Dell 17r N7720 SE - user review

It shipped with Windows 7 but the Windows key on the keyboard is the Windows 8 symbol.

The processor is the i7 3610.

It was built in China on Friday 19th October and I got it on Monday 22nd October.

 

Hey guys just regarding BSOD I updated my intel wireless driver two days ago via this website: Intel Download Center

I have not had a problem since, still seeing if it is gone away but might be worth checking these drivers on your systems.

 

According to nvidia:

Good news indeed.

 

I'm still on the old Dell Quickset version so tried the new one on the downloads list, but it failed to download.

Anyone else tried this latest list of downloads and found a failure? If not, what could I have done wrong as it only usually takes 2 clicks?

UPDATE-It seems to work now.

 

well....Nvidia always says "performance" boost.........and so on......when they release new drivers..............it nothing special with that driver.......ive tried it.

 

Can we rename this thread to Dell inspiron 17r N7720 SE Owner's Thread ?

Sounds more appropriate that way

 

Yeah, this thread evolved over time... perhaps pm the OP and request the title change, it would definitely be the more appropriate title now...

 

Whos OP ? Can someone PM him for the tile change ?

 

c_man is the OP

 

Hmmm, I tried the new 310.33 drivers and the Optimus is rewritten. The dynamic throttling is back. I can't overclock the gpu to a single clock, it changes dynamically. And I haven't seen any performance increases. In the release notes it states, that it improves performance for 600 series (which are desktop cards), not 600m series...

 

Do you also have brightness issues with steam games launching in full screen mode? Every time I launch a steam game or end it, my screen goes full brightness. I'll get eye cancer if I can't find the cause...

 

well, i said it before....... :hi2: you should use 306.02, its AWESOME (i tried both this new nvidia drivers and they are crap)..............306.02 has high fps/flow in games......great streaming...and so on.

 

My Replacement 7720 will have Windows 8

 

you want win 8 ???___________(you will find out pretty quick i guess)

i tried it and it (from start) developed for Tablets and smart phones.....then after some time Microsoft deicide to take it further to PC...(which they did in a very strange way)

there is some things i enjoyed with win 8 though....for ex, reboot time and Ram uses..(which is improved from win 7)

XP = excellent
Vista = not very good
Win 7 = excellent
Win 8 = over done, messy

looks like Microsoft make a excellent operative system every second time...guess next OS will be as great as Win 7


here is a review of win 8, it tells quite much about whole thing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0fsyb-ttcw

 

after re-installing Windows 7 on my SSD and downloading all the drivers again I'm having trouble with the wireless connection with my D Link DIR 655 router. The speeds are slower than they were prior to doing the reinstall and I've had a few times where it's been unable to connect at all until I reset the router. Didn't have any of these problems leading up to this and other computers in the house are working fine on the D Link.

I have another Netgear router in the house I can also connect to and I have no stability issues there and much improved speed. Using Speedtest on the D Link I'm seeing 5-12 Mbps down while on the Netgear I'm seeing 40-50.

I've double checked the driver and it's updated to the latest version...so I'm wondering if I had an older version prior to doing the re-install that played more nicely with the D Link. The current driver on the machine is 15.1.1.1.

Anyone know of any connectivity issues between the wireless card in this machine and the D Link 655 in particular? Google didn't yield much.

 

I'm currently trying it. It's not bad, I actually find the start screen nicer than the start menu. Unfortunately I get bsod thanks to network drivers.

With proper drivers Windows 8 should easily outperform Windows 7 in my opinion. Couldn't test games though.

 

well. i tested win 8 i both Bf3 & MW3.......... i have better flow/fps in windows 7 64-bit.........so thats no true at all.

and if you think im crazy.....

enjoy:
windows 7 vs windows 8 gaming - YouTube

or enjoy it even more here

,,,,,,,BIG game-test//win8 vs win7 (windows 7 has overall better fps in mix settings)
Windows 7 vs Windows 8 RTM: Gaming Performance - YouTube


..and its has nothing to with drivers....there are proper drivers for win 8 who working normally.

 

1st video is from January and the second video clearly states that the results may vary from system to system and that future updates and drivers could change the end results.

Someone stated in these forums that the new Verde beta driver increased the performance on Windows 8 drastically.

Even if Windows 8 can't outperform Windows 7 in terms of performance, it should easily outperform it in terms of battery life which is quite nice for us, right?

 

I will be updating to Windows 8 for sure. The most annoying thing is the Start menu, which requires typing rather than mouse movement. All other aspects Windows 8 appears to be ok. It's just Windows 7 + metro.

 

Joined this forum just so I can share my findings of this laptop.

Before this laptop I used a Dell Inspiron 6000 for over 7 years and I am still satisfied with it. Only performance was not that good anymore, so I was looking for a laptop that could replace it, and with which I could also do for about 6 years.
I have chosen the i7 one with the 3d screen, 2 7200rpm 750gb hdd's with 32gb mSATA and the backlit keyboard and I received it on the 3rd of September 2012 (so I have it close to two months now).

I bought this laptop for overall use, at home on the couch and for work, especially for running virtual machines.
As soon as I got it, I reinstalled Windows 7 Ultimate from scratch. Drivers were an issue for me, some I could find on the dell site, but for example the drivers for BlueTooth, were not available (in my language anyway) so I had to use the driver disk that came with the laptop. Al in all, I got the job done, everything worked.

Then came the virtualization software.
Forget about running VMware Workstation (8 or 9, tried both)!
As soon as you reboot a Windows XP guest system, it freezes at the virtual boot screen and then hangs the host! You can still start an explorer of something, but a clean shutdown is not possible.
After trying everything for about a week, I gave up and used VirtualBox. This works without the strange lockups.

The backlit keyboard is a nice feature, and works quite well, except for the spacebar!
In the few lines of text above, I had to correct a missed space 12 times! This makes it completely useless, and I am seriously considering buying a non backlit version to swap it with...

The clicking of the Blu-Ray drive when starting a avi file from hard disk or network is also present here, but I don't let that bother me.

And then about the OS discussion above, I would say it's a personal thing. I don't like windows 8, but I don't expect nobody to like it

 

I would be interested in reading an in-depth review of Win 8 RTM installed on the Inspiron 7720.

Can anyone who already installed Win 8 on his/her 7720 find the time to post that review?

Thanks in advance!

 

i had win8 weeks ago on my 7720...........as i said:

good stuff:
less RAM uses (in normal run, about 3-400Mb less)
reboot time is about 5 sec faster

less good stuff:
messy/over done interface
less FPS overall in games (which is the biggest let down really)
weird shortcut-system in Metro (make no sense at all)


.........the interface fits absolutely best for Touch screens !
(Microsoft themselves admitted "long" time, you have the most benefits with Touch screen......ridiculous when 90% of all PC is non touch !)

 

i finally found the cause of bsod. it was avast antivirus :/ have to use windows defender till they fix it, i guess.
performance seems identical to windwos 7 (tested gw2 and sleeping dogs) btw.

@ andrei
windows 8 isn´t that different than win7.
it´s actually windows 7 plus windows 8 rt/metro apps.
i didnt use the metro side of windows 8 so much though as you can pretty much ignore it.

the startscreen is way better than the startmenu. after u get used to it and sort your apps/programs. you just press the windows key and then click on your app/program instead of scrolling through a long list.
the lockscreen is a pretty useless feature for desktops/notebooks, but you can easily disable it.

at first i was very skeptical about windows 8, because of metro and the bad comments. but it turned to be a good os and i´m happy that i gave it a shot
can´t wait to get a tablet for my studies and enjoy the full win8 experience.

 

My 7720 should be arriving either tomorrow or Tuesday and I have Windows 8 ready to install, So will do a write up once complete. I have been using it on my desktop and find it quite good.

 

Hi there Moogleys, did you see my writeup about Win8 on the 7720 i did here?

http://forum.notebookreview.com/dell-inspiron-dell-studio/692038-project-day-install-windows-8-retail-pro-inspiron-17r-se-7720-a.html

 

cant believe Microsoft never learn......make it clean.......make it simple...but still nice/beautiful

they should look at how Apple make their OS..........its simple, logic and awesome

 

I would have my new 7720 with Windows 8 on 8th November . Will post the review about Windows 8 Preinstalled from Dell

 

I'm also using Bios A08, and the new Quickset drivers work (after reboot) for me.
Link: New Quickset Drivers

 

Are you running Win8 now then?
Avast with Win 7 Ultimate runs fine here.

 

BTW Does anyone know how does the new Windows 8 Sticker for the laptops looks like ? Could not find any pic of it on Google ....

 

I've been asked to change this topic to "Dell inspiron 17r N7720 SE Owner's Thread", but I cannot do that. So I ask anyone who can to do this for me. Thank you!

 

yep and only windows 8, no dualboot.

avast seems to cause DRIVER-IRQL-NOT-LESS-OR-EQUAL ndis.sys (not sure about this one, because i updated my networkcard drivers) and aswnet.sys bsod.
I guess windows defender works somehow in the brackground even if you activate avast.

everything is running fine, except the brightness bug, but i´m pretty sure the new 310.33 beta driver causes this. i´ll have to wait for a newer driver as older drivers aren´t that good for win8 (a nbr-member reported that the performance of his 680m increased from 10fps to 40fps crysis2).

@shashank_best:

 

Cool will have a read through...

 

Thanks......

 

Windows 8's generic driver downgraded my bd combo drive to an ordinary cdrw drive.

Can't even apply the firmware/driver of Dell because the name was also changed.

Hope this will be fixed :-(

 

there is a couple of thousands images on the web

 

My 7720 arrived this morning and tbh I'm not very impressed. There was no 3D glasses included (I confirmed with Dell they would be included), the case has scratches even though it was an A+ refurb. The screen has 3 dead pixels and one of the hard drives makes a horrid noise.

It's going back. Shame as other wise it looks a nice laptop.

Well thats my last Dell my god the support is beyond awful. I was frankly told that I should expect dead pixels, scratches and items missing in my refurb order as this is quite normal. I spent 30 mins trying to get a the laptop returned but they seemed more interested trying to explain that I should have bought either an XPS or Alienware laptop new and I should be transfered to sales.

Finally arranged for the laptop to be picked up and will be refunded but will never go near Dell again truly awful support and customer service.

 

Hi guys!

I would like to ask that is it possible to dismantle the bottomplate from the side frame just by thoose screews can be seen on pictures? I mean I see that it is divided into 2 pieces. One smaller, but I would like to know if the bigger one (which covers most of the bottom) can be dismantled without much effort.
Thanks for the answers.

 

You can remove the L shaped plate (just two screws), which covers the hard disks, RAM, msata and wireless card slots. The rest of the base of the laptop is the actual shell. All of the other screws you see on the bottom hold the palm rest in place.

..so the short answer is no, to get at the insides, you need to remove the keyboard and the palm rest from the top side of the base. Check the user manual, it should be pretty apparent from the pictures of how everything fits together.

What are you trying to do exactly?

 

damn. now i get the true reason why i can´t play bluerays anymore. there is no native support for dvd and blue ray playback in win8. powerdvd 9.6 isn´t supported by win8 and cyberlink doesn´t provide a patch as they are greedy. they want me to upgrade to powerdvd 12 ultra instead. this is a really bad downside of win8.

 

he he.....one more reason that show how non-user-friendly windows 8 are for plain PCs !!!!

so now we have:

lower FPS in mostly all games
power dvd (bluray) not working
ground coding of Operative system(Metro) developed for touch screens
drivers craches (not compatible

i guess this list will grow.

 

Windows Media add on should allow you to watch blueray?

For a limited time microsoft are giving it away free here :-
Add features - Microsoft Windows

 

has anyone ordered an extra AC adapter for their 17R SE from somewhere other than Dell that works?

I ordered one from Amazon, but the computer doesn't recognize it as the correct adapter, won't charge, and the charging brick is making a clicking noise. I need a 2nd one to leave at work so I don't have to carry the power supply around with me.

 

unfortunately it doesn´t. as much as i know you only get dvd support, but no blueray and if you try to play a br with wcm, it just opens the br with powerdvd.

i wanna see how dell solved this with 17r se preloaded with win8. it has to be an upgrade to powerdvd 12 or a patch for 9.6 ( which i couldn´t find under my downloads)

 

If you dig deep enough, you'll find a document stating the Inspiron range can have up to 6 dead pixels before warranty kicks in...my guess is it's the same with other manufacturers. Usually, you have to pay premium prices for a zero dead pixel guarantee

... lately, we seem to be forgetting that we're discussing a budget/consumer grade/home entertainment type laptop here. Of course there are trade-offs in terms of quality/attention to detail. There is a reason why certain laptops with comparable specs cost twice as much... /rant

back on topic-> For reference, the first thing I did with my 7720 was a thorough check of the screen for defects. I have one subpixel (blue) stuck on, near a corner of the screen. In my book, that's a pretty solid result for a full HD screen (on a budget laptop). The only way to actually see it is look at the screen from a distance of about 5cm while the screen is showing an all black background. Otherwise, it's absolutely unnoticeable. Anyone else care to share their findings?

 

Can we connect our inspiron 17r to an external Desktop eGPU ? Any ideas ?

 

you mean something like this ?

picture showing; (Lenovo X220 + eGPU + Battlefield 3, running with Optimus)


i guess you can, if you find a eGPU who is fully compatible with our mobo/chip.


my only question is why ? (i understand why basicly...but still not completely)...for ex, BF3 runs fine in 1080p with stock set up..............of course it would be cool to put a (for ex) Desktop GTX 680 side by side with your 7720 ???


@Realg...................has NOTHING to do with some documents...

(ive been using DELL laptops for about 10 years) and been replacing screens by DELL 3 times......
IF you buy a brand new DELL PC they replace the screen directly if you just have one or two dead pixels (they never argue), but if you buy a refurbished PC its a whole other ballgame.(why, you can figure out yourself).

 

Yes , I mean exactly like that ...

The reason i want to know is that now the games runs fine on our 650m , but in future some new games like Crysis 3 etc may not run fluently , so instead of replacing the laptop , why not connect an eGPU ?

BTW do you know if 7720 has an ExpressCard slot ? It is required to connect an eGPU ...

Here is a complete thread on eGPU :

http://forum.notebookreview.com/e-gpu-external-graphics-discussion/418851-diy-egpu-experiences.html

People with inspirons have also connected their laptop with an eGPU . So i guess we also can ..

See the performance difference in the thread ....

Also , have you tried the latest NFS MW on 7720 ? Does it run on 1080 p ? I'm concerned about whether Assasin's creed 3 would run on 1080P on our 7720 ...?

 

I'm affraid not. Unless the slot for WLAN card is a PCIex slot, but that would mean you trade wireless for eGPU.

 

I can't see any dead pixels on my FHD screen. That is awesome given it is a refurb. The only thing with the screen is that it had a slight red/blue tint (looks fine after calibration) and backlight is uneven. Nothing dramatic, only seen when the panel is all black and even then it is hardly noticeable. I'm running the screen at 30% brightness during the day and minimum at night time. Viewing angles are great. Horizontally the image looks fine for full 180 degrees, although yellow tint kicks in halfway through and contrast/brightness drops slightly. Vertically, the screen fares a bit worse, about 90 degrees. Viewing from the top, colours turn pinkish and start to invert at around 45 degrees. Same from the bottom, but with greenish tint. Overall contrast is about 800:1 and subjectively blacks look black.