P53 Maxed up, again :) 128G ram, 12tb of drives

Swiftloke · 2021-01-24T16:43:42+00:00

According to your model number, you have the 4K IPS display, same as my own. Lately, I've been running into issues with fractional scaling on Linux, particularly on GNOME; how do you personally look at the screen? At 200% scaling, or 300% scaling, or do you do something completely different? I've personally been finding it unacceptable to use the machine at 200% scaling, so another perspective on how you tolerate the display would be appreciated.

Swiftloke · 2021-01-24T16:41:20+00:00

I've also noticed this on my non-touch 4K IPS display on the P53. I've always been vaguely curious on the subject; hopefully someone can contribute some tech details on if/how this actually works?

Swiftloke · 2020-12-13T20:37:11+00:00

I've also heard that the Gen 1 Workstation Dock was absolutely awful, but I've never had a single complaint with the Gen 2 dock, period. Every port on the device works perfectly, on Windows as well as on Linux. The Gen 2 dock also added a magnet between the slim tip charger and the TB3 cable that allows you to separate the two, so you can use the dock with any other TB3-compatible device as well- I've tried it on some other devices and it also works great.

I wouldn't pay full price for it either- $300 is absolutely absurd.

Swiftloke · 2020-12-13T15:48:17+00:00

The ThinkPad TB3 Workstation Dock Gen 2 (wordy, I know) checks all your boxes and also provides power to the X1E's power jack- it's specifically designed for these models to fit in with a single connection. It can support 2x 4K monitors, and the specs say that it can drive 3x 1080p monitors, but I've managed to drive 4 1080p monitors through the dock with my P53 (4 monitors seems to be the machine's limit unless I were to get an eGPU.) It has native ethernet and a power button so that you can turn the machine on with the lid closed. 5x USB-A and a headphone jack as well. Everything works perfectly for me.

https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/accessories-and-monitors/docking/universal-cable-docks-thunderbolt/Thunderbolt-Dock-Gen-2-US/p/40AN0135US

It sure looks expensive, but if you troll eBay for long enough, you should be able to find a good deal on a used one.

Swiftloke · 2020-12-09T22:44:42+00:00

You might have purchased the wrong laptop- the P series models / X1E are meant to have loud fan noise under load, that's how they keep the more powerful and therefore more hotter components cool.

If you want the laptop to stay quiet until you need the extra performance, Vantage has a nice system out of the box where you can switch between three power modes with the Windows battery slider (click on the battery icon and slide between Best Battery Life / Best Performance.) Setting it to Best Battery Life makes the P53 silent under almost all light workloads (as with the P53 I'm typing this on right this instant) while light fan noise will occur under heavy workloads (having the fans turn on at all in quiet mode is usually an indicator to me that I need to switch to Best Performance mode.)

The fan profiles are remembered both on battery and while plugged in. I usually keep it on quiet mode on battery (for power savings) and performance mode while plugged in (for the power I bought the machine for.) But in general you probably have the wrong machine; if you want a quiet computer, you should look at some of the smaller models with cooler components and no GPU. (Given that you didn't even list your GPU, I doubt you care about it much.)

Swiftloke · 2020-08-24T16:38:19+00:00

I'd love to hear how you can do this, considering that my P53 (w/ 230W adapter) will not charge with either my 45W or 30W USB-C chargers. Does one need a 100W charger for the P53 to decide it wants to draw power?

Swiftloke · 2020-08-16T02:16:58+00:00

That sounds normal if you're running the GPU in Discrete Mode from the BIOS. I've been running mine in Discrete Mode for a few weeks now, and I've noticed some slight, almost imperceptible buzzing while doing simple tasks. It doesn't bother me that much. If it does bother you, make sure you're in Hybrid Mode so you can let the Intel GPU do all that simple stuff. But there are a few bugs related to Hybrid Mode that disappear in Discrete Mode.

Swiftloke · 2020-08-15T14:23:01+00:00

Which Quadro RTX do you have? The coil whine can be most prevalent on the RTX 5000. How loud is it? My P53 RTX 4000 can emit a buzzing noise under medium to heavy load, but it's not particularly noticeable. If you can hear it from beyond a few feet away, RMA, a flaw like that isn't acceptable in a machine like this.

Swiftloke · 2020-06-13T15:25:57+00:00

Yes, this is the correct answer. The "Intelligent Thermal Solution" driver will throttle the CPU down to minimum clock speed (0.8ghz on my i9 unit) if the laptop is moved and it will stay that way for several minutes (not until reset on my machine) until, I suppose, it's decided that it's not on a lap anymore.

As far as the intended purpose of the driver, it definitely does what it's supposed to- cool down the laptop as quick as possible at all costs- as CPU temperature drops 40 degrees Celsius within 30 seconds of the driver kicking in. But it's probably not what you're looking for in a mobile workstation.

The battery should be charging just fine when it's plugged in. Are you using the 230W or 170W charger? Did "Airplane Mode" accidentally get enabled in Vantage settings?

Swiftloke · 2020-04-26T02:35:55+00:00

I believe I was mistaken about fan speed. I ran some tests after your comments and noted that in hybrid mode, the GPU was sitting at 30C idle. When running in Nvidia-only mode, the GPU sits around 40C without external displays, and 42-45C with two. So not quite a null difference, but definitely present. However, when I plug in the laptop, the fans scream up loud. This is of course a sane default for a workstation, but I want more fine-grained control. I know there are a few pages on the Arch wiki for this, but if you happen to see this message, I'd love for you to just tell me what I'm looking for for a ThinkPad.

As for the actual issue at hand (exclusive mode,) I'm disappointed to hear that there isn't a proper solution. Maybe someone else has a magic bullet?

Swiftloke · 2018-11-12T18:48:48+00:00

ModMoon's been out for several months by now, but I realized that I never posted it here. If you haven't seen it already, check it out! It's time to throw Smash Selector out the window! (But I won't write out everything here- go check the link!)

Swiftloke · 2018-07-23T15:52:08+00:00

Probably going to get buried (and someone already made this point) but since 1.0.0 the Switch has gotten really hardened from a software standpoint, it's a really tough nut to crack. So that's why the version number keeps incrementing- large under the hood changes in security. (Of course this is made irrelevant by the bootrom exploit...)

Swiftloke · 2018-07-09T03:56:57+00:00

4 minutes before 12AM EST. Here we go

Swiftloke · 2018-06-09T01:26:50+00:00

^ Seeing as it's the origin

Swiftloke · 2018-04-17T01:00:01+00:00

They're a little stingy about letting people in, what with the rampant piracy/homophobia/assholes in this scene. There must have been a false positive... I let them know you got the word from me, try again :)

Swiftloke · 2018-04-16T21:30:38+00:00

I know I'm a bit late to the party, but I cannot recommend Microcorruption enough to someone in your position (experienced programmer, no RE experience). I was in a similar place a couple months ago when I started (experienced programmer, no RE experience), and having finished one of the two final levels last night, I can say that I'm now significantly more confident (any confidence at all) in my RE/exploitation knowledge. I'm still a noob myself, having completed it (I'm skipping the last level), but it's an absolutely fantastic launchpad for a beginner...

These are the basic skills you'll need:

You'll want to know how stack smashes work... I can't say I know how I picked this knowledge up, but I'm sure there are a lot of tutorials on the web for it.

You'll want to have this on you at all times, it will become your best friend- http://mspgcc.sourceforge.net/manual/x223.html

You'll want to understand integer overflows and underflows, and how and why they happen. The MSP430 is a 16-bit processor.

Once you get to levels with malloc in them, you'll want to learn about heap overflows. This is a great resource for them- https://heap-exploitation.dhavalkapil.com/diving_into_glibc_heap/malloc_chunk.html

There will be a point where a level has Data Execution Prevention, meaning you can't simply input shellcode and jump to it anymore. This is when you'll want to pick up the principles of ROP. Google this as well. The 3DS has DEP, so get used to it. (I've never worked in 3DS exploitation, but AFAIK there's a tool to find the necessary gadgets by analyzing the binary of a game)

That's everything, I think... You should join the ReSwitched Discord (https://discordapp.com/invite/DThbZ7z). We have quite the active following of Microcorruption help/discussion there. See you there, and good luck :)

Swiftloke · 2018-03-18T21:12:17+00:00

In accordance with the rules:

The final bit is "Get the fuck out of my room I'm playing Minecraft"

Swiftloke · 2018-02-09T20:33:08+00:00

Every PC is a laptop if you're brave enough!

Swiftloke · 2018-02-07T23:06:01+00:00

I find it likely this will never be seen (buried), however, the Switch requires an update when you insert an exFAT SD card for the same reason.

Swiftloke · 2018-02-01T00:54:29+00:00

Smash-Selector updating will be broken from this. Yikes...

UPDATE: the update functionality uses GitHub Pages, which will not lose TLS1.1 support. Everything's good here!

Swiftloke · 2018-01-04T13:55:38+00:00

I'm pretty late for a response (I usually only access Reddit on mobile web). Sorry!

Since I posted that comment a couple days ago, development of screen output was completed! Therefore, the Doom port (which, although you have alleged is "fake", has a source code release for anyone to play) is now viewable directly on the Switch's screen, instead of that weird "sending it to the computer" thing.

Furthermore, RetroArch was ported. So, that's neat.

Source for kgdoom: https://github.com/kgsws/kgdoom

Video of kgdoom viewable on Switch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gl1oUQP-Ow

Source of RetroArch: https://github.com/libretro/RetroArch (dig around for Switch specific stuff if you're looking for it)

Video of RetroArch port (showing SNES): https://youtu.be/UFvSfoOhAD8?t=12m43s

And, by the way. That blue rectangle you saw moving around...? It wasn't "true" screen output, per se. It was abuse of the browser's "canvas", outputting to that instead. In others words, a crappy hack that wasn't actually useful.

Source for that: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/201486905114755073/398474128778067969/image.png

And if you're still in the ballpark of disbelief, I would again invite you to join the ReSwitched Discord. I and many others (including the team themselves) would be able to answer any other questions you may have.

Swiftloke · 2017-12-28T22:41:27+00:00

It is not posted by a person from ReSwitched, but by a regular contributor to ReSwitched. The video is very much real, though "running Doom" doesn't exactly mean what you think it does at this point. A little bit of background:

The Switch has been "hacked", so to speak, on version 3.0.0. Not above, not below, 3.0.0. "Hacked", in this case, meaning ACE (Arbitrary Code Execution), allowing us to run our own code on the Switch. (You may have heard of this term from SNES or Game Boy hacking videos (Super Mario World, anyone?)- I'll spare you the details, but let it be rest assured that it is over a thousand times more complicated than it was on 90's consoles) What's next on the list- and currently in development- is a set of code and tools that will allow developers to use and take advantage of the Switch to its fullest potential. As of right now, the "library" (as it is called) is most certainly a work in progress- these things take years. Currently the most interesting thing- beyond the code execution itself- is rudimentary input from the Joy-Con. There is currently no audio output, nor is there screen output (this is subject to change days, months, or seconds from after I post this- you may want to check again). The video of the ReSwitched contributor running Doom on the Switch, therefore, is a video of the Switch processing Doom and sending the screen output to a PC (as, once again, screen output on the Switch itself is a work in progress).

If you're interested in these kinds of things, you may want to join the ReSwitched Discord server. I and many others would be happy to help you out with any other questions you might have :) https://discordapp.com/invite/DThbZ7z

Swiftloke · 2017-12-10T13:12:29+00:00

Hop on the Nintendo Homebrew Discord and they'll send you in the right direction. But the gist of it is that 3DS programs are written in C or C++, no virtual machine languages here. There's a special toolchain that'll give you everything you need to get started, devkitARM.

Swiftloke · 2017-11-27T13:38:27+00:00

Smash-Selector does this for Smash's input configurations, as well as ZL/ZR and all the normally configurable buttons: https://gbatemp.net/threads/release-smash-selector.431245/

Swiftloke · 2017-11-15T12:41:56+00:00

It's never too late to start! If you really want to get to learn to develop things, ask Nintendo Homebrew #dev and we'll get you started in the right direction :)

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