Aaron44126

Tried with "hybrid graphics" disabled for a while. The system is not reliable. Sometimes I would come back after being away from the machine for a while. The laptop display would be (appropriately) powered off. However, upon moving the mouse around, the backlight would power on but the lock screen would never appear. I had to do a hard reboot to get it going again. This evening, that happened again, but after the reboot, I just got a garbled display (at the initial BIOS boot screens). I had to hook up an external display to get into the BIOS and switch hybrid graphics back on.

Pascal cards won't work with Windows because of a vBIOS/ACPI conflict. You will get BSOD at boot every time. Early engineering sample vBIOS images can work around this, but to my knowledge these have only been discovered for P3000, P4000, and P5000 GPUs. You can use Pascal GPUs with Linux on M4800. You can also use later generations (Turing+) on Windows with M4800, the issue vBIOS is specific to Pascal. You can take some extreme steps to get Windows booting with Pascal.

So my observations have been, "Ultra performance" does indeed perform a little bit better than "Optimized" (see benchmarks on second post in this thread) ... and "Quiet" will also impose limits on the NVIDIA GPU (it won't go higher than PL3 power level).

Yeah, that's what I've been saying :-P. The fans are managed by the EC and are entirely independent of anything that you can really get to from the OS/drivers/etc. Nothing to do with the Intel thermal framework or other Intel drivers that get installed (the behavior is the same whether those drivers are installed or not, or disabled or not). It is also a very Dell-specific implementation, and a new one to the 2021 systems (and later) as well. Now, the EC can be updated (there is a phase of the BIOS update that hits it) so there are going to be fan tables somewhere but getting to them or changing them, I don't know how to do that. I do believe there are likely calls that could be made from the Dell SMBIOS WMI/SMI interface that would change its behavior but I don't know how to "discover" those either. I've been content with the fan behavior, for the most part, I just wish there was a way to keep the fans from turning off on light load. (I've been managing this so far by throwing up a low-priority artificial load when the fan speed gets too low.) If I replace the heatsink and am satisfied with the Sunon fans turning on "quietly" then I might stop caring about this.

Seems like there are more parts than just that. Possibly, the pressure plate that does the "compression" of the memory module against the motherboard CAMM connector is a different thickness.

See @Dell-Mano_G's post just above...

Mine broke a tab on the right side near the USB-C port. I used a pry tool (like guitar pick) to open it the first time, but since then I’ve been able to pull from the SmartCard slot opening and just remove it entirely by hand.

This happened to me too. I’ve opened it several times since then and it hasn’t been an issue. It seems to shut and fit fine so I’m not worried about it.

Same suggestion I frequently give ..... These things can go to 100 ºC on the CPU in no time. Turn off "turbo boost" unless you really need it for your workload. It will help with both fan noise and surface temperature. (See "Turbo boost toggle" link my signature for some options to quickly/automatically enable & disable it.)

No. I've had it disabled since I got the system.

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/news/12gb-4080-unlaunch/ https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/14/23404595/nvidia-rtx-408-12gb-unlaunch GeForce 4080 12GB had lower specs than GeForce 4080 16GB (not just in the vRAM area, but also CUDA core count / etc.). I guess they will launch it in the future with a different name (4070 makes sense...).

Regarding power use / poor battery performance, you should always check and see if the dGPU is actually on or not if you have Optimus / graphics switching enabled. If you have basically nothing happening but more than 10w power draw, it is possible that the dGPU is not powered off. Many users have reported issues with the dGPU staying powered on, even when no apps are using it, and even when the Windows system tray thing you can enable from NVIDIA control panel is showing it in the gray/off state. It's been going on since the beginning of time (or the 12ish years that Precisions have offered graphics switching) and not everyone seems to be affected by it. I have this issue on both my Precision 7560 and 7770. My Precision 7530 was spared from it, but other users of that system did report this issue. Dell has not been helpful in figuring out what is going on. To see if the dGPU is actually on or not, I use NVAPI to query the running temperature. If it gives you a value, the dGPU is still on; it'll throw an error at you if it is off. To kick the dGPU into turning off when it should not be on, I just disable/enable it in Device Manager. (I actually have a quick script for this now so I don't have to do any clicking. I fire it automatically fire it about two minutes after login... For me, it seems to behave as it should at boot but then silently power on the dGPU about one minute into a session, and then it stays powered on until I do something about it.) The disable/enable trick also works to get the dGPU to power off when applications get "stuck" on it (i.e. after docking/undocking, connecting in via RDP, using fast user switching, ...). Another trick that @Ionising_Radiation found is to run an Adobe app like Lightroom and keep it minimized. For some reason, this fixes up the dGPU power behavior.

Think about how high the warranty TBW value is and how long you might want to use the drive. Let's look at, for example, Samsung 980 Pro. The 1TB version is 600 TBW for warranty purposes. Samsung is confident that you can write 600 TB to the drive to the point that they will replace it for you if it fails before then. Let's say you think you might keep it for five years (which happens to be the warranty period). 600 TBW ÷1825 days = 336 GB per day you would have to write to the drive to hit the TBW limit before the five-year warranty is up, or about one third of the drive's total capacity. There might be days here and there when you write that much but mostly I'd imagine you'd be in the single-digit GB's per day for daily use, if even that, unless you're doing something very data intensive. (Third-party tests have shown that these drives generally work well beyond the warranty TBW limit, as well. It's not like you have to throw it out if it does hit 600 TBW.) Bottom line — Don't worry too much about your SSD drive health with regards to writes unless you're doing something extreme. It does have a limited number of writes, but that number is still so high that you're unlikely to reach it during the drive's practical lifetime. Not to say that SSDs can't fail... It's just not often from "hitting the write limit" (in my experience). Have a backup strategy for any important data. Rule of thumb for me is at least 10% free space (unless maybe it is a very large drive, then perhaps less than 10%). That's more because I don't want to be worried about running out of space by surprise/accident than because of performance considerations, but having the drive not being completely full can help the SSD do its thing (garbage collection / wear leveling / etc.) more effectively.

BIOS update 1.16.0. https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-us/drivers/driversdetails?driverid=Y2V4K - Firmware updates to address security vulnerabilities including (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures - CVE) such as CVE-2022-34400, CVE-2022-21198, CVE-2022-26845, CVE-2022-29893, CVE-2022-27497, CVE-2022-33159, CVE-2022-26047, CVE-2021-23223, CVE-2021-37409, CVE-2021-44545, CVE-2022-21212, CVE-2022-21197, CVE-2022-21160, CVE-2022-21139, CVE-2022-21172, CVE-2022-21240, and CVE-2022-32482. I just installed 1.15.2 a couple of days ago...

Man, I have to use ≥300 nits (indoors) or the image just seems really dim to me. I do mostly work with "dark mode" applications though. (I do think that 500 nits is too high, I have to turn the brightness down from max on these newer panels. On the flipside, I think it's crazy that they are selling a 250 nits panel in one of these.) I typically work with turbo boost disabled during "productivity" periods specifically to keep fan noise under control. But I unlock it for gaming, and for that I just put on ANC headphones and the fan noise becomes irrelevant. Nice to be able to have it both ways.

I didn't mention in my post above... "blacks" in the 17.3" 4K panel are definitely "meh". It's not too at all when you are doing "computing" (web browsing, office-type work, coding, etc.) but I think it is pretty noticeable if you get into photos/videos/games. I did complain about it some pages back but I have gotten used to it and "fixed" the backlight bleed so I am good with the panel now. But, if you do creative/graphics stuff then I think it would be hard to suggest anything other than the IPS panel (unless maybe you mostly work with the laptop docked). I'm not into the creative/art space, and myself, I'd also rather have a non-glossy panel that is not covered by glass, I don't really like the glare or reflection. (I was on a system with a glossy panel from like 2008-2012 and I always wished I didn't have it.) So I do not regret choosing the 17" IPS over the 16" OLED. I guess, at least the choice is there so you can weigh it in when deciding which model to get, rather than being forced down one path or the other.

Had a weird thing happen. I was playing a game and performance suddenly went to crap. I Alt+Tabbed out, opened Task Manager, and went to the Performance tab (took like 3-4 minutes) and found the CPU capped at 0.39 GHz. ...I unplugged the AC adapter cable and plugged it back in and everything started working fine again. (So much for "improved stability of the AC adapter". To note — I'm using an old PA-9E 240W adapter, not the one that shipped with the system.) ———————————————————— 1. I view the 16" option sort of like a 15.6" display (from Precision 75X0 systems) that has been made slightly taller because of the 16:10 ratio, so they can call it 16". I personally like the larger display of at 17" plus the extra NVMe drive slot and higher power limits thanks to modestly better thermals. 2. I do not see the thermal throttling as a major issue. Stock Precision 7770 performs better than stock Precision 7760, and I guess that's what you would hope for. It doesn't cause an issue with what I actually use the system for. That said, if there is better performance within reach that doesn't take that much work to achieve, I will certainly go for it. And it is a bit disappointing that Dell shipped the system in this state when there are some easy fixes to nudge performance up. (Looking at IA AC/DC loadline values, again, something like a 20% gain in CPU performance just by tweaking that — at least that's what happened for me — and you don't even have to open the case.) 3. I feel like we don't have enough information on 7670 vs. 7770 to determine if one is more issue-prone than the other. The thermal setup & potential improvements seem to be similar between the two.

It’s a good idea. I purposefully keep “data” on a whole separate drive and also avoid using the Windows default “documents”, “pictures”, “music” and etc. folders (though some programs throw things in there without asking and I don’t fight them too hard). I think 256GB for Windows+programs is adequate unless you’re going to install a lot of heavy programs. It should give breathing room for extra space needed during Windows upgrades. There are free tools to resize partitions, so you aren’t necessarily stuck with your initial setup. I usually use GParted which is included with many Linux “Live USB” environments that you can boot.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidia-restores-mining-performance-on-geforce-rtx-30-lhr-gpus Seems that, since no one can mine Ethereum on GPUs anymore, NVIDIA went ahead and removed the mining limiter.

You can configure RAID arrays both from the Intel Rapid Storage application (in Windows) and from the BIOS (press F12 at boot and pick the vaguely named option like "System configuration" to get to it). You cannot add your Windows boot drive (that comes preinstalled in the 7770) to a RAID array without wiping it as well. If you want your C drive to be part of the RAID array, then after you set up the array, you will have to install a new copy of Windows or restore a full system image backup. If you are not comfortable with the steps to set it up, I would recommend that you forego RAID and just install your second 1 TB drive as a separate data drive. AFAIK, any M.2 NVMe drive will work in any Precision 7000 system, as long as it fits (2280 size, or with an appropriate extender adapter, and no bulky heatsink attached).

BIOS update 1.6.3. - Improved the stability of the AC adapter when connected to the system. (Not sure what that even means, and didn't they have the same note last time? Could it be the AC/DC loadline thing?) https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-us/drivers/driversdetails?driverid=V5H4C Also, Intel graphics driver update; the new one is WDDM 3.1 for Windows 11 22H2. https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-us/drivers/driversdetails?driverid=DXXV0 [Edit] Updated both, no issue. It won't let me install the Thunderbolt driver update from a few days ago, though. It errors out during install and I end up with the old one. [Edit 2] Got the new Thunderbolt driver to install by uninstalling the old one first (rather than trying to upgrade it in-place, which repeatedly failed).

If you add it to a RAID array, the drive will effectively be wiped.

I think there was an option for no door *if* you got the SmartCard slot (or fingerprint reader), but that option seems to be gone now.

I don't think it's just the fans, that just seems to be a differentiating factor between two different versions of the heatsink. I suspect there are other differences (stock paste/thermal pads must be different as well or @win32asmguy's results wouldn't make sense). There may or may not be two different versions of the iGPU heatsink as well. In any case, Dell will be able to ship out a replacement but probably won't be able to "promise" you which version you will get. The different versions of the heatsink have the same part number and are "supposed" to be interchangeable. Not the first time Dell has done this. An example I can think of is Precision M6800 NVIDIA GPU heatsink... There are two versions and one of them is very much the desired one for modders who want to upgrade the GPU, but it's also rather difficult to find (especially since you can't search it out just by part number). Can you hear an obvious ramp-up sound when the fans first turn on from an off state? (One annoyance I have with this system and I'm wondering if it's just the fans that I have. My Precision 7560 doesn't make any audible sound at all when the fans go from off to low power.) [Edit] Looking at @keks2k's photos just above. There is something mounted in the dGPU spot and it's connected to the motherboard in two spots. I wonder what that card is for? It made sense in prior systems that there had to be a pass-through card of sorts for the rear mDP and HDMI ports, but in this system all of the display output ports are right on the motherboard...

If you have the version of the heatsink with Delta fans, which most (all?) of us seem to be getting from the factory ... See if you can get Dell to send a replacement heatsink and hopefully you get the other version (Sunon fans). @win32asmguy reports that it works much better even with the stock thermal compound on it (but still far from perfect). I've been meaning to do this myself, hopefully I can finally set aside some time to call them tomorrow... [Edit] Actually. You have an iGPU system! It might have a totally different heatsink than what we have seen so far.