Dell Precision 7560 & Precision 7760 pre-release discussion

You will have to connect the AC adapter to the laptop in addition to the dock cable unless you have a "DC" (dual-connect) dock that plugs into both USB ports. 130W is not adequate to power the 7560.

7760 "should" be able to run entirely off of the dock power, without a separate AC adapter connected (if you have a "DC" dock like WD19DCS)... But a user above was commenting on strangled graphics performance in this configuration. So ... seems like it might be a good idea to plug in a separate AC adapter regardless.

Myself, I am sort of done with these docks. I tried TB18DC and WD19DC with my Precision 7530 and had bad experience with both (in different ways with each of them). Things just aren't quite the same since they got rid of the ePort. Now I am just plugging stuff directly into the system. I have the cables arranged in such a way that I can do it quickly at my desk. A simple USB hub means that only one USB connection is required for all USB devices. I use "right angle" adapters to route cables plugged into the side of the system backwards. I did not order a dock for my incoming 7560.

 

Could you please elaborate a bit? Is it just general incompatibilities or something specific? Do the docks add latency to the external displays?

 

TB18DC had consistent trouble connecting to the system. Sometimes I would plug in the cable and everything would "work". Sometimes, it world work but not be providing power to the system. Sometimes, the displays would connect but other devices would not. I was used to having to unplug and re-plug the TB18DC, needing multiple attempts to get everything working right when I sat down with the laptop at my desk.

WD19DC has two USB-C connectors "magnetically attached" into a single one. Sometimes, only one would "connect" when I plugged the joined connector in (judging by the individual white LEDs that appear on each one) which would lead to the system not getting enough power. Also, I had two Dell 27" 4K 60Hz displays attached. With both being driven by the NVIDIA GPU, one of them would frequently fall to the YCbCr422 color space, which would give it an obvious yellow tint, weird-looking font aliasing, trouble with gradients, etc.. I had to dig into the NVIDIA control panel and set it back to RGB and then it would work fine. Don't know what was going on here, I think that maybe the system or driver initially "thought" that it didn't have enough bandwidth to drive both external displays at the full color space. I ended up connecting the second external display to the mDP port on the back of the system to avoid having to do this almost every time I re-docked.

So in both cases, things worked fine when they worked but often I would have issues just when getting connected/docked. I engaged Dell on the TB18DC issues in particular and I did end up getting pretty high up with their support people, I beta tested a system BIOS update, and things did improve a bit but it was never fully working as well as things did back when I used ePort docks with the M6700/M4800/7510 (which I have never had any sort of trouble with). Fed up with the TB18DC, I was eager to try the WD19DC because I had used a WD15 dock with my Precision 7510 and that one actually worked fine, so I figured a non-Thunderbolt dock would be better. It still had issues though, as I described.

Also... With both docks, I had to disable "C states" in the BIOS to avoid "stutters" with a USB keyboard/mouse. The keyboard would sometimes miss "key up" events making it think that I was holdingggggg down a key longer than I actually was when typing and causing repeat characters. I would notice the mouse cursor stuttering sometimes as well during normal mouse motion. This issue was eventually fixed with the TB18DC with a BIOS update but it returned with the WD19DC. Other users also reported this issue widely in the 7X30 owner's thread.

Never noticed any sort of latency with displays attached to the dock.

Maybe the new WD19DCS or WD19TBS are improved. I get the feeling that they're basically the same just without the 3.5mm audio jack... If they had significantly changed then they would have updated the model number to reflect the year of release? Haven't had a chance to try one though. Not eager to sink the money into them at this point. Also, it's been over a year since I tried a dock (I left them at the office when COVID/work from home started) so maybe firmware/BIOS updates have improved things.

 

I've also had loads of issues in the past with my 7740 and WD19DC docks. Same issues with two identical docks, so could rule out a hardware fault. Issues included locking the system up when I plugged the dock in, one monitor randomly distorting or losing signal, and worst of all a BSOD whenever I plugged the dock in. The issues seem to have been resolved with the latest nvidia driver (from their website, not Dell's). However, they were also all initially caused (seemingly) with nvidia driver updates so may return with a future update.

BIOS/TB/Dock firmware/driver updates never seemed to resolve anything - it was only ever the nvidia driver updates that had any effect.

Dell are now replacing my 7740 with a 7760 so I'm really crossing my fingers that I don't have problems with the 7760 and WD19DC docks...

 

My TB18DC with 7730 has been flakey as hell. I don't think I'd buy another Dell dock. I had high expectations given how expensive it was.

 

My WD19DC and 7740 work flawlessly. Maybe dependent on the connected hardware? I have connected one 2560x1440 and one 1920x1200 and LAN and my Laptop display is only FullHD. So maybe not using that much bandwidth? I am using the Intel GPU driver from Windows Update and the NVidia from Dell. All Dell drivers are up to date - manually installed, not with Dells auto update software.

 

Do let us know. I had similar problems with my 7540 and WD19DC.

 

Got my 7760 yesterday. No problems whatsoever with the dock so far which is great!

The 7740 had problems from the minute I first connected it. Each Nvidia driver update seemed to fix some problems and introduce others.

Let's hope the 7760 works better - so far so good!

 

That's encouraging. I'm curious to see benchmark comparisons between your 7740 and 7760, if you have a chance to run any. I'm running a 7730 and curious to see how much faster a 7760 could be.

 

I have no idea about benchmarks but if you tell me what to run I will happily do so. I'd be interested to see the difference too.

The specs are:

7740
i9-9980HK
RTX 4000
128GB 2666 MHz RAM

7760
i9-11950H
RTX A5000
128 GB 3200 MHz RAM