Dell 17r N7720 SE - user review

Hi

I got my 7720 with the 1080p 120hz trulife screen and it looks great and I prefer this over the anti glare screen

The colours for me are alot better

The only problem for me is the gpu only runs at 745mhz it never boast up to 835mhz and the power supply I have is 130w Version.

It seems alot of people have this problem, my friends 7720 as able to run at 835mhz most of the time. With no over clock at all at stock.

Strange he doesn't do anything special I will have to check his settings and see what bios and gpu driver he is running.

Love the laptop

Thanks

Ian

 

You have to reinsert battery to make gpu boost work again... this is a known bug.

 

Reinsert the laptop battery?

 

I already explained few pages back... If you unplug your powercord, your GPU boost will be disabled... There is only solution - turn off the laptop, remove the battery, reinsert the battery and plug the power cable.. In case, you disconnect the power cable, repeat the procedure.

 

My temps after playing some borderlands at 1080p with details set to high (no anisotropic filtering as that was causing to drop too many frames):
Very pleased. Also temps hover around 45 celsius with light use for CPU which is good.

 

The gpu is clearly malfunctioning. There is no excuse.

Dynamic boost aside, the clock stats at 135/406/745mhz sometimes.

The first 2 cases are suboptimal when you need gpu power, but are welcome when you are mobile.
The latter case maybe nice when gaming, but at idle the fan is always on and you can forget mobility. The battery says bye after 1h30 min.

Something is broke (for one frickin year) and Dell needs to fix this, because it's obviously on their behalf!

 

Mine is working fine battery lasts 3h

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk 2

 

If the GPU appears to running at 135MHz and never changes, you might be using the integrated graphics. I ran into that problem with Quantum Conundrum. The game played pretty well with the Intel 4000, but the GPU frequency was locked at 135 MHz and it wasn't preforming as well as it should. I had to use the NVidia control panel to force the executable to use the NVidia GPU instead. Once I did that, it worked correctly and I was able to hit the VSync limit vs 20 fps with the integrated GPU.

***

I also ran some tests on my 90W adapter to ensure it could handle the CPU & GPU (while overclocked) at full load. I also have a 130W adapter from my Precision M4400 for comparison. Short story was that it could, but in the process I was able to determine at what point the system disables GPU Boost.

It doesn't appear to be dependent on the GPU. Instead, if the CPU gets too hot, the system disables GPU Boost to help compensate. Once disabled, you have to fully power cycle (pull batt & AC) before it will come back (running BIOS A14). The problem was easy to reproduce. Simply run Prime95 in the background (small FFTs) while gaming.

In my case I had Deus Ex: Human Revolution running. I first started the game and confirmed that GPU Boost was working. I then Alt-tabbed out and started Prime95. GPU Boost continued to work until the GPU got up to around 65 degrees. After a short while GPU Boost turned off. Turning off Prime95 and waiting for everything to cool down before going back to the game did not make a difference, it was permanently turned off (until full power cycle). At the point that GPU Boost turned off, the CPU hit 80 degrees.

It's frustrating that GPU boost can be turned off so easily. I wouldn't mind having to reboot to restore it, but having the pull the battery and AC is a pain.


TrueG

 

I have the 3d configuration. It occurs after I wake up the notebook from sleep mode.
A restart fixes it, but why should I use all these workarounds to get it correctly working?

 

I also have the 3D version, and don't seem to have a problem. I use a GPU monitor gadget that shows me the GPU clock speed.
When only at the Windows desktop and normal apps, my GPU is at 135. I ran Neverwinter (on the highest settings, it works great), and when I quit back to Windows, I saw my GPU at 835, then lower and lower until it's back to 135.
It went to sleep and a few hours later, I woke it up and started Neverwinter again. Same thing, quit and noticed the GPU was at 835 and it steps down to 135. So mine seems to have no problems turbo'ing up to 835 even after sleep.

 

@LANCORP..................nice collection you have there......one 7720, one Xps 15 and one Macbook pro... :thumbsup:

i see you put in a extremely beautiful Samsung PRO SSD (as your OS harddrive ? ) are you caching up the second spinning hard drive with your Msata intel storage function ????

im also planning to buy the Samsung PRO (but 512GB) version............should be great

 

Yes, and as a matter of fact, I just set up the "accelerating" of the HDD with a 32GB PM830 yesterday! I finally figured out how to set up caching after the fact on a beuatiful red M14X I'm playing with right now.
Having always opted for real SSD's, I've never really messed with caching a HDD with an SSD until I got it working on the M14X. I was surprised how well it boosts the performance of the HDD! It actually boots pretty fast!

At first, I was confused because my 7720 only had ATA and AHCI for the choices, but I read about loading the BIOS defaults, and sure enough, once I did that I had iRST as a choice. I updated to the newer 12.6 and voila!
Since my HDD is mostly data, not sure how much performance increase I'll see, but hey, I have a few 32GB mSATA's lying around so why not!!

I've been very happy with my 7720. It's not as sexy as an XPS or Alienware, but for the $700 I paid for it (minus the Samsung SSD and 16GB RAM), it's a great performer and so far, hasn't let me down.

I just wish it had Gigabit ethernet. I think the lack of it is it's only major drawback. I'm currently using a USB 3.0 --> Gigabit Ethernet adapter. It makes a major difference copying files over my network.

 

I think that's the first time we've heard anyone lose gpu turbo after waking from sleep mode. If you can reproduce this, I'd call Dell support and ask for a fix.

 

I couldn't agree more, I can't believe they put in a 100mbit network adapter into an otherwise well spec'd notebook. If I had a choice, I'd pay a bit more if there was an optional upgrade to gigabit.

Can you give us more details about the usb adapter you're using? What model, and what speed are you getting on file transfers? I've had bad experience with these adapters, they claim to be gigabit, but a lot of times they run at hardly 100mbit speeds.

 

Agreed. Probably a minimal saving on Dell's part but a huge loss of performance for the laptop users....
Will be getting USB3.0 to Gigabit dongle too. Lots on ebay etc.

My Samsung 840 250GB just arrived
Can't wait to start using it!

 

A while back, there weren't as many choices as there seems to be now, but I am using this one. Copying files from my desktop PC to my 7720 over the built in 10/100 was giving me about 11MB/s.
I plugged in the USB 3.0 Gigabit and retried the copy and was getting 45-60MB/s. Good enough for me!

 

fortunately i have an ssd as primary, so reboot is done withinga few secs. it´s not that big of a deal, just annoying, especially when it happens while playing dota 2....

 

Guys I got a problem here.
When I do a fresh reboot, my gpu is working fine (temp is okay, memory clock is okay), according to my gpu widget on my desktop.

When I'm doing something I don't use my gpu for (Word, internet browsing, etc) my screen sometimes suddenly becomes black, and reappears after 3 seconds.
The gpu widget shows that everything went to 0 (temperature, memory clock). If I try to open nVidia menu, it says it couldn't detect the gpu. So basically, I'm stuck with only the Intel HD.
This is quite annoying because I like to play a game from time to time. These games have a console, showing my current gpu is Intel HD 4000. If I just start up my laptop and open the game, it says nVidia Geforce GT 650M, which is perfectly fine.
Are there others having these problems? I really would like to find a solution because rebooting everytime I want to play a game is quite stupid.

Cheers.

 

Have never heard of anyone having this issue with the 7720, certainly does not happen on my laptop.. Try reinstalling the nVidia drivers, try the latest certified from nVidia, or the ones supplied by DELL on their website. If you still have issues, I'd call Dell support if I were you.

 

I didn't realize that you even loose GPU boost if you put the laptop to sleep, unplug it, move it to a different room, plug it back in and wake the computer. I guess the laptop considers running from battery while in sleep as reason enough to disable GPU boost.


TrueG

 

Bahhh, even doing a freaking full shutdown (in Windows 8) and unplugging the AC will disable GPU Boost.

Basically, whenever you need to unplug the laptop, you need to also pull the battery if you want to have GPU boost once you get back into Windows.... Lame

 

I haven't noticed a huge loss in performance after restarts etc.
Will keep an eye on it but it seems to be working ok for me to be honest.

 

The performance difference isn't huge, although I have mine overclocked, so the difference between running with GPU boost and running without is over 200 MHz (969 MHz vs 745 MHz). That sometimes means a difference of running at 40 fps instead of 30 fps. It's still playable, but the difference is noticeable if you are looking for it.

I always have MSI Afterburner running, so I always know my GPU temp, frequency and FPS so I always know immediately if GPU Boost is disabled.

 

Sorry to be blunt here, but you're not quite understanding a few things here. The reason i'm mentioning Nvidia is simply because its an gpu, designed by them. DELL simply buys them in, and places them on their mobo's. So the specifications from the gpu are set by Nvidia. And I'm well aware that DELL is dodging the problem at hand.

You're right though on the part that DELL might have mod the bios on purpose so it wont boost due to the thermal design of the notebook. But that wouldn't explain as to why it can boost until you unplug the device. This alone imo shows that its a bug and not a ''feature''.

And to conclude the 7720 SE only gets sold with 1 type of 650m. Whether you have 120hz/3d is only up to the monitor. Why your boost is behaving correctly is due to you running a bios mod if i recall correctly?

A general question though, recently I have purchased a backlit keyboard from E-bay. I have however noticed the keys are more greyish than black like the original non backlit is. Is this because the keyboard I bought is ''universal'?' and if you opt for a backlit keyboard from DELL you get a black one? It doesn't look bad mind you, one can argue it looks even better.

 

A few posts back (okay, more than a few) I reported that the space bar of my back lit keyboard did not function as it should.

I finaly contacted DELL and they send a replacement keyboard. It works great, and I think even the flex is less!

Just wanted to report that here...

 

Thanks for letting us know.
What exactly was happening to your spacebar key?

 

It only registered if you hit it right in the middle. So a little to the left or right from the middle and the space was not registered... This resulted in verry long "words" and a lot of frustration (needed to correct virtually every sentence)

 

How can i measure the temperatur of my Power brick ?

 

Why do you need to do that?

 

I think my brick is getting too hot . It is uncomfortable to hold .

Even when watching movies .

When gaming it gets burning hot .

 

I'd get in touch with Dell support.

 

Does anyone have issues with nvidia notebook drivers 320.18? I get blackk screens on reboot, unable to hibernate and in most cases on restart i get an error "windows did not shut down cleanly, rebuilding cache data". After that it just goes to a black screen.

I had to do a windows refresh to roll back the drivers to the dell one from the website.

I think i've narrowed it down to the video card drivers. At the time i thought it was the chipset or irst drivers which i installed at the same time but after i did a windows refresh, i was reinstalling my applications and then reinstalled the 320.18 and then i immdediately had the issue.

 

If you have the 7720 with i5 cpu be advised that it comes with a 90W power brick which gets rather hot. I went out an purchased a 130W slim power brick which doesn't get hot at all.

 

have i7 and a 130W power brick

 

130W is a "must" if you going to OC...........even with i5 CPU.

 

yes but my 130W brick gets too hot even when watching movies / surfing . While gaming it gets burning hot .

I have i7 . No OC

 

Get in touch with Dell if you are still under warranty, if not buy a new one. You don't really have any other options.

 

Has anyone had any issues with the built-in microphone? I cannot get it to work no matter what I do (works fine using a external headset).

Can anyone suggest any ideas to get the internal mic working?

 

the built in microphone is 100% crap on 99% of all laptops............thats the way it is

 

Just curious - new Nvidia 7x0M series is now announced. Also intel haswell should only be a few weeks away.

I'm thinking whether to sell my 7720. However, when new CPU architecture and GPU get announced - manufactures are likely going to debut only higher-end Haswell laptops first - with such good spec / price ratio - 7720 is one of those rare occurrence that probably won't happen again for a while - last time it was M9300/M9400 in the C2D era; not to mention 7720 is so fast already with 840 Pro. However, a lighter, more refined 7720 would be very welcome. (hopefully without Samsung's 17-inch Series 7 Chronos / Alienware pricetag)

Are you guys intending to keep 17R SE? :hi2:

 

Are you all sure your nvidia 650m cards are working correctly? MANY of us are having an issue where the 650m is not detected.

nVidia Geforce GT 650M NOT DETECTED on Inspiron 17R SE 7720 after BIOS A11 Update - Laptop General Hardware Forum - Laptop - Dell Community

Will you guys please check your device managers and make sure you're running off of the GT 650 and not integrated graphics?

If yours is working, please let me know what BIOS version you are using.

Thank you!

 

Mine's working fine.
BIOS A14

 

Mine works fine bios A11. (A14 updater fails to update, so stuck at A11).

 

For now yes, probably gonna wait for new GPU generation before updating. Not very interested in the 7xx generation which is just rebranding of 6xx with the addition of turbo boost 2.0.

I guess early 2014 is a good estimation for a completely new GPU generation.

 

There are at least two different 130W PSU makers. Lite-On which just gets warm during use, and Delta electronics which gets hot/very hot during use. So it could be normal, depending on PSU maker.

 

How to know which make is mine ? Thot All Dell 130W PSU are the same ..

 

Just look at the brick, should say "Mfr.Name: XXXXX" somewhere, mine is LiteOn corp. But I also had one 17R SE that I returned (screen backlight bleeding), which had delta. There could be others as well, as long as they manufacture per dell's spec I guess dell chooses the cheapest maker.

 

Intel should be releasing Haswell in the next few days. MSI and Razor have already started announcing their Haswell based laptops. I would love something like the 7720 but with separate cooling for the GPU and CPU and a bigger battery.

I'm sending my 7720 back on Monday. My 30 days are up on Wed.

 

the new 130W (slim) is awesome...compared to my other two 130W (DELL) adapters this one is better..........it stays medium warm, charge up the battery fast...very good adapter


@trueg.....if you want 2 fans/hardcore cooling laptop (Apple Macbook pro / Sager) versions........no problemo.... just pay £2000 and you get it

the funny thing here is.... my older Inspiron laptop have 2 separate fans (but they are built back in the good days )

 

Saw it . Mine is Delta electronics make . So it is bound to get hot/very hot during use ?

Does dell give the same delta electronics model with every 17rSE ?

Or do they give the liteon one also ?

Please reply .