Aaron44126

22H2 is live. https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2022/09/20/available-today-the-windows-11-2022-update/

Hardware encryption is disabled by default in Windows these days due to rampant vulnerabilities / poor implementation by SSD makers. If you want to use it, you have to enable it via Group Policy (gpedit.msc) or Windows will force software encryption. (I posted a link above on what group policy setting it is.) It is also important that the drive is in the "ready to enable hardware encryption" state before Windows is installed on it. It sounds like you did that. (You can get it to enable hardware encryption on an existing Windows install but it requires jumping through hoops that are not documented.) If you have done a new Windows install, have the disk showing encryption "ready"/"enabled" in Samsung Magician, and have enabled hardware encryption via Group Policy, then it "should" be working... I'm not sure how important it is to secure erase with Samsung's tool. I ended up taking my drive to a different system to do that. It seems like getting it to boot with legacy boot (not UEFI) is easier. If your drive was encrypted with software encryption before you made the group policy switch, you will of course have to decrypt it and then turn on BitLocker again in order to get it to switch to hardware encryption.

If there is no load on the system, the fans should cycle between the lowest level (≈2400 RPM or less) and off (0 RPM). Assuming the fans are plugged in properly, if the system is complaining about a fan failure and it is behaving strangely with regards to the fans... it's gotta be either the motherboard or the fan. I don't think you can (easily) separate the fans from the heatsink assembly in this one. Even if you could, it looks like the price for buying a set of fans or a whole heatsink (with fans) is about the same. You can purchase a heatsink assembly on eBay for $25ish (USD) — I would assume that some sellers offer worldwide shipping. Of course, removing the heatsink will also require applying new thermal paste when installing a new one. There are different versions of the heatsink assembly (depending on the GPU, I think). If you are going to pick up a new one, put in your service code at dell.com/support and look at the parts list for your system to see which one you have.

Well... It's a Dell laptop, a Dell dock, and a Dell monitor, so that's good for getting Dell to fix it anyway. Make sure that you have the latest dock firmware installed. Release notes mention monitor compatibility. https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-us/drivers/driversdetails?driverid=5x3w3&oscode=wt64a&productcode=dell-wd19dcs-dock Clearly, it is an issue with the display signal coming off of the Intel integrated GPU (since the discrete GPU doesn't have the problem), but I don't know if it is something that could be fixed by doing, say, a motherboard swap... it might be the case that they are just "all this way" and the fix is going to be more on the firmware/software side. I'd refer you to Dell support to see how they want to handle this, be it swapping out hardware or trying to reproduce the issue in their lab to work on a fix. (This is the sort of thing that will be more smooth if you have ProSupport.) Have you tried connecting your U4320Q monitor directly to the system via USB-C to see if the flickering shows up that way too?

My understanding is that it is a little bit faster and a little bit more expensive. I'm sure it's a fine drive, but "noticing a real-world difference" from 980 Pro (other than benchmarks) would probably be difficult.

The heatsink will not fit. Get it without.

@win32asmguy has done it, but P cores only (see page 5).

Found it -- https://www.nbrchive.net/forum.notebookreview.com/threads/precision-7560-7760-owners-thread.836381/page-131.html Are you NBR user "summersun"? If not, the issue is too specific to be a coincidence. (Looks like it was not solved after all...) Have you engaged Dell ProSupport? They might be able to bump it up to the engineering team and get an answer. (Or you might get sent on a wild goose chase.)

Someone else had this and I believe ended up solving it. Let me see if I can find the posts...

I've dropped some beta builds in the thread (linked in signature)... I really should get everything together and do a proper release, just another thing on the "can't find the time" pile. 😕

Windows 11, version 22H2 showing up on new Dell laptops. https://www.neowin.net/news/windows-11-22h2-apparently-already-shipping-with-build-22621521-kb5017321/ Supposedly the release is set for September 20, but Microsoft hasn't given an official announcement.

I wonder if that holds true for the E cores? The Alder Lake E cores are more efficient at low power levels and the P cores are more efficient at high power levels. I haven't seen much specifically looking at E cores performance & efficiency because most people doing benchmarks are just interested in the biggest number you can get. (Getting the OS to properly distribute processes when you want to save power could be a challenge as well.)

I can see them moving the 17.3" system to 16:10 by keeping the same screen width and increasing the height, basically... They could even remove the "Dell" logo beneath the screen and have some extra space to work with at the bottom (like they have done with the XPS / Precision 5000 systems). And maybe you could call that 18". ...Though, if the size that they need is not one that is becoming standard in the industry, I sort of doubt that Dell would go through the effort and expense of contracting some screen manufacturer to make custom-sized displays just for this system.

"Speculation time" 6900HX doesn't seem to be able to top 12900HX in terms of top performance. If the high TDP of the Alder Lake HX CPUs is a concern, there are options to just limit the top power use which will bring fan speeds and system temperature down. This is why I normally run with turbo boost off, unless I need extreme CPU power. You can also just use Dell's "Quiet" thermal profile which will cut power limits on the CPU and GPU. I've asked about this before. Dell generally won't discuss future product plans but... I rather doubt it. I think there would be concern that they'd put in all of the engineering effort to offer an AMD option, and in the end, >90% of the sales would still be for the Intel version, so there's no point really. That is, unless AMD somehow manages to get ahead of Intel in terms of top performance, then maybe people would be willing to give it a closer look. I've heard some users mention that Intel is just better for some types of things, like heavy use of VMs. AMD "works" but support is just not up to the same level. ...There's definitely benefit to having AMD around providing stiff competition, even if they aren't an option for the workstation laptops right now. For instance, if Ryzen hadn't have shown up as a serious contender, we may not have seen Intel bump up the core count in 8th/9th-gen Coffee Lake CPUs. One other thing; there is some real benefit to having separate performance and efficiency cores. Although AMD is poo-pooing Intel's offering right now, I fully expect them to have a similar setup in their CPUs in the next 2-3 years. At a recent "deep dive" presentation on the Precision mobile workstation lineup, Dell reps committed to keeping the 17-inch form factor around for the foreseeable future. (They would already be in the design phase of at least the next two generations of mobile Precisions, so 17-inch "7780" and "7790" seem likely to me.) Based on the industry trend of shrinking workstations generation-over-generation, I rather doubt that we'll see a 18"-19" workstation, or 2.5" drives in a mobile workstation (at least from Dell). Now, if something like that did show up, I'd definitely be interested... So I'd love to be wrong here. However, I think that there wouldn't be that much of a market for such a system.

I posted the “secret” and they don’t seem to have made use of it… AFAIK, Dell Fan Management is the only tool that can show real-time fan measurements for this system. https://www.hwinfo.com/forum/threads/new-dell-systems-ec-sensor-values-not-available-fix.7482/ Anyway, unlike older systems which could run at max turbo indefinitely…. for a few years now it has been normal for these CPUs to hit 100C and thermal throttle at max load. The turbo boost speed is high enough that you can expect thermal throttling. The question is rather what wattage/clock speed can you achieve at that temperature? Improving the thermals should push both of those higher. To keep the fans under control, I keep turbo boost off unless I need it. I have an article about this linked in my signature.

Even combining some, there are a fair amount of pads to cut out. Check out the bottom part of the heatsink:

I did repaste the GPU core when I was doing the CPU (...sort of required any time you take the unified heatsink off). I actually never checked 3DMark to see if performance actually improved; I'll do that soon. When I get around to repadding, I'll look at swapping out the GPU pads as well, but that would be more for the vRAM and VRMs and not for the core. Maybe it will make a difference... ...Just a decent selection of AMD-based workstation-class laptops...

The GPU is not close to thermal throttling before hitting the power limit, so there's not a pressing need to make it cool better. Undervolting it could eek out some more performance.

@win32asmguy has managed 20K in one loop / 18.5K sustained but it took some work, both physical (repasting & new thermal pads for VRMs) and software/firmware (IA AC/DC loadline, power limits, voltage levels). https://notebooktalk.net/topic/632-dell-precision-7670-dell-precision-7770-owners-thread/?do=findComment&comment=13192 You can see progress by looking at his posts on page 5 of this thread. Sort of a shame as he mentioned that the score was achieved without undervolting, so basically it's a ≈33% performance improvement over stock (for extended multi-threaded load) and it's all things that Dell could implement for all systems coming out of the factory (using higher quality thermal materials between heatsink & CPU/mobo components, and setting some firmware variables)... I have not had time to dig in any deeper myself. Given the "issues" with these systems, I'm thinking about re-framing the "review" that I plan to produce as more of a "how to get better performance" guide but finding time to work on it is another story...

Windows 11 LTSC could be coming sooner than expected? ...Or, maybe not. https://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-spotted-quietly-working-on-a-new-windows-11-ltsc-sku/ Also, not sure what the business of "IoT Enterprise LTSC Subscription" is. Subscription, huh? I notice that the screen shot shows widgets present, which is something that I would think Microsoft might exclude from a LTSC build. However, the screen shot may well have been achieved by doing a regular Windows 11 (Insider) install and then forcing the SKU over to LTSC afterwards, which would have left the widgets and other packages that come with a normal base install intact... [Edit] Eh. The build number is beyond what is expected for Windows 11, version 22H2 (build 22621 or 22622). I am not thinking that a release is imminent. The source just noticed a new edition SKU code in the Windows SDK. The news here is not "new LTSC edition coming soon!!", but rather "new LTSC subscription SKU added", and we'll see that whenever the new LTSC version actually drops.

There seems to be some supply chain leakage. These bottom covers have been available on Taobao/eBay since late February (at least), well before the systems launched. I want to know, what makes a bottom cover "defective"? I guess it could be malformed or not have the right dimensions, but otherwise it's basically a fixed piece that doesn't have to do much, there are no electronics in it.

I believe 7710 motherboards are compatible. Find some photos and check the screw hole positions and make sure that they are the same, and you should be good. (I know a couple of users upgraded Precision 7510 to 7520 by swapping out the motherboard. I don't remember hearing about the 77X0 systems but I'd think it would be the same.) Most stuff should be compatible but under Windows you'd need a NVIDIA INF mod to get a Pascal GPU to work. Regarding the issue... With just the top bullet, I'd suggest trying a different PSU if you haven't already. But with that other stuff, and given that you've already replaced the battery... Yes, I'm worried about your motherboard.

Err, lol. Here you go. This allows a number of Samsung (& Lexmark?) laser printers from that era to work on 64-bit Windows 8/10/11. Samsung ML-1210.zip (I am still using the Samsung ML-1210 laser printer. I've had it for 13 years.) [Edit] For random Googlers who run across this thread: you must register an account at the forum here before you will be able to download this file.

I am doubting this, but the only way to know for sure is to try, I guess.

What configuration do you have? 3 NVMe slots requires performance chassis (RTX A3000 GPU or better). Kind of strange that the GPU would determine how many SSD slots you get, but that's how it is.