Dell Precision 7670 & Dell Precision 7770 owner's thread

[Light]

4 hours ago, MyPC8MyBrain said:

if the new 17" is an inch less wider than previous 17" generations i think i can live with that

 

 

I believe with a tape measure the latest Precision 17" is only 5/8" less wide than the widest 77x0 17" precision.

However, my subjective opinion is that it appears skinnier and less wide due to the combination of the new hinge design and the curve of the back panel. 

[Aaron44126]

8 hours ago, MyPC8MyBrain said:

even the latest 7670 with its bit odd taller screen ratio next to my old 15" still has smaller footprint,

if the new 17" is an inch less wider than previous 17" generations i think i can live with that,

the expandability and options under the hood with the 7770 are phenomenal and cannot be matched anywhere,  if only the heat can be little better managed i would keep it,

i am thinking i will give the 7770 a go with same config as with the 7670.
12950HX, 3080 Ti, 4k screen, 256GB NVME (i already have 4 2TB 970's),
8GB SODIMM module (will upgrade later with 64GB aftermarket kit),
any other hardware recommendation/consideration I should make?

 

Like @Light said, the new ones are a little bit less wide than prior generations (7740 and older), but not by a whole lot.  It holds a standard 17.3" 16:9 panel; the bezel on the left and right side is pretty narrow but unlike the modern XPS 17, there is still a think bezel on the top with the camera and a very thick bezel on the bottom with the "Dell" logo.

 

I just recommend that you pay attention to the chassis options that you want (SSD door or no? fingerprint reader or no?).  Unlike 7670 where some options are forced on you, 7770 seems to allow just about any combination that you'd want, other than WWAN+4K not being an option.  My experience ordering through a sales rep (both personal and work purchases) is that they don't tend to pay close attention to this point so you'll want to check the quote and make sure that its exactly what you asked for.

[win32asmguy]

12 hours ago, MyPC8MyBrain said:

i am thinking i will give the 7770 a go with same config as with the 7670.
12950HX, 3080 Ti, 4k screen, 256GB NVME (i already have 4 2TB 970's),
8GB SODIMM module (will upgrade later with 64GB aftermarket kit),
any other hardware recommendation/consideration I should make?

 

I am testing a MSI GE77 which is pretty similar to the Precision 7770. It has easy access to advanced bios options and an EC that support adjustable fan tables. No 4k panel but they do have a nice QHD 240hz panel with wide gamut. The cooling system has plenty of heatpipes and venting to properly cool it at 250W combined load. No battery drain under combined loads either as it has a 330W AC Adapter. The warranty is not as good as they only have a three year mail in option.

[MyPC8MyBrain]

i am by now a certified Dell junky,
i don't know when or how i ended up like this,
no one warned me this Dell stuff will mess you up for good 😄 
i went the Razer route while back, tried both 15 and 17, tried an Asus model as well Lenovo (wont touch MSI with a stick), i need my Dell logo proudly prancing or its not a workstation for me 😉 

[ATAN]

2 hours ago, MyPC8MyBrain said:

i am by now a certified Dell junky,
i don't know when or how i ended up like this,
no one warned me this Dell stuff will mess you up for good 😄 
i went the Razer route while back, tried both 15 and 17, tried an Asus model as well Lenovo (wont touch MSI with a stick), i need my Dell logo proudly prancing or its not a workstation for me 😉 

All I need is a third heatsink revision(really the first real one) and a loosening on the bios.

[ATAN]

Testing some Honeywell 7950 to see if itll help. This is a holy move that must be taken with much grace.

[Dublove]

Hello all.  Wondering if anyone else is having strange problems with a brand new 7670?

Here is what is going on with mine. Dell support case opened, but they are not grasping what I am saying!

 

1:

Humming / Fuzzing type noise through laptop speakers. (all the time, even when external audio is active using Ultrasharp U3421WE monitor audio).

Humming / Fuzzing type noise from under keyboard. (Coil whine?)

Occurs when mouse is moved, when graphical elements of Windows UI appear on screen such as opening a window. & when graphics load is high such as 3d application use.

 

2:

Laptop in sleep mode for less than 1 hour. Humming/purring noise coming from laptop speakers.

Spacebar pressed to wake laptop up. Fans came on at mid rpm for around 2 minutes, laptop did not wake up.

After around 2 minutes laptop reboots by itself and goes into Windows blue recovery mode.

Startup repair selected, laptop reboots and stalls at Dell bios full screen logo.

Laptop powered off (power button 10 sec).

Powered back on, left at Dell logo for around 10 minutes, at which point Windows loads.

No events in Windows Event viewer regarding this - it has a time gap in the logs when this occurred.,

 

3:

Laptop display screen. (4k Old)

Screen randomly changes to intense brightness/contrast/over-saturation.

Has occurred multiple times, and keeps happening. Sometimes on initial power-up, sometimes during using the laptop, could be 10 minutes, could be a few hours.

Restarting laptop, the screen returns to normal. (this is the only thing that makes it return to normal).

The overbrightness is more than can set by manually adjusting the display brightness.

Ambient light sensor seems to be adjusting display when there is no change in ambient light.

Disabling auto brightness in display settings has no effect.

 

4:

UFEI Bios.

Update from Command Update application. Firmware update displays successful installation progress on bios. However subsequent Command update shows not installed. On third Command Update attempt the Bios update is installed, but took 15 minutes waiting at the Dell bios logo before booting into Windows.

 

Also have some strangeness when changing the optimised/quiet setting.  It takes 30 minutes or so to boot back up past the bios each time this is changed!!! This really suggests to me something is fundamentally not right...  

 

UEFI hardware diagnostic reports no issues or errors.

Windows 11 Pro is up to date.

Dell Command Update all is up to date (drives / bios).

 

Would welcome anyones advice!

 

 

[MyPC8MyBrain]

20 minutes ago, Dublove said:

Would welcome anyones advice!

call Dell's customer support and ask for replacement unit, plain and simple,
don't try to explain why just say this unit is not working for me its overheating, i want a replacement or to return the unit, they are aware of heating issues with the 7670 and wont argue trying to save the sale by sending a new replacement asap.
(i just returned two 7670 for overheating, both original order and a replacement unit went back,
just put it to performance mode in bios and you will have native solid 80-90c at idle reason 😉 )

[Aaron44126]

2 hours ago, Dublove said:

Would welcome anyones advice!

 

2. I don't use sleep, but this is probably "Modern standby" (which no one seems to like) at work.  Unfortunately, there's no way to go back to S3 sleep in this system (AFAIK).  Use hibernate instead?

 

3. This is normal stuff from the Intel GPU.  A few settings to disable.  First go to Settings, System and turn off "Change brightness automatically..." at the top.  Next, go to the Intel Graphics Command Center, System, Power, and turn off adaptive brightness and anything that says "power saving".

 

4. Don't go to BIOS to change the optimized/quiet setting.  Use the Dell Power Manager app.  You can change it on the fly while the system is running.  (I don't know about Dell Command Update offering the same update over and over again.  I've heard other users complain about that before.  I don't use it, I just grab updates individually by hand from the support site.  I have RSS feeds set up to be alerted when new ones drop.)

 

Finally....

1. I will echo @MyPC8MyBrain here, these noises seem like a hardware issue.  Contact Dell support and they will either start swapping parts out or just replace the whole thing.  I can say that this is not happening with my 7770 (and I am pretty sensitive to high-frequency noise).

[Aaron44126]

There was some chatter about this in the thread earlier (@Light, I think), so...

 

You can now order Samsung 990 Pro (up to 2TB) from Samsung or Newegg (and maybe others).  Didn't quite make the October release.  Samsung's site shows November 21 ETA.  (4TB version won't be out until sometime next year.)

[MyPC8MyBrain]

7 hours ago, Aaron44126 said:

there's no way to go back to S3 sleep in this system (AFAIK)

setup_var CpuSetup 0xE 0x0      # Enable ACPI S3 Support (default 0x1)

setup_var CpuSetup 0x259     # Slate Mode on S3 and S4 resume (Default 0x0)

setup_var CpuSetup 0x25B     # Dock Mode upon S3 and S4 resume (Default 0x0)

[ATAN]

Anyone with a precise measuring tool who can avoid using hillbilly western measurement standards and has a little bit of time to measure the mounting dimensions for the CPU I would appreciate it. I'll do it myself soon if I have to, I just don't have functional calipers rn.
 

As crazy difficult and tool-wise expensive as it would be, mounting a small vapor chamber in place of the copper cold plate might give a little bit more thermal headroom. Maybe not as well as the nuc series but competitive, seeing how it uses only a small vapor chamber and small but dense fin stack.

 

I also am looking into thermoelectric coolers for docked usage, doubt they will fit thought. Not that it's very user friendly, and honestly it's easier just to expand my custom loop and/or pull a De8aurer type move and try making a custom loop/waterblock for 2-5 7770s in cold cash, clearly I'm not that insane. Just doing the modding research before its time to commit to it or send it back, which is soon(tm).
 

On the same note I'm looking at the Alienware/Lenovo all amd laptops, taking the performance bullet, not that I don't get the same/worse all (8p) core perf on my 7770 on anything besides single core benchmarks and games. (77w pl1 still but 3* cooler with the Honeywell 7950) vs amd apus. I just want it cooler so I'm not doing a Mobo/cooler swap in 3 years because it sat at 90-97*c most of its working life.

 

Also it seems like it's cooler can't really sustain a few hours of heavy work at above the 70-75w range, not that I do that often.

Really makes me wonder why they don't even have a single vapor chamber config for this machine, but I digress.

 

On a brighter note, zen 4 mobile looks promising from a perf/watt perspective. If I don't keep this or get the m17 then I'll just wait again for the 3rd time 😂 maybe a winmax 3 that could offer slightly better performance on all aspects along with a SSD door on the rear.

 

Also hp support said, in reference to the zbook fury 16 g9, I had to get the a3000 config for a vapor chamber, an $1200 a3000 that I might have to disable just to use my egpu, not the half price pro 6600m that would just work. So that's out the race, don't want a $4000 machine in which I only needed half of it. Really makes the Lenovo and Alienware 6900hx/6850xt configs look nice dispite massive storage nerfs. I've been brought down to my bare minimum requirements of 2 gen 4 m.2 slots without a SSD door(Dremel go burr), 5700g level performance, and egpu compatibility w/o funky Optimus business with my 6900xt. I'll miss the nice looking 7770 tho, only a little though.

 

Man if they still made thin itx boards, along with the new HDPlex GaN PSUs I'll be using in my updated egpu build, I could probably make a slightly thicker but way better laptop for my needs.. If only I had a 3d metal printer.

[Aaron44126]

2 minutes ago, MyPC8MyBrain said:

setup_var CpuSetup 0xE 0x0      # Enable ACPI S3 Support (default 0x1)

Did you try it?  I know that some people have messed with this and the system will report S3 sleep mode available (powercfg) and let you try to use it ... but it will not resume properly.

[MyPC8MyBrain]

Just now, Aaron44126 said:

Did you try it?

sure have, if you scroll back few pages when i initially posted it i have also applied it myself after enabling the classic power schema back in windows, worked flawlessly no hiccups were observed and i had you in the back of my mind with the wake issue you mentioned having, couldn't replicate it here with S3 switch on,
(i added two more S3 switches to the post above in case it fits your situation), 

[Aaron44126]

Just now, MyPC8MyBrain said:

sure have

 

I'll try it out sometime and see how it goes for me...

[MyPC8MyBrain]

22 minutes ago, ATAN said:

a small vapor chamber in place of the copper cold plate might give a little bit more thermal headroom

you're off your rocker mate 😄 
you cant just mount random vapor chamber in a laptop chassis,

to start with there's no room for one unless you hack at the existing heat pipe mount,

a vapor chamber itself has to be fully incased between supporting copper plates for further heat distribution and dispassion, and preventing from any physical pressure on the chamber surface itself, you will need to combine in precision both GPU and CPU into one large chamber and have them incased,

just return the unit (if possible) and look into a unit with more thermal overhead instead trying to reinventing the wheel, i had to face facts too sadly i returned my 7670 unit, it's just not my place to fix Dell engineers poor design even if it was possible,

[Aaron44126]

38 minutes ago, MyPC8MyBrain said:

you will need to combine in precision both GPU and CPU into one large chamber and have them incased,

 

IIRC @ATAN has no dGPU in his system so it might be easier to fit in a custom solution.  (Though I agree, this would be quite the project.)

[ATAN]

50 minutes ago, MyPC8MyBrain said:

you're off your rocker mate 😄 
you cant just mount random vapor chamber in a laptop chassis,

to start with there's no room for one unless you hack at the existing heat pipe mount,

a vapor chamber itself has to be fully incased between supporting copper plates for further heat distribution and dispassion, and preventing from any physical pressure on the chamber surface itself, you will need to combine in precision both GPU and CPU into one large chamber and have them incased,

just return the unit (if possible) and look into a unit with more thermal overhead instead trying to reinventing the wheel, i had to face facts too sadly i returned my 7670 unit, it's just not my place to fix Dell engineers poor design even if it was possible,

Yes and that would be exactly the plan, remove base plate from heatpipe assembly and replace with a small 3mm vapor chamber and a even smaller copper baseplate (because that's not playing with fire) that could help remove bursts of heat better than a copper slab by itself but it will be limited by how much a thinner replacement could conduct (which isn't alot at all lol) and transfer to said heatsinks via the stock albiet less bent then stock (in terms of height).
 

It would likely not increase overall thermal capacity much if anything reducing it, the thing it would help is short term boosting performance for non constant workloads, ie Geekbench lol.
 

On the opposite end, adding raw mass (copper or alluminum) can provide short term gains as the issue was never it's ability to cool itself/soak heat but rather it's limited thermal capacity overall. To which adding small heatsinks wherever I can fit them has netted small gains but unless I was to be adding actual weight it would not be useful outside of soaking 90w for slightly longer and letting the vrm breath a bit.

 

Not even mentioning the fact that it takes a lot of skill not to damage the VC or heatpipes themselves

 

On another comparitive note, the 7770 egpu should still technically be faster than the average laptop for gaming as they tend to give the power budget to the GPU. So to each his own.

 

Edit: not to mention how vapor chambers that would fit within the mounting size would have rather low thermal capacity. I'm just shooting the shits and trying to take a duece on dell as I just want 10-20 more watts sustained capacity.

[MyPC8MyBrain]

@ATAN
did you try LM TIM?
that with bit of undervolt should do the trick (provided your silicon agrees with your undervolt),
i was able to eliminate throttling on the 7670, for that i had to undervolt cpu core -165Mv and cpu p cache -150.4, at that point (actually bit before at around -120mv on p core) thermal throttling was eliminated, i could see turbo spikes up to 147w and settles around 77w after boost,
 

[1610ftw]

25 minutes ago, ATAN said:

Yes and that would be exactly the plan, remove base plate from heatpipe assembly and replace with a small 3mm vapor chamber and a even smaller copper baseplate (because that's not playing with fire) that could help remove bursts of heat better than a copper slab by itself but it will be limited by how much a thinner replacement could conduct (which isn't alot at all lol) and transfer to said heatsinks via the stock albiet less bent then stock (in terms of height). Edit: not to mention how vapor chambers that would fit within the mounting size would have rather low thermal capacity.
 

It would likely not increase overall thermal capacity much if anything reducing it, the thing it would help is short term boosting performance for non constant workloads, ie Geekbench lol.
 

On the opposite end, adding raw mass (copper or alluminum) can provide short term gains as the issue was never it's ability to cool itself/soak heat but rather it's limited thermal capacity overall. To which adding small heatsinks wherever I can fit them has netted small gains but unless I was to be adding actual weight it would not be useful outside of soaking 90w for slightly longer and letting the vrm breath a bit.

 

Not even mentioning the fact that it takes a lot of skill not to damage the VC or heatpipes themselves

 

On another comparitive note, the 7770 egpu should still technically be faster than the average laptop for gaming as they tend to give the power budget to the GPU. So to each his own.

 

 

Should be easier to get the stock heatsink for systems with a GPU?

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/295059238559

 

[1610ftw]

On 11/1/2022 at 3:22 AM, MyPC8MyBrain said:

it seems that the 7770 has a similar but more robust heat pipe under the hood, 
not seeing any 7770 being returned makes me think should i give the 7770 a go?

my main concern beside having the same heat issue is with it being too big for my liking,

i am currently using M3800, comparing that to the XPS17 size i loved it size wise for a daily driver,

even the 7670 as chunky as it is (which i actually like) has a smaller footprint than my current m3800, 

anyone moved from traditional 15" zise to the 7770 with first hand experience? 

 

7670 heatsink:

 

7770:

 

I would not say that this looks like that much of an improvement.

 

But if it has to be a Dell then it is most probably the best you can do.

 

 

[MyPC8MyBrain]

22 minutes ago, 1610ftw said:

Should be easier to get the stock heatsink for systems with a GPU?

for @ATAN case i love that idea (very smart!) much better than tailoring a vapor chamber solution from scratch, this can potentially smooth some spikes not having a GPU below,
more copper will do the trick and that should fit right in like a glove,
 

@1610ftw

there is another heatsink design for the 7770 with more fins and a plate over the dGpu area on the top and a bigger bottom plate, with a much beefier heat pipe instead of the thinner one, if you scroll back to @Aaron44126 early images you will see it there,

 

  

On 7/29/2022 at 6:55 PM, Aaron44126 said:

 

 

 

[1610ftw]

Thanks, just found it as a spare, too:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/225171289649?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=vEvDB76LRTS&sssrc=2047675&ssuid=qo2ADUZqR_-&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

 

 

That should hopefully result in substantial improvement for @ATAN

 

 

[FlashWolf]

Good Day my fellow Dell precision 7*70 mates,

 

First i want to thank you all for your efforts, you really help us alot with your research about this laptop generation.

 

 

So, my Dell precision 7670 has the same problems as yours, thermal throttling and about 15,5k points in cinebench r23.

i already did the loadline and resizeable bar fix in efi and added arctis mx4 thermal paste. the temps are horrendous also after that modifications^^ the temps are maxing out at 107° in idle 😅

 

now i try to undervolt the cpu but somehow if i unlock the voltage for the cpu p cache and add for example -2 mv it instantly keeps crashing. somehow it looks like my cpu does not like undervolting of the cpu p cache at all? 

whereas the cpu core allows me an undervolt of -160mv and e cache about -30mv.

 

is this a problem related to my windows or do i have a bad sample of cpu?

 

here are my specs:

 

i9 12950HX

RTX A2000 8GB

64GB CAMM

16" 500nits Display

2TB Samsung Pro 980

 

thanks in advance, 

[MyPC8MyBrain]

@FlashWolf
i cant post screenshots for you i returned my 7670 unit few days ago,
going off memory so follow these steps to the T, start by deleting your ThrottleStop.ini than open TS,

in TS Main window

1. in Settings section, Uncheck SpeedStep

2. in Settings section, Check "SpeedShift - EPP"

3. in Settings section, Change "SpeedShift - EPP" value from 128 to 34 (you can edit exiting value)

4. Click "Save" (bottom left window corner)

click TPL tab
1. in Power Limit section, Uncheck "Disable Controls"
2. in Power Limit section, Uncheck "Clamp" from Long Power PL1

3.  in Power Limit section, Change value for "Long Power PL1" from 85 to 77

4. in Turbo Power Limit section, Check "Lock" checkbox

5. in Miscellaneous section, Check "Speed Shift" 

5. in Miscellaneous section,  Change "Speed Shift" Max value to 68

6. Click Apply than OK on the bottom right of TPL window

 

Click FIVR tab

1. in Save Voltage Section, Select "OK - Save voltage settings after ThrottleStop exits" 

2. in "All Core" Section, click on 47 setting all cores in "Turbo Groups" to 4.7Ghz

3. in "FIVR Control" Section, select "CPU Core", than check in "CPU Core" Section below "Unlock Adjustable Voltage" and drag "IccMax" slider to max 255.55

5. in "FIVR Control" Section, select "CPU P Cache", than check in "CPU Core" Section below "Unlock Adjustable Voltage"

6. Click Apply than OK on the bottom right of FIVR window

 

exit TS at this point and open again, you are now ready to begin undervolting,

start with undervolting your CPU Core first, Click FIVR tab

in "FIVR Control" Section, select "CPU Core", in "CPU Core" Section below use "Offset Voltage" slider in increment of -5mv at a time from 0, apply and run a mixed cpu gpu benchmark like 3DMARK (CB23 not sufficient!)
if bench completed with no issues increment another -5mV and so on,
when you reached your cpu max undervolt limit back off +5mV,

once CPU Core been udervolted, you can move on to undervolting CPU P Cache using the same process,

 

you do not need to undervolt anything else beside these two variables,
on my CPU i was able to achieve -165mV on CPU Core and -150.4mV on CPU P Cache,
do not try to jump to these values each CPU bin is individual!

 

in bios you want to set ultimate performance power plan and turn Hybrid Display off,

few pages back i posted step by step guide how to repaste properly, with 107c idle it sounds like you need to do a repaste before you should begin undervolting,

 

Good Luck