Precision 7530 & Precision 7730 owner's thread

Good to hear that, thanks. I think I might upgrade an older XPS 15 to try it out before installing on my 7730.

 

So, my old 7530 now refuses to switch on, after not having used it for the past 5 months or so. Not sure why this is happening; I opened it up to restore the P3200 and add another stick of RAM, and everything was cleaned up well. Even the power LED doesn't light up when it's plugged in.

 

Please change the CMOS battery, most likely this is the root cause for not starting up...

 

Tried this, no difference. Changing the CMOS battery was also more trouble than strictly necessary: did they have to hermetically seal the packaging and solder the connectors to a simple CR2032 battery?

I am planning to buy a new DC power jack, a new power distribution board, a new power button (though I doubt this is the cause), and of course, a new CMOS battery. Hopefully all this fixes the issue, as I would like to sell the laptop...

 

Hi everyone,

I have a few questions:

1. What sort of physical maintenance do you do on your 7x30? I mean things like blowing dust out of vents, stuff like that?
   
   
2. What's the last stable BIOS version you recommend? When I asked here a few weeks ago, it sounded like the latest BIOS has some issues.
   
   
3. I haven't updated most of the drivers for my 7730 since the spring, since I don't want to introduce any new issues. Is it safe to install the most recent set of drivers?

 

Also, my system has been slow and stuttering lately (thus the questions in my previous post).

I just ran LatencyMon to gain some insight and this is what shows up.





Any ideas? I've seen mention of using ThrottleStop to max out the processor power, but I've never looked into that.

Thanks.

EDIT: Just got this BSOD from a SYNTHETIC_WATCHDOG_TIMEOUT stop code just a few minutes after a reboot. The computer was doing nothing.

 

I have a Precision 7530 running with latest BIOS and latest Dell-provided drivers and no trouble. I take the bottom cover off and blow the fans out about once every four months. (It definitely helps, I didn't do it for the first couple of years and I definitely noticed a decrease in the amount of times the system wanted to kick the fans up to higher speeds once I blew them out.)

ndis.sys points to the network driver. Are you using the system on Wi-Fi or Ethernet? Does the behavior change if you switch?

 

Okay, good. I'll do a round of updates today.

Thanks for the reminder. My machine is due for that again.

Ethernet, but I've tried both now and the result was the same. I also disabled other network "devices" (virtual devices installed by VPNs, etc.) as a troubleshooting step. I also ran CHKDSK and all drives are fine.

After everything, I elevated the back of the laptop and pointed a desk fan at it to improve airflow, and that seems to help with the slowdowns. Between everything, I'm thinking that heat and throttling may be an issue.

Do you use ThrottleStop with your 7530? Any pointers about it and especially what settings I should try with my 7730 i7-8850H?

 

I've never used Throttlestop but @Ionising_Radiation might have some feedback here...

 

Thanks. Hopefully he does.