Precision 7550 & 7750 Owners' Thread

This has been a consistent issue for me since they switched to the Realtek audio chip (starting with M4800/M6800 in 2013). I have observed it on M4800, 7510, and 7530. I haven't actually tried it with a HIFI system but I have experienced it with headphones connected directly to the audio jack. I do believe that you are right, it has to do with the audio being turned on and off when sounds are being played or not. I've found that it is somewhat better if using the basic Microsoft audio drivers instead of Realtek ones, but more recently, I've just switched to using USB audio for sound output to avoid this problem. (I wonder if just making a silent wav file and having it loop in the background would solve it... never tried.)

 

Thank you for your reply and confirmation of the issue. I have one amplifier with USB DAC and I'm going to use it now, it works perfectly on both Windows/Linux and I won't need to relay on the Dell/Realtek audio card drivers anymore.

If the sound popping on audio jack is a common issue, it's sad that Dell doesn't want to acknowledge it at least. They even asked me to capture a video of the popping sound, so their "engineering team" can review it. Their only conclusion was that I might have faulty speakers. When I claimed my audio system works perfectly with other computers and asked if there is some "magic" turning the audio jack on/off... they came with this answer "With the new driver there are some optimizations and enhancements to make the volume better once on the Zoom app, and it why it is not working correctly with the stereo speakers."

 

I've been using the Apple USB-C/audio adapter to connect an ANC headset and apparently it has surprisingly good quality for what it is... something like this would be a possible choice to connect a system that doesn't support USB natively (for less than $10).

 

I've been trying this today on my 7530, since I often get pops when for example I get an IM notification sound, even just running the laptop internal speakers. Running a 5-minute "silent" wav file on loop in the background seems to have fixed it.

Found this thread of other users complaining about a similar issue. Alert type sounds are delayed or cut off while the audio system "wakes up". Specific to the Realtek audio chip, which is pretty pervasive in many Dell laptops.
https://www.dell.com/community/Inspiron/Windows-Program-Event-Sounds-Delayed/td-p/5863709

 

I think that just proves that there is some power management "feature" to turn the audio jack off, which turns it into high impedance state, which produces the popping sounds similar to when you touch a bare audio jack by hand.

In my case, I also faced multiple popping sounds during the booting process of Linux (just after selecting the OS in boot manager). Which makes me think, the problem/feature is probably directly in the audio chip firmware. When I'm logged into Linux, I can fix it by disabling
`# load-module module-suspend-on-idle` in `/etc/pulse/default.pa`, but I can't do anything about the booting process.

It makes me deeply disappointed by the Dell support, who instead of acknowledging their design fault and recommend me something (like to use USB DAC), they try to blame me of having faulty speakers. If I only knew the amount of issues I had with 7540/7550, I would rather stick to building my own desktop PCs.

 

Cheesy fix for Windows users.

1. Open Windows Media Player (Start→Run "wmplayer").
2. Hit the Alt key to bring up the menu. Go to Tools → Options. Devices tab. Select Speakers. Click Properties. Select the Realtek audio device from the drop-down menu. "OK" out of everything. (The purpose of this is to make sure that the silent wav file plays on the Realtek device to keep it awake, even if you plug in another audio device, like a USB headset or an external display that supports audio. This is assuming that you don't actually need to use Windows Media Player for playing music or something, which I imagine is the case for most people these days...)
3. Create a "silent.bat" file with the contents:

Code:

@echo off
set "file=silent.wav"
( echo Set Sound = CreateObject("WMPlayer.OCX.7"^)
  echo Sound.URL = "%file%"
  echo Sound.Controls.play
  echo do while Sound.currentmedia.duration = 0
  echo wscript.sleep 100
  echo loop
  echo wscript.sleep (int(Sound.currentmedia.duration^)+1^)*1000) >silent.vbs

:loop
start "" /wait /min silent.vbs
goto:loop

(Source)
This will keep the silent.wav file running in the background forever. There is no user interface presented, and CPU usage seems to be negligible.
4. Use Task Scheduler to have this run at startup. Use "Run whether user is logged in or not" (so that the console window does not appear), and "Start in" should be the folder containing the batch file and also the attached wav file.


...I'd prefer a less "brute force" option to keep the audio system from falling asleep without actually constantly feeding it audio, but I'm not coming up with anything.

 

Anyone know of a skin for Precision 7750? I'd love to protect this with something like a Dbrand skin, but I can't find any made for this.

 

Have you tested this Realtek Audio driver. I get rid of "pop" sound before any video.

https://github.com/AlanFinotty/AAFDCHDriverMod/releases

Dell Realtek driver package is 1 GB. What an earth they are doing?

 

Hadn't heard about this one. I will give it a try, thanks for the pointer.
[Edit] Doesn't seem to have taken care of the problem for me. Still getting pops before/after system alert sounds sometimes.

 

Hi, I just bought a Precision 7550 for a great price (in my country lol) with a 10875H/32GB/1To NVME/1080p DCI-P3, however it comes without a dgpu (which is fine for me) but I would like to upgrade in the future...
So, is there a list of parts number for the heatsink, nvidia card (T1000 and T2000 because RTX parts number are on the first page) and the "connector" (between motherboard and the card) ? iirc it's not compatible with older Precision DGFF 7530 and 7540 ?
Thanks a lot