Precision 7560 & 7760 Owners' Thread

There's always a chance that things have changed with this new model, but the current "working knowledge" is that 7X30 and up won't boot without the dGPU unless there is the iGPU HDMI/mDP pass-through card in place. (7X20 and prior systems would happily boot up on Intel graphics if the dGPU card was missing.)

 

Tried removing the GPU cable, the RTC clock cable (and have no real way to reinsert it now...), pressed and held the power button a dozen times... No dice. This is irritating. Why does using the existing functionality of the firmware—ie replacing the Platform Keys—cause bricks? This is a problem with some Lenovo ThinkPads, too. Dell needs to address this quickly and allow the NVIDIA OPROM/firmware to be self-signed as well. @Dell-Mano_G

I do infosec research with my supervisors and need a locked-down PC, which precludes having Microsoft's keys on my system, which would allow anyone to boot a Windows ISO and mess around with the drives.

On the bright side, Dell ProSupport Singapore always pulls through, and I am getting a parts delivery today, although they aren't changing the motherboard but the display panel... Which works fine. Let's see what they say.

 

Some good news—I closed the notebook, plugged in my monitor to the mDP port, and Windows shows up on the monitor! It goes away if I open the notebook at all, though.

Now, to find a way to write the Microsoft keys to the key database from Windows.

 

Hello, I am debating between a 7560 and a 7760 for my work. Could you please help with some thoughts? I plan to choose the same pre-defined config from my work - CPU Xeon W-11855M, Graphics - RTX A4000. since I usually hook it up with monitors, so not much of a difference there for the most part of my usage. I thought the battery lives between these would be different when running without main plugged and using an inbuilt display. Any numbers of battery runtime for these two systems would be useful. Thanks a lot for your help in advance.

 

what if you disable secure boot? I have an issue on a Precision 7910 where I updated the SAS controller with the dell firmware (download from dell site) but the firmware was not signed and only way it sees the SAS controller is with secure boot off. The issue did not surface right away, but did after a bios update. I have been running with secure boot off since. This may not solve the issue you have, but maybe you can boot using the LCD this way.

 

Assuming you can't access the BIOS setup —
Secure boot is in the token list that I've been messing with – 034F/0350
https://github.com/dell/libsmbios/blob/master/doc/token_list.csv

If you'd like I can throw together a program to try to disable secure boot from Windows. Or you can do it yourself using DellSmbiosSmiLib with something like...
DellSmbiosSmi.SetToken((Token)0x0350);
[Edit] -- (This also assumes that you do not have a BIOS admin password set. I haven't quite worked out how to get a security key to modify the token values in the case that there is a BIOS admin password set. If you can boot Linux, you could do it from there with smbios-token-ctl — you'll have to provide the BIOS admin password to the tool.)

 

Some updates:

All I needed to do was enroll the Microsoft 2011 CA certificate in the UEFI db keystore (all done on Linux, by the way). Now, everything works as expected. Furthermore, the notebook wasn't actually bricked: I just didn't realise that the outputs still worked, and this was further exacerbated by the fact that I didn't try to close the lid while plugging in my monitor.

As an aside, the technician replaced the display with a CM Innolux N156HCA-GA4, which does not have PWM dimming. Excellent.

 

I have been having an issue . One of the games I play sometimes freezes flor 3-15 seconds and I die... I tried dell verified drivers and then nvidia rtx drivers and same happens..

7760 on rtx 4000 gpu. I have on-bord video disabled in bios. Should I re-enable it?> ty!

 

Just received my 7760 last week, the CPU fan seems VERY slow to respond, even in Ultra Performance mode, I have a hard time ever hearing the fan in any normal workload, but the processor package and several individual cores are hitting 100°C. Only while running cinebench on a loop can I even hear the fans spin up.

I have disabled the onboard video, and am only using the dgpu, and have reached out to Dell and they are sending me replacement heatsinks. I am very capable of replacing them myself, but have been out of the loop for a bit, have we decided on the best thermal paste for these machines?

 

My 7760 is very silent. You may want to see what others are seeing before changing anything. What you are seeing may be normal.