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John Ratsey

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  1. John Ratsey
    Yes, 100% processor state enables Turbo mode, 99% processor state disables Turbo mode. That other power option I found recently which can set the maximum processor speed would allow filling that gap in the curve. However, it's not worthwhile doing that for the Gram 17 where the fully turbo speed seems to last no more than a second.
  2. John Ratsey
    Yes, I saw that and can replicate the behaviour. Perhaps it's an HWiNFO bug. In previous times I did a lot of experimenting with the max processor state. This graph is one I prepared 6 years ago: The percentage labels are the maximum processor state and anything below 50% had no effect. The corresponding speed and power consumption have to be deterermined by looking at the HWiNFO results after a standard process (eg wPrime). It would be interesting to see the corresponding graph for recent CPUs. If trying to minimise overall power consumption one has to balance the reduction in processor power against the the longer time to run the process before the CPU and get back to sleep.
  3. John Ratsey
    There's not much to report about this little notebook except that it's running very smoothly and has been on a few more holidays. It's an ideal travel notebook that's frugal on battery and can run on a low-rated USB-C power supply.
  4. John Ratsey
    I turned off Turbo mode by setting maximum processor state to 99% and reset the HWiNFO sensors. A couple of hours of typical usage hours and the maximum processor temperature is 66C and there are no throttling alerts (this is with the computer on the Cooler Master cooler). I'm wondering if those those throttling alerts are linked to the fan trip point temperatures. If you can keep everything below 70C then perhaps everything is happy. What would happen if the Active Trip Point 0 is set to, say, 60C. Performance and esponsiveness seems fine with Turbo disabled. Those bursts of higher speed don't make much difference in overall speed in normal usage (might be noticeable if there's a single-threaded process running) but create the power and heat and spikes which have repercussions.
  5. John Ratsey
    Last evening my 16GB 2021 Gram 17 hit 99% physical RAM so everything stopped while Windows did some housekeeping. I saw that as a signal to order the cut price 32GB 2022 model. I wait to see if it's fully functional. LG claims "MIL-STD-810G Strong and Ready for Combat". I'll also have to prepare for doing battle with Windows 11.
  6. John Ratsey
    I'm not intentionally putting the computer under load. Perhaps it's the innumerable tabs in Firefox but the two thermal throttling alerts always re-appear within a few seconds of resetting the HWiNFO sensors. At the moment it's showing core thermal throttling when none of the cores have exceeded 75C. Perhaps there's another sensor which HWiNFO isn't directly reading. I found a useful bit of software called Power Plan Settings Explorer which lists all the options and allows the user to unhide the hidden settings (the list of ticks shows what is hidden). Last evening I was doing some more research by running wPrime and looking at HWiNFO's CPU sensor data. If Performance mode is enabled then PL1 stays at 28W and the fan works as needed. In Optimal mode PL1 quickly dropped below 28W and, at one stage, went as low as 11.5W. That's for the whole CPU package and around 6W is used by parts other than the CPU which dropped to around 800MHz (like winding the CPU performance back by 10 years or more). I also explored the advanced BIOS settings and read, and need to re-read, the archived discussion about advanced tweaking. The thermal limitations mean that turbo is only any use if there's load on only a single core. I need to try wPrime 32M running 1 thread and seeing the power behaviour. Turbo is easily disabled by setting the maximum processor state to 99% which is my default for battery operation. If only someone sold the dual fan and heatsink unit but I've failed to find it on the www. I wouldn't mind the extra weight and slightly increased power consumption.
  7. John Ratsey
    One annoyance I've been having with my 2021 Gram 17 is that intermittently it slows to a crawl, becomes unresponsive and takes several minutes before it's willing to start running normally. It's reminiscient of the problem I had around 10 years ago with near-full SSDs which basically told the computer to wait while the SSD shuffled files around to create some usable space from the fragments. However, there's loads of empty SSD space and the disc activity is low. I therefore assume that it's a thermal issue. The i7-1165G7 CPU in my Gram 17 is too willing to get close to 100C (perhaps I need to do another repaste) and even when the CPU hasn't got hot there's other thermal throttling. This is what HWiNFO showed soon after doing a sensor reset. I suspect that if there's been too many thermal alerts then the Gram 17 reckons it's time to walk for a while instead of running. Setting the Gram 17 to Performance Mode (which needs to be done on each start / restart / resume) does improve the temperatures but is tedious as it's not set-and-forget. Therefore three days ago I got a Cooler Master Notepal U2 plus V2 cooler to help improve the cooling. It's just the right size for the Gram 17 but the default fan speed was too noisy for my liking. That problem has been fixed using one of these to reduce the voltage and hence the fan speed although I not very happy with the raised notebook position (and I've squashed down the back leg of the cooler to reduce the keyboard slope). I've therefore revisited the power options. A while back I used a utility (name now forgotten) to add some of the missing items in the advanced power options. Putting the Maximum Processor State down to 99% turns off turbo mode which is more drastic than I want (but sensible when running on battery) but I've found that setting the Maximum Processor Frequency to 4500 MHz does cap the CPU speed to 4500 MHz. This will bring down the maximum CPU core temperature but does not stop the other thermal throttling alerts shown above. I need to do some testing to find out the sensible maximum CPU frequency. If only I could buy the longer heatsink and dual fan unit that LG do make then this would be a much better solution to the thermal problem. The i7 CPU is more than the standard LG thermal solution can handle for more than a few seconds.
  8. John Ratsey
    That rubber bar is visible in the notebookcheck review photos. I wonder if it's to reduce the recirculation of hot air from the fan exhaust. The internal layout of the Gram 17 is unchanged and I think it's the same size fan as previously. Amazon UK is offering a cosmetically damaged 32GB RAM 2022 model for a very attractive price (about 35% discount on new). I'd like the extra RAM as Windows 10 memory management on my 2021 16GB Gram 17 seems to be deficient. While most of the time it's using around 85% physical memory, sometimes the usage gets close to 100% despite having a generous page file allocation on a fast SSD. It's tempting but unfortunately there's no improvement in the thermal management.
  9. John Ratsey
    If you can get a complete display including the back and the hinges then I think the swap would be easy: Take off the bottom of the computer; disconnect battery; disconnect display; unscrew hinges; remove old display unit then repeat in reverse to fit the new one.
  10. John Ratsey
    Yes, try to put the feet back so that the glue residue forms a rough circle. I pulled off one of the back feet and took a photo to illustrate how it looks. Your first ebay item will probably be fine. I think LG used something similar but as a ring. The back feet are about 17mm dia and the front feet 15mm but the ring of glue is smaller than the size of of the foot. I can't find the tape circles on ebay UK, only the circular pads (which I'm sure would work fine as they are buried in a hole).
  11. John Ratsey
    I wonder if the backlighting has disappeared as well. Big, backlit, lettering is easy to read in poor lighting. Oh well! Wait to see what 2023 brings. For me, the main drawbacks of my Gram 17 are (a) inadequate cooling capacity for the CPU when under load and (b) not enough RAM (Firefox with innumerable tabs open can get very greedy). There's plenty of room for another fan in the 17" Gram.
  12. John Ratsey
    It's now been opened up 3 times. Yesterday I temporarily put back the original SSD as I needed to release the licence on a software package which didn't like the SSD swap (two other packages didn't complain). While I had the base off I also repasted the CPU to see if I could reduce the occurrence of thermal throttling. The original paste was a bit dry. The CPU still hits the thermal limits under sustained load but now it's running a bit cooler under normal conditions. I also put thermal pads on the SSDs and they are keeping cooler. As for the glue, it's still quite sticky. When the feet are pulled off some of the glue comes with them and some stays on the base cover. I try to put back the feet so that the circle of glue is reformed. However, the computer's feet have an easy time as my Gram 17 is used as a compact desktop and doesn't get put into / taken out of a bag several times a day. Nonetheless, for anyone worrying about the feet getting loose, the fix will be to buy some 15mm circular double-sided tape pads (example here) and use them to replace the original glue when it gets tired.
  13. John Ratsey
    It's a nominal 4TB (never that much in reality plus I've left about 150GB unallocated on each SSD to help with garbage management (which might not be necessary these days). When I've time and inclination I'll work through all my old drives and try to get everything into one place which will then be backed up onto a portable HDD. I also wanted enough space to do some video building. I've not looked at the power consumption as my Gram 17 is being used as a compact desktop which is easy to put out of the way if I want the desk for other uses. However, I think that power management on recent NVMe SSDs is good and they quickly go to sleep if not busy.
  14. John Ratsey
    My screen reflection problems only occurred in the spring when the sun was shining through the window. They may re-appear in the autumn. I agree that the lack of an anti-glare coating improves the sharpness. I'm using the numpad for navigation but, because it pushes the main keyboard to the left I'm often hitting NumLk when aiming for Backspace. I'd much prefer the simple column of navigation keys without the numpad. Getting into the Gram 17 is easy. You need a charp object to prise off the 4 big feet, the small lump between the two back feet and the other screw covers then use a size 0 Philips screwdriver to remove the screws. Finally prise the case apart starting at the middle front. I installed a 2nd SSD months ago and yesterday I changed the original 1TB drive for a 2TB WD Black SN770 which has been on sale here remarkably cheaply. So far it's running fine but I need to get inside again to temporarily install the original SSD to release the licence for a software package which clearly uses the storage drive as part of the device fingerprint (two other packages didn't mind the SSD swap). Having two M.2 2280 slots is a big benefit.
  15. John Ratsey
    I suspect that the docking station could be allowing for both the power it uses and the power it might supply to other devices which can be plugged into it at the same time so the 65W from the LG PSU could be reduced to 45W or less and that's what it reports to the computer. Each USB port is likely to be rated at 1A (ie 5W) minimum. It's unlikely, but not impossible to have, for example, a portable hard drive plugged into every USB port at the same time or be charging phones or other devices. My docking station came with a 135W brick (literally) so it has loads of spare power. The Gram's own calculation of power needed assumes a combination of loaded CPU, devices plugged into the USB ports and charging the battery. If the power source isn't sufficient then the battery charge rate will be reduced and, in the worst case, the battery will supply power to help keep everything else running. If it's running happily after giving the power warning then there's nothing to worry about. The alternative is to look for a reasonably-priced 100W USB-C PSU.
  16. John Ratsey
    Much will depend on how the charging behaves if the battery is at or near 100%. A very low trickle charge may not cause significant wear and the computer may let the charge level drop a few % before doing a slow top up. Recent computers tend to behave more intelligently as the battery fills and some may report 100% when the battery is not completely full (I've seen the same with phones).
  17. John Ratsey
    I ordered the Galaxy S22 (smallest model with 8GB / 128GB) on 28th March direct from Samsung UK who had a launch offer of £200 rebate by sending in any old Android phone plus a free pair of Galaxy Buds Pro. At the time of ordering the system said I would get the phone on 22nd April but it actually showed up on 2nd April. As noted much earlier in this thread I had the S21 and was attracted by (i) the slightly smaller size of the S22 and (ii) the 3x optical zoom camera. Testing the cameras was the first task after unboxing and there was a visable, albeit modest, improvement in >3x zoom images compared with the S21. The S22 does feel to be less of a lump in my pocket. It's protected by a thin gel case (a standard purchase for my phones but particularly necessary for the square-edged S22). Prior to ordering I was aware of comments from early owners that the battery drained faster than the S21 and, so far, this has proved to be true. One factor is that the S22 battery has 7% lower capacity but the difference in drain rate is at least double that. I'm hoping that Samsung are working on this problem as there have been two software updates in the past two weeks) but I'm a relatively light user and can easily get through a day. I've got the battery set to maximum 85% charge to minimise the battery wear.
  18. John Ratsey
    @Steerpike's studies have prompted me to do my own tests (same 17" screen as @Steerpike but set to 175% scaling) comparing a window capture (alt+PrtSc) with an image captured with Window's Snip & Sketch. Both have the same pixel size (bar a few pixels difference when doing a manual snip). The window capture is 72dpi but the window snip is 168dpi. Both are showing as the same size on my screen if I post them here (which suggests that the dpi setting is not a factor) but are displaying at 33% larger than the original window although the inserted image properties say 791 x 750 pixels. However, and this seems to be part of the problem, something is being too clever and applying the 175% scaling to the inserted image. Overall, for me there is a process of downsizing to about 75% when the image is uploaded followed by 175% scaling so anything which was sharp ends up fuzzy. It's not a problem I've had with other forums although many allow only attachments or thumbnails which open to the size appropriate to the image pixels.
  19. John Ratsey
    Perhaps the standard Dell disk image is configured for all versions of Windows and includes the bitlocker setting whereas LG is aiming at the consumer market and only uses the Home version of Windows. LG provides the option in the BIOS to set a password for each storage device and the manual includes the warning "If you forgot NVMe™ Password/SSD Password, you cannot restore the NVMe™/SSD." I don't know enough about SSD security to know if setting a password enables encryption.
  20. John Ratsey
    While exploring other parts of this forum I came across this power saving guide which has been copied from NBR (hence no graphics) and has many relevant suggestions for trying to reduce the power consumption.
  21. John Ratsey
    My formula to convert 100mWh is divide by 1000 to convert from mW to W and then multiply by 60 to remove the hr/min which then just leaves the unit as Watts. I have a dim recollection of doing this type of exercise either at school or at university both of which were a long (>50 years) ago. That's an interesting observation which indicates that the battery calibration isn't quite right. Samsung used to include a battery calibration in the BIOS so that users could, every few months, fully drain the battery and then fully recharge it in order to reset the voltage - capacity relationship. Windows won't allow the battery to be fully drained as a low capacity will trigger hibernation or shutdown but the workaround is to open the BIOS setup and leave the computer until it's empty. I'm wondering if some of my missing battery capacity would reappear if I did this, but it's not a priority as the battery is effectively only a backup against mains failure. Something else I should mention is that I was just using the touchpad during my time on battery and I had no problems with scrolling etc.
  22. John Ratsey
    Thanks. I've been right-clicking on an image and looking for an option but didn't think of double-clicking. Nonetheless, the image as displayed on my screen (2560 pixels wide) seems to have been upscaled as instead of occupying about 30% of my screen width, it's nearer 60%. Embedded thumbnails which will enlarge when clicked on would be my preference if the forum software supports this feature.
  23. John Ratsey
    I would like more control over how images are presented when I upload them. There seems to be upsizing when embedding into a discussion. I've just posted something here and the graphics are much larger than needed to convey the information so they take up more space than needed. I tried resizing before uploading but it didn't make a significant difference. The first graphic (BatteryInfoView) was 785 pixels when uploaded which is legible but not too big but it's displaying as much bigger. Am I missing something here? Can I embed a thumbnail image in the appropriate place which will enlarge to the uploaded size when clicked on?
  24. John Ratsey
    That's an interesting unit: mWh/min! By my reckoning 1 mWh/min = 0.06W so all those states of idleness are low drain (but subject to Windows deciding it's time to do some housekeeping). 100mWh/min is 6W which is the number I chucked into the air a few days ago as a reasonable target power drain under light usage. Perhaps Windows has settled down? It might previously have been doing indexing during any idle moments. I have also carried out some more testing on my Gram 17. I had previously disabled the battery saver option to check the fully charged capacity. It's only 72.5Whr but this was a pre-owned Gram 17 so I don't know how the battery was treated. I'll wait and see of the reported full charged capacity stays there or reverts to 80% of that number when the computer next starts up. Then I needed to drain the battery below the 80% level for the battery saver setting to become effective so I let BatteryInfoView do some logging which resulted in this graph: I spent most of the time composing a long email but I had Firefox (with the innumerable tabs) open and was intermittently looking for information. I also went away from the computer at intervals. The display was at about 1/2 brightness and the graph confirms my previous observation of an average power drain of about 8W when running on battery with Firefox open. I'm happy with this as my Gram 17 will be rarely used away from my desk.
  25. John Ratsey
    Thanks for your update. I've also concluded from a couple of tests today that the transition from S3 sleep to hibernation isn't working. This could well be a long-standing issue with Windows. The observation here is that when the computer wakes from sleep in order to hibernate it forgets to hibernate and restarts the timer for sleeping. Perhaps that's the strength of S0 sleep: The computer isn't properly sleeping and therefore has the resources awake to go into hibernation when the time comes. Hibernation should take zero, or very close to zero (eg checking to see if the power button is pressed) power. Microsoft's explanation of the different sleep states might throw a little light on what is using power. Do you have anything connected to the computer when running on battery? If so, the USB hub may be staying active even if the computer is sleeping. Or it might be the SSD interface. Unhide the various link state power managements options and set them to be the lowest when on battery. BTW: I've just noticed another bug / feature: I've had the Extend Battery Life option enabled in the LG Control Centre and this has resulted in the computer reporting that the 80% charge is actually 100% which suggests I've got a dying battery (Full Charged Capacity 59,390 mWh) rather than the % of the actual capacity. I've not seen that on other computers - my Galaxy Book Pro with battery saver enabled says 84%.
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