Legion Pro 7 16IRX9H is overheating

[mhladkykh]

Hello guys!
I've been tuning my Lenovo Legion Pro 7i (i9-14900HX, RTX 4070) to reduce thermal throttling and maintain consistent performance under load. While I’ve made significant progress, I’m still seeing performance differences when adjusting ICC Max and would appreciate feedback from the community on further improvements.
I’ve lowered ICC Max from 240 A to 215 A to help with temperatures and applied a custom fan curve using Legion Toolkit, avoiding Legion Vantage entirely. I’ve also disabled Windows Defender and removed unnecessary background apps. Additionally, I tested an external cooler (Llano V12), but it didn’t make a noticeable difference in temperatures.
Currently, I experience almost no thermal throttling, but reducing ICC Max still has a noticeable impact on performance — for instance, Cinebench R23 scores drop when ICC Max is set lower. When I return ICC Max to the default setting, performance improves, but the CPU quickly hits its thermal limit again.

Screenshots:​

Here’s a full album showing my ThrottleStop settings, thermal logs, and benchmarks:
Image Album – ThrottleStop Settings and Thermal Data

Any suggestions or tweaks that could help me strike a better balance between thermals and performance would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

 

[FreedomEclipse]

Open it up and replace the thermal paste with PTM7950.

 

[OolongGoat]

Along with what Freedom recommended. That cooling pad should have helped quite a bit, I have a similar one for my Alienware and it works wonderfully. Especially when you get the foam seal right.

 

[lambda]

I'm running a Lenovo Legion Slim 7 with 12700H + 3050ti, nowhere near as power hungry as your setup but still used runs kinda hot.

I cleaned out the heatsinks (dust) and repasted with MX4, worked for a week and I was back to fairly high idle temps.

Finally got myself a PTM 7950 alternative (Thermalright Helios) and my idle temps are a lot better. I no longer get thermal throttled running at full wattage although the temps are 95C (previously they were 110C + throttling).

---
Reading your post again I realize that thermals are not an issue for you.

Might be worth hopping onto the Legion Discord server and asking for recommendations.

 

[mhladkykh]

Open it up and replace the thermal paste with PTM7950.

I didn't mention that I have a premium support and I convinced them to come and replace a heat sink and liquid metal. I saw that liquid metal is not only on chip but out as well (probably a guy on factory had a bad mood that day lol) and print from CPU in not smooth.

 

[mhladkykh]

I'm running a Lenovo Legion Slim 7 with 12700H + 3050ti, nowhere near as power hungry as your setup but still used runs kinda hot.

I cleaned out the heatsinks (dust) and repasted with MX4, worked for a week and I was back to fairly high idle temps.

Finally got myself a PTM 7950 alternative (Thermalright Helios) and my idle temps are a lot better. I no longer get thermal throttled running at full wattage although the temps are 95C (previously they were 110C + throttling).

---
Reading your post again I realize that thermals are not an issue for you.

Might be worth hopping onto the Legion Discord server and asking for recommendations.

I has a new heat sink perfectly cleaned with new liquid metal and paste, you can check my previous comment. I think thermals is the exact problem, before last bios update I was able to push undervolt much lower: CPU package -160, CPU P cache -140 and I was getting 35k in R23 but now if I'm going to undervolt it lower I'm getting a blue screen.

 

[mhladkykh]

Along with what Freedom recommended. That cooling pad should have helped quite a bit, I have a similar one for my Alienware and it works wonderfully. Especially when you get the foam seal right.

What I heard is that Legion cool flow is different and pads are not really helping for that model

 

[eidairaman1]

What I heard is that Legion cool flow is different and pads are not really helping for that model

All mobiles suck because they just cant stay cool.

 

[lambda]

I has a new heat sink perfectly cleaned with new liquid metal and paste, you can check my previous comment. I think thermals is the exact problem, before last bios update I was able to push undervolt much lower: CPU package -160, CPU P cache -140 and I was getting 35k in R23 but now if I'm going to undervolt it lower I'm getting a blue screen.

What are the CPU temps like when you Run R23 multi-core?

 

[mhladkykh]

All mobiles suck because they just cant stay cool.

And that's weird to me, my GPU can pull same amount of energy and be cool (80-85 degree) but I'm not that technical to know if there is a difference.

 

[mhladkykh]

What are the CPU temps like when you Run R23 multi-core?

That's a result after 5m test in multicore, 23% throttle while in average pulling 130W of power. Also average results of core clocks looks pretty low to me.
If I'm applying ICC Max 240 ---> 215 I have less temps but same amount of power and results in rc23 are about 31-32k

 

[OolongGoat]

What I heard is that Legion cool flow is different and pads are not really helping for that model

I’d be curious to see how their air flow is different. Most laptops pull in from the bottom and sides, exhausting out of the back and top of the chassis.

Based on the pictures it appears to be pretty conventional.

 

[mhladkykh]

I’d be curious to see how their air flow is different. Most laptops pull in from the bottom and sides, exhausting out of the back and top of the chassis.

Based on the pictures it appears to be pretty conventional.

But in my case it's not improving anything, on max RMP settings (2800 per minute) I have 1-2 degree improvement and still getting throttling.

 

[OolongGoat]

I just watched a teardown of your laptop. That vented bottom panel with a proper seal on that cooler should definitely be helping. What do you have the laptop fans at when the pad is in use?? You are using the Lenovo software I would imagine?

 

[mhladkykh]

I just watched a teardown of your laptop. That vented bottom panel with a proper seal on that cooler should definitely be helping. What do you have the laptop fans at when the pad is in use?? You are using the Lenovo software I would imagine?

No I don’t use Lenovo app, I don’t like when a lot of unnecessary services are running in background: https://github.com/BartoszCichecki/LenovoLegionToolkit
I’ve set a custom curve

 

[OolongGoat]

Looking over what you have done a second time, the 215A limit is what I would keep it at. If it isn’t throttling at that point and you are able to do what you need to do with it, leave it alone.

That CPU is quite power hungry and as noted, that heatsink and cooling system aren’t going to handle it full tilt plus the GPU.

Are you gaming?? What resolution are you running the laptop at? Does it have a G-Sync panel??

 

[mhladkykh]

Looking over what you have done a second time, the 215A limit is what I would keep it at. If it isn’t throttling at that point and you are able to do what you need to do with it, leave it alone.

That CPU is quite power hungry and as noted, that heatsink and cooling system aren’t going to handle it full tilt plus the GPU.

Are you gaming?? What resolution are you running the laptop at? Does it have a G-Sync panel??

I’m also thinking to keep limit on 215A,
If there is someone around who knows about this model I would try to make sure that the cooling system is in proper contact with the processor. But I also can't understand why after the last bios update I can't lower offset voltage values as I could do before, can it affect or each chip is unique and if someone can lower it to -150 and someone else at a higher value?