Dell Precision 5510 Owner's Lounge

You are lucky. My charging is broken. I've been back to the oldest BIOS, I've removed the battery, done a NVRAM reset and it's refusing to charge. The PSU is fine but I've also tried another one. I've also tried the various charge options both in Power Manager and in the BIOS. When I plug in the PSU the charge light on the front shines for one or two seconds but then goes out. Whether or not it is relevant, I have the 84Whr battery which is currently on 73% charge.

John

 

I had questions about bios driver firmware application updates:

I go through dell precision optimiser update check, it updated my bios to 1.02.10 and never able to update the thunderbolt 3. So I went to dell website, and there is 1.03.13 bios and tons other driver that is available extra.

So, how do you update the laptop? Dell optimiser or website? Do you update everything or just what you want. Should I update or should I not. Is it risky?

 

I download the update files from the support page for my computer, close down other programs and then run the updates. In the case of the BIOS updates the computer effectively goes to the BIOS level to do the updating.

However, avoid BIOS 1.2.13. It has killed the battery charging on my 5510. After a long phone call with support, where we worked through all options which could be thought of, the conclusion was for me to expect a technician tomorrow with a new mainboard and battery.

John

 

Were you still using the 65W power adapter before and after the BIOS update? Possibly during the BIOS update?

 

No. I'm at home and the update was done while plugged in to the 130W PSU (not that the PSU rating should have triggered this problem). It's a good thing that I held off doing the BIOS update until I was at home (takes mental note for future reference) as I somewhat doubt that Dell has a stockpile of suitable parts in Sri Lanka where I've been for the past month.

John

 

What do people do with setting on close lid or power button? I have it on sleep as default, but it wake up during transit while in sleep mode. I am asking bios and power questions, because my machine had power issues, that sometimes it wouldn't wakeup at all. 2 motherboard change in 2 months.

 

Bummer. Yeah, I'm just not impressed with the 5510's. I'm thinking of getting an E7270 w/the 1920x1080 touch.

 

My 5510 had some sleep and hibernation problems but they have been absent for the past month. However, there must be underlying issues considering this aspect is mentioned in the notes for the newest BIOS. It's also possible that other driver / firmware updates (eg Thunderbolt) have contributed to fixing those problems.

I want the big screen in a relatively small computer so the 5510 ticks the right boxes for me. I havn't had serious problems prior to the BIOS update killing the battery charging. There is the comfort of Dell's business support although I would much prefer a trouble-free computer.

John

 

I ended up updated all that I can on driver and firmware etc. One of the USB 3 firmware updater is identified as a threat by AVG and can't be installed. Everything work right now, fingers crossed.
i can't really rely on the precision optimiser for the update detection.

 

A program which rewrites firmware could be a threat, but if you have downloaded it direct from Dell then it should not be. Disable AVG and install it.

Anyway, my 5510 now charges again after the mainboard and battery were replaced. However, the replacement battery only charges to about 80Whr unlike the original when charged to the full 84WHr design capacity. I will avoid version 13 of the BIOS and wait for the next one before doing another update.

John