BGA on Desktop, IT HAPPENED!

I actually want the IHS to come back to be honest. A soldered IHS is so much more error tolerant for poor fitting heatsinks.

Anyway, Intel doesnt provide non IHS CPU's manufacturers are stuck with what they receive so still a socketed CPU is thicker at all times than a BGA system. People can dislike it and I accept that but no size exists that fits all.Everybody wants to make a different compromise for their systems. But in this thread its almost like that only 1 type of system is the right system design.

 

a concave IHS surface imo is worse than the die. not only it increases additional materials in between the fitting can also be a problem. soldering a 0.5mm shim should solve most heatsink problem. and laptop needs to be bare die cooling anyway cause its some of the lowest grade silicon. adding IHS would not only increase the thickness but also making it that much hotter.

 

I havent actually come across imperfect IHS's plates yet. Is it common? I know lapping definitely had benefits always. But I always considered IHS's plates to be pretty solid to work with.

Currently using a 0.3mm shim so that my mounting mechanism makes more pressure on the chip die itself (and so I can ditch the standard 0.1mm thermal pads from Dell for which I cant find replacements.

 

All IHS is imperfect. AMD or Intel's lid doesn't matter... http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...6-owners-lounge.797128/page-724#post-10571059

 

No, it's due to all the skinny Jean wearing milenialtards that demand ultra portability for their tree hugging college courses...

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Oh here come the generalizations.

 

I still prefer this though, the chip dies are so small, if a heatsink has an asymetric mounting method the small chip die will just act like a seesaw pivot.

 

This reminds me... Apple apparently hasn't learned from their other market segments either... Forgetting the problems with their phones in the past - https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/sep/24/iphone-6-plus-bend-pockets-complain

 

LOL walk by any Apple store on release....

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People by thin laptop sbecause they are jsut more convenient in everyday use. also a lot of old gamers just want convenience (Alienware is a nice example that they kinda grew with their userbase). Skinny jeans are just general fashion, and not all millennials are doing like social studies etc

The laptop market grew a loooooot the past 5 years and the higher performance in thinner systems is the main reason for that. It's finally a product formfactor that peopple tend to prefer more.

 

We were screwed way before thin&light became a thing. Cooling wasn't good enough on many if not most laptops back then, just as now. If you judge the industry as a whole and not by particular outstanding examples - nothing, literally nothing changed over the decade regarding cooling (in)adequacy.

Engineers are mostly good at introducing new (or good old) ways to cut production costs. No matter the thickness, on most consumer systems cooling was/is just good enough not to raise a lot of complaints - while business-class traditionally fares better. Oh, and Apple is beyond evil of course - but then again, they always were, just got more inventive.

 

Business class spec is a joke though.

 

cooling was better in the past, around 5-7 years ago. its not great, but it was better than what it is now. given that nowadays laptops are thinner with more power hungry hardware to cool, its gone a complete 180.

 

The grass was greener, the light was brighter...

 

except we came from the greener to brownish grass.

 

I'm in Texas, all I see is brown...grass.

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Maybe this analogy will help... A station wagon is also convenient for carrying around the entire family, but not when you need high performance, a sports car is better suited. And while in the past 20 years, the 4-door sedan was designed as a hybrid compromise trying to reach everyone. Nonetheless, the car manufacturers still didn't kill the sports car segment.

Unfortunately, it is not the same in the laptop space. First off, laptop / desktops are probably starting their end-of-life, so who knows if this is having a negative effect on R&D. Also, there may be market influences on the 'general population' who think they want their laptops to work like their mobile devices.

And, this all comes at a cost - performance! As of late, OEM attempts are falling short of the performance crowd's expectations, and they keep moving their solutions more and more away from performance with these designs. And that is where they are either making a big mistake or perhaps they have research numbers that support their position. Regardless, most of the uber-performance driven crowd (at least those on NBR) become alienated (pun intended) when the OEM design goals are style over performance. To me, If a laptop has 5-10 mm of more thickness and weighs 3-4K more, but can actively cool 18-24 cores or 2 high performance GPUs, then you have something that I'd consider when spending money. Anything slimmer that is causing issues with heat, throttling and throw-away repairs is a waste, and I'll be the first to tell anyone that.

I know I may never agree with the slimmer is better crowd. In the end, I guess it probably comes down to the statement, "Opinions vary."

 

SECC2 was for Coppermine (e.g. Pentium 3 600 @ 933 mhz-1 ghz) or something and Katmai was the older Pentium 2's.
Like Yuck....sideways mounted cooling...you had no room to put any decent cooler in....

I swear the Penitum 166 MMX @ 262.5 mhz with the 83 mhz jumper at 3.3v that ran at 90C on the tiny STOCK intel fansink was a more durable CPU...

 

I went from a Pentium 120mhz that I overclocked as a toddler to 133mhz to an AMD K6-2 pro 400mhz. The good old days. After that someone gave me an Pentium 2 450 and it was soooo much faster. It came out of a Dell system and had the heatsink permanently mounted on already. No fan attached So I glued that one. Next was the jump to an AMD thunderbird 1200. Those speed jumps in those 3~4 years where nuts.

 

It's about supply & demand. If their is no demand, there will be no supply. Gaming are already a niche, gamin glaptops that are so heavy they arent really laptops and are twice as expensive as comaprable desktops is a niche, of a niche which is also part of a niche.

The most vocal people here tend to be the smallest group of already a small group. Currently I own an AW15R3, i did some tune ups myself but now it is a laptop that doesnt run hot, doesnt throttle, has an overclocked 1070GTX, a decent Core I7 quad core and performance as it should based on the 1070GTX. It fits in my bag so I take it daily to the office, it fits in my carry on case for in an airplane so it goes with me to foreign countries etc. This performance wasnt possible in a similar formfactor 5 years ago (with the performance relative of that era) and was a pipe dream 10 years ago. Imo it is one of the best time to buy a gaming laptop now! 5 years ago I wouldnt buy one because the performance was never comparable to a desktop, they where big, heavy, thick and twice the price. So discarding the improvement as if they arent there is grossly false in my opinion.

There is more to a gaming laptops performance that a cinemabench score which only accounts for an outdated usecase. Applications such as Adobe premiere are more reliant on GPU's these days and gaming doesnt benefit as much yet to extreme high core counts.

 

I always take benching with a grain of salt. Running a game for 4 hrs on certain settings is real world to me.

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That definitely. Especially for someone like me who spends hours gaming each night

 

Yes. It all depends on the number of folks who want to squeeze every last drop of performance out of a true DTR. Then there's the rest who don't necessarily need or want a DTR or just want something more mobile that can do some light gaming.

The problem is OEMs mistakenly believe they can be all things to both groups. But we're seeing they can't, so that segment is neglected. Ten years ago I was using my D900F or x7200. There were other laptops more sleek / mobile, and those we're for the masses or someone needing something just good enough. But those machines could never satisfy those more demanding, and could not really match the performance of these DTR type machines.

 

Alienware did very much. Based on supply and demand they slimmed there laptop to where the still keep the killer ethernet. They have been targeting the esports market as a main priority now. That move was based on supply and demand. So it turns out bga i sp muc cheaper that lga to production. Eaier to source cost less made all in one *place* and they made big on it. Not to mention they work with roccat so that all pheriphals are not total garbage now and the compete with logitech. (Razer is getting to cheaply made now they can compete anymore)

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They made the BGA decision because Intel doesnt supply socketed mobile CPU's anymore and dont offer support on units sold that are still put into mobile system. For a large corporation as Dell thats just unacceptable. At least, that is what Frank Azor said. No clue on hwo much leverage Dell has on forcing Intel to still release socketed mobile CPU's.

THey ditched Roccat by the way and are now making their own keyboards etc based on Kailh switches.

 

The keyboard mice,headphones are rebranded rocat with alienware but made by roccat last time i checked.

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Which was a while ago.

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it'll probably never happen. intel pays dell real well to use their cpu and dell will be the first to switch to bga. also, frank azor is pretty much known as a big liar among us enthusiasts. i'd take everything he say as a joke, typical corporate dog thats after money/success, no offense, its just the truth.

 

I have seen no reason yet why he would lie about it though.

anyway, like said before. Im not unhappy with the machine I got, would be more unhappy with the R4 version of my AW15 though, simply because they ditched optimus and for me battery life is important. I just dont understand why they removed optimus even on the non Gsync models.

But it would be cool if they made 2 different lines. Just 1 line consisting of laptops that are like all out, not convenient etc, just showing what they can do. Even though its financianlly not really economical to sell those. Its good marketing.

 

you should read up on some of the stuff they say, you dont need to be an expert in electronics to know bs when you see it. @Papusan got a nice list of things they did and its just horrible, well not that i blame azor assuming he has a huge pressure coming from upper management, but lie is no gud

 

They have already 2 different lines of Aw models, rinneh. One thinner than the other and both models run 100C.

As you can see, expect also m17 model being thrown out after the New Year or early spring. I can't in my wildest imagination see they will push for a 3rd AW model line. Here's Azors own words... " For many years we used desktop processors in our notebooks. The truth is that the compromises that come associated with doing so are not worth it in our experience." All what customers will get is Razer imitations. Maybe even thinner. Azor and Alienware have chosen this direction long time ago. You can not learn a blind man to see again with just magic.

 

You and i both know that 80% of these issues come from bad thermal paste & thermal pad applications and the concept of the current normal & M series are the same. The M15 is not much thinner than the normal 15.

and battery drain is normal if the PSU isnt big enough. Better than the unit shutting down. Just make sure the PSU is sufficient and there are no issues.99% of the laptops do this.

 

@rinneh @Papusan @Mr. Fox

quoting from dell alienware's moderator on their forum ROFL, they no longer even try to hide it. talking as if its natural. zero shame and blatantly advertise those temp as okay. lmao 5c difference from average to peak, thats a lot of room for usage.

 

yeah thanks to intel. I hate how their documents state that it is okay. But the reason why it is okay is because it will just throttle.

Frank Azor stated by the way that they might release laptops with MXM boards again on twitter as a response to someone.

 

no. way. DEFINITELY super proprietary crap bolted down in such a way that only "official service technicians" from dellienware can actually exchange those gpus

 

if u blamed intel for paying OEM to go bga direction and changing how they define TDP then i'd agree with you. if blaming intel for OEM purposely design these machines to reduce cost, then no, which is the gist i got from your statement.

lets not make false statement and compromises. intel sell product, oem had plenty of time to test them, not to mention some of the CPU core arch lasted close to a decade in its generation. even without being a engineer people can do simple scaling math.

just no, brother rinneh, compromises and consumer stupidity and their arrogant attitude is what got us here today.

 

Even though im webdesigner/developer who also did a minor of industrial design. I do catch a lot from where I work about manufacturing and supply chains. From what I understood is Intel sends out specifications, templates etc to all board manufacturers. The designers start to base their design on what is written in that document (45watt tdp etc) and build a laptop around that. Because they all want to be like the first they do not test heavily after the design phase. They use the specifications that Intel supply them with like the bible and stick to that. Now we ended up with core i9's that specifried as 45watt TDP CPU's but have in real life usage a a power draw of 110watts. I think this is terrible. Because of this we end with machines that need heavy tuning for it to work efficiently.

I do get your vision, but this is just from what I catch from the industry.

 

Well lets hope thats not the case. It woul dreally give the MXM standard some light again and hopefully makes those add on boards a lot cheaper than they currently are.

 

being the first is one thing, it is not the excuse to slack on heatsink design. it doesnt need a lot of time to test btw. you make a heatsink, or use an old one even if it doesnt "fit" into current chassis as long as it has a dissipation and capacity, they can easily figure out just how much it is required. slap on an old heatsink to the cpu, fire it up, run it for 10 mins and you have your answer.

theres no denying it is fact, they are designing machine to intel's value. its the fact that they know it ain't good enough but won't do more. because market wants thin/light and everybody else is doing it, and also they can save money on materials by having producing smaller parts.

 

Liquid metal didnt help much. The other brands similar models was able to run cooler with stock paste.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...50h-coffee-lake.810891/page-117#post-10829150

I have pushed 425w from the wall in bench with a single 330W psu. The 330W should be able to deliver sustained 400w the whole time. And Alienware use same 330w psu for their gaming models. See... There is no need for battery drain. Because I can't see Azors models is able to push 400w with the "capped" power limits.

17% thinner means Alienware could make a better cooling if they skipped the chassis shrinking for m15. 17% is still 17% thinner (fans-grills). They already know 6 core Coffee lake run hot as Hell in their thicker models.

Have you seen Dells proprietary graphics cards solution (similar mxm) in their other Dell models notebooks?

Maybe you don't know... But Intel don't post all info (all types internal specs sheet) to the public. See... MB manufactures can put in 115C degrees temp threshold in their bios firmware. They of course got this info/guidelines from Intel.

Intel recommended 120W PL1 and 110w PL2 limits for unlocked i9-8950Hk BGA chips in notebooks. This is already out in public. Intel have stated several times the later years.... They have given the OEM's more free hands how much they want cripple their products. Only a Moron recent graduate engineer with no experience will/would design cooling around the "officially published 45W TDP specs" for all H Mobile BGA chips.

You have probably seen Dell brag about that they have increased power limits above Intels specs on locked down BGA. See the XPS models.

None in public know or have seen the documents Intel sends to their parners (OEMs). Neither they know what's going behind closed doors between hardware manufacturers and the OEM. Say all notebook engineers did not know ... That's wrong. Notebook manufacturers who also design and create desktop builds (see AW-Asus etc) know early how hot the 9th gen 6 core chips could run. This before the 9th gen Intel BGA chips were on the paper and officially shown to them.

 

DGFF is actually a good step forward since nvidia still holds the mxm license.

But the issue is that it's proprietary which only gives only the socket advantage and not exchange/diverse compatibility across brands like mxm.










In other news, BGA wireless card made into mini PCIe format. Planning to install them on my T430.

Hopefully the 9260/9560 D2w BGA wireless card come out and be adapted to mini pcie so I can upgrade my wifi even further ;|

@Papusan @RMSMajestic (did you try this?) @Danishblunt @Falkentyne @triturbo @Raidriar






https://www.ebay.com/itm/BGAy/253487871375

 

Can’t really tell, but are those the same bigger antenna connectors as older mini pci-e cards? Or are they the smaller ones like the newer NGFF antenna slots?

 

cute idea but why bother? might as well just get an M.2 to mini PCIE adapter, upgrade to a 9260 right away and call it a day theyre a dime a dozen and thats actually what im planning to do to my gf's laptop

 

Bigger antenna

T430 and W530 doesn't have space for the adapter






@jaybee83 I can see if the WWAN slot can be used or not. What adapter do I need in order to convert mpcie -> m.2 ngff? Something like this? https://www.amazon.com/dp/B017OZQDQ8/

AFAIK I went over the T430 (Nozomi 4) schematics and says WWAN slot (which has enough space for an m.2 adapter and ngff wifi) only support for sata2 and usb.

 

yep thats the kind i was talking about. no idea about the WWAN port, but its definitely worth a try! btw, the adapter is a multi package for both full and half height mini pcie, you can basically break off the top end and convert it to the exact dimensions of a mini pcie wifi module

 

Wouldn't the ngff wifi card still stick out the back though?

 

By DGFF, you mean "Dell's Graphics Form Factor" used in the latest Precision laptops, right?
On another note, isn't it a bit strange random Dell MXM 1070s popped up on eBay and such places? While unlikely, is it not possible they could have been used for potential future Alienware laptops with MXM slots, not just Precision laptops (before Dell decided on DGFF)? It's a stretch, but there may be some sort of truth in Azor's words.

 

It's a speculation that the MXM cards are Dell made, but not confirmed.

@Raidriar phoned Dell and said that the cards aren't in inventory for US Dell.

Dell contracts out MXM production and put their name in the vbios, they don't design it themselves unlike DGFF.

 

yes ure right, my bad! checked the dimensions again, with the adapter it would be too long on the top due to the restricted space in your machine. so i guess the wwan port it is then

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I must have missed it but where is everyone seeing this? The whole mxm thing mentioned by Azor?