2019-01-31 20:55:20

recently I just purchased a dell xps13, its a very powerful laptop that can easily be used for gaming. I did this because of the poor updates to the mac which I got rid of. the issue that I am having with my dell is that it over heats very quickly, even though I am not doing to much on it. as soon as I turn the thing on, the fan goes into overdrive. any suggestions for a powerful laptop that doesn't have this issue will be very much appreciated.

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2019-01-31 21:33:34

I have a MSI and I am happy with it, the fan goes nuts some times, but it doesn't heat, don't know why it does that.
Or, try an lenovo Thinkpad, they are really, really good laptops.

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2019-01-31 21:42:05

Hi smoothgunner.
I think its normal for the powerfull laptops or laptops in general to have their fans go fast maybe not all the time but they are different  from older laptop types.
Your fan may go into overdrive for a while till the os starts, and after that may settle into its own rythm.
My hp db149au for example is usually quite quiet but will ultar the fan speeds depending on the situation.
Thats a good unit to have by the way, hp db0149au, usb2 and a couple of usb 3.1 type a's.
SSd reader, an internal toshiba 256gb ssd and a 1tb seagate.
Realtech for sound and network and amd for just about everything else.
I assume your system is in default configuration still.
What I have done is download all drivers for this box, then done a complete reformat and reinstall of latest windows 10.
I then have put the drivers back, its hellish to do but worth a trouble free work later.
Once you have the programs from the website you may find that it doesn't have issue.
After removing the mcafee and other junk from the configurations which it didn't come with things will probably be a lot better to.
Going amd however doesn't have the same issues intel have had with their cpus, it also helps that the drivers for the thing are just one massive file rather than smaller ones.
I would also pick up a cooling stand for the unit which will lift the unit off the desk a little.
By using this, and an external keyboard when at home even just external boards seem to make a difference as I do game a lot you may find things working a lot better.
I didn't go with dell because of waves max.
The only issues so far with the unit are small.
Ie, get power less than 30 on battery and the net can be a bit rubbishy,  but thats about it.
The only thing I actually don't care about is that you do need to use the actual drivers for sound that come with the unit else you don't get software control of the amp in this box which is powerfull even without enhancements.
If you plug in headsets you get a surround sound effect which is utter crap unless you leave the software control on and disable notifications to it.
The interface is a bit hit and miss but you can do it if you look at it enough.
The hp support program is inaccessible if you login to an hp account but otherwise is fine which is really stupid but oh well.
The hp bios update could be better but still.
On that note, I'd get the latest drivers for the unit and bios/firmware for the various hardware if it exists on the dell site or whatever before you try again.

2019-02-01 00:48:59

Well. I'm going to go the opposite root and say the Microsoft Surface Pro 6. It's an amazing labtop and as an addition, you get Windows 10 as it was intended to be. Just like you wouldn't run Mac OS on 3rd party hardware, you should also try running Windows 10 on it's intended hardware.

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2019-02-01 01:28:13

Talon recently bought himself the Razer Blade Stelf and he seems to be extremely happy with it. The design is almost  identical to a Macbook Air, the fans are usually quiet and even if they kick in the sound is just a hiss, and there are no weird audio enhancements that love to come back after windows updates that have been plaguing Del XPS users.

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2019-02-01 02:29:03

update everything possible including windows. This lenovo had its fan running all the time for no reason and turned out that updating windows did it.

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2019-02-02 23:47:51

Ooooooh the XPS13, yup, had 1 of them myself, and for thoughs who don't know, the fan and overheating is a general downside to what is actually the best laptop providing you can dismiss the heat problems.
As for lenovo, noooooooo keep back from them!
I've tried out 2 lenovo's, 1 being significantly newer than the other, and in both cases I couldn't use alt F4, because of Lenovo's stupid way of switching your function keys to something they think is more beneficial to the user, but is actually a hindrance because by doing that, limits basic functionality.
The HP envy may be worth having a look at, with the best configuration being an 8th gen I7, 16GB ram and a 512GB SSD, top with a Nvidia MX150, which should run all your games at low settings fluently with no trouble smile
Plus, you could get a 13 inch version.
Otherwise, look at the Surface book 2, 13 inches with an i5 or i7 and a gtx 1050, but it's way way pricier though so up to you smile
Hope I helped smile

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2019-02-03 07:24:49

I recently, well, in may of 2018, i purchased acer aspire 7-15-71g-54zy. The model is just 715-71g, i should say that's it's a great, powerful laptop for it's price. I never had trouble with it, it still works damn well.

2019-02-03 23:46:34

thankyou all for the suggestions

can i get a peace double harmony burger? no chaos

2019-02-04 00:57:30

I recently purchased an HP Omen 17T.  Comes with an i7 8750H CPU 6-Core at 2.2GHz and mine came with 12GB of Ram, which I already bumped up to 24GB and it has an NVME M.2 SSD  Thing is extremely nice and is definitely powerful.  It has dual fans on the bottom, and very well vented.

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2019-02-04 03:44:51

@7
there is a very simple to do, one time, setting in the bios for disabling lenovo's stupid functionality you describe, in case you ever come across another one.

A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk, I have a work station…

2019-02-04 06:04:35

I bought me a Asus VevoBook 510 UA with 8 gigs of ram, an 8th generation intel i5 processor, and a terabyte of storage. Runs great except for the pretty slow hard drive, but comes with some ssd slots so that problem is easily rendered. I used to have a dell inspiron, and it was a really good computer until it crashed. I kept reinstalling windows on it and kept putting it back together, but eventually it became so corrupted I had to replace the computer. Asus would be my reccomendation. They are quick, thin, powerful, and don't overheat at all, at least with my experience.

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2019-02-10 07:46:44 (edited by austingrace 2019-02-10 07:48:22)

Hello. I don't know if anyone here besides me has found that buying older business class laptops is erally the way to go. Like my case for instance. The GPD win 2 (not by choice I should add) was serving as my main computer. I needed a laptop to be able to do audio work and video editing in the future. I was not cheaping out this time. As luck would have it, I stumbled on a Dell precision  m4800 being sold locally for $500. I remember first reading the specs and thinking "This is not right." But it was very right. LOL smile So needless to say, by Thursday afternoon the computer was in my hands. So the more nerdy among  us is wondering what specs are we talking? Well folks, this is no core m3 or even i3 or anything like that. No, this is an intel i7-4810MQ- processor at 2.8 ghz and goes up to 3.80 ghz. Some of  you may notice this is a processor from Q1 of 2014. But that is not the best part. This is a very well specced laptop for the money. I have 16 gb of ram, a 120 GB SSD and a nice little surprise I was let in on once I got to the store it has an NVIDIA Quadro K2100M graphics card which I had never heard of. Turns out this is a 2 gb card but it's a slight downgrade from the 1050 I had in the inspiron 5577. I did have one concern but I found a way around. This laptop have the infamous  waves max thing and that almost stopped me from buying it. But then I remembered the good old win 10 update  audio driver trick and it worked perfect!!!!!! I can go up to 32 GB of ram and have an MSata slot as well. The plan is to upgrade storage first and then ram. 16 GB is not bad but my plan for this computer is to have this sucker maxed out. I have had to sell 2 I7 computers in the past 2 years and I'm not selling this one or letting it slip through my hands.  So all this to say, if your budget allows for it, go check newegg and a few other sites for used work station or business laptops. Yes they may be 4 or 5 years or older but a lot of us don't need graphics cards and whatnot. A nice fast high-end i5 or i7 is really good for people like us. I have had my gpd win 2 and even that runs pretty quick for what it is. I say if you can, try to pin down the right computer you need and for the money you have. If it was me, I'd say try to go for the higher end of your budget and research how easily upgradeable the computer is for the future.

2019-02-10 07:55:13

hi,
I personally wouldn't buy a processor which wasn't the current generation. I am pretty sure Dell xps heating issues are solvable through updates and such. As for my own system, I have a forth gen I5 4200m  processer, upgraded to 8 gb of ram, and a 120 gb SSD.  This system still does everything I want it to do.

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2019-02-10 13:23:45

post 1. just because your fans kick in, that's not an issue. the question that I would ask is this. do your fans kick in, or does your CPU actually heat up? I have a lenovo IdeaPad 320 ABR, model number 80xs. it's not overly great at performance, even with an SSD, I would certainly not say it's the best laptop in it's price range, but it is what it is. the fans are loud, when I say loud, I mean, proper damn loud. but my CPU temps always always remain from anything starting at 40 up to the mid 50s. this is degrees c. given that the CPU barely heats, and the laptop itself doesn't feel hot, I don't tend to worry about the fan noise. I mean, it's an AMD at the end of the day. Now if your dell's CPU is in the mid 70s or above, and you got nothing going on, then yeah, you should be worried.
posts 7 and 11. again, not recommending lenovo, in fact, I wouldn't buy another one, but the lenovo vantage is your friend. since most are on windows 10 now, you go in the Microsoft store, grab lenovo vantage, go into input, and set the function keys to perform regular  f combinations, rather than hot keys. needs no sighted, needs nothing. option remains in affect until you next update the BIOS. the only time I ever had to go BIOS was to enable virtualisation. on dells, you can do function escape, I believe. in terms of HP, from my limited experience, those do require sighted. so I'll give lenovo credit where credit is due.

2019-02-11 04:47:15

hi,
Though fans always running indicate possible missing drivers and such. You should do a bios upgrade. It isn't the norm for laptop fans to run at full blast when idle.

A learning experience is one of those things that say, "You know that thing you just did? Don't do that."

2019-02-11 14:59:24

Only do a bios upgrade if:
1. you are sure it'll fix the issue your having (contact your laptop's support to check, just tell them your fan is loud).
2. You know *exactly* what you are doing. If you lose power doing a bios upgrade, or flash the wrong bios image, your laptop is a very expensive brick.

Roel
golfing in the kitchen

2019-02-12 02:00:11

17, there are actually safeguards in place for that. A laptop will not let you flash wrong image.  Also, there is the battery in case of power failure, and many laptops backup the old bios, which you can restore with a key combination if you somehow corrupt the bios.

A learning experience is one of those things that say, "You know that thing you just did? Don't do that."

2019-02-12 03:46:18

I got a Lenovo IdeaPad Y510P back in 2014. It was big, heavy, prone to getting hot if I used it hard for a long time, had about four hours of battery life, and is still working to this day. It's banged up, it's literally falling apart, but it still goes. It also had excellent speakers. It wasn't fun to transport, but it was a solid laptop. Nice key depth, too.

In November of  2017 I got hold of an HP notebook of some kind (I misremember the exact specs right now, but I kitted it out pretty nicely). This thing goes for about nine hours if the lid is closed (so it's great for music or audio and whatnot), and about six hours with the lid up. Its keyboard is absolute trash (I've had to replace it twice, and may need a third replacement eventually, but for now I'm using a cheap external keyboard that does the job) and its speakers are fairly tinny...serviceable, but not great. But it's seriously fast (boots in about eleven seconds), is very quiet, is extremely light (I can just tuck it under an arm and go) and its build quality, apart from the keyboard, is quite good. I shove it in a backpack pretty much daily, and there's still no sign of wiggle on the lid or anything like that.

So I can't make any recommendations, but I like my HP with the external keyboard, personally. The Lenovo had its upsides though. I've always wanted to play with one of those Dell machines, though.

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2019-02-12 06:55:35

I purchased a Lenovo IdeaPad 320-15ABR earlier this year, and ended up selling it about two weeks later.  After topping off the Ram, and adding an SSD, it was still giving me hell for what I needed it to do.      They are not terrible machines, but they don't run very well for more advanced multitasking, like studios, etc.  It  was worth noting that my model had the  AMD A12 CPU in it, so I couldn't speak for the celeron systems or those with the other CPUs.  I know when it'd load NVDA, NVDA would stutter  some often.

I did find this very interesting and thought I'd share, but there's a company that sells their memory on Amazon, and probably on other sites as well, called Adamanta.  I was rather skeptical at first on using them, but after reading many different reviews, I purchased  a couple of 16GB sticks for my laptop, one at first for testing, then one later after I could verify it was working nicely.   THese modules run extremely well and have not given me any issues.  A16GB module of 2666MHz DDR4 PC4 notebook memory ran me about $92, whereas Corsair or something similar would run about $140 here in the USA.    When I checked Task Manager, it sowd the memory actually running at 2667MHz and yes it's dual channel supported as well.

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2019-02-12 22:47:03

wow so good so much information. Great to find this thread here. I am looking to do the same thing. What are those audio issues and how do you fix them. I use the HP Spectre X360 Used it from 2015. Still going hard, I am only going to replace it because of the bluetooth driver that never got updated. For the razer blade stealth, how is that one going, for the surfice book, how powerful is it. thanks.

2019-02-13 17:38:40

Hello. In terms of the audio thing, I just told windows 10 to use the default audio driver included in windows. It works better than what people may think.  I'm terrible at explaining things but google has many search results on how to remove the realtech drivers and use the default audio driver. So before you go return a computer, see if that helps with audio issues. Dell is the worst offender right now with audio drivers but don't over look their computers just because of that either.  I almost did not buy this m4800 because I heard waves max audio in the driver details I found online.

In terms of buying slightly older technology. My situation was a bit different. I was in a bit of a bind and needed something with an i7 and could get up to 32 gb and had an ssd by default and I needed pretty quickly for work purposes so that is why I settled on the m4800. if money or time was not an option, then I totally would have gotten an i7 from this generation or last gen. But I still say, even high end i7s and even some i5s from as far back as 2014 are still good today. I have actually have an i7 2600K from 2011 in my optiplex 790 and that thing is still super fast 8 years later on.

2019-02-13 17:40:32

Cool. Thanks for letting me know I’ll Google that and see what it says. Laptops from back then can be that good! It might be better to just buy one of those.

2019-02-13 17:42:06

What’s wrong with the real tech  drivers? Like, why do they need to be changed. Does it mess up the screen reader on it.

2019-02-13 18:29:35

I have a dell XPS13 9370 with an eighth gen I7, 16 gigs of ram and a 512 gig SSD with the intention of making it last the next five or six years at least.
I've gotta say I'm pretty happy with it. Other than the annoying dell checkup software which is only meh accessible half the time, and the waves max audio pro thing which is disabled with a reinstall of the audio drivers.
I've had it for about six months now, and the fan has only been really loud maybe twice during that time. Usually it's not on at all, or if it is it's not particularly loud.
Also, the touchscreen is handy, particularly when asking for sighted help finding a particular control ETC.