Any advice on a new P51?

[Edward Mendelson]

I was curious about the battleship-style ThinkPads but never owned one, so I put in a minimum (really low) bid on what seems to be a top-of-the-line Intel P51, forgot that I had made the bid, and ended up with a new-in-open-box P51, with the coin-cell battery replaced by the seller. It's a superb machine, though not something to throw in a shoulder-bag when traveling, but it's exactly right for sitting on the sofa and getting some work done.

After booting to the Windows 10 install and updating the BIOS, etc., I installed Windows 11 (using Rufus.exe, using its options to create a local account and skip over the requirements which the P51 can't meet), and it seems to work perfectly.

Can anyone suggest any Lenovo software that belongs on this system? The manual-download driver page offers dozens of things without making clear what's essential. I installed Lenovo Commercial Vantage, the Pantone color calibrator and hotkey integration, but what else?

[TPFanatic]

wouldn't bother with any other lenovo software. Vantage is all it really needs, and Vantage will take care of updating itself if you agree for it to work as intended.

If you wanted to go off the grid, I'd do the power manager workaround.

I occasionally carry my P71 around in a Lenovo toploader 17" bag. It actually only barely fits in the bag. Should fit a P51 just fine though. Rest of the time I keep P71 tethered to its bottom workstation dock. I have an RTX 3060 hooked up by eGPU and a USBC-ethernet adapter, in addition to the ethernet on the laptop itself, so I have wired communication between the P71 and my other two dormpads, T430 and X330.

[Edward Mendelson]

If you wanted to go off the grid, I'd do the power manager workaround.

Thank you for this advice. I was hoping that Vantage would be enough.

I don't plan on going off the grip, but what is the "power manager workaround"??

And one more P51-related question: is there a USB-C to slim tip adapter than can handle the 135+ watts that the P51 seems to want for charging??

[TPFanatic]

The advice from this thread applies to getting Power Manager installed on Win 10, not sure if it'd work on Win 11 but worth a shot if you like it enough (like myself). I'm unlikely to use Win 11 personally unless it's handed to me a work computer. I'm getting by with, albeit also quite pee'd off with, my installs of Win 10 Pro. I'm just too lazy to reinstall everything over with Win Server/Enterprise and don't desire to adopt Linux quite yet. So what just works, will continue to just work for me. Apologies for hijacking your thread.

https://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.p ... er+Manager

[RealBlackStuff]

You can get such adapters here: https://www.ebay.ie/itm/155441990399
It gives you a wide choice in the Connector:Select box there.
140W 11mm→USB C For Lenovo Thi... <<-- this is what you want
100W 11mm→USB C For Lenovo Thi...
100W 11mm→USB C For Lenovo Thi...
65W 11mm→USB C For Lenovo Thin...
65W 11mm→USB C For Lenovo Thin...
140W 7.9mm→USB C For Lenovo Th...
100W 7.9mm→USB C For Lenovo Th...
100W 7.9mm→USB C For Lenovo Th...
65W 7.9mm→USB C For Lenovo Thi...

The 11mm→USB C are the slim-tip adapters.
The 7.9mm→USB C are the barrel tip adapters.

[Edward Mendelson]

@realblackstuff - I think that's the opposite of what I'm looking for. I'm trying to find an adapter that I can use with an existing USB-C charger, so that I can use the USB-C charger to charge the P51 via a USB-C-->slim tip adapter. Am I getting this wrong?

[RealBlackStuff]

This is the closest (100W) that I could find: https://www.ebay.ie/itm/375283120936
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Adapter-Square ... B09PJWGQ7R
135W input may be too much...

Found another one (140W): https://www.amazon.com/SinLoon-Charging ... B0D1FQRTLX
Shoot, wrong way around...

[TPFanatic]

I recognize the trade-offs of a bulky workstation charger. But if nothing else I would rejoice that the P51's slim-tip port is going to be more durable than any USB-C.

RBS, that adapter won't help P51, since it does not support charging over USB-C.

[Edward Mendelson]

I think I'm going to have to use the Lenovo charger, because none of the USB-C-->slim-tip adapters seem to be capable of more than 90 or 100 watts. It's not a disaster...!

@rbs - the 140W model goes in the wrong direction, alas: slim-tip-->USB-C.

[TPFanatic]

Should the onboard port kick the bucket, you can supplant it with a P51 workstation dock. P51 is also somewhat compatible with the old cs13 docks.

[Edward Mendelson]

The advice from this thread applies to getting Power Manager installed on Win 10, not sure if it'd work on Win 11 but worth a shot if you like it enough (like myself). I'm unlikely to use Win 11 personally unless it's handed to me a work computer. I'm getting by with, albeit also quite pee'd off with, my installs of Win 10 Pro. I'm just too lazy to reinstall everything over with Win Server/Enterprise and don't desire to adopt Linux quite yet. So what just works, will continue to just work for me. Apologies for hijacking your thread.

https://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.p ... er+Manager

As far as I can tell, the Power Manager features (threshold settings, etc.) are now built into Windows 11. That may be why the Power Manager isn't available for Windows 11. Am I missing something significant (as is very probable)?

[TPFanatic]

likely not, in that case. good on MS for prolonging battery life if true.