Solved! Poor Windows performance on Y50 UHD

[koreanoverlord]

Hello, I have recently picked up a Y50 UHD with the following specs for $800.

>Intel Core i7 4710HQ
>Nvidia Geforce GTX 860M 4Gb (Maxwell, not Keplar)
>16Gb 1600MHz RAM
>1Tb HHD w/ 8Gb SSD Cache
>3840x2160 IPS Panel

Now, the gaming performance is better than expected. There are actually a good amount of games I can play at native 4k.

However, Windows is laggy is hell. Scrolling on webpages results in white unrendered sections of the webpage, Window animations lag, clicking the start menu results in a 4 to 5 second delay, it takes forever to turn on, etc.

Now I know the 1Tb HDD is likely the reason for some of the issues, but the window animations and general sluggishness outside of accessing the hard drive should be there with this CPU.

I have tried to disable Intel HD 5500 graphics (by disabling all power saving options and forcing Google Chrome to run with the 860M), thinking that was the problem... but I don't know if it is actually disabled or not. Videos tend to be fine, sometimes they have a stutter though.

I have tried using both W8.1 and W10 with multiple drivers. Both are sluggish.

It's just weird that games are running great, yet just basic functions are the ones having issues.

Changing my desktop resolution as no impact on the performance.

 

[Solandri]

However, Windows is laggy is hell. Scrolling on webpages results in white unrendered sections of the webpage, Window animations lag, clicking the start menu results in a 4 to 5 second delay, it takes forever to turn on, etc.

Is this happening all the time, or just some of the time? A friend of mine had that exact model Y50 and returned it for similar reasons. She tracked down the problem to the 1TB SSHD. WD baked in a 4 or 5 min spindown into the firmware. That is, regardless of your power settings, the drive spins down after a short time (4 or 5 min). The next time the computer needs data off the drive, Windows freezes as it waits for the drive to spin up.

There is no fix for this. With a regular drive you can just change the spindown timeout in Windows. But since WD baked it into the firmware, there's nothing you can do. The only solution is to replace the HDD with a different one.

I have tried to disable Intel HD 5500 graphics (by disabling all power saving options and forcing Google Chrome to run with the 860M), thinking that was the problem... but I don't know if it is actually disabled or not. Videos tend to be fine, sometimes they have a stutter though.

In the newer hybrid graphics systems which switch between the integrated and dedicated graphics cards automatically, the integrated card is never truly disabled. The way they work is that the integrated card always controls what's displayed on the screen. When you run a 3D game, the game recognizes the dual GPU setup, and uses the dedicated GPU as a co-processor. The dedicated GPU then sends the rendered screen image to the integrated GPU which displays it on the screen.

I know of only two ways to really disable the integrated GPU. Some laptop BIOS settings have an option to disable the integrated GPU. That will give the dedicated GPU direct control of the screen. Some laptop HDMI-out ports are controlled by the dedicated GPU. If your laptop is one of these, you plug in an external monitor, and you set the external monitor as your primary display, then the dedicated GPU will be in control of the external monitor.

 

[koreanoverlord]

I will be replacing the hard drive.

However I am have another issue. My videos lag if it is plugged in, on battery they play fine.

 

[MohamedKassim]

I will be replacing the hard drive.

However I am have another issue. My videos lag if it is plugged in, on battery they play fine.

i have the same problem now, Did you found a solution?