Lenovo Legion Windows 11 22H2 ISO

Long story short. Laptop is a few months old. I got this exclusively to DJ live events. It came with Windows 11 22H2. Now here is the rub, I never test it for audio latency using LatencyMon. Figured this thing was over the top from my 8 year old laptop. Anyway last night I was playing some songs with only small vocals and noticed popping. So immediately ran LatencyMon and yes huge amount of latency. Turned up all my power plan settings to performance and no sleep etc. Still massive latency. A couple of weeks back I did so the service pack update via the microsoft update prompt. So while I am not 100% sure if the problem was there or not before, I am in a dire situation as I have a big live event on Sat. I can't have that popping.

Also noticed that the laptop kept showing the need to activate. I would do this just about everyday. It would say fixed and activated. I called Lenovo and they pushed me to MS and MS gave me a robot. Crazy. So I am thinking something went bad when it updated maybe?

I am currently downloading the stock Lenovo img that came with the system. But I was also thinking just download the stock MS iso image which should have less crap in it and then install the Lenovo apps I need. MS has now taking down the 22H2 and only offers 23H2. I went to uupdump to get the iso but can't make heads or tails of all the options like arm64 or amd64.

Anyone have advice on either/or question or what I should try? Specs below image

Thanks in advance



Specs:
Lenovo 16" Legion Pro 7i 16IRX8H
2.2 GHz Intel Core i9 24-Core (13th Gen)
32GB DDR5 RAM
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 (12GB GDDR6)

I don't understand why you want 22H2, when 23H2 is available and your PC will handle it beautifully. You can take the 23H2 from UUP (AMD64, not ARM), or you can get the ISO through the MCT at Microsoft and do an in-place upgrade install, keeping all the stuff you want to keep.

Are you sure that 2.2 GHz figure is correct? I don't think i9 13th gen processors run like that.

First of all go with 23H2 and use MS clean iso. As soon as got windows installed go here:
GitHub - BartoszCichecki/LenovoLegionToolkit: Lightweight Lenovo Vantage and Hotkeys replacement for Lenovo Legion laptops. and install the toolkit. Let windows install all drivers. But for GPU I would recommend 537.58-notebook-win10-win11-64bit-international-dch-whql.exe. (This is known to be most stable and have less latency issue. To make sure you won't have the audio pops and latency issues, when you want to use your laptop for Audio go to lenovo toolkit and choose "Hybrid i-gpu). The sound problems will stop this way. You can switch to D-GPU or normal Hybrid when you want to play games etc.

To get your iso and download it just follow this guide:

I have also attached a power plan you can use for audio. This is what I use when I want to do live playback with Many VSTi. You can import it and give it a try.

+1 DPC latency is mostly caused by driver issues, especially with NVIDIA or AMD GPU's. Removing "crap apps" will improve overall system performance, but it's not the source of your problems.

Thanks for all the input everyone! I will install the 23H2 clean iso install as @rezpower mentioned and report back.

Since I am now in panic mode because of an event coming, I went ahead and tried the lenovo recovery image. My logic was this, I needed a baseline to see if this was a problem from the start. Since I did the 23H2 update as a service pack, figured it could have been the issue. Guess what? The latency issue is still there according to LatencyMon (Big culprit looks like still showing Wdf01000.sys) Before nuking everything, I tried DDU method and clean installed latest nvidia driver used the latest version not 537.58. Also tried full power settings. I'll try the new one rezpower listed above.

The only other thing I forgot to mention is that Lenovo doesn't list this laptop as recommended for the 23H2. 16IRX8H isn't listed, Legions are under the Notebook/ideapad section:

I'm not an audiophile so can be of no help. @Edwin might be the one who can advise you. Hopefully he'll see this tag.

I think I lost my eyes tonight, been doing this since 9am. Got the fresh iso installed. Windows update took care of almost everything. I had to get the intel driver from Lenovo and the Nvidia driver. But I am having a problem installing the Nvidia big driver. It keeps telling me no NVIDIA GPU detected. I installed all drivers under the chipset section to see if would fix the issue and it hasn't. Everything expect the "killer Component"

Then tried DDU in safe mode and then the installer again in windows and nothing. I have not nvidia display adapter in the device manager so the updater can't update. Genius

Apart from upgrading to 23H2 you must download the official audio driver from Lenovo support site and install it. Probably Windows Update replaced it with a newer version, but not quite compatible with your audio hardware. You may want to block any driver updates using Windows Update Show/Hide Tool or Windows Advanced Update Manager (WAU). Search for updates with either utility and check the box to hide (block) the unwanted updates before they are installed.

cloves2023 said:

I think I lost my eyes tonight, been doing this since 9am. Got the fresh iso installed. Windows update took care of almost everything. I had to get the intel driver from Lenovo and the Nvidia driver. But I am having a problem installing the Nvidia big driver. It keeps telling me no NVIDIA GPU detected. I installed all drivers under the chipset section to see if would fix the issue and it hasn't. Everything expect the "killer Component"

Then tried DDU in safe mode and then the installer again in windows and nothing. I have not nvidia display adapter in the device manager so the updater can't update. Genius

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You either downloaded the desktop version of the drivers, you must download the mobile version, or you have customized graphics by Lenovo and you are stuck with their custom graphics drivers. Most likely the first case, make sure you download the mobile version.

Here is the link to the graphic driver :
If you are not much into games and use the laptop for audio or graphic editing etc then you can use this driver which is even more stable:
Now there is something worth mentioning which is: If you want to use your laptop for professional audio tasks the onboard audio will not be enough and it's best to get an external audio device. I personally have a "Steinberg UR44" and I am able to mix more then 40 audio (VST instruments and other audio tracks (including live vocal) and I can play them back or export the result to high quality audio without any issue.
This is done on an older model of Lenovo Legion laptop (2022 model). So you should not have any problems either.

Edit: If for any reason you can't install the older driver I posted then simply go with the latest driver. As I said in my first post the goal is to get your laptop's windows and drivers installed and ready and THEN to disable the nvidia GPU with Legion toolkit WHEN you want to use it for audio tasks. This will allow you to see if the audio problems are fixed or not.

i386 , x86 and 32-Bit are 32 Bit
AMD64 , x64 and 64-bit are 64 bit
ARM64 are 64 bit for ARM processor

Morning everyone, well I can't figure out how to install the Nvidia drivers. I was using the nvidia notebook ones so that isn't the issue. I downloaded all the audio drivers from Lenovo after what @spapakons mentioned. Installed them. In the display I only see intel udh adapter and I am pretty sure I should nvidia there as well.

@rezpower yes, can't get the older or newer installed. Not sure what to even do now I still have to reinstall my audio software. Thanks I should have mentioned I DJ. As far as hardware I uses a pioneer DJM-s9 mixer and it uses ASIO driver. My super old Lenovo Y1505 was my previous laptop, used it for years to DJ. Never had any latency problems. Even when mixing and recording live.

Are you sure you have Intel+nVidia hybrid graphics? Check BIOS, you may have to enable nVidia there first. Also Lenovo might provide both drivers since a slightly different model (different part number) may have nVidia graphics instead of Intel.

cloves2023 said:

Morning everyone, well I can't figure out how to install the Nvidia drivers. I was using the nvidia notebook ones so that isn't the issue. I downloaded all the audio drivers from Lenovo after what @spapakons mentioned. Installed them. In the display I only see intel udh adapter and I am pretty sure I should nvidia there as well.

@rezpower yes, can't get the older or newer installed. Not sure what to even do now I still have to reinstall my audio software. Thanks I should have mentioned I DJ. As far as hardware I uses a pioneer DJM-s9 mixer and it uses ASIO driver. My super old Lenovo Y1505 was my previous laptop, used it for years to DJ. Never had any latency problems. Even when mixing and recording live.

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OK cloves2023, the next thing to try now is to reboot or turn off the laptop, THEN pressing F2 while turning ON your PC to enter bios settings. In the graphic device settings , look and see if its on dynamic or Discrete? put it on Discrete and reboot. see if this time you will see your nvidia device and if you can install the driver. If this did not fix the problem you need to load bios default settings , then save and reboot. And non of this worked then shutdown your laptop and hold the power button for about 30 secs. Laptop will turn ON and then off etc.. don't worry just keep the button pressed down without releasing it.
One of these steps will normally solve the issue.

Thanks @rezpower, I got it working, I still hadn't installed the Toolkit (I blame panic and lack of sleep lol) Once installed that showed a microsoft basic display adapter. Then I installed the nivida driver and it worked.

No I need to install the power setting.

Edit: Hmm so now windows is only showing me 1 energy plan. I don't see a way to make new ones either

So ToolKit is showing me energy plans I set that one to Performance. When I check windows energy plan is showing just 1 and its balanced.


Edit 2: So it looks like the power plan inside of ToolKit isn't really working and the windows is. When I use the function keys I can't make the display brighter. If I use the windows energy plan I can. Anyone know why that is?

Scratch Edit #2. Hitting the wrong shortcut on the board.

Still can't figure which plan is working. LLT or Windows default

Your power plan problem is normal, because you need to install the Lenovo factory power plans yourself (as you did clean OS install).
If you don't have them I will post it for you later as I am not home right now.

Open Powershell as Administrator and execute this code to enable the Ultimate Power Plan:
powercfg -duplicatescheme e9a42b02-d5df-448d-aa00-03f14749eb61

You can Google to find the code for the other plans. The Ultimate Power Plan forces the system to always work at maximum speed (turbo boost always on) and so it maximizes performance. But this is not recommended for a laptop because it drains the battery faster and overheats. Compare a 2-3 hours of watching videos or playing games to 6+ hours idle. Ideal for older laptops that the battery is damaged anyway and you have it connected to the AC power.

spapakons said:

Open Powershell as Administrator and execute this code to enable the Ultimate Power Plan:
powercfg -duplicatescheme e9a42b02-d5df-448d-aa00-03f14749eb61

You can Google to find the code for the other plans. The Ultimate Power Plan forces the system to always work at maximum speed (turbo boost always on) and so it maximizes performance. But this is not recommended for a laptop because it drains the battery faster and overheats. Compare a 2-3 hours of watching videos or playing games to 6+ hours idle. Ideal for older laptops that the battery is damaged anyway and you have it connected to the AC power.

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Lenovo legion laptops have factory power plans that work with vintage (Lenovo software) or the lenovo toolkit.
It's best to have those installed. The lenovo performance mode is sufficient for audio tasks.