Hands on Dell Precision 7710

I was pm'ing a P70 owner on the forums last week and he said his laptop has internal display tearing when using optimus (with linux), and no problems with external. Maybe an issue with skylake+optimus?

This is weird because if the haswell generation had any tearing issues with hybrid grapchics, it would be with the external displays.

 

Just received our other 7710 that shows it was built on May 2. It came with 1.3.12 bios and so far it is working without any issues. Just need to update the drivers and such and set it up for work.

*edit: The newer 7710 laptop we got for my business partner has some high pitched whine that is headache inducing. I'm not sure I can accept it. It is not extremely overpowering noise, but it gets to me. It is definitely fan noise, but a higher pitched fan noise than what is in mine. I can force it to stop by changing the fan control settings in Dell Command Power Manager under Thermal Management.

I'm guessing it is bearings. I may call Dell Pro Support tomorrow to see if we can get the fans replaced as a solution if I still get a headache from it. I wish the heatsink and fans were not fixed to each other. Would be very convenient to drop in replacment fans without having to remove the heatsinks.

*edit2: My partner says I must be crazy and I'm hearing things. He doesn't hear any whine and hardly hears any fan noise either. Says the new laptop is way quieter than his older precision and he doesn't hear any strange whine. I agree that it is MUCH quieter than his old laptop. So we will not be making any Dell support calls regarding fan noise/whine as long as the user is happy

 

New Bios for the 7510/7710 version 1.4.14

http://www.dell.com/support/home/us...710-workstation&languageCode=en&categoryId=BI

Fixes & Enhancements
Fixes:
- Fixed system will be restarted twice issue when loading BIOS default.
- Fixed unexpected volume up/down behavior by the hot key Fn + page up/down.
- Fixed USB Type C speed issue.
- Fixed Video BIOS Version information in BIOS setup menu.
- Fixed system no error message when attached dock with 240W adapter.

Enhancements:
- Updated to the newer version of the Intel CPU microcode patch.
- Updated Embedded Controller Engine Firmware.
- Updated Intel Video BIOS and Graphics Output Protocol driver.
- Updated "Keypad, By Numlock" information in setup menu.

I have not tried it yet. I am still on 1.4.8

Edit: I updated from 1.4.8 to 1.4.14 and update went fine.

 

Go ahead and try it and report back (so the rest of us aren't guinea pigs)

 

I was one of those that were having issues with the update, causing the colored snow screen. I just updated to 1.4.14 and it installed successfully. Haven't tested all the issues I've had to see if they are fixed yet.

 

Same here (colored snow) but 1.4.14 seems to be working normally. I did notice that the screen is brighter now (I had disabled switchable graphics to get 1.4.8 to work properly). It is set to the same sRGB as before but now looks better. I presume the Intel graphics is responsible since I re-enabled switchable graphics in BIOS.

 

Is there any noticeably quicker wake from sleep after upgrading to 1.4.14 from 1.3.8? I'm also hoping they eventually fix whatever it is that causes the fans to ignore the thermal manager profiles in Dell Command Power Manager. Those are really my only two complaints with the system.

I have a few issues with win10 though or at least this one:

Relocating Documents to the D: drive under my Dropbox folder caused weird stuff to happen in file explorer. Such as replication of the "Documents" folder in "This PC" each time a new folder was added to Documents or subfolders under documents. I ended up with at least 15 multiple "Documents" folders showing under "This PC" before I noticed it. lol. And is much worse if linked subfolders are on a business account where other employees drop files or create/change directories. THe multiple existances of "Documents"... they are mirrors of each other, not actually physical duplication on the SSD. Very weird bug to find in a high profile OS (flashbacks to Vista). But the workaround is to set under options "Show All Files". Apparently this bug has existed and known since Win10 debuted. I only discovered it yesterday as I was setting up our 2nd 7710 with Win10. My first system I apparently setup as "Show all Files" prior to installing dropbox because I never noticed it there.

Either MS doesn't know how to resolve that bug (incompetent or it is very difficult [been a year]?) or they don't think it is a high priority (they don't care to fix it?). both make me angry.

Anyway I want to try it 1.4.12. Is nice to know that others who had problems with 1.4.8 have not had problems with 1.4.14. *edit: I should change my name to "rant"

 

So the new BIOS upgrade doesn't fix any of the issues that I've been having.

My computer doesn't resume from sleep. It does either one of the three following:

1. When resuming from sleep the keyboard lights up but the screen doesn't. About 1 minute later the screen turns on and goes directly to a BSOD with "DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE" and will stay on 0% complete.
2. When resuming from sleep, the keyboard lights up and the screen turns on, but the screen is completely black and all you can see is the cursor.
3. When resuming from sleep, the keyboard lights up, screen turns on, and I am presented with the Windows 10 login screen. The keyboard, mouse, and fingerprint reader do not respond. Shortly afterwards the BSOD mentioned above appears.

I tried to restore using the USB drive that came with the machine but was unable to do so. When I boot to the Windows 10 recovery USB drive, it doesn't recognize the 512GB SSD NVMe drive. It keeps restoring the OS to my 256GB SATA SSD. I pulled the 256GB SSD out, and now when trying to restore Windows 10 it says that there is no drive found, even though it boots to the OS fine on the 512GB M.2 NVMe drive.

 

What did you do to get your NVMe SSD to show up on the USB key that was included with the machine?

 

Are you set to RAID in bios? Maybe you need the F6 drivers to see the drive when booting from the USB.

You can try switching to AHCI in the bios. With win 10, you can switch from RAID to AHCI by setting to boot to safe mode, then on boot go into bios and make the change, and then exit bios and let it finish booting to safe mode. Once in windows, set to boot normally. With bios set to AHCI, you should not need F6 drivers. You can change it back if you want.

Here is a post where I tried the switching in Win 10

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...ns-press-release.782179/page-73#post-102232

The BSOD might be a driver issue as well when in RAID mode. Just a thought.