Dell 17r N7720 SE - user review

Thanks for your reply,

How can I install windows 7 on SSD 32 GB?
I have got windows 7 with service pack1.

Regards

 

Thanks for your reply,

Can you please post some direct links for the same.

 

Mine developed a crazy fault where the screen flickered like mental when the screen had a lot of black in it. I had to send it back. Sad...

 

i have done a full win install (IF YOU have msata intel rapid)..

http://forum.notebookreview.com/del...o-windows-installation-intel-rapid-msata.html

ps.
its actually a very basic windows install.....just install the iRST driver as i saying in the guide and you cant do wrong ........

 

thanks for the reply,
Can you tell how can I install windows 7 on Hard drive and not on SSD?

Thanks

 

Unofficial Dell Windows Reinstallation Guide « philipyip

Mainly for Dell laptops.

 

Sorry it was Vista to W7
Here is a useful article on how meaningless WEI scores are: Windows 7 Feature Focus: Windows Experience Index | Windows 7 content from Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows

 

this guide (see link) IS for you main C: harddrive.............i dont have any "plain" SSD harddrive....i just have a msata ssd which cache up C: (harddrive)

its BIG different between a "real" SSD harddrive and a Msata ssd which just speed up the cache.


just follow the guide and you will be fine....i also use win 7 SP1 64bit.

 

Thanks for the link.. Wow, WEI really is pointless as a benchmark... why change the scores between OS releases???

However, keep in mind that Windows relies on the scores to set up certain things in the OS. For example, Windows uses this score to determine if you have an SSD disk, and adjusts everything accordingly (trim, no automatic defrag and indexing, no superfetch, correct sector alignment,).. So it's still useful to run it after a fresh OS install.

 

Changing hardware Will not affect the WEI scores ???
Wow..... Must the dumbiest replay all time

I get clearly higher scores if i upgrade from 5400rpm hdd to a 7200rpm HDR + MSata cache.....just guess how much IT shows if you Go from a GT GPU to GTX GPU for example.

 

What? You must have misunderstood the WEI article.. To clarify, of course it will change the WEI score if you unpgrade your hardware, no one claimed otherwise. However, it will show a different score for the same hardware depending on if you are using Vista or Win7.

 

of course it small changes depending if you using xp, win7 or mediocre vista or win8.....that basic stuff.


about the article...............

such a complete idiot........ quote from the article: "Put simply, WEI does not measure the overall performance of your PC. It only measures the relative performance of the individual hardware components in the PC.."

your hardwares is your overall performance !!

a PC with a old single core cpu and a GTX Titan gpu will of course not perform well in games because the cpu will be a extreme bottleneck.
and what should WEI shows...of course it give you super high scores on the gpu and super low on the cpu......preciously what you looking for in a test...(and it will definitely affect your overall performance)

 

It seems there is a driver issue with my Inspiron 17R SE 7720. After a couple of days, the game performance becomes painfully slow. If I do a clean reinstallation of drivers, everything returns to normal. But in a couple of days, the problem appears again, and so on...

I have tried with both the latest Nvidia notebook drivers (320.49) and the latest Dell certified drivers (320.07), no difference there.

This is the Nvivda-only model, so it has nothing to do with Intel drivers.

It has nothing to do either with the CPU overclocking issue reported here (I tried removing the batteries and rebooted).

Anyone else who has encountered this problem and found a solution?

 

I'm looking to replace my XPS 1645, and reckon this is the best one Dell have to offer. The architecture in these is already out of date, so is this going to be refreshed with new tech anytime soon? I don't want to buy one only to have it updated in a month or two.

Dell see to be selling them off cheap at the moment, so maybe making way for new stock? They're bloody cheap for what you get, but I'd rather pay more for newer.

 

Hi Guys,

I wanted to ask that does the Turbo Boost problem (i.e it doesn't clocks to 3.4 Ghz for a long duration during gaming) also exists in the 2013 model of inspiron 17r SE which has a 3630qm processor as opposed to the 3610qm processor in earlier models ?? I am going to buy this laptop in the coming days, this info would be of great significance. Also does 2013 model comes with a 130W power cord? Thanks in advance.

Currently own an Inspiron 15r SE. Specs: AMD 7730M , Core i7 3632qm, 8GB RAM, 1 TB HDD (5400 RPM)

 

Has anyone figured out how to solve the rattling/vibrating speaker problem? I don't consider leaving the volume below 50% a reasonable solution.

 

Haswell coming soon to the 17R SE

https://twitter.com/DellHomeSalesAU/status/370008292891701249

 

Can someone here with a 17R S.E having factory Windows 8 upload their recovery discs online ?

My recovery partition got corrupt . Please

 

Contact Dell - they should provide you with one set of discs free of charge unless things have changed.

 

They do:

Dell - Support

US only though. Not sure about URL or availability for other regions.

 

They should provide it anywhere in the world according to this link:

How To Request Backup CDs for Your Dell Computer | Dell UK

 

Yes but i'm currently in India .

They don't ship it out here .

So Can someone please upload there recovery discs ( anyone who has windows 8 factory installed ? )

Please

 

Yello.
Just replaced my old trustworthy Sony AW11Z with this Dell. Difference in performance is very noticable and I just love the back-lighted keyboard. The only problem is the infamous wireless card...I had Windows 8 installed originally and it was working ok-ish (droppped connection slow speeds ect. but not frequent) but now I got clean install of Windows 7 on SSD drive. I tried various drivers and even more settings for N2230 card (did my search on various forums) but it still is not good enough. My wife's Sony AR71M has stable wireless connection without any hiccups and it is 54Mb. Whenever I updated drivers or changed settings I went to Windows 7 SP1 page and started the download of most bottom file. AR71M got stable transfer of 970-990kB/s whereas my Dell fluctuated badly around 600-100kB/s. The speed in wireless network status usually hovers around 72Mb/s but it can jump to 144 or get to as low as 1Mb (connection lost). I really spent a lot of time trying to figure it out and today I decided I will replace the N2230 unless someone got a remedy for this problem. I have my eyes on N6235 but this card seems to suffer from some problems as well...

I am sorry for this long post but if you know wireless card that can go into this laptop and work well please let me know.
Thank you. Mad.

 

@gathor...................sounds quite weird..........your signal strength shouldnt go up & down like that....especially when you are in the same spot all time

i use the wifi driver directly from intel/support/driver.com.................i think it works better.

if nothing helps you very might have a bad antenna or wifi card (DELL will replace that in a heart beat)

ps..im not even sure you can use for ex, Intel ultimate 6300 ....i would either maybe try the 4352 802.11n + Bluetooth 4.0.

to be 100% sure...i would call dell and ask them which wifi cards who are 100% compatible.

 

Hello Guys!

Sorry for my bad english, I`m from poland. Maybe i buy this DELL 7720 in October (this year). But I have a question about performance in games. How much FPS when I played in Civilization V, Endless Space, Fallen Enchantress ??? I played too in MMO ald RPG .. This i7 and 650M in FULLHD is OK ?

 

BTW, WEI is gone in W8.1 so this will be non-issue soon...

 

i can say this................i play BF3 (online) nearly every day.....
i play in 120Hz, 1080p. high/medium settings. .SSAO enabled....around 40 FPS

new bioshock.......medium settings 1080p....around 35 FPS

 

Wow so great! In this case my strategy games is working fine on this DELL

 

Thanks for info KSMB.
From what I read Dell will tell me that other cards are incompatible but will give it a go once warranty is transferred in my name. I tried all sorts of drivers and it still wasn't that much of a difference. I now disabled the "n" wireless mode on both router and wireless card plus I disable the Bluetooth as well. Seems to be helping a lot as I get steady 54Mb/s with only some issues from time. Btw. how did you get "GTX670M" in your laptop?

CavieZ - I play Starcraft 2 on max settings I think and it works fine.

 

@gathor.........he he...you slightly misunderstand me here..

this 3dmark 11 link is from my 7720 with GT650M.....(but with a overclock......i just call it gtx670 power, because i reach around gtx670 benchmark scores and similar performance

 

edit...i moved to right thread

 

Has anyone managed to change the Design Studio case cover on their machine, getting bored with the std cover.
Was thinking of ordering a skin for it, but it may not stick well with the dimpled cover?

 

its very easy....push the button on the back and slide the case off. (you find cheap cases on ebay or a bit more on dell.com)

 

Anyone manage to get a Intel 7260AC working in the 7720? I bought three of them cause we are upgrading our home router to the RTAC66U. So far I am still on an actiontec router though and the 7260 works flawlessly in my M18 and my wifes XPS15 but my 7720 has nothing but problems. In a period of 5 minutes the dang card has to authenticate my connection to my router 15 times as per the intel event viewer. I even swapped out the 7260AC from my M18 and 7720 and the problem stayed with the 7720, not the wireless card. aaagghhhhhh

 

Great 3dmark vantage scores with gt650M (3D.chip) with new bios....... stock driver 307.07 (No Overclock)

total: 10383
Graphics Score
8840
CPU Score
21799

..........never got some much over 10k in Vantage before.........very nice
http://www.3dmark.com/3dmv/4816367

 

Hmm. I just ran the 3D Mark 11 Basic (free) version and my result seems worse than yours when comparing to a "gaming laptop":
NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3630QM Processor,Dell Inc. 00MT1R

How come that difference? My hardware is slightly better than yours. Could it be the driver version? (I believe I have the latest Nvidia native drivers)

 

Different version of 3Dmark perhaps?

 

Hey guys, I've just ordered a 17R SE in the UK, however I've since learned that this model no longer comes with a backlit keyboard. So can anybody tell me whether it'd be possible to purchase and install a backlit keyboard myself, and if so, how difficult it'd likely be for a complete beginner?

Thanks in advance!

 

You can order a backlit keyboard from Dell as has been described in this thread by several users. Call Dell. I think it should cost you about £65 (shipping included).

There are tutorials on Youtube that describe how to change keyboard. It is not difficult, Just make sure that both flat cables are being correctly inserted (non-backlit keyboards only have one flat cable).

 

Slightly better results in Unigine Valley benchmark after upgrading graphics driver and then BIOS to version A15.
Old driver on the left, then new driver and updated bios on the rright.

 

Hmm, I just tried with the same benchmark software. Despite a stronger CPU, my score is still lower.

 

Good morning people! I am experiencing some bugs with GPU Turbo boost not working. Core clocks always stay at 745Mhz, even if i try to overclock them or playing games (BF3 for example). Temperatures are also quite low as 65-72 degrees in games.

My laptop specs:
i7-3630QM
16GB
1TB
GT650M
BIOS - A15.

Turbo boost starts working after I turn laptop off, disconnect adapter and battery, then connect everything back. Then it works fine, even for 3 hours under 80 degrees (monitoring with Nvidia Inspector) until i turn it off. Next time i launch it, GPU boost ALWAYS stops working until i repeat "cure" procedure.
I am sorry, but rereading all 250 pages... Maybe that problem is already solved?
Thanks)

 

Aah! Now I realized my disappointing GPU score was because of the disabled GPU Turbo boost. I shut down, removed the battery and booted up again. Score increased from 710 to 814.

 

Hello guys,

I have a dell 7720 (3610 qm), with the a15 bios.
I tried playing battlefield 4 beta, but the fps was between 20-30 on low settings.
Is there a way to overclock my videocard and if so can someone explain me how to do it ?

 

I finally got around to installing my new Samsung 840 Pro 256GB drive, and putting Windows 7 on it. Everything went smoothly until I tried adding my Bluetooth mouse. I'm getting this error repeatedly, "Adding this device to this computer failed. Adding the device failed resulting in an unknown error. The reported error code is: 0x80070015.".

I put the original hard drive back in, booted up to Windows 7, and sure enough the mouse works fine with that build. Any ideas on how to fix this issues?

 

Nevermind, I ended up solving that Bluetooth pairing problem. Now here's my last dilemma. I prefer natural scrolling (reverse), and by modifying pointing devices through the system registry, you're able to do so quite easily by changing the value of "flipflopwheel" to 1 from 0. The touchpad refused to acknowledge this change on the previous load, but for some reason started working out of nowhere. I'm not having as much luck this time around. Anyone know how to force this change? It's supposed to activate when to connect and reconnect the device, but there's no way to do that with the touchpad (to my knowledge). I've tried enabling and disabling the touchpad with the function key, but that didn't work. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Try disabling the touchpad in device manager.

 

There's not an option to do that, only uninstall. I ended up remembering how to fix this though; Go to "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Alps\Apoint" in the system registry, create a new DWORD named "InvertScrollFlag", and set it to 3 for inverted scrolling, or 0 for normal scrolling. The setting will apply after restarting, or logging out and back in.

 

Posting test..short review coming..

 

Hi All,

Just like to say I got around to getting one of these DELL laptops and heres my 2cents worth.

I got the non-3D screen version [Matte Screen] with only 1 HDD, basically the rest is the same. I was just about to purchase the 3D - Treu life screen but I found this on the Outlet site, brand new with the exact same specs as the retail non-3D version for $250.00 less, so i couldn't resist and made the plunge.

Well I have had this laptop for a bit over a week now and heres my take on this Laptop.

The Screen:
Before I got my laptop I read a few negative comments on the Matte Screen from people on this thread that had me slightly worried if I had made the wrong decision and even with the discount [with the non-3D model I purchased] I should have stuck with my original decision and got the 3D model. I confess I don't mind paying more for better graphics.

Well it turns out I had nothing worry about, the Matte screen [anti-glare] screen is very nice screen. With some color calibrating and adjusting it looks amazing. I am comparing it to my 4 year old DELL XPS16 that I purchased with the RBG [or is that RGB ??] screen that you can no longer buy & which I can say is one of the most beautiful looking screens i have seen. So comparing the new DELL Inspiron 17R to my XPS16, even though I admit the colours on my old XPS16 look richer, deeper and more vibratant [I did pay an extra $300.00 for that option back in 2009] I can honestly say the Matte Anti-glare screen does hold its own and is not that far behind. The anit-glare look and feel is actually growing on me more and more and the bottom line is, unless your padantic about every little detail and a true colour connoisseur, you seriously will not be disappointed in the Matte Anti-Glare screen. On top of that if you aren't fascinated by the 3D option, save yourself a bit of money and put it towards an SSD.

Which brings me to Hard Drive. The system came with Windows 8 pre-installed with all the default stuff DELL throw in. What I did was create a recovery disc/s [actually 3 DVD's] and re-installed Windows 8 with these discs and uninstalled a few of the things like McAfee etc and did notice an improvement in startups and general speed. However, the Hard drive that comes with system is a 1TB - 5400 RPM drive and it basically the bottleneck of the system. Having a quad core processor and 8 GB of RAM, it is criminal not to install an SSD drive. I have just purchased a Samsung SSD 840 - 250GB drive which I will be putting in next weekend, when my Windows 8 DVD OEM disc arrives in a few days which I will use to do a clean fresh install from scratch. Having said that the system is still fast enough with good startup times and even faster shutdown times.

The general build, feel and look is quite good as well, sturdy, nice keyboard spaced keys, though a tad on the smaller size [the actual keys] they feel nice to press. No problems with the hinges and it sits perfectly flat with not uneven wobble. The finish does mark quite easily, but cleaning finger marks with a damp cloth does not take a lot of effort and comes up quite clean. Gettting to the RAM and Hard Drive [and HDD bays] is very easy by unscrewing 2 screws on the back. If you get the model with only one hard drive, the scond hard drive bay does come with the mounting bracks, however as mentioned earlier you will need to find 4 screws to screw in the extra drive you will be installing.

Finally the operating systems, Windows 8. So far I love it. Give it a go. Watch a few youtube videos on the basics and I am quite sure it will begin to grow on you. I am just in the early stages of using Windows 8, however I would be surprised if it began to disappoint. Once you are on the desktop it is not much different to Windows 7 and its fun customizing it to your choice of preference. I think most people give up too soon without giving it a far go. In regards to the missing "START" button/Orb, I admit I was initially lost and kept looking for it, but as you get familiar how Windows 8 works, you depend less and less on the START button and begin to explorer the other ways to navigate around windows which again is one part that makes it fun. For those who absolutely must have the "START" button/orb back, these are many apps that bring it back, the way you have in Windows 7 and although I may install one of these apps and bring the START button back, I will try and encourage myself to go without it unless I find I really need it back.

Overall I love Windows 8 and like it more and more each time I use it and the more I bocome familiar with it.

Hopefully we can keep this thread alive and share views and tips to enhance our experience with the DELL 17R.