Dell Precision 5510 Owner's Lounge

Myself and a few other board members have downgraded to the 1.02.00 BIOS which has no flickering issue. The issue was introduced in 1.02.10, and we now have a few accounts, yours included, of the issue persisting to 1.02.13.

I personally haven't been having any problems at all with 1.02.00, so I don't intend to update until Dell releases a version that resolves the flickering issue. If you would like to do the same, you can downgrade your BIOS to 1.02.00. Here's a link to that version http://www.dell.com/support/home/us...de=precision-m5510-workstation&driverId=12M36. Install it just like you would a BIOS update.

Reading the brief change logs Dell included with the next two updates, it seems most of the fixes are related to Thunderbolt and specifically the Dell TB dock. They also mention screen flickering which we know was actually made worse. So if you don't have the Dell TB dock downgrading is a good way to go.

The one thing that may still affect you from the 1.02.13 update is "Improve system stability with PCIE NVMe Configuration." With the Windows NVMe driver, frequent BSODs were a widespread and common problem with the OEM Samsung PM951 SSD. The solution is installing Samsung's NVMe driver for the 950 Pro retail drive. I haven't had a BSOD since. The latest BIOS update may make the Windows driver more stable, but I personally wouldn't trade screen flickering for that.

 

For good measure, check out your battery charging mode in the BIOS settings. I forget the particular names, but I believe "Adaptive" is the default. Try the one called something like "fast charge" or "complete charge" and see if it still stops charging short of 100%.

While I haven't seen it stop short of 100% on "Adaptive" mode myself (still on 1.02.00 BIOS), that is not necessarily a bug. Adaptive is supposed to optimize charging based on your usage patterns to promote battery longevity. Stopping at 90% reduces the wear and tear on your battery when you don't absolutely need maximum battery life. I'm not sure if that really is what's going on, but I've been disappointed that I haven't seen adaptive do that on my 5510. I know you can set the charge thresholds manually, but I was hoping adaptive would do that sort of thing automatically.

 

Thanks Tech for the info. I created a case with DELL regarding this issue. I am able to get the BIOS using your link but do you know why on the DELL Driver download I don't happen to see this particular older version (see screenshot below).

http://www.screencast.com/t/i9uQIm0hiWgA

 

I went to the BIOS and changed the option from "Adaptive" to :"Standard" and set the charge to 100. The default was set @ 90, I restarted back into windows and the same issue "battery not charging". I called DELL technical support and they told me it could be due to the new BIOS 1.02.13. They told me to roll back the BIOS to version 1.02.10 BIOS and in the meantime, they will escalate this issue to the next level of support if indeed it is the BIOS.

 

I got the link I sent you on Dell's FTP site. From what I've seen, the regular Dell driver downloads page only provides one previous version and all earlier versions are removed. Dell seems to continue to offer more previous versions of drivers on the FTP site, although, I think they remove older versions from that site too, so I wouldn't count on the entire version history always being available.

I would guess that Dell does this because they don't want to confuse non-technical users with multiple versions. They want to avoid a user accidently installing the wrong version or a call to support asking about it. And like the smartphone OEMs, they rarely condone downgrading even when bugs arise, so they'd rather just not give you the option. The average customer has no idea what FTP is, and they would likely be intimidated by the primitive information dense structure. The FTP site caters to the more tech savvy users, and those users can be trusted with more file versions etc.

Anyway, it appears that while Dell removes the link from the downloads page of the regular website, the actual page for the previous version remains up, and that's what the FTP site will link you to.

Dell's FTP site is http://ftp.dell.com
**Note you need to manually type http:// on Chrome and possibly other browsers. Otherwise the browser will load ftp://Dell.com which doesn't exist. The http site redirects to the real ftp:// page. It's an odd setup.**

 

If I were you, I'd just roll back to 1.02.00 and fix the screen flickering too while you're at it. If you didn't have the battery issue before, it probably is the BIOS.

I personally don't bother with Dell support or really any company's support on issues like this, as I know that they aren't going to crank out a new BIOS version in a few days to solve my issue, and I also know that they're often hesitant to suggest power user solutions and aren't very knowledgeable overall.

It might be different if you bought premium support though. When I had a question about the maximum supported RAM speed, they sent me over to a guy in India who was basically reading a script and had no knowledge beyond that. The information he gave me was incorrect. Luckily, I already knew he was wrong at the time.

To each his own though, and it's good that someone reports these issues directly to Dell. I just don't have the patience for it.

 

FYI - another place to get the 5510 drivers:

http://downloads.dell.com/published/pages/precision-m5510-workstation.html

 

I upgraded to 13, and I haven't paid attention to the battery. I'll see if I get the same behavior. I believe the solution to this problem was to take the battery out, press the power button to totally discharge, and put the battery back in, but with 5510's battery is enclosed...

 

After installing BIOS 1.02.13 I ran the battery down to 74% and am seeing the same problem with the computer failing to charge. That's a bit of a fundamental mistake by Dell.

Time to go back to the previous BIOS.

John

 

My charge went to 100%, and the charge setting is the default/adaptive, and come to think of it, I updated the BIOS last week before my trip, and it's been charging to 100% like before.