Precision 7550 & 7750 Owners' Thread

I have used the Sabrent 2TB RocketQ and RocketQ4 in both my 7740 and 7750, and they work great once you disable RAID in the Bios and switch to AHCI.

 

For those that got the 7x60. Is RAID or AHCI enabled in the bios. I remember that with my 7710 it came with RAID enabled and I had to change it to AHCI.

If RAID is enabled and you change it to AHCI on the 7x60 does it impact booting?


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Most likely, RAID will be enabled by default.
If Windows is already installed, you can switch easily:
* From the desktop, hold "Shift" while selecting "Restart" from the start menu.
* A boot options menu will appear. Select "Advanced startup options".
* The system reboots; at the Dell logo, hit "F2" to go to BIOS and change the AHCI/RAID mode. Then exit the BIOS.
* When Windows starts, it will show the "Advanced startup options" menu; pick safe mode.
* When Windows boots to safe mode, reboot to normal mode.

Windows will normally BSOD at boot if you change the disk controller mode, but going to safe mode first gives it a chance to figure out that the disk controller has changed and install the appropriate driver.

 

Thanks. Is there any reason why dell ships with in RAID mode? If not using RAID is AHCI better? I recall switching on my 7710 and think I had to for a Samsung drive.


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Probably it makes sense to default to RAID mode so that RAID arrays would be intact if the BIOS is reset. I prefer AHCI mode if not actually using RAID, but I think performance is largely the same so for most people it doesn’t mKe a difference.

 

This bad BIOS 1.8.0 is still available on Dell Precision 7550 support pages. Better stay in version 1.7.0 like everyone had noticed. Unplug / plug power cable is just a temporary fix after every restart.

 

I've been experimenting with the modern sleep heat issue on my 7550 and I think I found the culprit. It only heats up during sleep when a network share is open in the explorer window before it goes to sleep. Based on the sleep study (powercfg /sleepstudy), this prevents both intel and nvidia graphics and pci controller from powering down. The offenders are explorer.exe and dwm.exe. The explorer window throws an error dialog, probably related to disconnection from the net share, and that seems to keep the hardware powered up.
So, this seems to be purely a microsoft issue unrelated to any third party driver or hardware. Now I can safely go back to microsoft bashing. Although Dell deserves some blame with rushing in to implement this half-baked approach on workstations. I am not very optimistic about ms solving this issue any time soon (I've been dealing with two powerpoint bugs for the last decade).
s3 sleep would be nice if I could wake up the laptop with an external mouse/keyboard. I am hesitant to shell out on a dell dock. Can anybody confirm that some dell dock works nicely with s3 sleep in the sense of being able to wake it up without opening the lid?

 

Thank you so much for posting this. Really helped me. Also, as of today there is a new BIOS version 1.8.1 which apparently, according to a technician I just spoke to, solves the issue.

This is what Dell writes about it:

"Fixed the issue where the system CPU speed drops below 1 GHz when both the AC adapter and dock Type-C charger are connected. This issue occurs after the second power source is connected to the system and the system is at 100% charge."
Not sure they have a complete grasp of what the problem was, because I have only one power source, no Type-C charger. Anyhow, haven't installed it yet, hope it solves the issue once and for all....

 

About the technician I talked to... it was on this totally different issue:

My headphone jack stopped working.

After much installing and uninstalling of realtec audio drivers and dell optimizer in the end, what worked, was completely ditching the realtec drivers and going with the windows issued drivers (if those are the correct technical terms). With the realtec driver the system would recognise headphones/speakers connected before powering up the system. Once the system was running, though, it would fail recognising them after disconnecting them and then connecting them again.
So now you know, when encountering this issue.... There's something fishy going on with those realtec audio drivers...

This "solution" might cause issues with headsets connected to the audio jack.... that's what the technician said. I'm just happy to be able to listen to music over my external speakers again.

 

I'm running Ubuntu and I have the close lid action set to suspend. It only works like 9 times out of 10. Is it my OS failing to suspend in this case or could it be the lid sensor? Which one is more likely?