Precision 7560 & 7760 Owners' Thread

I use my 7760 mainly with the dock WD19DCS. I have two external monitors hooked to the dock. I have Hybrid Graphics on for now for the few times I use it out of the dock to get better battery; although I have not tested the battery performance to compare with Hybrid Graphics On verses Off.

For the setting in the bios:

Direct Graphics Controller Direct Output Mode
(available when "Enable Hybrid Graphics" is selected) If selected, the system will set all external displays to be managed by the discrete graphics controller, with the purpose of enabling unique discrete graphics controller features. The internal display will be managed by the integrated graphics controller. Pre-OS content is only visible on the internal display.

Anyone have a negative experience with this setting? Is it correct to assume that with this setting on, if only using external monitors (laptop lid closed) will the system behave similar to having Hybrid Graphics off?

I have a user with a 7560 and he uses one external monitor and the laptop screen for his dual screen. With this setting enabled, will the laptop screen always use the intel card even if there is an app (game) that is being displayed on the internal screen? I assume yes since the bios description notes "The internal display will be managed by the integrated graphics controller." If so, I am not sure if this will have a negative impact with the dock.

With this setting enabled, if no dock is connected, is the internal screen stuck on the intel card or will it use the discrete card if an app calls for it?

thanks,

Mike

 

Basically yes, in this case all displays will be directly attached to the NVIDIA GPU.

Yes, in this case the laptop display will always be attached to the Intel display. If a game is running, the NVIDIA GPU can do the rendering and then flush the output to the Intel GPU framebuffer for display. (This is how hybrid graphics works in general.) This generally works fine but some games/applications have issues with a setup like this... I'd say that issues are more common with older games than with new ones.

In a mixed mode setup (one display attached to Intel GPU and one display attached to NVIDIA GPU) you can have some slightly funny behavior as well. One issue that I used to run into is, when dragging MS Visual Studio from one monitor to the other, the window would go completely black. Also, when running a full-screen video on the monitor that was not primary, there would be some tearing/stuttering and not smooth playback. These were some years back and I do believe that over time, with OS patches and driver updates, most of the issues went away. (Can't really say for sure as I don't have very recent experience; now I just run with hybrid graphics disabled all of the time.) In any case, issues like these can be resolved by turning off the "direct output mode" option so that all displays will be attached to the Intel GPU.

...Do note that the system rear mDP and HDMI ports always attach to the NVIDIA GPU, regardless of the setting set in the BIOS. The BIOS setting really just changes which GPU displays hooked up to the left-side USB-C ports will be attached to.

Same as above. The NVIDIA GPU will be invoked when "called upon". You can actually go to the NVIDIA control panel, "Manage 3D Settings" area and attempt to force a program or game to run on one GPU or the other. This might be necessary for more obscure games or for very new games which the NVIDIA driver might not have built-in profiles for.

 

Dell keeps on canceling my order which is weird. I have tried twice and it has been automatically canceled both times.

 

Allocation of GPU resources is not managed by Windows and not by Nvidia Control Panel

Desktop>Right Click>Display Setting>Graphics Setting

 

You can also change the settings there. That settings area is somewhat newer but it does not fully replace NVIDIA control panel.

Control over which GPU is used it determined by (in priority order):
* The application itself, if the app dev(s) have gone through the work to have the application attach to a particular GPU instead of just accepting the default.
* Setting chosen in Windows Settings.
* Setting chosen by the GPU driver (NVIDIA control panel comes into play here).
* Whichever GPU is running the display that the app first opens up on.

I generally suggest using the NVIDIA control panel just because there may be other settings there to adjust and it makes sense to keep everything in one place. (For example, for games I usually also pick the setting to "prefer maximum performance" for the GPU from NVIDIA control panel as well.) But Windows Settings area also works fine.

 

I posted this question a few weeks ago…

I ordered a sleeve for 17 inch from Amazon for the 7760…it was much too big for the 7760…I tried using the sleeve from my older 6600 Precision…also way too big. Any suggestions for a sleeve that will be a secure and good fit for the 7760?

Since then, I had a chat with DELL sales and they have no idea which sleeve would fit the 7760; as their website does not list any sleeve for the 7760.

Anyone have any ideas which sleeves will make a snug and good fit for the 7760?

 

Anyone having external USB devices not powering up when needed? Am having issues with an external HDD not spinning up when the backup software is requesting it.

 

7760 - Memory corruption issues

Unfortunately my 7760 journey is not a smooth sailing After being a happy Dell Latittude 7450 owner for 7 years, I have ordered my new Precision 7760 around 15th of July and got it delivered on 27th of September. I started using the machine, initially just moving my old data,settings, etc. then for my daily professional work. What I have noticed is, that there were some unexplainable lockups. I'm using Linux, so these were kernel panics in the Nvidia driver or file system driver. I have spent every evening for 3 weeks, trying different versions of distributions in addition to the pre-loaded Ubuntu version. Nothing helped. Then the lockups got a bit more frequent and I got suspicious that maybe there is nothing with the drivers, simply my hardware is faulty. I have also called support, but after I told them I'm using Ubuntu (shipped with the machine), they did not have any suggestion about what to test, what drivers to upgrade, etc. As last resort I've ran memtest86 and the memory test in the BIOS, and booom, it turned out, that my memory (2x32GB) is so faulty that memtest refuses to finish the test to give the actual faulty addresses. Bad memory completely explains why I got lockups in various drivers (Nvidia, file system) and random core dumps in various applications.

I've called the prosupport plus hotline with the QR code and details from the BIOS memory test on October 16th. The agent told me I'm qualified for a replacement, which will arrive within 2 weeks, most likely within a week. I was asked for my home address in email where the delivery will take place.

Until today there was complete radio silence, so I have decided to write/call again. I was told that the request for the swap was closed due to "tool error" (whatever that means). The new agent told me, that they have opened a new request, with delivery date of 23rd of December!!

Is this some kind of a joke? The sales rep originally told me that Prosupport Plus is the highest priority support, that's why it costs so much. In practice, I have paid more than 3.5K EURs for an expensive machine in July, received it in September, spent 3 weeks tearing my hair out trying to debug what's wrong and now I'm told that I'll get a replacement before Christmas (which I guess can easily jump into the new year if anything goes wrong or delayed). In addition to all the wasted evening hours, I also spent a full workday, moving all stuff back to my previous machine and apologizing to my paying clients

I have asked if they can ship any other configuration with a shorter delivery date, but said no. I was told I can talk to the customer care if I want to?!

I don't think I'll be compensated with actual money for this half-a-year torture but will they agree to upgrade something or similar? If I really need to wait until end of december, I'll just get a desktop replacement for the short term and maybe ask for compensation in next year's model.

What would you do? Any thoughts? How to reach out to customer care?

Thanks a lot for any hints!

 

Unfortunately I don't think you'll have much luck trying to get a whole system replacement any faster. They have major supply chain issues right now (...along with everyone else). It's basically the same story all around for both system replacements and brand new systems.

What I would do is ask them to just replace the memory. They should be able to do that pretty quickly, hopefully with the part arriving in your area next-day. I'm actually surprised they didn't want to do that first. Tell them they don't even need to dispatch a tech to perform the replacement (...if you are comfortable replacing the memory yourself, under the keyboard). It might not fix the problem, but I'd say that it "probably" will, and it will save you a lot of waiting and them a lot of money if it does.

 

I haven't been on this forum for quite a while, but I'm getting ready to order a 7760. I can't figure out how to search the thread, now that the forum has changed a bit, but I was wondering whether it's possible to upgrade the screen after purchase? The only ones available for quick delivery right now have the 1920x1080 FHD screen, and I'm wanting the UHD screen, 3840x2160.