lenovo legion 7 Trying to revive friend's (maybe) dead laptop

grath · May 12

After a series of issues, my friend gave up and bought himself a new laptop, and donated his old problematic one to me. This laptop is a Lenovo Legion S7 15ARH5. After some display issues, my friend read a guide that told him to disable the display drivers, causing the screen and all external screens to not display. I know the actual computer is still functional because it makes the windows startup sound when booting, however I am unable to even reach the BIOS as nothing will display.

I have no idea where to go from here, the backlight on the display wont even turn on and I have no clue how to force it to another display. Is there any way to force a BIOS reset on a laptop?

Biohazard777 · May 12

8 minutes ago, grath said:

my friend read a guide that told him to disable the display drivers, causing the screen and all external screens to not display. I know the actual computer is still functional because it makes the windows startup sound when booting, however I am unable to even reach the BIOS as nothing will display.

Disabling a Windows driver will have zero effect on BIOS (as it doesn't use OS drivers)...
You are just porbably hitting the wrong key (or key combo) to enter the BIOS, or you are too slow.

grath · May 12

12 hours ago, Biohazard777 said:

Disabling a Windows driver will have zero effect on BIOS (as it doesn't use OS drivers)...
You are just porbably hitting the wrong key (or key combo) to enter the BIOS, or you are too slow.

I think that at this point, there is something wrong with the display itself, though I cant tell what. Do you know if there's any way to make a laptop force output to an external display, even in bios?

spunk.funk · May 12

Boot the computer with the NOVO button (One Key Recovery) not the power button.

https://pcsupport.lenovo.com/us/en/products/laptops-and-netbooks/legion-series/legion-5-15ith6/solutions/ht062552-introduction-to-novo-button-ideapad

If it sounds like the computer has booted into Windows, with an External Monitor plugged in, press the Windows key +P or hold down the FN key + F7 (icon on key should look like 2 Monitors) to toggle between laptop screen and external monitor. If that doesn't work, After that, you can hold the FN key +R to change to lower resolution.

If you can get to the Bios, set it to Defaults.

I all fails, you can try Clearing the CMOS, Remove laptop battery and unplug CMOS battery wait 15 minutes or so, plug in batteries and start computer with NOVO button.

Or follow this guide to update the Bios: https://github.com/nonkerdoob/SmokelessCPU-Guides/blob/main/Guides/BIOS/BIOS_CRISIS.md