Dell Precision 5520 Owner's

I just ordered my Precision 5520 w/ Xeon v6, 32 gb ram, 1tb m2 class 50 drive, intel wifi, lg battery, w10 pro, office pro, recovery usb, 3yrs pro plus and a 1tb external usb drive. It's supposed to be here in a week. I hate the waiting...

The heaviest use with probably be with Lightroom for my picture editing. My plan is to also dual boot with Linux Mint and play around with it. Linux is new for me, so that will probably take some time.

Who else has taken a chance on this new machine? Any results good or bad? This is my first Dell. What should I watch out for? I was torn between the new Lenovo P51 and this 5520. Is the pro support plus worth it?

 

This is my work computer that my company provided for me to crunch data and play hearthstone on the side. It's a great system that I've really enjoyed and has been very durable for me thus making it a great work/business laptop for me.

 

Mine is also a top end config but with a FHD display and a smaller battery + 2 TB HDD combo. I made my company purchase it for work, especially running engineering simulations.

I had a few serious driver and BIOS issues in the beginning leading to BSOD errors. Had to manually update all the necessary drivers until the system was stable again.

Regarding Pro Support Plus I think it is not justified. I have Pro Support with 24x7 phone support but these support guys are not technically capable for resolving specific issues and the case anyways gets transferred to other support specialists (who are not available round the clock) leading to considerable delays!

Otherwise I really like the system overall. It is expensive though!

 

I got this a day early. Way to go Dell. So far I'm happy with the build. The only problem so far is with Office Pro 2016. It seems like MS changed things in the middle of Dec 2016. No more activation keys with office. The only way to activate is over the internet and to open an account with MS.

 

Just got a Precision 5520 from the Dell Business Outlet about a month and a half ago. I really like it for the most part, as it is well built and seems to handle my video work quite well.

I've encountered two issues thus far:

1: The installed EQ software "Waves Maxx Audio Pro" was causing really loud volume spikes at the beginning of video playback. A pretty big issue since I need to use headphones and I don't want my eardrums blown out. Disabling the "Playback" profile seems to have fixed the issue.

2. While working on some animation yesterday, a burning smell started coming out of the laptop.

Obviously this second one is a huge concern. Going to be sending it into a Dell repair center and will report back with updates. So far Dell has been really quick to give support.

EDIT (4/11/18)
Just got the unit back. Note says they replaced the heatsink. Will report back if issue remains/comes back!

EDIT (6/18/18)
Been working on the laptop a lot without incident. The heat issue seems to have been resolved.

The audio issue is back, despite "Waves Maxx Audio Pro" being disabled. This isn't the first time it's come back. Previously I fixed it by rolling back the RealTek Audio driver. Unfortunately that isn't an option anymore apparently, so I'm not really sure what to do. It's pretty frustrating.

The laptop performs really great, but thus far, audio has been a nightmare on this thing.

 

My 5520 spec:
I7 7820HQ
FullHD
16gb Ram
256Gb SSD

I dont' know why BSOD every time I update driver or windows update

 

Dell has released an updated Realtek audio driver for the Precision 5520 on 11/14/2018 (though Dell says it's updated 11/15/2018) - version 6.0.1.8555 A12.

 

Just wanted to give an update: I'm not having audio issues anymore. I do use a laptop cooler while doing animation on this laptop though as I've had it shut down numerous times from overheating while doing work. If I could go back in time I'd go for the 7720 that looks to have much better cooling. The 5520 is great but it's not really up to the task when you need it to work all day on a demanding project.

 

Woof! I'm now having lots of issues getting the laptop to charge. I even bought a new power adapter since the original was falling apart. There are tiny pins in the power port that seem to easily be bent out of shape too. Pretty crap design for a premium level workstation to be honest.

I originally purchased this laptop because I didn't want to spend the money on an equivalent Macbook Pro. I'm coming to the realization now however that when I add up all the lost time spent dealing with this laptops problems it's cost me well over the price of a new Mac.

Needless to say, I won't be buying a Dell again.