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#1 2012-06-19 01:26:09

2011gil
Member
Registered: 2012-01-04
Posts: 18

[SOLVED] Ideapad Y580 compatibility

I am thinking about buying this laptop. Has anyone tried to run Arch (or any other distro for that matter) on it? Any problems?

http://www.theverge.com/products/ideapad-y580/4604

Last edited by 2011gil (2012-07-11 07:22:53)

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#2 2012-06-30 00:02:37

2011gil
Member
Registered: 2012-01-04
Posts: 18

Re: [SOLVED] Ideapad Y580 compatibility

So I went on and bought the machine. It gave me more work than I expected. The latest "official" iso does not work, so I had to install Arch manually from a live cd. Also, UEFI was a bit tricky to get it working but the instructions of the wiki https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Un … _Interface are pretty good, so I was able to set it up. I want to write a wiki page about it but I was hoping to do it after I got one last thing working: Optimus.

I tried dozen of Google searchs, multiple drive versions, different distros, but I cannot for the life of me get it working. This frustrates me because my "excuse" to buy this machine was CUDA development. I can get it working under Windows but it is just not the same. I'm a Linux guy. My preference is for Arch but I would gladly stand even Ubuntu, so if someone knows or has an idea (something different than, "use bumblebee", "google it", or "buy another computer"), please let me know.

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#3 2012-06-30 05:24:03

don_crissti
Member
Registered: 2009-03-17
Posts: 35

Re: [SOLVED] Ideapad Y580 compatibility

IIRC y570 required an additional patch from bumblebee in order to work... maybe yours is similar. See Ideapad y470/y570 section in their README file:

https://github.com/Bumblebee-Project/bb … /README.md

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#4 2012-07-01 01:49:06

2011gil
Member
Registered: 2012-01-04
Posts: 18

Re: [SOLVED] Ideapad Y580 compatibility

Thank you, but I already tried the acpi handle hack. It helps in the sense that the card is not even detected without it, but I get other error messages. The message is different depending on the exact configuration/driver that I use, but one of them says that "GPU has fallen off the bus".

This guy got similar messages: http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=184542 but apparently he did not find a solution.

According to this, you can run CUDA without bumblebee: http://askubuntu.com/questions/131506/h … screte-car but it did not work for me.

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#5 2012-07-11 07:20:45

2011gil
Member
Registered: 2012-01-04
Posts: 18

Re: [SOLVED] Ideapad Y580 compatibility

I figured it out. It is indeed possible to run CUDA without Bumblebee. I wrote a wiki page explaining what I did: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Le … eaPad_Y580

Last edited by 2011gil (2012-07-11 07:23:22)

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#6 2012-07-12 21:11:51

alikasundara
Member
Registered: 2012-07-12
Posts: 2

Re: [SOLVED] Ideapad Y580 compatibility

@2011gil: Hey, I am thinking of buying this machine as well, but I am slightly concerned about this Optimus stuff... Most probably I will not even use the NVIDIA card with Linux, so my question is - did you manage to get Intel HD 4000 running properly? I know the drivers are easily available and open, but I am worried that the presence of the second gpu might affect it somehow... Also, did you try to connect the USB port replicator to this machine?

Many thanks!

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#7 2012-07-13 16:50:18

2011gil
Member
Registered: 2012-01-04
Posts: 18

Re: [SOLVED] Ideapad Y580 compatibility

Hi, The Intel card handles normal things just fine and, the NVIDIA card does not "get in the way" in any sense (unless, you use the hack that I mention in the wiki, the NVIDIA card is disabled all the time).

I believe that the GeForce may be important for you in two cases:

1. You want to play games using Linux, in which case I suggest that you do NOT buy this machine because I have tried this for weeks and I could not get bumblebee to work (on the internet, I met another person using this computer with Linux, he runs Gentoo and he also could not get bumblebee to work; even one of the bumblebee developers told me that he does not know anyone who got it right).

2. You want to use the card for GPGPU: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPGPU. In this case, as long as you do not have programs that display graphical output (which is probably the case if you are doing scientific research), the setup that I describe in the wiki works like a charm (not only on Arch, but on Ubuntu and Gentoo too, and probably in other distros).

And of course everything works on Windows, so you can always dual boot.

Small things like hot keys do not work properly (but I did not try very hard to get them working anyway), but overall I am quite satisfied now, as I can run the OS that I wanted with all the applications that I needed.

I did not try the replicator, so I cannot help you with that. Maybe if you ask here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/ someone can help you.

If you do decide to buy and have the money for it, buy the model with the 32GB SSD because if you install the OS in it, it makes a difference in terms of boot time and overall responsiveness.

Let me know if you have other questions.

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#8 2012-07-13 20:22:28

alikasundara
Member
Registered: 2012-07-12
Posts: 2

Re: [SOLVED] Ideapad Y580 compatibility

@2011gil: Thank you very much for your reply, it has been very helpful. If I decide to buy this machine I will definitely go for an SSD option you recommend.

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#9 2012-07-16 06:44:55

jarav
Member
Registered: 2008-09-04
Posts: 63

Re: [SOLVED] Ideapad Y580 compatibility

I am planning to buy a Lenovo Z580. Would you know whether Bumblebee has problems with it? Thanks.

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#10 2012-07-25 09:09:44

Gruntz
Member
From: Haskovo, Bulgaria
Registered: 2007-08-31
Posts: 291

Re: [SOLVED] Ideapad Y580 compatibility

Guys, sorry but I do not know anything about the Optimus and nVidia. I want just to yous the nvidia card with the nvidia driver. Does it work without patching. Optimus is for power saving, right? What if I do not want to use it?

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#11 2012-07-25 17:24:43

2011gil
Member
Registered: 2012-01-04
Posts: 18

Re: [SOLVED] Ideapad Y580 compatibility

@jarav Sorry for the late reply. I know that the Z570 (without NVIDIA card) works fine.  For the Z580 you may want to ask somewhere else. But make sure that you can get it to work. DO not buy the machine without knowing that it is possible. I made this mistake and even though things work now, it wasnt a pleasant experience and if I wasnt very persistent I would be using Windows now.

@Gruntz The patch is only necessary for certain models (you may want to look here: https://github.com/Bumblebee-Project/bb … ack-lenovo ).  Also, take a look at the wiki: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Bumblebee

But the most important thing to keep in mind is: Bumblebee is sort of a pain and it doesnt work with many machines (this is not the project's fault, its just that NVIDIA isn't very helpful, it is very hard to get it to work when you do not know exactly how Optimus works because the company doesnt help much). Before buying a laptop, make sure to find out if someone got it to work with that machine.

You do not need bumblebee for many things, like CUDA and OpenCL applications for example. But if you need the card to play recent games you will probably need it.

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#12 2012-07-25 17:30:48

2011gil
Member
Registered: 2012-01-04
Posts: 18

Re: [SOLVED] Ideapad Y580 compatibility

Sorry, accidentally posted twice (stupid question: how do I delete a post?)

Last edited by 2011gil (2012-07-25 17:44:55)

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#13 2012-08-01 08:55:12

Gruntz
Member
From: Haskovo, Bulgaria
Registered: 2007-08-31
Posts: 291

Re: [SOLVED] Ideapad Y580 compatibility

In the Bumblebee FAQ I found:

Q: Can I use my Nvidia card only? I don't care about power consumption.
A: In short, no. A few laptops came with a BIOS option to do so, if that's the case of yours, then you can use it and not install Bumblebee.

Can the Y580 do that? ( you may know as you have ti :S )

Last edited by Gruntz (2012-08-01 08:57:45)

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#14 2012-08-01 17:41:28

2011gil
Member
Registered: 2012-01-04
Posts: 18

Re: [SOLVED] Ideapad Y580 compatibility

@Gruntz It cannot. You can either switch to the NVIDIA card (after using the acpi-handle-hack) or not use it at all.

Last edited by 2011gil (2012-08-01 17:42:08)

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#15 2012-08-03 08:38:46

Gruntz
Member
From: Haskovo, Bulgaria
Registered: 2007-08-31
Posts: 291

Re: [SOLVED] Ideapad Y580 compatibility

Hello 2011gil,

I red the wiki page and it is awesome, thank you.

So everything is working on Y580, correct?

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#16 2012-08-03 18:38:50

2011gil
Member
Registered: 2012-01-04
Posts: 18

Re: [SOLVED] Ideapad Y580 compatibility

@Gruntz Yes, there are small things like hot keys that do not work, but that I also did not put any effort in trying to get it to work, but I am pretty satisfied with the machine. The wiki is a bit outdated because of the new install scripts and newer beta NVIDIA drivers, but the setup described there should still work. I also posted on AUR: PKGBUILDS with my setup: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=60981

Last edited by 2011gil (2012-08-03 18:40:08)

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#17 2012-10-21 11:07:14

Gruntz
Member
From: Haskovo, Bulgaria
Registered: 2007-08-31
Posts: 291

Re: [SOLVED] Ideapad Y580 compatibility

Hey 2011gill,

I just got my y580 and I am trying to run the X server. I got the acpi handle hack and I installed the nvidia driver and utils from your "custom" aur packages, but I have an error. I got "no screens found" error. I used the nvidia tool to re-configure my xorg.conf. Did you have such problem?

Thank you.

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#18 2012-10-23 07:10:21

Gruntz
Member
From: Haskovo, Bulgaria
Registered: 2007-08-31
Posts: 291

Re: [SOLVED] Ideapad Y580 compatibility

I fix it. 2011gill nvidia and nvidia utils custom AUR packages + bumblebee worked perfectly.

Thank you.

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#19 2012-12-09 01:56:23

hadrons123
Member
From: chennai
Registered: 2011-10-07
Posts: 1,249

Re: [SOLVED] Ideapad Y580 compatibility

2011gil wrote:

@Gruntz It cannot. You can either switch to the NVIDIA card (after using the acpi-handle-hack) or not use it at all.

Hi I know its bit of an old thread, but is there an option in the BIOS of Y580, that lets us to switch to nvidia completely?

PS:
I recently bought this laptop and its not yet delivered. If I had known this ACPI handle issue,wouldn't have bought it.


LENOVO Y 580 IVYBRIDGE 660M NVIDIA
Unix is user-friendly. It just isn't promiscuous about which users it's friendly with. - Steven King

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#20 2012-12-09 11:19:52

Lekensteyn
Member
From: Netherlands
Registered: 2012-06-19
Posts: 192
Website

Re: [SOLVED] Ideapad Y580 compatibility

The ACPI handle issue is not that blocking, that can be fixed (https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=42696). Whether you can completely switch to nvidia is questioning whether the BIOS provides such an option.

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#21 2012-12-09 12:16:28

hadrons123
Member
From: chennai
Registered: 2011-10-07
Posts: 1,249

Re: [SOLVED] Ideapad Y580 compatibility

@Lekensteyn
I really don't get your answer.

I understand that there is an fix which would allow me to use the nvidia card in linux. I followed the lenovo hack AUR package and your bugzilla thread.
But my question is whether I could set the BIOS to use just the nvidia card exclusively after the next reboot with the fix. I don't want to use the intel card.
Is it even possible?


LENOVO Y 580 IVYBRIDGE 660M NVIDIA
Unix is user-friendly. It just isn't promiscuous about which users it's friendly with. - Steven King

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#22 2012-12-09 20:31:02

Lekensteyn
Member
From: Netherlands
Registered: 2012-06-19
Posts: 192
Website

Re: [SOLVED] Ideapad Y580 compatibility

@hadrons, if the laptop does not have a BIOS option for selecting the nvidia card, then you cannot skip the intel card and only use the nvidia card.

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#23 2012-12-10 01:07:33

hadrons123
Member
From: chennai
Registered: 2011-10-07
Posts: 1,249

Re: [SOLVED] Ideapad Y580 compatibility

I assumed Y580 BIOS was standard with same menus in all laptops having the option.

Last edited by hadrons123 (2012-12-10 01:08:32)


LENOVO Y 580 IVYBRIDGE 660M NVIDIA
Unix is user-friendly. It just isn't promiscuous about which users it's friendly with. - Steven King

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#24 2012-12-21 00:59:57

Daphron
Member
Registered: 2010-01-06
Posts: 27

Re: [SOLVED] Ideapad Y580 compatibility

So, I'm thinking of getting this and I'm thinking the Intel HD 4000 alone should be suitible for my needs (most intense thing wanted would be some decent nexiuz/xonotic on lowest settings). The question is, can I hook up a second monitor to this thing through the hdmi slot? I'm willing to go and work a bit on getting the nvidia card to work if it would allow me to use a second monitor but I want to know if that is possible.

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#25 2012-12-21 01:17:17

hadrons123
Member
From: chennai
Registered: 2011-10-07
Posts: 1,249

Re: [SOLVED] Ideapad Y580 compatibility

I read in lenovoforums that attaching a second monitor is possible, but it is hooked to the nvidia chipset exclusively if you buy an optimus version. But I would have to assume that it would use intel GP if you bought just the intel solution.

Last edited by hadrons123 (2012-12-21 01:17:52)


LENOVO Y 580 IVYBRIDGE 660M NVIDIA
Unix is user-friendly. It just isn't promiscuous about which users it's friendly with. - Steven King

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