Dell Inspirion 7577

What is it you are concerned with? Here is the only CDM score I have archived from this thread... There may be more but my collection efforts have been sporadic.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/dell-inspirion-7577.808514/page-64#post-10654449

 

Before posting my message, I read all the messages on pages 46 to 119 and in particular your message #501 page 51. But I did not see anything about replacing the 30-pin eDP display cable with a 40 pin.

Thank you for your response and your proposal. For now I have not yet bought the laptop, but I plan to buy it if I'm sure it is possible to replace the FHD display with a UHD.

 

So i'm planning to use the intel xtu and i'm planning to do a -110mV which is about -0.11V, after doing that i can just exit out of intel xtu?

 

You may not get -110mV stable. I would start at -50mV or -80mV first and slowly bump it up from there while also stress testing. I also would use Throttle Stop instead of XTU due to XTU just being flaky in general, but yes after you set your undervolt it generally sticks between boots or if you exit the program, but XTU is known to sometimes revert back randomly.

 

That's CDM benchmark with no drivers installed.

 

Make sure you purchase correct UHD panel as original UHD panels doesn't fit in FHD display cover because of different screw layout. Original UHD panel screw holes are on left and right panel sides not top and bottom like FHD panels.

 

This was in response to a previous request by Doctor Rzepa.

Since you posted that link, compare to the numbers generated by the good Doctor:

Your link:


Doctor Rzepa:


And now I'm curious what my 256GB NVMe m.2 drive shows as well.

 

I bet it's gonna be 330-350MB/s. Maleko48's disk is 128GB (don't know if it's Toshiba), smaller SSD drives usually have lower speeds.
And that is issue with drivers - mine test was done immidiately after Windows installation with no additional drivers. After drivers are installed, speed is capped at ~350MB/s. I opened a discussion at Dell community forums, but they simply do not care.

 

That's a minimal issue imo. These 7577s have a lot of bezel to work with. Some epoxy and sheet metal and a drill and you can put the holes wherever you want. I would consider cable length and routing (in the event the location of the cable's port is located in a different spot) a higher priority of importance. I haven't actually cracked mine open yet (don't really need to yet) unfortunately, but I'd be curious if the stock UHD screen shares the same mount points as the stock FHD panel. Btw you can always pull PDF data sheets from Panelook.com . Just use a temporary proton mail account to get past verification and get enough "coins" to download a data sheet.

 

That's just a CDM that was archived from my 7577 thread:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...-details-pics-of-internals-optimizing.811380/

I will run CDM on my machine when I get home soon and share my results. However, I have dual 500GB Samsung SSDs so it may not really mean much for you. (Check my signature for detailed system specs.)

 

Have you tested after installing each driver to determine which one(s) cause the issue? Narrowing it down to one or a couple drivers may make it possible for Dell to address this, rather than just loudly complaining about the issue.

 

Just curious if LatencyMon could potentially be put to use to track that sort of interference down? The actual specific drivers and host controller drivers they are using definitely matter too. (In addition to AHCI/RAID.)

 

I'll test mine shortly and post results as well. I didn't check it when I first got it as it was configured for raid and had all the Dell bloat so the first thing I did was configure for AHCI then did a clean install. The various drivers were self installed along the way but I grabbed the Intel driver utility and updated 1 or more Intel related things that Dell was behind on... I think it was just a BT and wifi driver though. I also grabbed the latest nVidia driver for the GTX 1060 and installed that.

@DoctorRzepa , looks like you were right on the money.

 

I'll be curious to see how your Samsung SSDs show. Do you have an m.2 SSD and a SATA SSD?

 

I made 2 clean installations, in each iteration i tested results of only one driver installed:
- chipset
- thermal framework
In both cases Toshiba's speed dropped down. As I read, Samsung drives do not have this issue (or should I say, 7577 does not have this issue with Samsung drives).
Someone on different notebook forum tried my test and said that after both clean installation and with drivers SSD's speed was OK, but after Windows updates it dropped. I suppose, it was just a matter of rebooting (he probably didn't do that after installing single driver).

And I'm not "loudly complaining", I'm just reporting the issue. And I'm not the only one doing that. I suppose Dell's maintenance/technicians have a least one 7577 for test and can easly reproduce that issue. And I wonder, did they ever tested that configuration before releasing it? Or is it Windows problem, maybe? Under Linux everything works fine.

 

It's a driver issue (possibly only on Win10). Feel like testing Win7?

The chipset driver just enumerates your Hardware. I have seen more problems caused by Intel Thermal Framework myself. You can try uninstalling that and testing again.

 

Here's an excerpt from the last post in a thread I'll link at the bottom.

"Regarding the: 256GB Nvme Toshiba KXG50ZNV256G

Dell's engineering team has advised me that the drive's performance behavior is 'working as designed'. The behavior is due to a drive feature called the "SLC buffer". More on that in this wiki. In the case of Toshiba XG5 256GB, the SLC buffer size is maximized at 1/3 the full capacity of the SSD."

Link to the Wiki referenced above:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_drive

Thread from the Dell Community:
https://www.dell.com/community/Lapt...AID-ON-Storage-Drivers-M-2-Lanes/td-p/5072571

 

I tested Windows 8.1 before, with similiar results. I may try Windows 7 in a few days, when Windows 10 1803 will be out oficially.

Dell's engineering team sure know how to sell BS. Do they want to tell us that under barebone Windows the SLC buffer does not get filled, but with proper drivers it does? I guess it somehow works faster with "minimum working" drivers then.

 

Thanks for finding that again. I remember reading that post and being happy I got Samsung hardware the second time around. Still feels like it might be engineers and driver developers being a little lazy though, but what do I know.

 

Yeah, I was kinda hoping that when I talked to Dell about my perceived slow boot time, they might volunteer to replace the Toshiba with a Samsung. But no joy there.

Did you have to install any drivers for your Samsung m.2 drive? I might buy an Evo 960 at some point and clone the Toshiba and replace it... if I find it aggravating. But so far, I probably don't know what I'm missing, so am inclined to leave it alone... for now.

 

350 or so MB/s is the speed of TLC NAND regardless of the EVO or XG5. Could be a firmware/driver issue on the XG5 preventing the dynamic SLC cache from being created. Without the drive allocating part of the TLC NAND to be dynamically used as SLC it would be writing directly to TLC portion making it slow as a SATA drive. Mine came with the 512GB XG5 and it didn’t have that write speed issue as mine reached around 1,000 MB/s for writes. It’s currently residing in my sister’s XPS 13 as I already own a 960 Pro (uses MLC NAND).

My 7577 was a free upgrade from a cheap 7567 that came with only a HDD which Dell replaced for uneven core temps. So as far as replacing things go they are usually pretty generous as when I sent in my 7567 the first time with my own 256GB Crucial MX100 SSD they put it (SSD) in an anti static bag and returned the laptop with a new HDD as that was the default configuration, and they also gave the HDD (“to preserve my data”) from the 7567 by mailing it separately when they gave me a 7577 which already had a HDD and SSD. They have given people replacement SSDs as well from what they have in stock when people complained about issues with the 256GB XG5, just need to talk to the right rep I guess. Call a few times till you get someone more conducive, that’s what I do with tech/telecom companies and end up getting my way most of the times also make sure to sound polite and make them empathize.

Also read through this link maybe helpful as someone says disabling write buffer caching helps:
https://www.dell.com/community/Lapt...Storage-Drivers-M-2-Lanes/td-p/5072571/page/4

 

It does not help I tested it. Issue does not occur under barebone Windows.

 

Update for Toshiba SSDs available at the Dell support side since today.

 

That's dope, perfect timing! Now you got me curious what the results will be.

 

No change after update. Maybe I have to make a clean Windows installation :/

 

Recently got my 7577 and I'm hoping someone can help.

TL-DR - how do you restore the SupportAssist option in the F12 one time boot menu?

After a couple W10 re-installations my SupportAssist option is gone from my F12 'one time boot menu'. ( The option you choose to restore W10 from factory image) I didn't change/remove partitions on any of the re-installs and can see multiple partitions:

100 MB - EFI System Partition (29.59 mb used)
16 MB - Reserved Partition (16 mb used)
236.6 GB - (C\ Boot, Primary
1.75 GB - (Windows RE tools) Recovery Partition (479.47 mb used)
10 MB - Unallocated

I've also tried the Dell recovery disk utility from the support site, burned it to a USB drive and reinstalled from that. It worked however it doesn't include ANY of the Dell specific software and/or the majority of the drivers that came with the laptop initially. ( Let's avoid the loaded vs clean debate) It also didn't restore the SupportAssist menu option to the F12 boot menu.

I assume the winre.wim image file is still on the recovery partition but without manually adding a letter to the partition so I can access it then using imagex to burn it manually, it seems you need the SupportAssist interface to reload from this image. Therefore, how do you restore the SupportAssist menu option?

Here's what I currently have on my one time boot menu (F12):

LEGACY BOOT:
Internal HDD
M.2 PCIe SSD
Onboard NIC
UEFI BOOT:
Windows Boot Manager
UEFI: WDC WD10SPZX-75Z10T1, Partition 1
OTHER OPTIONS:
BIOS Setup
BIOS Flash Update
Diagnostics
Change Boot Mode Settings

I read that the Dell recovery disk utility/image will restore original partitions if you've changed them, but I didn't touch them so I wouldn't expect it to have done anything to them. Originally the SupportAssist option was under OTHER OPTIONS.

I read somewhere that you can't get a full original factory image from Dell due to software licensing issues or something so my guess is that's a no go.

If anyone has any suggestions I'd love to hear them.

My 7577 specifics:

i7 7700 HQ
FHD Display
256 M.2 NVMe (Samsung)
1TB SATA (W-D)
16gb RAM

 

1.) Why do you want to keep your system with all the annoying Dell handicaps?

2.) If for some reason it got wiped from your f12 menu, you should be able to re-add it in BIOS setup.

3.) You can download some sort of factory image from your machine's support page on Dell's website. Did you put in your service tag number and take a look yet?

I doubt that will change anything unfortunately.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Btw, here are my CDM results I was supposed to have posted yesterday. (NOTE: your power and CPU profiles make a little bit of a difference in SSD performance results.)

 

I really wanted to make a copy of it which I neglected to do initially.

I'm unable to find anything in BIOS that pertains to this option.

Noted in my original message, I tried the Dell Recovery tool and restored from it. I'm actually wondering if it didn't wipe out all the partitions and then recreate them even though they were already there. The information when going through this process mentions it will restore them if you changed them, it doesn't say it will no matter what repartition the drive. Regardless the SupportAssist is no longer appearing.

 

The BIOS screen you are looking for will be this one:

https://mega.nz/#!tORDlS4a!L414JRk_vyXCCRwy0LYZ07sj0_eFoYME2e1odYLDD6M

 

Totally agree, I always do a fresh install of Windows on any laptop I get, to better avoid bloat, and get my WiFi/GPU and sometimes audio drivers directly from the component manufacturers (ie Intel/nVidia/Realtek). I also don't use the Intel RST drivers as they have caused DPC latency issues in previous laptops I have owned.
System builders usually are slower to update drivers because they need to certify no new issues or compatibility problems exist in newer versions. Also avoid that Killer SmartByte App like a plague, ironically it kills your WiFi/Ethernet experience and causes nice DPC latency spikes. Another thing is if you have a Samsung 960 PRO/EVO/PM/SM961 drives don't use the Samsung nVME drivers as with latest firmware updates at least on the 960 PRO it can cause hangs/freezes, not to mention do not update the PRO firmware from 2B to 3B or 4B, the former causes hangs and snail seeds on occasion and the latter fixes that but is still worse than 2B firmware.

 

I agree I would never buy into the Killer networking hype/marketing. I have seen nothing but problems with their wireless hardware and drivers.

Samsung NVMe drivers have been solid on my PM961. I don't believe there are any firmware updates available for my drives. Thank you for the heads up though.

 

When have you seen recent issues out of curiosity? In the 15 or so laptops I've owned over the past 3 years I've not had a single Killer networking issue...

 

i got the i5 125gb ssd + 1tb HDD option but I want to upgrade the primary c drive (125gb) and the d drive (1tb hdd).

How do I go about this?

The parts I'm looking at to upgrade:

For the C drive:
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod...jPcfolqN-qGMHNV19nQaAlqPEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds
For the D drive:
https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-500G...UTF8&qid=1523578497&sr=1-3&keywords=500gb+ssd

should be <300 usd

How do I clone my current C drive with my w10 OS to my new M2 SSD? Do I clone it to my 860 internal ssd?

Or, actually does it take an m2 or m3?

 

I would do a fresh install to take advantage of the different hardware and get rid of all the bloat.

 

Is there a way to do a fresh install without having to buy a new copy of windows? I don't really have an issue with bloatware being on it.

 

It’s a QoS / marketing company in effect as they make neither the cards nor drivers only product made by them is the Killer suite. The 1535 is a rebranded Qualcomm QCA6174A and the 1550 is an Intel 9260ac. The 6174A had driver issues maybe fixed by Qualcomm in later Atheros drivers, and compatibility issues with certain APs causing disconnects. Killer’s real product the Killer suite, caused quite a few people to have bandwidth issues. That kind of QoS makes more sense in a router than what their doing with that suite. As for SmartByte even Dell ironically recommends you uninstall it if you have “internet” and stutttering issues during streaming. That app is nothing but snake oil.

 

Just go to microsoft's website:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

and make a thumbdrive. The windows key is in the bios so you don't have to repurchase anything.

 

I understand their QoS software doesn't do anything for gaming or anything like that. With the hardware and standard drivers I've never had an issue in the many many different locations I've used them...

 

I don't have any particular threads in mind off the top of my head right now. But over the last 6 months I've looked into all sorts of random Win10 quirks, bugs, and issues alongside NVIDIA driver and hardware issues. Many of the laptops that had Killer hardware were experiencing major latency issues causing stuttering and audio crackles among other things. I don't recall the specific ages of each post, and clearly it's not EVERY machine with Killer hardware. I just don't think the hype and marketing are worth it.

 

That’s the point you technically aren’t using a Killer product without the suite, the drivers on the Killer site are just standard Intel and Qualcomm drivers that are available for generic 9260ac and QCA6174A. If there are driver issues they are fixed by Intel and Qualcomm. Without the suite the 1535 is now pretty much a standard QCA6174A and the drivers are directly from Qualcomm. The 6174A had driver issues plus incompatibilities with certain APs, you may have been lucky not to run into routers or AP chipsets it has issues with. I’ve heard the driver issues were fixed by Qualcomm.

 

Spot on! The issues relating to 3rd party rebranded hardware and drivers make much more sense now- I didn't realize they were simply rebranded cards with a special software suite... Talk about raking gamers over the coals for a subpar experience. I never install that Dell SmartByte garbage either. There is no need for several overlapping QoS services imo.

 

Right, but my point is that the killer card that comes in seemingly every dell laptop now functions fine. I'm not sure which APs it had issues with, but I've never had an issue in all of the airports/hotels/coffee shops/universities/hospitals/clinics/ect that I've been in.

 

Hey @custom90gt just curious what kind of benchmarks you are getting out of FireStrike/Cinebench/CDM/ATTO on your 7577 assuming it's all dialed in by now?

 

Hah sadly it's long gone. I went back to the XPS as I needed more portability.

 

I was mostly speaking about and being critical of the Killer software and branding aspect.

Yeah that hardware aspect was an issue on Qualcomm’s side which is said to have been fixed in later drivers though some still run into the disconnect issue. Good if it works for you as the actual hardware made by Qualcomm is pretty decent. On the flip side there are people who have issues with the 9260ac which I don’t have. Different environments and laptops can have varying outcomes.

 

Those scores for your (equivalently spec'd?) XPS would be cool too just for reference. Especially if you've done the mods that keep it from throttling.

 

I wouldn't call a 1050 vs a 1060 mq equivalently spec'd but here is my XPS score:
https://www.3dmark.com/fs/15315777

That is with a +200mhz core clock and +550mhz mem clock. No where near what my 7577 did, but temps in 3d mark never go over 71C.

 

Here's just one.

 

Hi all, I'm a long time admirer of this forum, but this is my first post.

I am having an issue with my GPU spiking while not under load. If I turn on HW moniter, GPU-Z or NVIDIA Inspector, the 1060 will start to jump from 0-51C in temp & core clock spiking to 139mhz and memory clock to 2000mhz none stop at idle, with no game load, just boot to desktop and no programs open or browser. It is a constant 2-5 seconds at 0 then to 200 (core) & 0 to 2000 (mem). I re-installed all the drivers, uninstalled & re-installed all the programs I had, re-installed windows, ran a hardware check, ran a virus scan, contacted Dell; who said contact NVIDIA because its a driver issue, contacted NVIDIA; who said contact Dell its a hardware issue. I am not overclocking the GPU at all and just using a HWmonitor and other programs to monitor system status'.

I have sought advice on various forums and on Reddit tech support and most say its a driver issue or simply do not know. I was just wondering if any other 7577 owners have had a similar experience with their 1060's acting like this...?

Currently I am undervolting with TS at -0.159mv and have re-pasted the CPU/GPU w/ Shin Etsu X-23 7783D. Other than that I have not done any mods to the laptop. I have tried disabling services and stopping TS, still no luck. Mainely this has me concerned because it wasn't doing this when I first got the 7577 a few months back, it just started about 3 weeks ago. There is no performance degradation or FPS loss. It's just really annoying the hell out of me and I want to fix it, but i'm at an impasse. I'm hoping someone out there has had the same issue and found a fix. It also has me concerned on the longevity of the GPU in that it may drastically shorten the life of the chip.

Below is a screen grab of GPU-Z so you can kind of get a visual of what I am talking about. Thanks in advance for any assistance and feedback.


[/IMG]

EDIT: I probably should have stated my model and specs and not just assumed you all knew.

Inspiron 15 7577/FHD model
Core i5 7300HQ
GTX 1060 MQ
8GB HYNIX DDR4
256 Samsung P961 NVME/OEM drive (boot)
256 Kingston SATA 2.5 SSD (storage)
Windows 10 Home/64bit OS

 

It's most likely HWiNFO / MSI Afterburner / GPU-Z or some other monitoring software polling your dGPU periodically. Also, if one of your apps is trying to use your dGPU instead of iGPU it could be caused by that. You can try setting your global graphics present from "Auto" to the iGPU option. I would recommend going into NVIDIA control panel and selecting to show dGPU activity in your task tray. It will put an icon there that is gray when not in use and a bit colorful when something is using your dGPU.