Dell Optimizer 2.0

This section provides information about the general features to help you get started and manage Dell Optimizer.

1. To launch the application, open the Windows Start menu, and search for Dell Optimizer.

   

2. When you launch the application for the first time, the onboarding (animation) process is displayed to provide information about the application features. In Privacy Notice, you can accept the Dell Optimizer customer experience improvement program by clicking Yes, I consent, or refuse by clicking No, I do not consent.

   If you click Yes, I consent, the application collects and sends the information about how you use Dell Optimizer to Dell Technologies.

   Note: You can change the option at a later point from Preferences > Privacy Notice. An administrator can preset this option during deployment.

   

3. To access Preferences, click the drop-down arrow.

   

4. This section displays the Privacy Notice of Dell Optimizer.

   Select the check box to send the Dell Optimizer customer experience data to Dell, or clear the check box if you do not want to send the data to Dell.

   Note: Dell Optimizer customer experience improvement program collects only application-related data. It does not collect personal information.

   

The analytics feature helps in analyzing the computer, and enables you to generate the following reports:

• Workload Analysis Report
• System Analysis Report
• System Diagnostics Report

Workload Analysis

The workload analysis feature enables you to track computer resource utilization such as CPU, Memory, Graphics, and Disk while you run your specific workload.

1. Go to the home screen and click Analytics. The Analytics section is displayed.

   Note: You can enable or disable this feature by using the Toggle toggle switch .

   

2. Click Run report and select the report duration to generate the report. The report runs until manually stopped or the timeout limit is reached.

   

3. Click STOP to turn off the tracking if you no longer want to wait for the selected report duration to complete.

   Note: There may be a delay once the Stop button is clicked or the entire duration completes before the "View Report" button in order to process the data and generate the final report.

   

4. Click View report to view the generated report.

   Note: It may take a few minutes to prepare the report after you click the View report option.

   The workload analysis report displays the process-specific information about charts that shows the top five processes of computer resource, to assess the impact of applications. This report also displays a set of checkboxes that allows you to choose the subsystems from which the data is collected. By default, all subsystems are selected.

   In the report, the X-axis shows the range of data or specific value that is collected for the given computer parameter. The Y-axis displays the percentage of the time, the given range (or a specific value) that was found during the report interval.

   

   

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System Analysis Report

The computer analysis feature runs for the specified period and collects computer configuration and subsystem usage data. This data is collected in the background and is compiled in the form of a System Analysis Report at the end of the period. These reports help you understand the behavior of your computer under the current operating environment when the report was running.

1. Go to the home screen and click Analytics. The Analytics section is displayed.

   Note: You can enable or disable this feature by using the Toggle toggle switch .

   

2. Select the number of reports that you want to generate, and click Run report.

   

3. Select the report duration. The report runs until manually stopped or the timeout limit is reached.

   The number of reports option on the System Analysis page controls how many reports are generated before the computer tracking gets disabled automatically. For example, if you select the report duration as 10 hours and the number of reports as three reports, the first report is displayed after 10 hours. The other two new reports are displayed every 10 hours after the first report. The computer tracking also stops when all the reports are generated.

   

4. Click STOP to turn off the tracking if you no longer want to wait for the selected report duration to complete.

   Note: There may be a delay once the Stop button is clicked or the entire duration completes before the "View Report" button in order to process the data and generate the final report.

   

5. Click Run report to view the generated report.

   Note: If multiple reports are ready to view on your computer, click Next report to view the report.

   The computer analysis reports display detailed information and graphs of the data such as fan speed, thermal data, battery usage, and processor utilization.

   

6. Click to Save as PDF to save the selected report in a PDF format.

   

7. Click Delete to delete the selected report.

   

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System Diagnostics Report

This feature allows you to generate and view full computer health and diagnostic reports for your computer.

1. Go to the home screen and click Analytics. The Analytics section is displayed.

   Note: You can enable or disable this feature by using the Toggle toggle switch .

   

2. Click Launch report. The Reliability Monitor page of your computer is displayed.

3. Review your computer reliability and problem history.

   

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The application feature optimizes the performance of the application on the computer. Using machine learning, Dell Optimizer learns how you use the selected applications, identifies optimization opportunities, classifies the users, and automatically applies appropriate settings to improve application performance.

Dell optimizer optimizes the storage, memory, and CPU utilization of your computer. You can optimize up to Five applications simultaneously. You can also arrange the applications based on your priority.

1. Go to the home screen and click Applications.

   

2. The Applications section is displayed.

   Note: You can enable or disable this feature by using the toggle switch.

   Click  (plus sign) to Add an application to be optimized.

   Dell Optimizer will automatically search for frequently used applications and will populate the list of applications.

   

   

3. From the list of applications displayed, choose one or more applications to be optimized by checking the box and click Learn and optimize.

   Note: A maximum of Five applications can be added.

   

4. Learning application behavior cloud takes up to a few hours. Keep the selected applications open and engaged while the learning process is in progress.

   

5. The Application learning starts. The status is displayed as Learning until Dell Optimizer finishes learning the behavior of the application.

   To optimize the application ensure, you continuously use the application. This enables Dell Optimizer to learn the application behavior and determine the most optimal settings for the application. This process can take a couple of hours. You can also pause and resume the application optimization.

   After the application optimization is complete, the status is displayed as Optimized, and optimization settings are applied automatically.

   

6. To add applications manually, click Browse.

   

7. From the File Explorer window, choose the application (.exe file extension) and click Open to optimize.

   

The audio feature enhances the audio functionality during your online meetings. The audio feature helps filter the background noise, stabilize volume, and prioritize preferred voice streaming during online meetings.

1. Go to the home screen and click Audio.

   

2. The Audio section is displayed.

   Note: You can enable or disable this feature by using the toggle switch.

   Select the environment settings for your conference call, using one of the following options:

   • - Enhances the audio of your computer for a clearer sound. This option is suitable for a quiet environment when only one person is speaking. By default, a Quiet room is selected.
   • - Reduces unwanted noise. This option is suitable for an office environment when only one person is speaking.
   • - Minimizes additional voices. This option is suitable for all environments with multiple speakers.
   • - This option is suitable for a quiet environment when people are speaking, singing, or playing instruments.

   

3. Switch the 3D Audio button to ON or OFF to enable or disable the feature.

   This feature provides a conference room-like experience through your headphones and speakers using Waves Nx technology. By default, the 3D Audio button is OFF.

   Note: Some users may experience an impact on battery run time when the 3D Audio button is on.

   When you connect a new audio device, a dialog box is displayed.

   

4. Switch the Auto Mute button to ON or OFF to enable or disable the setting.

   

5. Select the preset option and click Optimize.

   The application remembers the preferences, and it automatically selects the same preset option when you connect the device again to your computer.

   

The Network feature in Dell Optimizer allocates the maximum bandwidth to conference applications while you are on video calls and selects the best network available for which the user has credentials. The network feature also allows you to activate the beta setting, Optimize Network Traffic where you can prioritize which applications receive the most bandwidth when the network traffic is congested.

1. Go to the home screen and click Network.

   

2. The Network section is displayed.

   Note: You can enable or disable this feature by using the toggle switch.

   Click the Conference Bandwidth Performance option if you are using a video conference application. This setting allocates the maximum bandwidth to your conference applications when you are on video conference calls.

   

3. Click the Automatic Network Switching option to automatically switch to the best available network. This setting, when enabled, also automatically switches between Wi-Fi bands (2.4 GHz and 5 GHz) if network or band congestion is detected. If you want to use this option, choose at least one of the networks you want ExpressConnect to switch to from the list of networks.

   Networks that are within range are displayed first. Go to Show additional networks to display or hide the networks for which you have credentials and are not in range.

   

4. Go to the home screen and select the Beta option from the drop-down menu.

   Note: You can view all the Beta settings by clicking the continue option. The Beta settings are disabled by default. The Beta settings may impact your computer's performance. If you think this setting is affecting your network connection, turn OFF this setting.

   

5. Go to Optimize Network Traffic to prioritize which applications receive the most bandwidth when the network traffic is congested.

   This setting enhances the performance of the prioritized applications by constantly adjusting your available bandwidth. Conference Bandwidth Performance setting is deactivated when you enable Optimize Network Traffic feature.

   Note: You can enable or disable this setting by using the toggle switch.

   

The Power feature improves the battery life of your computer by configuring and switching productivity on usage behaviors. It learns the battery usage on the computer, uses AI and machine learning models to apply appropriate charge policies, and identifies opportunities to extend the battery run time.

1. Go to the home screen and click Power.

   

2. The Power section is displayed.

   Note: You can enable or disable this feature by using the toggle switch.

   Click the Adaptive battery performance toggle button to extend the battery run time based on the user behavior.

   This feature allows you to extend battery runtime by intelligently taking battery saving measures like turning on the windows power saver mode, reducing the processor power level, dimming the screen.

   Note: Some users may experience an impact to computer performance when you apply the Adaptive Battery Performance optimization settings.

   

3. Using the Dynamic charge policy toggle switch, enable the correct charge policy.

   This feature ensures that the computer automatically switches the charging policies between, Always AC, Express Charge, and Standard according to the user's usage pattern.

   Note: Dynamic charge policy does not appear if you have purchased a battery with a three-year warranty. A battery with a three-year warranty is locked in one charging mode, and the computer cannot switch between different charging modes.

   

Dell Optimizer learns the discharge patterns, discharge rates, state of battery health and classifies the users into the following four profiles:

• Desktop replacement - Always connected to a power source and rarely uses battery.
• Corridor warrior - Standard office user with a general charge cycle
• Performance users - Uses processor heavy applications which have a high battery discharge rate.
• Marathon users - Generally discharges the computer completely.

Dell Optimizer takes two weeks to optimize the battery of your computer.

Proximity Sensor is an integrated feature in Dell laptops and mobile workstations. The sensor detects your presence when you are in front of your computer and within the field-of-view (FOV) of the sensor. When you move out of the FOV of the sensor, the brightness of your computer display reduces and your computer locks based on the preferred lock time settings. When you walk into the FOV of the sensor, the computer display turns on and the login screen appears.

When Proximity Sensor is enabled, it can be accessed when the computer is ON or in modern Standby (sleep) state, and when the computer is in clamshell or tablet mode.

Proximity Sensor supports the following capabilities:

1. Go to the home screen and click Proximity Sensor.

   

2. The Proximity Sensor section is displayed.

   Note: You can enable or disable this feature by using the toggle switch.

   Walk Away Lock - When you move out of the FOV of the sensor, the display dims, computer locks, and the display is turned off based on the lock timer that is configured in Dell Optimizer. The computer then enters modern standby state. This feature secures your computer and saves power when you are away from it.

   Walk Away Lock is suspended when:

   • Snooze is enabled in Dell Optimizer.
   • User activity is detected through a keyboard, mouse, or a touchpad.
   • An application running on the computer is requesting audio or display power from the operating system. For example, when you are using Skype during an active call, and when you are streaming video in Windows Media Player.
   • An external monitor is connected, and the proximity sensor feature is disabled.

   

3. Wake On Approach - When you walk into the FOV of the sensor, the computer wakes from modern standby, turns on the display, and displays the Windows login screen. This feature enables faster sign-in as you approach your computer. If you have set up the Windows Hello feature, the camera recognizes your face, and Windows automatically unlocks your computer. If you have not set up Windows Hello, you have to enter your computer password to unlock your computer.

   Wake On Approach is suspended when:

   • The battery is low, and the computer is not plugged in to a power source.
   • An external monitor is connected, and the proximity sensor feature is disabled.

   

Configuring Proximity Sensor

1. Switch the Walk Away Lock toggle button to ON or OFF, and set the screen lock timer.

   By default, the Walk Away Lock button is ON, and the screen lock timer is set to one minute, users can delay screen locking by choosing 2 or 3 minutes from the drop-down options.

   Note: The screen may not lock if a video is playing on a media player or a browser.

   

2. To snooze the Walk Away Lock feature, click Snooze button in the Dell Optimizer home screen under the Proximity Sensor section and select the timer value based on your requirement.

   By default, the snooze timer is set to 0.

   

Special Use Cases

1. You can select from the following two options to increase the efficiency of the Proximity Sensor feature:

   • Use camera to increase the accuracy of presence detection.
   • Keep Proximity Sensor enabled while connected to external monitors.
   Note: This feature is available only on selected platforms.

   

The Activity feed feature provides insight into the optimization that Dell Optimizer performs. It displays the optimization settings that are applied for learning, and optimization gains.

1. From the Dell Optimizer home page, click Activity feed icon.

   

2. Activity feed displays the optimization settings log that is applied for learning and optimization gains.