Precision 7560 & 7760 Owners' Thread

I haven't noticed this issue with any apps other than the browsers and the Afterburner of course. Unless the laptop gets plugged into the external display - then there seems to be no way to clear the resulting dGPU usage mess other than to reboot. Still more convenient than going to BIOS to toggle a MUX switch, but far from full-auto solution I guess many people (myself some time ago included) might think Optimus is.

 

No dice. The NVIDIA card has its own signed UEFI firmware that the main notebook firmware didn't accept, ergo the bootloop. I need to find out a way to reset the CMOS, and hopefully that'll work.

 

Page 137 of the 7560 service manual has a procedure to reset the Real Time Clock but it notes i keeps the key databases. Not sure if that will help. It is different than draining the residual power on page 138.

 

@rinconmike, thanks. I tried that too; didn’t work. Guess all that’s left is a motherboard replacement (what a pain in the neck).

 

Did you try dell support? Maybe they have another idea? Would restoring/recovering the bios as if it was a corrupted bios help?

 

I called them immediately after I realised the computer wouldn’t boot. Given it is a Sunday, the Precision team was apparently not in (??) so they said a technician would be out on Tuesday to fix the computer. 2 amber/7 white is, as you mentioned, supposedly an LCD issue, but I tried the LCD tests described in the service manual, and the display works perfectly.

It is clearly the NVIDIA VBIOS not taking up my custom-signed keys, and it is also (obviously, because NVIDIA) impossible to extract, sign and re-flash the NVIDIA VBIOS. I really don’t want to replace the entire motherboard for what is essentially one software switch…

 

Even if resetting doesn't reset the keys, it should enable hybrid graphics, which should fix the problem? (It was working before you turned hybrid graphics off.)
I'm used to just pulling the coin-cell battery to reset the BIOS settings but I couldn't find the battery in the 7560. Holding down the power button while the battery was unplugged didn't work for me either.

 

The coin cell battery is on the other side of the WWAN card slot, and the port on the motherboard is just barely out of reach. It's almost like Dell didn't want it to ever be unplugged. I have disassembled my notebook as far as I am willing to, and I can see the port there, tantalisingly.

I need a pair of long, thin tweezers to pull the cable out and push it back in.

 

Removing the GPU involves a lot of steps, and probably isn't necessary for your purposes. But have you considered unplugging the GPU's power cable, thus disabling the GPU? I would hope the BIOS would notice the GPU isn't operational and switch to integrated graphics.

 

Stupid question, but I am assuming you tried an external monitor from all of the possible ports?