Lenovo ThinkPad P14s Gen 4 w/ AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 7840U Running Nicely On Linux

[Random_Jerk]

So is 7840u is more powerful than Intel 1355u but less reliable?

In my opinion, the 7xxx series mobile APU's generally seems to be less reliable in Linux. I have Lenovo AIO with Ryzen 7530U along with a 7735U Reimbrandt laptop, and both of them encounter major stability issues on Linux.

[adaptec]

I have EliteBook 845 G10 with Ryzen 7840U and have problem with idle power consuption. I found problem with ASPM is disabled. Under Ubuntu 23.10 and Windows 11. It's not same problem with Thinkpad p14s g4? I can't enable it with =force parameter in boot options.

[860lacov]

Could somebody share a link for experimental bios?

[860lacov]

bumpp

[Zlapsa]

A number of hours but no accurate estimate to relay at the moment, due to playing around a lot with the platform profiles... Now that the main benchmarking is complete will have time to do more other tests. Or in like 2 weeks will be at an event with the laptop likely, so will be able to provide a real-world estimate in use.

Same here! Just arrived P14s gen 4 and cannot change PowerProfile! Can you share experimental bios with us to fix this issue?

[Zlapsa]

Could somebody share a link for experimental bios?

After few tests I managed to get profiles working, but, of course, is weird way.

It seems that it is a bug in bios (or maybe in kernel?), because installing 22.04+HWE kernel and in there - power profiles work fine (checked with stress + sensors app). After digging deeper - installed mainline kernel app and started to experiment with kernels. Power profiles work till 6.2.16 kernel, so I am sticking with it, because Lenovo did not published BIOS update yet.
P.S. Still cannot get dual boot working - Windows is fine, but while ubuntu installation went fine - there is no entry in UEFI boot menu So I cannot boot linux. I did not had problems with my old T14s gen 1 like this.

[CrownOf12Stars]

Michael, if you had to take a guess, how long do you think battery life is on this machine if you turn on those power saving settings and do some office work or web browsing?

I've got one of these laptops - a lower spec though (32GB RAM, 1920x1200 display, not OLED) - battery life isn't great at the moment. I'm running Fedora Workstation Beta 39 (38 wouldn't boot off live USB for me), and get about 4 hours of light usage (things like web browsing, note taking, coding web-based things that don't require compiling). But I don't have any experimental BIOS installed, I imagine that it will improve with time. I didn't have Windows on it for very long, but looked like it'd get about 7hrs on Windows. Performance is very good though. And because it's got USB-C charging, I just keep a spare charger in my bag so the battery isn't an issue for me.

[CrownOf12Stars]

After few tests I managed to get profiles working, but, of course, is weird way.

It seems that it is a bug in bios (or maybe in kernel?), because installing 22.04+HWE kernel and in there - power profiles work fine (checked with stress + sensors app). After digging deeper - installed mainline kernel app and started to experiment with kernels. Power profiles work till 6.2.16 kernel, so I am sticking with it, because Lenovo did not published BIOS update yet.
P.S. Still cannot get dual boot working - Windows is fine, but while ubuntu installation went fine - there is no entry in UEFI boot menu So I cannot boot linux. I did not had problems with my old T14s gen 1 like this.

How is battery life on 22.04+HWE Kernel?

[Zlapsa]

How is battery life on 22.04+HWE Kernel?

Bare in mind that I am so-so at hardware and deep-dive linux, so take all my word with a big grain of salt. And sorry for my bad english.

I got 7840U+64G+512G (swapped on unboxing with 990 PRO 2TB), no WWAN card, no SMART-CARD.

Battery life is awful, in my use case powertop says I am using ~13W (WIFI+BT ON, 50% of OLED brightness) of power, and it is exactly 4h on full battery - this is WITH 22.04d OEM kernel 6.5, where I activated amd-pstate=active. In HWE 6.2 (amd-pstate=passive) kernel it seems that it is a bit more juice, but not much! +1 maybe +2W, but I am not sure 100%.

On 6.5 22.04d OEM kernel I am stuck on Power Saver profile because of a bug. Latest BIOS is 1.13, dated 22.september - so now almost november - NO FIX! It takes waaay toooo long for Lenovo!

If I am using 6.2 HWE then power profiles are working and they are nice, BUT I think this is worst part of P14s - unbalanced profiles - middle and lower is WAY to high! Let me explain:
As I tested - Performance profile is 32W and peak burst 40W, Balanced 32W and peak 36W and Power Saver is 24W and peak 30W. --- and this is worst part, because as I can tell in other reviews of P14s gen 3 (prev. gen) - bios profiles stayed in the same range, but T14 version is a bit more balanced - it has 14W max at lowest profile - so you can easily use it if you want to stay silent - fans will be in decent speed/level. In P14s even silent mode (because of 24W CPU consumption!!!) it is windmill! And noise is unacceptable for me.
It seems that I am in a trap - I am very noise sensitive, because all I wanted is T14 G4 with 64GB of ram and I was able to check T14 G3 AMD before my purchase from my friend - it was a bit/lot more silent!

Compared to my old T14s gen1 AMD this is just noise machine So I digged deeper and installed thinkfan, editing fan speeds based on temperature - so it stays warmer, but ALMOST SILENT in day-to day use, while I am not saving something big on disk or using virtual machines.

It wold be 10000% nicer if Lenovo would make more wider profiles, but I think because of P series nature, as they call it "Mobile workstation" it is moved towards more power-hungry modes even in Battery Saver mode so it makes sense from marketing, but from me - not much.

P.S. I am sticking with these kernels (6.2 HWE and 6.5 OEM) because I am using Encrypted ZFS on Ubuntu and my knowlege is low to install other upper kernels, for example, from mainline kernels - there is no zfs module. So - maybe with newer kernels (and BIOS updates) battery life will be better. Fingers Crossed!

P.S.S. For a year with my T14s gen 1 AMD I was taking with me mobile powerbank: 65W 74Wh - so with usable ~60Wh after energy conversion I am able to charge this notebook 0-100 for one time plus my S22 Ultra a bit Sometimes it helps massively! Recommending this solution especially for this laptop!

[estrafire]

A number of hours but no accurate estimate to relay at the moment, due to playing around a lot with the platform profiles... Now that the main benchmarking is complete will have time to do more other tests. Or in like 2 weeks will be at an event with the laptop likely, so will be able to provide a real-world estimate in use.

Have you kept using the device? Looks like there're some configs that can be done to optimize the battery. Included using dark mode and going for high contrast wherever possible. I wonder how much of it could be replaced eventually to help battery (IE there's a low power display version of this laptop, if the oled one gives in, it might be possible to replace it with the lower res/quality/power one). The same goes for the battery and the higher cells versions. I don't know how Lenovo handled these things on older Thinkpads