Owner's Thread: Dell Inspiron 7000 series

Yeah I checked on that as well. My unit was set correctly at 15. YMMV

 

I'm interested in this laptop's suitability for heavy gaming. Will it handle playing WoW every day (25man raids) and playing the latest games (not necessarily on the highest details)? Or will the heat become too much of a problem?

 

Well my 750M has reached a max of 76 degrees (GPU load is almost always 99%), usually sits at 75 the only part of the laptop that you can really feel it is just above the centre of the keyboard so it shouldn't hinder you. That was playing quite demanding games from the last couple of years (on high or ultra), it would handle WoW fine.

 

Thanks. I was just wondering if playing WoW regularly for extensive periods of time wouldn't damage the hardware in the long run. I guess these temperatures are quite low for laptops anyway.

 

Hopefully it doesn't, yea I think that's standard for laptops (my 7850 maxes at about 65 IIRC), I would be worried at 85 degress, but it will probably throttle before it gets near that.

 

How can I check?
I only see the ''Turbo Boost Power Max'' (25 W btw)

 

I have not experienced the wireless being any worse than any other mobile device I use, in fact its probably better if anything. I am now on version: 16.5.1.6

I used Acronis TrueImage to clone the HDD that the 7537 came with. It appears to have cloned each partition including the recovery, but I have no idea if it will work. I don't trust it to, hence I have kept the old HDD with all the information it came with and will just be using the space leftover (approx 850Gb) for storage. Therefore I have a safety net. But on that note My Dell Download (which I can't get to work at present)...does anyone know if you can download Windows 8 from here?

Aldo38: I cloned and then did the 8.1 update. The update only took me about 10 minutes and worked perfectly as far as I can tell.

Can anyone find the BIOS update that Ralos referred to. I can't. I have entered my service tag and looked through the downloads. Although Dell's support site including "My Dell Download" and the normal drivers area seems to be having issues at present.

 

Same for me, I am not able to find any updates. The Dell utility says everything is up to date...

 

I've found the BIOS update. Above the drivers are two radio buttons. By default "Filtered driver results is selected". Clicking on "All related drivers" reveals the BIOS update from November 4th. I'll try that this evening.

 

Hi, has anybody try to undervolt his inspiron using Intel Extreme Tuning Utility? I'm be ableof this setting:

cpu voltage offset : -75 mV
cpu cache voltage offset: -75 mV
gpu voltage offset: -105 mV

Do you think we could get lower????
The battery life is great, i run the windows 8 battery report and it says that the expected battery life is like 9,5 hours!!!

Edit: i've just run another test and it seem to crash, so i start again from default.

 

Yes you can get the updated bios here - Driver Details | Dell UK

 

So I have set my eyes on these eyes but I am reluctant
. Is there a problem with WiFi or not after all?

 

For the model I7537T-4340SLV sold at Best Buy, I can tell you that wireless works great for me once I upgraded the driver to the latest driver. Performance is on par with the Gigabit Ethernet wired connection which is connected to a VZ FIOS 50Mb service (see my note earlier in this thread). I can not speak to range as I have not tested it but bandwidth is excellent. I have an Apple Airport Extreme as the wireless AP connected to my GigE network on the FIOS router.

 

@ mgj167: how far frrom your router is your laptop? What's the farthest you've tried so far?

 

Has getting the BIOS updated helped in any way the wifi connection?

I'd like to point out the wifi kept dropping before I manually went to the Device Manager to update the network adaptor as mgj167 has mentioned. I haven't had my wifi connection dropped since then but the laptop does have a slightly less sensitive wifi as the signal strength and speeds are slower than compared to the other laptops in the house (macbooks, asus, acer)

 

The numbers quoted earlier (50+Mb down/33+ up) are in the same or adjacent room to an AP -- so 10'-20'.

Using speedtest.net to the same server for all tests.

It's a little hard for me to do good bandwidth testing as I depend on wireless for family's smartphone (WiFi calling) & tablet usage as well (we live on the edge of the cell coverage area). As a result I have 3 access points throughout my house to allow good roaming coverage.

For these test there were no other active WiFi users at the same time.

I did a test -- same floor, through three interior walls -- about 30' line of sight to one AP, and ~25' through one interior wall to another AP. I got ~33 Mb+ down, 30Mb up.

I went to next floor up over the same area, and bandwidth test results were 29Mb down/25Mb up. (There is no access point on this floor), just one AP above in the attic (~25' line of sight through ceiling, attic floor and one interior wall), and then two on the floor below, where the first tests were run.

Hope this helps a bit.

PS Sorry I did not have the tools out to see if I was running on the 5GHz or 2.4Ghz freq -- I have both set up.

 

Hi..

I just got my Inspiron 15 7000 a couple of days back.. It is alarming to see that the wifi is so messed up.. it gets connected only if we sit right next to the router. And even if it gets connected, it keeps disconnecting every now and then. And if we move just one room away, then there is no wifi connection at all. I have contacted Dell and as instructed by them I have updated my drivers but it had not helped me. I have tested other devices including my old dell studio 1555 and it all works perfect even my super old nokia e72 has good signal strength but my brand new inspiron 7000 says no signal .. waiting for dell to sort out this issue..

 

I'd return it and get a new laptop as soon as possible, don't try to fix it or anything. If it's a new laptop, you shouldn't have to fix what you just bought. So you better return the laptop before it's too late, you can get another one if you want or get a different laptop. If you want suggestions, I'd be happy to give you some.

 

Okay now Dell has really pissed me off;
When I orderded the laptop, on the website it said "expected shipping date 8 nov". When I finished the order and payed for it, the confirmation email already changed the date to the 15th of november, which in my eyes really is just false info to lure customers. Now I called the customer service, and they confirmed that the estimated shipping date had even changed to the 22th of november. I'm really not happy with this and I'm thinking about canceling my order. I do need it for work, and adding two weeks to the original shipping date is simply unexacceptable

 

Same here. Ordered 8/11 - delivery estimate said 12/11. Now order is in production - estimated delivery 22/11. But worth waiting for IMO

 

@jacksonkjoseph: what is your feedback on the keyboard? Is it as bad as some people say?

 

I feel your pain,

I ordered on 3rd with estimated shipping on the 5th leading me to believe that the laptop must be in stock. After order went through the date changed to the 15th.

It currently shows as having left manufacturing facility in China on the 7th and that is as much info as I can get.

Not sure how they are shipped from China but if it is by boat it's gonna be longer than this Friday to get to me.

Dell's website still shows shipping as 2 days after today's date, what a load of b******s !

 

Yes their estimated shipping is a bald lie. Same story for me, ETA date immediately jumped by a week after placing the order (order verification email vs. date on the site). It is clear that Dell believes that lying to their customers is worth it to lure them in.

For me I wasn't in a big rush, so I waited it out and am pleased with the laptop. But I wish they would have been honest up front - I still would have ordered it.

 

It's not the best keyboard ever, but it's decent. I think the keys are a little bit too "short", so you have to press them a little harder for the key to actually trigger. The worst one is the space key, I don't know if I'm getting used to it and am already pressing harder, but it looks like I don't have so many missed blanks as I previously had.

I will also probably mount the SSD tomorrow, so I will let you know about the boost I hope to get.

 

Yup. The space key is special. Mine popped out in just 2 days. I looked below it and found that a cable on the lower left side of the space key sticks out a little bit. And that is the exact area where I felt the space key is harder to press than any other key.

Are you guys facing this too?

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk now Free

 

Yeah I've send them an email, hoping they'll respond, that I want some kind of solution for their lies. It's misleading, and not honest. I really like Dell products, but this is no way to thread customers. If I had known the shipping would've been this long I might've looked at another option.

 

@taranider : well.. your idea is totally right... after paying such a high price for a laptop and having to have waited for 9 days now to get the laptop wifi sorted out is ridiculous.. but the problem is, I am in India… and here Dell doesn’t give the kind of service they give you guys in the UK or the US.. they’ve told me that a service engineer will be visiting me in another 2 or 3 working days… so I’m just waiting…

 

@Aldo38: to be honest the typing experience is not that good as my old laptop or any other keyboards ive used… if you are using it in a silent area, you can hear all kind of squeaky sounds while typing… but if you a re ready to sacrifice your performance for the looks, then this keyboard is fine.,.. it looks quiet stylish compared to other laptops..

 

Update. Shipped this morning.

 

Where do you live? I ordered mine 4 days earlier... and still don't have it.

 

I'm pretty sure that after your order is made they always just adds 14 days to the estimate, note that is says "or before" on the tracking thing.

I ordered 2 days ago and my order is now "in production" - how long that will take I don't know but I'm hoping to get it soon

 

Does this thing have IPS or TN panel? Can anyone verify? Thanks.

 

I think mine was in production for about 2 to 3 days before it was shipped out (sometime around Sunday). Delivery is estimated "on or before" the 25th.

While Dell doesn't advertise it as such, the 1080p panel is IPS. The 768p panel, however, is not.

 

Aldo38 : je suis de Grenoble, si ton pseudo est bien choisi tu peux passer jeter un coup d'oeil à mon Inspiron 17 avant que je ne le renvoie : déçu pour plusieurs raisons déjà évoquées ici.

(for our english friends, I live in France, Aldo38 can see my Inspiron).
;-)

 

This might not be appropriate to ask here but why did you choose this laptop over the Asus N550JV? This is basically what I am trying to ask myself for the past weeks. Considering both have IPS display, but surely, this Dell has a better looking design and thinner body (5mm or .19 in) and it has better battery life but the Asus has a more powerful CPU. At around $900, I can have an i7 4700MQ, 750M Nvidia and non touch Asus (I'm not really concerned about the touch version) while this thing only has i7 4500U, intel 4400? Thanks.

 

The main reason I chose the Dell over the Asus was the price here in the UK, with a student discount I got the i7 750m 1TB model for £670 where as the Asus would cost me around £950(touchscreen version). I also like having that extra battery life in exchange for slightly less performance, but if I stick it in high performance it seems to sit at 2.9GHz most of the time anyway and I don't really have the need for the extra cores. Also like you mentioned it does look better and slightly thinner. There also seems to be some throttling issues with the Asus even though it runs quite cool.

 

@Air1: thanks for asking but I think the 15'' should meet my requirements. By the way, are you sure you can return your laptop to Dell and get a full refund and not just a credit note (=un avoir)??

 

where do you go to? I want to transfer there. Hehe. Yeah, If I got that discount, I'd go with the inspiron as well. Thanks. Let me spend a few days thinking.

 

It really depends on what your need is, the ASUS has a much more powerful CPU it has twice as many cores and is clocked higher, but it also is using more than 3 times as much power (47w vs 15w) so battery time will be MUCH lower on the Asus.

The graphics on the DELL is also a 750M it even has GDDR5 ram which the Asus doesn't have, it actually makes a lot of difference.

 

The Inspiron 7537 is also available with a 750M. In fact, it uses the faster DDR5 version. When gaming at high resolution / details, this should make up for some of the difference in CPU power.

That said, I too had a hard time choosing. Personally, I dislike matte displays, so I disregarded the non-touch N550JV. The IPS panel in the Inspiron should be prettier too, thanks to its wider gamut, but I have yet to see either in person.

So, I ordered the Inspiron 7537 (i7, 750M, 1080p, 1TB) primarily for its €250 lower price tag and potentially better screen and customer service.

The N550JV does have a better keyboard and CPU. I think I can manage without the quad-core, but the keyboard has me a bit worried.

 

You can go through Dell VIP club which is 10% and then I used another 7% coupon which seems to be available every week, also got free postage during October. £800 reduced to £670

 

Well, the reason I am still hesitating to buy it because of the touch screen. I don't mind it there but if I have to pay for something I don't use then it's just absurd. Moreover, the touch panel adds more weight and nearly .1 in thicker for the lap. I want it as thin as possible and at .8in that would be amazing. Maybe I'll wait a little longer till Black Friday to see if I can get a better deal out of this thing. I don't play games so I'm not really interested in the graphics card so I might go with the 899 one. Moreever, I can go straight to a bestbuy store in Delaware which has the lap listed at 879 and don't have to pay any tax. That's like 60 bucks saved for me
Edit: Okay, I just compared the reviews for this and the rMPR 13 i5 and except for gaming, the rMPR is better in every single other aspects. wow.

 

If you want to do any gaming at all I wouldn't go with the Mac

 

I ordered a Dell too. The game testing that's been done with the Dell seems to show it offering great performance with respect to gaming, outpacing the asus. In fact I ordered the Dell largely because of the ddr5 over the ddr3 which is pretty weak. You have to remember most games are more gpu dependant and that the ULVs are still pretty formidable for most tasks.

Here's an obscure European review http://translate.google.hu/translat...laptop/tesztek/dell-inspiron-7537-teszt-142of the Dell with the weaker i5 but same graphics card, and you can see it averages around 35 fps on ultra for bioshock infinite. Bioshock infinite on the Asus with the full cpu but ddr3 750m only barely goes above 30 fps on medium, according to video testing by one of its reviewers.

 

It's been a couple of days since I've started to get random system shutdowns with my Dell 7537. Windows Event Manager says "Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-Power, Event 41". Is this happening to anyone else? Do you know what could be the cause?

EDIT: I found the issue. When the PC turns the screen off (because of the power settings option) after 15 minutes, it does not recover. This was an hypothesis, so I set the timeout to 1 minute and waited: the screen turned off and there was nothing I could do but force a shutdown by long pressing the power button.

 

My 7436 was doing that when I installed 8.1 and was not using the newest HD4400 driver. Once I installed the latest driver the problem went away.

 

Where did you download that driver from?

 

The Dell website has the 8.1 specific drivers now posted. Alternatively you can also get from:

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Se...hics+4400&ProdId=3719&LineId=1101&FamilyId=39

Choose the Win 8.1 64-bit option.

 

Oh crap, I totally missed those. Thank you for reminding me

 

I'm not sure "wow" is the word I'd use. The rMBP 13 costs a lot more than the Dell, so that's not surprising. Besides, it's a different kind of laptop: not suited for gaming, and the screen is smaller.

You're right, I'm surprised by the difference the GDDR5 makes, based on the few numbers I've seen. Things do turn around at lower resolutions and details.

Speaking of obscure reviews, I came accross this just now: Google Translate - http://thehikaku.net/pc/dell/13inspiron15-7000.html

Not much we didn't know yet, but there's lots of photos and some gaming test results.