Dell 17r N7720 SE - user review

Thanks OC-Freak.

I actually got two 17R SE 7720, one is equipped with 1TB and the other has 500GB. The other 17R has the limit of 465 GB ie 500gb hard disk. So they can be factory restored into the same disk size or larger than the OEM disk only. This is so very inconvenience and time consuming. The strange thing is that the other two normal 17R Inspirons I got in the same month with the 17R SE do not have this issue.

I cloned the hard drive of both 17R SE to SSD using EaseUS Todo (free version). It seems to work ok for now. But once I inserted the SSD and booted from it, the OEM hard drive will no longer be bootable if I re-insert it back the slot again. The Dell recovery media still requires the new disk size to be larger than the OEM. They came with Windows 8 pre-installed. So probably something to do with Secure Boot and UEFI.

I hope it was an error and Dell did not intentionally create this silly restriction. I think Dell can easily fix it via updating the Dell Backup and Recovery. I guessed it was to do with the Windows licences and prevention of the OEM recovery media being used in other laptop rather the one it came with. I tried to change the CSP.DAT in the preload folder of the recovery media but no hope.

 

Hello, I got one little problem with my Dell, sometimes (once per day or so) my nvidia card just turns off after some iddle time in windows +- 30min,(the whole adapter ,windows doesnt recognize it at all) and I need to restart the windows then its again working ok. I am using latest drivers, even on the old ones and old bios it was the same. Power settings is ofc all on high performance. Dont you have this kind of problem, any solution would be nice. thx

 

Really? That's weird... I had that problem on my 7520, with the AMD card. I had no idea what caused it but reinstalling the graphics drivers would fix it for a while... I could never find a permanent fix for it though :S

Does the screen flicker, making the 'media disconnect' noise?

 

Hello guys,

i have just ordered samsung 840 pro 128GB ssd for my 17R.Can someone tell me what are the steps that i need to take to install it?

Thank you in advance and sorry for my bad english.

 

In addition to the SSD you need 4 screws with very flat/small head or they won't fit.

Open the cover at the bottom (two screws, very easy to pull off after loosening them). Remove old HDD with its cage. Install the SSD in that bay. Install the old HDD in the second HDD bay (if you have only 1 HDD that is). Tip: use the screws from the 1st HDD cage for the 2nd HDD cage as it's easier to fit slightly larger screws of your own in the 1st cage/bay. I found 4 that fit fine.

Boot up, use samsung/clonix cloning program to clone your HDD over to the new SSD. After this I had issues, no way it would boot from the SSD. I had to remove the old HDD to get it to boot from the SSD for the first time - no matter what I did in bios. After this I formatted the old HDD and use it for data storage.

 

Hello Guys,

I just got my 17R 7720 SE a few months ago and i love it. I love the raw power, the display, the keyboard,the size.
I hate the Battery and the HardDrive(1 TB 5400 RPM, NO SSD or mSata)>

But i think i have temperature issues.

Without Cooling pad or any other cooling solutions, only the laptop on a flat surface desk, while playing FarCry 3 my processor reached 100 degrees celsius.
I installed RealTemp and disabled Turbo, and now things are better.

Now the idle temperatures...Fan Speed in idle is...0 rpm. And my CPU temp is aroud 55-60 degrees. Way too much for idle.

Dell Self Test detected no issues.

Can you please post some temperatures ? Idle and Gaming?

Thank you in advance,

Marius


LE: Hard Drive reached 58 degrees at some point. I opened the laptop and moved it into the second bay. Now it won't go past 47-48
Am i allowed to change the hard disk? Is my warranty voided?

 

latest drivers doesn't mean it works 100% perfect.........(actually, i recommend people to NOT update their GPU & CHIP drivers IF the PC works normal).....(and as you saying...even the older drivers behaves the same, which not looking very good)

i would do a clean install of windows....(and if that doesn't works...call DELL)
............................................................
MariusRZR....100 Celsius on the CPU IS WAY TO HIGH.......(probably you have a bad applied thermal paste from start (which gives you bad conductivity)

.........replace the old thermal paste and put on some new/fresh high end paste.........way better result.

 

Not normal, I'm even surprised it went up that high, some sort of protection should have kicked in, either clocking down the cpu or shutting the laptop off completely.

Seems ok. A bit high, maybe.. Depending on the ambient temperature of my room, I've got idle temps on the CPU in the 45-50 range, the GPU about 50-55, with the fan idle. When gaming, it usually gets to about 80-85, depending on the game/settings.. That's with replaced thermal paste, so 2-5 degrees more with stock paste, I guess..

Changing/adding a hard disk won't void your warranty. I've also moved my mechanical drive to the bay further away from the cpu/gpu heatsink, and put my ssd there instead. Not sure it it makes much difference, but hey...

BTW, I recommend you all read "Failure Trends in a Large Disk Drive Population" released by Google. Turns out most internet "truths" about how to take care of mechanical drives is complete bull, such as keeping temps as low as possible, drive standby when not in use, etc... After reading it, my mechanical drives are now always on, and I keep them in the 45-50 range, instead of pushing for 30-35.

 

KSMB - I will make some tests with my laptop on a desk( No cooling pad or something else) running Bioshock Infinite or any other games.
Also, my system freezes for a second in temperature monitoring software like Speed Fan or Everest when the temperature changes. It's not the CPU sensor because real temp works fine.
The bottom of the laptop,in the front ,where you have the SD Card Reader,also overheats like hell.

To change the thermal grease,i should take the laptop to authorized service?

 

45-60 are normal idle temperatures when FAN is turned off.
After heavy apps, temperature goes even below 40 because of FAN, which is pretty effective to cool down entire laptop.

Cooling pad is really neccesary during high intensive GPU/CPU games, because cold air vent is on the botom.

 

Hi guys, I am having a huge problem with the audio. When I open the "playback devices" menu, it says, "No audio devices are installed.

I guess my main question is, are we supposed to download and install the Conexant Audio driver or the IDT High-Definition Audio Driver or both from dells website?? Whenever I try to install the Conexant audio driver I get a message stating "Driver installation Failed: Could not find the device for this driver"

 

i recommend you to enter a service tag number od their driver website to filter other drivers... i think all SE editions are delivered with IDT soundcards, which means you can´t install conexant audio driver, because it wont work at al...

 

I just dropped off my laptop at a Dell Service and they said i would get a call in a few days. I told them the CPU reached 100 degrees while playing Far Cry ( Laptop on office, no cooling pad, Turbo ON) I also told them i moved the HDD to the secondary Bay.

Let's just hope they will fix whatever is wrong with my laptop,cause it's annoying the crap out of me.

I will come in a day or two with a reply. maybe someone else has the same issue.

 

Has anyone played GTA IV on this laptop? D'ya notice that the graphics card doesn't 'boost' in this game, or is it just me? Other games seem to work fine. Guess it just comes down to GTA IV's horrible optimization

Also, what Furmark temperatures do you folks get? My card climbed steadily up to 90C and started throttling, but when I play games, or benchmark, my card rarely exceeds 65C.

 

Very interested in an expansion battery, also. Any experimenters try a 9 cell?

 

i do it myself.............have you never done it before i recommend you take advice from a friend who done it some times. (the thing is you need to remove the entire motherboard to get into GPU & CPU...(its on the backside of the motherboard on 7720.....on my studio xps 16 it much faster/easier)

if you unsure.......call DELL and they help you.

step by step guide here: http://www.dell.com/support/Manuals/us/en/sebsdt1/ServiceTag/7tp0ft1?s=BSD
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about 9-cell battery to 7720........answer is NO so far, (there is one battery on internet who says it fits...but we tried it...didn't fit)

 

Most games don't actually use 100% of the GPU all the time, whereas benchmarking tools are designed to do precisely that. So what you're seeing is normal. The cooling of the 7720 cannot cope with the GPU running full blast, so temperatures slowly rise to 90C, then the built in protection kicks in and starts down-clocking to keep the temperatures from rising further.

 

Earlier in this thread, I had followed up on the many references on the web of sellers who were claiming their 9 cell batteries were for the 7720.
I tracked down to a real Dell battery that was cross-compatible with certain Latitudes. Looking closely at the pictures, it looked like it would fit and work. I ordered one (I took one for the team!), and unfortunately, it almost fits. If the back of the chassis were slightly different,
it would drop in and work, but since the extra cells in this battery extend out the back (instead of stacking them like other extended cell Dell batteries), the battery won't fully drop in, and, even if it did, the lid would not open since the battery sticks out the back, and blocks the lid from opening.

We need an extended cell battery that stacks the cells, which, when installed, would cause the back of the 7720 to sit higher at the back. I've had other Dell's with this type of battery (Studio 145x) and I love it. It helps keep the laptop cool, is more ergonomic, etc.

BUT, we REALLY need a bigger battery.

 

No, it appears DELL is not going to fix this issue... Only what we can do is to escalate this problem on their forums, for example here : Re: Dell Inspiron 7720 SE - Gpu boost is turning off - Laptop General Hardware Forum - Laptop - Dell Community
They´re simply ignoring their customers, apart from posting copy&paste answers they do nothing.....

 

I wonder why they wouldn't make a larger battery for this laptop. Would it be unprofitable? Seems like a lot of people would buy it... a fix to that turbo boost thing would be nice too Would it be so difficult for them to fix?

Yeah that sounds right... though the way my card's temperature rises seems kinda weird. Looking at the graph, it'll slowly raise until about 64-65 or so, then hold there for a few moments.. then just climb all the way to 90 at a rate of 1 degree a second (well, maybe 1 degree every 3 seconds but still). The fan's going mental too but the temps still climb.. wonder what it is.

Anyway I think I'll use a program to limit my FPS in games to 30 or so, so the card doesn't have to unnecessarily overwork itself!

 

Just use Vsync option in nvidia control panel, but this works on GPU only... I recommend to disable also CPU turbo by this trick : "open power settings - choose (as for ex) High/balanced settings - open advanced settings - CPU performance - set CPU to 99%." - this disables CPU turbo and CPU stays on default frequency, which means much less heat during intensive games.

For example : for gaming, it is good to keep CPU default frequency, because not many games can use full power of this quadcore. For rendering/graphics stuff, you can enable CPU turbo, because NVIDIA GPU is turned off, which produces most of the heat.

Iam glad DELL didn´t disable this function in BIOS as ASUS/Samsung/Lenovo sometimes do.

 

I took the laptop to a dell service and they said they would look into it. They'll change the thermal grease and the guy said he will also test the fan, and maybe change it. Waiting for the call today...since i have the Next Business day warranty

 

does any1 have the cd12 upgrade for the plds dvdrwbd ds-6e2sh?
i had it but i downgraded it to cd11 due to problems with burning cds (the cds were the culprits, not the drive).

dell only offers cd11 and no signs of a cd12 upgrade

 

Maybe this would help? Need drivers for plds dvdrwbd ds-6e2sh ata device - Disk Drives (HDD, CD/DVD, Blu-ray) Forum - Disk Drives - Dell Community

I've a question for the 7720 users out there regarding the GPU temperatures.. I've been testing temperatures some more, and in most games the temps will be fine (usually between 60 and 70C), and in stress tests it might get a bit higher... but any stress tests involving 'fuzzy' objects (like Furmark) make my temperatures shoot right up to 90 and then my card starts throttling.

I was just hoping to ask if anyone could report if the same thing happens to them with Furmark?

Also, when my card isn't being 'boosted' (so when it's at 745 Mhz) the Furmark temps will slooowly climb to 67C or so and hang around there. It seems weird that a difference of 90 Mhz clock speed would have such a huge effect on temperatures. Is that normal?

edit: I think the main reason the temperatures stay so low when un-boosted is more to do with voltage than clock speeds. Running Furmark while boosted the voltage would be at 1.0120v, while unboosted is 0.9750v. Would that be the reason?

Also, could I overclock my 'non-boosted' state to be at 835mhz?

Well that's a lot of question marks from me. I'm done for now!

 

NVIDIA cards are designed to detect Furmark (and similar applications) and automatically throttle down, so as to avoid thermal damage. You won't get an accurate read. Best thing is to just game for a long time, or leave a benchmark of some sort (Heaven or similar) on loop for a while.

 

I got my laptop back from dell.

Malfunctioning HeatSink - replaced. And they replaced the motherboard,just to be sure...Nice.

There is an improvement temperature wise, i will benchmark in a few hours at work ( Nothing else to do and i'll get back with an answer

 

I have looked on NVIDIA forums and it appears GPU boost issue is present on laptops of other brands too.... question is, what could possibly cause this issue.
Also, i found out that Chrome explorer is probably the cause of FAN is spinning all the time. IE10 = absolute silence ... wierd.

I have max 70c with GPU Boost on (OC to 975MHZ) and no problems.

Also, i want to warn anyone with 3630 processor to NOT flash modded BIOS, otherwise you brick your 7720.

 

nice one .......................so when do I meat you in Talah Market Battlefield 3 ???? :yes::cry:

 

Anyone able to install the A13 bios? I get an error message (Error 213 - unable to read flash) when trying to update in win 8.

 

Hi, folks!
I am thinking of getting Inspiron 7720, possibly one from eBay, preconfigured and with SSD in already... Trouble is, while every SSD is better than the best HDD , I still think that Dell might no be putting in the best ones.. so, maybe I just go for the one with HDD, then replace the boot drive with aftermarket SSD... Has anybody any idea which SSDs are used in Dells configuration?

 

wait for A14 bios, which should be released April/May.

 

... hopefully with "MSATA" as a valid boot device option

 

A source would have been nice

 

Terry B from Dell confirmed this + Re: nVidia Geforce GT 650M NOT DETECTED on Inspiron 17R SE 7720 after BIOS A11 Update - Laptop General Hardware Forum - Laptop - Dell Community ;-)

 

Are you saying Furmark will never run at full GPU clock speed (even for a short while)? When I run Furmark in 720p Benchmark mode, it says my nVidia clock is 835Mhz (THROTTLING: -700Mhz)...does that mean it is currently in throttling mode, or is it saying if/when it throttles it will be at 135Mhz?

The reason I ask is because I have two 7720's...the one in my specs and another that is the glossy 3D model. The 3D version I think is not working correctly. My normal 7720 runs furmark with the fans barely running (quiet). My 3D 7720 runs the fans high most of the time (furmark, playing a movies, etc.), and when running furmark on the 3D version, my clock speed says 135Mhz, not 835Mhz. Also, the exhaust air is almost always cold. I think the heatsink is either missing or poorly installed.

Before I contact Dell, I want to have all my data correct.

 

I'm not sure what the (THROTTLING) thing is, really, 'cause it displays that when I run Furmark but my card is indeed running at full speed. Try using GPU-Z or MSI Afterburner to check the clock speeds whilst running Furmark.

What temperatures do you get on Furmark on the two laptops?

 

Rename your .exe and see what happens Lancorp. It used to be that the Nvidia/ATI driver just looked for the furmark.exe name and induced throttling, and by renaming the .exe to something else, it wouldn't know that precise program was running, and allow you to run at full power.

 

Actually, upon comparing my two 7720's, this 2nd one behaves differently and after further testing, I have a Dell tech coming today or tomorrow to replace the system board and heatsink. You see, what is happening (after further testing) is ANY use of the GPU causes the GPU temp to immediately spike to 95C.
At which time, the GPU clock starts to fall (all monitored with GPU-z), until the clock is down to 135Mhz and the temp drops to the mid 60's. Doing anything even minimally graphically intensive (like a youtube video) will cause an immediate spike to 95C, and quick multi-step drop in the CPU clock down to 135Mhz, and then it repeats itself after a few seconds.

I'm guessing the GPU heatsink is missing the paste. I'll check it out once the Dell tech comes.

My first 7720 does not show the same in Furmark so I'm not so sure about the detection information.

 

Not sure your info is correct. The link you posted does not work, but if you do a compare of the i7-3610QM and i7-3630QM on Intel's site, they both show 64-bit code, and the differences (few) are mainly speed differences.

 

How good is the new 750M compared with 650M ? Is there a noticable difference ?

 

The only difference I know of is turbo boost 2.0 and slightly higher clockspeed, which allows for higher boost speed etc, giving slightly better performance if cooling/temperature and power usage is within limits set by nvidia. We could also hope the turbo boost issue after sleep bug is fixed with the new turbo boost 2.0 implementation.

Beside this it's the same chip with new name

Performance wise I think it will be around todays GTX660M, or in other words around 10% better than stock GT650M.

 

Gr8 . That means our 650M will be good for atleast another 2 years ..!

Also , Can you please tell how to enable One finger scrolling and circular scrolling on the touchpad on 7720 ?

The default Dell Touchpad app ( with Alps driver ) does not seem to have any option .!

 

yes it has............the alps driver does that.............



by the way you quite wrong about GT 750M...............

the GDDR5 version is about a GTX670M......which is pretty awesome.......im thinking to pre-order a Lenovo IdeaPad Y500....just because i get it quite cheap.

spec:

Processor: Intel Core i7 3630QM 2.4GHz
Memory: 8GB DDR3
Storage: 1TB HDD + 16GB SSD
Screen: 15.6″ 1920×1080 LED
Graphics: 2GB GeForce GT750M
Optical Drive: DVD Recordable (Dual Layer)
Wireless: Intel Centrino Wireless N-2230
Battery : 6-cell Battery
OS: Windows 8

 

Sup guys,
after the update i made installing a samsung 840 pro 128GB ssd, i'm thinking of installing additional ram.My current is 4+2=6GB.Can i install 2x8 or the motherboard doesn't support it ?Sorry for my bad english.

 

Even if that is the case the 650M is still able to handle every game in 1080p , which is enough power already . All are not as rich as you

Also , I'm unable to understand the language in the image you pasted for Dell touchpad . Can you change the language to English and then paste the image again ?

 

I disagree...
750M stock does about 2400 points in 3Dmark 11.... 750 is basically only slightly oc´ed 650m... thats all... it is not worth upgrading just because of this GPU....

 

Exactly, it’s the same core as GT 650M.

BTW is anyone following the issue of fan running for way too long? I’ve been using SpeedFan to stop it manually but it’s not a solution.

 

in my case, it was caused by Google Chrome, which is very CPU demanding all the time. Try IE10, which is smoother and much less intensive = FAN is almost always idle.

 

check the new (dual bridge) mobile broadband....God damn (it goes over 100 Mbit/sec like nothing and has bigger bandwidth then ever....pretty wild)


PS....the GDDR5 version of GT750M is not as a GT650M....... its about 20-25% faster.

(GDDR5 GT 750M has both faster core speed and memory speed and have a brand new code name which means different parameters, etc....etc)
--------------------------------


SHASHANK_BEST..........
the left image explain gestures: 2 finger rolls & panorama
the right image image explain scroll & zoom.


(ps...im not rich...i just works hard within my electrician-company )
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the million dollar question is ....when does the GTX TITAN design comes in notebook GPU ?? (that would be something)

i mean come on...the first GPU (ever) who allow OCing your Screen refresh rate.......WOW

 

Here is the screenshot of the Dell touchpad in my system : (Plz click on image to maximize )



See, which option should i select to enable single hand scroll ?

Plz advice