Precision 7510 Owner's Thread

I haven't noticed any coil whine with the 6820HQ in my system. With NVIDIA and graphics switching, I can get over 5 hours battery if I am careful (lowish brightness, no intensive activity), between 3 and 4 is more normal with regular use. You cannot turn off the dGPU in the BIOS, but in Windows you can configure the integrated graphics to be preferred for all applications (in the NVIDIA control panel) which should keep the NVIDIA card powered off, or you can disable the NVIDIA card in device manager which should keep anything from trying to use it.

 

On top of Aaron answer, you can note that :
- coil whine is not specific to 6820hq cpu, not specific to 7510 either. It can be present on any electronic part. And most likely is present on all parts, just low enough most of the time. So basically, you have to be lucky to get a coil whine free PC.
- obviously, battery life depends on usage. But as a general rule, those mobile workstation laptops are simply too powerful to give you decent battery life. 3 to 4 hours are not even granted under normal/heavy workload
- you cannot disable the dGPU. But if you don't need it at all and want to save a few extra watts, you can remove it entirely. The dGPU is on an MXM card, not soldered. Keep in mind this won't give you that much more battery life as the card operates at really low voltage/frequencies when not used. And it's used only by apps that need GPU power.

 

Indeed, you can remove the dGPU completely and the system will boot and work fine with only the Intel GPU. In past systems, some external display connectors would stop working if you did this. In the 7510, I believe all of the connectors on the system are wired to the Intel GPU if graphics switching is enabled, but the some connectors on the ePort dock are still wired to the dGPU, so be wary if you plan on using that.

 

Disabling that left check box in BIOS under Video Settings disables the iGPU completely and gives complete control to the dGPU. If you have Switchable Graphics enabled and use a dock, be sure to also check the right box to use the display port #1 on the dock.

But I don't think it is possible to disable the dGPU completely. Are you sure @Aaron44126 ? I've tried, closest I can get is to limit it's use but power draw is still about 7w on my 7710 with m5000m

*please excuse my potato quality photo )


Side note while speaking on the dGPU: I was getting alot of screen tearing while browsing and scrolling in the past day or so. I thought it might have to do with recent Nvidia driver update I applied. Instead it seems to be Chrome itself.... chrome://flags disable "Smooth Scrolling"... fixed the tearing for me

 

In the NVIDIA control panel, go to Desktop -> Display GPU Activity Icon in Notification Area in the menu. You should get a new square icon on the system tray. If the NVIDIA GPU is off, it should show as black/grey. If it is colored, the NVIDIA GPU is on, and you'll have to figure out what app is using it before you can get it to turn off. I would be interested to know if it is showing as on or off when you are getting your 7W draw. When I investigated this in more detail with my M6700, I found a background process keeping the GPU active for no real reason.

I haven't done detailed checking with the 7510 (assuming 7710 is mostly the same) but I have been able to get good results on my M6700. Bokeh's M6600 review shows a system with Quadro 4000M and Optimus running the entire system on as low as 8 watts.

[Edit] Is 7W from the dGPU or from the entire system? If you got your entire system down to 7W I think you are doing pretty good on the dGPU not using much/any power.

 

Yeah, I get nothing in the "GPU Activity" as you mentioned. Implying the dGPU isn't being utilized for any specific program or application, but it is still sitting there drawing some power.

See my post here in the 5510 thread showing my 7710 dGPU power limit and it's power draw (not system power draw, just the dGPU draw)... Dell Precision 5510 Owner's Lounge

So in some respects it isn't enabled I guess. But it is still there drawing power. I can't shut it off completely in other words. But it is close enough for me. Actually I like being a power hog and prefer to run with not limits (ie. using the dGPU for everything). But I'll read Bokeh's M6700 notes on this subject too. I'm sttill learning alot about Optimus as I never used it previous to this latest precision purchase.

 

So is it "on" (colored) or "off" (grey)? If it is "on" but no apps show up in the activity list, there is another tool that will give you more information. Check the NVIDIA Optimus Test Tool, I am attaching it as it is somewhat hard to find. This is what I used to determine which background process was keeping the GPU on in my M6700.

Should be possible to get it "off" (grey), I have that state on my 7510 right now.

[Edit] Hang on, trying to get it uploaded inside the 2MB limit.

 

It is grey. But occasionally it does turn multicolored for a fraction of a second then goes back to grey. But every time I check it shows no programs in the activity. I'll download and try that optimus tool to see what is happening. nvidia-smi.exe shows 0 programs yet it shows a draw. Would be nice to know exactly what it is doing, I'll try your program.

* Thanks. I'll try that optimus tool later tonight and report back what it shows. I need to use my dGPU at the moment.

 

You might also give GPU-Z a try. It has a "sensors" tab showing a lot of realtime data, including power draw along with frequencies and thermal info. I guess the power draw is an estimated value, so not sure it's super reliable, but it does return data consistent with your usage.

 

A note on this, I have found that running GPU-Z may cause the Quadro to power up, so the data that you get there may not be consistent with ordinary idle Optimus behavior.