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We have had terrible problems with the Precision 3000 series overheating/blue-screening on our engineers while using SolidWorks and AutoCAD, and Dell’s response

We have had terrible problems with the Precision 3000 series overheating/blue-screening on our engineers while using SolidWorks and AutoCAD, and Dell’s response to us was that they couldn’t recommend that series for that purpose, after their rep had done exactly that. Also their WD19TB docks have been terrible. The display ports randomly crap out, the power supply randomly craps out, the ethernet ports randomly crap out. Sometimes it requires driver updates, sometimes a dock firmware update, sometimes it actually is just the hardware. Such a bitch to troubleshoot. I get the appeal of Dell for business use, but I would never tell anyone that they are “great” for any kind of customer. They are the Sears of laptops.

a2tech 4y ago
Those docks are a mess. USB-C/Thunderbolt is an AWFUL connector for a dock. The strain on the cables (docks are always shoved in weird corners with tight turns and pressure on the cable) and the ports get worn out very fast with the stress. HPs slimline docks with the retractable plug on the side was probably the best/most reliable dock I've ever seen in production. And the Precisions have bad heat management. All it takes is a little dust and the temps go nuts. I have engineers using them on shop floors and they have to clean them constantly so AutoCAD doesn't overheat (especially when they're on the dock running full tilt with a couple of external monitors)
- EvanAnderson 4y ago
  I'm nursing an older Elitebook w/ that side connector along right now. It's wonderful. The people sitting around me with newer models using Thunderbolt docks have been having fits-- blue screens, wild CPU usage, monitors going out, etc. I'll give up the slimline dock when they pry it from my cold, dead hands.
- adrian_b 4y ago
  There is a great difference between "true" Dell Precision series (e.g. the 7000 series) and those Dell Precision which are just rebranded Dell XPS and which are marketed as thin and light laptops. The Dell Precision 7xxx have excellent heat management. I have a 6-year old Dell Precision 7510 mobile workstation, in which the CPU can dissipate in the steady state 60 W for hours (even if its nominal TDP is only 45 W), while the NVIDIA Quadro GPU also dissipates around 100 W at the same time, and this without overheating and without excessive noise. Obviously, this is a rather thick and heavy laptop, not an ultrabook.
zamalek 4y ago
We had the same issues with Precision for software development, especially with the docks. Dell released a series of firmware updates. It resolved the issues on a small percentage of the machines, the remainder improved but not by a lot. They gave up, we were stuck with lemons.
navbaker 4y ago
I have not had bad experiences with my work Dells, but I do agree the docking stations are complete crap. I found an inexpensive one for home use on Amazon from Plugable and requested the same one for my setup at work. It's been great for several years now!
- EvanAnderson 4y ago
  Another plug (heh) for Plugable. Their docks are wonderful, albeit I've only used their USB docks.
EvanAnderson 4y ago
To be fair, HP's Thunderbolt docks are the exact same shit-show too. I've got experience with both and I hate them both.
- BizarroLand 4y ago
  It's really annoying when your HP dock needs a firmware update because Windows updated and now the laptop doesn't recognize the dock so the only way to update the firmware so that the laptop can see the dock is to connect a different laptop to the dock and update the firmware so the laptop you need to use the dock with can see the dock. If you put two buttons in front of me, one that would either blow up HP and the other that would give me $5,000 but I had to fix another one of those docks that require 2 computers to return to the same functioning it had yesterday to get it, HP would probably be going down.

a2tech 4y ago

Those docks are a mess. USB-C/Thunderbolt is an AWFUL connector for a dock. The strain on the cables (docks are always shoved in weird corners with tight turns and pressure on the cable) and the ports get worn out very fast with the stress. HPs slimline docks with the retractable plug on the side was probably the best/most reliable dock I've ever seen in production. And the Precisions have bad heat management. All it takes is a little dust and the temps go nuts. I have engineers using them on shop floors and they have to clean them constantly so AutoCAD doesn't overheat (especially when they're on the dock running full tilt with a couple of external monitors)

EvanAnderson 4y ago
I'm nursing an older Elitebook w/ that side connector along right now. It's wonderful. The people sitting around me with newer models using Thunderbolt docks have been having fits-- blue screens, wild CPU usage, monitors going out, etc. I'll give up the slimline dock when they pry it from my cold, dead hands.
adrian_b 4y ago
There is a great difference between "true" Dell Precision series (e.g. the 7000 series) and those Dell Precision which are just rebranded Dell XPS and which are marketed as thin and light laptops. The Dell Precision 7xxx have excellent heat management. I have a 6-year old Dell Precision 7510 mobile workstation, in which the CPU can dissipate in the steady state 60 W for hours (even if its nominal TDP is only 45 W), while the NVIDIA Quadro GPU also dissipates around 100 W at the same time, and this without overheating and without excessive noise. Obviously, this is a rather thick and heavy laptop, not an ultrabook.

zamalek 4y ago

We had the same issues with Precision for software development, especially with the docks. Dell released a series of firmware updates. It resolved the issues on a small percentage of the machines, the remainder improved but not by a lot. They gave up, we were stuck with lemons.

navbaker 4y ago

I have not had bad experiences with my work Dells, but I do agree the docking stations are complete crap. I found an inexpensive one for home use on Amazon from Plugable and requested the same one for my setup at work. It's been great for several years now!

EvanAnderson 4y ago
Another plug (heh) for Plugable. Their docks are wonderful, albeit I've only used their USB docks.

EvanAnderson 4y ago

To be fair, HP's Thunderbolt docks are the exact same shit-show too. I've got experience with both and I hate them both.

BizarroLand 4y ago
It's really annoying when your HP dock needs a firmware update because Windows updated and now the laptop doesn't recognize the dock so the only way to update the firmware so that the laptop can see the dock is to connect a different laptop to the dock and update the firmware so the laptop you need to use the dock with can see the dock. If you put two buttons in front of me, one that would either blow up HP and the other that would give me $5,000 but I had to fix another one of those docks that require 2 computers to return to the same functioning it had yesterday to get it, HP would probably be going down.