Lenovo ThinkPad E585 - Ryzen 2500U/Vega 8 - Review, Impressions, Linux, etc

Tempting… I must admit.

I’ve had similar problems with Asus in the past, and can vouch for how crappy waiting months for hardware is.

I used to own a Dell Latitude E5530, and while it did run like crap towards it’s end of life, Dell honored their warranty policy and everything. The drive ended up failing (my fault) and by that time it was pretty old hardware and just wasn’t fast enough for me so I ended up selling it.

My problem with Dell is I’ve always felt like I was paying a $100-200 premium in comparison to other brands just for their badge of honor. But I guess the peace of mind is worth it overall.

It really is hit or miss. Was looking at a 17 inch Inspiron with the 2500U, but with the specs I wanted it was a $850 investment after a student discount. Have a hard time justifying that when I can get laptops with 1050 Tis and 1060s for that price. Hell, I’ve seen laptops with 1070s secondhand run for that.

@Zippy_Parmesian. About the premium tag you mention. My experience: Dell is competitive in price. I kind of worked with Dell and HP (software, not hardware). I perceive Dell has been always cheaper or giving a little bit more punch for the price.

About this conversation thread. Worth to mention new products are available:

  • ThinkPad A485

  • ThinkPad A285

Both are business models (with Ryzen PRO, Mobile APU). I like them because they sell by default with 3 years warranty. AND with a small extra (71 EUROS), consumer gets 48 hours repair service in-situ (for 3 years). If the company honours that service: it is the way to go. And the premium price is acceptable.

If anyone has this laptop and can use OBS Studio 23, I need something checked:

Does AMD VCN (VCE) work with VAAPI on the Vega 8 and Vega 10 iGPUs? There are sparse to no reports for the 2400G too.

@FurryJackman Yep it sure does, I tested for you. I compiled latest and it works fine. Encoder level tops out at 1080p60. I’m glad to discover this myself, so thank you for the heads up

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How’s the quality at 6000kbps for Twitch streaming at 1080p 60.00fps? If it’s decent, this would make a perfect 2nd system encoder.

Twitch enforces keyframes every 2 seconds so that could be a factor in quality.

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6000kbps is great at 1080p60.

15% (as reported by OBS) is the highest I saw the CPU get during an active stream… usually hovering between 9-11%. GPU temps remained low. Stream looks perfect on twitch, coming through at the full 1080p60.

I’m not a streamer, so I set up a Big Buck Bunny video to stream at 1080p60@6000kbps (the BBB video was also 1080p60; source file here)

This is on linux but i’m sure windows is similar. Performance with VAAPI is very good with this 2500U.

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I’m looking for Linux results, so that’s promising. I could use my Avermedia ExtremeCap UVC and Zoom H5, and Razer Kiyo to do 2nd system.

Stay tuned for a big update guys. I just ordered a 300 nit, 120hz 8-bit 72% NTSC display to replace the mediocre display on this laptop. Supposedly it works. Hopefully it works. :joy:

Reference model is AUO B156HAN04.5, but it’s not actual AUO brand, I wasn’t able to find it for sale in individual quantities, so I got an off-brand that claims exact specifications from Aliexpress (this one)

http://www.panelook.com/B156HAN04.5_AUO_15.6_LCM_overview_33006.html

I will of course update you guys if it works, along with disassembly info/pics, impact on battery life, etc. It’s Aliexpress, so it may take a while to get here.

The panel didn’t fit, it was a few millimeters too wide but otherwise exactly the same. Sorry for the delay, my order got stuck in china for 2 months. I didn’t research the dimensions well enough, so I threw $114 down the toilet. Oh well.

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Hi everyone,
Did anyone ever get around the resume-from- suspend problem? It drives me nuts… my system is
Ryzen 2700u/Vega10 E585
16GB RAM, 512GB SSD,
with Ubuntu 18.04.2 running kernel 5.0 (I upgraded from 4.15 to see if it helps),
UEFI Firmware version 1.48 (also updated to see if it helps, laptop came with 1.45)
The only boot parameter I use is ivrs_ioapic[32]=00:14.0, since the others dont seem to make a difference. Linux works fine as far as I can tell (havent tried bluetooth yet, I heard that is also a problem) but when I close the lid, I sometimes can wake with no problem, but every third or fourth wake results in a black screen, fan/processor sound awake so I guess this is a graphics driver problem. so I tried installing the latest AMD tarballs (both pro and non-pro drivers for linux, which both only install with an error at the end about a failed dynamic kernel service although the necessary DKMS packages are indeed installed) but to no avail.

Did anyone figure it out?
Cheers

I still have the wake issue occasionally. It got better after some graphics updates somewhat recently. Use the padoka ppa if you’re not already… I use padoka unstable.

I used to have the black screen wake issue about half the time my laptop suspended, but now I get it maybe 10% of the time. So, it’s not perfect, but it’s better. I also only use the ivrs parameter, and also on kernel 5.0 and Ubuntu 18.04 (KDE Neon).

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thanks for the tip. such a pity that there was never a complete fix from AMD/Lenovo (I don’t even know who to blame)

I think the blame is on Lenovo. Lenovo supports linux on the A485 (also 2500U), and I’m pretty sure those guys have perfectly functioning laptops right now. Their bios updates actually have linux fixes in them.

I would have gone with the A-series but a keypad was essential for me and 14" is smaller than I prefer. I wanted to support AMD so I didn’t have a lot to pick from.

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Always Lenovo.

E595 is now available at Lenovo US.

https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpad-e-series/E595/p/22TP2TEE595

Edit: and Lenovo Canada too!

https://www.lenovo.com/ca/en/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpad-e-series/E595/p/22TP2TEE595

Yo mate!

Any update on your display stuff? I would be really glad if your mentioned display would fit and work perfectly :smiley:

Only one question op( and not only op anybody can answer if he wants ), have you tested the battery duration in Linux or in Windows ?
Can you pls give me the watts used in Linux with" sudo cpupower “(connected to the batter only) when the pc is idle but with screen on, and can you give the info of” cpupower frequency-info "and “lscpu”?
I think the problem of the battery is not problem of Lenovo or the pc, is Linux bad values and work for ryzen mobile because my Asus with 3550h ryzen 5 and and rx560 have 10 hours of battery in Windows and ONLY 5 in Linux because in idle Linux is using 12 W and windows 5… There is a big problem in Linux with ryzen mobile. It is ruining battery’s and laptop usage…

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