Dell Precision 7670 & Dell Precision 7770 owner's thread

[mkolejak]

On 2/19/2024 at 12:36 AM, RYANKO said:

Anyone suffered from the same problem here?
https://www.dell.com/community/en/conversations/precision-mobile-workstations/precision-7770-bios-1180-overall-system-performance-degradation/65c7802d0217a51eb1a3ebd3?page=1

This is nightmare for me, after bios update my cpu is constantly on 400mhz, my gpu is always doing something (about 20% usage), my 128gb camm ram is somehow raising number of gb usage until it reach full capacity and then windows restart itself….I tried also linux, same same….unusable…. this is last time I bought dell machine…..gonna reach pro support what I have with it and then let you guys know….hopefully they will release soon new bios, or I will return it and buy something else….crazy how they can deploy this new bios without properly testing it and what is worse, you cant even downgrade it….shame on dell….

[RYANKO]

42 minutes ago, mkolejak said:

This is nightmare for me, after bios update my cpu is constantly on 400mhz, my gpu is always doing something (about 20% usage), my 128gb camm ram is somehow raising number of gb usage until it reach full capacity and then windows restart itself….I tried also linux, same same….unusable…. this is last time I bought dell machine…..gonna reach pro support what I have with it and then let you guys know….hopefully they will release soon new bios, or I will return it and buy something else….crazy how they can deploy this new bios without properly testing it and what is worse, you cant even downgrade it….shame on dell….

You could unplug the AC until almost out of battery then charge again...

If you know how to use setup_var, follow my last post.

At least you have a working machine for this moment.

[mkolejak]

17 hours ago, RYANKO said:

You could unplug the AC until almost out of battery then charge again...

If you know how to use setup_var, follow my last post.

At least you have a working machine for this moment.

Thanks Ryanko for heads up, I reached to Dell and they are going to replace motherboard 😕 Not happy about that, but if it can solve the problem, what else I should do....in meantime thanks for help, this is the way 😄

 

[RYANKO]

2 hours ago, mkolejak said:

Thanks Ryanko for heads up, I reached to Dell and they are going to replace motherboard 😕 Not happy about that, but if it can solve the problem, what else I should do....in meantime thanks for help, this is the way 😄

 

I also have my motherboard replaced today.
The BIOS version of replaced motherboard was 1.6 during the first boot and is automatically upgraded to 1.16.0 without human confirmation after reboot.
It scared us but everything back to normal after the replacement.
 

[Aaron44126]

25 minutes ago, RYANKO said:

The BIOS version of replaced motherboard was 1.6 during the first boot and is automatically upgraded to 1.16.0 without human confirmation after reboot.
It scared us but everything back to normal after the replacement.

 

Windows will automatically update the BIOS if it has downloaded a BIOS update package for your system from Windows Update.  If you do not want this to be a possibility, go to BIOS setup and turn off the option for "capsule updates".

[dude123]

Hi,

I also experienced the 1.18 firmware issue.

What helped me was connecting the AC power supply in addition to the WD19 dockstation i'm working with.

 

Generally, not restoring the former performances, just making it more usable.

Also noticed, fan won't kick in to full speed no matter what, and also gaming is the worst. The Nvidia is not raising above 10% and games stutter.

 

in TS, PL2 of core is active even on idle

[Kataphract]

So you are connecting them in parallel? Two USB-Cs from WD19 and stock AC? What about just WD19?

I stopped using my WD19 around 6 months ago after starting to experience strange performance issues (perhaps what they were trying to "solve" with this amazing bios).

[win32asmguy]

6 hours ago, dude123 said:

Hi,

I also experienced the 1.18 firmware issue.

What helped me was connecting the AC power supply in addition to the WD19 dockstation i'm working with.

 

Generally, not restoring the former performances, just making it more usable.

Also noticed, fan won't kick in to full speed no matter what, and also gaming is the worst. The Nvidia is not raising above 10% and games stutter.

 

in TS, PL2 of core is active even on idle

 

I have noticed that if you use Optimus with the Nvidia card then the CPU throttle can affect GPU utilization. Basically the iGPU gets locked into a low clockspeed and that causes dGPU to iGPU framebuffer transfer to become bottlenecked. This in turn causes the Nvidia GPU to reduce its power consumption as it will only render ahead a few frames from what is currently being pushed to the iGPU for display. The fans then respond to this by reducing speed because both the CPU and GPU are operating at close to idle power levels.

 

With every board on the bad bios version they can at least easily use a flash programmer to reflash the factory bios and ec where the "downgrade rule" does not apply. So atleast these boards are not becoming e-waste. It is not a procedure they would have an onsite tech do but I am sure they are doing that at the repair depot.

[RYANKO]

On 2/21/2024 at 6:56 PM, dude123 said:

Hi,

I also experienced the 1.18 firmware issue.

What helped me was connecting the AC power supply in addition to the WD19 dockstation i'm working with.

 

Generally, not restoring the former performances, just making it more usable.

Also noticed, fan won't kick in to full speed no matter what, and also gaming is the worst. The Nvidia is not raising above 10% and games stutter.

 

in TS, PL2 of core is active even on idle

A guy from Dell's forum got Dell Engineer's reply and shared a bridge BIOS which allow us to downgrade to version 1.16.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mgZK-zpZ_x060i5KGJL78sr7DTxqjJO2/view?usp=sharing

[brunooo84]

48 minutes ago, RYANKO said:

A guy from Dell's forum got Dell Engineer's reply and shared a bridge BIOS which allow us to downgrade to version 1.16.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mgZK-zpZ_x060i5KGJL78sr7DTxqjJO2/view?usp=sharing

 

I can confirm it works!

[DoC]

2 hours ago, RYANKO said:

A guy from Dell's forum got Dell Engineer's reply and shared a bridge BIOS which allow us to downgrade to version 1.16.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mgZK-zpZ_x060i5KGJL78sr7DTxqjJO2/view?usp=sharing

Now that would be me, so of course it would work 😛 I just couldn't get around to posting it here.

[Melkor]

Anyone knows any way to complain to Dell's support organization. You won't believe the hoops I had to go even with 'Premium Support Plus' so they could agree to send me a motherboard, which of course is a totally overblown response to fix a software bug, but the thing that irks me the most is the way they made me follow the same checklist over and over and over.

I have a full log of my interaction via WhatsApp, it is both horrible and hilarious at the same time. I would prefer to never have to go through something like that again.

[Kataphract]

THANK you, testing right away! Christ the Dell forum, deleting the link instantly LOL.

Edit: Nevermind. Two step-process, still need to download old one.

[DoC]

53 minutes ago, Kataphract said:

THANK you, testing right away! Christ the Dell forum, deleting the link instantly LOL.

Edit: Nevermind. Two step-process, still need to download old one.

Yeah, you need to download 1.16 from the support site and install it. That file only enables downgrading.

And, to be clear - it was not Dell who deleted the message, I (the author) did because the tech support asked me nicely. And since he is the MVP, I decided to not get him into trouble. Of course, once it's on the Internet, it's on the Internet, so... 🙂 He has no control or responsibility for reddit or here, I hope it won't do harm to leave the link.

As I've stated in my edit - they are working on KB, I suppose with the bridge BIOS in it. It's just a slow corporate process to get that out I guess.
Other than that I'm quite OK with the speed of the support - I've had the issue since Monday evening (local time), got L1 (Bulgaria) reply Tuesday morning, got escalated to L3 (Germany) Tuesday evening and got a fix Friday morning. Less than a week, and most importantly - in a software-only way, no board swapping. It still cost me shitload of money but hey - what can you do. I don't have issue with the support speed but rather with the quality control over the 1.18 release. These think should not happen, especially with these kinds of products, especially on that level of severity.

[Kataphract]

I had absolute tripartite of issues with this. When Dell soft-bricked our Precision, my MSI-Titan was in service for RMA work, and Star Link internet got stuck in transfer process. Effectively leaving me without functional high-performance laptops (I still have older 10th-gen i7 Razer but that just doesn't cut it for anything for me) and without internet :- ).

Fun week! Thankfully, I finished one project deadline last week, and other is next week. So this could have been absolute catastrophe but ended on good note.

Super thanks to all people who escalated the issue to L3 and posted solutions here and on Dell forum. 

[heikkuri]

Thank you @mkolejak and @RYANKO

 

Here is my experience about the BIOS downgrade process.

Precision_7x70_Bridge-BIOS_downgrade.exe will activate the Bridge mode version 98.18.0.
After restart device may hang to Dell Security BIOS start logo.
Wait five minutes. If still stuck, power off, open the bottom cover and disconnect battery cable.
Wait a while and connect the cable back. Now the device will restart.

Last step is to install normal BIOS 1.16.0 update. This will do the real BIOS downgrade to version 1.16.0.
After successful BIOS update device may still hang to Dell logo start screen. Power off and try again.
Finally, the Windows will start, and System Information will show BIOS Version Dell Inc. 1.16.0, 15 Sep 2023.

[DoC]

Just a headsup - remember to disable capsule updates from BIOS, otherwise Windows will reupdate to 1.18.

Or pause Windows updates, of course 🙂

[Aaron44126]

38 minutes ago, DoC said:

Or pause Windows updates, of course 🙂

 

I strongly recommend to just disable capsule updates and just apply BIOS updates manually.  It would be one thing if Dell could be trusted to vet these properly, but as we can see...

 

To note —

• After a BIOS update package has been downloaded and installed from Windows Update, it will attempt to upgrade the BIOS at every reboot if the current BIOS version is less than the downloaded package version, even if Windows Update is paused.  So, you could take steps to roll back to an earlier BIOS version and find your work undone the next day.  (To stop it from doing this, you'd have to roll back the driver for the "Firmware" device which you can find in Device Manager.)
• The timing for listing BIOS updates on Windows Update is sporadic.  If Dell rolls a 1.19 update that fixes this issue, it might not show on Windows Update for multiple days, or weeks (if ever).

[Chalybion]

There is another, unofficial way to circumvent Dell's BIOS downgrade block:

https://github.com/vuquangtrong/Dell-PFS-BIOS-Assembler

 

These python scripts are for extracting and recompiling the packages in Dell's BIOS installer.  As noted, the instructional video was taken down at Dell's request, but it is not to hard to follow with attention to the details.

 

The basic idea is:

1. Download newer BIOS from Dell (one that is a newer version, or older version with downgrade allowed)

2. Download old/good/downgrade-blocked BIOS

3. Extract contents of both

4.  Replace newer BIOS package with old BIOS package

5. Re-compile new BIOS installer (w/ old BIOS package)

6. Run new BIOS installer like normal.

7.  BIOS installer checks version info and sees the allowed newer version.  The version check passes, and then it installs the included (old) BIOS package.

 

I had success doing this multiple times to downgrade to a Precision 7520 BIOS that allows undervolting.  I'm not sure if it would work with a situation like going from v1.18 -> v1.18.  Just-in-case, put a known-good BIOS on a USB drive and know how to recover direct from USB.

[brunooo84]

On 2/24/2024 at 9:04 AM, Chalybion said:

There is another, unofficial way to circumvent Dell's BIOS downgrade block:

https://github.com/vuquangtrong/Dell-PFS-BIOS-Assembler

 

These python scripts are for extracting and recompiling the packages in Dell's BIOS installer.  As noted, the instructional video was taken down at Dell's request, but it is not to hard to follow with attention to the details.

 

The basic idea is:

1. Download newer BIOS from Dell (one that is a newer version, or older version with downgrade allowed)

2. Download old/good/downgrade-blocked BIOS

3. Extract contents of both

4.  Replace newer BIOS package with old BIOS package

5. Re-compile new BIOS installer (w/ old BIOS package)

6. Run new BIOS installer like normal.

7.  BIOS installer checks version info and sees the allowed newer version.  The version check passes, and then it installs the included (old) BIOS package.

 

I had success doing this multiple times to downgrade to a Precision 7520 BIOS that allows undervolting.  I'm not sure if it would work with a situation like going from v1.18 -> v1.18.  Just-in-case, put a known-good BIOS on a USB drive and know how to recover direct from USB.

I tried that as soon as I noticed that v1.18 had issues but it didn't work... The re assembled bios doesn't show anything in the update list when you run it. Not sure why... 

 

It would be great if we got it to work tho so we can downgrade it at any time we need. 

[Sid3ways]

As of the last 3 weeks, something has happened to my laptop that is causing it to completely changeup the way that ThrottleStop is working. I am also getting a TON more throttling and studders when playing my game. The numbers in the FIVR aren't even the same anymore. I always used to set the CPU core and P Cache to around -110mV, change the iCCMax to like 255 (I didn't have to drag it too far left but now it's defaulting WAY up to 511?!@?). And then for the E Cache I'd set it to -90. I'd also change the cache ratio to 8 / 38 but it won't even let me change that anymore. Also, when I try to apply the settings, the offset no longer changes.

 

To note: I did have 1.18 but went through the updated bios to allow me to kick it back to 1.16 so that is normal. I also have the 330W Alienware power supply hooked up to the unit. When going to 1.18, did it somehow relock the ability to undervolt or something? Can someone recommend what I should be changing/using, setting wise? I did read in here about the BD PROCHOT, that seems to be constantly on, so I should look into how to disable it?

[Phantomroams]

I get really bad battery life on both windows and on Linux. The gpu activity shows no usage but it usually consumes 50 watts average. I also see that CPU package power is 12 watts and 8 watts are being used up by the system agent. I get around 30 watts consumption on Linux with gpu off. The first day I got the laptop the average power draw was around 8 - 12 which seems normal. I tried all updates downgrades and clean installations. I don't know what else to do. 

[Custom90gt]

13 minutes ago, Phantomroams said:

I get really bad battery life on both windows and on Linux. The gpu activity shows no usage but it usually consumes 50 watts average. I also see that CPU package power is 12 watts and 8 watts are being used up by the system agent. I get around 30 watts consumption on Linux with gpu off. The first day I got the laptop the average power draw was around 8 - 12 which seems normal. I tried all updates downgrades and clean installations. I don't know what else to do. 

 

Maybe try turning on the GPU monitoring application to see what is using your GPU.  I think you use the following:

Please follow the instruction below:

1. Right click on the desktop and select [NVIDIA Control Panel].
2. Select [View] or [Desktop] (the option varies by driver version) in the tool bar then check [Display GPU Activity Icon]
3. In Windows taskbar, mouse over the "GPU Activity" icon to check the list.

That should let you see what is using your GPU. Normally it is something silly like firefox or chrome...

[Aaron44126]

9 hours ago, Custom90gt said:

That should let you see what is using your GPU. Normally it is something silly like firefox or chrome...

 

Note, I have found that the GPU can actually be on when this activity indicator says that it is off.  You have to use NVAPI to check and see if it is "really" on or not.  Anyway, if it gets stuck on you can "fix" it by going to Device Manager, disabling the dGPU, and then enabling it again.  That seems to kick it into powering off properly.  (On my Precision 7770, I had to do that after every reboot.)

[RYANKO]

12 hours ago, Sid3ways said:

As of the last 3 weeks, something has happened to my laptop that is causing it to completely changeup the way that ThrottleStop is working. I am also getting a TON more throttling and studders when playing my game. The numbers in the FIVR aren't even the same anymore. I always used to set the CPU core and P Cache to around -110mV, change the iCCMax to like 255 (I didn't have to drag it too far left but now it's defaulting WAY up to 511?!@?). And then for the E Cache I'd set it to -90. I'd also change the cache ratio to 8 / 38 but it won't even let me change that anymore. Also, when I try to apply the settings, the offset no longer changes.

 

To note: I did have 1.18 but went through the updated bios to allow me to kick it back to 1.16 so that is normal. I also have the 330W Alienware power supply hooked up to the unit. When going to 1.18, did it somehow relock the ability to undervolt or something? Can someone recommend what I should be changing/using, setting wise? I did read in here about the BD PROCHOT, that seems to be constantly on, so I should look into how to disable it?

You could search for this thread regarding how to use setup_var and also see my post on the previous page where I'm able to unlock the BD PROCHOT option in ThrottleStop.