Lenovo Legion 5/5 Pro/7 2021 Discussion

Cooler Master Notepal X3. Cooled even my power hungry Clevo DTR.

 

Looks good - gonna try this out. Perfect for my current setup.

 

Anyone know how to control fan on Legion 7i?

Let's say i want to run the fan at max speed is there a way?

 

Ok, so I need a bit of help with my Legion 7i (11980HK and 3080)

So, right of the bat: I mine Eth with my laptop most of the time, with temps sitting between 61-67 depending on my room temperature. Over the night, it restarted and the miner software (NiceHash) couldn't recognize the nVidia GPU anymore.

First thing I did, used DDU in safe mode and reinstalled the nVidia driver. It still was the same. MSI Afterburner also could only see the integrated iGPU only.
Note: Restarting took around 2mins at this point, it stayed more at the Lenovo logo than usual.

I also did an overdue BIOS update

The laptop was now on Hybrid Mode btw (Advanced Optimus was not ON before this happened). After this, I went into Lenovo Vantage and I did a stupid thing - I deactivated Hybrid Mode.

Now it doesn't boot up. It's only the keyboard that lights up and if I press the power button once, it instantly shuts down. Is there a way to reset the BIOS settings? I think bit can be done with the bios battery.

Anyway, this is surprinsing for me as the temps were ok. I'll get in touch with the reseller for a repair and see what they say.

 

Sounds to me like you killed your GPU mining.

Sent from my Pixel 6 using Tapatalk

 

I dont get why ppl mine with a 3k $ high end laptop for a 150$ monthly income? That doesent make sense.
Try to connect the laptop to an external monitor to see if smth comes up?
Like the pre i think u managed to brick the gpu.U should contact the support and tell them u played some intensive game or smth i doubt they will replace an unit used for mining.

 

Try https://www.legionfancontrol.com/

 

Same thing happened to me before, not mining related, but your GPU is dead.

 

I haven’t tested it with Legion Fan Control - but stock when I tested mining it got way too hot. This chassis is too slim to handle it unless you max fans and maybe toss it on a mega cooling pad. Even then - I’m passing on mining with it.

The MSI GE76 on the other hand - all good. Mined on it for days before I decided to go Legion.

the reason for mining is simple - pay off the device more quickly plus $150 in ETH or BTC today could be way more in the future.

 

If you throttle back the GPU clock speed, like I think any responsible miner does - particularly on a laptop, it doesn’t even get as warm while mining as it does while gaming.

I mine ETH on my 7i 3080 at -500 GPU and default memory and the temps never get above the low 60’s.

 

I always wondered if retailers can track or not if the laptop was used for mining in case smth goes wrong in a long run?
Or they will replace the unit under warranty terms.

 

I don’t think they can unless you leave some sort of evidence on the hard drive.

 

Yeah, I don't agree. Maybe if you're maxing fans to 100% with Legion Fan Control. But without it - no way.

I guess because I came from a MSI GE76...but this gets way too hot. I have plenty of other rigs. Not worth the risk to me on the 7i with the chassis it has.

 

Nope, not even running LFC at the moment, just letting the default fan curve work. 64 degrees on the GPU and about 55-57 Mh

 

Yikes. Hopefully you don't end up like the homeboy on the previous page!

 

Yeah, hopefully not. But we don’t know that mining was the cause of his laptop GPU breaking either.

 

Man I want a word with Lenovo. Taking the bottom panel off this thing is hectic. Luckily I had an IFIXIT kit and just took my time. Don't think I broke any of the clips. But honestly thought it was overkill with how secure it was with all the screws taken out.

Anyway I finally got around to upgrading the wifi card from the mediatek to an intel ax210. Night at day difference signal wise. That mediatek card always seemed to disconnect all the time. It was fine when I was in the same room as the router. But even one room over it just was having a heck of a time staying connected. So that was well worth opening it up for. Would be nice if they just gave you an intel wifi right from the start.

I swapped out the ram for the hyper x kit I had from my last machine. But it looks like I got samsung rank 8 ram from the get go. So I think I had the good ram from the start. Oh well. Time to surprise upgrade the GF's machine with it I guess.

 

Received yet another Legion 7i this morning in the hope that this would be it. And this is it finally. Nice large dust speck smack in the middle of the screen. Briefly tried tapping + gentle suction cup and gave up after a few minutes, didn't even log in or finish the initial start up process. Packed it back up and am going to request a return on Lenovo's website.

I wish I were trolling. I've never seen or experienced anything like this in terms of screen defects. I really love the L7 but my patience is gone. Keeping the Alienware M15 and calling it a day. Totally ridiculous.

Very jealous of all of you who have fantastic Legion 7 systems. Maybe next generation will treat me better re: QC, who knows.

 

Hi Notebookers!

I'm curious if anyone here repasted their Lenovo 7i (2021) CPU + GPU with liquid metal? I'm interested in getting this laptop.

I read somewhere on reddit that a user was getting about 90c during full load on stock and around 70s with liquid metal.

Curious if anyone herr has similar experiences.

 

Liquid metal is far more of a pain to work with than it's worth. It also wouldn't have been necessary, at least on the Legion 7i that I had. In the maximum performance mode, the CPU would hit a peak temperature of 85C and only during the short-term burst where it would draw about 110W of power. After that, it would settle down to a max of 88W and a peak temperature of around 75C. The GPU would not go above 65C.

 

is the dust visible with the screen off? if it is you can wipe it away

 

Eh, hot ryzen temps are something you're gonna have to get used to as long as it isn't throttling. Compared to intel all my ryzens (both desktop and laptops) run considerably hotter and no amount of repasting will fix it, just comes from the smaller surface area of the ryzen chips making them hard to cool. On my legion 5P I just let my cpu sit at 90-95c during gaming/heavy editing while locking the fan noise to a reasonable level with LFC (lower than what quiet mode runs it at). LFC not supporting the S7 is a huge bummer though.

 

It isn't visible with the screen off. I have tried everything to remove it. Gently tapping, gently using a small suction cup and wiggling + tapping. Turned laptop on the side and tried the same things in the hope it would dislodge. Also gave the screen a good wipe-down with microfiber cloth and LCD cleaning solution as I always do.

 

Ryzen may run hotter in some instances, but that doesn't mean I've not gotten good temperatures out of them. My 5800H/3060 L5 Pro and 5800H/6600M L5 both topped out at less than 90C under load. Yes, they are thicker and heavier than the Slim, but I wouldn't have expected a 10-15C difference between them.

 

You'll hit 95+ under load depending on scenario of course if you go with the M15 unless you use TCC offset in bios. One issue to be aware of is that you can't get max CPU and GPU performance unless you use the stock "full speed" thermal profile, which runs the fans at 100%. This is the only way the fans will truly run at 100%. If you create a custom fan profile and set a fan curve to 100% it won't truly run at 100%. Nothing will change this, even higher TGP vbios (although the base wattage will be higher). This is turning into a deal breaker for me. It's my laptop, my money, give me full control over thermals and performance.

Sitting on a prebuilt AMD Legion 7, itching to place the order and try again...

 

LOL! Dude these laptops aren't that good.

 

Given that the fans were cycling on and off on the Slim it may have had poor contact with the cooling assembly or even a failed heatpipe.

Interesting info about the M15. I wonder if the X15 works the same way. My wife wanted a replacement for her old M17 R1 so I ordered her the X15 (she wants the smaller size to fit into this new backpack she likes). I would have let her use the Legion 7 but she hates the high pitched fan whistle as well (probably even more than me) so it was a no-go. She also made the comment that taping off the bottom panel to fix the noise was ridiculous. It is also convenient if it uses the Dell power supply as I will be using Dell as well.

 

I know haha. I just like the 16:10 screen, thermals, professional looks without RGB, and power. I want to get rid of my gaming desktop so want the most power I can get while being reasonably portable.

I am not sure about the X15, but it does have 4 fans so that could be worse? The fans at 100% on the M15 are probably the same noise level as other slim laptops in this size class, but it would just be nice to have full control.

 

Is there a fix for the realtek card (soft wise) i read a lot of ppl replaced it with some intel.I was dropping some ms in dota 2 for no reason.

 

Maybe try this driver which seems newer than the combo one specifically for the Legion. Also specifically mentions fixing an issue with ping response delay.

https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/do...on-20h2-or-later-thinkpad-e14-gen-3-e15-gen-3

 

I did buy the M15 R5 but promptly returned it. The fan control was completely buggered. It was like the MECH-15 G3 where I couldn't set a minimum speed no matter what I tried so temperatures were never below 60C. My local BB had an X15 on display. All four fans were spinning very quietly at idle. Temps were in the mid-40s – exactly where you would expect them to be on a thinner gaming laptop, but they do whistle like the Legion at full speed. The keyboard is amazing, though the trackpad is way too small. Lastly, it's too expensive for what you get, which I suppose I could forgive were the RAM at least partially upgradable.

So I'm back on the pain train with a Legion 7i that I ordered the last day the 3070 model was on sale. I'll be cracking into it tonight.

 

That's actually where I ended up. Jumped around laptops with different specs and weight. Ended up with 7i 3070 because of the balance between power and portability. Fan curves on Lenovos aren't the best (like many have mentioned here, it ramps up and down), but with LFC it's easy to just lock the thing into one speed. It could maintain a very reasonable fan noise around 40-45dbA with a 35W + 115W combined load. Nowhere near as silent as my desktop practically chilling at the 30dbA noise floor for a 120W + 200W load, but for a laptop it's excellent. It definitely could be lighter, but the GaN brick brings it into tolerable territory as a portable package.

I think it's more of because of the ryzen chips and their trigger happy boost algorithm, combined with the aggressive fan curve on the legion. Even on my desktop with a 280mm AIO, it will happily boost into it's max frequency and jump from 50c to 70c, then quickly move back down to 50-55c. On the desktop I can manage it with a fan curve that doesn't truly ramp up until 80c, but on the legion there is no custom fan curve, so you either have to live with it, or lock it with LFC (which doesn't work on the slim 7 LOL)

 

That’s very odd. I’m idling at 39C for the CPU just doing internet / office work right now, fans are both at 0%. Just using the default balanced thermal profile at that. I’ve yet to look at the X15 it looks great, but performance is worse than the M15 r5 / r6.

I’m back considering the Legion 5 w/ 3070, waiting for potential discounts to pop up.

 

Trying out the Klim Mistral ( https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08P8LCCPM/) based on a recommendation on reddit. I've been using the Cooler Master Notepal X3 and the first unit that I received has some fan rubbing noise - getting another one tomorrow. The Notepal X3 has been good but not great. It seems the Klim Mistral really whips. We shall see.

 

Ordered a Legion 5i 11800H + RTX 3070 w/ 3 year onsite for $1700 after tax. Ended up being cheaper than the Walmart deal that was around a month or so ago. Should ship by next Monday. Hopefully it'll work out. If it does, I'll buy the larger battery as well. Also ends up being cheaper all in than my M15 R5.

Gave up on getting a defect free Legion 7. Saving $1100 doesn't hurt either.

 

Sadly I am not surprised that the fan control had issues. AWCC is pretty buggy and even when you have a working configuration it seems to somehow auto-update itself into a broken state.

I guess I will find out what the noise is like as the X15 is arriving today. I had hoped that maybe it was improved given that the same engineering working on the Precision also did the X15/X17.

Hopefully this Legion works. Surprised that you did not opt for the AMD version. Did you find a driver fix for the Intel GPU?

 

While I have the 3070 Legion 7i, I couldn't say no to ordering a 17" 3070 Legion 5 (R7 5800) for $1390 CAD altogether after taxes. Just a massive deal and a good upgrade for my father in law. Got 2 of them for that price and gonna sell the other.
That was price error territory right there and glad I was able to pick that up.

Sent from my Pixel 6 using Tapatalk

 

Do tell! Any more details? I always like a good deal story.

 

Seems like it may have been a bit of a price error since it was a 3070 model. Was $1749 base price; there was a hidden code LEGIONDEALS20 that dropped the price to $1399. Try to add id.me and you get an error. Called in and it was because it cost them more to manufacture than the price was. The lowest they could do was $1302.48 CAD and the rep made a quote for me for that price. Got 2. So total after tax is $1471 minus $74 in cash back through Rakuten. Pretty damn good deal there and had to jump on it before it went out of stock.

Sent from my Pixel 6 using Tapatalk

 

Nice. I have a L7 5900HX + 3080 with 3 year onsite in my cart for $2430 including tax, which is great. It errors out though as you said, I can't complete the purchase because "coupon no longer available." Was worth a try at that price.

 

Call in, they can adjust it manually. Best way to do it.

Sent from my Pixel 6 using Tapatalk

 

Gather around, my children, and you shall hear the tale of my latest Legion 7i experience. The screen on this unit was not quite as perfect as the last one I sent back, with a faint amount of bleed in the lower left corner. However, since this characteristic has never bothered me unless it was really blatant, I gave it a pass. Got it set up and proceeded to do a driver update for both GPUs. The Intel one got an error message even though the driver showed as having installed properly. Something also went wrong when I tried to use NVCleanstall to update the RTX 3070. I thought I had straightened it out, but I observed temperatures that were higher than expected. It turns out that our old friend ntoskrnl.exe was causing the CPU to run between 8 and 15 percent at all times.

I said screw it and ordered a digital download of recovery media from Lenovo. The actual process of restoring the laptop to its out-of-the-box state took much longer than expected (felt close to an hour), but everything seemed in order. After running Windows updates, I went to remove McAfee per usual, but the uninstaller would freeze at initialization. That's never happened before, but thankfully it was able to be removed in safe mode. Just to be on the safe side, I also ran their cleanup utility to ensure all traces of the program were gone.

Since then, everything has been running swimmingly. Thermals seem to be about the same as the last 7i I had, which is to say they're excellent. It's disappointing that the RAM is x16, but I'm finding that it only seems to matter in 3DMark, at least with 11th-gen Intel CPUs. I'm not in the mood of fighting with the bottom panel to change it either. Advanced Optimus is a strange thing. Setting the system to the dGPU in the control panel messes with display scaling in a way that doesn't happen if I just set the MUX in the Vantage software and reboot. At least Lenovo gives you the option either way. The fans whistle on this one, but it's not as bad as it was on the last 7i.

One final observation - I'm not seeing significant CPU power draw with iCue enabled and running. Jarrod reported over 50W in his tests, but just idling or doing light-duty tasks, HWiNFO reports power draw as low as 2-3W. I think there's still some impact on battery life as it barely squeaks out 4 hours with the RGB on and screen brightness at around 60 percent. I could get 4.5-5 with iCue disabled, but as it stands, it's not enough of a difference to make me want to stop enjoying the sweet, sweet RGB.

All in all, I think I'll be keeping this one so I went ahead and officially registered the laptop along with the three-year on-site, ADH, and sealed battery warranties.

 

That's great to hear! Glad you're finally happy and hope you enjoy.

 

Decided to call in to order the laptop and it actually worked, they applied both the $100 off and 20% off coupon codes. Rep was very cool, even got free next business day shipping. Total is $2337 which I feel is very good (L7 5900HX + 3080). Hopefully no defects.

 

Glad it worked out! Ya the reps are extremely good and it is always better to call than to use the chat. Seems like the call center is a higher escalation point than the chat reps and they are authorized to do a lot more. Awesome that it worked out in your case!

Sent from my Pixel 6 using Tapatalk

 

Sold my original L7i, but picked another one up during the Holiday sales. Couldn't pass it up at ~$2,500

This one has a better CPU, but worse GPU.. (still miss my OG machine)

 

Let me first caveat this with I think notepad cooling pads are, in general, a waste of money and not necessary.

With that said - the Klim Mistral ( https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08P8LCCPM) is not worth the money. I have decided to keep the Cooler Master Notepal 3 ( https://www.amazon.com/Cooler-Master-NotePal-X3-Cooling/dp/B0079T2KHG/) as a better alternative. If your goal is to get the most out of benchmarks and if you have the environment to suit it (my laptop is mounted in a way in my office where it makes sense to take advantage of a cooler) I'd say go Cooler Master vs. Klim.

 

Thank you for the replies, it seems I couldn't reset the bios (to deactivate dedicated mode) and that gpu is the problem. Tomorrow I will send the laptop for repair and I'll let you guys know what happens too.

I kinda hope they'll replace it and have better luck with the components (the i9 was able to sustain 4.8ghz at -55mV, rtx 3080 with Samsung memory, could do up to 1350mhz stable overclock on mem). I was keeping it on Performance mode (gpu consumed 135w), where it could do 63.5 MH/s. On Quiet (blue), it consumed 115w and could only do 58 MH/s regardless the mem overclock. GPU undervolted using MSI Afterburner, at 0.700 mV at ~1140 Mhz.

But the temps were lower too when it consumed 115w, and I believe this was my mistake - even though I gave it a cold room and plenty of air for the 3080 to sit between 60-65C, 135w sustained was maybe too much for something close to the heat.

 

Another Legion 7, another bad screen. Received today, stuck red pixel right above the "Legion" branding at the bottom center of screen. Trying out those BS pixel fixer apps, I'll be amazed if it actually works.

Edit- ran Zen Timings app, I received the "good" single rank memory. Hopefully the pixel will resolve itself.

 

Ran the jscreen fix app for about 8 hours last night / this morning, the sucker is still there. It is for sure a stuck (red) pixel, not dead. I've read that heating the screen area could "release" the stuck pixel- has anyone ever tried this method and has it worked?

Otherwise great screen, briefly ran Timespy and the GPU easily handles a +195/+1000 OC and got 13,400 graphics, I didn't test the limits yet.