

Why dont you format and install your own windows and office?

Because that costs more money?

 

[dubious]

Because that costs more money?

Hit the nail on the head. Fortunately I got Office 2013 Pro with one of my university modules and benefited from the student price on Win 8.1 Pro.

Still haven't heard back from Pinnacle... really shocking. Been to busy to call too and since sorting myself out, there's not much motivation to.

Otherwise this PC is great. Once there is more money in the bank and I've had an increase or two I may put in a nice big solid state. It's boot speeds seem to be significantly faster on the models that have a small SSD. Only thing is it seems to run a bit hot when gaming. Granted it's a notebook but it's still a bit higher than I thought. Playing Arkham Origins the other night, after and hour or two the screen would flash black and come back with the game. Didn't have a temperature tool running at the time. Tried last night and it was pushing 85 C at times... can only assume the flashing was perhaps heat related. Didn't do that on my desktop

[edit] I don't suppose anyone knows of a utility to override the fan speed defaults. Tried a quick search last night but didn't pick up on anything. It seems to only run at maybe 70% capacity even when under heavy load. If I could bump that up to 80-90% while gaming that would be cool.

 

[Rickster]

Because that costs more money?

Since he already owns Win 7 and office he can legally download it via torrents.

He must just download the product he owns and nothing better.

 

[ponder]

Since he already owns Win 7 and office he can legally download it via torrents.

He must just download the product he owns and nothing better.

You missed the part about him not having any product activation keys...