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Bob Morales posted:Someone apparently reported some "phone lines" are down Ahh yes write-only documentation. All of ours is random word docs in a shared drive and even though the entire team, including management, agree we need to do something better, nothing ever gets done because there's always something mroe important going on. The shared drive is an improvement over the old proecudre of "Ask Lum, she built the thing" is now "Ask Lum for a link to the doc she wrote", because of course Windows search on shared drives is absolute dogshit these days so no-one even attempts it. I work with decent people who won't take offence if someone replies with a doc link, and will read the doc and follow it, and the current team all write good docs, so it's a lot better than it was.
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Mar 1, 2022 23:50
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A client of ours gives their staff high end laptops in the office connected to a Thunderbolt dock which they try to drive two 4K displays from resulting in the fans running flat out constantly because they also want to run with the lids shut, and then they also give them a "work from home" laptop, because they don't want to have to carry the laptop on the train to and from the office. We've tried to move to a combination of small form factor workstations in the office and an iPad Pro with the option of something like Azure Virtual Desktop if they really need to have Windows apps accessible outside the office, but can't get anywhere. There are multiple issues a week caused by this setup, they don't want to change it - for whatever reason it's a status symbol to have a 2 grand laptop that you cook in about 8 months and have to get replaced.
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Mar 2, 2022 17:11
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The "want to run with the lids shut" really seals the deal there.
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Mar 2, 2022 17:16
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I have literally never used my work laptop with the lid open. It feeds three monitors at home (2 x 1080p and a 1440p) via a TB dock. It hasn't overheated. It's a Dell i5-1145G7, with 16gigs of ram. Running a laptop with the lid closed isn't some wacky thing only the occasional odd person does. Get better laptops that have better cooling, or buy the users cooling pads to put under the lovely overheating laptops your company bought them.
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Mar 2, 2022 17:36
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Steakandchips posted:Running a laptop with the lid closed isn't some wacky thing only the occasional odd person does. Never using it with the lid open is pretty loving weird. Especially anywhere multiple monitors are involved. Why involve all the complexity, cost, and limitations of a portable computer if you're not using it portably? A SFF desktop will be the same core components but with more ports and better cooling for generally less cost. I kind of get it if you're a weird one-off and the company has standardized on laptops where almost everyone else uses them normally, but this company wanting laptops that are intended to never be used portably is absurd.
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Mar 2, 2022 17:44
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They're Dell XPS laptops which seem to be designed to cook their batteries if you look at them funny. We've tried moving this group to Latitudes but they don't look expensive enough.
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Mar 2, 2022 17:51
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wolrah posted:Using a laptop with the lid closed is not a wacky thing, no. That's reasonable to do occasionally. It's not weird to only use it with the lid closed. There are plenty of people who work from home and have company provided monitors at home, but when they need to go into the office, again, they have company provided monitors. They have docks at both home and work. They're not going to lug around a sodding desktop are they?
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Mar 2, 2022 18:27
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Steakandchips posted:It's not weird to only use it with the lid closed. There are plenty of people who work from home and have company provided monitors at home, but when they need to go into the office, again, they have company provided monitors. They have docks at both home and work.  
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Mar 2, 2022 18:30
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In my experience, modern laptops are meant to run with the lid open. If you run them with the lid closed, they are going to overheat. I've also seen more instances of wireless connectivity issues. Set the screen to turn off when it's docked if you want, but the lid should be open.
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Mar 2, 2022 18:30
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Steakandchips posted:They're not going to lug around a sodding desktop are they? We actually have a small number of users doing this right now. The small form factor desktops are about the same weight as the laptops we issue, and a USB-C dock and power cable at each end of the trip works pretty well. It's not going to be permanent, but it does what we need it to. Regarding laptops with the lid closed, I think this is another time that law firms are just different than everyone else. They refuse to use the 'tiny' laptop screen when they have monitors available, but they also need the portability of a laptop to be able to work anywhere. We don't have as many heat issues as I expected, but we do still have a lot of battery failures.
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Mar 2, 2022 18:44
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I would need a bigger desk if I was going to work with my laptop open.
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Mar 2, 2022 18:56
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Internet Explorer posted:In my experience, modern laptops are meant to run with the lid open. If you run them with the lid closed, they are going to overheat. I've also seen more instances of wireless connectivity issues. Set the screen to turn off when it's docked if you want, but the lid should be open. In my experience, offices are often set up for the laptop to be docked lid-closed. The monitor(s) are positioned above the dock so there is not always even room to open the lid. Haven't heard of them overheating. The dock is wired so wifi connection isn't a factor.
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Mar 2, 2022 18:58
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you ate my cat posted:Regarding laptops with the lid closed, I think this is another time that law firms are just different than everyone else. They refuse to use the 'tiny' laptop screen when they have monitors available, but they also need the portability of a laptop to be able to work anywhere. We don't have as many heat issues as I expected, but we do still have a lot of battery failures. I always tell people to enable battery charge limits, it seems to help a bit.
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Mar 2, 2022 18:59
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On that vein, I really wish Windows Phone (RIP) Continuum or Samsung Dex were making better headway. I can do about half my day-to-day work (making Excel show the numbers I want, Teams meetings, light browser-based admin work) with the power in my iPhone, and I could do the rest from an Azure Virtual Desktop run from a phone app. All that would be minimally functional with a tiny pocket screen, and actually good enough with a dock and some big HD monitors. Just give us some really pro iPhones, Apple. USB-C/Thunderbolt, docking to big screens, and that's really most of what I'd need.
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Mar 2, 2022 19:01
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Seriously. I have a really nice nearly maxed out 7320 and the most I use it for is to RDP to my desktop in the office on the IT admin vlan. Would totally be down for the ability to just dock my phone and RDP.
devmd01 fucked around with this message at 20:54 on Mar 2, 2022 |
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Mar 2, 2022 19:07
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I still have that rig from my DFI lanparty board, junked the stupid modular front bay decades ago tho
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Mar 2, 2022 20:16
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I always run my laptops with the lid closed and I’ve never heard that is a problem. I’ll continue to do so I guess new laptops are nice, but mine never seem to break or have issues so I’m skeptical of this convo
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Mar 2, 2022 20:39
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Bargearse posted:I seem to remember some people here were doing IT support for GxP labs? I just found myself in the awkward position of supporting Empower, with no training at all and only the barest understanding of what Empower is supposed to do. I can't say I like your chances, but you have my sympathies.
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Mar 2, 2022 20:48
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I could see running a pair of 4k screens on the average laptop video card being annoying, they usually come with garbage performance so as soon as you ask for anything out of them the fans are gonna crank up. Not enough to damage anything, processors are pretty good at throttling if they get too hot but it's gonna be a miserable computing experience.
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Mar 2, 2022 20:50
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xzzy posted:Not enough to damage anything, processors are pretty good at throttling if they get too hot but it's gonna be a miserable computing experience. Yeah, this is more my point. Your stuff is likely throttling and your fans are probably running harder than they need to. It's hard to gauge if there's an impact on battery life, simply because batteries have always sucked and trying to make them smaller and unremovable has just made the problem worse in general. I don't think any manufacturer or model is spared from having lovely batteries that last 18 months and lovely thermals.
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Mar 2, 2022 20:55
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Steakandchips posted:It's not weird to only use it with the lid closed. There are plenty of people who work from home and have company provided monitors at home, but when they need to go into the office, again, they have company provided monitors. They have docks at both home and work. The situation you're presenting makes a bit more sense if someone really does need that, but I'd still argue it's far from normal to actually need and probably most people who think they need that would be better off with either two separate computers or some kind of a remote access solution. quote:They're not going to lug around a sodding desktop are they? It doesn't seem to me like it should be controversial to say that if you don't need to use your computer on the go a laptop might not be the best choice. If you do use it on the go and also happen to use it docked at one or more places, then that's perfectly reasonable. I'd still generally run with the lid open because regardless of whether it can cool itself sufficiently closed it's almost certain it'll be better open. Also that's one more screen, even if it's small. I won't give someone poo poo for closing their laptop though unless they're complaining about it overheating or throttling while refusing to change their behavior. wolrah fucked around with this message at 21:09 on Mar 2, 2022 |
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Mar 2, 2022 21:05
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i am a moron posted:I always run my laptops with the lid closed and I’ve never heard that is a problem. I’ll continue to do so I guess new laptops are nice, but mine never seem to break or have issues so I’m skeptical of this convo Same I have never heard of this or experienced any problems. I am a 1 screen guy- I find it distracting to have multiple monitors so I always run laptop in Dock, lid closed, monitor on Someone in H&S said you should sit straight on to your monitor and that's also been a god send But yeah - never had an issue over years of use (we use lenovos)
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Mar 3, 2022 00:50
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Laptop's from a while ago, I'd say 10+ years or more, did use the top/keyboard to help get rid of some of the heat. Simple convection will make some of it move up as it is. So leaving the lid closed would hinder some of the cooling. Also, the longer a laptop runs warm to hot, the worse it is for the battery, thus degrading the life faster. Batteries like to be cool, and maintain that coolness. That said, anything remotely modern, especially in the $500+ range, has a real heatsink/pipe/chamber system in it made to get the heat to the fans, and thus out the sides. There will still be some heat radiating up to the keyboard, but that is because it is on the side of the chip/chips that have no heatsink on them (the back of the motherboard pretty much). With the cheap stuff, they generally under-size the heatsink/pipe system to save costs, and there it could be a bit (a tiny tiny bit) helpful to leave the lid open. Using some sort of cooling pad with a fan will help a lot. Even a mesh riser so it can get more airflow than what can slip in under it will too. Though you'd have to find a riser/cooling pad big enough to accommodate the laptop and dock for a work setup.
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Mar 3, 2022 04:29
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I do have some sorta wedge shaped… stand thing that I guess might help my laptop cool off but I mostly got it so I don’t spill drinks on it. I’ve also been getting $1500+ laptops the past seven or so years so I guess maybe I missed all of that.
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Mar 3, 2022 04:50
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The 5 year lease on our new main office was signed right before the first lockdown and it's been mostly vacant ever since. Last year's xmas party was cancelled due to covid. Now the party's back on for end of this month and we're all expected to go. Normally the company books out a fancy hotel or something but now it's just in the office on a thursday after work and I expect the real purpose is to be the grand opening of that office and the end of working from home. For us lowly drones anyway. The people who signed the lease will still work from home. I hate that office
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Mar 3, 2022 11:54
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mllaneza posted:I can't say I like your chances, but you have my sympathies. And it turns out that this huge problem impacting manufacturing was the head research chemist trying to use third party gas chromatography columns with instruments that don’t support them. At least I can say it’s a science problem, not an IT problem.
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Mar 3, 2022 12:07
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Wife's office downsized so they sold all their gym equipment to employees for 75% off Pelotons and elliptical and a bunch of Rogue poo poo. Going to fill my car at lunch.
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Mar 3, 2022 12:59
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For the past few months, every time I brush some crumbs or hairs off my laptop, I happen to lightly hit the touchpad. Windows kept thinking this meant I needed to switch to another "desktop" and literally every window disappears. There was no clear way what happened or how to reverse it. It was infuriating. It took me a minute or two to get my stuff back, every time. Only last week I realized it was probably something proprietary in the touchpad software that could be turned off. Sure enough, there was an entire page of gestures with two, three and even four fingers simultaneously that could do any number of bullshit actions. Who the hell uses touchpads like that??
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Mar 3, 2022 13:56
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Sywert of Thieves posted:For the past few months, every time I brush some crumbs or hairs off my laptop, I happen to lightly hit the touchpad. Windows kept thinking this meant I needed to switch to another "desktop" and literally every window disappears. There was no clear way what happened or how to reverse it. It was infuriating. It took me a minute or two to get my stuff back, every time.
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Mar 3, 2022 14:08
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Sywert of Thieves posted:For the past few months, every time I brush some crumbs or hairs off my laptop, I happen to lightly hit the touchpad. Windows kept thinking this meant I needed to switch to another "desktop" and literally every window disappears. There was no clear way what happened or how to reverse it. It was infuriating. It took me a minute or two to get my stuff back, every time. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204895 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/touch-gestures-for-windows-a9d28305-4818-a5df-4e2b-e5590f850741
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Mar 3, 2022 16:51
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Started my new job this week but won't have a company device for another two weeks because Apple is backed up. Luckily most of my work is done via the browser and Zoom so no MDM, but I'd rather not...
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Mar 3, 2022 20:45
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We've had people waiting for two months for macbooks, stuff got even slower than it was already. Fortunately these are all upgrades, everyone involved already has a laptop. But it still sucks.
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Mar 3, 2022 21:01
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Better not leave home without my printer cable. You never know when I might have to print to a strange printer. Better to have my own.
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Mar 3, 2022 21:46
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Yeah, two months is about the standard for laptops from all of our vendors at the moment. Desktops without discrete GPUs are a bit better, desktops with GPUs may as well not exist. Outside of standard computers Surfaces are 3+ months stretching out to infinity, docks for both laptops and surfaces are looking June at the earliest. Quite a few of our suppliers have run out of the wireless mice/keyboards we often use and have no ETA on a restock. Everything is a giant mess right now.
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Mar 3, 2022 21:52
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Agrikk posted:Better not leave home without my printer cable. You never know when I might have to print to a strange printer. Better to have my own. Don't forget that there used to be games that you could play multiplayer over a null modem cable between two PCs.
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Mar 3, 2022 21:57
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Agrikk posted:Better not leave home without my printer cable. You never know when I might have to print to a strange printer. Better to have my own. That's just so you can Laplink two computers together to move files. You know, for the guy who forgot his ethernet card driver disk.
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Mar 3, 2022 22:01
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Rexxed posted:That's just so you can Laplink two computers together to move files. You know, for the guy who forgot his ethernet card driver disk. Nah I'm sure it's an external SCSI cable for the ZIP drive. The computer doesn't even have a floppy drive installed!
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Mar 3, 2022 22:09
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n0tqu1tesane posted:Don't forget that there used to be games that you could play multiplayer over a null modem cable between two PCs. Why would you do this? Why would you remind me of the hell we went through so my apartment-mate and I could play head-to-head matches on Falcon 3.0? he kicked my rear end so thoroughly for so long that I ragequit computer games for a long while
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Mar 3, 2022 22:50
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Wasn't Half-Life IPX only for a while?
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Mar 3, 2022 22:52
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Thanks Ants posted:Wasn't Half-Life IPX only for a while? It was based on QuakeWorld stuff, I remember a regular server browser in it. Last things I remember that didn't would have been things like Red Alert.
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