Lenovo Announces Kaby Lake/Optane Laptops

[leadeater]

4 minutes ago, patrickjp93 said:

Both laptops and NYSE dumb terminals.

I'm more interested in how you are accessing the network using thunderbolt, without dongles. I don't care much about the device for the bit I'm interest in, that's not actually important.

 

NBase-T or 10GBase-T is far better than a thunderbolt dongle, you shouldn't have to get used to it. Not on a business laptop where if you need high-speed network you will be using the port every day all day so why on earth should you accept using a dongle/adapter, nope no thanks. Again just my preference here but I just can't see how anyone can justify not putting an ethernet port on a business laptop.

 

10 minutes ago, patrickjp93 said:

You can buy MAC-free dongles that just take their MACs from the machine.

This is not a thing, USB or thunderbolt adapter.

 

25 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Ever had to prepare 150 Mac laptops using JAMF Casper or DeployStudio, if you haven't then you'll NEVER fully grasp the pain until you do.

This isn't to insult anyone but this is absolutely a case of if you haven't done it you can't know. I went through the same thing.

[patrickjp93]

5 minutes ago, leadeater said:

I'm more interested in how you are accessing the network using thunderbolt, without dongles. I don't care much about the device for the bit I'm interest in, that's not actually important.

 

NBase-T or 10GBase-T is far better than a thunderbolt dongle, you shouldn't have to get used to it. Not on a business laptop where if you need high-speed network you will be using the port every day all day so why on earth should you accept using a dongle/adapter, nope no thanks. Again just my preference here but I just can't see how anyone can justify not putting an ethernet port on a business laptop.

 

This is not a thing, USB or thunderbolt adapter.

 

This isn't to insult anyone but this is absolutely a case of if you haven't done it you can't know. I went through the same thing.

It's pretty seamless. We have a cable end we can plug into our laptops via dongle or direct if you have a compatible laptop. And it's a hot desk setup. Seats change all the time, and nothing bad happens.

 

There's plenty of excuse the ethernet port is both larger and more expensive to have on a motherboard.

 

Quite simple. It takes two seconds to plug into your machine. Or the dongle can just stay with the ethernet cable and people hop around like we do at Suncorp.

 

Yes it is. You can get MACless TB-Ethernet dongles just like you can get MACless ethernet signal repeaters.

 

[leadeater]

1 minute ago, patrickjp93 said:

Yes it is. You can get MACless TB-Ethernet dongles just like you can get MACless ethernet signal repeaters.

Got a link? I've never come across a dongle with no MAC. The ethernet chip is in the dongle, a repeater isn't the same thing. Mac laptops have hardware UUID's embedded in them but not MAC addresses.

 

4 minutes ago, patrickjp93 said:

Or the dongle can just stay with the ethernet cable and people hop around like we do at Suncorp.

On our network that is not allowed, it happens but your device gets disabled until you make the call of shame. For us since we use reserved MAC address DHCP which feeds in to DNS so if you plug in a TB-Ethernet dongle in to the wrong laptop you get the wrong IP and the DNS name does not match the system name. Security is important to us, knowing what devices are on the trusted part of the network is very important and who is using it.

[patrickjp93]

11 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Got a link? I've never come across a dongle with no MAC. The ethernet chip is in the dongle, a repeater isn't the same thing. Mac laptops have hardware UUID's embedded in them but not MAC addresses.

 

On our network that is not allowed, it happens but your device gets disabled until you make the call of shame. For us since we use reserved MAC address DHCP which feeds in to DNS so if you plug in a TB-Ethernet dongle in to the wrong laptop you get the wrong IP and the DNS name does not match the system name. Security is important to us, knowing what devices are on the trusted part of the network is very important and who is using it.

It's more important to a bank, and we've figured it out so...

 

I'll ask our system architect who makes them, but he oversaw the original 1000Mbps network upgrade. And that was his explanation.

[Dash Lambda]

3 hours ago, potoooooooo said:

Also i don't see how they're crippling it, it still has a ton of ports including ethernet, and afaik the only two things it's really missing are the dedicated GPU (940mx, basically worthless) and mildly less ram (8gb soldered + 1 dimm for up to 24gb vs 2 dimms for 32gb max).

Battery is the biggest thing. The T460s had disappointing battery life, and they removed the signature hot-swappable battery just to make it thinner than it should be.

And I see the lack of a dGPU as a positive, that's what puts me off of the T4x0p line. Why have a big, power-hungry, hot chip that I don't use?

The RAM, I actually have no idea. They have the space, there's no reason that isn't grounded in money to solder one DIMM.

 

I'm not arguing that they shouldn't make it thinner, I'm saying that they have a range of products that they shouldn't homogenize. Different machines suit different people, and the line that was almost perfect for me has now deviated too much to an extreme.

 

If the T470s ends up having great battery life, then hey, maybe I'm being overzealous.

[zMeul]

On 12/28/2016 at 8:32 AM, Coaxialgamer said:

People keep forgetting that 3d xpoint is branded as memory for a reason.  It isn't really meant  as a true replacement  for nand,  but more of a non volatile replacement ( or complement)  to dram. 

The main advantage of optane compared to nand is not its speed,  rather it is its low latency,  which is orders of magnitudes lower than nand, while being 10x the density compared to dram, all while at a lower cost. Imagine if you never needed for software to load into ram anymore?  As in everything would already be loaded from the moment you start your pc? 

That is the true potential of optane.  Not a slightly faster version of existing nvme drives.. 

you forgot to add that 3DXpoint is bit addressable while to modify a bit on NAND flash you at least have to move an entire block

 

---

 

and ps: Linux OS on laptops with Intel Optane won't happen since the chipset it set in RAID mode

to this date, Intel hasn't released the Linux variant of RST

[Sniperfox47]

1 hour ago, zMeul said:

and ps: Linux OS on laptops with Intel Optane won't happen since the chipset it set in RAID mode

to this date, Intel hasn't released the Linux variant of RST

Umm... No... MD RAID on linux has supported RST and RSTe since 2011... It's just not enabled out of box on most consumer distributions so you can't use it as a boot drive unless you recompile your kernel/rebuild your ramdisk.

[zMeul]

23 minutes ago, Sniperfox47 said:

Umm... No... MD RAID on linux has supported RST and RSTe since 2011... It's just not enabled out of box on most consumer distributions so you can't use it as a boot drive unless you recompile your kernel/rebuild your ramdisk.

for ICH10R? don't think so

everything I found relating to ICH10R is that it's not supported on anything but RedHat and SUSE

[LAwLz]

7 hours ago, patrickjp93 said:

Pfff, Ethernet... Fiber ports should be standard in laptops by now. At a minimum Thunderbolt...

Fiber ports on a laptop would be a terrible idea.

 

Breaks way too easily compared to copper. 

 

If you have an SFP port then it will be massive compared to a standard Ethernet port. 

 

If it is not an SFP port then you will have the issue that upgrading your laptop might require you to change the SFP in the other end (if the new laptop doesn't use the same frequency as the last one). Everyone would also need to have their own dedicated port, and no flexible searing arrangement (because of potential frequency mismatches). Unless everyone has the exact same laptop. 

[patrickjp93]

40 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Fiber ports on a laptop would be a terrible idea.

 

Breaks way too easily compared to copper. 

 

If you have an SFP port then it will be massive compared to a standard Ethernet port. 

 

If it is not an SFP port then you will have the issue that upgrading your laptop might require you to change the SFP in the other end (if the new laptop doesn't use the same frequency as the last one). Everyone would also need to have their own dedicated port, and no flexible searing arrangement (because of potential frequency mismatches). Unless everyone has the exact same laptop. 

No, fiber is way more durable than copper.

 

The rest of your post I agree with.

[LAwLz]

29 minutes ago, patrickjp93 said:

No, fiber is way more durable than copper.

It's not. It might have higher tensile strength (although I am not sure about that), but that won't help it survive bending (which is the most common damage to fiber).

If we're talking about networking fiber cables, then they are not only more sensitive to being bent, but also far easier to bend. The rule of thumbs is usually the fiber cable's diameter times 10. That's the minimum bend-radius recommendations. For the average (as in, not bend insensitive fiber cables) that's like bending it around a tennis ball. Sharper bend than that and you can damage the fiber (and replacing cables is a real pain in the ass).

 

Not to mention that they are very sensitive to dust too. It would be really impractical to have the employees need to clean the cables before plugging them in. Oh, and also the risk of eye damage if they were to look into the cable.

 

Fiber connectors on laptops, or even desktop computers, is a really bad idea overall. Hence why it isn't used.

 

 

Thunderbolt I can understand more (although I think it seems pointlessly complex for no benefit) since that's still copper, and doesn't have all the drawbacks of optics.

[patrickjp93]

7 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

It's not. It might have higher tensile strength (although I am not sure about that), but that won't help it survive bending (which is the most common damage to fiber).

If we're talking about networking fiber cables, then they are not only more sensitive to being bent, but also far easier to bend. The rule of thumbs is usually the fiber cable's diameter times 10. That's the minimum bend-radius recommendations. For the average (as in, not bend insensitive fiber cables) that's like bending it around a tennis ball. Sharper bend than that and you can damage the fiber (and replacing cables is a real pain in the ass).

 

Not to mention that they are very sensitive to dust too. It would be really impractical to have the employees need to clean the cables before plugging them in. Oh, and also the risk of eye damage if they were to look into the cable.

 

Fiber connectors on laptops, or even desktop computers, is a really bad idea overall. Hence why it isn't used.

 

 

Thunderbolt I can understand more (although I think it seems pointlessly complex for no benefit) since that's still copper, and doesn't have all the drawbacks of optics.

Have you ever seen the demonstrations of corning's fibre vs. top-tier ethernet cable. You have to be a body builder to break fibre by tying or bending it. And fibre is far more durable if a tree falls on the ground than copper is.

 

TB is complex because it can handle many protocols in hardware simultaneously. It isn't for nothing

[LAwLz]

45 minutes ago, patrickjp93 said:

Have you ever seen the demonstrations of corning's fibre vs. top-tier ethernet cable. You have to be a body builder to break fibre by tying or bending it. And fibre is far more durable if a tree falls on the ground than copper is.

Got a link? Also, are you sure that's not some special cable? Again, I was talking about your standard run-of-the-mill fiber cable. Not some crazy expensive "look at what we made just because we can" cable.

As for a tree falling on the cable, if you got trees falling inside your office then you might have some more serious issues than which cable to use.

 

 

 

48 minutes ago, patrickjp93 said:

TB is complex because it can handle many protocols in hardware simultaneously. It isn't for nothing

I should probably add that when I said "Thunderbolt I can understand more", I meant having thunderbolt on the laptop and then using an adapter. Thunderbolt ports on networking equipment would be stupid as well.

Honestly, you should just stick with good old copper cat cables for clients. It just werks, it's practical, backwards compatible. The list of benefits is long, and it has no noteworthy drawbacks.

[patrickjp93]

11 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Got a link? Also, are you sure that's not some special cable? Again, I was talking about your standard run-of-the-mill fiber cable. Not some crazy expensive "look at what we made just because we can" cable.

As for a tree falling on the cable, if you got trees falling inside your office then you might have some more serious issues than which cable to use.

 

 

 

I should probably add that when I said "Thunderbolt I can understand more", I meant having thunderbolt on the laptop and then using an adapter. Thunderbolt ports on networking equipment would be stupid as well.

Honestly, you should just stick with good old copper cat cables for clients. It just werks, it's practical, backwards compatible. The list

of benefits is long, and it has no noteworthy drawbacks.

Other than the fragility, the bulk, and the obnoxious distance limitations.

There's hundreds of these videos that show the connection still works. I'm trying to find the one where they tie knots on a working display and it never falters. And no, it's Corning's standard optical cable.

[leadeater]

58 minutes ago, patrickjp93 said:

Have you ever seen the demonstrations of corning's fibre vs. top-tier ethernet cable. You have to be a body builder to break fibre by tying or bending it. And fibre is far more durable if a tree falls on the ground than copper is.

 

5 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Got a link? Also, are you sure that's not some special cable? Again, I was talking about your standard run-of-the-mill fiber cable. Not some crazy expensive "look at what we made just because we can" cable.

 

@patrickjp93 You talking about outdoor rugged fibre cable or Direct Attached SFP+? DA SFP+ is rugged as but limited to 15m and is actually copper anyway, it has the SFP+ modules on the ends of the cables and for all intents and purposes acts exactly the same as using optical fibre. This is used for top of rack switches to servers due to it's high durability. This would actually work for laptops surprisingly well.

 

The outdoor rugged fibre is very good, ISP's here use it all the time and attach it to almost anything. Cheap and quick to install and only at risk of being cut by an asshole or a rampant gardener.

[patrickjp93]

1 minute ago, leadeater said:

 

 

@patrickjp93 You talking about outdoor rugged fibre cable or Direct Attached SFP+? DA SFP+ is rugged as but limited to 15m and is actually copper anyway, it has the SFP+ modules on the ends of the cables and for all intents and purposes acts exactly the same as using optical fibre. This is used for top of rack switches to servers due to it's high durability. This would actually work for laptops surprisingly well.

 

The outdoor rugged fibre is very good, ISP's here use it all the time and attach it to almost anything. Cheap and quick to install and only at risk of being cut by an asshole or a rampant gardener.

No I'm not. Watch the video.

[leadeater]

8 minutes ago, patrickjp93 said:

There's hundreds of these videos that show the connection still works. I'm trying to find the one where they tie knots on a working display and it never falters. And no, it's Corning's standard optical cable.

AHHHHH!!! no stoppppp!!! That shit freaks me out even though it's fine, years of being very careful with fibre instilled in to me lol.

[leadeater]

1 minute ago, patrickjp93 said:

No I'm not. Watch the video.

Yea wasn't posted yet when I was typing that. I still wouldn't do that to one but damn that is nice.

[patrickjp93]

@LAwLz @leadeater

 

Start at 2:20.

 

The standard quality indoor cable can be run over by movie set vehicles (like cherry pickers, scissor lifts, etc..), be slammed in doors, and be perfectly fine.

 

 

 

[LAwLz]

2 hours ago, patrickjp93 said:

Other than the fragility, the bulk, and the obnoxious distance limitations.

Again, I am talking about having it on clients. None of those things are issues for clients. They aren't even bulky. For crying out loud my ultrabook has an Ethernet port. There is no excuse for leaving it out. It takes up about as much room as a USB type A port.

Spoiler

 

 

1 hour ago, patrickjp93 said:

There's hundreds of these videos that show the connection still works. I'm trying to find the one where they tie knots on a working display and it never falters. And no, it's Corning's standard optical cable.

Are you sure? Because Corning has specific cables they call "bend-improved". I find it hard to believe that they would even bother making a special version of their cable designed to be bent, if their standard cables could do it too.

 

Also, that test really isn't scientific. We have no idea how those bends affected the attenuation. Just because you can shine a light though the cable while it is bent, doesn't mean the signal is still clean and working.

[Sniperfox47]

5 hours ago, zMeul said:

for ICH10R? don't think so

everything I found relating to ICH10R is that it's not supported on anything but RedHat and SUSE

Yeah, mdadm was updated to work with newer versions of RST back in mid 2011, including ICH10R and PCH Architecture.

 

The bigger problem is that mdadm does not currently support Intel SRT and Intel hasn't yet designed a client for SRT, which is the whole problem Lenovo ran into with their laptops.

 

Be careful, RST and SRT are not the same thing. RST (Rapid Storage Technology) is firmware RAID, a special mode of which is used to support their firmware SSD caching SRT (Smart Response Technology).

 

That being said, Linux has a ton of great options for software SSD caching if Intel doesn't wind up releasing SRT support for Linux like they said they would. 

[zMeul]

1 hour ago, Sniperfox47 said:

Be careful, RST and SRT are not the same thing. RST (Rapid Storage Technology) is firmware RAID, a special mode of which is used to support their firmware SSD caching SRT (Smart Response Technology).

it's under the same thing, RST

the controller needs to be set in RAID mode for smart caching to work

[Sniperfox47]

2 minutes ago, zMeul said:

it's under the same thing, RST

the controller needs to be set in RAID mode for smart caching to work

Yes... And Linux supports RST (the firmware RAID), but not SRT (the RAID backed SSD Caching) since Intel has currently kept that a Windows exclusive feature.

 

SRT isn't needed though, since Linux has kernel level software caching (EnhancedIO/Flash cache/Bcache) that work as well, or even better.

[zMeul]

3 hours ago, Sniperfox47 said:

Yes... And Linux supports RST (the firmware RAID)

no, it does not

the recent issues Lenovo had was with the PCH set in RAID mode; Lenovo issued a BIOS update to allow setting the PCH in AHCI mode

http://news.lenovo.com/news-releases/updated-lenovo-statement-on-linux-support-for-yogas-ideapads.htm

there's also a 36 page thread on Lenovo's forums discussing the issue: https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/forums/v3_1/forumtopicpage/board-id/Special_Interest_Linux/thread-id/7814/page/1

 

 

as I said, Intel only provides RST for RedHat and SuSe

[patrickjp93]

6 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Again, I am talking about having it on clients. None of those things are issues for clients. They aren't even bulky. For crying out loud my ultrabook has an Ethernet port. There is no excuse for leaving it out. It takes up about as much room as a USB type A port.

  Hide contents

 

 

Are you sure? Because Corning has specific cables they call "bend-improved". I find it hard to believe that they would even bother making a special version of their cable designed to be bent, if their standard cables could do it too.

 

Also, that test really isn't scientific. We have no idea how those bends affected the attenuation. Just because you can shine a light though the cable while it is bent, doesn't mean the signal is still clean and working.

That is not the true cost of an ethernet port. You have to produce the vertical space elsewhere and hide it until the item is purchased. It's just a stupid waste of space on a portable machine these days.

 

 

Same amount of space as USB A my ass!

 

Also, the signal remains perfect. There's 0 shift in the display.