Lenovo ThinkPad P53

Resources

Product Information

Official Support Page

Specifications

Specifications (by region)

Hardware Maintenance Manual

User Guide

BIOS Setup

ThinkPad P series

Installing Linux to Thinkpads is mostly easy. Even more so, since Lenovo started official support for Linux on a number of systems.

The installation using a Gentoo installation media works perfectly as described in the Handbook.

Almost all of the P53 hardware is supported in kernel or by installing additional drivers from Portage. Due to the muxed GPU hardware and the decent IOMMU layout of the P53, this laptop is also a good candidate for advanced configurations like GPU passthrough in QEMU.

Hardware

System Model Verfication

root #dmidecode -s system-version

ThinkPad P53

Lenovo ThinkPad P53

Device	Make/model	Status	Bus ID	Kernel driver(s)	Notes
CPU	Intel i7-9750H series	Works	N/A	mcore2	None
Ethernet	Intel I219-V	Works	00:1f.6	e1000e	None
WiFi	Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX200	Works	52:00.0	iwlwifi	None
Bluetooth	Intel Wireless Bluetooth	Works	N/A	btusb	None
Touchpad	SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad	Works	N/A	synaptics	None
SD Card Reader	RTS525A	Works	54:00.0	rtsx_pci	None
Integrated Video card	Intel UHD 630	Works	00:02.0	intel i965	None
Second Video card	NVIDIA Quadro T2000M	Works	01:00.0	N/A	Needs Nvidia drivers

Accessories

Device	Make/model	Status	Bus ID	Kernel driver(s)	Notes
Docking Station	Thinkpad Thunderbold 3 Dock	Works	N/A	hotplug_pci_acpi	Using LAN over Thunderbold does not work great all the time.

Configuration

CPU

It is recommended to enable the microcode update support as explained in Intel microcode.

KERNEL Kernel 5.10.52 (gentoo-sources)

Processor type and features  --->
  Processor family (Generic-x86-64)
  [*] CPU microcode loading support
  [*]   Intel microcode loading support

Power

KERNEL Kernel 5.10.52 (gentoo-sources)

Power management and ACPI options  --->
  [*] ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface) Support  --->
    <*> AC Adapter
    <*> Battery
    <*> Button
    <*> Video
    <*> Fan
    <*> Dock
CPU Frequency scaling  --->
    <*> CPU Frequency Transition Statistics
    Default CPUFreq governor (performance)
    <*> 'performance' governor
    <*> 'powersave' governor
    [*] Intel P state control

Hardware monitoring

KERNEL Kernel 5.10.52 (gentoo-sources)

Device Drivers  --->
  [*] X86 Platform Specific Device Drivers  --->
    <*> ThinkPad ACPI Laptop Extras
  {*} Hardware Monitoring Support  --->
    <*> Intel Core/Core2/Atom temperature sensor

Networking

KERNEL Kernel 5.10.52 (gentoo-sources)

Networking support  --->
  <*> Wireless  --->
    <*> cfg80211 - wireless configuration API -->
      <*> cfg80211 - wireless extensions compatability
    <*> Generic IEEE 802.11 Networking Stack (mac80211)
  <*> RF switch subsystem support
Device Drivers  --->
  [*] Network device support  --->
    [*] Ethernet driver support  --->
      [*] Intel devices
        <*> Intel(R) PRO/1000 PCI-Express Gigabit Ethernet support
      [*] Wireless LAN  --->
        [*] Intel devices
          <M> Intel Wireless WiFi Next Gen AGN - Wireless-N/Advanced-N/Ultimate-N (iwlwifi)
          <M> Intel Wireless WiFi DVM Firmware support
          <M> Intel Wireless WiFi MVM Firmware support

Bluetooth

KERNEL Kernel 5.10.52 (gentoo-sources)

Networking support  --->
  Bluetooth subsystem support  --->
    Bluetooth device drivers  --->
      <*> HCI USB driver
Device Drivers  --->
  Generic Driver Options  --->
    Firmware Loader  --->
      intel/ibt-20-1-3.sfi intel/ibt-20-1-3.ddc

It is recommended to globally enable the bluetooth USE Flag in order to make use of this feature it in your system and software.

Storage

KERNEL Kernel 5.10.52 (gentoo-sources)

Device Drivers --->
   NVME Support --->
     <*> NVM Express block device

Graphics

KERNEL Kernel 5.10.52 (gentoo-sources)

Device Drivers  --->
  Graphics support  --->
    [*] Laptop Hybrid Graphics - GPU switching support
    <*> Direct Rendering Manager (XFree86 4.1.0 and higher DRI support)
    < > Nouveau (NVIDIA) cards
    <*> Intel 8xx/9xx/G3x/G4x/HD Graphics
  X86 Platform Specific Device Drivers  --->
    <*> WMI
      <M> WMI support for MXM Laptop Graphics
    <*> ThinkPad ACPI Laptop Extras
      [*] Video output control support

Intel Firmware

You may also want to include the propretary DMC firmware for the GPU.

KERNEL Kernel 5.10.52 (gentoo-sources)

Device Drivers  --->
  Generic Driver Options  --->
    Firmware Loader  --->
      i915/kbl_dmc_ver1_04.bin

Nvidia Drivers

In order to make use of the more powerful Nvidia card, you'll need to install the propretary drivers.

root #emerge nvidia-drivers

See also

• NVIDIA/nvidia-drivers — The x11-drivers/nvidia-drivers package contains the proprietary graphics driver for NVIDIA graphic cards.
• NVIDIA/Optimus — a proprietary technology that seamlessly switches between two GPUs.
• NVIDIA/Bumblebee — an open source implementation of NVIDIA Optimus.
• Lenovo ThinkPad P50
• Lenovo ThinkPad P52

External resources

• https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Lenovo_ThinkPad_P53