Dell 17r N7720 SE - user review

No, there is no orange light. It is orange when touchpad is turned off, right? I cant turn it on with FN+F3. Already tried to reinstall the drivers. =/

 

Can you pelase help me with the below queries ?

1. After installing OS from that disc , do you get the OEM logo (i.e Dell logo) in the System properties ?
I'm not getting it after fresh install from a retail DVD .

2. I installed fresh from a windows 8 retail DVD and installed all drivers for windows 8 . At startup getting an error : - Your system does not appear to have Intel Rapid Start Technology enabled .

Gone into the BIOS and the Intel Rapid Start Technology option in the Advanced menu has disappeared and the SATA operation changed to Intel Smart response technology .

All this happened after installing Intel Rapid storage technology and enabling the mSATA SSD as an acceleration Cahce .

PS :- Is this all OK ? What is the difference between Intel Rapid Start Technology , Intel Smart response technology , and Intel Rapid storage technology ?

3. What should i use to preserve battery . I tend to plug in the System almost everytime i use it . Will it affect the battery life if the PC is constantly plugged in ( as the battery has been charged to 100% ) .

Do Desktop mode and longetivity mode in the Dell battery app work in preserving battery ?

4. How to enable Intel Rapid Start Technology ?

5. Earlier in the factory installed OS , i had a Dell battery plan in the power plans . How to get that back ?

6. How to check if the subwoofer is working fine ? Installed the IDT driver also .

 

Read This:
http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j...=t9IvyJ94qyrmjcgHAF5szQ&bvm=bv.43148975,d.dmQ


And this:
Power Plans - Export and Import - Windows 7 Support Forums

Use BatteryCare for the Battery

as for the subwoofer, stick your ear next to it.

 

Even to import the Dell power plan where to get it ?

And as for the Intel smart response technology , what is the factory default selection for Cache space ? 18.6 GB or Full capacity ?

 

Dell Power Config: Please reset it to defaults cause mine is modified.

View attachment Dell.zip

As for the msata. It is 18.6 with aa 8GB Hibernation Partition

 

Remaining space gets unallocated ?

 

Called Dell and they have raised a request for Replacing my motherboard and hard drive .

Don't know why replacement for motherboard is raised.

My question is Do Dell replace the parts with new ones or refurbished ones ?

I want to know so that i can decide whether i want to get them replaced or not . Hard disk replacement seems r=tempting to me bcoz i would get back the factory partition and would be able to create recovery disk with them .

But I'm not sure about motherboard replacement . Kindly advice what to do ? Do they use new parts or refurbished ones ? If they use refurbished ones can i specifically demand for new parts only ?

 

im pretty sure both your motherboard and hard drive is 100% working.........you just messed up the windows installation a bit......

To install the Intel Rapid Storage Technology, the system BIOS must include the SATA RAID option ROM and you must enable RAID in the BIOS. You can be running the SATA contoller in RAID mode and AHCI at the same time, just set the SATA controller to RAID and install both the RAID and AHCI drivers. You can also run single drives off the RAID controller while the controller is set to RAID. I would recommend you enable RAID on the controller before installing the operating system.

You can install the latest IRST version driver for your motherboard at the beginning of the Windows installation on a single drive.

RST driver here:
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Sea...tel®+RST)&ProdId=2101&LineId=1090&FamilyId=42

to explain it more simple................................The first thing that you need to do is to gain access to the Intel® Rapid Storage Technology control I option ROM. So make sure that the system is set to SATA mode as RAID and that the two storage devices connected are shown (SSD(if you have one) and hard drive, most of the systems do not show the option for the option ROM if only one drive is detected).

After that, try loading the operating system and during the operating system install load the third party drivers.

 

Thnxx for the detailed info . Vl try that and report status

 

Just for the info , want to know the answer to my previous qs :

Do Dell replace the parts with new ones or refurbished ones ?
If they use refurbished ones can i specifically demand for new parts only ?

 

refurbish....100% sure.........i have replaced several motherboards on different laptops by DELL themself..........they was going to replace my last laptop with a refurbish motherboard i said no way....i want a new one because the laptop is just 3 weeks old. (its very VERY hard to get a new part)

usually refurbish parts works as new parts........

 

most of Dells "refurbished" parts are brand new. they are classified as "refurbished" when they become repair parts, mostly for tax reasons.

 

Eeehhhh.......A refurbish part is a refurbish part. ( which means they fix a "broken" part so IT works 100%). Though, It never becomes a "new" part. ( its common sense)

 

I talked to them and they say replacement parts are refurbished but in their definition Refurbished parts are the ones taken out from the new laptops returned / Shipment cancelled etc . They are not repaired parts and they say Dell do not repair parts . Is it true ?

 

Hello to everybody,
first of all sorry for my bad English, will try to do my best.
I ran through 180 pages before buying this Inspiron. Now I have it here.
Ordered with matte screen, 1 Tb main disk, and backlit keyboard. Nothing else.
Meanwhile ordered 1 more Terabyte (Blue Scorpio) and a Crucial M4 35Gb to enable the rapid cache. I know that you all prefer the Pure SSD solution. But I'm in need of a lot of space. So 2 Terabyte are fine for me.
What is my problem:
First arrival here was the Crucial MSata. So I decided to place it in the machine to see what happen. It was a little tricky to enable it, but at the end (with the Bios trick to load the default settings) the Bios gave me the Intel Rapis storage option and also in Windows (Win 8) it has been detected. IRS from Intel has enabled the acceleration and it's running fine.
The problem is now with the second HDD. Today I placed the second HDD in the machine (bracket was included; have stolen 2 screws from the original HDD to fix it in the bracket). Restarted the PC, F2 to see the Bios: second HDD recognized without problems.
Start to Windows and checked the Computer.....no second HDD!! Also in resource managment I have only the primary disk and the DVD drive. Wow!
What have I done wrong?
I've tried also to remove the acceleration of the MSata, but no changes and no second HD.
What can I do?

 

Do you find it in disc management? You have to initialize/format it there before you will see it under your computer.

 

Hey all, been following this thread since it started...finally bit the bullet...was trying to wait for Haswell but found a deal i couldn't pass up...got a:

i7-3630qm, 8 gigs, 1 TB 5400rpm drive, 650m 2 GB, 1080p screen for $800 Canadian (we got a deal through our company).

Can't wait to get it, read so many good things here that i felt i coudn't wait. Going to put an SSD in it and put the 1 TB drive as secondary. It will kick some serious butt.

Great thread all

 

Effectively I thought to find it there to be able to format it.
But it's not there...and that's the strange thing!

 

this I from Dell.... most states are similar

Texas has INVENTORY TAX on all items that are "new" So every part that comes out is "Refirbished"

Sec. 23.12 (a) of the Texas State Property Tax Code states that the market value or assessed value of inventory “is the price for which it would sell as a unit to a purchaser who would continue the business.” The Tax is every year.

Items that are refurbished lose status as real property to be inventoried and taxed.

They aren't trying to cheat anyone.

Texas Tax Code Section 151.101 imposes use tax on the storage, use or other consumption of a taxable item, including tangible personal property, purchased for storage, use or other consumption in Texas. Tax Code Section 151.104 provides that a sale of a taxable item for Texas delivery is presumed to be a sale for the storage, use or other consumption of the taxable item in Texas. Further, Tax Code Section 151.102 imposes liability for the use tax on the person storing, using or consuming the taxable item.



even Dells new parts are "refurbished"

 

:thumbsup:

'Returned' for what reason is what you should be thinking about. And 'Shipment cancelled' lol! Cancel an order and they re-sell it as new.

No one repairs parts, not sellers, not network admins, you replace because its faster and therefore cheaper. Its easier to replace the part so yes Dell wouldn't reair any parts. Sometimes refurbished its a wipe over with a cloth and a quick check to see if it functions.

Its a con really, it just sounds better than saying used.

 

Received my Windows 8 DVD from Dell india today . It is the same as the one in your pic ..

Can you please tell if installing windows 8 from this DVD brings the DELL OEM logo in the system properties ? If yes , is there any way to extract that info from this DVD and apply it to my current installation ? B'coz i do not want to reinstall Windows with this DVD now as just made a fresh installation a few days ago ...

And are you able to boot in UEFI mode with the Windows 8 Dell DVD ?

I tried in legacy mode and it booted almost after 6-7 minutes was stuck at blue windows logo ) .

And tried in UEFI boot mode , but stuck at Dell logo for almost 6-7 min and then booted to the setup..

Can you pleasetry and boot with Wind 8 DVD in the UEFI boot mode ? Secure boot mode enabled .?

Does it take that much time ?

Even tried booting with that DVD within windows in VMWARE , and that also takes 6-7 minutes being stuck at Blue windows logo before Windows setup starts ...

 

Hi ,

Just curious about another problem i found .

First i cannot seem to find the make of the 1TB internal hard drive ..

In the device manager it is mentioned as ST1000LM024 HN-

Can someone with a 1TB factory buillt drive confirm if theirs also display the same ?

Now the problem ..

Tried 2 USB 3.0 external drives , a 1TB WD Elements and a 500 GB Seagate GoFlex ...

Tried to copy a bluray (~3.4 GB ) from both the 1TB WD and 500 GB GoFlex connected via USB 3.0 , to my inbuilt 1 TB HDD .

Results :

1. With 1 TB WD the read speed was between 30 - 60 MBPS .
2. With 500 GB Goflex read speed was ~90 MBPS for 50 % of the transfer but after that it falls down to 10 - 30 MBPS .

Tried multiple times but the same results .

Is this behavior normal ? I'm just worried that could it be bcoz theres something wrong with my internal 1TB HDD ?

Can someone please suggest if this is normal .

PS : Tried tha same transfers on a Sony vaio with 500 GB internal HDD and the transfer rates more or less were contant . They never fell to as low as they did in case of my 7720 . ( Same files were transferred ) ..

Is my internal HDD fine ?

 

You are messing up your machine assuming everything is wrong with it. Parts you get as replacements are refurbished and might cause big problems.

 

worked fine for me in ufi and secureboot. had to add it to the secure boot options, installed win 8, then removed it from the boot options.

 

Rapid start takes a certain special configured partition on the ssd and is really only used for quick boot up/hibernation times. personnaly I never use it unless I only had a really small ssd..

rapid storage is a cache on the ssd, at least to me it seams to be far more usfull then rapid start as long as your ssd is at least 16gb or larger.

note:to get this setup originally in a 7720 machine I had to reset the bios to defaults before the option even showed up.

 

pretty sure ST1000LM024 is a Seagate model NOT a Western Digital model...

 

How do you guys use your 7720 ? Do you keep it plugged in all the time ?

How to take care of its battery since I'm plugged in all the time ? Is the battery charging disabled while 100% charged ?

Kindly advice what to do ?

 

I leave mine plugged in all the time. I also have the "Desktop mode" enabled, which lets the battery drop it's charge a bit more, and also seems to slow down the rate of charging, to keep the charge cycles to a minimum. Useful feature if you use your 7720 mainly as a desktop replacement.

 

It did work for me as well , but after adding it to the boot options , it booted via DVD , and then was stuck at the blue windows 8 logo before entering the setup ?

Was this delay encountered by you also ? How much time did it take from the time 7720 booted via DVD till the windows 8 setup window showed ?

 

What is your battery wear and how much time have you had your 7720 ?

I use my 7720 primarily for gaming , watching movies and surfing . What should be my style of using it ? Should i keep it plugged it all the time ? Or should i disconnect it .? If yes , how frequently .?

My main concern is if i keep it plugged in all the time , will i degrade my battery life and wear it ? I'm confused ...

PS : Does the power brick gets HOT while gaming on 7720 plugged in ? Mine gets Hot , is it normal ?

 

Hey together, I bought this notebook 2 weeks ago and it's fantastic. i love it.

only one little problem with the software i got. i think it's a matter of the dell quick start software. the right quickstartbutton where you can select a application to start works. also so middle button where you can chance the presets for sound like voice, movie, music etc works... only the left button that should garant access to the windows mobility center don't work. when i press it, it lights up and nothing happens. also the tray icon for the the software only shows a black icon with a white 9, it does not react on right or leftclick with the mouse.

i suppose there was acciendetly stopped a service or application that should start with windows, but i don't know which it could be.
how could i make the button work again, does anybody now? or would it be the most practicable way to deinstall dell quick start and afterwords reinstall it? i'm a little scared that after that no hotkey works at all. ok, i can surely survive without that hotkeys, but they are there, so they should work

or does anyone know a third party software that makes all keys free configable, not only the right one?

 

I got my 7720 with i5 and it came with a 90W power brick - which used to get very hot while gaming. I purchase a 130w slim power brick that doesnt get hot at all to use it at home and i keep the 90w in the backpack for travel with

 

mine is an i7 and i have a 130W Power brick . It gets pretty hot while gaming . Is that normal ?

 

It does get hotter when you draw more power, that's normal. Mine never gets so hot that I could not still hold it comfortably in my hand.

It's perfectly safe to leave the laptop plugged in all the time, it's intelligent enough to not overcharge the battery. You'll also prolong its life. The battery wears out the more you use it, therefore, simply don't run it on battery, if you don't have to...easy enough.

 

guys I have a question re partitions:

I already created a recovery cd ( 3 dvds ) and a windows repair boot cd. Now I looked at the partitions of the 1TB hardisk that came with my inspiron 7720, it has 4 partition. I think 3 of them are hidden, I cant say what files are in those partition, but one thing is for sure, 1 of those is the recovery partition. Now my question is, I want to create an additional partition for the largest chunk of the drive it has 800GB, I want to at least divide it in half. Would that be possible without affecting my recovery CD's if ever I'll be needing to repair my system? I read somewhere that It made an error because the recovery system does not detect the same volume of the hard drive.

Please enlighten me. I dont have a Win8 Installer that's why its important for me to know if it will affect the recovery CD's when something bad happens to my system


* btw to all who posted on my question regarding replacing LCD panel, I successfully changed it from AUO159E to B173HW01 V.4 ( I ordered one from Taiwan ) best screen so far 90% gamut and most importantly it has a 70/70/60/60 viewing angles

 

Yeah it is a seagate/samsung spinpoint

 

Shouldn't the name show up in Device manager ?

Also does your 130W power brick gets hot while gaming ?

Can you tell the size of the hibernate partition on the SSD mSATA ? Is it 8 GB or 11.22 GB ?

 

My adapter hardly gets hot. I don't game much.

As for the msata hibernate partition, It is exactly the size of your installed RAM.

 

Hey no problem, I KNEW it would work. So oddly enough how the heck is your rep power already at 13 with only 5 posts and I have been helpful all over the place and I only have rep 7? This is bull man.

 

Which CPU did ya upgrade from? The i5?

 

From a 3610QM

 

I watched a 17R N7110 teardown on Youtube, seems upgrading the CPU is done under the keyboard? Too bad not as easy as swapping out the RAM

 

hey nigel, I dont have any idea mate how did it happen. well at least we have you here to help us out always. I'll also try my best to contribute to this forum

 

The teardown on a 7110 and a 7720 will be quite different. The ram and hdd's are way easier to access on the 7720's obviously. But re-pasting the cpu/gpu on the 7720 looks like a complete tear down.

 

It is a complete teardown, but not as complicated as it may sound !!

 

i have done 2 complete tear down on 7720.................and watching the youtube video on 17R is pretty similar as on 17R SE (im speaking about; fan - heatsink - CPU - ribbon cables............and so on.

ps.......motherboard hardware placements is NOT 100% the same on 17R and 17R SE.......(but, overall the youtube-video is a decent "step by step").




7720 motherboard


hers is the 7710 motherboard..................(and as you see the difference)

 

If i make 8gb hibernate partition , the remainning 3.22 GB out of the entire 11.22 GB remains unallocated ?

 

Exactly. What I did was create a new partition with the remaining space and used it for the pagefile instead of having it on my c drive.

 

I used the small partiion for rapid start and the rest for rapid storage...

before a bout the ssd anyway, now its just an extra drive

 

Was it just the LCD panel or did you have to replace the ribbon cable also?

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