Precision 7530 & Precision 7730 owner's thread

It's not like CCFL where there are gas inside the tube that could degrade.

Do LEDs degrade over the years if they're not used, or the pixels on the screen?

Then again I might be wrong.

 

My HP ZBook 15 G4 purchased May 2017 has a Sharp panel manufactured end of 2015. So I guess this could be common, seems like Sharp produced enough for a few years right when UHD displays started showing up in laptops.

Code:

Monitor
  Manufacturer............. Sharp
  Plug and Play ID......... SHP1445
  Serial number............ n/a
  Manufacture date......... 2015, ISO week 47
  Filter driver............ None
  -------------------------
  EDID revision............ 1.4
  Input signal type........ Digital (DisplayPort)
  Color bit depth.......... 8 bits per primary color
  Color encoding formats... RGB 4:4:4
  Screen size.............. 350 x 190 mm (15.7 in)
  Power management......... Not supported
  Extension blocs.......... None
  -------------------------
  DDC/CI................... Not supported

Color characteristics
  Default color space...... sRGB
  Display gamma............ 2.20
  Red chromaticity......... Rx 0.640 - Ry 0.329
  Green chromaticity....... Gx 0.210 - Gy 0.710
  Blue chromaticity........ Bx 0.149 - By 0.060
  White point (default).... Wx 0.313 - Wy 0.328
  Additional descriptors... None

Timing characteristics
  Range limits............. Not available
  GTF standard............. Not supported
  Additional descriptors... None
  Preferred timing......... Yes
  Native/preferred timing.. 3840x2160p at 60Hz (16:9)
    Modeline............... "3840x2160" 533.250 3840 3888 3920 4000 2160 2163 2168 2222 -hsync -vsync
  Detailed timing #1....... 3840x2160p at 50Hz (16:9)
    Modeline............... "3840x2160" 533.250 3840 3888 3920 4000 2160 2163 2168 2666 -hsync -vsync
  Detailed timing #2....... 3840x2160p at 48Hz (16:9)
    Modeline............... "3840x2160" 533.250 3840 3888 3920 4000 2160 2163 2168 2776 -hsync -vsync

Standard timings supported

 

Does Intel XTU come on these machines? Was it designed for business use?

The only stable undervolt is no undervolt. That's what Intel has tested as acceptable for the binning process they have created. What you're selling is a custom configuration/change to a unique CPU - something businesses won't spend time doing. Again, I'm not debating the merits of doing it - merely the fact that this laptop is not for that kind of target audience. If you want to do it, have at it. But I shouldn't have to do it to get a CPU that doesn't throttle under load. That's the definition of a poorly cooling laptop.

 

Normal depends on who you're asking.

For this laptop, I've seen, and it is my opinion, that this is normal. It will throttle under load because the cooling system just isn't up to par.

 

Obviously this is off topic, but I'd be interested in hearing more. I have been looking at a GMC Canyon, but with all of the recalls recently for non-airbag related items, I'm hesitant. Note that I don't consider the Takata airbag recall a manufacturer's issue - I consider that a corporation that really screwed a lot of companies... but I digress.

I agree with your first point. I disagree with your second. If he has undervolted to reduce temps, and then says that the laptop has decent cooling, it is misinforming. You're using a mod to directly affect temperatures and then spouting off about how well the laptop cools. There are not many people that will undervolt this laptop in its target audience. It's disingenuous in my opinion, and misleading to anyone looking at purchasing this laptop. I bought this thing for 6 cores and NVMe power, because I have a 7700K at home with two NVMes in RAID 0. I've seen the power. This laptop, always throttling, kills that power. It's a significant data point, and people need to know it doesn't cool well at stock, the way most business users will use this laptop.

 

I think you may need to reframe your expectations.

Looking at the high-end i9 or Xeon 2186M. These CPUs have an advertised clock speed of 2.9 GHz and a turbo boost of 4.8 GHz. Are you expecting it to be able to run at 4.8 GHz indefinitely? (Or a bit under that, whatever the maximum multi-threaded boost rate is.) Intel doesn't set the maximum rate under the expectation that it can be maintained indefinitely, in fact, quite the opposite. The whole reason that CPUs are advertised at two rates these days is to say, look, we'll guarantee 2.9 GHz and you can get higher, basically automatic dynamic overclocking, for bursts of time until things get too hot. We're past the days when you can expect turbo boost indefinitely in a mobile system (without working for it). Naturally, some laptops have better cooling than others and will be able to go longer without throttling. I haven't seen any claim of an 8th gen 6-core workstation-class system that can run at max turbo indefinitely (again, without extra work such as repasting/undervolting which can allow things to stretch further). In fact, Dell doesn't make the claim that their systems can achieve this anywhere.

To be fair, it is true that a few generations back there were systems that could run at maximum turbo speed without throttling. This seems to have broken more recently, especially with the transition to six cores. I think this is actually good — it means that Intel is delivering chips that can push the best laptop cooling systems beyond their limits to give you a short-term boost in performance. That's the whole point of turbo boost, and if there are systems that can maintain the maximum turbo speed, then Intel isn't pushing the clock speed high enough. And then when the throttling kicks in and you're still running at around 4 GHz... On six cores... In a laptop... What's to complain about?

My two cents... Take it or leave it.

Now, I did see from a previous post of yours that you claim that your system is running at 99C and throttling "all the time" with the fans running and your experience seems out of sorts with what I have experienced. If this is happening then you have a problem and you have Dell either come out and properly fix your cooling system or just ship you a whole new laptop. In my system, the fans only kick on when a serious compute job is happening and it does not throttle under normal business / development use (and even throttling it bounces around between 3.7 and 3.9 GHz under load — stock cooling system and no undervolting).

 

It also matters a lot on ambient temperature and also if you have the Intel Turbo Boost on/off. From my experience, running parallelized machine learning jobs on my ZBook 15 G4 with i7-7820HQ on all 8 threads (CPU constantly at or near 100%), temperatures get up to 75-80 deg C with Turbo Boost off (so @ 2.90 GHz). If Turbo Boost were on temps can get into the 90s.

 

I think 4.3 is default for the i9, not sure about the Xeon though.

4.3 at the AW17 is nearing 85w and that heatsink with liquid metal already floats around 89c spike on the max core temp at 24c ambient.

 

But I'm not the one setting them. Dell is. HP is. People on this forum are.

Indefinitely? Yes. In an air conditioned room at 68-72F, I sure do. I at least expect to be able to run Office apps or Visual Studio without it throttling.in 30 seconds. Same with other apps. But even pushing the CPU to its max, the system should be able to keep up. If it was outside at 80 or 90 degrees? Or the vents were blocked? Okay. I get that is a difficult and out-of-band requirement. But these were designed as business laptops, and most businesses keep their A/C between 68 and 75 degrees. These are high-end laptops that were advertised as having the latest tech and processors. They should be designed to handle it.

I find this kind of thinking to be part of the problem.

"Here's all this power you can have! But you just can't use it!" If the power is there, then build the laptop to support it. It's called proper engineering.

I have a 6700K at home doing almost 100% load, at 60C on air cooling, and it stays up for months at a time. In fact, the only time it goes down is to reboot for Windows Updates whenever I remember that I need to do it because it runs so smoothly I don't ever need to log into it to see what it's doing.

I don't like the fact that we're going to blame Intel for creating a processor that has the same TDP as the previous generations for the laptop manufacturer's poor cooling solutions.

Maybe I should blame Dell's power adapter for being 180W instead of my 100-year old house's knob-and-tube wiring for not being able to provide that much power...

I'm trying to get a new laptop. It's been a week. I escalated to Mr. Michael Dell, and he sent me to one of his people, who is going to escalate it to tech support... where I've been stuck for a week.

 

Even with a repaste of liquid metal and 22c ambient I very much doubt that the 7530 and 7730 can run at full turbo (4.3 on the i9 is default turbo).