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Do not leave XPS laptop in any sleep/hibernate/standby mode when placed in a bag

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Re: Do not leave XPS laptop in any sleep/hibernate/standby mode when placed in a bag

#291

I have an XPS 9500 and have found this infuriating. I think there's two separate things going on: As others have noted, S3 sleep isn't supported, only S1 "sleep to idle" sleep. But I don't think this is the direct cause of the overheating. In S1 sleep, the laptop can average something like 900mW of power usage, which is enough to annoyingly knock a few percent off your battery overnight, but not enough to make the la…

I've seen issues with Modern Standby on my fleet of Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga L13 and L13 Gen 2. Usually everything is fine, but sometimes they get super hot in standby as well. It's like something is keeping the CPU awake but the rest of the hardware is asleep (including the fans). My older units (ThinkPad Yoga 260, ThinkPad Yoga 370, ThinkPad L380 Yoga, ThinkPad L390 Yoga) never had any problem like this because they do…

Modern Standby is an Intel thing, not a Microsoft thing. Intel has just pressured Microsoft and other OEMs into supporting it. IMO, it's a huge steaming pile-o-crap, and one of the biggest reasons I want my next PC to have a non-Intel CPU. Intel has shown over the past decade that they are quite simply incapable of implementing properly functioning power management, and I'm tired of having machines die because of their stupidity.

I've had two Surface Pro 4's (one of the first "Modern Sleep" devices) develop battery bloat because of this Intel's power mgt incompetence. Microsoft replaced both, but what is this crap costing all of us, both in higher hardware prices and environmental waste?

FWIW, I haven't needed a faster CPU in years - I need more RAM, long, long battery life, and sleep/wake that always works, instantly. If the iPad were capable of being a real computer, it might get me back into the Apple fold, if iOS had a usable UI...

Re: Do not leave XPS laptop in any sleep/hibernate/standby mode when placed in a bag

#292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not going to lie but Apple have put pretty high standards on what people expect to work with all laptops nowadays, and many OEMs seem unable or unwilling to try to catch up.

I have a 2020 MBP, and it's as shitty as any high end Windows laptop I've used. The thermals are awful under moderate CPU use, the fan spins when using an external monitor, the battery vampire drains when it's shut for an extended time instead of saving memory to disk and shutting off. I think what really happens is people compare $1k Dells with $3k Apples. I'm looking forward to an M1X MBP, though. That may legitima…

I'm sure that's part of the reason they've decided to make their own CPUs. My 2020 M1 has thermals similar to my iPhone.

Re: Do not leave XPS laptop in any sleep/hibernate/standby mode when placed in a bag

#293
post #124
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It just decided not to shutdown like usual. This happened once or twice with Windows laptops for me (Lenovo and Asus); but each time the laptop survived. Was yours a fanless model?

Same thing happened to me with my Surface Book. I found it the next day with fans at max and burning hot. Still survived. Why aren't laptops shutting down when the CPU gets unbearably hot?

"Unbearably hot" for meatbags and "unbearably hot" for CPUs are different things; meatbags start having troubles at 50°C, while internal components are fine until 90-120°C.

Traditional hard disks are the biggest exception, but I'm fairly certain that's not a worry for a Surface.

Re: Do not leave XPS laptop in any sleep/hibernate/standby mode when placed in a bag

#294
post #270

OK, so, overheating the laptop stresses it and will eventually damage it. Got it. Easy to understand. Question. What is it about "being in a bag" that destroys the thermal handling? I've had my laptop in my lap spontaneously power off when it gets too hot. (Which itself makes me a bit crabby about why it didn't successfully throttle down until it could at least keep running, but that's a separate gripe.) Why doesn't…

Thermal sensors measure temperature in specific points / small areas. There are a finite number of these and they do not cover the entire CPU / GPU / motherboard / etc.

If one puts a massive load on a CPU, the temperature spikes quickly and widely across enough of the die that the sensors work as expected and the system throttles / shuts down.

If one puts a small load on the CPU for a long period of time, areas that are not covered by sensors may overheat, damaging the CPU. This is true for other components in the system, too.

If the laptop is out in the air, convection will remove enough heat to prevent these invisible "hot spots". The bag acts as a blanket. Over hours, the laptop cooks parts of itself to death[0] in ways the system cannot detect.

[0] Or damages them in ways that make them unstable.

Edited to add [0]

Re: Do not leave XPS laptop in any sleep/hibernate/standby mode when placed in a bag

#295
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It just decided not to shutdown like usual. This happened once or twice with Windows laptops for me (Lenovo and Asus); but each time the laptop survived. Was yours a fanless model?

How can a fan help when fresh air is nowhere for it to suck from? I even suspect fan-less models may be better prepared for such scenario.

Even when there's not much fresh air supply, it can circulate the existing air over a larger volume and transfer heat faster into whatever material surrounds it. Doesn't help much, but might be the difference between "it's burning my fingers but still works" and "it died".

Re: Do not leave XPS laptop in any sleep/hibernate/standby mode when placed in a bag

#296

This is misleading. Simply putting the laptop is a bag won't void its warranty. OTOH, putting in the laptop bag while it's on and letting it cook will.

Not misleading at all. Their sleep is BROKEN compared to what people's expectation of SLEEP are.

Re: Do not leave XPS laptop in any sleep/hibernate/standby mode when placed in a bag

#297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think 7 years of major OS upgrades and support is really a good example of planned obsolescence…

Why not? Windows 7 for example had a support lifetime of about 10 years. Any red hat release has a support lifetime of 10 years plus another 3 or 4 years of extended support for releases since 2010. I agree that 7 years is not little, but it is not much either.

Well this is not really comparing equivalents.

Apple too has a good track record of releasing security updates for versions of OSX that will run on 10 year old hardware, regardless of whether you can update that hardware to the latest OS.

Many PC OEMs completely abandon security updates for drivers and firmware when their systems go out of warranty, if not immediately after they're discontinued. I had this issue with my last Thinkpad which was less than 2 years old.

Re: Do not leave XPS laptop in any sleep/hibernate/standby mode when placed in a bag

#298
I always feel like laptops have actually started to degrade in the last decade. Maybe it's consumerism, but fairly often I get the idea they just assume after two or three years their products will fail.

I can personally vouch for Acer though, while I haven't purchased one of their laptops recently, when I was younger I had one I just abused the hell out of and it still worked fine.

It's very fun to make your stuff last longer

Re: Do not leave XPS laptop in any sleep/hibernate/standby mode when placed in a bag

#299
post #270

OK, so, overheating the laptop stresses it and will eventually damage it. Got it. Easy to understand. Question. What is it about "being in a bag" that destroys the thermal handling? I've had my laptop in my lap spontaneously power off when it gets too hot. (Which itself makes me a bit crabby about why it didn't successfully throttle down until it could at least keep running, but that's a separate gripe.) Why doesn't…

Thermal sensors measure temperature in specific points / small areas. There are a finite number of these and they do not cover the entire CPU / GPU / motherboard / etc. If one puts a massive load on a CPU, the temperature spikes quickly and widely across enough of the die that the sensors work as expected and the system throttles / shuts down. If one puts a small load on the CPU for a long period of time, areas that…

Do they not put thermal sensors in the CPU? My laptop gives a temperature for each individual CPU core. Whenever I start a heavy CPU task I instantly see a temperature spike. The theory that the thermometers are in potentially useless spots doesn't match my observations.

Re: Do not leave XPS laptop in any sleep/hibernate/standby mode when placed in a bag

#300
post #52

XPS should be "developer laptops". They even come with Linux. So I tried two. Never experienced a more faulty keyboard on a computer in my life. Hanging keys, firmware updates that never really fixed the problem, support forums full of same questions. I'll never buy one again. Too bad as I wanted to support "big brand w/ Linux preinstalled".

“ I wanted to support "big brand w/ Linux preinstalled"” Look at Lenovo maybe :)

On the other hand, I have a XPS 15 9500 I use with Linux all day and never had an issue with anything. Always suspends, never wakes up by itself, no hardware issues... My work 16" MBP on the other hand killed the battery after one week in "suspend" when I was on vacation, probably due to the Power Nap functionality, which sounds pretty much like the Modern Standby being talked on.
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