Post your system.......

[Per Hansson]

Originally Posted by Topcat

Thanks! Note to self! Telemetry can be killed off in Pro, but for it to be off by default in Enterprise, I'd be happy!

No, you can not kill it with built in settings in the Pro version, the lowest setting is still telemetry on.
Enterprise is the only client version that allows it to be turned off with built in settings.
And it is not off by default.

Microsoft Technet: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/win...r-organization
Diagnostic data off
This setting was previously labeled as Security. When you configure this setting, no Windows diagnostic data is sent from your device. This is only available on Windows Server, Windows 10 Enterprise, and Windows 10 Education. If you choose this setting, devices in your organization will still be secure.

[Topcat]

Originally Posted by Per Hansson

No, you can not kill it with built in settings in the Pro version, the lowest setting is still telemetry on.
Enterprise is the only client version that allows it to be turned off with built in settings.
And it is not off by default.

With built-in settings, you're correct...I didn't expand enough perhaps. It can be killed with 3rd party utilities.... Shutup10 for example. I need to scare up a copy of 10 Enterprise now, it's got me intrigued.

[dmill89]

Originally Posted by Topcat

I need to scare up a copy of 10 Enterprise now, it's got me intrigued.

Admittedly outside of the enterprise world this can be a little difficult (at least legitimately) since it is generally only sold as a volume license (I believe 5 is the minimum unless they changed it) and on a subscription basis.


https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/lice...ivot:primaryr4

http://download.microsoft.com/downlo...sing-Guide.pdf

[Topcat]

Originally Posted by dmill89

Admittedly outside of the enterprise world this can be a little difficult (at least legitimately) since it is generally only sold as a volume license (I believe 5 is the minimum unless they changed it) and on a subscription basis.


https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/lice...ivot:primaryr4

http://download.microsoft.com/downlo...sing-Guide.pdf

Ebay seems to be packed with fraudulent copies it seems. I have a legit of S2K16 Standard, which employs the same disabled telemetry as Enterprise....same interface as 10, just takes some carving to make a workstation out of it.....I've only tested it on lab rats so far. Server 2012R2 is fantastic in this regard as well, it's in operation on a couple systems here in 'workstation mode'.

[TechGeek]

My opinion on an OS is that I shouldn't have to resort to 3rd-party utilities to force the OS to comply or conform to or with my standards. If I have to do such things to get a working system, I'm not using it. Windows 10 falls squarely into that category, as well as many other categories that only Windows 10 can fill. Well, not counting N. Korea's Red Star OS, which I'm not letting within 1000 nautical miles of any of my systems.

Edit: I define a "working system" as a system that requires no further significant tweaking for me to officially consider it as a part of my fleet of computers, either as a standalone system or a system as a part of a larger setup of some variety.

[momaka]

Originally Posted by dmill89

Overall it has decent specs and performs well, but unfortunately the new "mobile workstations" are becoming little more than really powerful ultrabooks (it seems everyone is trying to make a mac-pro copy these days).

That's what scares me the most.

In a few years, I probably wouldn't be able to like any new laptop (actually, that's probably the case even now.) Flat keyboards with no key travel and big mouse pads with no buttons just annoy me to no end (not to mention that modern mouse pads seem to have much inferior tracking to the older-gen stuff from 5-10 years ago.) Add on top of that loud tiny fans and lack of ports. I mean, it's nice how light and thin those things are, making them a lot easier to carry around... but they are just over-doing it a bit too much now. I used to carry my Latitude C600 around (a Pentium 3 -era laptop) up until 2018 or so. Even without the battery and placed in a nice strong backpack, that thing was so damn heavy that I still would put the backpack down every chance I had. So I do appreciate how lighter and smaller technology has gotten. But at the same time, I think it's gone too far. In that regard, I liked the most the work laptop I was given at my last job: a Dell Latitude E6430. It was powerful enough to handle most modern tasks, had a very comfortable keyboard and mouse, and while still a bit on the heavy side, it was still perfectly manageable. I actually had the 9-cell battery in mine (vs. the standard 6-cell), which added a bit more weight. But even that with the charger in a backpack wasn't too heavy to carry around. The charger from my old Latitude C600 with its super-long wires probably weight as much as that whole E6430 laptop, lol.

Anyways, I really do hope they make more "thicker" laptops again back in the future (though I doubt it.) Otherwise, what's the point of carrying an ultra-thin laptop if you always have to bring an external mouse (and maybe keyboard), along with a port dongle adapter thingy everywhere to make the laptop usable. At that point, might as well just use a silly tablet!

[lti]

Originally Posted by momaka

In a few years, I probably wouldn't be able to like any new laptop (actually, that's probably the case even now.) Flat keyboards with no key travel and big mouse pads with no buttons just annoy me to no end (not to mention that modern mouse pads seem to have much inferior tracking to the older-gen stuff from 5-10 years ago.) Add on top of that loud tiny fans and lack of ports. I mean, it's nice how light and thin those things are, making them a lot easier to carry around... but they are just over-doing it a bit too much now.

I already don't like any new laptops. The Dell and Lenovo business laptops that don't have soldered RAM might be okay if you don't use the factory Windows installation, but each brand still has some issues. Dell's version of the TrackPoint has always been unusable due to ridiculous pointer acceleration, their keyboard backlights throw tons of light out from the spaces between the keys like "gamer" crap (and they're painfully bright), and some of Dell's business laptops didn't seem any more reliable than cheap consumer crap. I remember the chassis crumbling on a bunch of Latitude D620s (and people try to argue with me and say that they're one of the best laptops ever made), and there was a more recent Latitude model (within the past two or three years) that had major stability problems and was based on an XPS model (which had the same problems). Lenovo likes soldered RAM, the recent models have CPU cooling problems (and the bottom surface gets extremely hot), and some people have security concerns.

I haven't used a recent consumer laptop, but most business models don't seem to have the ultra-thin keyboards. To me, the newer Synaptics touchpads track better than the older ones. They perform more like older Alps and Elan touchpads now, while older Synaptics touchpads were unusable (and for some reason, everyone else seems to have the exact opposite experience).

I just looked at modern laptops out of curiosity, and there is a Dell Precision that is just an XPS with a Quadro GPU. It has the thin keyboard and poor cooling due to the extremely thin design.

Originally Posted by momaka

Anyways, I really do hope they make more "thicker" laptops again back in the future (though I doubt it.)

The Latitude 5510 and ThinkPad L15 are thicker than that HP ZBook and use 15W TDP CPUs with integrated graphics.

[dmill89]

The HP Pavilion dv7-7030us has a SATA-II controller (per-CNET's specs on this model), however SATA-III is backwards compatible with SATA-II (and SATA-I), so a SATA-III drive will work, but you will be capped at SATA-II transfer speeds (not really an issue if you're using a mechanical drive, since most can't even max out SATA-I).

https://www.cnet.com/products/hp-pav...68uaaba/specs/

[Dan81]

Three laptops I took with me to college.

1st - movies + games laptop

HP Pavilion DV7 - 4150eo

CPU: AMD Phenom II X2 N620
GPU: HD 4200 320MB IGP + HD5650 1GB
RAM: 8GB DDR3
Storage: 1TB Samsung 860EVO + 1TB Seagate ST1000LM024 (Apple OEM) - planning on adding the third drive, a 2TB Seagate ST2000LM015

2nd laptop - Zoom classes

HP Pavilion g6 - 1250ss

CPU: AMD A4-3300 APU
GPU: Radeon HD6480G 512MB IGP
RAM: 8GB DDR3
Storage: 250GB Samsung 860EVO + 750GB WD7500BPVX

3rd laptop - C programming

Acer Aspire 5740G

CPU: Intel Core i3-380M
GPU: Radeon HD5470 512MB
RAM: 6GB DDR3
Storage: 1TB Seagate ST1000LM024.

All running Windows 10 Enterprise currently, but I'm thinking on doing a dualboot with RHEL 8.3 on the Acer, assuming it can handle it.

[momaka]

Originally Posted by mikejonesny

... and wondering which one could be a better decision, going from sata ii hdd to sata iii hdd or upgrading to a 7.2k rpm from current 5.4k rpm, budget is under $100, or should I change my whole system

Going from SATA II to SATA III won't be that much of a difference, if any - at least not with a mechanical HDD, as dmill89 pointed out. With that said, you should see improvement in performance going from 5400 to 7200 RPM, regardless if it's SATA II or III.
However, with a budget of $100, and if space disk space is not of huge concern, I strongly suggest going with a SSD. Here in the US, $90-100 can get you a "slower" (possibly cache-less) 1 TB SSD... which will still be many many times faster than any mechanical HDD. The improvement you'll see in speed will be substantial. Loading Windows and opening programs should take a fraction of the time to what it was before. And if you're willing/can live with a smaller HDD, going to 240-250 GB SSD instead of a 1 TB should drop the price down to maybe $30-40.

As far as CAD and Google Sketchup go... those will probably also depend on CPU speed and RAM (and for CAD, the GPU too, if you plan to do full 3D rendering.) According to CNET specs, your laptop has an 3rd gen i7 and 8 GB of RAM?? If so, those are probably adequate to run most modern software decently well (especially since you have Windows 7, which generally takes a lot less RAM than 10.) Only your GPU (appears to be Intel HD4000 onboard with the CPU) might be a bit weak when it comes to CAD. But at least in the beginning for basic to intermediate CAD work, I think it might be OK.

[Dan81]

Scored a Toshiba A300-25K. Works as far as getting into BIOS but haven't tested more due to time issues. Has a HD3650, good speakers (one is slightly chipped, will prolly add a small dab of elastic glue or sth) 4GB of DDR2 and a fully working 320GB Toshiba drive!

No battery and a missing cover though. Otherwise, NEC cap is probably fine (for now) but I'm not risking it and will replace it pretty soon.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Originally Posted by momaka

Here in the US, $90-100 can get you a "slower" (possibly cache-less) 1 TB SSD... which will still be many many times faster than any mechanical HDD. The improvement you'll see in speed will be substantial. Loading Windows and opening programs should take a fraction of the time to what it was before. And if you're willing/can live with a smaller HDD, going to 240-250 GB SSD instead of a 1 TB should drop the price down to maybe $30-40.

I've been bit by cheap SSDs! (Silent corruption and major lag) (Windows out of nowhere has a file error!)

[shovenose]

My morning project was tidying up my main PC build. It's nothing special but hey, it works.

[Uranium-235]

Originally Posted by shovenose

My morning project was tidying up my main PC build. It's nothing special but hey, it works.

for some reason that depresses me

[RJARRRPCGP]

Originally Posted by Uranium-235

for some reason that depresses me

At least, it's got a 'Raptor!

Sadly, those appeared to have gotten discontinued, just like the plasma TVs.

[BigTroll]

very tidy build shovenose!

[Topcat]

Originally Posted by RJARRRPCGP

At least, it's got a 'Raptor!

Sadly, those appeared to have gotten discontinued, just like the plasma TVs.

I like the ice trays the raptors come in more than the raptors themselves. The trays support SAS, so 15k 2.5 inchers fit nice in them, as well as SSD's for 3.5" scenarios.

BTW Shovenose, I've got a box packed up for you...

[Uranium-235]

Well, mines not clean at all, but I don't know why you don't use just Nvme SSD's unless there is a specific reason. They're 250gb WD VR's. So if it's raid 5 it's a total of 750GB, raid 0 1tb. You can get a good quality 1TB SSD for $150 or so

[RJARRRPCGP]

Originally Posted by Topcat

I like the ice trays the raptors come in more than the raptors themselves. The trays support SAS, so 15k 2.5 inchers fit nice in them, as well as SSD's for 3.5" scenarios.

BTW Shovenose, I've got a box packed up for you...

Honestly, I would take a 250 GB 'Raptor over a 250 GB SSD on today's PCs!
Because SSDs smaller than 400-something GB, have poor write endurance.

Albeit I have to admit that the Samsung 970 Evo Plus 250 GB NVMe SSDs seem to be good. At least they are when you don't have super large software!

The Samsung 970 Evo Plus 250 GB NVMe SSD isn't in my daily driver, anyways.

My daily driver, has a Samsung 970 Pro 512 GB NVMe SSD.

I also bought a Western Digital Black SN750 500 GB NVMe SSD, which is still in the box at the time of this post.

[Topcat]

Originally Posted by RJARRRPCGP

Honestly, I would take a 250 GB 'Raptor over a 250 GB SSD on today's PCs!

I wouldn't. Velociraptors weren't known for longevity, I've seen a lot of bad ones; far more than SSD's. The earlier 3.5" raptors were the workhorses, but were slower.