Owner's Thread: Dell Inspiron 7000 series

Can anyone pls guide me on how to upgrade to windows 8.1 . I cannot find anything on the windows store

 

You have to install all updates for windows 8 first. Then you have to access the windows store thru the metro screen, not through your web browser.

 

Is anyone else having majoring throttling problems on the 14'?

If my laptop gets to a certain temp then it cuts the cpu speed to .77 ghz. It cools down but will never increase in speed again. It gets locked at .77

 

All Updates are installed on my system, still does not show 8.1 upgrade on Windows store

 

I had the same problem. I had all the updates but Windows 8.1 was not in the store. I did a bit of googling and the following worked for me:

I uninstalled the KB2871389 update.
Then did a Windows update to reinstall it.

After that Windows 8.1 appeared in the store.

 

hello! I just bought myself a dell inspiron 15 7000 refurb

15.6 inch LED Backlit Touch Display with Truelife and FHD resolution (1920 x 1080)
16 GB Dual Channel DDR3L 1600MHz (8GBx2) Memory
Intel Core 4th Generation i7-4500U Processor (4M Cache, up to 3.0 GHz) + nVidia N14P-GT 2 GB GDDR5
Intel Dual Band Wireless-N 7260 2x2 BGN + Bluetooth 4.0
1 TB SATA Hard Drive (5400 RPM)

current specs. Im hoping to replace the hdd to a intel 530 that i have it seems like it wont void any warrenties right?

The main question i have really is what does the extended enhanced warrenty offer? does it offer help if later my cpu dies or mobo fries? I thought the intel 7260 was a good wifi card? does every one have problems with it and if yes did you guys all switch over to the dell wifi card? i was thinking if i had any problems i would get the intel 2230 wifi card

sorry ive gone some through pages not all. hows the screen i read somewhere about yellow tint?? i saw on the first post it seems pretty decent
thank you.

 

Thanks for that, I'll call them tomorrow

 

For the Inspiron15 7537 What's the noise level like in idle for you guys? I can hear the fan (granted its in a very quiet environment) but reviews mention it as silent? The other laptop I'm comparing to is actually compeletly silent. Wondering if mine is defective (will exchange) or normal (will go with a different choice instead).

Has significant hissing noise through the earphones when sound is on by the way.

 

Same here as well. I contacted Dell and they said its the faulty speaker on the motherboard. There will be a technician come to my house to replace the motherboard. That hissing sound is really unbearable.

 

It seems that a lot of people are interested in upgrading the HD to a SSD.
I believe it would be cheaper to just purchase the Dell XPS from the start :thumbsup:

 

Im trying to put together a list of issues and solutions for when I buy this laptop. Has anyone successfully had their headphone hiss solved by an engineer callout?

Also, jumping back to an earlier question. Is this particular version of a chiclet keyboard highly resistant to crumbs and other matter getting under the keys, as I cant see an easy way to clear it out if it did.

 

Noise level on idle -> zero noise (with a SSD)

When fan works i can hear it but it is not noticeable

In my case, if you put your hand on computer, hissing noise through earphones disappears. I have not noise through earphone when i listen web radio.

 

I hope you are kidding...the XPS with SSD is around 2000€! I bought the 7537 Inspiron with i7-4500U /8 Go Ram / NVidia 750M for 720€ with the sluggish HDD. I then bought a 500Go SSD for 270€; which makes a total price of 990€, I believe this is quite a fair price given the laptop it's giving me now. For my everyday average use, I don't think the 1000€ adder to get an XPS would have been justified - even though I am aware it is a great laptop.

 

can you put that list here? my laptop will arrive soon.

 

So far I have this:

Discrete graphics may not initially be active (no nvidia in device manager)
install invidia experience driver

headphone socket hiss
requires motherboard change by callout engineer

poor wifi
check card physical spec -may not be dual band as stated
replace card - dell are issuing replacements
try first: update drivers - 16.1.5.2?
disable re-enable in bios
disable bluetooth

If upgrading to SSD, do so before updating to 8.1

wont wake from sleep after 8.1 upgrade
driver upgrades required - specific 8.1 versions

SSD upgrade - do NOT use Samsung PRO


To do:
uninstall mcaffee
extract windows key
create usb recovery
create system image

 

Nope, crumbs get under the keys just as easy

I spoke too soon, I'm having wifi problems with latest driver, so if I call dell, they will ship me a replacement? If so, which one? A dual band?

 

Question is, can they come out as easily?

Dell appear to be replacing the Intel 7260 with a Dell DW1901

I know a lot of the units appear to be fitted with a single intsead of a dual band. However Im not sure if its actually the dual band thats the issue, there has been talk of a lot of faulty Intel cards out there. Either way, people who get the Dell one seem to be a lot happier with the performance.

 

Ehhh something funky is happening to the battery in mine, last night i turned it off as usuall and unplug the power. This morning when I woke up the battery only had 3% left and its wear went from 1% to 2.9%. Since i was home during the winter break, I always had it plugged in and the 2 dell battery featurws turned on. Real odd it is.

 

Did anyone who did a clean install with oem recovery disk have a problem with activation? I did a clean install on ssd, and I'm getting a message that says that the product key has been used on another computer. It's letting me use the computer for now, but I don't want problems later. Its said to contact Dell, but I don't want to if I don't have to, lol.

 

Just how hard is it to replace the HDD with an SSD?

I'll happily admit I don't really know what I'm doing when it comes to things like these, is it as simple as making a backup on a flash drive and then replacing the hard drive? I'm really keen to upgrade to a 250GB SSD but I don't want to buy one then realise it's harder to do than I thought.

My laptop isn't here yet so I'll be doing the swap as soon as it arrives so I won't have to worry about losing any data, it's more of a case of just getting Windows back on there really.

 

How do you rate your skill and knowledge about laptop? Do you only know basic stuff like browsing, watching youtube, and reading news or are you a professional doing like coding, photo-shop, editing? If case 1, it will be a challenge. If case 2, it's more like a learning curve. It will be much easier if you have a windows version and you're doing a clean install. However the whole cloning is not that complicated. There are tons of instruction online on how to do that. Regarding real physical hardware replacement, there's nothing complex about it. you just only need the correct screwdriver then remove the screws from the back cover and the screws around the HDD. Piece of cake.

 

I'm pretty decent when it comes to photoshop and video editing, I have no idea about coding though lol. What will I need to clone the hard drive? Will I need a SATA to USB adapter? Thanks for your help

 

You can find a XPS with a 512GB SSD for under $1,300 USD at the Dell Outlet store :thumbsup:

Dell Factory Outlet

 

hey all, picked up the 7537 over the holiday and i can say its quite pleasent, but it does have its quirks (most noted on this forum) one quirk that doesnt seem to be talked about much is the display.
has anyone tested thier screen for ghosting/image persistance/retention? mine has the 1080p touch screen, but isnt actually made by LG but by AUO (in devicemanager, if u check the hardware id youll be able to tell what kind of display you have) and if i leave something for too long, and go to the start screen, i see a ghostly image, it goes away eventually, but considering this laptop is new, i dont konw how much worst it will get.
for those who want to test, you can use this website (others use it to test for known IR issues with LG panels on other dell/ibm/apple computers)
Retina MBP (rMBP) image-retention test - note i ran this a max brightness, as it makes the 'ghosting' easier to see

just want to know if im the one of a few, or if its an actual problem and just return this laptop.
really want to love this computer, but its got so many quirks that arent really user fixable...

 

How good can the gaming go with these specs @ 720p ?
I am considering to buy Inspiron 15r with same i7-4500u and HD 8850M GDDR5 which is roughly equal to 750M GDDR5 .

But i am so worried about this low clocked CPU .Can it handle future games ?
Please help .

 

How did you get the screen manufacturer ID? When looking in device manager, under display, I can only get "generic plug and play", is it hidden in a submenu somewhere? As for mine, I haven't noticed anything so far, but will be doing the image retention test! Thanks

 

That has a hybrid drive, not an SSD.

 

Could you please stop posting nonsense here.

The model you list is a 14 inch and it does NOT have a SSD it has a lousy hybrid disk.

And the majority of people here don't even live in the US so they can't buy from the Outlet.

 

@nfsuw yeah, I have ghosting too, does notice it on grey background

For hose who did a clean install on their ssd, where do you find the Windows 8 Image iso, (link?)?

 

yeah this is not really serious; plus the configuration you're giving has a very poor video card, so this is really not comparable.

 

you open the properties for that display, and go to the details tab, and choose hardware ID from the dropdown list.

 

your usb backup won't work unless the SSD is the same size or larger, I would get the disc and just build from ground up, or do a clone of some sort depending on the ssd you get, use their tools

thanks, I just did the driver update posted jan 3rd and all is well now, if it gives me anymore problems I will get the swap out and benefit from the dual band. you can find that Atheros card on ebay for like $7, not sure if it's worth the calories to open a ticket with dell.

 

I ordered an ADATA SX900 256GB SSD drive to replace the 1TB HDD, and so far I have had NO success. This could be a defective SSD, but when i use it was an external drive, i can partition and format it without issue, copy to/from the drive, run diagnostics (no failures or problems).

PC Model: Dell Inspiron 7537
SSD: ADATA SX900 256GB SSD
OS: Windows 8 OEM
BIOS: Came with AO5; Updated to AO6 (current)
CPU: i7-4500U
RAM: 16GB
URL: Dell Inspiron 15.6" Touchscreen Laptop - Black (Intel Core i7-4500U/1TB HDD/16GB RAM/Windows 8) : Laptops - Future Shop


The actual problem, I think, is with the BIOS and not the SSD. The BIOS sees the SSD every time, but occasionally it will list it as 1092312123GB (or some other random string). A reboot usually fixes this, and it only happened a few times that I've noticed.
If I format the SSD using diskpart (attached to another PC via USB), then run the Windows Setup and choose Custom to select the drive, the following 3 scenarios occur:

1) Drive is listed as 238GB (regardless of how i partition it via USB) eg: tried manually partitioning the drive to GPT format (created the 4 partitions), which worked, but when I reached the Windows Setup it was listed as a single drive with 238GB, and did not show the other partitions I had created. When I re-attached it to the PC via USB again and ran diskpart, it listed the disk as 238GB (non-gpt) empty disk. This means that either the 7537 system or the Windows Setup removed the partitions (which is why I think it is a system/BIOS issue).

2) Drive is listed, but when I select the drive and try to DELETE partitions, i get the following error: "Windows was unable to delete partition 0x8007045d"

3) Drive is not listed at all. When I run diskpart from the "repair windows" command prompt, the SSD is not listed at all. If i reconnect it to the PC via USB, run diskpart, it is there but again, partitions are gone.

I've tried legacy boot mode, i've disable secure boot, and i've tried booting from external DVD attached via USB, all with the same outcomes.

I saw that user Pocok256 installed the 120GB drive and didn't have issues, but it doesn't say if they cloned or tried fresh install.

TLDR; BIOS always sees SSD, Windows Setup won't install to it (warning about enabling drive controller in BIOS), and/or Windows Setup doesn't see SSD at all randomly. Also partitions created on SSD via USB on another PC using DISKPART get erased when SSD is put back into the laptop.


Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

Hey,
I'm trying to use the recovery partition and factory reset my Inspiron 15 7000.

I've tried Ctrl f11, ctrl f8, and f11 and f8 all at separate times a boot and I can't get into it. It just boots right into Windows.

Anyone know how to do a factory reset using the drive partition?

Thanks!

 

Did you check if that SSD was compatible with Haswell? Some Sandforce controllers (amongst others) will not work with Haswell.

is it not f12 upon boot? you also have recovery features within Windows 8.

 

My mistake, I meant to post the 512GB SSD model.
It is available for under $1,300 and has excellent specifications.
Please don't post if you do not have something to contribute :thumbsup:

 

Quick Question

I've just got the Inspiron 17r 7000 series and I really like it. However it has a quite a sharp edge to it and I wondered if it was normal.

If you open the laptop and move your finger round the edges where the top (where the keyboard is) and the sides connect there is that nice looking edge where its been cut in and this feels ok.

However if you then move your finger down the side of the laptop it dips in a little bit before it hits the curvered bit underneath. This bit is quite sharp to the touch and really bugs me when its on my knee.

I've not got another one to compare so please could someone let me know if there is similar.

thanks

Ian

 

Who do you think you are?

You are the one coming in this thread posting nonsense.

Most people here bought the 15" model with full HD screen and a GT750 Graphics card, the crap you push to people is inferior in every way.

Also quite a lot of people don't live in the US so it is not even an option to buy it.

Please adjust your attitude and stay on topic please.

Yes it has a rather sharp edge, not sure why they made it that way but that's the way they made it.

 

The drive is using the SandForce 2281 controller, and from what I can see it should be compatible.

I'm trying to clone the drive right now instead of a fresh install, so I'll report back with the result of that.

[Update] Cloning succeeded but when I boot laptop with the SSD it says "No bootable devices". I tried running the startup repair tool from the Windows 8 installer, which completed then rebooted the laptop, and am getting the same error.

Any ideas?

Also, I had a hard time with booting into Setup/Boot Options at first as well, but i realized if you hold the F2/F12 keys down when you press the Power button, the system will enter Setup and/or Boot Options, regardless of Legacy vs UEFI mode.

I tried the SSD in a different laptop (Dell Latitude D830) and Windows 8 installed without any problems.
When I put the drive back into the 7537, the system was really slow, and when trying to boot from the SSD it gave me an "Unable to read from Hard Disk" error.
Tried the Windows 8 install again and the Setup could see the drive (like before) but couldn't erase partitions (like before).

I think this SSD is just not compatible with the 7537.

Feel free to add my case to the spreadsheet.

 

Can anyone check what their screen manufacturer is? Using HWinfo64, it says my screen is an 1080p AU Optronics B156HW01 V1 which is a TN screen, not IPS. I thought all 1080p 7537s comes with a IPS screen?

 

Does anyone else with the 8gb i7 version find this machine to be sluggish? I've installed a 500gb ssd and it still seems very slow. Itunes takes nearly 15 seconds to load, a good 9 seconds to switch between songs. If I'm using Quicken, it takes 5 seconds just to switch between one bank register and another. It's instantaneous on my pentium xps. I'm getting very frustrated and only have a few more days to return.

 

I tried to check, but neither Windows nor HWinfo64 could identify my monitor. Windows calls it "generic PnP". HWInfo64 calls it "unknown". It does say "6 bits per primary color" though, so I don't think mine is IPS either.

I'm not too disappointed with it. It has decent viewing angles and brightness, but I have definitely seen better displays.

It's not supposed to be sluggish in the slightest. Not with an SSD. iTunes loads in less than 1 second on mine. Something is definitely wrong. Do you mind downloading Passmark (it's a benchmarking software with a free trial period), running the benchmark and sharing the results? This can help identify where the performance issues are.

 

i just bought a new 7537 but unfortunately the chrome trim has scratches/scuffs all over. A replacement seems wont resolve the issue because my friend also has the same.

 

I agree. I installed an SSD in mine too (EVO) and it's really fast so there is definitively something wrong with yours. What SSD is it? Was it any quicker with your original HDD?

same with me. I didn't manage to get the screen manufacturer ID. It's always showing up at "generic PnP" whatever the program I'm using. So maybe this is a different vendor from the AUO you have. It's looking good in my mind anyway.

 

I have this version: Dell Inspiron 15.6" Touchscreen Laptop - Black (Intel Core i7-4500U/1TB HDD/16GB RAM/Windows 8) : Laptops - Future Shop

HWiNFO64 says AU Optronics B156HW01 V1 - B156HAN [DELL P/N: D7N36]

 

since you insist, here is the screen shot of my screen part:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2kP7zbvzkZBQ1RscUs5bmhtdzQ/edit?usp=sharing
I don't have any prob with it whatsoever. I think the best looking screen that I've owned (more than my ipad 3 even) although brightness is not superb (but then you have to compromise for battery life). Thumbs up for the screen. Cheers

 

Yours seem to be a IPS from online forums. However the futureshop, same as hisdaftness one seems to be a TN screen.

 

Just wondering what you guys think about trading my Dell in for this Toshiba?

Toshiba Satellite P50 15.6" Laptop - Grey (Intel Core i7-4700MQ / 1TB HDD / 16GB RAM / Windows 8) : Laptops - Future Shop

Spec-wise looks better (don't care much about touch screen), can replace 1TB HDD with Adata SSD and replace the DVD drive with the 1TB HDD.

 

May be a bad batch or something, I don't have this issue and I don't think anyone else have reported it either.

It's a different type of laptop though, it's more clunky (has DVD-drive) and will use more power because of the more powerful CPU - If you are considering getting that instead I wonder why you chose the 7537 in the first place, then you could have picked a Dell with similar specs like a Inspiron 15R.

 

I actually traded my P50 in for the dell 7537. Performance wise it was amazing, but it only got 2ish hours of battery life, not acceptable for me. For average use I get around 5-6 hours with the dell.

To follow up on my space bar issue, I called dell on saturday morning, and was told I would need to send it in for repair. I've gotten a couple emails since then confiming something is going on behind the scenes, but I haven'trecieved anything in the mail. I don't know if they will send me a new laptop with a box to send my old one back or just a box to send my old one in for a repair

Also in regards to the space bar, I found if I held it down hard for a few seconds the space bar would work fine for about 10 seconds after, then I would hear something that sounds like a sticker being unpeeled coming from under the keyboard, then it would go back to being .