Precision 7560 & Precision 7760 owner's thread

[Aaron44126]

• Release date: June 15, 2021
• 11th gen (Tiger Lake) CPUs
• NVIDIA Ampere GPUs, up to NVIDIA RTX A5000 (similar to GeForce 3080, mobile version)
• Up to 128 GB RAM (ECC support with Xeon CPU)
• One PCIe4 NVMe slot

Driver RSS feeds: Precision 7760 • Precision 7560

 

Legacy NBR 7X60 owner's thread

You can order Precision 7X60 with GeForce RTX 3080 GPU (might support 110W in Precision 7560?) (part numbers)
Solving "disappearing drive issue" by keeping the PCIe4 drive slot switch pressed down
Display panel and cable part numbers

[Aaron44126]

Copying over a "fix" post from NBR.

 

[Edit] 2022-03-14

This fix failed to hold up; about two months later I started having drive disappearances again.

 

Some Precision 7X60 users have noticed that the drive in the PCIe4 slot can "disappear" sometime after startup.  I personally observed this on two different systems with two different PCIe4 drive models.  The cause seems to be that the slot is only functional while this switch is pressed down... and the plastic drive chassis/enclosure thing does not always press it down firmly enough.

 

I took the system apart and located the switch in the PCIe4 slot.

 

I can definitely see that the plastic card holder thing might not keep the switch pressed all of the way down.

I cut off a piece of an old credit card and glued it to the plastic holder thing.

 

I then installed the Sabrent Rocket Q4 drive in the system in the PCIe4 slot, with the credit card bit holding the switch down more firmly.

 

This was back in mid-December.  Before the "fix", the Sabrent drive would disappear within a few minutes after startup.  After the "fix", everything has been stable and the drive has not disappeared at all.

[natman]

I'm using 32" 4K monitor using powertoys fancy zone/split screen feature and  90% I won't be using laptop display.

Is it safe to use 7560 (touch screen) in a vertical stand with lid closed always? Basically to save desk space.

 

Also my external monitor does not wake up from sleep and every time I've to switch on the monitor manually using monitor power button.  This happens only when I connected using TB19 dock(HDMI), but when I connected monitor directly using USB-C port in the laptop, this problem doesn't occur. Monitor also connected to DELL poweredge T20 with 1050ti using HDMI port and no such issues there as well.

Monitor in question is Samsung M7 and TB19 is having latest firmware.  All are running windows 11.

[Aaron44126]

7 hours ago, natman said:

Is it safe to use 7560 (touch screen) in a vertical stand with lid closed always? Basically to save desk space.

Running the laptop shut is fine in any orientation, as long as the vents (bottom & rear) are reasonably clear.

(Can't comment on the dock issue, I haven't been using one.)

[Rinconmike]

A few weeks ago I removed the bottom cover to install some additional SSD.  Ever since, in the bios log it looks like every boot there is a message that says "Alert! Cover was previously removed."

Is this normal?  Do I need to clear the event for it to stop being reported?  Or could it be tamper switch is not properly set?

[Aaron44126]

On 1/28/2022 at 10:24 AM, Rinconmike said:

A few weeks ago I removed the bottom cover to install some additional SSD.  Ever since, in the bios log it looks like every boot there is a message that says "Alert! Cover was previously removed."

Is this normal?  Do I need to clear the event for it to stop being reported?  Or could it be tamper switch is not properly set?

This is normal, the tamper protection in play.  I feel like I saw an option in the BIOS somewhere to reset it?  I'll try to remember to check on it next time I reboot.

 

(Not quite as annoying as older Dell desktop systems which I can recall showing an alert that the case has been opened at boot, and requiring a keystroke to dismiss it every time, prior to the OS booting...)

[Rinconmike]

New 7x60 Nvidia Driver posted on the dell downloads.

Fix

- Fixed the issue where a Windows error message is displayed when updating the driver through Windows Update.

There is a separate download for the Nivida Control Panel.  this one notes

- Driver updates to address the NVIDIA July 2021 security update.

[serpro69]

Any recommendations for RAM upgrades? I'm getting an 7560 with 32GB RAM (2x16) and want to upgrade to 64. Anyone has any preferences when it comes to manufacturers? Kingston and Crucial seem to be cheapest where I live. Other options I have are HP or Lenovo, but they're twice the price... Not sure it's worth it really.

[ioni]

1 hour ago, serpro69 said:

Anyone has any preferences when it comes to manufacturers? Kingston

I use KIngstion (KF3200C20S4/32GX) 4x32Gb DDR4-3200

It works ok

[Aaron44126]

2 hours ago, serpro69 said:

Any recommendations for RAM upgrades? I'm getting an 7560 with 32GB RAM (2x16) and want to upgrade to 64. Anyone has any preferences when it comes to manufacturers? Kingston and Crucial seem to be cheapest where I live. Other options I have are HP or Lenovo, but they're twice the price... Not sure it's worth it really.

Make sure that you check the RAM timings, in addition to the speed, if you are planning to "mix and match" with the two modules that you already have installed.  You want the CAS latency (CL) to match up.  You can check the value of your current modules with CPU-Z.

[katalin_2003]

What I tend to usually do is purchase a matching kit of the amount I need, in my case 128Gb should be OK, and either put the sticks that came with the system in another one or simply sell them.

With my upcoming 7560, I bought three more for work so the OEM RAM sticks are going to end up in one of those.

[snout_hound]

Does anyone know how to either turn off or customize the hardware prefetcher on a 7760 running Fedora 34 Linux? I took a look through the BIOS and could not find any support there. I think this requires making a change to an MSR register but I have not been able to find information on either how to do the MSR register change or what to change it to for various configurations. I believe that it is possible on Intel processors to configure the hardware prefetcher to be enabled and prefetching into all cache levels, fully disabled, or configured to prefetch into only a single specified cache level.

[DJMaggie]

Hi all, I hadn't been on NBR in a few weeks, so I had no idea about the shutdown until today. Grateful for @Recieverand @Hiew for putting this together...and happy to see some familiar screen names (looking at you, @Aaron44126 and all your extremely helpful posts). I was "Maggyver" over there, but rarely posted. I did lurk through allll pages of the owner's thread for the 7760, twice, the first time as I received my first 7760 in October, and again a few weeks ago when I finally received a warranty replacement system. Dell ProSupport had determined I was having a motherboard issue, but with supply shortages and a logistics fail on their part, I still didn't have a resolution until early January, when the CSR smartly offered to just replace the whole system with a brand new model. 

I've been putting this puppy through its paces since then, upgrading RAM and drives along the way (64GB Crucial Ballistix RAM, using all four NVMe slots with drives of various capacity, now enjoying 6GB of space), testing all my content-creation apps (Lightroom/Photoshop, Traktor, OBS, etc) and making sure everything is good to go. I've come across one issue that has not resolved yet, and I am underway with a support ticket about it, but I thought I'd share it here in case anyone else has experienced it. I will respond back if Dell ProSupport comes up with a tangible workaround/solution.

My Bluetooth has been acting up, disconnecting my devices if they are idle for too long, and the reconnection time takes anywhere from 1-3 seconds (Logitech K780 keyboard) to 5-10 seconds (Logitech MX Ergo trackball) to requiring a reboot to reconnect (Wacom Intuos Pro tablet). It was the tablet response that was the deal-breaker. All three of these devices work flawlessly on my other Precision 7530, so I know it's not the devices at fault.

First thing I did to address was to exhaustively go through Device Manager and turn OFF Power Management that allowed the OS to "turn off devices to save power". (I primarily use this laptop while connected to AC power and use Ethernet almost exclusively, as I live stream and require the better bandwidth of Ethernet. ) This appeared to have no effect on the Bluetooth idle issue. The latest thing my Dell CSR suggested was to turn on my Wifi radio (which I normally keep off), and that has had a good measure of success. The keyboard and trackball have remained connected far more frequently, and today I will have a chance to use the tablet to see if it, too, has an improved ability to stay connected. But I can't keep the Wifi module turned on all the time, since Windows is known to use the slower of two network adapters if more than one is available. (Live streaming requires a lot of bandwidth and it's generally a no-no to use Wifi)

My CSR is diligently reporting to me every day by email, letting me know he's still working on it and offering these suggestions. I half-recall that there was some mention of this Bluetooth idle/disconnect issue in the 130+ page thread over on NBR for this model series, so I'm hopeful someone else may chime in here with their findings.

[Aaron44126]

1 minute ago, DJMaggie said:

My Bluetooth has been acting up, disconnecting my devices if they are idle for too long

I don't use any Bluetooth devices myself so I cannot comment.  I do have a coworker who uses it for a headset and doesn't seem to have any issues.  I have a couple of possible recommendations.

• Make sure you are using the latest Bluetooth driver from Dell; if that's no good, there's usually a newer one available from Intel that you could try.  Link
• Workaround...  Get a USB Bluetooth dongle, disable the built-in Bluetooth, and try using the USB Bluetooth instead.  (Sad to have to resort to that but if you aren't using the USB ports for anything else, the Bluetooth dongles are very cheap and compact these days.)

[Aaron44126]

So....  We ordered an additional Precision 7560 for the office, I dunno, about three weeks ago (early/mid-January).  The ETA given was mid-April.  The UHD display in particular was cited as the source of the long lead time.

 

I never got the order number so I was not able to keep track of it.

 

Got word from the IT dept today (February 1) that the system has arrived at the office.  I was like, "Please go and double check".  Once confirmed, I asked for the service tag so that I could make sure that they didn't just accidentally order one with the FHD display.  Nope...  Precision 7560, UHD display, received in less than a month.

 

I wonder if the supply chain issues are getting cleared out, or if they just got a huge shipment of UHD panels all at once, or what?

[DJMaggie]

46 minutes ago, Aaron44126 said:

I don't use any Bluetooth devices myself so I cannot comment.  I do have a coworker who uses it for a headset and doesn't seem to have any issues.  I have a couple of possible recommendations.

• Make sure you are using the latest Bluetooth driver from Dell; if that's no good, there's usually a newer one available from Intel that you could try.  Link
• Workaround...  Get a USB Bluetooth dongle, disable the built-in Bluetooth, and try using the USB Bluetooth instead.  (Sad to have to resort to that but if you aren't using the USB ports for anything else, the Bluetooth dongles are very cheap and compact these days.)

I had installed the most up-to-date driver from Dell before I called for warranty service, and the CSR had me reinstall it again from a different link he sent me. No change. I'll try the Intel one and see if it's any different. Thanks, Aaron.

Sadly, all of my USB ports are in use, although I do have a couple of ports open on my Anker USB3.0 hub. I suspect a BT dongle would be best placed directly into one of the USB ports on the chassis, so I'm not sure I can try that solution. It also annoys me to think I would have to resort to third-party hardware when this is a brand new system. I'm going to see if I can get Dell to fix what's broken first. In all my years of owning Dell laptops, I truly have never experienced so much hardware issues as I am now, between the old 7760 and this new one. Frustrating.

[win32asmguy]

55 minutes ago, DJMaggie said:

Hi all, I hadn't been on NBR in a few weeks, so I had no idea about the shutdown until today. Grateful for @Recieverand @Hiew for putting this together...and happy to see some familiar screen names (looking at you, @Aaron44126 and all your extremely helpful posts). I was "Maggyver" over there, but rarely posted. I did lurk through allll pages of the owner's thread for the 7760, twice, the first time as I received my first 7760 in October, and again a few weeks ago when I finally received a warranty replacement system. Dell ProSupport had determined I was having a motherboard issue, but with supply shortages and a logistics fail on their part, I still didn't have a resolution until early January, when the CSR smartly offered to just replace the whole system with a brand new model. 

I've been putting this puppy through its paces since then, upgrading RAM and drives along the way (64GB Crucial Ballistix RAM, using all four NVMe slots with drives of various capacity, now enjoying 6GB of space), testing all my content-creation apps (Lightroom/Photoshop, Traktor, OBS, etc) and making sure everything is good to go. I've come across one issue that has not resolved yet, and I am underway with a support ticket about it, but I thought I'd share it here in case anyone else has experienced it. I will respond back if Dell ProSupport comes up with a tangible workaround/solution.

My Bluetooth has been acting up, disconnecting my devices if they are idle for too long, and the reconnection time takes anywhere from 1-3 seconds (Logitech K780 keyboard) to 5-10 seconds (Logitech MX Ergo trackball) to requiring a reboot to reconnect (Wacom Intuos Pro tablet). It was the tablet response that was the deal-breaker. All three of these devices work flawlessly on my other Precision 7530, so I know it's not the devices at fault.

First thing I did to address was to exhaustively go through Device Manager and turn OFF Power Management that allowed the OS to "turn off devices to save power". (I primarily use this laptop while connected to AC power and use Ethernet almost exclusively, as I live stream and require the better bandwidth of Ethernet. ) This appeared to have no effect on the Bluetooth idle issue. The latest thing my Dell CSR suggested was to turn on my Wifi radio (which I normally keep off), and that has had a good measure of success. The keyboard and trackball have remained connected far more frequently, and today I will have a chance to use the tablet to see if it, too, has an improved ability to stay connected. But I can't keep the Wifi module turned on all the time, since Windows is known to use the slower of two network adapters if more than one is available. (Live streaming requires a lot of bandwidth and it's generally a no-no to use Wifi)

My CSR is diligently reporting to me every day by email, letting me know he's still working on it and offering these suggestions. I half-recall that there was some mention of this Bluetooth idle/disconnect issue in the 130+ page thread over on NBR for this model series, so I'm hopeful someone else may chime in here with their findings.

I had the same issue with my Logitech MX Anywhere 3 mouse. The issue was fixed by making a registry change as described here: https://www.dell.com/community/XPS/XPS-9310-Bluetooth-lag-with-Logitech-MX-Keys-MX-Master-3/m-p/7795277#M77883

Note that it may have to be reapplied multiple times (bluetooth driver update, or windows simply deciding to override the configuration). Also note that the VID/PID may be different depending on what version of wifi card you have. I had the AX210 non-CNVI card and it was 8087/0032 for me.

Also one of the bios updates supposedly "addressed" this overly agressive selective suspend, but I found it to not make a difference. It is a shame, because the registry modification does increase battery drain from the bluetooth chip.

[Rinconmike]

16 hours ago, Aaron44126 said:

So....  We ordered an additional Precision 7560 for the office, I dunno, about three weeks ago (early/mid-January).  The ETA given was mid-April.  The UHD display in particular was cited as the source of the long lead time.

I never got the order number so I was not able to keep track of it.

Got word from the IT dept today (February 1) that the system has arrived at the office.  I was like, "Please go and double check".  Once confirmed, I asked for the service tag so that I could make sure that they didn't just accidentally order one with the FHD display.  Nope...  Precision 7560, UHD display, received in less than a month.

I wonder if the supply chain issues are getting cleared out, or if they just got a huge shipment of UHD panels all at once, or what?

I noticed this too.  A quote I got last week with the UHD had a ship date end of Feb.  The week before it was and of April.

[Rinconmike]

So I am about to pull the trigger on a second 7560. 

The first one I got (ordered July 2021 delivered Sep 2021) was with an RTX A5000 for user that will use cad.  Right now he is playing more games than using cad and said it performs good on most games.  When we ordered, the RTX 3080 was not available (or I did not know about it).

The one I am looking at now is for a user who will not use cad but play games so for this, I am looking at the RTX 3080.  The 3080 also comes with the 16GB of memory.

So the system will be the same specs as the 7560 in my sig, but come with the RTX 3080.  I decided to go with the Xeon and 64GB ECC Memory.

Any downside of the Xeon and ECC with games?

[Aaron44126]

On 2/4/2022 at 2:33 PM, Rinconmike said:

Any downside of the Xeon and ECC with games?

There will be a slight hit to memory performance as a trade off for increased reliability.  (ECC modules tend to have a higher CL value than non-ECC modules.)  However, I doubt that you'll be able to notice the difference in anything other than synthetic benchmarks.

 

Myself, I had occasional memory BSOD's with my Precision 7530 so I decided that I'm only getting ECC memory from now on, whenever it can possibly be helped.  I'm reminded of this article, which is interesting for many reasons, but includes the statement "Research from 2010 estimated that a computer with 4GB of commodity RAM has a 96 percent chance of experiencing a bitflip within three days".  I don't know if that estimate is still valid with today's memory but it seems like the chance of an error would only go up as RAM capacity goes up.

 

I'll also note that upcoming DDR5 modules include ECC, all of them, it's part of the spec.  (They don't require ECC lines running to the CPU though, in which case they will be able to correct single-bit errors in storage on the modules themselves, but they will not be able to correct errors in transmission between the memory and the CPU.  That capability will probably still require a Xeon CPU.)

[serpro69]

So I got me my 7560 yesterday  Haven't had time to set it up yet. It came with Win10 and probably a bunch of bloatware as always, so I'm going to wipe that and do my usual dual-boot setup with Ubuntu + Win10 LTSC. I'm wondering if it's still recommended to backup the default partitions before wiping everything, and what's the best way to go about it?

[Rinconmike]

44 minutes ago, serpro69 said:

So I got me my 7560 yesterday  Haven't had time to set it up yet. It came with Win10 and probably a bunch of bloatware as always, so I'm going to wipe that and do my usual dual-boot setup with Ubuntu + Win10 LTSC. I'm wondering if it's still recommended to backup the default partitions before wiping everything, and what's the best way to go about it?

My 7560 and 7760 did not come with anything except the dell apps.  I did uninstall the dell support assist but kept the other dell apps.  

 

[serpro69]

8 minutes ago, Rinconmike said:

My 7560 and 7760 did not come with anything except the dell apps.  I did uninstall the dell support assist but kept the other dell apps.  

I didn't have a very good experience with the pre-installed Windows 10 on Precision 5520 and 5530. Of course that could've been just my experience, and they might have improved on that as well. But it still comes with Windows 10 Pro, and I prefer the LTSC really, even if my usage of Windows is < 10% of the time. So that's the real reason I tend to do a wipe / clean installation.

And even if you keep the pre-installed OS, shouldn't you backup the original partitions just in case?

[Aaron44126]

On 2/5/2022 at 2:17 PM, serpro69 said:

And even if you keep the pre-installed OS, shouldn't you backup the original partitions just in case?

I always make an image of the drive when I get a new system, before I boot up the OS for the first time.  (Never have used it for anything, but seems worthwhile to have "just in case".)  Macrium Reflect is a piece of free software that you can use to do the initial partition backup.  You can create bootable media (USB or DVD), and just boot that and create an image of the system drive from there.  You'll need a place to store it (external hard drive or something).

 

Clean Windows 10 install is pretty easy on these guys, if you are comfortable doing that sort of thing, there is nothing really surprising.  You can get all of the drivers from Dell (dell.com/support), but really, if you get a Wi-Fi or Ethernet driver and then connect it to the Internet, it will pull down nearly everything automatically via Windows Update.

[Rinconmike]

I have the Xeon so came with the Win 10 Pro for Workstation.  I made an Acronis image after my initial setup as a backup.   Some people do image the drive before doing anything.