Let the Cascade begin!

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Well... I had to wait a little bit longer than I had expected. My XMG laptop (the one at the back...) had arrived a couple of weeks ago, but had a faulty dGPU (RTX 2070 Max-Q) which kept blue-screening the computer. Interestingly enough, it would run fine on the integrated graphics, but it would only keel over when the dedicated GPU kicked in. So, for a few days... I was only using the computer as a word processor, and so I never really had to kick the Nvidia card into action. On the weekend after delivery, I finally had a chance to let it stretch it's potential... only to see it fall over on it's face!

Thankfully, Schenker/XMG have pretty great customer and after-sales support... and I was able to quickly get hold of someone on the weekend over Reddit. He immediately hazarded a guess of a faulty GPU and said that I should get the RMA process started right away (with the thread on Reddit being proof of diagnosis).

So, I had done that immediately, and the laptop was soon back on it's way to Leipzig, Germany where XMG have their factory. However, the back and forth (plus consecutive weekends) meant that I was without my new shiny toy for a couple of weeks. Which had the effect of delaying the cascade of computers to my wife and oldest daughter.

However, with the computer now arrived (and immediately stress tested!), the time had come for the migration from computer to computer. So, the XMG Fusion (middle) would go to me, which meant that my XPS15 (right) would go to my wife and her Schenker S403 (Clevo chassis) would find it's way to my oldest daughter.

Now, the migration from my XPS to the XMG would be the easiest... as it would be essentially setting up a new laptop from scratch with some One Drive/Google migration to keep the Windows settings! Plus, I could just do it myself without needing to ask questions of either my wife or my daughter... and my wife does have a habit of infinitely nesting folders in a sort of endless mirror sort of way.... I make it a habit to never look at her computer desktops or folders... it is like the ninth layer of Hell, Chaos reborn!

So, the trickiest and first migration would be the Schenker to the XPS. Making sense of what was needed and required from the old computer... and making sure that everything was set up, authenticated and ready to roll from day one! Or I would get some irate phone calls from my wife when some app or account was being opened and asking for some 2FA code or password or something! Or even worse, I had forgotten to install a programme...

Whilst setting up the XPS, I would have to just pull all my data and remove programs onto a temporary hard drive. I could always just move that over to the XMG in my own time.

Next would be the Schenker. Basically, it would involve removing data and programs again. Plus, setting up the child account... hopefully, it wouldn't be too annoying to do!

When everything was done, then I could start playing around with the set up of my own laptop...

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I was dreading that I would have to nuke and reset each Windows installation on the two computers making an ownership change. However, things have changed a bit since I last had to do something like this (or I've gotten a little bit less sledgehammer obsessed...).

Windows has family groups, and it is a breeze to transfer add a new admin or user and the just remove and delete old users. This has the benefit of wiping the data and restoring a good chunk of data and settings from One Drive. Really, this is much less painful than doing a re-install. Plus, I don't have to hunt down any manufacturer specific drivers and programs for the Schenker and Dell laptops! Breezy!

In fact, the XPS was set up so quickly and ready for my wife to use that I was sure that I had forgotten things... actually, I had forgotten a couple of programs... but that was quickly fixed before it was noticed!

Likewise, my daughter's laptop was clear and ready to go faster than expected. Although, as a child user, her account is linked to my wife and my accounts. We haven't sorted out the specifics of how it works... I guess that will be this weekend's project for me. At the moment, it has just needed our authorisation to access the internet via a browser. Plus, I suspect that any changes will require the usual admin authorisation.

I also took the opportunity to install Steam and load a couple of interesting games for the older girl as well. At the moment, she is playing this quite beautiful puzzle game called "Assemble with Care" about a girl fixing objects and hearing and learning about the broken lives of the people who bring the objects in. It's really quite nice, and a beautiful presentation and design... I will write about it sometime!

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There was also the intention to clean up the fans and repaste Schenker and the XPS. The Schenker was last repasted in 2014 and the XPS was around 2016. So, both of them could have used a little bit of extra thermal efficiency. So, taking them apart, removing the backplates... I discovered that both sets of fans were surprisingly dust-free!

However, I didn't have any fresh tubes of thermal paste on hand. I had two old tubes (Arctic Diamond and Grizzly) that were both opened... and after 4-6 years, I suspect that the thermal paste would have seperated out. Meaning that applying the old paste would likely just be asking for trouble in the form of overheating and magic smoke. Probably a good idea to just order some paste and leave it for later...

I also had the idea that I would cannabalise the second SSD from the Schenker laptop to put into my new laptop. After all, my daughter doesn't need that extra space at the moment. However, it was only 512 GB... so, not worth it! I will wait till the SSD prices drop... perhaps Black Friday or Christmas sales and get myself a decent capacity fast SSD. Speaking of which, I need to do the same for the Switch, and move that SD card to the audio recorder.

So many cascades to think about... but for now, let's stretch the legs of the XMG again!


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7 comments
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Looks like an awesome machine.... Sadly it is running on Windows...

Greetings!

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Haha... yes yes... but that is where the gaming is!

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