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Aaron44126

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Everything posted by Aaron44126

  1. Aaron44126
    Even when DTR's were more of a thing, it seemed like the market for "professional" high-end business systems (Precision/ZBook/Lenovo P&W series, maybe "rugged" systems in certain situations) and more gaming-focused DTR's (Alienware/ASUS ROG/MSI/Clevo/etc.) were pretty separate. There are cases of overlap for sure, but I think it mostly goes in the direction of "ordinary consumers" buying "business" systems. (I bought a Precision for personal use, and there are number of "prosumer"/non-business Precision laptop users active here.) I've never heard of a company buying a bunch of Alienware or ASUS systems for a professional engineering job. You might see systems like this used in small business situations where the IT department is not fully developed. But larger businesses will want business-class warranty & support and that is not offered on all lines of business. Internal modularity would matter less to larger businesses (where the big money is for these types of systems), if they're just going to refresh the things after 3-4 years anyway. I've seen this myself. We also use Precision systems at work (software engineering) and there have been a few occasions where IT is chomping at the bit to keep their three-year refresh cycle going and replace my team's systems, and I have to almost "beg" them to wait a few months so that we can get a new model and not a year-old one. And they'd rather pay Dell to configure the systems appropriately out-of-the-box rather than shop around for SSDs and RAM modules to save a few bucks, both for purposes of simplifying their own jobs getting systems up and running, and also simplifying the complexity on what is covered under warranty and what is not. It all boils down to the same thing. The consumer DTR market as it was is gone and unlikely to return; the money is not there. There is little reason for laptop makers to collaborate on new standards to replace things like MXM. Seems obvious that users on a forum like this who like to tinker, tune, and upgrade would want a DTR revival, but if we are something like 0.2% of the market, then what's the point... 😕 (I hate being all negative about it but it's just how I see the situation.) If there is any silver lining, it is that the need to upgrade your PC every few years has been going down over time, so you can stick with a system for longer even without upgrades. 5+ year old PCs that were high-end at purchase time are still quite capable at this point. Even a laptop GeForce 1080 system (hit the market about six years ago) should be able to run current games at 1080p/60 and reasonably high settings. (...Enter Microsoft, with their new artificial OS system requirement hikes.)
  2. Aaron44126
    (Devil's advocate / laptop company perspective) ...How would revenue be higher if we make it easier for people to not replace their whole laptop every few years? 😕
  3. Aaron44126
    If you haven't used a high-DPI panel before, welcome to the world of Windows scaling issues... In Settings -> Display under "Scale and layout" you can set the scaling ratio for your display, which would normally be 100% on FHD. 200% on 4K will give you the same amount of working space as 100% on FHD (but with four times the level of detail/sharpness in images and text). If your eyes can tolerate it then you could try stepping down to 175% for a bit more working space and a bit less detail. ...Not all apps handle scaling properly. Many of them will need to be restarted if you change the scaling level in order for them to render properly at the new scaling level. Some apps improperly "claim" to support high-DPI but do not implement it properly, resulting in them being rendered with very tiny text/UI, or just having broken layouts. Using multiple monitors at different scaling levels adds another complication — some apps support per-monitor scaling, some support scaling but only off of whatever the primary monitor is set up (they will be bitmap-scaled up or down from there for secondary monitors, making them appear slightly blurry), and some don't support scaling at all and will just run scaled up from 100%. Sometimes there is a strange mixed bag. (I.e., Microsoft Outlook supports per-monitor scaling but Microsoft OneNote does not, both installed from the same MS Office 365 package...) This compatibility setting is your friend. If an app is misbehaving, then it almost always makes it work. (It will cause the app to always be run at 100% scaling level and then bitmap-scaled up for your display.) If you have the display set to 200% scaling, then an app that only supports 100% scaling will be rendered with pixel doubling and not a blur filter, which is nice. (You can actually play with it now on a FHD screen. Set the scaling level to 125% or 150%. You will lose working space, but you can see how your apps behave with scaling.) ... I probably made it sound a bit more scary than it is. Most up-to-date apps work fine on a high-DPI panel with no extra configuration required. I really run into issues only with older apps, obscure business apps where the developer just doesn't care to address this, and basically anything Java-related.
  4. Aaron44126
    Just got this email from Dell (approx. 48 hours after the order status page was already showing "build complete"). Also watching the FedEx tracking page for movement. (Dell hasn't provided the FedEx tracking number yet. I found it through FedEx Delivery Manager, also two days ago.) Final bit of waiting might be the worst part. But, at least they are beating the original August 5 EDD. Did some poking around Reddit, seems like it is "normal" for them to miss the estimated delivery date shown when the FedEx label is generated (July 20 in my case). Still, arrival this week is not out of the question. I am close enough to the Chicago origination location shown on the FedEx label that I should get it just one (business) day after it is handed over to FedEx. I wonder how much business days matter to Dell from the production standpoint. (All of my order status changes have happened during the weekend.) ———— NVIDIA's "naming" of their products doesn't line up between desktop and mobile anymore. Laptop A5500 (7424 CUDA cores) is closest to desktop A4500 (7168 CUDA cores / 200W TDP). On the GeForce side, laptop 3080 Ti slots between desktop 3070 Ti (6144 CUDA cores / 290W TDP) and 3080 (8704 CUDA cores / 320W TDP). ...But with the tight power limit on the mobile side, you'll see the similar desktop GPUs trounce the mobile ones just by operating at a much higher power level — especially given that the desktop GPUs can boost over TDP, but the laptop GPUs will have a hard power limit of probably 150W or less. Lower power levels are more efficient, so the performance difference with regards to power is not a linear relationship.
  5. Aaron44126
    The A5500 and 3080Ti have the same specs (same number & types of cores, and same amount of VRAM). The difference comes down to the feature set. NVIDIA blocks some "professional-only" features on the GeForce line, like wireframing, double-sided polygons, and even some lower-level stuff like allowing your GPU to be attached to a VM. For gaming, it will not make a difference, but for professional apps that utilize the GPU, it might. Check your apps and see if there is any benefit to having a Quadro or "enterprise" NVIDIA GPU. (Look at documentation, or maybe forum/web posts from users of that app.) I think some CAD apps will benefit from this. But, if there is no benefit, then there is no reason to spend that money. The cost to go form 3080Ti to A5500 is about $800 USD. (...Also, A5500 has ECC vRAM but 3080Ti does not.) [Edit] Another thing. These high-end GPUs will be very much power-throttled, especially on the 7670 which will have a lower power limit than the 7770. (These GPU chips are also used in desktop cards at over 2× the power level.) Still waiting for benchmarks, but I suspect that the performance difference between A4500 and A5500 in the 7670 will be less than 5% on almost all workloads.
  6. Aaron44126
    All of these systems will "throttle" in the sense that you won't be able to run them at the maximum turbo speed indefinitely. You will always hit the thermal ceiling and/or the PL1 power limit if you run the system with a high CPU load for an extended period of time. So basically: 7770 will have the best performance of the three, with the biggest thermal solution and the highest power limits. While you will experience "throttling", you will not likely experience "excessive throttling" with any of the systems. ...Each of them would be a big step up from the Precision 7510. As for the relative maximum performance between Precision 7770, 7670, and 5770, it is too early to say. We need some systems out there so people can take measurements. (Biggest issues to me with Precision 5770 are lack of a numeric keypad with the keyboard, and only two NVMe slots...) ———— Dell re-posted the 7670 unboxing video (but it's not any more of an unboxing video than before).
  7. Aaron44126
    I ended up getting an Ecobee3 Lite. Rather happy with it. A main draw was the total lack of a microphone for smart assistant integration. I also like how it shows the actual current temperature and not the target temperature as the large number on the display. And, it supports setting a threshold for "cool" and "heat" at the same time (as long as they are five degrees apart, °F), which will help during couple of weeks or so of fall/spring transition when I need heat in the morning but cool in the afternoon, without having to go and remember to switch it from heat mode to cool mode and back. ...It otherwise supports what you'd expect from a smart thermostat... remote control via app, scheduling, hourly cycling of the air even if cool or heat is not needed.
  8. Aaron44126
    Waze is owned by Google so it doesn't really feel like I'm getting off of Google Maps if I switch to it. 😕
  9. Aaron44126
    I wonder if your system is built but the status is "stuck". Does FedEx show an an anticipated ship date? Strange that they'd issue a label if they weren't preparing to ship within the next few days. ("Shipper reference" should be your Dell order number.)
  10. Aaron44126
    Precision 7770 has 3080 Ti option, and Precision 7760 has 3080 option. (I have Precision 7770 + 3080 Ti arriving this week.) See:
  11. Aaron44126
    Maybe you can PM @zhongze12345 and get his attention.
  12. Aaron44126
    I've also double-stacked cards like this in my M6700 with mPCIe-to-NGFF adapter. Damaged the motherboard on the first attempt (watch out), expensive/time-consuming mistake. https://www.nbrchive.net/forum.notebookreview.com/threads/m-2-ngff-wireless-cards-in-precision-m4x00-m6x00-my-experience-with-m6700.821863/
  13. Aaron44126
    They exist. I have one. Wi-Fi will work in this slot but not Bluetooth. There is no USB pass-through. There is a little header thing (white plug at the end) that you could plug to an actual USB port to get the Bluetooth working. I got it from eBay over two years ago so the listing isn't live anymore, but I found this tiny picture. https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/BiYAAOSwpz9eE-oE/s-l140.jpg (It looks like 2280 size but there are pieces that you can break off to make it shorter. You can install a 2242 card in a 3042 slot, it's just "skinnier".) The item name was: M.2 Key(B+M) to M.2 Key A Adapter Card Wireless BT Adapter Card Converter Q4M3 [Edit] Found a better picture.
  14. Aaron44126
    Dell order status page says “build complete”. New shipping label created this morning. FedEx says delivery on Wednesday (but they don't have the package yet). [Edit] Dell also knocked 10 days off of the estimated delivery date, which is now July 26. Seems like they're still giving themselves plenty of leeway if they're really going to be ready to deliver the package to FedEx on Monday... Also, the “cancel order” button is now disabled.
  15. Aaron44126
    This won't have to wait until the review, I'll be trying it first thing 😄
  16. Aaron44126
    Reading around elsewhere, seems like it is normal for the shipping label print step to happen as soon as the system is on the way over from the factory, but (obviously) no tracking activity until a few days after that when it hits the local carrier. Clearly going by cargo plane (FedEx label origin location is right next to the Chicago airport). Just not sure why it looks like they cancelled my shipping label, then…. Definitely the Dell package, it has my order number in the reference field.
  17. Aaron44126
    Nice! I knew that you were looking but didn't realize that you had ordered one. That should mean that the system has already made its way from China (or wherever the factory is) and should be heading out via FedEx at any time, hopefully tracking is updated with an exact delivery date soon. (Looking back at the Precision 7X30 launch timeframe... My NBR posts seem to indicate that with the 7530, I saw a FedEx shipping label printed on Friday, but no real tracking activity until Monday, and then the system arrived on Tuesday.) Questions — When did you place your order? Which shipping method did you use? What date does it say your system entered production? You could have it next week 😄 [Edit] Just checking FedEx Delivery Manager, I have a shipping label that was created early this morning and then cancelled. It has a status of “Pending” and not “Cancelled”, though. Weird. Anyway, I wonder if mine is almost ready, too…
  18. Aaron44126
    I can say that my Precision 7560 is also domain-joined and I haven't experienced this issue with the latest Windows patch. ...Have you tried just disabling all of the Windows Hello stuff and then turning it on again? (I.e. remove the PIN and then set up a new one.) I figure it has to "cache" your AD credentials somehow (password hash gets sent in to authenticate you when you login in with your fingerprint or PIN) so maybe something got messed up with that.
  19. Aaron44126
    I was going to check but it looks like that video has now been marked private... but you are right, I'd expect a touch/OLED to be glossy. That said, I have seen matte LCD touchscreens before, and I've never seen an OLED panel in a laptop at all (just in phones which are obviously glossy), so my expectations might be off. Thanks. I got my order in on the first day, but I know @operator ordered before me (from Europe) and also has a late August date. We were previously speculating that maybe 7770 systems are a bit more ready to go than 7670, but I haven't seen any other early 7770's either. So, I'm little bit worried that my estimate is inappropriately optimistic because it doesn't line up with everyone else's. But it did go to production status within 72 hours, and based on past experience, that means it should be here within two weeks or so.
  20. Aaron44126
    Yes, all of these systems had a base option that was a plain DVD-ROM drive. You can install another drive (I've done it on my M6700). It needs to be an "ultra slim" drive, I can't remember the exact size but its around 9.5mm or 9.7mm. The 12mm ones are too tall. You'll want one with a flat faceplate/bezel (some might have one that is rounded at the bottom to match the style of the laptop it came from) but it's actually pretty easy to snap the faceplate off and replace it too.
  21. Aaron44126
    Curious why you guys selected A5500 over GeForce RTX 3080 Ti? GeForce will offer the same performance for cheaper in many cases. Do you use ISV/professional applications? (If so, it totally makes sense.) Did anyone else order from U.S. territory? I'm also wondering why I'm the only one with an early August ETA. I was looking back at the Precision 7X30 pre-release thread yesterday. Seems like a few early purchasers all got their systems around the same few days despite being in different countries. https://www.nbrchive.net/forum.notebookreview.com/threads/precision-7730-5530-7530-coffee-lake-pre-release.809278/page-30.html#post-10750185 I remember deliveries of last year's 7X60 systems being much more staggered out even among early purchasers. (Figured this was due to supply chain / global shipping issues, which are still a problem now but should be better than last year...)
  22. Aaron44126
    I can check on filling up the RAM. What do you experience when you try to get close to the RAM limit? Does the system start to misbehave, or is it just Windows wanting to start paging stuff out to disk so it never looks like more than ≈110GB is in active use?
  23. Aaron44126
    I can confirm that the fingerprint scanner is working as expected for me after the latest Windows Update patch from Tuesday. Two systems: Precision M6700 (FIPS) and Precision 7560 (non-FIPS). Both running Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2021 (19044.1826). FIPS is a separate gold square in the palmrest on all models. Non-FIPS will either be a "swipe" style reader in the palmrest, or integrated into the power button. ...Is your Precision system attached to an Active Directory domain? Do you use a SmartCard? (If not, I do not think that the Microsoft article really applies.) It looks like the English language for this statement is "This option is currently unavailable." This might help you with Googling for a solution. I saw some articles like this which discuss resetting various things, checking group policy, etc. https://supertechman.com.au/how-to-fix-windows-hello-this-option-is-currently-unavailable/
  24. Aaron44126
    If you want to use single-cable docking (no AC adapter connected to the system) — WD19DC / WD19DCS is your only real choice. (Note, 7770 might take a performance hit with only 210W of power available instead of 240W.) If you are willing to use dock cable + AC adapter plugged directly into the system — pick any dock you want (even third-party).
  25. Aaron44126
    More chatter about "Windows 12" dropping in 2024, restarting the three-year cycle between major Windows releases. https://www.neowin.net/news/windows-12-microsoft-goes-back-to-releasing-new-windows-every-three-years/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-said-to-be-ready-to-shake-up-the-windows-update-schedule-again/ (Will Windows "X" Enterprise LTSC 2024 be based on Windows 11, or Windows 12? Wouldn't be surprised if they don't even decide that internally until pretty late.)
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