Dell 17r N7720 SE - user review

It's random what you get, it's what they have in stock when your notebook is packed.

Mine came with LiteOn.

The delta is not dangerously hot in any way, just a lot warmer than the LiteOn model, so no need to worry.

 

Hi,

Could you guys recommend me a decent cooling pad for my 7720?
I've noticed that when the laptop is placed on the table, CPU & GPU run up to 10C warmer than when I hold it in the air (under full load on both CPU & GPU).
I've been thinking about Coolermaster Notepal U3 or one of the numerous Zalmans...

 

Hello

Had the 7720 3D for a couple of weeks now and overall, it's a good machine... when it behaves.

I can be using the machine for hours, browsing, watching TV etc., but sometimes when I switch to gaming my GPU is stuck at 135MHz clockspeed with low and unplayable frame-rates. Unigine Heaven is the same, stuttering along at 2fps and anything else I throw at the GPU just will not wake it up.

I have tried switching power plans, sleep, hibernation and rebooting, battery/ac pull with 30 second press on power switch to clear charge, with no joy. The thing restarts and the GPU clock is still at 135MHz!

The only way I have found of getting a fully functioning GPU back is to reinstall the driver. I have had to do this 5 or 6 times, flipping between Dell's driver and Nvidia's 314.22 (I did try 320.18 but that gave a BSoD, got rid of that one sharpish...) and each time the GPU is reset and performs as it should with the clock responding to demand until some unknown event locks it down at 135 again.

Temps appear to be fine, had no issues during 3-4 hours solid gaming so I am at a loss.

Any help or advice you can offer would be much appreciated. :thumbsup:

 

Just bought a Dell outlet (UK) Inspiron 7720 with 16gb ram, 128 SSD & 1 TB HDD. Coming tomorrow to replace my 4 yr old HP laptop as my main system. Took a risk after the problems I had with my XPS13 but it was too good an offer to resist. Just need to get a replacement wireless card so I can get dual band.

 

@tofeuu........................use BIOS a03 or a10............(i get best performance during this versions)

second....use 307.07........it absolute the best gaming Nvidia driver for the 120Hz 650M GDDR5 chip. (and yes, ive compared them all with 3Dmark 11 and clean FPS monitoring in games)

 

From yesterday , My 7720SE makes a creaking noise when opening my lid . It seems to be coming from the hinges ..

Is that something to be concerned ?

 

I sent back my 7720 this morning. I will either get an i7 if I can get a good deal or a Haswell assuming they announce something over the next few days.

Anyway, interesting thing.... Yesterday, before re-installing Windows 8, I ended up trying the built in Dell diagnostics. The GPU failed the test (the rest passed). I thought that was interesting. Hopefully they repair it instead of dumping it on the Outlet.


TrueG

 

@KSMB was wondering if it is possible to dowgrade from newest bios to the a03 or a10 you suggested for gaming. If its possible or anyone else can point me in the right direction, would be much appreciated. thanks in advance.

 

From yesterday , My 7720SE makes a creaking noise when opening my lid . It seems to be coming from the hinges ..

Is that something to be concerned ?

 

@KSMB
The 7720 came with BIOS A13 and I have upgraded to A14. My GPU problems occur with both versions.

Dell's driver is 307.07, just with the 'Dell Software Updated Package' added.

Thanks for your response, but I'll worry about performance when I can have a fully functioning GT650M when I need it, without having to reinstall drivers.

 

Ps. I didnt wonder IF its possible, i just told you which bios i prefer.......anyway;

Try this to downgrade the bios.

Downloaded the bios you want from Dell
Put the file in the c: root directory.

go in the c:\windows\temp\bios folder, run the bios utility,
select advanced setting.
unclick the check for newer version bios option.


Then run the bios update.

 

Shashank....... Here in Sweden we have a spray called 5-56

Just give the hinges a small hit with this spray and you Will get rid of the noise.

 

Is it some kind of grease / lubricant ?

And did you had this noise issue ?

Should i be concerned ? Should i call Dell ?

 

Universal oil that loosens rusted bolts, lubricates hinges, locks, etc. Do stop on crunching and squeaking. Releases and cleans fixed stuck mechanisms. Protects metals against corrosion in wet, corrosive environments.

you should not be worried about this.....no need to call DELL...fix it yourself.

 

Ok . Have you ever faced this squeaking noise with your 7720 hinges ?

 

not on 7720.....but on m1710 & 9400...........short burst of 5-56..........done !

----------------------------------------------------------------
guys....do you want to know why DELL still using Windows 7 (64bit) on their super high-end Precision laptops ???

because the tested with Windows 8.........and it sucked.........thats why

(im really fond to see what Microsoft have done with Windows BLUE)

 

That's just lame.

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk 2

 

UPDATE: I've had one of these since January, and I have to say it's been a really solid machine. (it's traveled about 3,000 km and seen more than it's share of hotel rooms).

As soon as I got it, I had moved the stock 1TB drive into the the second bay, and configured it to boot from the m-sata card. I took out the stock 32G msata and replaced it with a 256G one, which is now my boot drive. I suppose that some day I might add another SSD to the empty second drive bay.

And of course, I threw away all the DELL software and installed an OEM copy of Win8 Pro. I did put in the DELL touchpad driver, just so I could switch off the touchpad so it doesn't jiggle when I am typing. (I do prefer use a wireless trackball, so very rarely touch the touchpad - and I would say this touchpad is OK - as touchpads go!)

Anyway, not a glitch of ANY KIND in almost six months of heavy use, seven days a week. (Surfing, Office, Photoshop & Adobe Premiere)

1920x1080 Screen is beautiful, and Wifi always works good...

 

We already know that 7720 is the best machine out there with 650M .

 

OK, as a follow-up I have a couple of screenshots to illustrate the problem:


Then after a quick graphics card driver re-install, back to normal.

I am stumped, any ideas?

 

I have bought recently Samsung 840 pro 128gb, overall iam satisfied, but i noticed i have pretty low 4K write according to crystaldiskmark (only around 50mb/s)..



is it oK?
can you share your results, please?

Thanks

 

Thanks for the update. I gotta agree, after doing a clean Win7 64bit install on a dedicated SSD, the laptop has been rock solid (close to a year now). I only have DELL drivers installed for the touchpad and soundcard, all others are default Win 7 drivers pulled through Windows Update. I also stick with the default firewall and Security Essentials, I find that they are more than adequate if you know what you're doing, and a lot more stable than 3rd party solutions...

Also, I've found the 7720 to be a pretty decent at audio production. Very good latency on the USB ports, so I can get away with 96 sample buffer size on my external sound card. Fantastic results from a cheap-ish consumer laptop.

 

Well my 7720 just shut down during gaming

The GPU was around 77C or so when it happened. Not sure what temperature the CPU was but it usually gets up to 80C in games.

After it happened, I tried to turn the laptop on again and it shut off again at the Dell logo. I had to wait a couple minutes until it would turn on properly again.

Does this sound like an overheating issue, or could it be something else? It's weird 'cause I'm sure the temperatures were the same as they've always been.

edit: Oh, also, the battery 'wear level' seems to have gone from 3% to 9% since this happened (in HWMonitor), dunno if that would mean anything

 

I'd check the event log for some clues.

 

Oh, thanks!

Well, the source is "kernel-power", event ID 41, task category 63, which doesn't mean much to me, and Googling doesn't seem to hold any answers either so... eh, I'll just hope it doesn't happen again. And if it does... I dunno, getting a bit fed up of having to deal with Dell, but I guess I'll have to!

 

Try the built in diagnostics through the BIOS. The 7720 I had constantly overheated and it failed the GPU diagnostic.

 

no...this is absolute no heat issue.............more probably just a glitch/bug in the system/game

(77`C is very normal during games for 7720 GT650M) your cooling system works normal)
----------------------------------------------
--------------------------

 

You don't work in IT do you?

I'm 99% sure it's an overheating issue, a glitch/bug in the code would possibly blue screen the OS, not instantly shut down the hardware.

Most probable explanation for what happened is the heat sink is not seated properly across the whole surface of the chip, so a part overheated above the built in safety and triggered the shut down.

If you're still under warranty, call Dell and tell them what happened, they'll probably send a technician to reseat or swap the heat sink. If you're out of warranty, I suggest you buy yourself some good thermal paste and do it yourself.

 

eehhh......

a laptop with 77 C GPU temp does not effect this type of issues..


Fairlyawesome.................first of all... IF you had overheating issues, it often shows in other ways...ex, lags, unstable core speed, freezes, slow graphics( artifacts)...and so on)


i would do this.
1. re-install windows (i always start with a fresh install when i repair & looking for issues).
..install nvidia driver 307.07 (one of the most stable drivers for GT650M) and all other stock drivers of course

2. if this shutdowns still coming during games...i would call DELL and use my warranty (or go on myself if i felt i handle it)

 

KSMB, I suggest you read Fairlyawesome's original description of the problem again:

So according to you, not making it past POST for a couple of minutes after a shut down is caused by a glitch in a game? You think reinstalling Windows and drivers would fix this?

Sorry man, but you have no clue what you're talking about...

 

please dont try to learn me about laptops......i repaired laptops when you were in first grade :thumbsup:

realg...........you wrote this: "I'm 99% sure it's an overheating issue"

REALLY !!! his GPU temp is ~77`C under heavy load(games)........i have news for you.....77`C is normal for a GT650M under this circumstances,

not even a trainee on DELL support would suggest overheating in this case.
.......................................................

edit...

and yes........re-installing Windows is a very good thing TO START WITH........it clean 99% of all bugs, spywares and driver-glitches........
........................afterwards, move on with the issue itself.

 

So summer is here and my 7720 is getting hot. Now while gaming my temps CPU/GPU are basically nonstop around 90C and its a bit hot on wasd keys too. Worst thing i see random fps drops in games... which is unacceptable for me.
Should I call dell customer support ?? What do they usually do when overheating issue ??? I dont want to hear something like reinstal or so... I want some real solution like replace stock paste for some real one.

 

You could try underclocking your GPU by 90 MHz (MSI Afterburner), then it will only go as high as 745 MHz with Boost. You might also want to prevent your CPU from Turbo Boosting as well (set max CPU to 99% in power management). These two combined might keep the temperature at a manageable level.


TrueG

 

Good suggestions, although downclocking to 745MHz is probably why you're seeing the fps drop in games to begin with. You might have to accept that you're pushing the laptop too much, and back down some of the graphic settings in games. First thing I go for is anti aliasing and shadow levels, it makes a small difference in visuals, but makes a huge difference in performance, especially when running in full HD. See if you can do anything to improve airflow (laptop cooling pads help a bit).

edit: Obviously, if you're OK with doing a bit of manual labor, and don't mind risking the warranty, go ahead and replace the thermal paste, that will improve things a bit as well.

 

Al right, last post from me on this topic, don't want to hijack this thread with a pointless argument... I'll try to explain this one more time.

If you experience a forced shut down, and then are unable to get past a Power On Self Test, re-installing the OS will do nothing constructive to address this. The OS is not even loading at this point. The issue he described has symptoms which cannot be caused by a software glitch or spyware or driver issues. What's left is it's either a BIOS issue (unlikely, there would probably be others complaining as well), or a hardware issue of his particular laptop. Now the fact that he was playing a game, experienced a forced shut down and then had trouble booting for a short time afterwards, suggests strongly that it was due to overheating. It certainly is the most likely explanation.

You're focusing way too much on the 77C temperature reading. This is just a reading of one sensor on the GPU chip being reported to the OS. It does not guarantee all of the 384 cores of the GT650m are running at that temperature, or the memory chips for that matter. There are many parts of a complex chip such as a modern GPU, that can trigger a shut down to prevent damage. These triggers are baked into the design, and trip independently of the sensor reading that is reported to the system.

(fun fact, you can try this on your own. Take an older laptop, or your current 7720 if you're feeling adventurous, and scrape off the thermal paste from half the surface of the chip. See how long it takes before the system shuts down.. I guarantee you won't get to a 90C reading before it happens).

..oh, and yeah, I wouldn't expect DELL support (trainee or not) to suggest overheating as well, but then again, they are usually pretty clueless

 

Maybe not GPU temps were to blame for the shutdown but the CPU temps which are fairly unknown.
Anyways, is it safer to just ignore KSMB posts since they're beyond reasoning most of the time.

 

That's definitely possible. It depends on the amount of frame drop that we are talking about. Dropping GPU boost will lower the frame rate by roughly 10%. If he is seeing large drops in frame rate, either the GPU is throttling significantly below 745 MHz or the CPU is throttling. I found CPU Throttling to make a significant difference in frame rate (around 50% in some cases). If the CPU is throttling and turning off CPU Turbo boost doesn't stop it, you may need to sacrifice GPU boost (~10% performance hit) to keep temps low. If you don't want to underclock the GPU, simply unplug the AC adapter and plug it back in (that will also disable GPU boost).

Also, as mentioned, you can lower your graphics settings or try changing the thermal paste (although getting at the CPU/GPU is fairly involved on this model)


TrueG

 

Just got it yesterday, upgrading from XPS 701X. It is totally silent for me when browsing and installing things. I haven't been able to really tax it yet. I definitely think the sound is better. Is there any way to see if GPU boost is enabled other than running something graphic intensive and checking GPUZ, Afterburner, etc? Also what is the system RAM speed? Thanks.

 

Further messing about over the past weeks and I've discovered a couple of things:

1/ I don't have to re-install drivers. I was unaware of Windows 8 'hybrid shutdown' and wrongly believed a shutdown was the same as other windows versions.
The GPU is restored after a restart.:thumbsup:

2/I can purposely cause the lock! Run battery down to 10%, plug in AC, start game or GPU benchmark, pull AC for a few seconds and my GPU is locked to 135MHz. Restoring power does nothing, only a restart will restore full GPU function.
Can anyone reproduce this on their machine?

 

I also am disappointed the Blu-Ray drive only came with the highest model. In general it stinks you cant customize your hardware with Dell anymore

 

Can always buy blu ray drive separately and swap it.

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk 2

 

Barely a whisper even when gaming. The integrated graphics seem about as good as the old 445M video card was. Everquest defaulted to integrated and I was able to play fine until I tried to turn on everything (shadows, flora, post, bloom). When I went into NVidia settings and set Everquest to dedicated GPU, I could play find with all those cool things turned on, and it looked tons better than on the XPS L701X. Civ V was great too. The fan on the L701X would whirr like mad on that game, and the keyboard would get uncomfortably hot, but on the 7720 I could barely hear it, and it was only maybe a little warm. And when I quit the game, it got eerily quiet fast.

 

Oops I forgot to check back on this site for a couple weeks

Thanks for the talk on what could be causing my shutdown problem, my personal theory is that the HDD temperature might have caused the shutoff... my HDD is rated for 55C, but as I've posted before in this thread it slowly climbs beyond that. Maybe it's designed to shut off the laptop after it hits 60C?

After all, I've seen my GPU go beyond 80C in the past with no problems (if the laptop isn't properly ventilated or whatever, I DO make sure to avoid that though ), and my CPU temp usually gets to the 80s when gaming which has always been fine.

 

Also a shame that the Bluray player is not a BD-R burner. :-(

PS: Having now used my laptop for several months on W8 & W8 Pro, I notice it no longer shutsdown properly & thus hangs on reboot (black screen). A forced restart seems to cure the problem. I don't think this is specific to the Inspiron (or Dells), more I think a problem with the new W8 fast shutdown/restart, which is a hybrid hibernation state. Anyone else noticing this problem? I have updated all drivers, checked the system files, shut off & reset the fast-start option (in power settings), etc., nothing seems to work. Maybe I will try W8.1 or bite the bullet & refresh the OS...

 

I've had that happen when I had external drives mounted, which happened to be unavailable when Windows are starting up. After logging into my account, it would just sit there with a black screen, waiting for the network shares to become available...it would eventually time out and load the rest of the desktop, but took a couple of minutes at least.. It's one of the most irritating bugs in Windows (for me anyway, since I have a little file server that I only turn on every so often)

 

Hi all,
I just got my Inspiron 17R SE and immediately noticed 3 small brighter areas on the right side of the display. They all look almost identical and are evenly spaced along the right edge.
This is almost unnoticeable with colorful backgrounds but becomes more visible with black screens and even more if the room is dark.
Is this supposed to be a side effect of the backlight (if so, sorry for the stupid question) or there is something wrong with my display?

Any help would be very appreciated!

 

This is my first post here.. I have read the last 200 pages of this thread and must say I got some very useful advice. Thanks guys! I recently hit the trigger and replaced my 6 year old Inspiron 1501 with the Inspiron 17R SE (3-D version).

I have a CPU problem: According to HWiNFO and CoreTemp, my CPU (i7 3630QM) has a temperature of 60 degrees in idle mode with the fan running ever so slightly. After a while, the fan increases the speed and supresses the temperature by 10 degrees, then the temperature slowly rises again. I cannot see any CPU intensive process running in the task mananger and the CPU load is only 2% and the clock speed 1,2 GHz. What bugs me is that the fan is *always* on. The fan is always turned off on my old Inspiron and with 20 degrees lower temperature.

Any ideas what it can be, and if there is something I can do to improve the situation?

EDIT: I now realize that the faint (but still annoying) noise I am hearing is in fact the 5400 rpm system disk drive running in idle state. I will replace it with a 128 GB Samsung 840 SSD and use the 32 GB mSATA SSD for backup and other stuff. If you think the CPU temperature is too high, let me know, maybe I need to consult the Dell support?

 

My CPU temps on idle are around 49-54C, depending on room temperatures mostly (this is after replacing the stock thermal paste), so you're not that far off. Make sure you don't clog the fan intake (the laptop should rest on a flat hard surface, or a cooling pad). The fan never completely shuts off, you still need a small amount of air flow around the heat sink, but my 7720 is pretty much silent when idle (running an SSD as my primary disk).

 

Now having big problems with the Intel Centrino N2230 WiFi driver, which keeps dropping the connection (to DHCP), have tried ALL Intel Wifi Proset Drivers & ALL old Dell Drivers, nothing fixes the problem, which seems to be due to a problem in a MS Security update which interferes with the Intel Driver. W8 will not let me roll back far enough to get a working Wifi driver (<15.0.x), anyone else had this problem or found a solution that does not mean downgrading to W7 or Linux? :-(

 

I see. Well, I installed the Samsung SSD disk yesterday (now primary disk) and reinstalled Windows 8 from the included O/S DVD and it now runs much smoother. The noise is gone and the temp on idle is now 5 degrees less, about 56. I assume this is because the SSD disk doesn't get as hot as the 5400 rpm mechanical disk. Any further ideas on how to reduce the temp besides replacing the thermal paste?

I fiddled a bit with the Speedfan utility as well, the fan can be controlled but I would prefer to set conditions, such as if temp<75 then fanspeed=0, anyone tried that..?