Precision 7530 & Precision 7730 owner's thread

Tried charging both while asleep and powered off. The charge led comes on for a second then turns off.

Confirmed the output specifications of the charger. It supports USB Power Delivery 20v @ 4.5A = 90W.

Looks like I’ll be returning this charger. The charger does work on another laptop.


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Thanks so much for your help - I have the new 5530 that I will set up on Saturday and have a new Samsung 970 Pro 1 TB ordered for that, so I want to do this the best and right way - and I assume this will also boot the fastest, etc.
I will happily start over with the 7530 even though I'm a few hours in if it is the best thing to do. Here is where I am at now, and please confirm that all looks good so I can continue:
Boot mode is set to UEFI, Secure Boot is OFF.
Enable Legacy Option ROMs is in fact not checked.
SATA Operation is set to AHCI.
Enable Switchable Graphics is checked so NVIDIA Optimus can do its thing.
Secure Boot Enable was not checked, as I said, but I have now checked it.
I have left the Secured Boot Mode as the default Deployed Mode.

So if you can confirm that all above is good, then my biggest questions relate to
How to go about finding and install the drivers?
How do you know which drivers you need and which you don't need?
In what order do you install the drivers in, and is this really important?
I remember in the past with Precision workstations (I've had many/most, starting with the M60) that they said the order in which the drivers were installed was important.
Dell of course suggests Dell Command Update for some time, and of course they recommend that you use this to let it automatically install your drivers. I notice Aaron44126 said in post #1430 on November 15, 2018 that he does not use Dell Command Update - but again, that makes me curious as to how you figure out which drivers you need...

Ionising_Radiation said a couple posts early in reply to one of my posts that I should set to AHCI so that I don't use the RST controller. In fact Dell Command Update did download this driver, but when it went to install it - it failed and listed it with a red bullet with a minus sign. So I suppose the AHCI that I was set to is what prevented it from installing.

Finally, How do I get NumLock to turn on automatically at boot? I think it has been an option that is checked in BIOS for years, but even though Enable Numlock is checked, it is not enabled in fact.

 

With your setup, you don't need to reinstall Windows. Just flip the secure boot toggle on.
Driver install isn't that much of a hassle nowadays. You can find a list of drivers here: http://ftp.dell.com/published/Pages/precision-15-7530-laptop.html
But really, if you get the system online (install the Ethernet or Wi-Fi driver), Windows Update will pull down almost everything. Install the Thunderbolt stuff (driver and firmware), ControlVault if you have the fingerprint reader, and the Intel Serial I/O driver is required for the touchpad to work. Install the latest BIOS. Intel RST isn't needed with the system set to AHCI mode (it doesn't do anything for an NVMe drive in this case). You might benefit from installing Samsung's NVMe driver, which you would have to get directly from Samsung.

 

Is anyone else having an issue where the CPU throttles down to 800Mhz under combined GPU and CPU loads? This happens and Throttlestop tells me there's PL! throttling on both the CPU and the GPU.

 

Did that and got random BSODs on resume from hibernate with Windows 1809. No problems with MS nvme driver. Benchmarks quite similar with both drivers. So I would recommend against samsung nvme drivers.

 

Thank you.

How do you judge this display ? Do you see a good distribution of brightness ? Any backlight bleeding ?
Have you ever experienced eye strain when looking at the display for a long period of time ?

To all who have 7530 with 8950hk + 16gb ram:

1- What temps do you get running cpu stress test 100% (aida64) ?
Are you able to reach at least max stock turbo frequencies (4.6 GHz 1core and 4,3 GHz all 6 cores) ?
If not, is undervolt enough or must be done a repaste with anything more performant like tg kryonaut ?

For those who set undervolt on 8950hk, mind if you can post your settings here ? what's better: xtu or throttlestop ?

2- Could you please share details of dell stock 2x8gb ram sticks with their respective parameters like cas latency (cl), tRCD, tRP, tRAS ? (maybe a cpuz screenshot would be better for the purpose).

Hope you can help !

 

The display is colour-accurate as far as I've eyeballed it (i.e. compared with Apple MacBooks). I haven't properly tested the colour calibration with a colorimeter yet.

A big problem (for me) is that the display is only 6-bit, instead of 8. This means there is very obvious dithering, especially in generally monochromatic environments like the desktop. In the near future, I plan to upgrade the display to either a TN 120 Hz 100% ARGB display, or an IPS 144 HZ 72% NTSC display.

As for backlight bleed, that isn't really a problem with the display itself, but rather an issue with how it's mounted at the factory. There is tremendous variance: I have zero backlight bleeding, even when the machine was new; others have had large bright spots. You could look through this thread.

I've not used the computer long enough to experience eye strain, but I presume the real question you're asking, is actually the PWM frequency. I haven't noticed it, and even on the lowest brightness, it was nicely useable. Brightness distribution is alright, as far as I can tell without professional equipment.

As for your other questions, nope; the Precision 7530 cannot handle full Turbo Boost clocks on the E-2176M, let alone the 8950HK. An undervolt and repaste are absolutely necessary. Instead of Kryonaut, which is rather runny, I suggest you use something like Gelid GC, Cooler Master Maker Nano, or Phobya Nanogrease, which are all very viscous. There is also a problem of core temperature inconsistency, which probably means an issue of uneven heatsinks.

I have only one 8 GB module installed (waiting, possibly in vain, for the price of DDR4 DRAM to fall), here are the details:

 

What is a good program to use to benchmark my 7530 and see temps and if/where it is being throttled?

 

Is it possible to change what program opens when you press the 7730's Calc button?

 

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\AppKey\18

Change or create a string value "ShellExecute" where you enter the full path to the app you want to start when <calc> is pressed.