Which laptop for Creo: $2.5K and Certified!

[TomD.inPDX]

All I see with any guts is a custom built Dell Precision M6800.

I need a replacement/backup ASAP.  Where do I go from here?

[Inoram]

I assume without going and looking at the certified list that you are greatly limiting your list of available hardware to buy.

[AmitDeshpande]

Hi Antonius,

Your best best is to take a look at the Platform Support page and select the release you are using in the By Product drop down, e.g. PTC Creo 2.0.  This will take you to the platform support page for Creo 2.0, where you can find your machine configuration and verify that you are using a certified and/or supported graphics card & driver version.

Thanks,

Amit

[TomD.inPDX]

That was the way I was going.  My matrix is even tighter since I use both Creo 2 and 3 and SolidWorks 2016.

I am on a Dell Precision M6600 right now and it too fell off the list for Creo 3 where it is still valid for Creo 2.  Both appear to run fine.

The Dell options that PTC has listed use Intel fourth generation chips where Lenovo is pushing gen 6 chips including Xeon.

This makes the M6800 a dinosaur at the cost of today's technology.

Anyone getting the feeling PTC is falling behind on qualifying laptops?  Or have they simply changed focus away from Dell.

And I don't buy HP either.  I killed one of theirs within 3 hours once by attempting to load a dual boot load on a new machine.

Toshiba is off my list, albeit nice machines, they make some very stupid mistakes in their implementations that sends their systems to early end-of-life.

Samsung, maybe.  Don't know enough about them.

Micro$oft...  yea right.

So yes, this should be pretty easy if the process of elimination was to zero in on one, but I still have a little wiggle room.

These lists are invaluable, yes.  The little app on the SolidWorks site is also pretty simple to use.  Even has some hierarchy to feature selection priority.

Right now I am heavily leaning to the Lenovo ThinkPad P70 with the Xeon, 16mb and M3000M Quadro booted on a 256mb SSD.  I have a terabyte SSD for data.

The P70 comes out at the same price as the Dell M6800 similarly outfitted, and seriously outdated.  The Lenovo should walk circles around the Dell on 2 years of technology gain.

[TomD.inPDX]

I kicked it up a notch when I learned about the new PCIe drives.  Awesome!

Also thought some ECC memory might be a smart move.

Ordered - Lead-time may be a little longer than I'd like but hey.

Monday I get a graphics card from a laptop pull to see if my comp is salvageable.

I did get a confirmation on what disabling the NVidia driver does on the Dell Precision;

Creo runs with a minimal of OpenGL 1.1 as does SolidWorks 2016,  Daz 3D requires OpenGL 1.3, and 3D System's Cube s/w require OpenGL 3!

The ladder is the app that sent the final blow against my poor little 3000M.

My satisfaction rating according to M$ is now 1!

[Inoram]

Xeon and ECC usually go together for like servers, where stuff sits in memory non-stop. ECC is slower memory, though.

[TomD.inPDX]

I did opt for the 1505 Xeon chip.  When I need performance, I'll get a desktop or something.

So far, the i7-2760QM at 2.40GHz (2012) is plenty fast once I did the SSD upgrade.

Even a marginal boost will, for the most part, go unnoticed.

Data reliability is critical to me.

Going full SSD is simply another security measure since I am mobile 50% of the time.

[TomD.inPDX · Accepted solution]

Tips and Tricks on Selecting Desktop and Mobile Workstations

This would have helped had I found it earlier.  Fortunately it didn't change my mind.

[Inoram]

I skimmed the PDF. Good info though, but also obvious Lenovo advertisement is obvious. LOL, and the graphics stuff is out of date already.

[TomD.inPDX]

1080P is more than enough for me.  Some of these high resolution screens are not backwards compatible and I am still planning on using Creo 2.

SolidWorks too requires 2015 sp5 or 2016 sp(something) for high rez screens.

Overall, the processing bottleneck has gotten in my way today.  Just streamlining that should make this PC a good CAD fit.  3 years from now, let's see what happens.

I also have no love for touch screens.  More of a nuisance than a help on this size monitor.

[Inoram]

I meant GPU, current is Pascal not Maxwell and it is a LARGE upgrade.

[TomD.inPDX]

Is that where the M comes from?

I never did find anything definitive on the K3000M vs. M3000M.

The best Dell could offer was the K3000M

And the good thing is that I can always upgrade the GPU later if I want to dig deep into the system.

I'm getting practice at this now

[Inoram]

Yeah P, it looks like they are not out in mobile (M) yet. So yeah EVENTUALLY you will see Px000M cards. I thought they were out, they were announced awhile ago now. I am using a Pascal (but Geforce) in my desktop at the moment.

I am not sure what you mean with Dell? They have Mx000Ms.

[TomD.inPDX]

Not in a certified laptop configuration.

[Inoram]

Oh, well I guess if you care about that. I almost bought this (older version) a year ago. I think I would still get this if I needed a laptop today. 17" Alienware.

[TomD.inPDX]

Not in a certified laptop configuration.

I take that back. Dell has the 7710 on the bottom of the PTC list. 

That will configure about the same as the Lenovo at about the same price with current discounts.

This would work for all the things I needed.  PTC's support for finding compatible laptops could use a serious makeover.  I completely missed it.

[Inoram]

I'm obviously not a fan of Dell desktops, but I think I would take the Dell laptop over the Lenovo. But I have very little experience with Lenovo. But Alienware .ALIENWARE! hehe

[TomD.inPDX]

Lenovo is enjoying a pretty good reputation.

I was leaning away from Dell for a while now.

In retrospect, had I found the Dell 7710 first, I may not have taken full advantage of the new tech.

The PCIe drive tech alone as a Boot/OS device is significant in itself.

Laptops seem to lag desktops by about 2 years anyway.  That I already knew.

This is reality for my business.  This just tells me I need to budget $1K/yr for workstation upgrades.

In the end, this is a daunting task no matter how you look at it.  When you "need it now", it is impossible.

Crossing my fingers that the replacement 3000M will get me back to normal for the time being.

[Inoram]

Yeah after I thought about, the ECC in this case (speed-wise) won't really slow you down. I am always thinking high-end computers.

[TomD.inPDX]

It was PTC that forced the Xeon option for this solution:

The i7 has limited testing with upgraded graphics cards.  The M600M just won't do for me.

Incompatible platform is one thing PTC support cannot throw back at me.

SolidWorks didn't care which processor I picked.

[TomD.inPDX]

Good news!

I am looking forward to the new computer, but the good news is that the replacement (eBay) 3000M Quadro fixed my short term issue.

This means I will have a backup computer when I deploy the Lenovo.

Less than 1 week from blue screen to now.  Not bad.

Anyone still on an old Dell and prefer Dell drivers over NVidia... version 327.62 is out.

NVidia drivers have never played nice with Creo on my Dell M6600.  This one seems to not leave "mouse-crumbs".

[TomD.inPDX]

This post requires an update.

Finally put the P70 into service when my network card died in the Dell M6600.

The computer works fine, it still reports the right MAC address, but the computer has no Internet capabilities any more.  Shame... but the timing was pretty good as I just finished a 1-1/2 year long project just days before.

Good news is, Creo 2.0 M040 loaded and is working fine.  Of course, by this I mean the graphics card is behaving as expected.  Working Solidworks is painful... this machine performs well on computation, but interaction is clunky.  Not so much with Creo.  But the M3000M NVidia graphics is certainly lacking performance.

As to Lenovo in general... DON'T GO HERE!  This is a lousiest mobile device I have ever had the displeasure of owning.  Lenovo just doesn't know how to talk to Windows... specially Windows 7.  I purchased this with the downgrade as an advantage... but it really is becoming a liability.

Good luck with connectivity.  It just doesn't do well with this.

Lenovo's power plan too is seriously lacking.  If you go on battery, the charger will not keep up.  It tells you that you have the wrong adapter.  It doesn't keep up or even start the charging sequence.  Messages are conflicting between Windows and Lenovo S/W.  In general, just plain messy and unreliable.

And try using your warranty to find out what is happening.  Somehow they ended up locking up my account just trying to get to support.  Life's too short for a Lenovo workstation!

And this does seem to be a Lenovo fit-and-finish problem.  I have a YogaBook Windows edition that is just as finicky.  If you don't follow a very strict charging and sleep mode regimen, your YogaBook will completely discharge, which is very bad for Li-Ion batteries.

Takeaway: Creo is behaving with the P70.  Next computer in 2-1/2 years will again be another Dell.

[TomD.inPDX]

PS: All Lenovo customer reviews are heavily censored.

Both my reviews were summarily dumped due to too much truth.

[TomD.inPDX]

If you are thinking Lenovo P70 for your next CAD solution... THINK AGAIN!

This is a 2018 update.  After only a few months of deploying this new computer, it went back to Lenovo for a support case involving a fatal crash.

So far, I am very sorry I didn't stick with Dell.  but I won't blame myself completely.

When you look at PTC's certified graphics machines, the list starts out with Dell, then changes to Lenovo... and the part I missed is that the list GOES BACK TO DELL LAPTOPS!  To me, this is a HUGE fail on PTC's part in compatibility documents!

This was the most painful crash ever in over 20 years of CAD.  It was due to a failed BIOS update whiuch rendered the machine incapable of shutting down... and by the same token, would not reboot after an attempt to install the BIOS FW again no matter what I did.  The service update involved replacing both the motherboard and the video card.  The -only- caveat here is that I did purchase the extended warrantee.

As to dealing with Lenovo support?  You really REALLY don't want to do this.  This was even more frustration that I could have ever imagined. 

Since day one I had a sub-parr power supply with this computer.  I tried to create a support case and te web site continued to explain that my login was incorrect.  However, it was the same as the support page as I was already logged into!  Never could get it to work so never cold file the support claim.  What a way to boost excellent support, huh!  😞

So I've been borrowing a power supply from work instead and dealing with the headache of a power supply at home.

This last problem happened the day before thanksgiving as I was leaving work.  I updated the BIOS FW and everything seemed to work fine.  I shut down the computer and put it in the bag and when I got home, it was hot and the lights indicated it was in some kind of sleep or hibernate mode.  Turns out that the window "shut down" did not shut down the computer and the FW update didn't take after all.  The only way I could report the problem was thought a chat session that I am not even sure as to how I got there.  This was thanksgiving day.  They informed me that they could send out a box for repair...

Of course, I am still in the middle of a lot of work and needed the computer (since it functioned fine except the shutdown procedure) so I purchased yet another CAD capable computer (Dell M6600, of course) to keep me working while the Lenovo P70 went to the shop.  Days of moving licenses (solidworks changed policies; PTC took 4 days to get my license moved!)  and getting my files organized again and the Lenovo computer finally got sent on the last day of the 30 days I had to act.  Funny thing is, the computer was back Wednesday following xmas.  This time working as expected... except that the service depot REMOVED MY 2 SCREWS FOR THE SSD's!  WHY!!!  And WHY BOTH!  After cannibalizing an old laptop, I had two screws sufficient to accept the SSD's.  Of course, Lenovo still owed me the screws.  This gets better, of course...

When I get the Lenovo back, I call immediately about the two screws.  I get on the line with a tech and they put me on hold.  Wouldn't you know it, being put on hold with Lenovo is the same as entering a new queue!  It ended up hanging up on me so no satisfaction (12/26/17).  So now I wait for New Year.  On the 3rd I try again and got funneled through the phone queue AGAIN!  And was put on hold for nearly 20 minutes when I hung up and tried again, connecting within minutes this time.  And I warned the tech NOT TO PUT ME ON HOLD!  Finally, we went thought the FRU items and found a screw pack which where shipped out right away.  And I finally got to create a support case for the power supply, which also got replaced with another support case.

Both the screws and the replacement power supply got here the next morning (yes, days ago).

Long story short... AVOID LENOVO LIKE A PLAGUE. 

Lenovo has the most user unfriendly support I've had the displeasure of utilizing, ...ever!

(...and if you read this far, you deserve a medallion!  ...or you're contemplating buying a Lenovo; good luck.)