Taken as seriously as unusable user interfaces, I'm sure.

8/18/2014 10:49:13 AM

Anyone have issues waking from hibernate? It seems like almost 25-50% of the time now my work Dell e7440 goes to sleep. Then hibernates after 180 minutes then doesn't correctly wake up and restarts itself when I try to wake it back up. From my research it appears to be a driver issue and uninstalling a bunch of Intel drivers appears to help out but I'm not ready to do that yet.

8/18/2014 10:58:21 AM

my lenovo laptop sometimes won't load any sort of interface (screen's on, but no mouse, no background, nothing)...but that's come from sleep, not hibernate

when that happens, i just put it back to sleep by pushing the power button and then wake it up again

8/18/2014 1:35:21 PM

^^^Much, much more seriously.

^^I have tons of issues with sleep mode on my work laptop. Especially around docking/undocking. Home laptop (XPS15 9350) works beautifully though. Sounds like shitty drivers :/

8/19/2014 6:48:33 AM

anyone have thoughts on the surface pro 3 ?

8/19/2014 9:40:14 AM

fast, light, excellent screen, good battery life, does all you could ask a PC to do

8/19/2014 10:35:46 AM

my surface comes on wednesday :x

9/21/2014 9:18:59 AM

Quote :

"^^I have tons of issues with sleep mode on my work laptop. Especially around docking/undocking. Home laptop (XPS15 9350) works beautifully though. Sounds like shitty drivers :/"

So after reading a lot of forums the two biggest take aways were:

1. Hard method: uninstall specific Intel drivers and let them revert to the Microsoft ones

or

2. Go into power options and set the power button to shut down. This apparently clears the sleep cache. Shutdown, turn on, then go back into power options and set the power button back to sleep.

#2 seemed to fix it for me. In the last two months I've only had one corrupted sleep wake up. I did #2 again and haven't had one. Probably just finicky drivers.

I really want a Surface Pro 3 but I can't justify carrying around two laptops. My work one is great (Dell e7440 - i5, SSD, pretty light for a work laptop ~3.5 lbs). I need to get work to let me buy my own Surface Pro 3 and subsidize what the Dell would cost.

9/21/2014 10:18:44 PM

So I got a Dell XPS 12 for work. There's a weird transparency issue in Metro. Whenever I'm in the lock screen or Metro screen it's slightly transparent. I can still see a "ghost" of the desktop before switching. I haven't installed any 3rd party software yet.

Any ideas?

Now I'm noticing it on darker windows in Chrome. For example I just went to install Pandora and I can still see some of the Wolf Web bleeding into that page. Seems like a driver issue. Going to uninstall the video driver and reinstall from Dell.

--Figured it out. Apparantly there's a ghosting issue with all the Dell Duo and Dell XPS 12 displays:

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/t/19497269?pi239031352=68

Debating whether to keep this now. That thread is full of people getting replacement screens with the same issue and Dell currently doesn't have a fix. Interesting.

[Edited on October 31, 2014 at 1:27 AM. Reason : s]

10/31/2014 1:05:25 AM

Dell replaced my screen and it developed the same issue after 2 months. I unfortunately did not pay to extend my warranty so I'm screwed (warranty after the screen was replaced was only an additional month), I'd trade this in if I could.

Try to get the Lenovo with the awesome screen.

10/31/2014 8:19:51 AM

They're replacing screens even after warranty apparantly. I'm hoping the new batch of screens has fixed the issue:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2109141/dell-replacing-displays-on-xps-12-hybrids-with-burn-in-issues.html

10/31/2014 9:28:19 AM

i'm not sure i want to deal with it, the problem will just return in a few weeks anyways. i don't see the point in fixing it unless the replacement screen won't have the same problem.

i know someone who had Dell replace their entire computer (they actually upgraded him to a top-spec model) after replacing the screen didn't work. Dell said they had fixed the problem and the new computer would not have the same issue. it did.

10/31/2014 1:51:01 PM

Going to deal with the issue for now. It's better than the work computer I had before (e7440). We've got next day on site support so I don't mind if someone comes and swaps out the screen every few months.

10/31/2014 3:31:34 PM

Went from XP on my personal laptop and 7 on my work laptop to a touchscreen Asus with 8.1 last week. Honestly I like 8.1 just fine. Obviously I am using 8 after many tweaks and updates so it's not fair to compare my experience to the initial displeasure people had.

On this computer it boots insanely fast (SSD drive certainly helps that) and is very snappy overall. The menu doesn't bother me a bit. I just hit Windows + type the name of whatever I'm looking for.

After using this Asus my Lenovo at work feels like a dinosaur though

12/29/2014 9:05:29 PM

Anyone have any recommendations for a stylus to use on my Asus N550 running 8.1?

I understand that the touch screens on a laptop like this are different than something like a phone or tablet. I'm looking at something that would work decently while using photoshop. Not looking for crazy resolution on the accuracy, but being able to "sketch" bold lines or use it with some brushes. (Think taking a photograph, and then sketching on top of it to show architectural changes. Not super fine lines but I think it would look more natural and "hand-drawn" than using a mouse).

Paging Noen?

12/31/2014 1:32:33 PM

I may be wrong but most laptops only have normal capacitance touch screens. They aren't digitizer enabled. You'd have to get like a Microsoft Surface to have digitizer support (built in pressure sensitivity and a lot more accurate). I think that would would be similar to something like an iPad. You could get a stylus for them but it won't be as good as a digitizer.

12/31/2014 8:05:08 PM

^ this - you can try a stylus for pretty cheap, but it's still going to wind up being a waste of money.

1/3/2015 9:44:05 AM

it sounds like he understands that it's not a digitizer and just wants something better than the mouse/trackpad (or finger I suppose)

I had a Wacom Bamboo Stylus and liked it, but then I lost it and bought a less expensive Jot Pro and don't like it as much.

(if i need to buy another stylus I'm going to try to find one that is a pen and stylus combo)

[Edited on January 3, 2015 at 10:37 AM. Reason : .]

1/3/2015 10:36:34 AM

^Correct. I am not as worried about pressure sensitivity or superb accuracy. If I get my wife a surface pro 3 later this year, I would use when/if I need something with more accuracy. And maybe I am still overestimating what this new laptop screen will be capable of compared to a phone or tablet.

In normal use, the touchscreen on this ASUS is very user-friendly and accurate in terms of navigation, zooming in/out, scrolling, etc. However, when I use one of those $.99 stylus/pen combos people giveaway to try and "sketch" in OneNote or Photoshop it's a little streaky with some continuity issues. I think it is mostly because they don't seem to 'glide' very well. I was hoping that if I could find a good stylus that I could still at least make continuous lines and some very basic annotation. Think "sharpie markup" level versus "pen and ink sketch" level. If a $25-50ish stylus gets me that versus a $10 stylus or the free ones I have now, I am willing to pay it. Especially since I already think we may get a surface pro later this year as well.

1/5/2015 10:24:26 AM

i'd try buying one (or a few) from a store with a generous return policy then just return what you don't like

1/5/2015 10:33:50 AM

Wacom Bamboo Stylus is the best I've seen. They are all terrible though. I've gone through about a dozen to do exactly this kind of thing on my iPad and they are all so infuriatingly imprecise and janky I gave up.

1/7/2015 11:00:34 PM

Anyone watching the Windows 10 event?

http://news.microsoft.com/windows10story/

1/21/2015 12:24:26 PM

I'm very surprised that Windows 10 will be a free upgrade from Windows 7, that's awesome

1/21/2015 12:32:31 PM

Not free from Windows 8 though?

1/21/2015 12:53:08 PM

It'll be free from Windows 8.1, which is itself a free update to Windows 8.

1/21/2015 1:18:34 PM

I'm looking forward to being able to play games with The White Warriors once again.

1/21/2015 1:29:53 PM

^^^ we've known for a long time that it would be a free upgrade from 8, but i don't think anyone was expecting it to be free from Win 7

1/21/2015 1:55:42 PM

Woo Hoo I can wait to upgrade! I might even go ahead and sling a SSD in my desktop.

1/21/2015 2:34:13 PM

Just got a laptop with a 3200 by 1800 screen and I'm using an external USB 3.0 dock to power 2 1080p monitors. Display scaling is still completely broken on Windows 8.1. I can either set scaling to 100% and have it be fine on the two external monitors but tiny and unable on the 13" laptop or have it set to 150% or above scaling and have the laptop be usable but both monitors everything is really fuzzy.

Literally the only option to use the external monitors is to set the resolution on the laptop to like 1080p or lower and have scaling set to 100%. This is horrible. This was an issue over a year ago when I had a Yoga 2 Pro. Can't believe Windows is still broken here. Grrrrr.

2/18/2015 5:46:59 PM

^You can set display scaling per screen

Uncheck the box below and set the scaling per display. I have the same issue with my qHD display on my Dell XPS 15, and this makes everything work as expected.

2/18/2015 6:40:03 PM

No what I'm saying is per-display scaling DOES NOT WORK.

See:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows8_1-desktop/multiple-display-scaling-is-blurry/367c746f-1477-4199-b7ae-98f3d2b86cb8

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/3d1ab9d5-7748-4006-b694-5f7b435f9cd1/perdisplay-scaling-is-blurry

Quote :

"The problem I have found is Windows 8.1 per-display scaling appears to use bitmap resizing rather than rendering normally to a properly scaled display. This results in significant blur which strains your eyes trying to read text for any length of time. This is a fundamentally flawed approach and as I have found in actual use it makes per-display functionality near-useless"

The one fix a guy made was using auto hot key and writing a macro to switch the resolution and scaling of the laptop each time you disconnect it.

Essentially when an external monitor is plugged into a high-dpi screen and you have that box unchecked and it set to anything higher than 100% Windows improperly scales everything on the external displays. Everything on my two external 24" 1080p monitors is very blurry. One way to fix it is set scaling to 100%. This obviously makes my 3200 by 1800 display very hard to use. The other fix is setting everything to 100% and then changing the resolution of my laptop to 1600 by 900 or 1920 by 1080. This makes the laptop blurry (non-native resolution) but at least lets me use my 2 24" monitors.

I'm thinking the only way to fix things would be to use that macro that guy wrote to switch resolution and scaling each time I undock / dock my usb 3.0 dock. Still doesn't let me use the laptop at it's native resolution while docked via the USB 3.0 dock.

If you look at the guys screenshots you can easily see what he means:

https://wpwmxq.bn1302.livefilestore.com/y2pi307WT4Jw4YHOhNULEZNGMBtF2K72CXX3c2TAGYb7x76X-gcB94mL_1AefgKv8n-5NaetTzbispq4oGoOWcYf_HQwovS7Ultzpx8xqftW0g/Comparison.png?psid=1

In that screenshot the top is clear and the bottom is blurry.

2/18/2015 7:08:13 PM

I don't know what is happening with that guy then. I have my laptop at home connected to a 1080p external monitor and don't have this issue at all.

The laptop screen is 200%, the external screen is 100% and everything looks perfect. No blurring or other weirdness. I'll double check this tonight and get back to you.

2/18/2015 7:35:17 PM

It's not just him. I experienced the same thing on my Yoga 2 Pro last year. Also all the new work laptops (Latitudes I think) we're giving people in the office have 3200 by 1800 displays and they all experience the same issue as well. They all ended up setting their laptop displays to 1080p because they needed to have usable external monitors (via USB 3.0 docks).

Maybe you're just not seeing it and got used to using a blurry display? I doubt that's the case but it's a possibility. I've tried numerous combinations of connecting monitors directly to my laptop, via a dock, etc and they all produce the same result. You're running windows 8.1?

Let me know your settings. This is really frustrating.

2/18/2015 7:44:06 PM

Also how do you even change percentages anymore? All I see when that box is unchecked is 5 options from smaller to larger.

It appears Microsoft completely took out the option to individually control DPI per monitor.

See:

http://superuser.com/questions/820130/windows-8-1-different-dpi-per-monitor

I really hope they're working on this issue.

2/18/2015 9:10:50 PM

Have you ever gotten a new Windows 8/8.1 computer and removed the trialware AV (using the vendor's removal program, of course) so you can just use Windows Defender, only to find that the Windows Defender service won't even start (giving "Error 577" about trouble validating the program files), and the relevant Registry entries are both set to "disable" and you get errors when you try to change them back?

I was shocked to find that Microsoft's other-AV detection failed that badly (Windows Defender shuts itself off if another resident malware scanner is active), and I ended up resorting to Hiren's Boot CD and editing the Registry remotely (surprisingly it worked, even though Hiren's is based on Windows XP and this is a Windows 8.1 Registry), but it looks like Sysinternals PsExec can do the job too: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/protect/forum/protect_defender-protect_start/cant-turn-the-security-on-win-81-x64/95ea798e-6993-45ad-9a75-2ce1ac2e68b3?page=1

In the end, having changed all of the relevant Registry entries externally, what I needed to do was launch MSASCui.exe directly, and then Windows Defender worked again (before changing those entries, I got the same Error 577 as before).

I hope these shenanigans don't happen in Windows 10: If the Action Center can figure out there's no resident AV, it ought to somehow be able to activate Windows Defender, instead of just opening File Explorer to system32 whenever you click the link to start it.

2/20/2015 8:46:52 PM

^ No because I (or any other self-respecting nerd) haven't used a computer without a clean vanilla Windows install in at least a decade.

[Edited on February 25, 2015 at 3:15 AM. Reason : .]

2/25/2015 3:15:10 AM

but but but what about that ever-so-helpful HP Software Updater that checks for new versions of the BIOS and stuff like that?

2/27/2015 8:01:13 AM

So everyday I spend at least a few minutes moving, re-sizing, and positioning windows every time I dock/redock coming/going from meetings.

Anyone know of a program out there that recognizes when I'm docked and puts various programs on certain monitors in certain positions so I don't have to re-position them every time I redock?

Found this:

http://www.autohotkey.com/board/topic/112113-dockwin-storerecall-window-positions/

Going to play around with it.

[Edited on February 27, 2015 at 11:50 AM. Reason : s]

2/27/2015 11:47:30 AM