Lenovo Y410P laptop definitely not performing as it should, graphics card problem? Need help, thanks!

[BigKy16]

Hello all. I am new to this forum and not very knowledgeable on computers at all. Here is the problem

I have the Lenovo Y410P gaming laptop. Here are all of the specs/where I purchased it. http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/lenovo/y-series/y410p/#tab-tech_specs.

Problem: Months ago I could play some games on ultra or even high settings with good fps. Now I get 20fps at absolutely minimum lowest settings on games such as

ArmA3
DayZ
Rust
H1Z1

I have noticed my laptop runs VERY hot and the fans always screaming when I get a game going. Even when I watch people stream on Twitch, the laptop makes so much fan noise. This may not even be the problem, just something I've noticed.

I have notice that in the NVIDIA control panel that under global settings, it has like "auto-select" on whether to use the intel graphics or the high performance graphics card in the laptop. Whenever I switch it to the high performance processor, it switches back to the other one. (I know this is vague, I'm at work and could give more details later today).

So: What are some things I could do to test/fix this.
1) Open the laptop to see if its dirty near the fan???
2) Somehow fix the graphics card or set it up properly?
3) Did I destroy or possible fry my fan or graphics card?

I have recently CCleaner'd my laptop too and that helped free up a lot of space, but was definitely not the issue.

Steps of things I could test or actions I could take to get to the bottom of this would be very helpful. Like a website that could tell me how well my computers performing compared to a new version?

I just am very nervous because I hear of people playing identical games as me and playing on high with great fps. And I get terrible fps on the lowest settings...

So in summary: gaming laptop is not performing as well as it most definitely should be. Need some ideas on what to do/how I can check if it's really screwed up or not.

I very much appreciate your time! Thank you for baring with me and my lack of computer knowledge! Any help would be greatly appreciated!!! Thanks so much everyone!

edit: also if this is in the wrong thread im sorry 🙁 wheres a better place to put it?

 

[Kube]

Hello,

First thing i would suggest is make sure all drivers are up to date with your system.

Since you're wanting the laptop for gaming, making sure the windows power setting is set to maximum performance could help. To do this in windows, go to control panel>system and security> power options and select max performance. You may have to hit the additional power options at the bottom to see it.

It being a laptop, the temperatures of the components will tend to get very warm. Since they're crammed in a small space with usually inadequate cooling, in my opinion, the whole machine will get warm. There are a ton of free programs out to monitor your temps and fan speeds if you do feel it is getting too warm though. CPUID and GPUZ are a few of the popular ones. This will tell you the fan % as well as the temperature of each component. GPUZ will also tell you what graphics processor the computer is utilizing and you could compare or post the observations in order for people to see what you may be experiencing further.

I would strongly advise against opening up the laptop as that will most certainly void any warranty you have for the machine and can be extremely risky considering you have very little experience.

 

[BigKy16]

Hello,

First thing i would suggest is make sure all drivers are up to date with your system.

Since you're wanting the laptop for gaming, making sure the windows power setting is set to maximum performance could help. To do this in windows, go to control panel>system and security> power options and select max performance. You may have to hit the additional power options at the bottom to see it.

It being a laptop, the temperatures of the components will tend to get very warm. Since they're crammed in a small space with usually inadequate cooling, in my opinion, the whole machine will get warm. There are a ton of free programs out to monitor your temps and fan speeds if you do feel it is getting too warm though. CPUID and GPUZ are a few of the popular ones. This will tell you the fan % as well as the temperature of each component. GPUZ will also tell you what graphics processor the computer is utilizing and you could compare or post the observations in order for people to see what you may be experiencing further.

I would strongly advise against opening up the laptop as that will most certainly void any warranty you have for the machine and can be extremely risky considering you have very little experience.

Wow, thank you so much! When I get home in a couple of hours I will definitely try these things out. I hope it is a matter of just setting that power option, that would be great! And I won't open the laptop, you are right that isn't the smartest idea.

I also will check out those programs later and try and upload some data for people to look at that might give more concrete answers.

I appreciate the help! Any other suggestions are greatly appreciated!

 

[BigKy16]

I installed the GPU Z program first and a quick glance it seems the NVIDIA graphics card is working when I play a game. It is running at 80% GPU load on a low setting game while the Intel HD graphics were at around 5%. I can post pictures in a little bit of the screens of the GPU Z program. Also will get the other program now too.

Also, you were right, I was on balanced power setting! Thanks for that! It seems to have bumped me up a couple fps in a game so that helps!!!

 

[Kube]

good to hear the power setting helped a little bit.

The 80% load is good, but i was a little concerned with the temps while playing. You can have it running in the background while you're playing and tab out and check the temp, or there is an option in GPUZ to log the data to a file. There you can see exactly what the temps look like. I was a little concerned with the temp of it and your CPU.