Aaron44126

Alright then, I missed that. You should be fine. You'll need a Dremel or similar tool to cut a little protruding piece off of the heatsink, most likely, where it hits one of the VRMs at the top of the card.

I didn't say that it works; I tried to point out the caveats. I would say this GPU does not work in M6800 unless you plan to use it with Linux. Getting it to work with Windows requires "extreme measures" which you should familiarize yourself with before purchasing. I don't think that anyone here will be able to help you with it. The only one I know who has gotten it to boot Windows successfully is @jeamn and he did not end up using it for very long. Quadro P5000 would be a better option. We've had discussion about that going on recently.

It has been tried. https://www.nbrchive.net/forum.notebookreview.com/threads/trials-and-tribulations-installing-a-1070-in-a-m6800.828000/index.html There is a vBIOS issue if you wan to run Windows. You will get an ACPI BSOD no matter what, even if trying to just boot install media. For Pascal, you need an engineering sample vBIOS to get around this (...or some steps that I don't understand like @jeamn did, see link). We only have engineering sample vBIOS images for Quadro P3000, P4000, and P5000; no GeForce.

Are you talking about if there is an administrator BIOS password set? You can have it removed even if you don't know the password. Dell laptops have a procedure for this (it varies depending on the system).

Feedback on some of your questions. 7 — Optimus / ongoing power draw from the dGPU I have had issues like this with every Dell Precision system that I have used. I am not sure if it is just an issue with these things, or with Optimus in general. The dGPU tends to get stuck "on" even when nothing is using it. It might be drawing power even when the NVIDIA system tray thing says that it is off. The fix for this is — after booting the system and logging in, wait a minute or two, then go to Device Manager and disable / re-enable the dGPU. After that, it seems to behave properly for the remainder of the session. (At least for me.) I actually have a script that fires at login and uses DevManView to do this automatically. (DevManView supports command line arguments to do things like disable or enable a device without bringing up the GUI.) Also note that tools that monitor the GPU (like GPU-Z) may keep the GPU awake. So if you're "watching" to see if it is behaving, that might be what is causing the problem. 9 — Fingerprint reader dropped I have experienced this occasionally with multiple Precision systems. (I'm talking on the order of maybe 3-4 times a year.) Hopefully it was just a fluke for you. If it is something that happens every now and then, I don't have hope that replacing any component would fix it. 11 — SmartCard reader errors The SmartCard reader is the long, skinny slot on the side, and doesn't have anything to do with the WWAN card or SIM slot. It's for inserting SmartCards which can be used for authentication or I don't know what else. (I have a family member who works for the VA and she always has a SmartCard inserted in her laptop...)

Seems like there should be potential for manual fan control. The BIOS system diagnostics includes a test that manipulates the fan speed. If someone could reverse engineer that and figure out what commands that it is sending to the embedded controller, then you'd have a starting point. (The manual fan control solution that existed for earlier systems, used in many tools like SpeedFan, HWiNFO64, and the Linux kernel, was also reverse engineered from a Dell support tool.) I actually spent a good amount of time fighting with embedded controller commands to figure it out. I ended up discovering some endpoints for reading the fan speed (and system temperatures) that no one else had figured out yet. But I couldn't find a control mechanism. My investigation was pretty brute force, not really based on reverse engineering anything, I don't have the skills for that. Fan behavior in the Precision 7770 is a part of what turned me off from this line of systems altogether. There are a lot of things about my MacBook that I wish were different, but fan behavior is not one of them.

AFAIK, there is still no manual fan control option for Dell systems released on 2021 or later.

Some notes. Installing Windows 11 on "unsupported" systems typically is smooth, but there could be ongoing attention required, as Microsoft likely will not drop out their yearly "major upgrade" via Windows Update to such systems. So, next fall when Windows 11 26H2 comes out for example, you may need to take manual action to install it if you are running Windows 11 on an "unsupported" system. (Microsoft only supports each version for two years, unless you are on Enterprise edition where you get three years of support.) There's also a chance that Microsoft will break the experience for unsupported systems when one of these major updates comes out. Windows 10 LTSC is still supported for a number of years. You can grab one of those licenses if you would prefer to stay on Windows 10 and continue to receive security support. Even though it is not "supported", there is a path to migrate from "regular" Windows 10 to Windows 10 LTSC in-place (without doing a fresh Windows install), and I have done it a number of times without issue. ...I have particular issues with the direction that Microsoft is going with Windows 11, so for "ideological" reasons, I am taking steps to get myself off of Windows. All of my personal workloads have been moved to macOS. I was using a Windows VM for a while, but I have managed to ditch that recently as well. I'm still on Windows for work, but that will be changing within the next 12 months hopefully (I am ready to go, but my local IT dept is holding me up). There's never been a better time to investigate macOS or Linux. I was on Linux for a while, and though some productivity software is missing, it is a great OS for "basic use" (if you can do most of your stuff in a web browser) and also for gaming (if you don't play multi-played games that use kernel-level anti-cheat). (macOS 26 "Tahoe" is also a mess, but that is one that will hopefully get cleaned up over the next few months.)

So they made it look like a MacBook Pro ......... (The color & shape of the palmrest area / lower chassis strongly evokes "MacBook Pro" to me, including that "notch" in front of the touchpad which is there to allow you to open the lid. I had to do a double-take the first time that I saw it.) But I guess actually using aluminum for the palmrest just costs too much ...? And if I am understanding right, it is also not the "soft" / "rubber"-like texture that Precision 7XXX and M6XXX series used on the palmrest? It's just ... plastic, with a silver "metal-looking" paint/finish?

IIRC, Zbook 17 G1 uses LVDS for the display and not eDP, so this mod would not apply. (Newer NVIDIA laptop GPUs do not support LVDS at all. You can only use them by passing through the Intel integrated GPU.)

You can only buy these workstations from the Dell "business" store, but you can order as an individual without a problem, you don't have to be a business. I always have used a small business sales rep to order, not the web site, you can almost always get a better deal that way even if you are just buying a single system.

RTX 4000 Blackwell ≈ GeForce RTX 5080 mobile RTX 5000 Blackwell ≈ GeForce RTX 5090 mobile These days, if you're looking at NVIDIA GPUs of the same generation in a laptop, the main thing that is going to determine the performance is just the power limit that is set in your system. If RTX 4000 and RTX 5000 have the same power limit, they will have the same performance for most loads (<5% difference), even though the RTX 5000 has more CUDA cores. The main reason to pay extra for the RTX 5000 would be if you can make use of the extra VRAM, or if you will be running AI loads that use Tensor cores only (using all the Tensor cores without using the CUDA cores might not push it to the power limit, so you could actually benefit from more Tensor cores in the RTX 5000?). I haven't been paying close attention, so I am not actually sure if RTX 4000 and RTX 5000 have the same power limit in this system. But that has been the case for the past several generations of Dell flagship workstations, so I think it is a safe bet.

In this case there is exactly one screen option. You just need to pay attention to the other things listed in that box. Do you want IR camera for "Windows Hello" face recognition, or WWAN antennas? I am personally bummed that for some reason there is no 4K option for the 18". It's not OLED, so surely they could have found a suitable 4K panel.

There are only three screens. The high-resolution UHD panel (touchscreen / OLED) 1920×1200, 500 nits 1920×1200, 300 nits Do not get the 300 nits one. That is a basic, cheap screen. The 500 nits panel will be brighter and have better color. The "best" screen would be the UHD / OLED, easily, even if you aren't planning to use the "touch" capability at all. Though if you aren't used to dealing with "scaling" in Windows, or if the price is just not worth it to you, then it might be better to get a lower resolution screen (the 500 nits one). Also worth noting is (I believe) the OLED panel will be glossy and the others will be matte. The reason that there are so many options is because the camera and antenna setup is lumped in with your screen choice for some reason. If you would like to use "Windows Hello" face recognition to unlock your laptop, pick an option that says "IR camera". If you would like to use 4G/5G wireless (cellular) service with your system, get one that says "WWAN". (That's just for the antennas. You will also need to get a dedicated WWAN card.) Otherwise, get whichever one is cheapest (that has the display panel that you want).

The “big” MXM GPUs will only fit in the M6800, not the M4800. Maxwell and later GPUs (M5000M, 980M) will likely require a heatsink mod to install. The VRM position is changed and the heatsink has a protruding bit that hits one of them that must be cut off with a dremel or similar tool. Quadro P5000 will also work but it requires that an “engineering sample” vBIOS be flashed on. This GPU doesn’t support LVDS, so if you have the LVDS version of the M6800, you can only use it with graphics switching enabled (Intel GPU driving the display). Any GPU that isn’t “native” to the system (i.e. that Dell didn’t sell with it) will need an INF mod in order to install the driver on Windows. There has been discussion in the later pages of this thread, which you should check out.

I mean, that's part of what pushed me to buy a MacBook (2+ years ago). "If you're going to make me buy a system that is difficult to repair and with limited upgrade options ... I might as well just buy a Mac, then." I've spent a lot of time with Windows, Linux, and macOS. macOS is the best fit for me right now. There are definitely things about both the Apple hardware and software that I would like to see changed. But overall, it is just better than the alternatives. If you're going to get rid of Windows (...and that totally makes sense, given the direction they are going...), I think macOS is better for productivity and Linux is better for gaming. Don't expect macOS to be perfect out of the gate, though. There will be a "learning curve" to get used to the "Apple way" of doing things, and there will probably need to be third-party tools installed to get the behavior that you want (i.e. especially if you want mouse scroll wheel behavior that isn't terrible). This is fun:

If the laptop is plugged in while you are doing this USB charging, the power should be flowing from the power outlet to your USB devices, not from the laptop battery to your USB devices. I don't think this is anything to worry about, as far as your laptop battery is concerned.

The Precision 7560 keyboard is actually lightly bigger, then, on that system I am measuring 26.5cm wide without numpad and just under 34cm with all keys.

I saw this post and wonder if it is relevant to your situation...

I have done quite a bit of gaming with Optimus (switchable graphics) turned on and I have never noticed any issue with latency. In any case, you should be able to try it with your current card and see how it feels for you.

Vsync doesn't require specific support from the panel to operate. (An adaptive refresh rate functionality like Gsync or Freesync does, though.)

7680 cards and 7780 cards are physically different sizes & layouts. You can't mix and match them. [Edit] I was looking at eBay and I see that some listings for a RTX 2000 show compatibility with both 7680 and 7780, so I thought maybe I was wrong (about lower-end cards at least). But then I noticed they ask you to pick between 7680 and 7780 with a drop-down. It still looks to me like the cards can't be swapped between systems.

I haven’t heard of anyone trying something like this yet on this model. Seems like it “should” work, if the replacement panel has the same connector, and you can actually perform the physical replacement. On that last point, I will say that Dell has made it a lot more annoying to replace the panel than it was in earlier systems. Before, you could snap the bezel off, take out some screws, and easily swap out the panel. Now, the panel is held in place by adhesive, not screws. Aligning a new one would be tricky. When Dell replaces a panel under warranty, they just replace the entire top part of the laptop — panel, enclosure, antennas, and all — rather than replacing the panel only like they used to.

Are you looking to try that on your current setup? (Just pointing out that P5000 and P5200 are not the same GPU.)

Can't go wrong with Samsung SSD, either 9100 Pro (PCIe5) or 990 Pro (PCIe4, and a little bit cheaper). Don't get the heatsink version, it won't fit.