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Steerpike

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  1. Steerpike
    I just tried to compose an important email (in outlook) where I had to copy / paste info from several other emails, scrolling through them extensively. The two-finger scrolling drove me crazy! I've since disabled 'pinch to zoom', and the three- and four-finger gestures in the hope this helps. I do have the external mouse plugged in but I'm trying to simulate my 'on the road' use case. Also, the darned 'start menu' (windows 11 style) kept popping up for no apparent reason, mid-typing! I've turned off more features in the hope of killing that. If I really focus on holding my two fingers together, it does seem to help. But I've been doing exactly this on my Samsung for years and it works flawlessly, so I'm really hoping I can get to the bottom of what's going on! EDIT TO ADD: disabling 'pinch to zoom' obviously seems to have stopped that issue, but - I'm still getting the situation where, half the time I try to use two-finger scrolling, I get the 'right click context menu', which is what you get if you "two finger tap" to simulate right-clicking. This seems to be almost exclusive to outlook, though - I'm only seeing it occasionally in other apps. I'll be digging into this over the next few days. I will say, I was doing a LOT of work in Chrome, using the 'Google timeline' feature, which may have used a good deal of power. Regarding windows 11 and the 'left side' taskbar, I did stumble across this utility that claims to address this (and a lot more) GitHub - valinet/ExplorerPatcher: This project aims to enhance the working environment on Windows . I may try it myself, even though I have no desire to see the taskbar on the left! EDIT TO ADD: FWIW - I did install 'ExplorerPatcher', and it does indeed allow you to place the taskbar on the left side! It does a whole lot more too! Quite amazing how powerful it is. But I'm going to uninstall it for now, as I want to explore the 'pure windows 11' environment for a bit longer 🙂
  2. Steerpike
    The Magnetic connector is currently showing as not available, sadly; you got lucky! Also, your link to the Lindy Thunderbolt 3 dock seems to be redirecting to a more generic page, at least for me - I get this when I follow it - USB Docking Stations & Port Replicators | LINDY UK Is your device one of the 7 items shown on the page I'm linking to?
  3. Steerpike
    I was a huge fan of windows 7, and was horrified by windows 8.1. Windows 10 was a slight improvement over 8.1, thankfully (hard to imagine how it could have been any worse). Just how much worse W11 is compared to W10 remains to be seen. But I don't quite see how one is to meaningfully 'reject' these newer releases, when MS get their license money on new laptop sales no matter which version you end up using. As a lowly 'end user', no longer having access to corporate licensing (having retired from the business), it's not clear how I can 'reject' W11 unless I'm willing to pay quite a bit extra for licenses. But has it been all bad? When, exactly, did display scaling get introduced? I remember buying a stack of W7 Laptops (for work) back in the day, and being almost unable to use them due to them having very high resolution screens, and no meaningful way to reduce the display resolution (text was so small as to be unreadable). I may be wrong but I thought W10 was when practical display scaling came into existence.
  4. Steerpike
    The performance issues with OneDrive seem to be related to the sheer number of files I have under 'one drive management'. Every time I copy or move a file, the system 'churns' and I think it's because of the way it handles change tracking. Now that I'm using a much faster CPU and NVMe SSD, though, I may see significant improvement. I still back up everything to an external NAS. I've had several SSD failures, so I don't share your confidence! Just recently, the 2TB SATA SSD in my Samsung NP940X5J became unstable, and it wasn't the first time. I'm reluctantly embracing OneDrive because I'm using more than one laptop now, and keeping my files in sync across multiple devices is a chore. One Drive 'seems' to do a decent job of maintaining sync across a number of devices, although I have to spend more time than I should dealing with version conflicts. I still rely on the NAS, though, as the ultimate repository and use good-old 'Beyond Compare' to keep track of changes. For this reason, though, I can't really rely on OneDrive's ability to only download files when needed, since running a compare between two directory structures requires those structures to be fully populated. Since you have both the Samsung for travel and the LG for home, how do you maintain sync between your files?
  5. Steerpike
    I just picked up an LG Gram 17 at Costco (Bay Area, USA) for what I believe to be the stupidly low price of $1,100 (1,600 - 500 instant rebate, rebate ends tomorrow!). Model number is 17Z95P (17Z95P-K.AAE8U1 in full). Processor: 11th Gen Intel Core i7-1195G7 @ 2.90GHz It has 512 GB SSD, 16 GB Ram, and a rather unusual (to me) display resolution of 2560 x 1600. I typically seek out FHD displays because I don't like how some older apps run on higher res displays but decided to risk this one. I just love how light it is! I can pick it up by the corner and walk around with it (which I do quite often). The Dell XPS17 I returned last month was a brick by comparison. It is obviously relatively delicate, but I look after my gear and don't anticipate any issues; certainly a good trade-off for the weight. The XPS was just over-engineered, IMO. The screen is very highly reflective but I seem to be able to mitigate that by tilting the screen and increasing brightness. Very nice display overall. The keyboard, overall, is fine. Not as solid as my old samsung NP940X5J, but quite usable. Like you (John Ratsey) I didn't want the numeric keypad (mainly because of how it skews the trackpad to the left) but I do appreciate the dedicated home/end/PgUp/PgDn keys, which the XPS didn't have. I've had a few 'misfires' where my right hand (Palm) has touched the trackpad and repositioned the mouse, but it does seem to be relatively well managed. The trackpad (touchpad) is not working well for me, so far. As a basic mouse device it's fine, but I do make extensive use of 'two finger scrolling' to move up and down in spreadsheets, emails, etc. On a web page, it seems to work fine but in email, half the time my two-finger movement gets mis-interpreted as a zoom action (which is two finger pinch), and in excel, half the time my two-finger movements are mis-interpreted as right-clicks (which is two-finger tap, rather than two-finger drag). I'm trying to teach myself to be very precise in how I use the two-finger actions, but if I can't master this, I may just have to return it as this is quite critical to me. I do use an external mouse quite a bit of the time, but still - there are times when I'm stuck with the trackpad and I really need it to work well for me. I'll soldier on with it for now. Battery life. I've been testing battery life the past two days, unplugging it from the charger and seeing how long it runs. The battery is running down surprisingly fast! I'm doing nothing but browsing the web and opening spreadsheets; no games, no videos, nothing to stress the machine (I have yet to hear the fans kick in, ever!). I haven't done detailed measurements yet, so I can't give specifics, but it seems like I'm getting only ~6 hours from a full charge, which given my use-pattern, doesn't seem great. From 8pm to midnight last night it dropped from 100% to 50% under light usage; I then hibernated to save power; this morning, from 9am to 11am it's dropped from 50% to 27%. I'm hoping that by cycling it a few times it will 'calibrate' the battery, or whatever, but so far not so great. I do love the fact that it ships with a small (light) 65 Watt charger. The Dell XPS17 shipped with a monstrous (heavy) 130W charger. As mentioned above, I prefer FHD displays (1920x ...) because my eyesight is not great and I don't need anything 'finer', plus, I've found that older apps just don't scale too well. I'm currently running Quicken, and reports are coming up very weird (Quicken is a real POS when it comes to display scaling, quite shameful given how long it's been around and how much they charge for it!) I'm also using 'PWSafe' (trusty old password safe). It came up way too small initially, but it does allow me to select fonts. It didn't seem to be remembering those font settings, but that may be due to other issues. So I would say, so far, 'most' apps I'm trying seem to be doing OK with the higher res display (I've set 'scaling' to 175%, up from the 'recommended' of 150%). I am planning to add a second 2TB SSD, so I can house my entire photo collection, all my data files, and a lot of videos, but for now I'm going to see just how livable 'OneDrive' is. I have a 'business' OneDrive allocation of 1TB, and I'm going to see just how practical it is to use its feature to store everything in the cloud and only download files as needed. I sometimes do searches across all files for various keywords (using Agent Ransack), and I'm sure that won't work, but I will see just how usable it is. I'm also going to try to live with Windows 11 with minimum hacking / tweaking ... so far I've just turned off the 'show more options' feature in Explorer, and enabled Hibernate. PS - I love how they included a full-size HDMI port, and, two 'classic' USB ports. The Dell XPS included neither, which meant my external wireless mouse transmitter had to be connected via a USB-C dongle.
  6. Steerpike
    I don't think it's really a case of 'liking it' as opposed to 'learning to live with it'. I've bought 2 new laptops in the past couple of months (Dell XPS 17 (returned) and LG Gram 17) and both came with W11. I don't have ready access to media any longer, so if I can learn to live with 11, life is just easier. My approach is, see if I can tolerate it and get used to it, before going to the trouble of backing it out. So far, I'm reasonably tolerating it!
  7. Steerpike
    Is that the ONLY SSD slot, thus requiring you to replace the existing if you want to upgrade? I was thinking there was a second SSD slot in there somewhere but I don't see it in the pics. Do you have one-drive configured on your machine? I've noticed that one-drive seems to really slow down any drive access (I have all my data set up in OneDrive (for business), mainly as a free backup service.
  8. Steerpike
    Yes, I read that review already. Very promising! I took another look at the 'store model' yesterday, and I noticed the display was already bent slightly. But I was able to bend it back 🙂 . I look after my tech gear very well, but I wonder how much bending stress it can take in, say, a backpack? Have you noticed the fan kicking in much, during light use?
  9. Steerpike
    My Costco (Bay Area, US) is now selling this with a $300 discount - so $1,000! I'm tempted to pick it up as a truly 'carry around' laptop! It's even lighter than my 13" Macbook Air which is a delight to carry.
  10. Steerpike
    One of the nicer features introduced with Windows 10 was the daily (or frequent) image push they give you on the 'lock' screen. I don't know the correct terminology for this feature, which is probably why I can't search for the solution (if any) I'm looking for. Basically, I have some domain-joined Win 10 machines and they don't seem to be able to receive these daily images. I cannot find any setting anywhere to enable it. Basically, when you 'lock' your device (Windows Key + L, or just let it lock with user inactivity) you are presented with a random image from Microsoft, and you are offered a 'Like what you see?' link, which on 'hover' tells you more about it, and lets you 'Like' it or say 'I'm not a fan', which refines what you see next time. One of my domain joined users keeps asking me if I can enable this for her and I just can't seem to find anything about the feature! EDIT TO ADD: Posting this inspired me to take another stab at searching, and I discovered this feature is called "Windows Spotlight". This windows post Configure Windows Spotlight on the lock screen (Windows 10) - Configure Windows | Microsoft Docs suggests it's available in all editions, and is enabled by default; so I'm not sure why my domain joined users are not seeing it. I will poke around some more in settings and GP ...
  11. Steerpike
    I used to be in corporate IT and had access to all manner of media and licenses, but now I'm a lowly 'home user' and I presume I'm stuck with Windows 10 Pro unless I'm willing to pay for extra licenses (and pay more than once, by the sound of it). To be honest, I've been using Win 10 Pro for over 5 years and it's been remarkably stable. I don't use the 'store', don't use 'cortana', and it seems pretty stable. MS keep nagging me to switch to a Microsoft Account, and that's pretty much the extent of my struggles with it.
  12. Steerpike
  13. Steerpike
    Great info! I'm currently using the Samsung NP930X5J from circa 2014 (15.6"), and I love it - best laptop I've ever owned, by a long shot. I think you and I corresponded about that model before. I'm looking for a lighter replacement with more RAM (8 Gig is just not quite cutting it for me now, as I have tons of browser tabs open, plus a few apps, all the time). I also want a bigger screen, though, and the LG Gram 17 is very tempting - but I don't want a '10-key' numeric keypad, and I don't want a glossy screen, so that's why I'm ruling out the Gram for now. I just bought the Dell XPS17, which has a lovely screen, not reflective, and no 10-key ... but it doesn't even have the single column of 'pg up', 'pg dn', home, end - which it turns out I use a lot ! It's also a bit too heavy for my liking. I managed to blow it up within 24 hours of receiving it (I plugged it into my Kensington universal USB-C 'dock') and it seemed to be unstable after the Dell tech repaired it, so I sent it back. My aversion to the "10-key" is that it shifts the keyboard to the left, and makes for what I see as an unnatural alignment with the laptop - your body has to be shifted to the left, relative to the screen, in order to be 'square' with the keyboard. Plus palm-mis-fires on the trackpad seem likely. If I could convince myself the 10-key is not an issue, then the only other issue is the reflectiveness of the LG screen. I typically sit in a room with quite a bit of light, so worry about the reflections. So when I saw the new Samsung at Costco, with 1TB and 16 GB Ram, and picked it up and noticed its ridiculous lack of weight, I was very excited! I presume there's no 17" model on the horizon ... ?
  14. Steerpike
    Would your Samsung Galaxy Book Pro 13.3 be the small-screen version of the Samsung Galaxy Book Pro 15.6"? Specifically, my local Costco is selling the 15.6" model with this designation - NP950XDB for $1300 USD. This is with 1 TB SSD and 16GB Ram, and 11th gen i7-1165G7 processor. It was super, super light - only 2.31 lbs!
  15. Steerpike
    An update - After getting the motherboard replaced, I was a bit nervous about the reliability of the machine. I experienced several 'bug check' restarts, which I didn't have time to research (I'm in the middle of several very time-consuming personal issues at the moment!). I also noticed that the Dell tech who did the repair put several marks on the case (where he 'twisted' the bottom cover away from the body - he used a metal tool where I think a nylon tool would have been more appropriate ... he did say it was a bitch to remove!). I'm not thrilled with the keyboard (lack of dedicated home / Pg Up / Pg Dn / End, and Prt Scrn keys, space-bar proximity to the surround), and the weight is just a bit higher than I am comfortable with, so ... I reluctantly decided to take advantage of the Dell 30-day satisfaction guarantee and sent it back! I'll hopefully have more time on my hands in a few months, and maybe the new model will be out by then and I can take another look! Regarding the power consumption that I discussed further upthread, I did do some measurements with my 'kill-a-watt' meter. With the laptop fully charged, and carrying out mundane tasks such as browsing the internet or scrolling through a spreadsheet, consumption was 4-6 watts typical, with some spikes up to 12 watts. If I turned screen up to full brightness, the typical consumption rose to 7-10 watts. If I let it 'sleep' (modern sleep), then woke it, I would see brief consumption in the range of 5-35 watts, before stabilizing at the 4-6 range again. So for typical, average usage, when fully charged, consumption was very low, and this is consistent with what I would expect for a machine with the very latest mobile processor. I didn't have the time to stress test, unfortunately. I then ran the battery down to about 50%, and made sure it was in 'sleep' mode (modern sleep, that is!). I plugged in the charger, and consumption was stable at 58 watts. So this tells me, charging only consumes about 58 watts. After waking the machine, and letting it sit for a minute, then doing some casual activities, I saw consumption of 65-70 watts. Consumption would range upwards to 85-90 watts, occasionally. I was going to do way more controlled tests, and document everything but just ran out of time. But my conclusion is - a 60 watt portable charger would be quite satisfactory for occasional travel purposes, assuming the laptop is maintained at a full charge ahead of time. Obviously, if I wanted to do some video transcoding while on the road, I'd be disappointed but if I just wanted to browse the internet and respond to emails, I'd be quite happy (and happy not to be lugging the very heavy 135 watt charger they supply with the laptop). I also would note that I never heard the fan ever, during my entire time with the machine, other than extremely short bursts for a second or less, typically on power-up. So I have to say, that aspect was great!
  16. Steerpike
    Oh, absolutely! I live and die with that feature. When I'm sitting square-on in front of the laptop, it works great and I use it all the time. But when the laptop is off to the side (since I'm eating), it's just not quite as easy to get that gesture to register (and not be mis-interpreted as a single-click). Ah - pressing Space Bar is not something I remembered! Yes, that is very helpful! Now, if I 'overshoot' - page down too far - I still have to get to the 'page up' key (though - shift-space-bar does a page up - nice!). If my mouse is reachable, I can simply use the 'scroll wheel' to quickly move down; it's just that occasionally I move the mouse out of the way.
  17. Steerpike
    Right after I posted above, I started reading a few websites while eating dinner. I realized just how much I really liked having a dedicated 'pg down' key - so I could easily scroll down through the page with just one hand/finger. Having to use Fn+down arrow totally changes that - have to use both hands. I ended up using the down arrow alone, which achieves the purpose (advances down the webpage) but is far less convenient. So I may end up dedicating Right-alt and Right-Ctrl to pg-up and pg-down ... I'm giving some thought to returning the laptop because of this, as trivial as it may seem. I think I have 30 days to decide; but then - what else would I buy?! My current laptop has only 8 Gig and that is starting to be a bit of a limitation (though, not exactly a big one!).
  18. Steerpike
    After a few days of limited use of the XPS, I have found that I really miss home/end, and page up/down. I've already restored the behavior of the 'Function keys' to their rightful state (that is, I've disabled Fn Key lock) so I'd have to use 'Fn+F11' and 'Fn+F12', for home/end, which sucks. But I did discover that Fn+Right Arrow does 'end', and Fn+Left Arrow does 'Home'. This is almost an improvement on having dedicated keys elsewhere, since I use Ctrl+Right Arrow all the time (to step through a paragraph one word at a time). I'm surprised they don't mark the left/right arrow keys to denote this, since they do mark the up/down arrow keys with the Fn alternative (Fn+Up Arrow is 'page up' and Fn+Down Arrow is 'page down'). I'm disappointed that they made 'Prt Scn' a 'Fn' key function now; I use Prt Scn a LOT (well, I use "Alt-Prt Scn" a lot, when documenting situations). Since I've restored the Function key row to its proper purpose, I now have to use Alt+Fn+Prt Scn to do screen copy. I COULD use SharpKeys to remap F10-> Prt Scn, But I make occasional use of Shift-F10 for 'right click context menu' and not sure if this would mess with that or not. I decided to use SharpKeys to remap 'Right Ctrl' to 'Prt Scn', since I NEVER use 'Right-Ctrl'. Let's hope I can remember to use 'Alt+Right Ctrl' on this laptop ...
  19. Steerpike
    I literally had a double-take when I read this because I thought it was MY REPLY - I also use TC to create an encrypted volume, put everything I care about it inside! I typically mount it manually on boot (entering my password) and then leave it mounted until the next crash / restart. Over the years, my encrypted volume has grown in size and is now around 30 Gig. I store all 'data' files in there - tax returns, spreadsheets, downloaded statements, business docs, etc. It gives me a reasonably transportable (copyable to thumb drive) self-contained container for key documents. I intentionally don't store my photo collection or my video collection, which is over 500 GB these days, in an encrypted volume. When I was an IT manager dealing with hundreds of users, bitlocker seemed to do a good job and was generally reliable, but when it failed, it failed spectacularly and we had some major events. We had end-users in the field who lost everything. Trying to talk them through device recovery over the phone was a pain. I don't like the fact that when you boot up, your encrypted data is just 'there' - no need to authenticate. So if your laptop is stolen, and your login password (or now, PIN!) is hacked, all your data is available. In my scenario, Anyone can boot up the laptop but they don't get the data unless they know the TrueCrypt password. I can accept that there is a slight privacy concern in having the OS volume unencrypted - temporary files/caches, browser cookies, but I feel better not relying on something that is so un-transparent! I like the 'warm and fuzzy' feeling of entering my TueCrypt password when I boot up! When TC first bit the dust, circa 2014, I learned of VeraCrypt but it wasn't clear at that time if it was destined to become the defacto leader in the space. I guess by now it has! I made the decision at the time that TC was 'good enough' for my needs, but I think at this point, re-looking at VC is wise!
  20. Steerpike
    Perfect, that was very helpful, thanks! All I had to do to disable it was go to settings / Privacy and Security / Device Encryption, then deselect the 'device encrypt' item. Interestingly, it said it would take some time so I stepped away, and when I returned, not only was the job apparently complete, but the entire settings dialog was gone! Is this a new Win 11 'feature', I wonder, to auto-dismiss dialog boxes/etc when an action completes? To me, when I kick off a long-running process like this, I want to see a 'confirmation' dialog sitting on the screen when I return, not 'nothing'. I'll just have to keep an eye on this to see if it's a common behavior.
  21. Steerpike
    I just got my XPS 17 back in operation with a new motherboard. I've been taking some readings of power consumption and will update that here later. But for now - BITLOCKER! I have Windows 11 Home OS. It was my understanding that win 11 home did not include bitlocker. But when the tech installed the new motherboard, and fired up my laptop, a bitlocker screen popped up and wanted the 'key'. To get it I had to use my other laptop to log into my Microsoft Account and retrieve it. I was able to successfully log in after that. I had no idea my drive was bitlocker encrypted and thus had made no efforts to keep a copy of the 'key'. Luckily I had another working computer on hand! Disk Manager (diskmgmt.msc) confirms the OS dive (C:) is bitlocker encrypted. But when I go into control panel, device encryption, there's no actual mention of the word 'bitlocker' and the only option presented is 'back up your recovery key'. 'elevenforum.com' suggests that if I have bitlocker then there should be an option to remove bitlocker encryption. But it also says bitlocker drive encryption is only available in Win 11 Pro, Enterprise, etc (not Home). This 'elevenforum.com' page tells you how to add 'turn off bitlocker' to the context menu; I'm about to go through that whole process, but does anyone here know why a Win 11 home system would be using bitlocker, and then, why would they have encrypted the drive by default without telling me / asking me? I'm not 100% opposed to having my drive bitlocker encrypted, but I certainly want to be fully 'ready' for that situation - like, having a copy of the recovery key on hand!
  22. Steerpike
    I have a 'Kill-A-Watt' meter and will start taking some measurements on the XPS as soon as my laptop is repaired (hopefully next week). One goal is to have a 'spare' charger that I can carry in my backpack for use when traveling, and that's why I'm trying to find one that is smaller/lighter than the very heavy 130W guy that came with the laptop. All I need is something to 'keep it running' while doing basic things like web browsing or checking email on the road. I can imagine that, if I had the i9 processor, dedicated NVidia GPU, and UHD+ display, and I ran the screen at full brightness, and started from a fully discharged battery, then perhaps the 130W PSU is appropriate but since I got the i5, integrated graphics, and FHD+ display, and I run the screen at a low brightness, and I always keep the battery fully charged, then I can imagine a 60W PSU should be sufficient to 'keep the laptop running' while on an occasional trip away from home. I just want to be sure I'm not doing any damage by doing so. I just plugged my current Samsung 15.6" laptop with 45W charger into the Kill-A-Watt meter. It shows me that at idle, screen off, battery fully charged, it uses 8W. With screen on, at idle, 15W. Max brightness screen (which is not too bright) - 17W. When I play a game that stresses the system, 34W. I then discharged the battery some, and re-did all the above tests; now the charger is drawing the full 45W even with screen off, and obviously it stays at 45W as I ramp up activities. So I can imagine, if I were to play a game at full brightness while the battery is charging, it's going to take a LONG time to fully charge - but I don't care in my use case. Intuitively I'm a bit baffled by how come a more modern processor / system is expected to consume more power under 'basic' conditions (browsing, email, etc). The big efforts over the past several years has been to reduce power consumption, thereby enabling thinner / lighter laptops. Anyway - once I get the XPS repaired I'll run the same tests and report back. Would this warrant its own thread, do you think?
  23. Steerpike
    Thanks for that. Found this - Amazon.com: Dell WD15 Monitor Dock 4K with 130W Adapter, USB-C, (450-AFGM, 6GFRT) : Electronics . for $115. Looks like the correct one. It's interesting that neither the pictures of the device nor the description show or say anything about the 'USB-C' charging aspect. Only the last picture (showing the device on a desk with a laptop and displays) actually confirms that you can connect from the side of the 'dock' to the laptop. They don't even include a 'USB-C to USB-C' cable, which is presumably what goes from the side of the 'dock' to the laptop (at least as indicated by 'what's in the box'). Regarding power supplies; My current laptop has a 40W power supply and is small and light. I kinda assumed that with newer laptops being lower power than ever, the power supplies would be somewhat lower powered also (and thus, smaller / lighter) but the XPS 17 ships with a 130W power supply that is decidedly big and heavy! I presume they are providing a 130W power supply to support fast charging of the battery. I presume also that I can buy a low-power USB-C power supply and it will work just fine to power the Dell for 'steady state' use - sitting on the desk, already charged? I found this as a top-rated lower-power charger - Amazon.com: Nekteck 60W USB C Charger [GaN Tech], PD 3.0 Fast Charger[USB-IF & ETL Certified] with Foldable Plug, Compatible with MacBook Air/Pro, iPad Air/Pro, iPhone 13 Pro Max, Switch, Galaxy, Pixel and More. : Cell Phones & Accessories - would this be sufficient to keep the Dell charged, and perhaps add a slow charge if the battery needed it? I very rarely use the laptop on battery anyway so my battery is almost always fully charged. And a forum meta-question ... how do I 'like' a post, or give appreciation/reputation to someone for a helpful post? I'm staring at these posts and nothing is obvious ... I'm probably going blind ... UPDATE - found it! You hover the mouse over the pure white-space to the far right of the 'quote' button. There is absolutely no visual cue to this, at least none that I can see! A totally hidden hotspot!
  24. Steerpike
    Given the issues mentioned in the previous post (blown video hardware), what do people recommend for a 'docking' solution? I'm a bit wary of continuing to use the Kensington "USB-C Universal Dock with Power" (SD4600P) although I don't see why it wouldn't work. All I need is a convenient way to attach a single external HDMI (FHD) monitor, a keyboard and a mouse, and be able to charge the laptop at the same time. The Dell proprietary 'docks' seem to run around $250, which is crazy for such a simple function (Amazon.com: Dell Dock- WD19S 90w Power Delivery - 130w AC - 90 W : Electronics). Looks like I paid around $140 for the Kensington solution - Amazon.com: Kensington SD4600P USB-C Docking Station with Power Delivery Charging for 2015/2016 MacBook Retina 12”, Chromebook Pixel, Dell XPS 13” 9350/XPS 15” 9550, Dell Precision 5510 (K38231WW) : Electronics . Should I just put down my recent issue to bad luck, and continue using it?
  25. Steerpike
    Well, that didn't take long - I have managed to brick my XPS17 🙂 . Last night I plugged the XPS into my 'Kensington universal dock', which is an older USB-C dock I had for a laptop no longer in my possession. Dock has a basic 27" FHD monitor, keyboard and mouse attached. I worked for about an hour in 'docked mode' last night, observing how 'scaling' changed as I "mirrored" vs "extended" the display. I undocked a few times, and plugged in the external monitor through the supplied HDMI / USB-C dongle, to see if it worked any differently, but everything was the same (this was giving me confidence that my universal dock was working well). I then left it alone overnight (docked, lid closed) to test the sleep/hibernate stuff I've documented elsewhere (sleep / hibernate / wake all worked last night, during some brief tests). I woke today to see pre-boot bios warning on my external monitor about the charger not being adequate (the dock has a 90W charger, not the 130W as supplied by Dell). Warning just says it will not charge as fast, so I ignored it. It offered to let me view BIOS, so I took the opportunity to step through all the BIOS screens for my general education. When done, I was very careful NOT to save any changes as I didn't want to go down the path of BIOS changes yet. I did note, in the BIOS log, that the device had powered up at around 4:30am for no obvious reason. After reviewing (but not changing) BIOS, I exited, and next thing I recall, the front light (in front of the trackpad) was blinking 2 red, 8 white flashes, continuously, with nothing on the screen (external or internal). I unplugged from the dock, and did a 'press/hold' of the power button (~10 secs) and that seemed to shut everything down. But now, whether on battery or on the Dell supplied USB-C charger, A short-press of the power button has the following result: brief appearance of Dell logo; brief lighting of the front light; keyboard backlight on screen and front light go dark; keyboard backlight stays on; (brief re-appearance of Dell logo; brief re-appearance of front light) - this didn't happen second/subsequent times after about 10 secs, a brief audible 'chime' of sorts (this is not consistent). then nothing; everything dark. Pressing a key or touching the trackpad activates the keyboard backlight, but nothing else. So it is 'on' in a way, but nothing on screen. I tried connecting an external monitor through the supplied HDMI/USB-C dongle, and also re-connecting the 'dock', but no change. I tried with/without Dell supplied charger connected; no change. A long-press of power (~10 secs) appears to 'kill' it and I can restart the whole process above again, but nothing on the screen other than the brief appearance of the Dell logo. I'm not sure how to re-create the '2 red, 8 white' flash sequence now, but I've managed to see it about 3 times. I can't get into BIOS either; F2 at the time the Dell logo appears has no effect (multiple, fast presses; also tried Fn+F2, even though I think that's unecessary). So I guess it's time to find out just how good that free 1-year Dell Premium Support is! I should probably spin this off into another thread ... Edit to add - just got done chatting with a dell support rep (via whatsapp). They are going to send out a tech with a new motherboard. I'm not too happy about this - is the machine so delicate that it can be 'blown' by connecting to a universal dock? The machine worked fine while docked for hours, the issue arose somewhere after 'sleeping' overnight, and/or during its unexpected 'wake' at 4am, or, when I powered it up this morning. At that point, I was still able to step through all the BIOS screens, so it seems it was working fine even then. This is the manual - XPS 17 9710 Service Manual (dell.com) and the 2 red, 8 white flashes means "Display failure - EC detection of power rail failure" (page 73). I also learned that I could press D plus power button to get the display self-test (which just showed white, red, green, blue screens for me). Strange that I cannot get into BIOS (F2 on power up) nor diagnostics (F12 on power up).
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