Aaron44126

Got another one very shortly after rolling the BIOS back, so that's not it. (This one also blames refs.sys.) I rolled back the December 2022 Windows Update (which I did at the same time as the BIOS update). I'm working on switching from Intel RAID to Storage Spaces (so that I can disable Intel RST in BIOS) and if that doesn't fix it, I'll see about using tools like this to determine if I have a bad drive.

Got another BSOD after clearing the NVRAM. I'm now pretty sure that it is storage related. (I got one BSOD from the BitLocker driver, one from the ReFS file system driver, ...) Since I didn't start getting these until after the 1.8.0 BIOS update, I am now rolling back to 1.7.1 and I will see if the issue persists. Other things I can think of: Intel RST doesn't like my 8TB drives and I'll have to disable RAID and use AHCI/NVMe mode. (...A pain; I'll have to migrate all of my data off of the RAID array, set up Storage Spaces, and move it back.) It wouldn't be the first time someone has had issue with Intel RST running drives with "higher-than-spec'ed" capacity. ...Maybe one of my 8TB drives is actually flaky and I'll have to have it replaced.

Huh. The Intel RST driver is only required if the system is set to "RAID" mode (which is the default setting from the factory, even if you didn't include any RAID arrays in your build). I didn't have any issues getting that driver to load on Windows 10. (I've only used the stock Windows 11 image from Dell, I have not tried to install it myself.) I can't speculate as to why Windows setup would not be able to see the drives if the system is set to AHCI/NVMe mode. I've never encountered that before .....

Sam Bankman-Fried Pleads Not Guilty To Federal Fraud Charges In New York https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/03/sam-bankman-fried-pleads-not-guilty-to-fraud-charges-in-new-york.html I guess "swift justice" isn't a thing.

You need the Intel Rapid Storage drivers from Dell. The generic package from Intel's web site does not work with newer Dell systems. Go to dell.com/support and find the RST package that applies to your model. Extract it and find the "f6flpy" folder -- that contains the driver files for Windows setup. Alternatively, you can go to BIOS setup and switch the disk controller mode from "RAID" to "AHCI/NVMe" (if you do not plan to use a RAID array). Then Windows setup will be able to find the drives without an extra driver needed. Note that the existing Windows install will not boot after switching the disk controller mode unless you take extra steps.

Twitter failing to pay rent on office space (and facing a lawsuit). https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/01/musk-led-twitter-faces-another-lawsuit-alleging-it-failed-to-pay-bills/

Here we go! https://www.tomshardware.com/news/alienware-m18-bigger-screens-ces-2023 HX in "first quarter", I'll be darned. The schedule is shook up. No idea when the Precisions will arrive. It would be perhaps two months earlier than normal, April-ish. It's the 18-incher that everyone has been talking about. I like that they put the numeric keypad back, but no 4K means "yawn" to me. I don't understand why that isn't a standard offering (even if they'd have to limit it to "just" 120 Hz). Keyboard layout looks mostly reasonable but dedicated PgUp/PgDn are missing. And it's dumb too, since they have a right windows key and super wide right Ctrl key; they could ditch the right Windows key and shrink the right Ctrl key and have the space for PgUp/PgDn right there. If says you can fit 4 SSDs, but with an advertised "9 TB" max capacity, I'm guessing some of those are smaller than 2280 size? (Wouldn't be the first time that they've done that with Alienware.) RAM is capped at 64GB. [Edit] Dell G15/G16 https://www.tomshardware.com/news/dell-g15-g16-retro-colors Acer also has an 18" laptop https://www.tomshardware.com/news/acer-predator-helios-16-18-nitro-ces-2023-specs-price Razer too https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/3/23530833/razer-blade-16-18-gaming-laptops-specs-price Anyway, looking like March is the month for the first 13th-gen HX laptops. [Edit 2] 18" for ASUS. https://www.tomshardware.com/news/asus-rog-ces-2023-scar-g18-specs-price

Eh, since the CAMM modules get physically larger as capacity increases, I can totally see them stuffing CAMM into a non-Precision laptop but not giving it the physical space to hold a 128GB module. On the upper end, 4090 goes "only" to 150W? Is this without dynamic boost? Ampere GPUs can go up to 175W. [Edit] Nevermind, I now see that it says right there that this is without dynamic boost.

NVIDIA has some details out for laptops. February 8 -- GeForce 4090 and 4080 laptops available February 22 -- GeForce 4070, 4060, and 4050 follow (Now need information on specific models and specs...)

Indeed, but we could see perhaps an Alienware product announcement from Dell, or HX laptops from other gaming laptop OEMs, with release windows giving a hint of when the HX CPUs will "really" be available. (Dell Precision 7000 tends to lag behind gaming laptops of the same generation by something like 4-6 weeks.) I'm fully expecting any HX laptops announced to have a "second quarter 2023" release window, but regular H laptops might start dropping around the end of this month or early February.

13950HX actually has a slightly higher clock speed than 13900HX (...and is listed cheaper??). https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/232149/intel-core-i913950hx-processor-36m-cache-up-to-5-50-ghz.html https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/232171/intel-core-i913900hx-processor-36m-cache-up-to-5-40-ghz.html It looks like the same story as last year; HX CPUs with models ending in "50" are "business versions" with extra features (i.e. ECC memory support).

Just came here to post the same thing, ha. Intel has their own announcement: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/newsroom/news/intel-announces-worlds-fastest-mobile-processor.html A little surprised to see HX announced; it breaks their pattern of announcing only the lower-end CPU first that they have had for the last two years. I haven't seen any specific laptops announced with 13th-gen HX CPUs, but that might be coming any moment now since CES is just getting underway. (Still not really expecting to see them launch before April at the earliest, but I could always be wrong.)

Indeed, IoT and non-IoT are binary-equivalent. The only difference is in how licensing/activation works, support length, and also ISOs for one of them has better multi-language options if you want an install in a language other than English (don't remember which, probably non-IoT). You can switch between the two just by swapping product keys. I'd presume that there will be a way to install updates intended for the IoT version on the non-IoT version without much hassle, after the first five years of support runs out, but we're a ways off from that yet. Also, technically, IoT is supposed to be run only in "kiosk mode" (only one application running) but that is not actually enforced.....

Not surprised that pushing the graphics power level higher also restricts the CPU a bit. (...This is quite possibly why Dell put the GPU power limit where they did.) At least you have the option to give more power priority to the GPU when you need to run a more GPU-heavy workload. Undervolting will help out some with CPU performance, but I'd say that would be the case even if you weren't messing with the GPU power levels.

Great work with pushing the GPU power limit higher. I added a note about this procedure in the OP.

This is normal for warranty claims, they generally want to have the defective part back. You could potentially be charged for it if you do not return it. (I've never actually heard of anyone wanting to hang onto it for an extended period of time.....)

I have also hit hardcore flickering/artifacting when running with graphics switching off which did persist after a reboot / into BIOS setup screens. This was with nothing going on to "artificially" push the GPU harder. I have a video of it that I took with my phone. I will likely warranty this eventually but for now I am just running with graphics switching on (not causing me any trouble).

Now three times in the last two weeks the system has unexpectedly crashed when I was not using it. It's been super stable before that. I have three different BSODs with nothing in common between them. I'm generally cautious about making system changes so I don't have much to point to. I am suspecting maybe the 1.8.0 BIOS update? I know they messed with the CPU power stuff in the latest update, so I went and did the RTC Reset procedure to clear the NVRAM to reset everything to "default", to make sure that changes that I made previously (AC/DC loadline fix + unlocking undervolting, which I never actually used) aren't causing the problem. If it persists, I'll consider rolling back to an earlier BIOS version...

I feel like this is an over-the-top solution that won't help out much in the end. The laptop's cooling system is more about getting heat from the CPU/GPU out of the system as quickly as possible. The CPU is going to run at 100°C under full load if the power limits are high enough, and lowering the temperature of the air going in by 10°C or so may help a little bit ... but I have a hard time believing that it would be worth the complexity of setting this thing up plus the power that it would use and noise that it would make just to nudge the CPU speeds up by a few hundred MHz at best. (Also, would it really be that portable? Just use a desktop with a bigger cooler...) Plus, for the default configuration, the power limit is more of a performance limiter than the thermal limit is. (Especially on the GPU side.) Reducing the input air temperature won't help at all there.

This is crazy. That error code is indeed for a RAM issue..... Was your new motherboard tested with the original RAM or the Ripjaws first? Wondering if perhaps the same issue was created a second time, somehow it just doesn't like the Ripjaws and they cause some kind of permanent failure. In general, I recommend "mainstream" memory for these systems (Samsung, Kingston, Crucial, etc.) because it would not be the first time that "enthusiast" memory (Corsair, G.Skill, etc.) has caused a problem, though I have never heard of something like this where there was a "permanent" issue. .....If you first tried the new motherboard with the original RAM and it was still broken, then clearly there is some other problem in the system. Odd because replacing the motherboard actually replaces most of the components that could have gone bad. ...Maybe the GPU? I am at a loss. In any case, since it is new and under warranty, if Dell can't get it fixed promptly then just tell them that you want a full system replacement.

Yeah, I was going to say this as well... If they do produce an 18" system, it will likely be a similar situation to them moving from 15.6" to 16" — they just made the display 16:10 and kept the width (roughly) the same, so the laptop's footprint is (roughly) the same, but they can market it with a larger display. There is certainly room in the Precision 7770 to make the display "taller". I saw the rumblings about a possible 18" system but I think that it is likely that Alienware will go first, and next year's Precision "7X80" systems will have the same chassis that this year's had. (They do consistently tend to use the same chassis for at least two generations.) Even though Alienware didn't get an Alder Lake HX system, it is looking like they may well get a Raptor Lake HX system (I actually ran across an Alienware guy on LinkedIn who stated he was involved in the project for such a thing), so next year's Alienware lineup might be more interesting. CPU-Z actually shows a blank spot / no value for the GeForce TDP on my system. Maybe it can't figure it out because I have graphics switching enabled ...?

I remember this as well, I've been into computing since the DOS days when monitors could show black and orange, and you had to manually configure how many heads and cylinders your hard drive had in the BIOS settings, and I used some early laptops that had a LCD screen transition delay so bad that you could see a "ghost image" of the mouse pointer for a second or so after it was moved. 🙂 And I remember using the Windows 95 with multiple apps open and Internet and everything, but only 16 MB of RAM, and somehow that was workable... boggles the mind now. Like I said... I've been in this space for a while and I know how they operate. I'm talking about the Dell Precision mobile workstation space in particular. Even though I don't get to personally use a new model every year, I've been active on this site (or NBR) around all Precision product launches going back to 2012 (and I was "lurking" even before then). Last year with Precision 7X60 it was exactly the same thing, except for the power limits were slightly lower. A dGPU chip which NVIDIA had spec'ed to work at 165W was limited to 110-115W in the Precision 7760, despite NVIDIA control panel showing 140W max TGP. (Limits in Precision 7560 were even lower.) Why would this year's models be different? I would not hold out hope that things are going to change for next year's models either, nor the year after... The big difference between now and the "old days" is the ever-increasing power ceiling on chips. A decade ago you could expect CPUs and GPUs to operate at their maximum speeds and power levels even in a laptop as long as cooling system was sufficient; that's not really the case anymore. Different manufacturers have approached this challenge in different ways with different models (comes back to "everything is a compromise"), and Dell is more conservative with the power limits in Precision than they are in Alienware.

Everyone has their own definition, but to me a "gaming" laptop would be a high-spec laptop that doesn't quite hit workstation-class. You could certainly use a "gaming" laptop for work just like you could a "workstation", but most businesses wouldn't buy one, so gamers are the main audience. Workstation-class would entail business-class support (mainly, prompt attention and parts replacements without having to mail the laptop in), a durable build (using more metal than plastic for the chassis), and long-term support (BIOS and driver updates for several years). MSI and ASUS haven't hit this threshold. Yeah, I think that the main sticking point here is expectations. I fully expected Dell to have a pretty "low" limit on the dGPU when I bought this thing. (Nowhere are they advertising a particular power capability for either the CPU or dGPU.) I've been around this space for a while and I know how they operate. I purchased it with that in mind and was not the least bit surprised to find out that my expectations were correct. I'm generally happy just that the power limits have been raised a bit from the Precision 7760. I feel that the trajectory that Dell is going with the Precision 7000 line means that they will be trying to shrink the chassis by a few mm's whenever they refresh it, and they will not be increasing the power supply above 240W (unless there is some big advance in cooling design/materials), the perception being that their main audience (large businesses) does not want "bigger" systems. They didn't design this system to go toe-to-toe with Alienware. The latest 17" Alienware uses more space on the cooling system with four fans, which means higher power limits and compute potential but less room for other things (NVMe drive slots for example). I'd also argue that the Precision 7X70 systems largely working "as designed", as the rep even said. It simply wasn't designed to the level of capability that you were hoping for. I might wish that they made some different design choices, for sure, but there isn't much any single individual or small group can do to change how they approach their product design. (I also wish that the industry as a whole would be more transparent when it comes to expected performance / power levels when the same chips are offered in different products.) There have been some missteps (AC/DC loadline, poor performance from some of the early coolers) which Dell worked to fix, but they aren't obligated to design to max out their dGPU and CPU power limits to the highest levels "allowed" by NVIDIA and Intel. As for the others (HP, Lenovo, ASUS, etc.), as has been discussed in recent posts, each of their systems has its own compromises. Everything is a trade-off (ever constant in computing). The other workstation makers (HP/Lenovo) have apparently decided that their main audience (large businesses) does not want "bigger" systems to the point that they dropped their 17" offering altogether. Anyway, everyone has got to look at the options and pick what matters to you the most — this forum may be unique in that there are threads going around discussing all of these things with each of the options on offer. For myself, I've put business-class support, 17" display, and max storage at a higher priority than max CPU and dGPU performance. ...Otherwise, I would have bought a "gaming" laptop.

You are right, Alder Lake HX just has the iGPU with 32 EUs. If you need more power from the iGPU, you should get a system with an Alder Lake "H" CPU and not "HX". (Dell has no way of offering the system with "Iris" graphics; there are no Alder Lake HX CPUs that offer this. I think they might have written "Iris" in some marketing material because it is the same Xe graphics architecture used in other Alder Lake CPUs... it just has fewer EUs. But, that is misleading for sure.) I've used this and previous systems with three 4K displays connected to the iGPU (one built-in + two external) and performance is fine for desktop applications and high-resolution video playback. I do always get my work dev systems (like my Precision 7560) with a low-end NVIDIA GPU though, just in case some better graphics performance is needed for something. Nowadays, even the bottom-end NVIDIA dGPUs have tensor cores which can be used for AI applications as well. As for CPU performance, I also work in the software development field and again I have found performance to be "fine". It's better than Precision 7X60 for sure, even if there are other systems that could push the CPU a bit harder. Alder Lake's hybrid architecture is a bit of an adjustment, I'm still running Windows 10 and I am using Process Lasso to make sure that certain processes end up on certain types of cores as I desire.

Huh? I'm not sure that I understand this comment. XPS 17 9720 has a puny-by-comparison 130W PSU. With a GeForce RTX 3060, it scores around 6600 in Time Spy. Precision 7770 certainly tramples it even without any tuning. Anyway, I knew full well going in that both the CPU and GPU are recycled/underpowered desktop components that would perform accordingly. Dell doesn't turn BIOS updates around in 3 days. I've been through beta testing BIOS updates with them before. If anything I suspect that this went through a few weeks of investigation/planning/implementation/testing before it was included with the BIOS update posted on the support site. (Referring to the AC/DC loadline fix here.)