Precision 7550 & 7750 Owners' Thread

My 7530's stand is a lot more bootleg—it's a spare Nikon DSLR charger brick that I use to prop up the back I only just got a monitor and keyboard, and I need to do some cable management, too...

 

No problems at all. Here's a photo of the laptop on the stand (balanced down the middle):



The fan vent locations are completely open. The hottest part of the chassis (in between the two fans) is passively cooled by by the stand.

 

Hello Guys! Have been following this thread for last couple of weeks. Was hoping for a review for Precision 7750 before I place the order for it. I guess no one has it yet!! Placed my order today. i7-10875H, Quadro 4000, 2x32 GB RAM, 2x1 TB SSD, 17.3 inch 3840x2160 display. This will be my first workstation laptop. Will be shifting from my 2017 MacBook Pro. I am hoping this configuration will be able to keep up the speed and thermal with heavy uses of Photoshop, Lightroom and Premiere. Expected delivery is 21st July. Anyone else is expecting a 7750 soon?

 

Awesome. The 15" and 17" Precision 7000 systems from Dell have generally been remarkably similar (which is why we have decided to combine the owner's threads). I think that you can assume that almost all of @SlurpJug's observations about the 7550 will apply to your system as well. Just a little bit bigger (and little bit cooler too hopefully).

 

Yup, @SlurpJug has done an amazing job, kudos to him. Thermal was the only reason why I went with larger 17 inch model. Hope it will not disappoint me like my $3200 MacBook Pro!!

 

Been struggling with this Temp2 heating issue. Only happens when in high performance mode or when a USB-C hub is plugged in. I ran a Dell diagnostic stress test for the entire system off of their support site and this is what I got:


I'm pretty sure that Temp2 is actually the PCH temperature. I took a look at the service manual and there doesn't appear to be any cooling at all for the PCH (aside from a tiny piece of copper foil). The 7540 had a thick thermal pad that bridged the PCH and the metal backplate of the palmrest (underneath the keyboard). This one doesn't appear to have anything at all and the 113C temps are deeply concerning.

The fans are obviously at full speed doing nothing, as long as a USB C device is plugged in. I tested with a multiport, as well as Dell's own USB C to Ethernet adapter.

ProSupport was of no help at all so I'm hoping someone can provide some much needed insight.

 

Maybe I have mentioned this in the past so I apologize if so. (I've posted this so many times I cannot remember who I have said it to.) In Windows advanced power settings, make sure that PCIe link state power management is set to maximum power savings. If it is not already set that way then it might take care of your issue.

 

I just tested it, same issue. Plugging in any USB C device causes the insane temperatures for Temp2.

I decided to open up the machine up and do this:



The inner frame (made of plastic) sits between the little copper shim for the PCH (so there is something after all, I guess!!!) and I just stacked 3 thermal pads on top of each other. Temp2 now sits 10C cooler at 60C with the USB C hub plugged in instead of 75+. I will run the same Dell stress test again and respond with the peak temps of Temp2. If Temp2 remains below 113C then we can confirm that it is indeed the PCH that is severely neglected in terms of thermal management. I would consider this a serious thermal engineering failure if this were true since USB C and Thunderbolt is heavily used by many in professional environments.


EDIT: Temp2 peaked at 106C but quickly dropped after the stress test was stopped. Without the pads, the temps would drop slowly but it would take nearly 15 minutes to half an hour to do so.

There is an offset cutout in the inner frame that sits next to the copper shim. I hypothesize that having the edge of the thermal pad actually make contact with the shim and putting chipset thermal compound in between the shim and the PCH will lead to better temps. It's not much but it's as far as I'm willing to go in terms of modifications. Don't see myself cutting a hole in the plastic.

EDIT: This didn't fix anything..

 

@Aaron44126 I'm looking under power options and I can't see any plans other than Balanced. I checked if CsEnabled is set to true in the registry but no such entry exists. In addition, I have tried enabling power plans via the elevated command prompt and none are showing up under Power Options. When I open Balanced mode, there is no option to adjust Link State Power Management.

 

Wow, I've never it look like that before. Are you on Windows 10 version 2004 by chance? I haven't upgraded yet.



It's normal for no options other then "Balanced" to be available now. You can switch with the command prompt. Elevation is not necessary.
powercfg -s 381b4222-f694-41f0-9685-ff5bb260df2e
(switch to "Balanced" plan)

powercfg -s 8c5e7fda-e8bf-4a96-9a85-a6e23a8c635c
(switch to "High Performance" plan)