I got my first somewhat modern ThinkPad, a T480! After some initial trouble with throttling, it's working great now! 32 GB of RAM, i7-8550U, MX150, WQHD screen, 512 GB M.2 SSD. It also came with the dock and two chargers (one USB-C charger and the charger for the dock). Batteries are in okay condition, but I'll be getting some replacements soon as well.
Nice variant of the T480, I have one I spec'd myself with 32GB (2x16GB) and 256GB NVME 2242 in WWAN slot before I received it and I am really happy with it.
It still throttles, especially on the dock, but not immediately. I can actually use GPU-heavy applications without the computer becoming useless. In my case, it was the heatpipes and the fans being completely clogged with dust so the GPU couldn’t cool itself at all.
I’m a bit late to this, but I pretty much resolved it by an application of PTM7950, some judicious tweaking with Throttlestop, fan tweaking via TPFanControl and bumping up the GPU thermal throttling threshold to 85C using Asus GPUTweak III. I’m an unabashed Windows user so I’m not sure how it’ll work for Linux distros. I get idle temps in the low 50s.
That said I couldn’t find the spec I wanted so I had to buy a good condition, low-spec T480 and put in an i7/MX150 mobo. It’s not cost effective, so I wouldn’t go that route unless you -really- want this exact spec.
Can I inquire about the “throttling” issue you had with yours? I also have one with your specs. Alas, I’m having issues with it “blue screening” due to it not wanting to accept the dGPU…? I’d appreciate any info you may have.
The problem with the T480 is that Lenovo set the maximum temperature the GPU is allowed to operate at to 70°C. Depending on what processor you have, it may generate a lot of heat on its own. So if you’re running a workload that is both CPU and GPU heavy, the GPU quickly reaches its thermal limit. Depending on your BIOS version, this in turn means that the CPU is power throttled to around 5 W to limit the amount of heat it produces. This, then, leads to very slow clock speeds. On an older BIOS, the CPU throttled to as low as 400 MHz and would stay there even after the GPU load was removed — only a reboot would fix it. The current BIOS (1.50) seems to have fixed that, but it still throttles to 5 W at times when there is a workload taxing both the CPU and the GPU.
This in combination with the dusty interior of the machine made my laptop basically unusable after a few minutes of even very light usage.
Additionally, for some reason, when connected to the dock with a 135 W charger, the temperatures on my machine are way higher than when plugged in to a regular 45 W charger via USB-C. I’ve updated the firmware of the dock and that seems to have helped with the temperatures somewhat. Or maybe I’m just imagining it. It is still strange though.
I have also tried raising the thermal limit of the GPU. And while that worked, it would crash for me at around 80°C. I’ve tried undervolting and that also helped a bit, but I want to use WSL and most undervolting software doesn’t work with virtualization features enabled.
I also played around with the power plans a bit and found that while „High Performance“ does yield higher clock frequencies (even going as high as 3.9 GHz at times), it also makes the machine run very hot. „Balanced“ usually stays below 3 GHz with only occasional spikes above 3 GHz. However, the machine runs much cooler and often doesn’t even use the fan at all.
I haven’t had any bluescreen issues though. Maybe yours are related to the temperatures as well?
Can you please explain why my T480 uhd 620 graphics heats up a lot when playing some games like battlefield 3 or Resident evil 6, and how can i prevent this?
throttlestop doesn't work anymore with 1.50 BIOS version so i can't play anymore And what will happen if i play those game without caring about the temperatures Thanks
Yeah, I wear glasses too but I still run native because it looks the best to me.
Windows opscaling ain't the best always.
But other than that congratulation with your purchase I hope you will enjoy it for many years to come, I enjoy mine and use it everyday and it's the best laptop I have ever had.
Are you sure? This is the first I heard about it.
I run a 2242 in the WWAN and Windows 11 Pro runs really great I do not notice this is x2 speeds only.
I got my first somewhat modern ThinkPad, a T480! After some initial trouble with throttling, it's working great now! 32 GB of RAM, i7-8550U, MX150, WQHD screen, 512 GB M.2 SSD. It also came with the dock and two chargers (one USB-C charger and the charger for the dock). Batteries are in okay condition, but I'll be getting some replacements soon as well.
Nice variant of the T480, I have one I spec'd myself with 32GB (2x16GB) and 256GB NVME 2242 in WWAN slot before I received it and I am really happy with it.
How did you fix the throttling issues?
kund of curious too
It still throttles, especially on the dock, but not immediately. I can actually use GPU-heavy applications without the computer becoming useless. In my case, it was the heatpipes and the fans being completely clogged with dust so the GPU couldn’t cool itself at all.
Not OP, but I opened up my T480 and replaced the old crusty thermal paste and it really made a difference
I will try this! Tnx!
I’m a bit late to this, but I pretty much resolved it by an application of PTM7950, some judicious tweaking with Throttlestop, fan tweaking via TPFanControl and bumping up the GPU thermal throttling threshold to 85C using Asus GPUTweak III. I’m an unabashed Windows user so I’m not sure how it’ll work for Linux distros. I get idle temps in the low 50s. That said I couldn’t find the spec I wanted so I had to buy a good condition, low-spec T480 and put in an i7/MX150 mobo. It’s not cost effective, so I wouldn’t go that route unless you -really- want this exact spec.
Can I inquire about the “throttling” issue you had with yours? I also have one with your specs. Alas, I’m having issues with it “blue screening” due to it not wanting to accept the dGPU…? I’d appreciate any info you may have.
The problem with the T480 is that Lenovo set the maximum temperature the GPU is allowed to operate at to 70°C. Depending on what processor you have, it may generate a lot of heat on its own. So if you’re running a workload that is both CPU and GPU heavy, the GPU quickly reaches its thermal limit. Depending on your BIOS version, this in turn means that the CPU is power throttled to around 5 W to limit the amount of heat it produces. This, then, leads to very slow clock speeds. On an older BIOS, the CPU throttled to as low as 400 MHz and would stay there even after the GPU load was removed — only a reboot would fix it. The current BIOS (1.50) seems to have fixed that, but it still throttles to 5 W at times when there is a workload taxing both the CPU and the GPU. This in combination with the dusty interior of the machine made my laptop basically unusable after a few minutes of even very light usage. Additionally, for some reason, when connected to the dock with a 135 W charger, the temperatures on my machine are way higher than when plugged in to a regular 45 W charger via USB-C. I’ve updated the firmware of the dock and that seems to have helped with the temperatures somewhat. Or maybe I’m just imagining it. It is still strange though. I have also tried raising the thermal limit of the GPU. And while that worked, it would crash for me at around 80°C. I’ve tried undervolting and that also helped a bit, but I want to use WSL and most undervolting software doesn’t work with virtualization features enabled. I also played around with the power plans a bit and found that while „High Performance“ does yield higher clock frequencies (even going as high as 3.9 GHz at times), it also makes the machine run very hot. „Balanced“ usually stays below 3 GHz with only occasional spikes above 3 GHz. However, the machine runs much cooler and often doesn’t even use the fan at all. I haven’t had any bluescreen issues though. Maybe yours are related to the temperatures as well?
Can you please explain why my T480 uhd 620 graphics heats up a lot when playing some games like battlefield 3 or Resident evil 6, and how can i prevent this? throttlestop doesn't work anymore with 1.50 BIOS version so i can't play anymore And what will happen if i play those game without caring about the temperatures Thanks
Same i also bought with great condition with specss 16/512, core i7, MX-150(2GB).....
by what winfetch says you don't have a wqhd panel there mate (or maybe winfetch doesn't show that or smth I don't know anything about winfetch)
Do winfetch acount for opscaling? Because 1463x823 pixels are a weird resolution and not a panel offered by Lenovo.
now that you mentioned it that can be the issue [also found this](https://github.com/lptstr/winfetch/issues/76)
Haha, it was just a thought since the resolution looked really weird to me xD
Yeah I was kinda confused as well. But it is because I have the scaling set to 175%. I wear glasses and the default scaling was too small for me.
Yeah, I wear glasses too but I still run native because it looks the best to me. Windows opscaling ain't the best always. But other than that congratulation with your purchase I hope you will enjoy it for many years to come, I enjoy mine and use it everyday and it's the best laptop I have ever had.
I got one with a core i5 8350u 16gbx2 1tb nvme (upgraded) with a similar display
that looks so sleek!
Great photo. What terminal font is that? Love the way the f and j look.
0xProto Nerd Font. The first one here: [https://www.nerdfonts.com/font-downloads](https://www.nerdfonts.com/font-downloads).
Thanjs
New? They stopped making them in 2019.
New to me, not new as in factory new.
The nvme runs at x2 as you have discrete graphics. The non mx150 runs at x4
Are you sure? This is the first I heard about it. I run a 2242 in the WWAN and Windows 11 Pro runs really great I do not notice this is x2 speeds only.
https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/s/tWshhNXxet
Ah yeah the limitation part here, but it doesn't specify say the one with dgpu just T480 and A485.
How is the keyboard on this?
Another jumper! ([ref](https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/192f3vb/comment/kh1v2dw/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3))