Dell Inspiron 3537

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Hardware

Standard

Device Make/model Status Bus ID Kernel driver(s) Kernel version
CPU Intel i7-4500U Works [table 1] N/A N/A 5.6
Video card Intel Integrated HD 4400 Works 8086:0a16 i915 5.6
Video card AMD Radeon HD 8850M Works 1002:6823 radeon/amdgpu 5.6
Ethernet Realtek RTL8101E/RTL8102E Works 10ec:8136 r8169 5.6
Touchpad Synaptics TM2382-001 Works N/A synaptics 5.6
Wireless Broadcom BCM43142 Works [table 2] 14e4:4365 wl 5.6
  1. See Wrong turbo multipliers
  2. Requires closed-source binary driver.

Firmware

Due to errata in the processor, it is advised to install and keep the CPU microcode up-to-date. See intel microcode.

Kernel

Follow the intel and radeon articles to enable the required kernel options.

KERNEL Enable ethernet support
Device Drivers --->
  Network device support --->
    Ethernet Driver Support --->
      [*] Realtek Devices
      [*] Realtek 8169 gigabit ethernet support

Configuration

Configuring Xorg

A barebone config is needed:

CODE /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf
Section "Device"
   Identifier "Intel Graphics"
   Driver "intel"
   Option "TearFree" "true"
   Option "DRI" "3"
   Option "AccelMethod" "SNA"
EndSection

Hybrid Graphics

To offload applications to the dedicated GPU, add the PRIME prefix before the command:

user $DRI_PRIME=1 command_here

Configuring the touchpad

This enables horizontal scrolling. Tapping with two fingers acts as a rightclick, and a tap with three fingers acts as a middleclick.

CODE /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/40-synaptics.conf
Section "InputClass"
	Identifier "Touchpad Catchall"
	Driver "synaptics"
	MatchIsTouchpad "yes"
	Option "TapButton1" "1"
	Option "TapButton2" "3"
	Option "TapButton3" "2"
	Option "CornerCoasting" "1"
	Option "AccelFactor" "0.05"
	Option "HorizTwoFingerScroll" "1"
	Option "FingerHigh" "40"
	Option "CoastingSpeed" "0"
	Option "CoastingFriction" "0"
	Option "ClickTime" "15"
EndSection

It is also possible to enable Synpatics InterTouch which uses RMI4 over SMBus by adding `psmouse.synaptics_intertouch=1` to the kernel command line.

Troubleshooting

Wrong turbo multipliers

Dell seems to have changed the MSR controlling Turbo multipliers and effectively downclocked the processor compared to the stock multipliers. The stock Intel configuration is 30x/27x/27x/27x, Dell changes this to 27x/25x/25x/25x, ie. 2.7GHz with a single core, and 2.5GHz with 2+ cores.

This can be reverted back to the default with the use of msr-tools.

Warning
The following is for experienced users only. Misuse of these tools can potentially damage/brick your CPU. Proceed only if you know what you are doing.

First, we use the rdmsr utility to read the current value of the MSR register:

root #sudo rdmsr 0x01ad

This should return the value 1919191b which corresponds to 27/25/25/25. Note that the order is reversed, the highest multiplier (for single core) in this case is last (1b). Next, we write the new multiplier configuration:

root #sudo wrmsr 0x01ad 0x1b1b1b1e

This will set the multipliers to 30/27/27/27.

Note
Setting the wrong multiplier will downclock the CPU to its lowest multiplier. The current configuration can be viewed with i7z.

Touchpad doesn't work after resume

Sometimes when using RMI4 (Synaptics "InterTouch") the touchpad might randomly stop working and requires reinitialization:

root # echo -n "none" | tee /sys/bus/serio/devices/serio1/drvctl
root # echo -n "reconnect" | tee /sys/bus/serio/devices/serio1/drvctl

See also

References