Any P71 owners out there? Do you recommend it? Any regrets?

Hey guys. I was looking into getting a P71, I prefer this form factor and the GPU's offered on it (I'd be content with the P3000).

Any how, what says the community? Any owners out there that have experience?

Also, the Xeon e-1505M v6, is it worth the upgrade from the i7 7820hq ? If I'm not mistaken, it's just .1 GHz faster at stock and turbo, and can take both ecc and non-ecc ram right? If that's the case.. I'd probably be content with the 7820hq.

TIA

 

Bad cooling out of the box

The 1505M v6 is basically a 7700HQ with 2MB more cache and faster single thread speeds. Get the 7820HQ if you want a CPU upgrade, the multipliers for 4-core is higher than 7700HQ.

It can take both ECC and non-ECC ram for Xeon model. No XMP, 2400MHz max as of now.



Unless you really like the trackpoint, don't get this model. And if you do, get something else that's cheaper.


The only upside is the MXM GPU, but there are Clevos that have similar feature and give you more performance/cost.


@D2 Ultima

 

Wow thanks Mobius, I think remember you back in the day on these forums, you're a veteran, you're a hero on here!!!

The price is not so bad for me, in fact due to discounts the P71 is excellent value for me considering performance and size for a 17" with EPP discounts... I think with the 7820HQ and P3000 it works out to be like $1600 or so(granted I skimp out on the rest, since I'll just upgrade those myself and the added costs would've been added to virtually any machine I'd get).

However, I did not know that they had cooling issues, and it seems pretty bad after some more searching:

https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/forums/v3_1/forumtopicpage/board-id/tp07_en/thread-id/67950/page/13

It seems like an issue with the components and manufacturing... I guess I will avoid the P71 as a simple fix does not seem viable. I'll look at some Clevo's, I've just always tried to get business grade notebooks with mil-spec ratings (namely Thinkpads former W-series/now P-series and Dell Precision series), a good mix of performance and durability for the enclosure.

Thanks again for sharing your wisdom and knowledge Mobius, you really helped out by just bringining up the overheat issues.

 

Get on-site warranty so you can request the lenovo tech to repaste your laptop on-site with a thermal paste that you like. I heard that the depot can sometimes take up to 7 business day to repaste with the same low quality thermal paste.


If you want to skimp, at least get the 500GB ODD drive because the aftermarket ones are crap. The lenovo one has the outer bezel molded into the frame and it supports the chassis if weight is applied on top.
Aftermarket Chinese ones have a separate outer bezel and tend to pop out due to lack of strength on the connectors. Maybe the one from newmodeUS is good but I don't know.

Don't skip on the backlit keyboard because the nonbacklit model have a very slippery texture that wears out really quick. After about a month or so of using the laptop as a DTR, the left CTRL key has almost lost all of its texture as well as the two shift buttons. Keys are made of very cheap ABS plastic on the nonbacklit model.



If you want to upgrade the GPU, most likely Quadro is not needed. You can contact @woodzstack to see if he has any standard 3.0B type GTX1060 (P3000 core) or GTX1070 (P5000 core) and you can get the respective higher TDP heatsink here: https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?sp...lpPyX&id=549676398663&ns=1&abbucket=20#detail

FRU 01AV344 for higher TDP heatsink for P71

 

Didn't know about how cheap the non-backlit keys were, never seen one personally but good to know.

Thanks for the mention too !

 

nonbacklit is standard option, included with the base cost


they're even worse quality than the clevo keyboard keycap finish

 

My wife uses a laptop with what your saying, I can't stand it. So used to mechanical keys, with the right feeling.

 

the thinkpad keyboard typing feel is actually really good compared to other competition's laptops, including gaming ones

 

Thanks for the tip. I forgot to mention I was planning on getting the backlit keys, but didn't know that nonbacklit sucked.

I was going to get a 2.5" ssd for storage and a m.2 for the boot drive.

That's interesting on the upgrade for the GPU, I mean I was planning on using this for video editing and maybe some CAD, so I think I might be ok with just the P3000 for a slight price upgrade. Would be nice to use that upgrade from woodzstack with the higher TDP heatsink but it seems like quite the hassle for me.

If I do end up getting the P71, I'll be sure to get that next day service, if you didn't mention it, I probably wouldn't have considered it.

You're awesome Mobius, I see in your sig that you own the P71, so I guess you're happy with it now? Or is it still giving you trouble?

 

p71 good for a DTR with a bit more focus on portability

temps are higher than what I would like it to be but I haven't tried to fix that

surface is delicate, at least the one on the lid is really hard to clean (if not impossible to restore the "new" look), thankfully the rest of the machine is either metallic (body) or plastic (palmrest)


P3000 is weaker than a 75w GTX1060 mobile
pretty sure an upgrade from woodzstack is going to be cheaper than what lenovo wants for the P3000


unless you have an application that specifically needs quadro (most can be tricked to running on geforce without any problems) I wouldn't upgrade from lenovo








then I picked up a T430 in the beginning of February, modded it with the 7-row keyboard and never used the P71 outside the house since

has a much better keyboard compared to the P71

 

compared to workstation card prices, oh hell yeah.

 

I see, regarding the upgrade to the GTX series cards. That's a good point and option, especially when considering Quadro's P4000 prices.

As for the modified T430, I heard about those too. That says a lot when you've switched over to it after getting it. I had a T500 and T41 myself, I miss the old thinkpad style keyboards.

 

The keyboard is what sold me on the device, not to mention I barely paid anything for the base machine.

Now the only upgrade left is to wait for a revised FHD/WQHD converter board for the machine and it'll be perfect for daily usage.



Yes I'm giving up on 2-2.5 hours of battery life (P71 manages 6-6.5 [can squeeze 7 if discord and IM apps aren't running], T430 with extended 94wh [says genuine but I'm pretty sure this is a well-made Chinese clone] does around 4-4.5), but I can alleviate that by having more batteries which are cheaper to buy compared to spare P70/P71 batteries.

 

Hey Mobius 1 , I had another quick question pertaining specifically to the P71, do you know for a fact if you can disable Intel AMT/ME in bios in there? Is there an option for it? (you don't have to try it out, haha, I was just wondering if there was an option for it) I was told that there was no option for it in the P71 BIOS, but he nor do I own a P71, so we don't know.

This is in light of all the Spectre and Meltdown attacks and backdoors using builtin remote management for Intel VPRO chips or just any Intel chip that has Intel AMT and ME... and of course the P71 has it.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/computer-vendors-start-disabling-intel-management-engine/

Unfortunately Lenovo does not sell them with an option for it to be disabled, but I figured... maybe there's a setting in the BIOS options.

 

remind me to check tomorrow

@ me

 

Sweet.

 

@ssnova703

P71 with latest bios update

Spoiler

I think memory execution prevention is the spectre/meltdown

I don't see any option in the bios regarding the AMT/ME enable disable


If you want it it's for sale on the NBR classified (I also put a link on my signature referring to that sale post)

 

Oh wow, thanks checking Mobius! I guess it doesn't have the option to disable/enable AMT/ME. At least it has the Spectre/Meltdown patch. Also thanks for the heads up on the sale! You've got a well spec'd machine.

 

I think it might be disabled by default with the new bios.

Pretty sure in the older versions before spectre/meltdown happened you can turn it on/off.

 

I see.

According to these guys on reddit, it apparently takes a hack job to remove it now, but I'm not sure why, they're implying that you need to do some custom coding.

https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/8kcgbs/is_it_possible_to_disable_intel_management_engine/

 

I wouldn't bother then

 

I guess I'll wait for the P72 at this point, maybe the P52 might even woo me over if they finally addressed the heat and throttling issues. Thanks again for all your input Mobius, you're a hero.

 

I doubt that the cooling will improve.

Get worse, yes, because the CPU side will still be "45w" even though it has 2 more cores.