Lenovo ThinkPad P43s laptop review: The mobile workstation's display and performance disappoint

[Redaktion]

Lenovo's mobile workstation scores points with great input devices, good battery life and a Thunderbolt 3 port. But the laptop isn't able to reach its full performance potential.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-ThinkPad-P43s-laptop-review-The-mobile-workstation-s-display-and-performance-disappoint.439972.0.html

[Andrew]

I've had a P43s for about 4 months for engineering based work that requires a lot of travelling. It's always been abit lower than expected and had lots of fan noise.

Recently, I opened it up and reapplied thermal paste between CPU/GPU and cooling. There was no paste at all on the integrated GPU heat sink!! With new paste on all sinks, the laptop is completely different. Quiet, 10 degrees cooler and must faster. Odd Lenovo didn't pick up this quality issue but now the laptop it great!

[Aleks]

Hello Andrew,

I also own the P43s since a few months, and same as you I'm not particularly impressed with the performance, particularly when using the Quadro GPU.
I'm not an expert, but I'm interested in doing the same thing you did, i.e. applying the thermal paste. Could you help me there, by e.g. indicating a guide I could follow on the topic, or with some pictures? I cannot find anything related to this exact laptop (since it's doesn't seem a very popular model), and I wouldn't risk applying some thermal paste just to worsen the situation.

Thanks you and best regards,
Alex

[jeremy]

Hello Andrew,

I also own the P43s since a few months, and same as you I'm not particularly impressed with the performance, particularly when using the Quadro GPU.
I'm not an expert, but I'm interested in doing the same thing you did, i.e. applying the thermal paste. Could you help me there, by e.g. indicating a guide I could follow on the topic, or with some pictures? I cannot find anything related to this exact laptop (since it's doesn't seem a very popular model), and I wouldn't risk applying some thermal paste just to worsen the situation.

Thanks you and best regards,
Alex

It's chassis is identical to the T490 (not T490s), and somewhat similar to the T495 (not T495s). Speficically, it's largely identical to the T490 with Nvidia dGPU.

Also, use the Lenovo hardware maintenance manual (find it on the support page for your laptop). It's a defiled, first party guide on how to take apart your laptop and replace various components. It's one of the advantages of buying a Thinkpad, Precision/Latitude, Zbook/Elitebook, the better documentation and paperwork from Lenovo, Dell, and HP.

That being said, if you don't have a plastic/metal spudger and experience with the cheap plastic clips on laptops, the T490/P43s is fairly prone to breaking the clips (holding the chassis together) if you aren't very careful. They are largely aesthetic clips, since the main chassis strength is taken from the screws & grommets), but I'd rather not break them all the same.

[Aleks]

Hi jeremy,

Thank you for your reply! I managed to find the instructions within the manual, as you suggested. You're right when you say there is a lot of documentation on the lenovo support website.
To also have a visual clue I look for videos on youtube, and it turns out there is a video on how to open the T490. Thank you! I just ordered some thermal paste and as soon as it arrives I'll try to open it up according to the video.

Best,
Alex

[MattP]

I took the risk and purchased a new p43s from Lenovo, here are my findings.

Default CPU setup doesnt match the cooling, and I was getting poor results in R15 testing with a high 400s result without any tweaking, updating all drivers etc.
I drastically improved this CPU benchmark result by undervolting the CPU via Windows software (Throttlestop) the CPU core & cache by 90mV and was able to achieve the following results in R15. Multicore: 685-702.  Single-Core: 175-182.    I was able to get better multicore results with 120mV undervolting, but was crashing R15 in the Single-Core test so I wound it back

Quatro GPU:
3Dmark 2011 1028x768: 4600.    My P520 during the 3Dmark sits around 70degrees.


I haven't looked at the thermal paste (dont want to open it up yet), but this may not be necessary for some folks.

Compared to my 13 year old T400 machine, this thing is fantastic, the build quality and plastics are better. If your a techo and dont mind tweaking this is a great machine.

[MattP]

I took the risk and purchased a new p43s from Lenovo, here are my findings.

Default CPU setup doesnt match the cooling, and I was getting poor results in R15 testing with a high 400s result without any tweaking, updating all drivers etc.
I drastically improved this CPU benchmark result by undervolting the CPU via Windows software (Throttlestop) the CPU core & cache by 90mV and was able to achieve the following results in R15. Multicore: 685-702.  Single-Core: 175-182.    I was able to get better multicore results with 120mV undervolting, but was crashing R15 in the Single-Core test so I wound it back

Quatro GPU:
3Dmark 2011 1028x768: 4600.    My P520 during the 3Dmark sits around 70degrees.


I haven't looked at the thermal paste (dont want to open it up yet), but this may not be necessary for some folks.

Compared to my 13 year old T400 machine, this thing is fantastic, the build quality and plastics are better. If your a techo and dont mind tweaking this is a great machine.

70 degrees C that is.

[Izzat Ismadi]

This is my first Thinkpad and I never expect this P43s would be this bad in terms of performace. Thermal throttles every single time I do 4k streaming in YouTube and got 300-400 points in Cinebench. Then I decided to undervolt the CPU to -1.15 and were able to get a good and better performance. No more thermal throttles and were able to achieve 900-1100 points in cinebench. I think they messed up this thing and should fix it via firmware update or something. I pity for those who doesn't have knowledge on undervolting.

[potatosokawaii]

This is my first Thinkpad and I never expect this P43s would be this bad in terms of performace. Thermal throttles every single time I do 4k streaming in YouTube and got 300-400 points in Cinebench. Then I decided to undervolt the CPU to -1.15 and were able to get a good and better performance. No more thermal throttles and were able to achieve 900-1100 points in cinebench. I think they messed up this thing and should fix it via firmware update or something. I pity for those who doesn't have knowledge on undervolting.

You mean -115mV? I got the same results as urs but I can push up to -120mV stable with repasting. and I got 1100 points in Cinebench on battery and 1400 points on plugged. CPU temp stays up to 60 degree celcius. I have i7-8565u version btw.

[Bakermensch]

So here's the way to at least game on this thing.

Install TPfancontrol

Install Throttlestop

Use TP fan control to jack the fan curve way up (it's still really quiet)

Use throttlestop to disable turbo boost.

This keeps the CPU fan temp way down (but still really performant) and gives the gpu more wiggle room. The GPU should keep 90-95% of its stock clock speed because what's happening on default settings is the old 14nm architecture it hogging all the thermal allowance of their meagre cooling solution.

Using these settings my GPU core clock stayed between 1300mhz and 1430 mhz and allowed the two games I tested (DayZ and Dying Light) to play as one would expect on say an MX150. Previously these two titles were unplayable.

Hope this helps