CtrlAltELITE

Ah, didn't realise you even got 15.6" laptops without a numpad, but yeah, I need a numpad

Hey folks As per title, unfortunately looking for a new laptop as my 6 year old Gigabyte has finally give up as the board soldered DC in will no longer function. In the replacement I'm looking for: -Rtx 3070, really wanting the upcoming gen, prepared to wait a month or so for the spring releases -AMD Ryzen preferred -15.6" preferred simply as it will fit in my current bags ~1tb of SSD, no HDD req. -£1500ish budget (~us$1500 when you factor in our taxes & market) -Not too fussed about monitor, keyboard & battery, it'll be plugged in at a desk most of the time Really looking for thick & heavy over thin & light, will be used between my home desk & work desk for prolonged periods so have no real need for portability, in fact a itx build with a carry handle is something I was also considering but I think it'd be too much faff. Usage case will be engineering heavy compute tasks (single core intensive but often GPU accelerated flow simulations) and light gaming, so not wanting something that will throttle like my current laptop if sat at full load for a few hours. So far I've been looking at the new Dell G15 being released this month, and the thick xmg, although they seem to be up in the air as to when the 3000 chips are coming. Like the idea of the dell as its something of a household name here.

Envelope full of glitter, on the way.

Yeah, I'd much rather run something that is natively supported over an adapter though.

Hey folks I have an Intel AC7260 in my laptop which is giving up the goose (same problem as this guy https://forums.intel.com/s/question/0D50P0000490S66SAE/intel-dual-band-ac-7260-continually-losing-network-connection?language=en_US) have been looking for a replacement card, ideally I'd like to go for something different as I have had nothing but problems with this 7260 over the ~4 years I've had this laptop, Intel has also dropped support for the card as it is long discontinued. However I am finding that most manufacturers don't currently have any mPCIe cards on the market. I am wondering if you folks can suggest anything that is still about? Or would a mPCIe to M.2 adaptor be my only option? Thanks CAElite

Hey folks As per title, looking for a phone for my mum, historically she has always had peoples hand-me-downs, she likes flip phones, recently she has been lumped with family members ancient iPhones. I bought her one of the new release Nokia 3310s when they first came out, but she said she just couldn't get used to number pad texting again, but other than that the phone was perfect for her. Just wondering if anyone knows of anything decent on the market with feature phone simplicity, but a touch screen for the keyboard. She doesn't use apps, she doesn't have a 3G connection, nor does she even bother connecting her iPhones to wifi. I have toyed with picking her up a Nokia 1 or other Android Go based phone, but to be honest, would rather aim for something even simpler than that if available as she really doesn't use any apps. Any suggestions welcome Ctrl.

Ah well, I figured, since you get mice optimised for FPS/MMO you might get gamepads optimised for FPS/Racing, as there are loads of features that would make a pad better in racing, but a pain to use in FPS (like really long travel analogue buttons)

Hey folks As per the title, does such a thing exist? I am a fairly massive racing/sim fan, I own a wheel (Logitech G25) and use it often. However more often than not I like just lying in bed, casting my game to the TV & playing an arcade racer with my gamepad. The old Thrustmaster GPX I have has finally packed in & my Nvidia Shield controller doesn't work on Forza so I am needing to pick myself up a new one. I pretty much exclusively play racing games with my pad, shooters/MMOs I tend to use mouse + keyboard. I am just wondering if there are any gamepads about with racing optimised features? Long travel triggers & left stick would be nice, maybe analogue stick inputs too for use for binding to a clutch.

Hey folks Been having really strange issues with my wireless adapter on my laptop. The symptoms of which I am struggling to explain. Generally 2 things are happening. 1. The wifi will just stop, my open wifi list will empty, windows says I am still connected but no internet. If I try to disable/reset the wireless adapter the menu will hang for ages, even stranger if I try to restart the PC it will hang during the shutdown menu, looping seemingly forever. The only way I have found to resolve the issue is a hard reset holding the power button, or by allowing windows diag tool to reset the adapter, however the tool can take 2-5minutes to do so. 2. The laptop will lag, the sound will jump like it where about to BSOD, it'll do this, and like the other issue the wifi list will empty, however the stuttering will stop & the windows will correctly report that there is a problem with connectivity, I can reset the adapter fine when it does this, or use windows diag tool to reset. I have a diagnostic log from the windows diag tool of instance 2, however it appears to have stopped doing instance 1. The problem has been recurring once or twice a day for the last couple of months, but as of yesterday is now happening every 2-30minutes. I have tested the laptop on different routers & the problem persists. I have updated the driver for my wireless card (Intel AC 7260). But really do not have any ideas what could be causing the issue. I am on windows 10, the wireless card is an Intel AC7260, the laptop is a Gigabyte P35Xv4. I have included the diagnostic log from the windows diag tool on the network adapter below, as well as a DxDiag of my system. Net Issues.txt DxDiag.txt

I would love to see a comparison of the 2019 prosumer ultrabooks. I know Linus uses a Razer Blade Stealth as his daily driver so I imagine this is a topic where he could offer a great comparison for. The current competition that I know of would be, the Blade Stealth, Dell XPS 13, HP Spectre 13, Lenovo Thinkpad X1 & Macbook pro. I know it is a hell of a list, but I think they would be great to compare, all come with fairly high end intel low power chips (plus the Blades discrete GPU), thunderbolt 3 & CNC machined Aluminium chassis (with the exception of the Lenovo with a Carbon fibre design). No current large comparisons exist on the market for many of these laptops, It would also be great to see an LTT performance comparison when hooked up to eGPU via thunderbolt for video editing, CAD and even gaming workloads. Particularly with the 2019 Blades price bump I also wonder if one of the compared systems could unseat it as Linus' daily drive machine.

Don't want a mac, also the 4 core versions are extortionate. XPS 13 only has thunderbolt x2, so not great for eGPUs That Clevo, I never actually realised that existed, the UK Clevo resellers only sell down to the 14" model, that being said, having a 2.5" bay instead of a bigger battery in an ultrabook is pretty old hat. Is having a specifically designed dock beneficial, or does any eGPU dock work with any thunderbolt laptop? Toying with a blade stealth and maybe a Gigabyte Aorus, or HP Accelerator

Hey folks As the title implies, really like the idea of a small ultrabook, but with a docking station with desktop GPU + I/O ports. I am wondering what other solutions are out their other than the Razer Blade stealth & Razer core. I am looking at those, but the wierd core lineup and price are somewhat off putting. I know Alienware offer a propriatary solution in their Graphics accelerator, but none of their compatible laptops could exactly be described as an ultrabook (the 13 is about the same size most 15" laptops, and comes with its own discrete GPU). Are their any other dock & ultrabook combos out yet? Ideally with a laptop that'd fit in a small 13" laptop bag (which seem to be modeled after Macbook 13 & XPS sized laptops) with a rough dimension under 31x22x3cm. The laptop would seldom be used for much more than office work, watching movies & light CAD when out of the dock.

Well, on an unrelated note. Might be new laptop time. Thought I'd just pop the back off to see what sized thermal pads I'd need, and to check if my heatsink was copper. Aaand 2 of the heatsink screws are completely rounded off. Not quite sure how I go about this, all the screws are attached to the heatsink by a small screw, I am most definitely going to break something if I try to drill these out. EDIT: Managed to get them out, used my smallest slot drill to take a bit of material off the head of the screw, then managed to ease it off with a flathead. Little bit of metal swarf never hurt anyone.

Yes, dust it every 6 months or so. Sorry if I phrased what I said badly, my query was; when I first got the laptop I ran a -64mV undervolt stably. Now it will only take -55mV before instability sets in. Can high temps coupled with undervolt reduce stability? Or could this be a symptom of component fatigue.

Hey folks Looking for some opinions on this. Have had my current laptop just over 3 years. At a good age where I could reasonably replace it without feeling like I'm throwing money away. Thing is though it serves me fine for my current purposes and the games I play. However it has been running really hot, a few months after I bought it I replaced the stock thermal compound with Noctua NH1. This made a noticable difference to the level that it thermal throttles, even brought gaming CPU temperatures down into the 80s. However in recent months I have noticed temps going up again, and occasional BSODs have actually led to me reducing the degree of my CPU undervolt. (was at -63mv stable, now down to -55mv). Under gaming load CPU temps are sitting well in the 90s, GPU in the 80s. Laptop itself has 10500 power on hours. Laptop gets dusted every 6 months or so, although to be honest I have never seen a big problem in it with dust buildup. So, I have a couple of questions 1. I know I am reaching the EoL of the Noctua thermal paste (3 years), I am assuming this is causing the increase in temps, is it reasonable to see decrease in cooling at this age? 2. Would high temperatures effect the components ability to be undervolt, or could this be a sign of fatigue from use? 3. I am tempted to experiment with a liquid metal paste, if I kill the laptop at the age it is at it would be less painful than a brand new PCB, but are you likely to see a increase in cooling efficiency in a slim laptop cooler? (a difference which looks like between 12.5W/mk and 73W/mk, between cermic and liquid metal compounds, looks dramatic on paper) 4. As per the last question, does anyone know if laptop coolers tend to be aluminium or copper? Don't want to take the lot a part to find I can't use the aforementioned coolant.