Aaron44126

Yes. FIPS meets certain security criteria and could be required in sensitive environments (government work maybe?). ...It is also a good bit slower to do a scan, and just doesn't integrate as seamlessly into the chassis, so I have started opting for non-FIPS. (If I were worried about people with specialized skills lifting prints and trying to fool my fingerprint reader, I wouldn't use fingerprint login to begin with.)

Yes, all of the 240W power adapters from the past ≈11 years (three different versions) are cross-compatible. (I am writing this from a Precision 7770 with an old PA-7E 240W PSU attached, that was previously used with my Precision M6700.)

I've been trying to figure out why I get some inconsistent framerates and audio stuttering from time to time with Final Fantasy XV (now about 25 hours in). I noticed some pretty significant DPC latency, coming from the NVIDIA driver nvlddmkm.sys. The latency incurred is at least 5ms — I stopped running LatencyMon after I saw a huge spikes, I didn't wait to see if any higher ones popped up. I got it to drop down to <1ms but only by forcing the NVIDIA GPU power state to P0 using NVIDIA Inspector. So, the latency is likely caused by NVIDIA GPU power state changes (something that I have fought with before). Note — Setting "Prefer maximum performance" in the game's profile in NVIDIA Control Panel was not enough to stop the issue. Something to keep in mind if running real-time audio or other time-sensitive applications while the NVIDIA GPU is active. I now have tooling built into Dell Fan Management which, when combined with Process Lasso, can switch the thermal profile (i.e. from "Quiet" to "Ultra Performance") when certain applications are launched. Now I need to do something similar for the NVIDIA power state... [Edit] Got it.

Right, just keep record of it (in case the price changes again...). I wasn't charged until the day that my system was delivered.

Maybe, if it is basically done and already being moved around then it is probably too late to cancel. (You can still do a return once you receive it.) You should still get together some documentation on the lower price that you are now seeing. I am sure that customer service would be willing to issue a credit. (You can also bring up the delay and how long you have had to wait...)

I did some searching and came back with "mixed results". Ubuntu documentation seems to indicate that it is not supported. You should switch to AHCI mode and use "standard Linux" software RAID (MD RAID). https://help.ubuntu.com/rst/index.html Intel actually has some documentation that seems to indicate that MD RAID can "see" metadata that Intel RST puts on drives and thus recognize and use Intel RST arrays. (I would presume, that if you can get this to work, you would be able to "read" Intel RAID arrays under Linux on a system that doesn't even support Intel RST.) Getting the RAID volumes to become "visiable" in Linux might be as simple as running the mdadm "create config file" and "assemble" commands (page 9/10). https://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/white-papers/rst-linux-paper.pdf (Booting off of a RAID array will require some extra work but that is also described in this document...) Odd. I've definitely done it on newer Precision systems. These systems (at least Precision 7X60 and 7X70) won't take the "generic" Intel RST driver from Intel's site and they require the one provided by Dell. Older systems (i.e. Precision 7530) would take the generic Intel RST driver. If your RST controller shows up in Device Manager as "Intel RST VMD Controller 9A0B" or "Intel RST VMD Controller 467F", you can try loading the Dell driver. https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-us/drivers/driversdetails?driverid=mk0y4&oscode=wt64a&productcode=precision-17-7770-laptop (Run the .exe and choose to "extract" it, then go find the f6vmdflpy-x64 folder.)

You should contact CS and see if you can un-cancel. (Probably not, but I've heard of it being done.) If they are offering you new systems at a discount compared to what you paid, and you haven't even received your system yet, you can also have them credit you back the difference. No need to cancel and reorder and lose your place in line.

One beneath the SSD door, two side-by-side in the "bottom left" of the system. The service manual pictures might have the battery covering one of the two side-by-side NVMe slots. If you get the "thin chassis" then the battery takes up the space of one of them.

Well that is something. Both @win32asmguy and I were hitting thermal throttling in the stock configuration on Precision 7770 (100 degrees at ≈85W) and needed a repaste to open up the thermal headroom. Does 7670 actually have a better (or more well-fitting) thermal solution ...?

Mine sat "In production" for almost a week and then moved to "Build complete". There is no checkmark for "Build complete" but the large font status text at the top of the order status page changed. After "Build complete" it took about 10 days before it was marked "Shipped". The "Build complete" step is where the system is being moved from the factory (China) to the destination country, including (presumably) transport within China, a delay for customs, a few different cargo plane flights, and so forth. It doesn't get marked "Shipped" until it is handed off to the local carrier.

If you look at my heatsink photo, it seems like the "stock pad missing" from your image is actually stuck on the bottom side of the heatsink when I removed it. Anyway, I certainly do not mind you using my photo for measurements... Looking forward to the details because I would definitely like to reproduce this. [Edit] Realized later that the photo just above actually has the thermal pad thicknesses embedded on it. I will plan to use this as a guide when doing my own pad replacement. [Edit 2] Actually looking at the pictures, looks like the stock pad that is missing in yours is also missing in mine...

To do a regular Windows install with Intel Rapid Storage, you need to have the Intel RST drivers unpacked on a flash drive and use the "Load driver" button at the drive select screen in the Windows installer to load them. Then, you should be able to select a drive (or RAID array) and install like normal. I'm not sure how Lenovo handles this, but for Dell you can unpack the driver and look for the folder with INF and SYS files (in a folder called "f6vmdflpy-x64" in my case here). Copy the contents of that folder to a flash drive and point the Windows installer to it when it says it can't find any drives. I also tried booting Linux on the Precision 7770 and was surprised that it did not recognize the Intel RST RAID array "out of the box". I opened up GParted and it just showed the three individual drives, not the array. I have not done any further investigation. Intel is usually good about contributing drivers to Linux so I wonder if it is just because this is a brand new system, stuff isn't caught up in distros yet? With regards to BitLocker... For a "regular drive", you will always be able to access your BitLocker data if you have the BitLocker recovery key, even if you move the drive to another machine or if the TPM keys get wiped. If you try to boot the drive and it can't negotiate the key with the TPM, you will just get a prompt to enter the recovery key before Windows will boot. Store the recovery key somewhere safe. You might get prompted to enter the key if certain changes are made (BIOS update or certain BIOS setting changes for example). If Windows starts prompting for the key at every boot, "suspend" and "resume" BitLocker from the control panel and that should stop. For an Intel RST array, you will need all of the array drives attached to a (compatible) Intel RST controller in order to access the data as well. My understanding is that you can "move" an Intel RST array to a different system (that also supports RST) just by moving all of the drives over and it will automatically be recognized... but I have not tried this myself.

I've never had mine crash from high temps (it should throttle down to bring the temperature under control) but I have noticed that after many months, the fans will definitely be running higher under a moderate load, and a cleaning will bring it back under control. I recommend cleaning 2-3 times per year (especially if you run loads that tend to invoke the fans... less important if they are off most of the time).

Thanks for joining/posting and welcome! 😄 I am coming from Precision M6700 (Ivy Bridge / ten years old) and waited for Alder Lake for similar reasons. I've been wanting to upgrade for a while but basically didn't want to hop on Intel's recycled 10nm+++++ architecture if a "new" architecture was only 1-2 years away. I understand the predicament. I'm thinking waiting just one generation for Raptor Lake won't do much. Since this is a new chassis (for Precision 7000), Dell is likely to reuse it next year, so basically I am expecting something very similar to Alder Lake but maybe available in a 8P+16E configuration, and NVIDIA Lovelace GPUs, and maybe one or two small surprises from Dell but otherwise basically the same as the systems that have just launched. Lovelace will have a node shrink so it will perform better than Ampere, even if the performance boost on the mobile side will not be as great as on the desktop side (because NVIDIA can't continue to crank up the power limit like they are doing on desktops. We'll probably see an AD103 or AD104 GPU constrained to ≈130-150W, lifted from a desktop card that wants to run it at 300W+. All that said, I don't think that you're necessarily "screwed". it stands to reason that even if you purchase a Precision 7670 or 7680 with these "issues", it will perform much better than your Haswell-based ZBook, and if you so choose, you will be able to improve it further with tweaks like we are figuring out here (repaste / undervolt / adjust power limits / etc.). So I guess it is back to what I have posted elsewhere. Some expectations adjustment is needed for the modern MWS market. Despite the power/thermal limitations, the system is still faster than its predecessors. We have entered an era where desktop CPUs and GPUs are going in that won't be able to reach their full potential due to thermal/space limits. I wish things were a bit different, for sure, but it's still workable. (There's also the sad state of lack of competition for proper MWS systems, especially at the 17" level. The available options are Dell, and... MSI, I guess.) ...Don't know what to make about the fan lifespan comment. I have multiple Precision systems that run the fans 24/7 (at low speed) for years and I've never had a fan fail on me. Yeah, this is new for Precision (7000) with this generation. I have a Precision 7560 (2021 system) and I have taken the screen out just to check the display connector, it just took a few minutes. I guess my issue with this change is not just the fact that it's mildly more troublesome to replace the screen. It's that it's significantly more troublesome to even experiment. I'd be interested in checking a mini-LED panel to see if it would work, but even confirming the display connector position or trying to hook the eDP cable up to a mini-LED panel outside of the chassis would require undoing the adhesive to get the stock panel out. ...I get that Dell has no reason to care about this, really, since >99.9% of Precision owners will never care about taking their display panel out. But I'd like a laptop like this to be able to be fully disassembled and reassembled just by taking out screws and unsnapping things (other than having to repaste the heatsink if you take it out which obviously can't be avoided)... No "one-way" disassembly, please. Oh yes, I do miss the ePort for docking. The Thunderbolt docks have never really done it for me. But that's something that is never coming back. I would also like more status LEDs like you say, seeing the hard drive activity indicator is something that I miss in particular. (Can't say that I really miss a 2.5" SATA drive bay, though. While it's a bit sad to not be able to reuse old drives, I can definitely see how those are an unnecessary use of space at this point and sort of had to go.)

It is Intel Rapid Storage, implemented at the driver level, not hardware.

TBH I have warmed up to Apple a lot over the past several years. I use an iPhone X (that's a 2017 phone and it's getting iOS 16 this month — I love how they support the phones with OS updates way longer than you see on the Android side). My kids have iPads (best "tablet" by far, the Android tablet ecosystem seems to have sort of died...). I use Apple Watch and I love it... granted you have to have an iPhone to use it, but . I have an old Series 3, but I will be picking up a Series 8 when it launches in the next month or so; the body temperature sensor system is a pretty cool improvement, and while Android Wear platform is slowly coming along, it seems like Apple Watch has a definite leg up on anything else on the market in terms of breadth of capabilities. I use Apple TV as my streaming box (supports all streaming services & a very wide array of TV/audio technologies, no ads like are starting to pop into Amazon Fire Stick & Google TV platforms, no content distribution issues like Roku periodically runs into, ...). I see macOS as a potential way to get off of Windows without dealing with the hassle of limited app compatibility on Linux. (I have some core apps like Quicken and OneNote with no viable replacement on Linux and no good way to get the Windows version working either, without resorting to a full Windows VM... But they have fully supported macOS versions.) Apple's M1 and M2 platforms are really pushing the envelope in terms of computing potential and energy efficiency. In the end, though, I can't get behind Apple's laptop hardware. No removable battery or storage (let alone memory or GPU). The addition of the "notch" with the camera irks me (even though it does add some screen space for the top menu bar). Heck, even no numeric keypad on the 16" system when there is definitely space for it drives me crazy. There's also the fact that the situation for running Windows games is actually better on Linux than it is on macOS (mostly thanks to Steam Proton) and I don't really trust Apple not to break compatibility with old unupdated apps basically whenever they feel like it. So, I continue to be stuck on Windows. My two cents. End of rant. Anyway, if you want to talk about MacBooks there are certainly plenty of forums dedicated just to Apple stuff. If Apple chatter started showing up in the "Other manufacturers" section here, I'm sure @Reciever would revisit having a subforum for it.

There was an Apple subforum, but it had zero posts after almost six months, so it got deleted...

Thanks... I haven't had issue with "mutli-quote" (I just click the quote button and it adds it to the end of the post that I am working on), but add-quote-after-posting that you mention is a little bit tedious. I just start a new post with the quote and cut/paste it into the edit window afterwards. Understand all about busyness. I have a number of projects (both for this community and otherwise) that I simply haven't been able to find time to work on between regular life stuff...

Noticed this discrete chip with its own connection circled in blue... Any idea what it is?

If you want ECC modules, SODIMM is the only choice for now. Otherwise... if you don't care about price or the potential for a future upgrade, I'd say go ahead and stick with CAMM.

Good to see, but I myself am not confident that I could align the screen properly without a definite physical guide (which there doesn't seem to be here), especially since you "only get one try"... so I'd hate it for being "a little bit off" for the rest of its service life... (I'm the guy who would be pretty particular about this sort of thing. Same thing with applying a glass screen protector on a phone...) And, if I want to just try a new panel and not commit to it (again, not even sure if a miniLED panel would work to begin with)... I either have to have it hanging out of the chassis or go through a more extensive process to swap the panel back afterwards, with new adhesive strips and so forth. A panel swap used to be a five-minute affair. [Edit] Actually you would have to remove the current panel in order to even try a new one, because the eDP connector on the back is inaccessible while the panel is stuck in. I can say, I used the machine some after dark last night and the bright spots are definitely better after just removing and replacing the bezel. Odd, but not complaining. I've been thinking about trying undervolting; I've seen the guides to (re-)enable it at the EFI level, but as I understand it, these days you can't undervolt if you have Hyper-V enabled these days? I definitely need Hyper-V active for some of my workflows. Glad to see I'm not the only one who was initially thermal throttling at 85W. Well, not glad really, that means that the stock paste definitely could be improved upon. But at least our experience there was consistent.

Windows is pretty robust when it comes to file system integrity these days, I personally would not worry too much about this. (I never restore from backup after a crash.) If you want to be safe, open an admin command prompt and run "chkdsk 😄 /f", answer "Y" at the prompt, and then reboot your system and it will run a disk check. [Edit] Uh, the smiley is supposed to be "C colon", or "C :" with no space in between, I can't figure out how to make the forum not put an emoticon there..

So. I took the display panel bezel off. It was pretty standard, held in place with plastic clips and adhesive around the actual panel. I carefully worked my way around with a pry tool. (The left and right sides of the bezel are pretty thin and seem like they could snap if you just try to pull it off with your hand.) My plan was to take the panel out as well and check out the labels and connector on the back. But, I found... ...no metal tabs with screws holding the display panel in. It looks instead like it is held in place by adhesive strips. There are pull-tabs at the bottom (circled above) that appear to be to aid in releasing it. But that means putting a new panel in would require adding new adhesive behind it and aligning it by hand. (There is "wiggle room" between the sides of the panel and the tabs that hold the bezel in place.) ...Yuck. I guess this explains why removing the panel itself is not covered in the service manual. Anyway, the act of removing the bezel and reapplying it seems to have made the backlight bleed problem a good bit less bad. Maybe there's less pressure on the screen and that helps. (Or maybe I'm just tricking myself and I'll notice it again once it gets dark.) Doesn't help with the issue with the "blacks", but I'll stick with the panel for now and see if it still seems like a big deal after a few weeks, or if I get used to it. [Edit] It does look like you can still remove the hinges separately. (I had to replace the hinges in my M6700, one of them snapped after seven years of use...) But the display panel is something that I would say "should" be easy to replace separately. It's not like there's not room for the metal tabs and screws here .... maybe they would have to add a quarter millimeter to hold the aluminum bracket that goes around behind the panel. You "could" source an eDP panel from anywhere but unless you want to go through the trouble of dealing with the adhesive/alignment, you'd have to source an entire display enclosure from Dell to replace the panel. This along with the keyboard are disappointing steps in the direction away from self-repairability.

Poking around with display panel stuff and I realized that Dell has released a driver / color profile for the 4K AUO panel in the Precision 7770.... but it's only available over on the Alienware support page. (Confirming that they are sharing this panel between the Precision and Alienware lineup.) https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-us/drivers/driversdetails?driverid=cwkg5 Giving it a try but I doubt that it will make any difference, other than maybe Dolby/HDR stuff as noted on the driver page.

Did you use ThrottleStop to get around 85W PL1? Can you point me to a resource about adjusting the IA AC/DC LoadLine? (Never messed with that before.)