Easa

So Phobya NanoGrease Extreme on CPU+GPU and 12.8W/mK pads on other components, correct? This looks promising. I wonder what 17W Alphacool / Fujipoly Sarcon would do, those are the best that I have ever worked with. There are also new Thermal Grizzly Minus Pad Extreme which should have around 28,8 W/mK but I seriously doubt that. Heck, I would even try custom made copper shim + paste mod on VRM and VRAMs, but going all frankenstein on straight-outta-box 4 grand laptop is...disturbing.

I know that I will eventually have to settle with options that will be available, but it just makes me sad. One way or another, switching to liquid metal, changing thermal pads to Fujipoly or TG Extreme and adjusting voltage / power limits will be done ASAP, that is after I will be sure the machine runs with 100% stability under my workload. I do not want to whine again, but there is literally no competition ATM in the whole MWS segment. HP seems to have abandoned 15&17.3" variants completely, going somehow jack-of-all-trades way with ZBook Fury 16 G9 (which namescheme is almost OCD triggering and flawed from the start as its actually 1st gen of 16" ZBook) with its limited display options, underpowered GPU and not very competitive price. Then there is Lenovo ThinkPad P16, which is only appealing to me because of its keyboard and colour scheme, otherwise has nonsense price tag, its service support cannot be even remotely compared to Dell (at least in my region) and the service options are limited by both expensive parts (as all modern Lenovo laptops) or plain inability to perform BGA or other solder work due to the crucial parts being underlaid with black epoxide that you often cannot dissolve without damaging the PCB. Compared to Lenovo, Dell is quite cheap and easy to maintain even after 5+ years. Next, MSI, which I am not even putting in the same class b/c from service standpoint they are just nightmare to work on. Support is either unwilling or non existent, basic parts are often unavailable after 3 years. So here we are, literally stuck with Dell because it is lesser evil. This reminds me of something... Somebody at Fujitsu should wake them up from their catatonic state to actually produce something newer that 10th Gen.i7 H7510, their Celsius line was quite good (!!!still bottom docked!!!), brick looking, had NBD support, nothing glued, bolts everywhere, easy to repair, just old school. Bad thing was proprietary parts like EC controllers that only they used and nobody else. Then there is that no brand is even remotely interested in the large MWS segment, because there is very small profit. Asus, Acer or small players like Dynabook or Vaio could not cover products like this with their service network similar to the way Dell does. Speaking of Vaio, back in Sony days and XP / Vista era they could make a god tier laptop. Nostalgia strikes again. Back to relevant topic, I personally think (and also heard insider rumours) that the 15.6" and 17.3" form factors will eventually cease to exist, with 16" replacing them both, and we might just see a new 18-19" 16:10 form factor emerging which, due to the thin screen borders and aspect ratio, will be similar in outline dimensions to older 17.3". I was talking about whole laptop market, not just MWS which (on general) are built with better parts. For example, on consumer gaming / creative machines from Asus or Acer the lifetime of fans is about two years (talking about 8th generation Core and newer) when in daily usage. Also depends on actual OEM, Delta and Sunon are the better ones, FCN / Forcecon are not. I am 100% with you on this. MWS is a niche market and should be treated as such, not back down on quality and service accessibility just because mainstream machines are like this nowadays. I mean, it should not have been ditched in the first place, it was clearly the better option. Status LEDs were there for a reason, another cost cutting nonsense, it was great to see if the WLAN/WWAN/HDD etc. is working just by looking at the laptop without any further action. If they can place infantile RGB lights around whole machines today, why not a few subtle LEDs. As for the 2.5" drives, well, I tend to swap them alot using external dock, but even without this, lets just say that you can place A LOT more NAND chips on a 2.5" drive (just imagine how many M2 2280 units would fit into that 2.5" 7mm metal box) than on the M.2 unit, it has its own body as passive cooler and shielding, thus the manipulation is easier, more safe and convenient when you need to swap between two devices for some reason. For a large drive that you only need as a storage (8TB+) where SATA speeds are enough, this is ideal solution. I think that MWS should have some "accessory" bay that could either be configured with a hot swap unit, an optical drive for those who need it, a PCIE M.2 expansion module, USB-C or other port expansion module, or even a 2nd battery unit. They had it like this in the past. Now we are going all external for no apparent reason.

Hello guys, I am a first time poster, but I do laptop repair and modification service for a living, and I have always preferred Mobile Workstations for my daily drivers. I have worked with or repaired a quite number of them, so I (kind of) know their weaknesses and strenghts even on the electrical level, and I have the ability to compare between each generation since 2007. Back in 2014 I have purchased Dell Precision M4800. It was a good laptop with great cooling and internal access, I still love its industrial brick design. Unfortunately, after year or half or two years of usage everything started to break down in almost all aspects (keyboard delays, fingeprint recognition, PCH malfunction, multiple times replaced motherboard within ProSupport etc.). I have replaced it with ZBook 15 G1 that I have modified to same specification, this is what I use to this day. I saw no point in upgrading from Haswell to Skylake or its latter recycled variants, so I have decided to skip DDR4 era completely and wait out for new generation with DDR5 support and new architecture. I was hoping that it will be similar to transition from Core2 Duo Penryn era laptops to Sandy Bridge, that the performance and effectivity will be in a different league. Well, here we are with Alder Lake, a downsized & spliced Skylake pseudo-next gen mashup with ridiculous thermals, bad memory controller and manufacturing variable so high, that the worst i7-12700K chips differ from the best ones by about 80-100W top load consumption and 25-30° Celsius on same cooler and conditions. Even Noctua NH-U12A is struggling to cool these down, and now they throw them in laptops. Again, ridiculous. I knew where this was going since day 1 of Intel mentioning mobile Alder Lake chips. What we are going to end up with is that lets say, my (non existent) Dell 7770 will surpass your indentical machine just because I got lucky with a better, less leaking chip from factory. I mean, silicon lottery was always a thing in desktop OC & XOC circles, I respect that, but I have a serious problem when I buy a machine based on benchmark / review results and end up with something that is operating 30% below my expectations just because a CPU manufacturer cannot guarantee any consistency or QC. Not even speaking about durability of these things. I had to send several 12700K & 12900K´s to RMA because of faulty cores - not a great deal on desktop where you can switch out CPU within minutes, but in our world it sadly means motherboard replacement, which, if you want to keep the device for a longer time (after the warranty ends) like me, is worrying. I was dead set on buying Precision 7670. I really was. I like 16:10 ratio and all the new features, but now, seeing this, I really had to rethink my situation, considering I still can squeeze one more year from my trusty old Haswell ZBook before retiring, even though its performance has become limiting to me. Who knows, maybe with the Raptor Lake it will be better and more consistent (though I seriously doubt that), otherwise I am screwed. At least there should be new GPUs available (with same ridiculous power draw increase). R&D of laptop cooling has not really evolved anywhere in the last 10 years, only thing that we have now is high speed fans with high blade count (and a lifespan of 2 years before the bearing gives up). ================================== About replacing screens, yes, this is the way that all modern (2021+) laptops are build, with screen attached to lid via double sided adhesive. Good thing is that many of these adhesives return to their shape after pullout and are, in fact, reusable for a couple of times. Bad thing is that they (the original ones) are not available separately, only included in larger part such as replacement lid itself. You can use acrylic or butylene tape, but you lose the ability to remove screen without damaging it. I also hope that in the next generation we will be able to choose 16:10 FHD IPS with high refresh rate, otherwise I will have to swap it out by myself. I do not want 4K in laptop, 2560x1600 is maximum for me. ================================== About liquid metal - this is definitely a way to go, I lost count of laptops that I have modified this way, but on most machines you get a whole new level of thermals, silence and performance. On my ThinkPad X1 Extreme (i7-9750H) the result was that the CPU could draw 88W of power without throttling basically for an unlimited time. ================================== PS: Is there anybody else that would celebrate the return of bottom sided docking port, just like M4800? I know I would. My ideal workstation would be a 16:10, 16-18" with ThinkPad design, M4800-like internal layout, IBM keyboard with hardware buttons for both trackpoint and trackpad, dedicated status LEDs and buttons (like T61p or older Compaq), 2.5" hotswap bay (M4800 had one), lid lock, desktop-like UEFI and bottom dock. I mean, these things are heavy beasts designed for workflow, why do they still pursue some unreachable idea of everything being thin & sexy like ultrabooks. Nonsense, at least for me. End of daydreaming, sorry.