Hands on Dell Precision 7710

Are you using Bitlocker or any kind of encryption on the drives?

 

One of our 7710 began having an issue trying to wake from sleep yesterday. It was eport docked with external displays connected to display ports of the dock. Put the laptop to sleep. Closed lid. When we tried to waken it again (not docked and not connected to external displays) the keyboard backlight came on, the laptop display was backlit but blank, and the drive indicator light was active.

Doing a hard reboot (4second power button press) we got the Dell Splash screen with spinning circle under it. Then it would go into same behavior with blank screen. We could get into BIOS, tried changing switchable graphics on (enabling the Intel HD graphics). Then a reboot and it worked. But when disabling Switchable graphics in BIOS (enabling nvidia gpu only) then blank screen on reboot. Tried docking again with externals but the laptop was still blank in Extended display mode. Changing from extended display to laptop only and same problem with no image. Strange though, the mouse pointer could be seen. But nothing else. I could drag from external onto the laptop display but no image on the laptop. Very weird

Nvidia control panel allowed using the quadro's Physx and such, but wanted to see why disabling switchable graphics suddenly gave blank screen.

Chatted with Dell Pro Support. After explaining all of that to support, they suggested we Download latest precision Bios, latest Intel HD Graphics driver, latest NVIDIA ISV drivers from dell website and install in that order and see what happens. Very pleased with the interaction with support.

I don't know which of the above three (BIOS, Intel Driver, or Nvidia Driver) fixed it, but it works as it should now with Switchable disabled using only the quadro. BTW, on the Nvidia driver update we selected the clean driver install option to remove any chance a setting was corrupt or carried over from the update. The newer BIOS has also helped with sleep/wake performance and other oddities I'd notice from time to time. Happy camper here.

 

Good to know about the lesser pickiness.

I am so enamored with this 7710 (even though it is giving me a lot of headaches with the 4k display) that I think I am going to get a new exact same one and travel more lightly.

And no, I only use bitlocker on external drives.

 

Why did they remove the sound keys and the dedicated Home and End keys?

I really miss them.

Other than that the keyboard is great

 

This happened again last night on both of our 7710 laptops. Seems the scenario is this...

Switchable graphics disabled. Docked with external displays via display port. Put system to sleep. Un-dock. Waken system. Then we get a blank screen on laptop, only the mouse pointer is visible.

Solution is to enable switchable graphics (to be able to view your laptop screen again), then reinstall the Nvidia driver. Then, if you so choose, disable switchable graphics again (just don't put it to sleep with switchable GPU disabled while docked, else get the blank laptop display again if attempt waken when undocked.).

I decided to enable switchable graphics to avoid future issues with this, then I reinstalled the Nvidia driver.

This is repeatable on both of our 7710s. I've not experienced it much before because I have just recently (in past month or so) disabled switchable graphics and I don't often put my system to sleep prior to undocking (I usually would shutdown prior to undocking).

Win10: 1511
System BIOS: 1.05.04
Intel GPU Driver: 20.19.15.4454
Nvidia Driver: 362.46 (listed as version 10.18.13.6246 on Dell website)

This was seen with older versions of these drivers and BIOS too so I don't think it was newly introduced.

 

PM951 safe erase

With Intel SSDs there is a utility to secure/safe erase them, it also wipes all table information for a cleaner OS install.

Is there a similar utility for the Samsung NVMe PM951?

Samsung Magician seems to work only for one M.2 Samsung drive, the 950 PRO

If not, how can they be best wiped clean before OS re-install?

Thanks.

 

While I'm not having this exact issue, I have been struggling with sleep issues for the past several months and have been working with Dell on this. When switchable graphics ENABLED, my internal display will sometimes not wake after it goes to sleep for several hours. It sometimes does not wake the display when opening the lid, or immediately trying to move the mouse after the display sleeps. Once I DISABLE switchable graphics, the issues seem to go away.

 

Mine awakes, but the laptop display is blank. The display backlight is on and I can see the mouse pointer. And I can see and use an external display if I then reconnect it to the dock. I can drag things from external display onto the laptop display (where it gets lost because I then cannot see it). Whereas yours does not even awaken? My issue happens with Switchable Graphics disabled whereas your issue happens when it is enabled. Seems very similar yet different enough that I think they are separate issues.

I consider chatting with Dell again so they can be more aware of the problem I'm having and that it still exists. I chatted with Dell Pro Support when this initially occurred and I reinstalled BIOS, iGPU driver, dGPU driver at Dell's request and that seemed to fix it (laptop display came alive again)... but issue returns next time I put it to sleep with switchable graphics disabled, docked, then try to awaken while undocked. They (Dell) probably think the problem is solved unless I or someone tells them. Problem is I'm tired of contacting support and trying to diagnose it. Maybe I'll give it another week before I contact support again. It is not really affecting my productivity except when it happens - and now knowing what triggers it I can avoid it happening again.

*edit: it is also happening if I simply disconnect my laptop from the dock while it is awake with the Switchable disabled. The laptop display goes blank. THen I redocked and I don't even get the external unless I unplug and then replug the power from the display. Weird stuff. I don't remember this happening in previous months. But perhaps I just always powered off before dissconnecting from dock. I can't remember oh well. I almost prefer not using the dock at all after all this . Actually I 'm not entirely sure it is because I'm docked but might be because I'm connected to external display? I say that because I have a simple e-port dock which is basically same as if I connected display directly to my laptop? I'm definitely going back to switchable graphics tomorrow.

*edit2: Until I learn how to properly setup Nvidia Control Panel to manage 3d settings on specific programs, I'm going to stay with using the dGPU while iGPU is disabled in bios. In Nvidia Control Panel - Adjust Image Settings - Use my preference emphasizing: "Quality". I did that rather than using Manage 3D settings because of not knowing which Features and Settings to adjust for each of my programs. As a hobbyist and very non-pro, I have trouble understanding the optimal nvidia control pannel settings for the tools I'm using (lightroom and premier). So for now I'm still using dGPU exclusively with nvidia settings to "quality" and I'll just remember to power down before undocking.

 

Sorry to butt in , Guys
Does anyone on here who owns a 4k 7710 use it for photo editing ?
I've been thinking of buying one but have been put off by reading that 4k screens are detriment to photo editing - I've yet to read something positive about a 4k screen from a photography point of view .
There's scaling issues with CS6 and there's no advantages to having a 4k screen if you're a photographer .
Someone please say something to the contrary .

 

http://www.danantonielli.com/adobe-app-scaling-on-high-dpi-displays-fix/