Precision 7530 & Precision 7730 owner's thread

Precision 7730:
Tried update bios to 1.3.7. Sees the bios update screen, sees the progress bar. After it's completed (or at least the progress bar reached the end), computer restarted with no dell logo, no boot up screen or bios config after clicking repeated on F2/F12/F1, etc...

Tried dell guide of reset bios, (ctrl + esc, etc..) no effect.

LED light at bottom right blinking in the pattern of white 6, ember 3. Cannot find any useful info on the meaning of this.

Called dell support, have engineer coming end of the week, or early next, as soon as the motherboard is ready.

Apparently after updating the bios, motherboard, or ROM/where-ever-the-bios-is-stored is fried/burnt. Need to replace the motherboard...


Sad story... only had this machine for 10 weeks...


Searched in google, apparently dell has a GOOD history of burning motherboard while updating bios... Please proceed with caution.

Reason for update is, I am using Ubuntu, using TB18DC dock. The fan spins like hell when dock is connected. I thought updating bios, then updating Thunderbolt firmware would help, but...

 

Aaron - thanks for your reply and input. If I don't need six cores, then I'd drop all the way to an i5. Having a hard time wrapping my head around that...the i9 is calling me like a moth to a flame. Most-if not all of my issues seem to be more GPU related. If I could pop a P1000 into the M3800 I'd probably be good.

It sounds like the days of future proofing have passed ; after getting ~6 years out of my M3800, I feel like a relic. During that same time-frame, you're on you 3rd different machine.

So, If you don't mind me asking, is this by design, or want/need, or is that now the expected lifespan? I pose this as I'm unsure of the right strategy for me and conflicted on which way to go. I mean, I could pick up a 5510 on Amazon for $800, opposed to dropping $3-4 K on a configured 7530.

 

You mention I'm on my third machine, and that is true on the work side (M4800 / 7510 / 7530) but I haven't found it to be by necessity, it just so happens that the resources are available at my workplace for me to upgrade on a pretty regular basis. I'm a tech geek/nerd sort of guy and I find it enjoyable to play with new stuff, so, I'm glad that I'm able to do it at work

Anyway, my home system is an M6700 that I paid for myself back in 2012, it has just passed six years old, and I'm totally satisfied with it. I think that I will be able to make it a full ten years to 2022. At that time, I will go all out on a Precision 7760 (already have been saving up for a while) and we will see if the cycle can repeat.

I'm actually a but surprised that it has lasted this long. My two previous personal systems only lasted four years each before I was basically desperate for a replacement (2004-2008 and 2008-2012). I recognized that PC performance improvements were slowing down so I figured that maybe this system would last me six years. And here we are, and I am still happy to keep it for a bit longer.

When considering what I would most push me to upgrade from my M6700, I found that it came down to graphics, the display (4K/high-DPI would be nice), and storage speed (NVMe). 4K and NVMe are more like wishlist items than necessities, I can happily live on 1080p and SATA SSDs for now. Graphics however was starting to feel like a crunch (and GPUs are still making big gains with each generation, unlike CPUs I feel) so last year I upgraded the K5000M to an M5000M, a GPU that was three years newer. I don't do graphics for work, though, I do software/coding, on my personal system these days I use the graphics purely for gaming. I'm satisfied with it for now so, like I said, I think that I can make it another three generations before upgrading. (Now that six core CPUs are out, CPU speed is also a draw for an upgrade, but for the moment still in the "wishlist" category — maybe eight-core CPUs will be available in a few years...)

Now, you're coming from a M3800, and I see you mention that you've also found graphics to be the biggest draw for an upgrade. In that system the graphics are what, a K1100M? I can totally see that being a limiting factor. That's a far cry from the K5000M that I was complaining about. I see that you use AutoCAD so you actually need the graphics for productivity. In that case I'd recommend that you purchase the P3200 instead of the P2000, if you do end up getting a 7530 instead of a 5530, because you seem like someone who would like to keep your system for a long time and that will make sure that you get the longest use out of it. (P3200 should have speed similar to the 2000-series of whatever the next generation is, so it's sort of like buying yourself an extra generation.)

And with regards for this being "now the expected lifespan", again if graphics is your main crunch point, these systems have something that your M3800 and my M6700 do not, and that is the Thunderbolt port. This opens up a new realm of upgradeability... With an external GPU you can easily push the graphics performance further and even upgrade the graphics down the line with minimal hassle. Most external GPUs are just boxes that contain a standard desktop PCIe graphics card, which itself can be independently upgraded with any off-the-shelf card. With graphics switching / Optimus enabled, the external GPU can even feed back to your laptop's internal display. I haven't tried it myself but my understanding is that driver support has come a long way over the past few years and at this point it works pretty well and seamlessly. This is assuming that you spend most of your time working in one spot (an external GPU would not be convenient to lug around).

Anyway. My two cents.

 

Does anyone know if the spacing between the USB-C connectors on the 7*30 happens to be the same as on the macbook pro?

 

Received replacement TB18 dock this morning. Immediately experienced the USB stuttering issue unfortunately. Haven't run into power issues as of yet. Also, they didn't include a return shipping label -- maybe they know these things are trash and don't want to fool with it, haha!

 

Started the process... Complaining to Dell ProSupport about the dock power issue. (Not getting to the USB stuttering issue yet.)

Since we have three 7530's and three TB18DC docks at the office, I was able to do some cross-troubleshooting.
* Only two 7530's actually present today with one guy working remotely
* Both 7530's show the power issue on all three docks — Power will only be delivered to the laptop on roughly one out of five connection attempts — So we could not blame the issue squarely on the Precisions or squarely on the docks, it appears to be pervasive

The rep I had was great and eager to help but not familiar with the latest Precision series or the new docks. He ended up engaging an engineer for assistance in troubleshooting. The engineer in turn went off to the lab to try to replicate the issue. They ended up dispatching three new docks but acknowledged that there may be a systemic problem going on here. (He was kind of vague on that but it sounded like the engineer was aware of existing issues with these docks.)


To others out there, this just occurred to me, has anyone experienced the power issue on the 7730 or could it be limited to the 7530?

[Edit]
Oh, also, I'll mention that I've been running with C-states turned off in the BIOS for over a week (or two?) and in that time the USB stuttering issue has vanished, I have not had any occurrences. I've done some battery life testing and haven't found it to be significantly worse, though maybe battery life has been cut by up to 20%. I can get about three hours on the 6-cell battery. This is with the screen at max brightness, graphics switching turned off, and no particular effort to conserve power — in this case it seems to be roughly in line with what I was getting before but perhaps cut by about half an hour, certainly have not done scientific testing though.

 

I have a 7730. During my testing with the initial docks, I got succesful power delivery in one out of four connection attempts (close enough to your succes rate). The two replacement docks I got do better; the succes/fail ratio inverted; on average three out of four attempts power succesfully. Still, having to replug your dock one out of four times is not the sort of thing I find acceptable for a device I need to use several times each day.

 

I got this interesting note back from the service request guy...

@Dell-Mano_G I think that we would really appreciate some feedback on this issue...

 

Damn... You'd think they'd try it out before shipping worldwide...

 

So, what exactly would be the point of this thing if you have to plug in additional wires? I'm already having to plug in a usb hub to bypass the stuttering mouse/kb.