Break It Better.
You try to open Precision X1, but it closes itself after the splash screen, and the main window won’t open at all.
Do you have multiple GPUs in your system? Graphics cards of different models? eGPU? Ever since version 0.3.1, Precision X1 breaks in face of GPU diversity.
Go into Device Manager and disable the other GPU you’re not currently using. In this case, it was my laptop’s own MX250.
If you’re connecting your laptop to a TV and the black in the image is gray instead, your laptop is not outputting the full 8-bit-per-channel color range. Instead of sending values between 0 and 255, it’s sending 15-255. You could compensate for this in some TVs’ settings, but you’d be losing color definition.
Intel defaults to 15-255. There is a setting for this in the Intel Graphics Control Panel (In Video > Color Enhancement), but it doesn’t seem to take any effect… unless you do the following:
You have to do this every time you restart the computer or reconnect the TV.
My new Twitter account is @radbling. Follow me for more behind-the-scenes, in-progress updates, and discussions!
Another wave of cooling mods is coming! Stay tuned at https://t.co/z4FAxPI9Bd pic.twitter.com/hIrdpwT1Z2
— Brad Ling (@radbling) June 14, 2019
I will outline what Huawei has and has not fixed in the 2019 MateBook X Pro compared to the 2018 model. You can find the more obvious talking points on The Verge and other normie sites, but here are the small engineering changes that I noticed during my teardown and testing.
Screenshot from my teardown https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sxf_bU6OZXE&t=11974s
These are the tweaks I use every time I set up a Windows laptop, to make it faster, more power-efficient, and less annoying. Some of these are pretty standard and well known; others are more advanced and thorough.
Skip manufacturer bloatware altogether and start with a clean slate. YOU decide what OEM packages you want to install back.
Make Windows start up faster by disallowing unnecessary programs to automatically launch.
Does the brightness or color of your display change by itself from time to time? Intel's "image enhancement" is probably messing with you. All these "enhancements" do is make the image inconsistent and worse.
You can prevent Windows from automatically installing or updating a specific device or driver using the “Prevent installation of devices that match any of these device IDs” Group Policy, but what if you’re using Windows 10 Home and don’t have Group Policy Editor? You can do the same thing using Registry Editor.
This is the AutoHotkey script I use to type common special characters, including Spanish accented letters, superscripts, math and science symbols. I’ve also included shortcuts to simulate the media control keys.
You can copy and paste the script, or download a precompiled version that doesn’t require AutoHotkey to run.
You can put it in %appdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup to have it automatically run at Windows startup.
(‘!’ means Alt, ‘+’ means Shift, ‘^’ means Control, so ‘!a’ means pressing ‘Alt’ and ‘A’ together.)
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Contrary to what Xfinity Mobile officially declares, you actually can bring your own Android phone (BYOD) to Xfinity Mobile. You just need an iPhone that you or a friend have laying around unused.
Xfinity does not have anything in place to actively block your ‘unapproved’ Android from accessing their network. Your or your friend’s iPhone will remain on their records as associated with your phone number, but you are able to use your Xfinity SIM card in any compatible phone.
I have been using my Galaxy S8+ (which I originally got from Sprint) this way without any problems. However, this may not work for your particular phone. OnePlus on Xfinity can’t send or receive SMS. But if Xfinity sells a model similar to your phone, it will probably work.
Did this work for you? Leave a comment.
Feb 24 MWC Update: turns out this is the all-new MateBook 14.
A 2019 successor to the Huawei MateBook X Pro is coming, and it’s looking good — at least in these documents from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission.
The model in question is the KLV-WX9, codename ‘Kelvin’. See the original label document here. Read more about MateBook model codenames here.
At first glance, the updated MateBook X Pro looks very similar to the MateBook 13’s bottom, with a wide air intake for a dual-fan cooling system. However, you can see that this is a more premium laptop: it has a machined aluminum unibody just like the current X Pro, while the MateBook 13’s body is composed of multiple, cheaper, mostly two-dimensional stamped aluminum sheets.
Measuring the body drawing to-scale, the new MateBook appears to be roughly 4mm wider and 7mm taller. So, we may be getting the webcam on the top bezel, or a slightly bigger (14″?) screen, or thicker bezels in exchange for more internal space, or none of the above — Huawei’s drawing may just be distorted.
If your CPU frequency is being reduced under load, even at low temperatures, you’re probably experiencing power throttling. On many laptops, you can get rid of it by disabling the Intel Dynamic Platform and Thermal Framework and then setting a higher power limit in the Intel Extreme Tuning Utility.
Your laptop may have an option to disable DPTF in the BIOS menu. If not:
Warning: if your computer can’t cool its CPU VRM properly, then raising the power limits may cause it to suddenly shut down. If that’s the case, you need to give the VRM more cooling like I did here.
If any DPTF devices are still present, please tell me their hardware IDs in the comments. (To check hardware ID: right click on the device, Properties, Details, select “Hardware Ids” in the drop-down menu.)
A lot of laptops have further Power Limits controlled by the EC, which is much harder if not impossible to change.
In Registry Editor, delete HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\DeviceInstall\Restrictions.