Inspiron 16 2-in-1 (7620)

Device notes and configuration under Linux for the Inspiron 16 2-in-1 (7620) 4K OLED variant.

Everything works of the box in Linux v6.0 (including touchscreen, rotation, fingerprint scanner, SD-card reader, both top and bottom firing speakers).

Specs

• Intel i7-1260P (Alder Lake)
• NVIDIA MX550 (Turing)
• Samsung PM991a M.2 2230 SSD (1x M.2 slot, supports M.2 2280 PCIe Gen4)
• Samsung SDC4164 4k OLED 3840x2400 400 nits 283ppi
• 87Wh battery
• 2x SODIMM (supports up to 64GB, DDR4)
• HDMI 1.4 only
• Hardware for Linux probe

Opinion

• Notebookcheck review
• reminiscent of MacBook Pro 16 design wise, marginally heavier, slightly thicker
• acceptable speaker volume, poor bass response
• portability and tablet mode hampered by the size and weight
• touchpad mylar layer prevents capacitive grounding "vibration"
• both USB C ports are on the same side - minor annoyance depending on desk set up
• no stylus included (in most markets)
• anecdotally quieter fan than Framework
• excellent OLED display with 283ppi - ideal for HiDPI, running at 2x (integer) scaling
  • unfortunately this unit has grey uniformity issues
  • only visible in a dark room with dark grey backgrounds, e.g. hex #111111 (coincidentally, the default for the foot terminal) and #0f0f0f
  • common downside for OLED
  • best to use a pure black background for power saving

BIOS

• GUI-based UEFI
• can set custom charge limit
• can’t disable dGPU
• partial Linux support via libsmbios
  • smbios-battery-ctl --get-charging-cfg
  • smbios-thermal-ctl --get-thermal-info
• NVMe RAID mode set by default for all modern Dells regardless of number of M.2 slots
  • Intel Rapid Storage Technology
  • aka FakeRAID
  • requires vmd kernel module
  • vmd can cause high power usage
  • switching from RAID to AHCI
• no "legacy" S3 deep sleep option

Software

• audio requires sof-firmware
• getUserMedia / getDisplayMedia Test Page - useful for testing webcam/screensharing

Sleep

• S3 sleep unsupported
  • S0ix supported, reaches S0i2.0
• consumed ~4.7% battery in ~12 hours

NVIDIA

• Full RTD3 Power Management supported
  • RTD3 configuration
• CUDA supported

Test environment:

• idle
• 30% brightness
• sway
• Firefox open
• WiFi connected
• Bluetooth enabled
• tlp, thermald daemons running (default configs)

Verify PCI state via:

cat /sys/class/drm/card1/device/power_state

Driver	Power Consumption	PCI state
nvidia	6.7W	D3cold
nvidia-open	10.8W	D0
nouveau	6.7W	D3cold
(blacklisted)	6.73W	-

nvidia

• requires ibt=off to boot
• sway --unsupported-gpu

nvidia-open

• PCI utilisation: 100%
  • power management unimplemented
• ~7W in vconsole
  • ~3W for NVIDIA alone

blacklisted

• using uDev rules
• not in the PCI tree

Near-idle benchmarks

Testing near-idle performance via two open foot terminals, one running powerstat with the following flags:

powerstat -d 0 -c -H 1 480

... the other running a bash one-liner:

while [ 1 ]; echo 'foo'; do sleep 1; done

Test environment:

• idle
• Wayland only (XWayland disabled)
• 40% brightness
• WiFi connected
• tlp, thermald daemons running (default configs)
• Linux 5.x

Comparing GNOME and sway with roughly equivalent helpers to provide a basic "desktop environment".

sway (no bar)

• sway without a bar (swaybar not running)
• swayidle
• swaybg
• gammastep

State	C10%	Power (W)
sleep 1	99.63%	6.08

sway (waybar)

• sway
• waybar with modules:
  • sway/workspaces
  • sway/mode
  • sway/window
  • network
  • battery
  • tray
  • clock#date
• swayidle
• swaybg
• gammastep

State	C10%	Power (W)
sleep 1	98.32%	6.81

GNOME

• gnome-shell --no-x11
• gdm3
• gnome-settings-daemon

State	C10%	Power (W)
idle	99.69%	5.37
sleep 1	99.56%	5.48
sleep 0.1	98.64%	6.51
sleep 0.01	90.6%	9.36

GNOME - 2023-05-02

• Linux 6.2.13
• GNOME 43.5
• gnome-shell --no-x11
• gdm3
• gnome-settings-daemon

State	C10%	Power (W)
idle	99.67%	5.64
sleep 1	99.65%	5.76

CPU Benchmarks

Test environment

• Linux 6.1.9
• Geekbench 5.5
• Thermal mode: performance
• TLP: AC
• thermald: 2.5.2

BIOS	Single core	Multi core	Governer	thermald	Run
1.8.0	1753	7897	powersave	adaptive	https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/20246870
1.8.0	1742	7897	performance	adaptive	https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/20247395
1.9.0	1736	7961	powersave	adaptive	https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/20247880
1.9.0	1750	7885	performance	adaptive	https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/20247785

Links

• lakotamm/Dell-Inspiron-16-Plus-7620-Linux-Config
  • lakotamm /r/dell discussion
• lhl/linuxlaptops - Framework Laptop
• Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 (7620) - ArchWiki
• Service Manual
• Setup and Specifications
• Dell Forums
• BIOS update
• r/Dell