Owner's Thread: Dell Inspiron 7000 series

My understanding has been that Macs don't really allow the user to set the resolution at the Retina level. The idea is that the high pixel density should still show a "crisper" picture, even though the laptop isn't running the full resolution of the display. My brother has the rMBP and he had to download a third party program to set the resolution at its highest.

But please correct me if I'm wrong.

And yes, if I get my laptop and the wifi is really bad, I'm going to try and install an AC adapter. Let us know the results if you do that first!

 

I've deactivated bluetooth and use the latest intel wifi driver (only driver, proset deinstalled). Now WIFI works pretty good.

 

A GTX 780M and a GT 730M use the same drivers, but the cards are very different.

The 7260 N and 7260 AC use completely different radios, so a reception issue that applies to one will not necessarily apply to the other. In fact, other laptops using the 7260 AC do not seem to have the same reception issue as the MBA while many laptops with the 7260 N are experiencing the same issue.

 

I did a fresh install of Windows 8 and the WIFI was working nicely and after I updated to windows 8.1 the problems started.. :-(

 

Really? I am going to try Ubuntu live as soon as possible then!

 

Retina displays use display scaling to keep everything the same size while increasing the sharpness. The panel is still running at the full resolution, Mac OS just has better resolution scaling support than WIndows (currently). Old article, but this explains it pretty well:

AnandTech | How the Retina Display MacBook Pro Handles Scaling

 

Interesting...

Wireless issues with windows 8.1 - Microsoft Community

Hopefully mine arrives with 8.0 tomorrow and I'll be able to test that.

 

Tried this, but no joy.

 

Mine is the exactly same, my friend. I asked Dell to replace the part but the new one was no better so I decided to keep it and returned the newer tracckpad

 

@MacGyver88 for the SSD document: i'am running 8.1 Pro with a fresh install and A05 BIOS

Inviato dal mio Nexus 4 utilizzando Tapatalk

 

I went thru the entire thread and found a few other issues not on the list - do you want me to add or do you? And I know I'm showing my newbieness, but what do you mean 'link to the main post'?

In going through the thread, I found 23 mentions of wifi - 8 that were having good range, 13 that were having bad range & download speeds and 2 that had problems with dropped signal. While the stats aren't pretty, IMO the fact that 35% had good wifi tells me there are a lot of bad cards out there. If it was the aluminum body interferring with the signal, I would think that even more people would be having problems.

 

Getting pretty tired of this computer by now and Windows 8 in particular, after starting it up windows needed to update - after it restarted I'm now stuck with a grey screen that says "please wait".

Getting into safe mode with windows 8 is a hassle and nothing I've tried so far gets me out of the "please wait" grey screen.

Probably going to load windows 7 on it because I can't be bothered with this poop anymore.

Wish I could return it but it's a couple of days too late now

EDIT: Finally got it working by turning off wi-fi !!! appears to be related to skydrive not being reachable.

 

There are specific posts about a rolling back a driver curing the wifi issues totally for at least a couple of users. Others have said that disabling bluetooth has significant benefit

 

Managed to get Dell driver for windows 8.1 11/28/2013 16.5.1.6, A00 to install however the driver reports the date as being 8/26/2013.
It's working, speeds very from fairly good at 10Mb/s to a low of 2 over a 10 minute period. Still not great.
Lets see what effect a new card and the "special" settings that Dell want to make has on the WiFi performance.

 

The spacing around my trackpad is fine but there is a slightly bigger gap below the spacebar compared to the other keys. Sometimes backlight led below the space key is distracting..

 

My wifi seems to be working fine. It's not as good as my previous laptop (Asus K53SV) but it's serviceable. Deactivating bluetooth did help me.

Another issue I have is with the screen bleeding. I know that any screen suffers from this to a certain degree, but it feels a bit obvious on mine. It only happens when the background is completely black, so it doesn't distract me much. I don't think I'm going to bother with replacing the panel. I think somebody here mentioned that he had it replaced, and the new panel had the same problem.

 

i had it replaced and the new one doesn't have that. However, I wouldn't do the same if I could choose again. it's not worth giving your laptop to some lousy technician who might break something carelessly and ignorantly if there is no long term consequence.

 

The Dell engineer came and replaced the Intel wireless card with a Dell Wireless 1901 (Atheros) and it seems to be working fine.. It's a bit early but I am not facing any slowness even when I am sat in the other room more than 20 metres from the router.

When you connect to the wireless network the first time it shows as limited connection but clears itself out.

I also noticed that if I move my laptop a bit too fast then the already open remote desktop connection hangs... I got a few BSOD since I installed windows again yesterday..

I am going to install Windows 8 (not 8.1) from fresh to test the new adaptor completely.

 

Please let us know how that card works out, as all of us with connectivity issues may explicitly request it.
Thank you.

 

Btw I explicitly requested a different adapter and the Dell support guy went and spoke to his supervisor and recommended the Dell 1901.

 

It's been more than 2 hrs now and I have zero issues with the Dell Wireless 1901 card..

Very happy..

 

Ok, so it would confirm a problem coming from the Intel card. Which would be a great news.

 

It's not a terrible card... MacGyver, I believe you were running Ubuntu so be aware that the Dell 1901 is much harder to get working in Linux than the Intel.

 

On the subject of the wireless card, out of the box there is definitely some issues I had drops as well - but once upgraded to Win 8.1 I've had no problems with it.

 

does anyone try to install mac osx on it? what distrubution? how it works? or is it possible to install a full-working mac osc on it?

 

I would like to dual boot Ubuntu along side windows 8 or windows 7. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to best accomplish this? Also, is there any way of reinstalling windows 8 - I did not receive any recovery disks with my laptop.

 

You should make a backup through Dell backup first.
I have tried Ubuntu in dual boot and deleted it because I thought it was the cause of the SSD crashing.

I will probably reinstall it alongside Windows even if:
- power consumption optimizations are pretty much absent on Ubuntu, the battery will last half the time it does on Windows
- I often had no audio from the speakers, while it worked with headphones attached (it was probably due to ALSA modules, as pulseaudio showed the audio stream); if you're able to solve it, please share
- I wasn't able to make the Nvidia card work, this dual thing is still a mess under Linux

 

Why is the base cover so ridiculously difficult to remove? I've removed the 2 base screws, and loosened the other 2, but the cover is stuck. I've tried using something like a scribe to remove it, but no luck so far.

 

I watched the Dell tech. open mine today.
After removing the screws you need to ease the cover off with your fingers or one of those plastic pry tools.

By the way, my wifi card was replaced and as expected no change to the wifi problem.

I am left no choice but to return the machine tomorrow. It's a pity , I don't know what I will be replacing it with.

 

Did they replace it with the same model card (n7260) or a different one?

 

So... Can we have a final confirmation about the msata story with the Inspiron 15-7537 ???

waxedbat seems to say he has succeeded to do so but I would like a confirmation (that it was not an Inspiron 14).

 

I have the Inspiron 7537 with 16 gb of RAM and the factory installed SSD and 1920x1080 screen, and here is my wifi about 25-30 feet away from the wifi router... I have 75/35 FiOS, and get a 84Mbps download and a 34Mbps upload. Verizon doesnt cap their speed. I use a Wireless N gigabit router provided by Verizon FiOS. It's made by Actiontec MI424WR Rev I. I work for Verizon and my other HP laptop that is 4 years old performs with the exact same results. It must be the equipment provided by other providers or certain manufacturers.

 

It has been confirmed that it was a typo and it has been corrected now to say SSD on the US and Canadian sites, there is no msata in the 15 inch model.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/del...dell-inspiron-7000-series-81.html#post9485803

 

1 and 3 are all but definitely related. On my current laptop (integrated graphics only) I get the same battery life in Ubuntu as I do in Windows, and significantly better (9 hours vs 6 hours) battery life in a lighter desktop environment like Xfce. What's probably occurring is that your Nvidia GPU is powered up all the time and thus sucking down power despite not actually being in use.

I've had great success using Bumblebee to get switchable graphics working perfectly on multiple laptops (MSI X460DX, Lenovo Y510p) but the official Nvidia driver with Optimus support is terrible. Without Bumblebee properly configured the battery life was significantly worse on those two laptops.

 

If I'm not wrong NVIDIA is preparing a good GUI for Ubuntu : More Work To Support Nvidia Optimus Lands In Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr ~ Web Upd8: Ubuntu / Linux blog

 

Yes, it was another N-7260.
Not sure what conclusion to come to.
All N-7260 are bad in this machine or this machine has poor wifi regardless of what network card would be installed.
Either way, I have spent too much time being Dell's beta tester.

There should be no reason to have to make any changes to routers to get this to work. In fact there should be no reason to do anything to get any laptop out of the box to work correctly with wifi.

I have many other computers in the house working perfectly with them (I have 3 routers in the house all of different brands and the 7000 misbehaves with all of them).

I am returning mine tomorrow. I am thinking of getting a replacement but don't need the frustration of a reoccurring problem.

It does seem though that laptops from many suppliers are having windows 8 wifi issues. Do we need to go after Microsoft?

 

I personally think it's a bunch of bad cards. I've seen posts for lenovo and sony with the same card & same issue. Also, I counted through this thread, and of 24 reports on wifi, 8 were working fine. Now that is a dismal percentage, but that, plus the fact that someone had a different card put in and had no problems thereafter, tell me there are a lot of bad n7260 cards out there.

 

I wasn't able to get Bumblebee to work on my machine, but it may be because I was already sick of the SSD and audio issue that I wasn't worried about that so much.

Does your machine always play sound from the speakers under Ubuntu?

 

Reading online it appears that it's a general Intel Centrino issue. See here

Intel's Wi-Fi adapters connectivity issues plague users - Neowin

with a follow up here

Intel's Wi-Fi adapters connectivity issues continue - Neowin

My thoughts are to stay with my 4 year old Toshiba until these issue are sorted out.

 

Mine actually just came yesterday so I haven't really played around with Windows yet let alone Ubuntu. The comparison I was talking about was on my old HP dm1.

Speaking of my laptop arriving... I'm a little concerned because the box had been retaped when I received it. It looks like the tape from the factory had broken (it was perfectly around the shape of the tab, not in a straight line like someone would have cut it) and the "replacement" tape job was clearly not meant to conceal that it had happened. Everything was in the box but it still irks me.

 

I found that after I removed the 2 screws nearest the vent where the screen is hinged that the base cover popped up slightly. I then slid an old credit card around the base that released the clips holding it in place. You just need to release the back and sides, it will then just pull away from the front.

 

The same thing happened for me. I noticed it only after signing, otherwise I wouldn't have accepted it...

 

This really sound like Intel/driver problem. Can people try the method provided in the 2nd link (to get the "stable drivers" by uninstalling the current one) ?

 

Hello to everyone,

today my Inspiron arrived and it is so far a really nice working machine.
So far I dont have any Wifi Issues. And I love the Screen and - surprise - also the keyboard.

I'm just not sure whether my touchpad buttons are okay: The left button gives a click voice when pushing it and also when releasing it (when pushing it its like a "taktak"). The right button just gives a click voice when pushing it (its just a "tak"). Is this normal like this or should I call the Service?

I will try some daily tasks on this notebook and then I will give you a small review. =)

 

mine is coming, i´m afraid :-S

 

Honestly I think it's just because the tape becomes brittle in the cold. Even the tape they used to reseal it broke open as soon as I pulled on the box.

 

Not needed at all, I've had the back off 10 times or so by now, all you need to do is to remove the 4 obvious screws - then get a credit card or some other plastic thing and pop the corner where the Ethernet port is, then just pull - you can use force nothing will break.

 

So in other words, I I buy this laptop now, then I may as well be prepared to call dell to change my wireless card to a dell wireless 1901 or wait for intel to fix drivers??

Thanks guys

 

No, despite what it looks like it's still only a few people that have persistent problems with it, mine works just fine.

 

Well that is a relief...I love everything about this laptop but other users having problems with wifi scares me.