Thinkpad P16 Gen 3

[Alyosha2001]

@muede in real life, without the use of the dGPU, keyboard light off and monitor brightness to about 10%, around 7 hours. If you're not in a hurry, I've heard that Panther Lake is way more economic

[Hyper]

When I set the BIOS settings  of my Thinkpad P16 Gen 3 to use my dedicated nVidia graphics card ONLY, my monitor switches to full brightness and the brightness controls of my laptop and Windows do not work anymore. Does anyone know how I can fix this?

[Alyosha2001]

On 1/30/2026 at 10:56 PM, Hyper said:

When I set the BIOS settings  of my Thinkpad P16 Gen 3 to use my dedicated nVidia graphics card ONLY, my monitor switches to full brightness and the brightness controls of my laptop and Windows do not work anymore. Does anyone know how I can fix this?

I tried it and it works just fine, with the battery draining faster, as expected. Maybe it's the BIOS? I'm on 1.11

[JadeRover]

On 1/30/2026 at 9:56 PM, Hyper said:

When I set the BIOS settings  of my Thinkpad P16 Gen 3 to use my dedicated nVidia graphics card ONLY, my monitor switches to full brightness and the brightness controls of my laptop and Windows do not work anymore. Does anyone know how I can fix this?

 

Yes that's a common issue with optimus laptops, reinstalling the current dispay output drivers (in your case dGPU drivers) should do the trick

[Alyosha2001]

Here's another review

[Hyper]

On 2/3/2026 at 2:56 PM, Alyosha2001 said:

I tried it and it works just fine, with the battery draining faster, as expected. Maybe it's the BIOS? I'm on 1.11

 

Which version of the nvidia driver are you using. Do you have a download link to the version that works fine on yours?

[Hyper]

On 2/4/2026 at 4:50 PM, JadeRover said:

 

Yes that's a common issue with optimus laptops, reinstalling the current dispay output drivers (in your case dGPU drivers) should do the trick

 

Unfortunately, that did not solve it for me. I also got a thread at the Lenovo forums going about this, but no solutions yet that work.

https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/ThinkPad-P-and-W-Series-Mobile-Workstations/Lenovo-P16-Gen-3-Screen-brightness-controls-fail-when-using-dedicated-graphics-only/m-p/10020358

[Alyosha2001]

16 hours ago, Hyper said:

Which version of the nvidia driver are you using. Do you have a download link to the version that works fine on yours?

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/drivers/details/260725/

[Hyper]

7 hours ago, Alyosha2001 said:

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/drivers/details/260725/

 

Thank you. I installed this version after removing all display drivers with DDU but unfortunately it did not fix the issue for me.

 

I notice that when I put my grahphics card settings to discrete only in BIOS, the screen brightness goes to peak directly from the next BIOS boot.

I also noticed that the Intel graphics card remains active in the device manager even when I set my BIOS to only use the discrete graphics card. Do you have the same quirks?

[Alyosha2001]

Yeah, at the boot it goes full brightness, but in the OS it can be adjusted.

I've noticed, too, that Inthel Graphics is still present.

[Alyosha2001]

There's a new Firmware 1.28, now. Maybe you should try it.

[Hyper]

On 2/9/2026 at 2:18 AM, Alyosha2001 said:

There's a new Firmware 1.28, now. Maybe you should try it.

 

Ty. I installed the new BIOS. Unfortunately that did not solve the issue.

[Hyper]

Update: I uninstalled all graphics drivers and monitor drivers using DDU (Display driver uninstaller) in safe mode. Then I ran Lenovo Commercial advantage to reinstall the drivers. All drivers are reinstalled. Still the same problem.

[Hyper]

I upgraded my nVidia graphics driver to version NVIDIA RTX Driver Release 595 R595 U2 (595.79) | Windows 11

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/drivers/details/265805/

 

And now I can adjust my screen's brighness just fine. And I can enjoy all the advanced features of my expensive nVidia card including desktop recording without the Intel card getting in the way.

[Alyosha2001]

Do you know anything about Lenovo ditching Microsoft in favor of Linux (Ubuntu)? I looked on support.lenovo but could not find linux drivers for it.

[Alyosha2001]

Has anyone noticed that lately the DGPU does not turn off and does not enter idle anymore when not used?

[Alyosha2001]

Can anyone share a previous to 1.30 BIOS version, as this one keeps my DGPU always active and on 20W P0 on idle?

[Alyosha2001]

Hey, @Hyper, could you share your temps? In idle and load, and CPU wattage (if you use ThottleStop). I'm currently also using TPFanCtrl2 by FanDjango to keep it a bit quieter.

 

Also would be interested if someone made undervolting possible.

 

I'm also using it with DGPU to display, because when on IGPU and idle, the NVIDIA stays in P0 Powerstate and draws 20W.

 

I used PTM 7950 on it and still gets pretty warm even on idle when staying on te ground (60-70 degrees on idle - but drawing around 20W - limited to 24 in ThottleStop). The moment I lift it up a bit, temps go really down, like 50s. I changed the PTM twice and pressed the heatsink on it, also tightening the screws to make sure it has good contact.

 

I added a Samsung 990 Pro and a Crucial P310 drives, and they sit at aroung 63 and 59+ temps.

 

I think there is something wrong or early stage with their power drivers, as I applied the same PTM on my G3 Zbook and in about 2 months I saw big results, like it sits in 39 degrees in full summer on idle (but with 6-7W CPU power and 140mV undervolt).

 

I stay up to date with BIOS and drivers via Lenovo Vantage and Windows updates (althogh it's 23H2, because 25H1 seemed very buggy)