Category Archives: Recent Activity

EdFiles, Recent Activity, Tips, Tricks and Tweaks, Windows 10, Windows OS Musings

{WED} Updating Realtek UAD Audio Drivers

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I’ve learned the hard way that working with Realtek Universal Audio Driver (UAD) drivers can be interesting. I’ve accidentally switched back from the “Realtek(R) Audio” drivers shown in first screencap for this story to the Realtek HD Audio drivers more than once. But alas, only the “Realtek (R) Audio” drivers work with the Realtek Audio Console UWP app (see next image following). That’s why I wrote today’s post on the topic of updating Realtek UAD Audio Drivers. There are several steps involved, and a couple of (usually reliable) sources to which I turn for driver downloads. Read on for those details please!

Updating Realtek UAD Audio Drivers.realtek-audio

The name of the driver says nothing about UAD. You must simply recognize that the name “Realtek (R) Audio” signifies that a UAD driver is present and running.

Updating Realtek UAD Audio Drivers.console

Simply put, one MUST install the UAD (Realtek(R)) driver to use this UWP app.
[Click image for full-sized view.]

Updating Realtek UAD Audio Drivers 1: The UAD Driver Itself

I use the excellent French Station-Drivers website to grab my UAD drivers. There, Realtek Audio gets its own landing page. It’s still a bit of a slog to get to the right driver from there. I’ll explain this as a sequence of steps for my particular motherboard, which comes from Asrock:

1. Click on Realtek High Definition Audio (HDA/UAD)

2. Click on Drivers (UAD).

3. Click on the name of your motherboard (or system) maker. (In my case, that’s Asrock.)

4. Examine the listings to find the highest-numbered drivers version (at bottom of list; in my case, that’s 8890.1).

5. Click on that version link, then click “Download” on the resulting web page.

This will grab a ZIP file that you can use to unpack and install the driver. Personally, I prefer to right-click the driver inside Device Manager, and point the “Update driver” option at the folder location where I unzipped the download file contents. Why? Because the Realtek installer requires not one, but two (2!), reboots to do its thing. I can use my right-click technique to update the driver without rebooting at all. Do what you like best on your PC(s), though.

Updating Realtek UAD Drivers 2: The Software Components

If you open the category in Device Manager named Software Components, you should see something like the next screencap, which shows three (3) additional Realtek software components. You can update the first two of these three items. I grab them from DriverHub, by searching for them by name. That is, I search on “Realtek Audio Effects Component” and “Realtek Audio Universal Service” and download the corresponding ZIP files. Right-clicking those drivers in Device Manager, to point the driver update function at the contents of those ZIP files works fine to update them, too.

Updating Realtek UAD Audio Drivers.sw-comp

Only the first two of these three drivers get updates, for whatever reason. Thus, that’s all you need look for.

I do this once every six months or so, unless I see a news or other online info item (perhaps at TenForums, which I visit more or less daily) to tell me an update is available sooner. And that’s how I keep my Realtek UAD audio driver and supporting items up-to-date!

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EdFiles, Hardware Reviews, Recent Activity, Tips, Tricks and Tweaks, WED Blog, Windows 10

{WED} Older Lenovos Need Utility Clean-up

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Poking around on my two old Lenovo laptops today, I noticed several of their vendor-supplied utilities are passe. Indeed, now that Lenovo offers its Vantage UWP caretaker app, many older ThinkVantage tools are obsolete. That’s why I assert that older Lenovos need utility clean-up. Lenovo itself will happily let you download and install Vantage on any of its PCs. But it doesn’t automatically remove the older stuff when you do. In fact, if you check information pages at Lenovo (URLs below) for the following items, you’ll see what I mean:

+ (HT501246) Lenovo Quick Optimizer

+ (PD022501) Lenovo Solution Center

+ (DS105970) Lenovo System Interface Foundation

+ (DS012808) Lenovo System Update

+ Thinkpad Settings Dependency

+ ThinkVantage Fingerprint Software*

Note: all of the preceding items, except for the last one, can be safely uninstalled. Happily, the Lenovo Vantage UWP app supersedes all of them (except for the Fingerprint software, which must be at version 6.0 or higher for Windows 10 users). Likewise, do NOT uninstall Lenovo Service Bridge: it remains necessary to report your Lenovo PC’s serial and model number info back to the Lenovo servers.

Older Lenovos Need Utility Clean-up.SolutionCenter

The old-fangled Solution Center and its various brethren are all now longer under developer support. Most of them can go.
[Click image for full-sized view.]

Why Do Older Lenovos Need Utility Clean-up?

Good question! Apparently, Lenovo left it to device owners to root out these older items (except for the Fingerprint Software, which you must keep if you have an older fingerprint reader and want to keep using it). Methinks they should’ve offered a clean-up utility. Better yet, the Lenovo Vantage installer should look for these passe items and offer to uninstall them as part of its install process. I’ll be communicating this back to Lenovo, in hope that they might listen to — and possibly even heed — this plea. We’ll see.

What About Newer Lenovos? Do They Need Clean-up, too?

I checked my newer Lenovos, of which I have four: two 2018-vintage X380 Yogas, 1 2018 vintage X1 Extreme, and 1 2019 vintage X390 Yoga. All had the older System Update utility installed, except for the 2019 X390 Yoga. Consequently, I did a bit of clean-up on those newer laptops, too. All’s well now, though.

 

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EdFiles, Recent Activity, Tips, Tricks and Tweaks, Windows 10, Windows OS Musings

{WED} Some Errors Need Fixing; Others Are Hiccups

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From time to time I check in the Reliability Monitor on my Windows 10 PCs. It gives me an excellent sense of PC health, and points me at causes when errors occur. Take my compact road laptop as an example: it’s a 2018 Lenovo X380 Yoga with an i7-8650U CPU, 16 GB RAM, and a 1 TB NVMe SSD. An entirely capable, reasonably fast, and incredibly stable machine. I was surprised recently, in fact, to see a driver error show up on that machine. As you can see in the screencap that follows, the faulting item is the igfxEM Module. That is the name that Intel gives to the software that drives the Intel UHD Graphics 620 built into the CPU chip itself. Upon seeing this error, I was reminded that some errors need fixing; others are hiccups. I soon learned that this one was an apparent hiccup.

Some Errors Need Fixing; Others Are Hiccups.devmgr

When some that starts with “igfx” pops up, I know it refers to “Intel graphics,” that being the company’s standard abbreviation.
[Click image for full-sized view.]

Deciding on Some Errors Need Fixing; Others Are Hiccups

Windows update didn’t think I needed a new Intel graphics driver. Nor did the new UWP app named Intel Driver & Support Assistant. Ditto for the Lenovo Vantage UWP app, which does a pretty good job of keeping up with drivers, too. Thus, there’s no new driver to replace the offending item.

But because it happened exactly once and hasn’t recurred in the past two weeks, I’m convinced this particular error represents a hiccup rather than an ongoing problem in need of fixing. So I’ve concluded that there’s nothing further to do here — except, as always, to keep an occasional eye on Reliability Monitor. It’ll let me know if and when the situation changes.

Some Errors Need Fixing; Others Are Hiccups.intel-d&sa

Intel’s new Driver & Support Assistant works inside a web browser and seems faster and more capable than it’s application predecessor.

SideNote: Running Reliability Monitor

Once upon a time, I could type “reli” into the search box in the Start menu, and the Reliability Monitor would run. No more, not since 1809 or thereabouts. Now, I type “perfmon /rel” into the search box instead. That still works. Or, if you prefer, try “reliability” spelled all the way out. That should produce the “View reliability history” control panel item. The long way around is to click Control Panel → Security & Maintenance → Maintenance → View reliability history. I wish my old method still worked: typing four chars beats typing 12. But that’s the way things go sometimes, here in Windows-World!

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{WED} Future Win10 Driver Updates All Optional

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Here’s an interesting tidbit from the MS Hardware Dev Center, posted February 18. It comes from Senior Program Manager Kevin Tremblay who focuses on Windows OneCore (OS kernel, methinks) and “device enablement” (LinkedIn Profile). Going forward, device driver updates for Windows 10 will always show up in Windows Update as “Optional updates.” Because future Win10 updates all optional now, that means users must initiate such updates manually. In fact, working through the process means:

1. Clicking Optional Updates

2. Checking boxes next to one or more available device driver updates

3. Clicking a “Download and install” button on the Optional updates page to initiate (and approve) those activities.

Here’s what a sample Drive updates window looks like, showing the checkboxes and the “Download and install” button. I’ve already made use of this feature myself on Fast Ring Insider Preview test machines, and can confirm it works as it’s supposed to from personal experience.

Future Win10 Driver Updates All Optional.example

Going forward, Win10 users will have to acquiese and participate actively, before WU will install device drivers on their PCs.
[Click image for full-sized view.]

If Future Win10 Driver Updates All Optional, Then What?

Previous Win10 feature updates have come in for qvetching, criticism, and occasional cries of anguish because of updates installed automatically. They could show up, without prior warning for users. This denies them the opportunity to refuse, or to take preventive measures (a backup image to restore should something go sideways, for example). As far as device drivers go, this is now off the table. Good on Microsoft, for making this change. Because drivers are a perennial and predictable source for post-update instability, this new approach provides a way to avoid trouble, rather than having to clean up a post-update mess. But wait? Isn’t this the way things worked in Windows 7 and 8.x versions. What was once old, is now new again, it seems. A welcome bit of news nevertheless!

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{WED} Temperamental Dual mSATA SSD Cleaned Up

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A few years back, I found myself with some extra mSATA Samsung EVO 250 SSDs on my hands. I purchased two Syba 2.5″ SATA 6G/USB 3.0 to Dual mSATA RAID (SD-ADA40107) adapter cards. I paid about $40 each (they cost $26 now). One of them has been terribly temperamental. Over time its plugged-in SSDs become unreadable. Seems like setting the card down on a conducting surface causes the drives to go bye-bye.  (I don’t have it in a case, as I undoubtedly should.) This happened before on my Surface Pro 3, which sits on a set of (metal) baker’s racks. And today, when I tried to back up my Lenovo X380 Yoga Fast Ring test machine, its drives were once again MIA. Thus, I found myself with a temperamental Dual mSATA SSD cleaned up. Good thing I only keep throwaway data and backups on those drives. Fortunately, I didn’t lose anything I couldn’t recover from.

Temperamental Dual mSATA SSD Cleaned Up.device

I’m guessing that the SSD devices somehow conduct to the rails on the case, and cause the drives to short out if grounded. Sigh.

How Temperamental Dual mSATA SSD Cleaned Up Happened

When I tried to access the devices I got a warning message that they were inaccessible. (I have them set up as JBOD, not RAID, so they show up as Drives E: and F:.) Having seen this before, I attempted repairs using MiniTool Partition Wizard 11. Alas, it couldn’t find anything to recover. So I went into DISKPART and ran a CLEAN operation on each of those drives. Then, I reformatted them as MBR devices using NTFS. They definitely ran faster after the clean-up: Macrium Reflect reports read speeds of 3.6 Gbps and write speeds of 2.6 Gbps for the most recent (and only) backup on the device now. (Of course, this is an artefact of the compression the program uses when accessing the drive: actual throughput isn’t really that fast, either coming or going.)

The funny thing is, I’ve got another one of those cards plugged into a drive caddy where it’s safe from accidental grounding. I’ve never had a problem with that one. So maybe — just maybe — it’s time for me to buy a 2.5″ case (which form factor the card matches exactly). Then, I can  take care of the problem once and for all. But at least I got a refresher on DISKPART out of the deal, and the backups are now running lickety-split. (Elapsed time for the last one was 05:30 for a total of 28 GB of disk space consumed.) That’s the way things go here in Windows-World sometimes, where even backups need occasional backups. Would that I could so easily cure my tendency toward operator error!

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{WED} MS SaRA + Removing IRST Restores Win10 Stability

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Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been fighting some vicious Windows 10 issues. One of them manifested in the form of over 100 Outlook MoAppCrash errors related to WindowsCommunicationApps that check in with remote email servers. Those came at a rate of at least 5X daily. The other involved regular IAStorDataMgrSvc.exe errors, at the rate of at least one a day. Between the two, as the intro screencap shows, my system’s Reliability Index hit rock bottom 7 days in a row. But between using the Microsoft Support and Recovery Assistant (aka MS SaRA) and removing an unnecessary driver, I’ve been able to return my production PC to more or less normal operation. Hence this blog post’s title: MS SaRA + removing IRST restores Win10 stability.

MS SaRA + Removing IRST Restores Win10 Stability.main

As SaRA’s home screen shows, it’s good for addressing a broad range of Windows problems. It definitely fixed my Outlook errors without too much muss or fuss.
[Click image for full-sized view.]

The Many Powers of SaRA

I hadn’t used SaRA much before (though I did have a copy in my utilities folder). But when I ran it, the software asked me to revisit its Download Center page to grab the latest version. I’m glad I did, because it’s added a lot of new Office and Outlook capabilities in this latest incarnation. And because that’s just what I needed, it was well worth doing. Having now used it on multiple occasions to fix a couple of trivial problems and this latest, more annoying and persistent Outlook issue, I can recommend it to Windows admins, power users, and even ordinary users alike. It should be part of any Windows user’s troubleshooting arsenal, as it is now part of mine (it goes way beyond Windows 10’s built-in Troubleshooters, available through Start → Settings → Update & Security → Troubleshoot). Grab a copy today.

Why Use the Intel IRST Drivers?

The ultimate source of my IAStor related “stopped working” error messages came from this folder:

C:\Program Files\Intel\Intel(R) Rapid Storage Technology\IAStorDataMgrSvc.exe

That’s what clued me in that the Intel Rapid Storage Technology (IRST) software was involved. Although IRST offers some modest performance boosts for SATA disks run independently, its biggest benefits come through its support for software-based RAID (Redudant Arrays of Inexpensive Disks). It turns out that for AHCI users who don’t have RAID disks, IRST is more or less optional. If you really want ALL the details on IRST drivers, versions, and access to nicely-modded alternatives, check out Fernando’s IRST Coverage at Win-RAID.com.

In my case, I decided to uninstall the whole environment because anything that causes errors but provides only modest performance gains is not something I want. Out it went. And, as the rising tide of the Reliability Index shows, taking care of both errors finally has things moving in the right direction. And that’s the way things go sometimes, here in Windows-World. I’m mildly pleased to see the system becoming more stable. Let me see it get back to a perfect 10, and I’ll be somewhat more pleased. Fingers crossed!

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Intro Slides for Data Protection, DRaaS and Disaster Recovery Webinar

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On Wednesday, February 12, 2020, I delivered a recorded introduction to an ActualTechMedia.com webinar entitled “Enabling Data Protection, DRaaS, & Disaster Recovery Capabilities.” As is my usual practice, I included hyperlinks to articles and a range of related training and certification programs. Because I was unsure that those slides would be readily available to the audience, I am making them available through this web page. I’ve made this PowerPoint deck available through OneDrive: simply click the link in this sentence, and you’ll be able to download the slide deck immediately.

Here’s what the intro banner looks like on the ActualTechMedia website:

A MegaCast brings six or more leading vendors together to talk about specific tools, platforms, and technologies. For this webinar the following companies participated: Cohesity, druva, Clumio, Datrium, Zerto, Nutanix, and UniTrends.
[Click image for full-sized view.]

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Mixcder E10 ANC Bluetooth Headphones Are a Real Bargain

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From time to time, people contact me to ask me to review their products. That’s how I’m trying out a pair of Mixcder E10 Active Noise Cancelling Bluetooth headphones. So far, they’re a great set of low-to-modestly-priced headphones with excellent product build and sonic characteristics. Here’s what comes with the Mixcder E10 ANC Bluetooth Headphones, from one of their publicity stills:

E10 entire kits

Clockwise from top left: E10 headphones, old-fashioned dual jack airplane audio adapter, genuine leather zip case, dual mail mini-RCA cable, mini-USB to USB-A cable.
[Click image for full-sized view. Source: Mixcder.com.]

Where Does Ed Get Off, Writing About Audio/Headphones?

I’ve been an audiophile since high school. As soon as I got to college and made some money, I built a HeathKit pre-amp. It went with a Dynaco Tube amp to drive a pair of Arena speakers. My first job after undergrad was as an audio engineer at the Library of Congress (LC). I upgraded to a pair of JBL 4331 Studio monitors. I still used the same pre-amp, with a BGW 250-B solid state amplifier (it still drives my right and left front speakers today).

These days, I run an Outlaw Audio 976 pre-amp/video processor. I also use that same BGW amp, plus 3 Rotel 100-watt solid state amps. They drive a 5.2 setup on Phase Technology speakers. Once upon a time, I attended a summer course on audio engineering at the Eastman School of Music (summer of 1974). This came courtesy of Head Engineer Bob Carneal and the LC.

As part of my job at the LC, I mixed up to 8 channels of audio into stereo. This happened on a Langevin mixing board in the LC’s Coolidge Auditorium. During the “cultural season,” we taped chamber music concerts for public radio distribution. That remote mixing board was backstage. Perforce I had to listen in on a set of “cans” (as we called headphones, back in that now-prehistoric time). My ears hosted Sennheiser headphones that cost over US$300. (The Inflation Calculator says that’s worth $1,737.89 in 2020 dollars.) Those concerts could run two hours, or just a bit over. That explains why I’m (painfully) familiar with extended headphone wear.

E10 Build Quality

As you can see from the preceding photo, $65 to $93 buys a fair bit of stuff. (List price on the website is $112.99; the other prices come from swadeal and Amazon, respectively.) The headphones themselves are substantial, and not overly heavy, at 304 grams (10.72 oz). They’re a closed-ear design. Firm memory foam cups are covered in light leather (or a reasonable fascimile thereof). The headrest is built likewise (memory foam underneath, leather wrapping outside). The cups are labeled “R” and “L” inside. This makes it easy to orient them properly when donning them. The materials are solid and the headset looks able to withstand normal wear-and-tear (and then some, perhaps).

E10 Accessories

I’d have liked it better if the ‘phones sported a USB-C port for charging rather than mini-USB. But the E10 is what it is. Charging is quick: the first full charge took about 94 minutes. A second full charge only took 60 minutes. The maker claims 60 hours of battery life with ANC turned off. ANC turned on cuts that in half (a still-respectable 30 hours). So far, I’ve not been inclined to push things. I’ve not exhausted the battery after more than 20 hours of active use (with ANC turned on, mostly).

A mini-RCA cable runs the ‘phones in wired mode. Another reviewer claims this produces slightly better audio quality than Bluetooth. Personally, I couldn’t hear any difference between the two forms of input myself. But at age 67 my ears probably don’t work as well as Jupit3r’s (the other reviewer) do, either. Take it under advisement, knowing that a wired connection is handy in signal-rich environments or when flying. I guess that’s when the mini-RCA to dual airplane jack might come in handy. But I haven’t flown on any planes that featured such jacks in quite some time. (I just got back from Washington, DC last Saturday, January 4: we flew a Boeing 737 with USB-A ports.)

E10 Listening Experience and Headphone Comfort

I’ve read numerous reviews (see links at the end of this story) that praise these ‘phones comfort and fit. I’m sorry to say I don’t agree. Though the sound quality is quite good,  the phones weren’t comfortable for extended wear. I found myself remembering the “headphone headache” I got in the Coolidge Auditorium after wearing the Sennheiser ‘phones. I couldn’t wear the E10 ‘phones for more than 90-120 minutes without taking a break from their firm grip.

That said, that’s my only gripe with the E10s. The sound quality is good enough that I heard some things amidst my recordings that I’d never heard before. (Not even on my mid-range semi-professional audio rig.) The price is especially attractive, given that you can buy the E10s for under US$100. (In fact, as much as $30 less than that from some sellers.) I have a nearly16-year-old son who’s lost one set of earbuds. He’s also worked his way through two different kinds of Bluetooth headphones over the past couple years. I wouldn’t hesitate for a minute to buy him E10s. I’m enjoying them myself, too. I just can’t handle them for more than two hours at a time. YMMV when you put them on for yourself and see how they fit you. They’re definitely worth a listen, in any case.

Other E10 Reviews Worth Reading

Here is a trio of reviews (including the afore-linked one cited earlier in this story) of the E10 headphones. For more info and different perspectives, check one or more of them out!

KnowTechie: Review: Mixcder E10 — Impressive, lag-free noise canceling headphones
Engineering & Technology: Top-of-Mixcder’s-range noise-cancelling wireless headphones for a less-than-a-ton price.
Head-fi.org: Mixcder E10 Review – Active Noise Cancelling Bluetooth V5.0 Headphones

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Remembering D-Day and the Greatest Generation

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OK, folks. Listen up! Today is the 75th anniversary of D-Day, and the commencement of the invasion at Normandy’s Omaha Beach that would ultimately turn the tides for Allied victory in WWII. General Dwight Eisenhower was informed that casualties could be as high as 75%, but ordered the action regardless. As it turns out, the National D-Day Memorial Foundation determined the number of casualties on the first day of combat at 4,414. Given that 150,000 troops saw action that day, the number could have been much, much higher.

That does not diminish the sacrifice that occurred on June 6, 1944 by one bit. My hat is off to all of those personnel, and to those who were injured or wounded in combat, and to all of their families. My Dad also served in combat in WWII, but in the Pacific theater instead. By the time D-Day rolled around, my Dad was working in the Signal Corps in Manila, in the Philippines, to help restore electrical power to that city. About one month after D-Day, he was seriously burned (and shocked) when a co-worker unintentionally turned on the juice to a 12,000-volt line while my Dad was working on its wiring. He lost most of the skin on his right hand and on the back of his neck, where the current entered (his hand) and exited (his neck). He would be shipped back to the USA, to spend the next four months in recovery and rehab at the famous burn ward at Brooks (then an Army Hospital, now a state-of-the-art Army Medical Center) in San Antonio, TX. One month later, he would meet my Mom, also home from the war for medical treatment, at their mutual hometown of Elizabeth, NJ.

There’s not enough any of us can do or say to recognize and appreciate the sacrifice of all the brave soldiers, men and women, who served our country so faithfully, and so well in this horrible conflict. I’d like to add my thanks and profound appreciation for all of those who served. This goes double for both of my parents, LTC Alfred F. Tittel (USAR, ret, 27 years of active duty) and LT Cecilia K Tittel (nee Kociolek, USAR, honorably discharged in January 1946). Neither of them ever talked very much about their wartime experiences but we could always tell it had touched them deeply, and that they were both honored and grateful to have served their country in time of war and great need.

I’m sitting here at my desk bawling like crazy. As I remember D-Day, this is also a great opportunity to recall and honor my Mom and Dad. Mom passed away on September 11, 2009 and was interred at Arlington National Cemetery in the plot that she will soon share with my Dad. Dad passed away on December 15, 2018 — the same day that Mom was interred at Arlington 9 years before. He’s waiting for his memorial service to join her at Arlington National. Our family is still waiting for Arlington to give us the date for his memorial service, for which Dad requested full military honors, including the caisson and the marching band. The funeral home says it will still be a while yet before we know when that might happen. Whenever it occurs, we’ll be there to honor his passing, and the service that he, my Mom, and all the other soldiers, old and young, also interred there gave this country.

Once again: farewell and thanks to all of them. May you all rest in peace, glory and dignity forever.

–Ed–

The preceding photos are, of course, my Mom and Dad. The photo of Mom was taken in late 1942 or early 1943, just before she was shipped overseas to participate in Operation Torch in Morocco. She would follow the Army through northern Africa (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya), then into Sardinia and Silicy, and onto France before being wounded there in 1944. The photo of my Dad is from the 1990s, in full formal military dress uniform, while attending a gathering of WWII Glider Pilots in Greece, where he was awarded the decoration just under his bowtie for his WWII service.

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Hey Lenovo! Thanks Loads!!

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I got a nice surprise from FedEx last Friday, April 5. An early knock on my door brought a couple of welcome boxes. Courtesy of Jeffrey Witt, Director of Lenovo’s Global Product PR, those boxes housed a couple of 8th Generation i7-based laptops. Mr. Witt graciously acceded to a request I made late in 2018 for a Carbon X1 Extreme, and an X380 of similar vintage. Images and specs will follow, but first, I have another story about some older Lenovo laptops to tell.

A Tale of Two Predecessors

Windows 8 actually has roots back to 2010/2011. By early 2012 Windows 8 was on its way, and technical previews were available. I got hired by Pearson/Que in January to work on a book, Windows 8 in Depth. I also knew Windows 8 was bringing big changes, most notably with the introduction of touch and the tile-based Start Menu. By the end of February, I knew I needed at least one touch-screen unit and one more test machine on which to run Windows 8 Technical Previews. That was the first time I corresponded with Mr. Witt, who was already involved with trade press folks and evals/loaner units. That time around, he helped me get a pretty deep discount on the two machines I bought for my Windows 8 work:

  • X220 Tablet: Sandy Bridge i7-2640M Dual Core CPU with Intel HD Graphics 3000, 500 GB spinner, 4 GB RAM, touchscreen, fingerprint scanner. Today, it has a 256 GB Plextor mSATA SSD, 16 GB RAM, and a SATA 256 GB SSD.
  • T520 Laptop: Sandy Bridge i7-2640M Dual Core CPU with Intel HD Graphics 3000, Nvidia Quadro NVS 4200M, 500 GB spinner, DVD player, 8 GB RAM, fingerprint scanner. Today, it has a 256 Plextor mSATA SSD, 16 GB RAM, OCX Vertex 4 128 GB SATA SSD, Seagate SATA III 1 TB spinner (replaced the DVD player with a SATA drive module).

I still use both of these machines daily. Considering that they’re now over 7 years old, that’s a real testament to their durability and usability. As I check my Windows Enterprise Desktop blog for Techtarget, I see 41 mentions of the T520, and 58 mentions of the X220 Tablet dating from April 2012 through February 2019. I have really *loved* these machines, and taken them from Windows 7 to 8 to 8.1 all the way to the current build for 1809 (Build 17763.404) on the T520, and the current Insider Preview 1903 (Build 18362.30) on the X 220 Tablet. Until the X1 Carbon Extreme showed up last Friday, the T520 had been my primary “road laptop.” It’s gone on every business trip I’ve been on since I bought it, and many of my personal trips as well. (My Surface Pro 3 and my late, lamented Dell Venue Pro 11 7130 also went along on many, if not most, family vacations.)

Say Hello to the New Kids in Town!

OK then, time for some specs on the new machines. But first, I have to gush about the Carbon X1 Extreme. I think it’s faster and more powerful than my production desktop. My son has completely fallen in love with it and uses it for homework every night. This involves a lot of web surfing, and lots of interaction with various Google platforms elements (Docs, Sheets, and so forth, standard in his school district). He still gets 5-6 hours of battery life out of the machine, which means he can pretty much work untethered. He’s also raved to me about its video playback capabilities. I’ll take his word for it: I’ve had no real time to explore these systems in detail yet:

  • X1 Carbon Extreme: Intel 8th Generation i7-8850H (6 cores, 2.6 GHz) with Intel UHD Graphics 630, Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti 4GB, 32 GB RAM,  one each Samsung MSLVBxx NVMe 1 TB and 500 GB SSDs, fingerprint scanner and Windows Hello Face recognition, and more. From what I see on Amazon, this machine retails for around $2,600-2,700. It weighs far less than its predecessor, at a svelte 1.84 kg/4 lbs 0.7 oz.

  • X380 Yoga: Intel 8th Generation i7-8650U CPU (4 cores. 1.9 GHz) with Intel UHD Graphics 620, 16 GB RAM, Samsung MSLVB10 NVMe 1 TB SSD, fingerprint scanner, and more. Checking Amazon again, I find a typical retail price of around $1,500 for this unit. This one weighs in at 1.6 kg/3 lbs (in round numbers: it’s just a hair under 3 lbs, actually).

It’s really far too early for me to do much more than ooh and aah over the latest laptops in my stable. As I have more time and opportunity to work with them, I’ll be writing about them in more depth. So far, the only thing I miss on the X1 Carbon is an RJ-45 port for direct Ethernet plug-in (but I’ve got a USB 3.0 GbE dongle already anyway, so no biggie; Note added April 9: the unit has a built-in I219-LM GbE NIC–and surprisingly, so does the X380–but you have to buy a special cable to get from its compact proprietary port to an RJ-45. Might be worth acquiring, though). I’m planning to acquire some big (256 GB+) SDXC devices for both machines, to further extend their storage. Another big difference with these newer models is soldered-in RAM (so no memory upgrades). But it’s a tradeoff for their enhanced compactness, I know.

I’ll close with a big THANKS to Mr. Witt and his RTP-based team. I really appreciate the opportunity to work with these machines, and hope to accomplish as many great things with them in the years to come as I’ve done with the T520 and the X220 Tablet. Now, if only i had time to really work them out. . .

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