Precision 7530 & Precision 7730 owner's thread

To those who are running Linux, what is the lowest power consumption you see in powertop while the laptop is idle and the dGPU is off?

 

All
just lost the laptop's LCD screen (1920x1080) with no display, secondary display works fine)

xrandr thinks my screen is 3840x2160, but its not !!, its 1920x1080
Also the BIST has no output

I have dual boot and windows i10 s cactus as well

 

Hi there,


I just wanted to join in on the current discussion about "replacing the GPU". I own a Precision 7530, got the "pre-configured" version with a Quadro P2000, 16 GB RAM and a 512 Class 40 SSD. Instead of "upgrading" the GPU though, I want to "downgrade" my Quadro P2000 for the Intel UMA "adapter board" (or whatever the official naming might be).

That's because I am a Linux user (and those NVIDIA cards don't play nice with linux) and the configure-it-yourself-Precision-7530 without that NVIDIA card would have cost me another 500$ on top (Ridiculous). So I decided to go for the "downgrade" sometime in the future. I wasn't expecting it to be THAT difficult.

I live in Europe (Germany) and did some research about it (calling ProSupport in Germany and various other sources):
1.) Dell does NOT support "upgrades" of components such as the CPU and especially the GPU.
2.) Those regulations also apply to any service partners, of course.
3.) Dell does NOT hand out the graphics modules to ANYONE it seems. Instead they require notebooks to be sent directly to them for a repair of the broken parts. Which brings me to:
4.) Dell has these parts (of course) but only hand them out for repairs of broken units. (It seems to me)

And since the internals of a notebook are tied to the service code I'm afraid there's not really a way of tricking them into swapping it for me.
I have also contacted some Dell Partners of ours, but got exactly the same reply as above. I did tell them I would swap/replace it myself, but that didn't help either.

Now I have found this Link on ebay, which sells one of these UMA boards, but I can't seem to get into contact with the seller and they don't ship outside the US.
I also found the link to some quote from dell about the part a few pages back (Something itparts....com, can't find it now) which says it's something like 17$. But I couldn't find an "order" link or similar there.


Does anybody have another idea where one could get a part such as the Intel UMA Board for the Precision 7530?
I'm starting to run out of options right now and it's really frustrating me....



On a sidenote:

Unfortunately, I can only report on the power consumption with the dGPU always turned ON (Graphics switching turned OFF) in Linux, and that's about 30 Watts in idle, which results in a measly 3 hours of battery life...
Have you ever tested battery life with the dGPU turned on? Did you yield better results than I do?

 

I don't have a Precision yet... Hence my question
I will wait for someone who can turn the dGPU off

 

On Linux you can turn off the dGPU entirely off with bbswitch (which is rather a hack, but that works very well). When done, it consumes 0W since it is off. I uses this all the time on my Thinkpad P72 when I do not need the dGPU (that is, when not connected to external monitor) and it is very efficient. There's no reason it should not be possible on the 7730.

 

Interesting. It appears living in Southeast Asia has some benefits. I am honestly curious about the reason they mention for not handing out parts to you. @Aaron44126 can also attest that it is fairly straightforward to get parts from Dell US.

The CPU cannot be upgraded, anyway (not without changing the entire motherboard, at least). Furthermore, point 3 goes directly against the virtue of ProSupport: it is Next-Business-Day Onsite service—they are supposed to come to you to fix your notebook (unless you did not opt for ProSupport, which... would not have been a good decision). If you do have ProSupport, you can tell them that they've got something messed up, and you can quote the warranty terms and conditions to them.

I have had everything from display cables, batteries, the entire upper palmrest, and of course, the GPU delivered to my doorstep. Some needed to be paid for (like the GPU), but the rest were 1-for-1 replacements and I simply arranged for a courier (also paid for by Dell) to pick up the defective parts a day after delivery. Check your warranty terms and conditions once again.

The lowest it reaches is C3.

 

I've purchased some random parts from them but I've never tried to get a GPU card before
My GPU upgrades have always come from eBay.
I have however had them come and replace a GPU on-site before, twice (for the same system). They've only required me to send a Precision system in for very strange cases and in that case they normally go ahead and offer up a whole replacement system.

 

Helo!
I'm looking for help with Quadro P4200 vBIOS. Can anyone make a backup from your system and share it? I'll be much appreciative and it's will be a huge help with my project.

 

Thank you! So indeed it seems Dell decided to cripple powersaving states on both Alienware and Precision products, or at least m15 and 7530...

Meanwhile, I managed to get less than 4W idle power consumption on the Lenovo P1... Such a pity

 

Edit: my mistake. My testing conditions were incorrect. The CPU package in the 7530 goes down to the C9 state. Here's a screenshot:


When the notebook is totally idle, I achieved an average power draw of ~6 W. With the display off, this dropped to 3-4 W, and I managed to run the notebook's battery from 100% to nearly empty over roughly a day or so.

CAVEAT: Lightroom needs to be running in the background.