Dell Precision 7670 & Dell Precision 7770 owner's thread

[Aaron44126]

BIOS update 1.9.1.

https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-us/drivers/driversdetails?driverid=PRMCF

 

- Firmware updates to address security vulnerabilities including (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures - CVE) such as CVE-2022-30704.
- Fixed the issue where the system cannot boot after the BIOS update.
- Fixed the issue where the Dell logo is displayed incorrectly when the system boots to the operating system and the system lid is closed.
- Fixed the issue where the system auto wakes up on days not selected by you in the Auto On Time function in the BIOS setup.

 

Note — If they updated the Intel CPU microcode, undervolting support may be disabled.  According to the release notes, downgrading the BIOS down to a version as early as 1.6.3 should still be possible after installing this update.

[Aaron44126]

If I'm not mistaken, the "revision" field in CPU-Z indicates which microcode version is in use.  If anyone updates to 1.9.1, please report the revision number displayed.

 

[MyPC8MyBrain]

after update it is still possible to undrvolt but temps with existing undervolt went up 15-20c,
i would stay away from updating to bios 1.9.1, went back to 1.8.1 with no apparent issues atm,

 

[win32asmguy]

I updated to 1.9.1 as well. No change in microcode revision according to HWInfo64. I tested Dynamic Boost and its still stuck at 102W on the 7670 without using Afterburner to push power limits up to 125W.

 

@MyPC8MyBrain did you re-run your CBR23 tests after the update, maybe it "says" the undervolt is applied but it is not actually taking effect.

[MyPC8MyBrain]

11 minutes ago, win32asmguy said:

maybe it "says" the undervolt is applied but it is not actually taking effect

no i haven't, i know what you mean though,
only judged by my idle temps, after the update they went right up 20c without anything running, im back on 1.8.1
with outlook and 40 chrome threads running and media player playing a video in the background im idling at 36c that's the all the testing needed for me 😉

[Aaron44126]

I'm not in a rush to update but I will probably do it with other patching in a few weeks (I typically time this stuff with MS Windows patch drops — if I can get by with only rebooting once per month, I am a happy guy); I'll do some before-and-after temp testing when the time comes.

[TwistedAndy]

22 hours ago, Aaron44126 said:

If I'm not mistaken, the "revision" field in CPU-Z indicates which microcode version is in use.  If anyone updates to 1.9.1, please report the revision number displayed.

 

No. That's the CPU revision. You may find the microcode update (MCU) version in HWiNFO64.

[Aaron44126]

4 minutes ago, TwistedAndy said:

No. That's the CPU revision. You may find the microcode update (MCU) version in HWiNFO64.

 

Intel is indicating that the revision value changes when the microcode is updated.

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000055672/processors.html

[Aaron44126]

NVIDIA graphics driver 517.89.

https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-us/drivers/driversdetails?driverid=7H7T3

[win32asmguy]

27 minutes ago, Aaron44126 said:

 

Intel is indicating that the revision value changes when the microcode is updated.

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000055672/processors.html

 

Here is a screenshot taken from that utility with 1.9.1. CPU Revision corresponds to Microcode Revision in HWInfo64. Stepping has always been the same, C0.

 

[Aaron44126]

59 minutes ago, win32asmguy said:

Stepping has always been the same, C0.

 

C0 is not the stepping value, it is what CPU-Z is reporting at the "revision".  (..."Stepping", consistently reported as "2", is also the value that I would expect to be incremented if there was an actual hardware revision on the CPU.)

 

So they're different between the two tools ("C0" in CPU-Z vs. "22" in Intel's/HWiNFO).  I wonder if CPU-Z is just pulling in more bits for the revision field...?  I checked CPU-Z on my Precision 7560 and it reports the CPU revision as "R0", so they're not rendering that field in hexadecimal like Intel and HWiNFO are.

 

Anyway, it would seem that HWiNFO or Intel's tool are a better place to check then.

[AL123]

On 2/21/2023 at 2:18 PM, Aaron44126 said:

NVIDIA graphics driver 517.89.

https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-us/drivers/driversdetails?driverid=7H7T3

 

Not sure why Dell were so slow to update the drivers, for a long time i've avoided their recommended ones though! . looks like the same security vulnerabilities were fixed in 517.88 that i have been running for a couple of months now released 20th Dec 2022,  see https://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/5415

 

for me I stick to the NVIDIA advanced driver search https://www.nvidia.com/Download/Find.aspx?lang=en-us

and then stick to the same branch as is certified for the Pro software we use. Currently that is 515 so i go with the latest starting 51 unless i have an issue then it's just try the latest driver etc. 

 

 

[Aaron44126]

NVIDIA has launched the 530 driver branch today for "enterprise" GPUs.

https://www.nvidia.com/download/driverResults.aspx/199989/en-us/

 

There is also a corresponding GeForce release (but no Studio driver release yet).

https://www.nvidia.com/download/driverResults.aspx/199991/en-us/

 

A new feature is NVIDIA RTX "Video Super Resolution", available on Chromium-based browsers with Ampere GPUs or better (and will presumably be available in other browsers & apps later on...?).  They will do AI upscaling to maybe do a better job cleaning up low-resolution video for high-resolution displays than the standard scaling algorithm does.

[Aaron44126]

Ugh.

 

So, starting yesterday, I was getting microstutters both when trying to watch fullscreen video and also in games.  I could probably have rebooted to clear it up, but I like to know why when stuff like this happens, so I left it alone and this evening I dug into it.

 

I noticed that the "System" process was running a high load (about 4% reported by Task Manager, but that's a full CPU core's worth).

I dug in there with Process Explorer and saw that it was a "PoFxReportDevicePoweredOn" thread doing the bulk of the CPU work.  ...Some device keeps powering off and on again?

 

Further digging with xperf revealed the problem device to be VEN_10DE&DEV_2288&SUBSYS_000010DE — that is, the NVIDIA "High Definition Audio Controller".  And sure enough, as soon as I disabled that in Device Manager, the problem immediately stopped.  Everything is running silky smooth again.

 

Not sure why the NVIDIA audio controller was even doing anything at all?  Audio still works fine with the device disabled (through the Realtek audio controller).  I'd presume that this is for routing audio to external displays, but I do not have any connected.  The system is running with graphics switching / Optimus on and I do not even have the option set to attach external displays to the NVIDIA GPU.  Everything goes through the iGPU.  As far as I know, with this setup there is no way to engage the NVIDIA audio controller.

 

Not sure who to blame (NVIDIA / Microsoft / Dell / combination).  I'll probably just leave it disabled...

 

[yslalan]

Dell exchanged my system and ordered a Precision 5770 for me to replace my old 5760. The vBIOS configuration on 5770 is 70Watt, I am looking for the vBIOS on Precision 7670/7770 with A3000 12G to unlock the limits on 5770. I cannot find it anywhere even on techpowerup.

Is anyone willing to extract vBIOS?

[brunooo84]

I updated my nvidia drivers to latest, 531.18 and the trick to unlock more performance doesn't seem to work anymore... can anyone confirm it?

[brunooo84]

so.. windows update made the HUGE favor of updating my bios to 1.9.1.. I didn't know it could do it, but ok, I downgraded it and it worked fine.

 

turns out that EVERY TIME I restart my computer it updates the bios again to 1.9.1, doesn't matter what I do. If I downgrade, it works fine anb the restart after the update goes back to windows which confirms it's on 1.8, but if I restart it again, it triggers the bios update to 1.9.1....

 

does anyone know how to stop this?

 

I also disabled drivers update (which include bios) in group policy now...

[Aaron44126]

13 minutes ago, brunooo84 said:

does anyone know how to stop this?

 

In BIOS setup, wherever the BIOS update options are, there is an option for BIOS "capsule updates" that you can toggle on and off.  Turn that off and Windows Update will not be able to update your BIOS.  (You will still be able to update using the downloadable .exe from Dell's site.)

 

The mechanism used is, if "capsule updates" are enabled then you will see a "Firmware" device in Device Manager.  Microsoft ships an update to this "driver" and that will trigger the BIOS update whenever it loads.  You can roll the "driver" back to an older version to stop this (and also take steps to prevent it from being updated again via Windows Update) ... but all of that is unnecessary if you just turn "capsule updates" off.

[Aaron44126]

On 3/1/2023 at 8:34 PM, Aaron44126 said:

microstutters ... NVIDIA "High Definition Audio Controller" ...

And sure enough, as soon as I disabled that in Device Manager, the problem immediately stopped.

...

I'll probably just leave it disabled...

 

Uh, errors in Device Manager are gross.

 

So, I went and spent 20 minutes to learn how to put together a dummy/stub driver that replaces the NVIDIA High Definition Audio Controller device driver, doesn't cause an error, but also does absolutely nothing so it should not have a problem (I hope).

 

It is literally just this.

Spoiler

; Aaron's NULL HDA driver (NVIDIA High Definition Audio Device)

[Version]
Signature="$Windows NT$"
Provider="Aaron"
Class=MEDIA
ClassGuid={4d36e96c-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}
DriverVer = 03/03/2023,1.0.0.0
CatalogFile = null.cat

[Manufacturer]
"Aaron"=AK, NTamd64

[AK.NTamd64]
"NVIDIA High Definition Audio Controller (dummy)" = AK.Null,PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_2288&SUBSYS_000010DE

[AK.Null]
Copyfiles = Nothing
AddReg = Nothing

[Nothing]

[AK.Null.Services]
AddService = ,2;

 

 

I signed it using the same method that I previously used to sign modified NVIDIA drivers, so Windows doesn't even complain about it.  This INF can be modified (different device ID and class) to create a stub driver for any device.

[MyPC8MyBrain]

5 minutes ago, Aaron44126 said:

doesn't cause an error

imho you are going about this the wrong way, you had the driver work properly before right?

you should investigate what made it break and malfunction in the first place instead of disabling and or replacing with a dummy, its installed here with no stuttering issues,
another option is to run a clean nvidia driver reinstall without HD Audio driver, 

 

 

 

 

[Aaron44126]

49 minutes ago, MyPC8MyBrain said:

you should investigate what made it break and malfunction in the first place instead of disabling and or replacing with a dummy, its installed here with no stuttering issues,

 

...Why bother?

 

It's going to be a pain to investigate since the issue does not occur consistently.  (I have had microstutters in the past as well that went "uninvestigated" but I am now suspecting this was the cause.  It's also not hard to find other people with a similar problem on Reddit/etc.)

 

On top of that, having the NVIDIA audio driver enabled does nothing beneficial for me.  With my config, there is no situation where it would be needed, since even if I did attach an external display with audio, it would go out via the Intel GPU and use Intel’s audio driver.

 

I don't see any reason to spend any further time messing with it, I'll just stub it out and be done; just one less thing that can cause problems.

 

(If I do another NVIDIA driver install without the audio driver included, then I'd have a device sitting out with an "!" error in Device Manager because no driver is installed, and also probably Windows Update trying to force the driver down on me anyway.)

[MyPC8MyBrain]

1 hour ago, Aaron44126 said:

I have had microstutters in the past as well

how does that transpire? where do you get these stutters in games? watching video?

if this issue transpires over external connected monitor it might be your cable not the driver.
 

1 hour ago, Aaron44126 said:

It's also not hard to find other people with a similar problem on Reddit/etc.

that's what your basing your conclusion on frustrated trolls on reddit?

 

1 hour ago, Aaron44126 said:

If I do another NVIDIA driver install without the audio driver included, then I'd have a device sitting out with an "!" error in Device Manager because no driver is installed

i believe you're wrong!

afaik that driver is mainly dormant for use with older hdmi cable and monitors for sound transmission, its there in case you need it with some older monitors, nowadays most don't really need it its just installed by default.
 

build a custom driver package using NVCleanstall without HD Sound driver and deploy clean driver install.

 

[Aaron44126]

52 minutes ago, MyPC8MyBrain said:

how does that transpire? where do you get these stutters in games? watching video?

 

Yes, both.  Using the built-in display.  I rarely use an external display with this system.  It has happened infrequently (occurrences could be weeks apart) and a reboot clears it up.  I'd been trying to track it down to a background app or service but hadn't spent much time on it.

 

I guess I'm not sure if past occurrences of this issue had the same root cause but I sure will be checking on it if it happens again.

 

52 minutes ago, MyPC8MyBrain said:

that's what your basing your conclusion on frustrated trolls on reddit?

 

My only purpose for making this comment was to indicate that there may be an issue with the NVIDIA audio driver causing issues that apply to systems other than mine.

 

52 minutes ago, MyPC8MyBrain said:

afaik that driver is mainly dormant for use with older hdmi cable and monitors for sound transmission, its there in case you need it with some older monitors, nowadays most don't really need it its just installed by default.

 

I think it will be used for any audio output to a display that supports audio and is connected to the NVIDIA GPU.  (All Windows audio output needs a sound driver to go through.)  And it's clearly not "dormant", even if it is supposed to be, I caught it loading a whole CPU core on the System process while there were no external displays connected at all.

 

52 minutes ago, MyPC8MyBrain said:

build a custom driver package using NVCleanstall without HD Sound driver and deploy clean driver install.

 

I appreciate your suggestions but I won't be bothering with that.  The solution that I have concocted for myself is causing literally no problem at all, including no work required to repackage the NVIDIA driver when I want to upgrade to a new version.  (I'm sort of tired of doing that from my days of running Quadro M5000M on the Precision M6700, which as an "unsupported GPU" required an INF mod for every driver update.  Though I did end up scripting that down to one command.)

 

And I was also able to quickly create another stub/dummy driver for the "light" part of my Pro IntelliMouse which causes a 5-minute login delay if a second user logs in to my system, something I've also been meaning to do for a while.

[IamTechknow]

On 3/2/2023 at 3:21 PM, brunooo84 said:

I updated my nvidia drivers to latest, 531.18 and the trick to unlock more performance doesn't seem to work anymore... can anyone confirm it?

I don't have a Precision 7670/7770 but I posted about how the trick worked in the past. Yeah you're right, I installed the latest graphics drivers and the power limit no longer works for me either. I can only adjust core and memory clock offset now. Not that it mattered for me because the limit was always at 100% (80W) for me, but yeah you should stick with 528.xx driver version!

 

EDIT: Just install version MSI Afterburner 4.6.5 Beta 4 and there's no difference here

Edited March 4, 2023 by IamTechknow

[Sid3ways]

I have to thank everyone in this thread for the pioneering you've done for this platform. I've been a long time lurker but had to create an account because I had the issue of Windows constantly updating me to the 1.9.1 bios (thanks for the tip to turn it off!)🙂 

 

I have a 7770 with the 12850HX and bone stock was around 14.5k-15k in the multi-thread test. So far, I'm still on the stock paste but with the core adjustments and undervolt (not as aggressive as OP's undervolt since he's on a 12950HX, I'm hitting 18.9k-19.0k. It would be great to hit the 20k mark with a re-paste but we will see. 🙂