Dell Precision 7670 & Dell Precision 7770 owner's thread

[pintie]

maybe someone can help me...

i got my 7670 today.

i installed 3 x Samsung 980 Pro 2TB SSDs

Bios is in RAID mode, and shows the 3 SSD's

 

i installed Win 11, had to put the Intel Rapid Storage Drivers on the Stick... once loaded the windows setup showed me the 3 SSD's. i installed on the first one.

 

once installed the Dell tool loaded all the drivers and so on.

i used the intel rapid storage tool to create a RAID 0 with the 3 SSD's. that worked and took about 1 hour.

 

Well - after reebot i get that screen - and there is no way to fix it.

installed windows 2 times and waited 2 hours for the raid.

 

any ideas ? As far as i understand i can't create a RAID in Bios. i have to create it in Windows with the iRST Tool ?

[Aaron44126]

If you included the drive containing your Windows install in the RAID array, you are toast.  You have to reinstall.

 

The proper thing to do here would be set up the array before you do the Windows install.  You can set up RAID arrays from the BIOS.  Hit "F12" at boot to get the boot device select screen.  It's one of the obscure options on this menu, something generic like "System configuration" will get you to the Intel RAID setup.

[pintie]

thanks.... not the first place where i would looked...

now Setup shows me one big drive...

 

 

[pintie]

well too fast...

after the first reboot i get the same error...

 

 i am about to give up and don't use RAID

[Aaron44126]

See if there are additional options in the F12 boot menu and try booting a different one, to see if that will get the Windows install to continue.  (It seems like it is "remembering" the pre-RAID configuration and trying to boot that.)

[pintie]

i deleted the old RAID completly. and created a new one in this nice 80's menu 🙂

then i boot from usb stick and install win 11 (22H2) - and now it shows me one big drive.

i create a partition and install.

 

after the setup transfered all the files it restarts. and then the same message like the screenshot appears.

 

F12 lets me boot from "UEFI RSTIntel RAID0 5.4TB (RAID 0)" or Windows Boot Manager.

both don't work.

 

I guess the RAID driver is missing

[Aaron44126]

4 minutes ago, pintie said:

I guess the RAID driver is missing

 

I'm surprised if it let you start the install without a driver.

 

Download & extract the Intel Rapid Storage driver from the Precision 7X70 support site.

Inside (a few levels down) you will find a folder called "f6vmdflpy-x64".  Copy it to a flash drive.

In the Windows installer, when you get the part asking what drive you want to install on, click the "Load driver" button and point it to that folder on your flash drive.

.......Then try running the install and it "should" work?

[pintie]

sorry - i meant maybe the driver is not copyed to the SSD.

i need to load the driver like you said in the win Setup.

 

i give it another try an the will go to bed 🙂 its late in Germany...

 

otherwise it is nice hardware. (got the all in with oled, A5500, 128GB RAM, only WWAN is missing)

[Aaron44126]

Linux install quick feedback.

• Installed Ubuntu 22.04.1 with minimal hassle.  Had to do manual partition option to get around it wanting me to disable BitLocker...  Even so, it automatically set up Grub with an entry to boot Windows.  So, now I have triple boot, Windows 10 / Windows 11 / Ubuntu Linux.
• Installing Ubuntu with UEFI + Secure Boot enabled is a bit weird.  You have to set up a password and then enter it again at boot time so that it can sign some binary packages.  This is needed for third-party drivers like the NVIDIA driver.  This is not explained very well and I had to look up what to do when I got to the blue MOK screen.
• Even so, I had to jump through some hoops after the install to get it to load the proprietary NVIDIA driver.
• I installed a few pieces of software from third-party PPA's and they seem to work fine.
• It boots fast.  I clicked to reboot for updates and looked away for what I felt like was 10 seconds and it was already sitting at the login screen again.
• USB mouse attached.  Cursor movement seems too slow, even with the cursor speed slider in settings set all of the way to the right.  (Looks like there are some terminal-y things that I can do to try to improve this.)
• With graphics switching enabled (Intel GPU driving the display), it won't let me pick 120Hz, it is limited to 60Hz.  Hmmm?  I wonder if the stock kernel has an appropriate Intel graphics driver included.  (I haven't tried with graphics switching disabled.)
• Windows made me re-enter the BitLocker recovery key the first time I booted it after the Linux install...  That seems to have been a one-time thing.  I was worried that it wouldn't like Grub being loaded before the Windows boot loader and that would make it ask for the key every time.

I have a laundry list of things that will need to be addressed & investigated before I can consider running Linux as a daily driver.  I am interested in taking a stab at it though, since I am continually frustrated by the direction that Microsoft is taking with Windows.  I might post about it over in the Linux section here.  I'm not that worried about games — that used to be a sticking point with Linux, but in the days of Wine + Steam Proton + Lutris + etc., it looks like almost everything will work fine with a bit of tweaking.  It's mostly "all of the rest of the computing stuff" that I am worried about.  I do have Windows software that I rely on which has no Linux equivalent, so I expect that I'll be keeping a Windows VM around and on pretty much all of the time, even if I do pull off a switch to Linux.  Anyway...  I plan to continue running Windows 10 LTSC for now but also pop over to Linux from time to time to try and whittle my list down.

 

[Edit]
Looks like Ubuntu 22.04 ships with kernel 5.15. For Alder Lake graphics, need (at least) 5.16. And, 5.18 for proper Alder Lake scheduling. I don’t want to finagle with an unofficial kernel build, so I guess I am waiting for 22.04.2….

[brunooo84]

Would 2x 1tb firecuda 530 in raid 0 be overkill? 

[Rojaho]

I ordered two units. 

Unit one won't boot into windows for love nor money, tried repair, completes then dies going into windows. 

Unit two has major thermal issues.... even under light load cores hit 100c

Very fed up with dell after dunking nearly £10k on these machines. 

9clpmv8p.bmp

[alittleteapot]

2 hours ago, Aaron44126 said:

I have a laundry list of things that will need to be addressed & investigated before I can consider running Linux as a daily driver.

 

My desktop actually runs Manjaro, and it runs a Windows Server VM to be a fileserver and domain server, and also "Work" and "Play" VMs.  "Play" is a fully isolated VM, whereas "Work" has lots of premade RDP shortcuts to the many VMs I have running on other servers (and also Fortnite, because, well, Fortnite).  The GPU is fully dedicated to one of those two VMs while they run, and completely switches back to Manjaro when they shut down. so I pretty much consider this my "Holy Grail" configuration.  It is rock-solid stable doing these things, running 2 of the 3 VMs at a time.  The only tradeoffs is that I have three VMs that are .qcow2 files that I need to back up now and then, instead of the usual VHDXs that I use with Hyper-V on my servers.

 

In an ideal world, I could figure out how to do this in Windows Server, thus mitigating the need for Linux at all, but my feeling is that this is an area that Linux has far more advanced technology than Windows does.  If I could get all the stuff above to work on my Precision 7760, even with Linux, then that would be really cool.  But I feel it would take a lot of trial and error, and the few times I attempted it, I didn't get too far.  Thinking about it makes me really want to try again, though...

[Aaron44126]

1 hour ago, alittleteapot said:

The GPU is fully dedicated to one of those two VMs while they run, and completely switches back to Manjaro when they shut down. so I pretty much consider this my "Holy Grail" configuration.

 

I remember @jeamn posting at NBR about attaching a GeForce 1070 MXM card to a Windows VM running on Linux on, what, Precision M6800?  Seems like it could be doable in a laptop.

 

I broke my Linux install by trying to install the 5.19 kernel from Ubuntu 22.10.  It won't boot anymore.  I'm sure that I could get it to revert to the 5.15 kernel, but...  I think that I'm going to let it sit until 22.04.2 is out (February-ish).  Not really interested in pushing forward with it if the Intel GPU driver isn't even present.

[win32asmguy]

1 hour ago, Aaron44126 said:

 

I remember @jeamn posting at NBR about attaching a GeForce 1070 MXM card to a Windows VM running on Linux on, what, Precision M6800?  Seems like it could be doable in a laptop.

 

I broke my Linux install by trying to install the 5.19 kernel from Ubuntu 22.10.  It won't boot anymore.  I'm sure that I could get it to revert to the 5.15 kernel, but...  I think that I'm going to let it sit until 22.04.2 is out (February-ish).  Not really interested in pushing forward with it if the Intel GPU driver isn't even present.

 

Fedora 36 with Kernel 5.19 has been working pretty well for me on the Precision 7770 with xorg+intel only. There was an issue with 5.19.12 that broke the iGPU driver (black screen with flickering) for 11th and 12th gen laptops, but that has been fixed with 5.19.13. Is that the issue you experienced?

 

As far as Linux laptop experiences go the Precision is pretty good, other than the fact that it only support Modern Standby which I have to deactivate via the Block Sleep bios option.

[Easa]

On 10/2/2022 at 12:58 PM, Kataphract said:

Best,
Juraj

 

CZ/SK according to name? 🙂

 

On 10/4/2022 at 11:11 AM, 1610ftw said:

 

This is the best DTR related news in a long time! 18" 16:10 in 2560x1600 with 480Hz refresh would appeal to both gamers and for productivity work as a middle ground between the Full HD and UHD and it is a logical step up from the 16" 16:10 screens that seem to be the new normal. I would have preferred bigger but at least we again are back to the screen real estate of those old 18.4" 16:9 screens.

 

I also looked this one up on Ali Express and it says "only" 165Hz and a low 600:1 contrast, hopefully the contrast number is incorrect and also the refresh rate seems to be a bit too with others offering up to 240Hz with QHD:

https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/18-0-inch-laptop-lcd-screen_1600479779605.html?spm=a2700.shop_plgr.41413.17.130869e6zLx4xw

 

 

My words exactly. 12=>14=>16=>18 is the way to go, all of them with 16:10 displays and without noticeable bezels. That would be nice. The one that you have linked is the GME variant, mine is JME. Anyways, these are probably just some pre-production samples or first tryout of serial production, I think that we have a good year or two ahead of us till we see them available in laptops. Maybe in new gaming machines powered by Raptor Lake + Ada Lovelace. This would mean that even 18" WS laptops will be possible and oh boy aint that a wonderful dream.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

[1610ftw]

9 hours ago, Rojaho said:

I ordered two units. 

Unit one won't boot into windows for love nor money, tried repair, completes then dies going into windows. 

Unit two has major thermal issues.... even under light load cores hit 100c

Very fed up with dell after dunking nearly £10k on these machines. 

9clpmv8p.bmp 3.1 MB · 9 downloads

 

For a new machine this is the worst temperature differential between cores that I have seen! 

[pintie]

well i did not get Windows installed on a 3 SSD raid.

(tried different ISOs, integrated the RAID drivers within the ISO, tried all Bios settings...)

who wants to inject the needed drivers in the Iso - here is a good manual : https://thunderysteak.github.io/windows-setup-driver-injection

 

in the end i didn't work. Windows is installing like allways, copying files to the SSD and needs a reboot. after this it only pops up the window i posted. "missing boot configuration"...

 

now i installed it on drive one, and have a RAID with the two other SSDs.

its working so far...

 

I will do some benchmarks later.

[Aaron44126]

10 hours ago, win32asmguy said:

There was an issue with 5.19.12 that broke the iGPU driver (black screen with flickering) for 11th and 12th gen laptops, but that has been fixed with 5.19.13. Is that the issue you experienced?

 

Yeah, I saw some articles on that, seems like in some cases it was actually able to cause damage to the display panel.  Anyway, I don't think that was what happened to me here.  It got stuck at the black screen with terminal text at bootup, showing an error (don't remember what), and it wouldn't advance to the login screen.  I think it is totally because I tried to wedge a new kernel on and I don't know what I'm doing 🙂

 

I might install Ubuntu 22.10 (with kernel 5.19) instead temporarily, just to see if the Intel GPU driver seems good (with decent 3D performance + 120Hz available), but I would rather be on a LTS release for any real attempt to use it.

[TwistedAndy]

15 hours ago, Rojaho said:

Unit two has major thermal issues.... even under light load cores hit 100c

 

Under spiked load, one or a few cores can get pretty hot. That's how the Intel Turbo Boost works. Under sustained load, the temperatures will be much lower.

 

6 hours ago, Easa said:

Anyways, these are probably just some pre-production samples or first tryout of serial production, I think that we have a good year or two ahead of us till we see them available in laptops. Maybe in new gaming machines powered by Raptor Lake + Ada Lovelace. This would mean that even 18" WS laptops will be possible and oh boy aint that a wonderful dream.  

 

I don't think we will see 18" laptops in the near future. They are too big and heavy.

 

Many large laptops are used connected to external screens. In this regard there's no significant difference between 17" and 18". In some cases even 17" is overkill. Probably, that's why Lenovo merged their P15 and P17 laptops in the one P16 device.

[SvenC]

With

1 hour ago, TwistedAndy said:

I don't think we will see 18" laptops in the near future. They are too big and heavy.

 

Many large laptops are used connected to external screens. In this regard there's no significant difference between 17" and 18". In some cases even 17" is overkill. Probably, that's why Lenovo merged their P15 and P17 laptops in the one P16 device.

 

With those slim bezels the XPS 17 is hardly bigger than current 15,6 laptops. So an "XPS 18" should not be bigger than current 17,3 laptops, it would just use the space better. Would be a nice surprise if that would show up. Hopefully with more than 300 nits, 400+ would be nice to allow some work sitting outside in the garden 🙂

[pintie]

so my 7670 with i9-12950hx gets 18000 points in cinebench 23 multicore out of the box with no tuning.

it has 100°C instantly, and uses 128W power. (thats 212°F for those that count in 1/16"footballfields)

 

so no power issues, but limited by heat. and that in less than 2 seconds.

[operator]

6 minutes ago, pintie said:

so no power issues, but limited by heat. and that in less than 2 seconds.

 

Are you going to open it to check the heatsink and the pads?

[pintie]

i guess next week. but i don't think that a repaste will change anything.

[Kataphract]

18K is actually fantastic result. Even the Asus Strix SE only reaches 21K (150W power draw) in its most extreme settings (From today's KitGuru review).

Just to make sure, everyone is quoting the default 10 minute loop CB23 or single-pass ?

Edit: 18K for single-pass in my 26C room ambient. 12850X. Honestly can imagine 21 if I take it to balcony :- ). Yeah my room is too hot but I have 1KW workstation going on under table and my windows is open all the time..

It does settle shortly into +/- 130W as well, so it can't sustain the 150+ for too long. I presume the Asus can since it has 21K. But reviewers really need to define what benchmark settings were used, CB23 is the first which has throttle test as stock default option.

Further benching revealed no power limits for me either, boosts easily into 160W short-term, sustains 75-80W for 2 minute benchmarks (Corona). So just thermal limits and throttling. I am really pondering repaste more.. Adding Liquid Metal (Conductonaut) to my Razer Blade, will see how much it helped there and will decide after whether the risk is worth it.

Perhaps interesting tidbit for someone: The 128GB CAMM module I have features dies of the same 2400MHz (4800 MT/s) memory, so it's just memory profile that limits it to 3600 MT/s. Theoretically, if someone has specific bandwidth limited process, they can disable two modules and set the frequency to 4800 MT/s. Not something I will be testing as I don't have any such workloads.


@Easa: Indeed, fellow man from Bratislava/SK :- )

 

[jeamn]

19 hours ago, Aaron44126 said:

 

I remember @jeamn posting at NBR about attaching a GeForce 1070 MXM card to a Windows VM running on Linux on, what, Precision M6800?  Seems like it could be doable in a laptop.

Yep.  It's actually gotten a bit easier since then.

 

Precisions have a hardware MUX so you can hand off the dGPU to a VM pretty easily.  They really are a mobile workstation.  😀