Lenovo Legion 5/5 Pro/7 2021 Discussion

It sits on a laptop cooler on my lap. This one:



Good on the lap but almost as heavy as my 7i it feels like.

 

Got my Legion 7i Intel yesterday. It's the 'fully loaded' model. First laptop I've purchased since I bought the very first Macbook Pro 15" Retina model in 2012. The MBP is still an amazing machine 9 years later, I just wanted something with gaming chops. I actually really hate 16:9 screens on laptops, so I was intrigued when I heard about the Legion 7.

Overall, the Lenovo is a nice machine. Still think the price is a little insane, but I guess that's the price you pay for top tier gaming performance on a laptop. The gaming performance is quite impressive. I was getting around 150 fps when I briefly played BF4 on ultra settings at native resolution. Here are some quick notes.

Pros:
-Gaming performance is impressive
-The screen is very good (although I still prefer TFT bonded to glass like the MBP): 16" with small bezels, 16:10 aspect ratio, 2560x1600 res, 165 Hz w/ G-Sync make it pretty much the perfect spec display for a laptop
-Great selection of ports, and I really appreciate having ports on the rear and sides (the illuminated icons along the back ports is also a really nice touch)
-switch to electronically disconnect the webcam is nice
-keyboard overall is good
-touchpad is precise
-lighting looks nice
-overall feels well built, and the laptop is relatively slim and light considering the performance

Cons:
-iCue software and Corsair background service had to be completely disabled, otherwise the fans spin all the time and the battery life is abysmal. I also found the iCUE software a bit convoluted.
-Even with the above fixed, battery life is still just OK
-No ambient light sensor to automatically adjust screen and RGB brightness (are you kidding me?)
-slight flex in display casing (I'm nitpicking, but my MBP by comparison is solid as rock, literally)
-the bottom panel is apparently a PITA to remove (watched a youtube video, haven't done it myself yet)

Overall I'm pretty happy. Nice to have a Windows laptop again. LOVE having 165 Hz on a laptop display. I am still pretty frustrated though with the typical lack of attention to detail among seemingly every Windows laptop maker. It sounds like the iCue battery drain bug has been a problem for months now. If Apple released a software update that cut the battery of the Macbook Pro in half, it would literally be frontpage news. It always amazes me how companies like Lenovo ship a product with such an obvious bug.

 

The iCue battery drain has been a problem going on two years. Based on a previous post, it looked like this was fixed, at least based on how much power the CPU was consuming. Have you updated to the latest version of iCue (4.0)?

My loaded 7i was delivered today but I can’t pick it up until Monday as I’m currently 1200 miles from home and won’t be returning until tomorrow evening.


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I hate iCUE. Not intuitive at all and hard to do my own thing. Some of the default lights are pretty cool and nice to look at but not something I want to use all the time.

 

Interesting, I made a point of updating all the software on the laptop before doing much else. iCue told me I was using the latest version, 3.38.61. I will try downloading 4.0 and report back.

Windows is showing its quirks compared to MacOS btw. To fully updated my software, I had to use Windows Update, the Windows Store, Lenovo Vantage, and the Nvidia GeForce app. So clumsy, and I still don't seem to be up to date!

 

After updating to iCue 4.0, fans are still spinning and battery life is still crap. Battery life essentially goes to about 90 minutes with iCue running. It's getting uninstalled. Fortunately you can still use the lighting without the software, you just can only switch between a few different options using Fn+spacebar.

 

I only used Windows update and updated Nvidia drivers. What did you need from the Windows store? btw .. there is also a new bios that was released on the 23rd I downloaded from Lenovo Support.

 

There were at least 20 built-in Windows apps that needed updates via the Windows Store. It seems that Microsoft has shifted updates of the built-in apps from Windows Update to the Windows Store. Hell, I was up-to-date yesterday, and just checked today and had 9 apps to update.

 

So if you set the lights to one color will it stay without icue or do you only have options like rainbow etc?

 

One of the default options without iCue is a solid light blue color. It looks fairly nice fortunately. I don't think there's a way to change it to a different color.

 

Thanks That works for me. How about the fan noise, I have seen complaints about high pitch.

 

They are somewhat high pitched. I don't have a lot to compare it to, but they are definitely high pitched compared to my Macbook Pro. I don't find it intolerable though.

 

Was the CPU power report you posted for me the other day with this BIOS installed?

 

I have the Legion arriving Tue and the Asus s17 QHD arriving Wed. So I am not sure which one I will keep? The nit on the legion has me leaning that way but we will see?

 

Lenovo's screen brightness claim is, IMO, somewhat deceiving. Yes it achieves 500 nits at 100% but it falls off a cliff from there, hitting just over 200 at 80% and less than 150 at 70%, at least according to the Jarrod's Tech review.

 

I'm 90% sure it was before update. This is what it is now, btw I found the section from HWinfo you posted the other day. I just had to click on sensors.

These are when iCUE is running Rainbow Wave.

Hwinfo https://i.postimg.cc/Tws6Nsr5/HWinfo-power.png
and one from HWMonitor https://i.postimg.cc/QtvMKCYz/Hwmon-power.png

btw .. I got an iCUE update this morning - 4.13.226

 

let us know please

 

What would you like to know?

 

If new icue is any better, I seriously doubt it but thought I would ask.

 

The fundamental design of iCue is broken so nothing short of a complete, ground up redo is going to fix that. I personally find it the worst of the “big three” peripheral RGB software, the others being Logitech and Razer. At least the Legion has some decent lighting effects built into firmware so disabling the Corsair software doesn’t leave you fully out to dry.


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Sorry for the late reply. I'm working with someone who is making a manual fan app. He already has one for the 2020 models. Just needed some info on the new 7i.

To answer your question ,no still sucks from what I see.

 

I was working with a guy at the unofficial discord server on the manual fan control app, btw .. you can go here to the general chat post a pic of your system @mod and they will add you to the Lenovo owners group. Then you will be able to see #Fan-Control-Beta. You can download one there for the 7i when it is ready.

Anyway, when I was running Prime 95 and my fans were at max, which wasn't too terribly loud, so I could get him some data, I didn't hear a whistle anymore like I was when playing games. I hope it has straightened itself out. I'll see when I play some more later.

btw, temps when running prime95. Max on the right



any guess why that one core is thermal throttling? need repaste?

 

Only gets me to blank page, sorry to say.

 

I would.

 

This work? https://i.postimg.cc/ydymqn0V/Prime95.png

 

I got everything in I need from Amazon today. Probably try it tomorrow.

The manual fan control app is ready if any would like to try it.

"I was working with a guy at the unofficial discord server on the manual fan control app, btw .. you can go here to the general chat post a pic of your system @mod and they will add you to the Lenovo owners group. Then you will be able to see #Fan-Control-Beta. You can download one there for the 7i when it is ready."

 

I mean the discord link.

 

I would not. When I tried on another L5P it didn't give any real benefits. Unless you go LM I guess.

 

The manual fan control app is done.

This one https://discord.gg/edB4BhPe

 

Someone is discord repasted with Kryonaut extreme. He said it changed maybe 2 or 3c. Doesn't hardly seem worth the trouble.

 

Can you repost the discord link, or the link to the app? The one posted goes nowhere. Thanks

 

Still blank. Says don't have access. maybe a link to the main server page? probably need to be invited in.

 

how about this one? https://discord.gg/edB4BhPe

 

That works! Thank you

 

Repaste is not that much trouble unless the board is inverted, which the legion is not. But I enjoy repaste systems and see what results I get.

 

But if he has a more even spread of temps now instead of one core being off 10c from the lowest core temp.

 

Yeah, that is my concern. I think I will repaste and see what the diff is.

This is what the fan control looks like and about optimal settings for me.



I was playing Doom Eternal getting 150 watts on the gpu and fans were a gental breeze. HWMonitor had gpu at max 78c and cpu was at low to mid 80's but core 7 hit 92c max. The dev said it was probably better to use balanced because performance uses extra power and creates more heat for no real world gain in games.

 

I'm not really sure how the discord thing works. Am I supposed to post a pic of my laptop?

 

Yes in #general chat. Use @mod and whatever message you want. Before you post it, click that cross you see on the left side and that popup to upload a file you can use to upload image. I didn't know this stuff either. I had to do a little Googling this morning.

Example

 

That’s about what you should expect. The only time you’re gonna see 10c + difference is if the factory paste is that bad. Back in the day that was how it was and you were more or less required to repaste from the factory. They’ve gotten better, but they still use very cheap thermal paste that will dry up fast. So atleast you know that you have good quality paste on your laptop.

 

Would love to get this app for my Legion 5 Pro.
Where/how did you get it? Is it compatible with the L5 Pro?

 

Probably but I don't know for sure. Go to that discord like I explained in previous post and ask in #fan-control-beta

 

Great deal on a L5 Pro at Costco if anyone is looking. Almost makes want to return my L7 and get it. https://www.costco.com/lenovo-legio...0-display---storm-gray.product.100760683.html

 

3050, really?

 

Oh .. haha, didn't notice that.

 

Cool, I mean quiet
It works great

 

Have to check fps difference between performance and balanced.. if there isn't that much of a difference and thermals are better it's better to run a bit cooler. Have someone tried to set max processor usage to 99% in power options? Some models benefited from that and got their temps down. Im not home right now and can't test

 

Is the app only for intel version?

 

I think it works with amd too but you should probably go there and ask to be sure.

 

Not sure about the fps difference but from what I've seen balanced supplies 115w to the gpu and performance supplies 160w.