Dell Precision 7540 and 7740 Owner's Thread

Howdy all - just got my 7740 in a week ago and have really enjoyed messing around with it. I thought I was going to be able to drop my old 1tb sata ssd in there, but found out that wasn't going to work with the 97w battery, so nvme is it - my question is, what is a reasonable drive to use? I see the 'class 40 or 50' drives as options on Dell, but that doesn't say much as to the specific interface. Specifically, I'm wondering if it's a smart idea to get a pci 4 nvme drive, or is that wasted for the kind of interface we're using? It seems like the samsung 970 drive is a good performance option if the pci 4 nvme drives aren't useful in this application.

Another question... I'm used to running as clean an install to start with as possible (ie, stock install via usb boot disk) and then just letting windows do driver updates. Are there any 'critical' applications that need to be run (hopefully just on demand rather than running 24/7) after a clean install?

 

There are no laptops with PCIe 4 yet (except maybe the very newly launching Tiger Lake systems?). The system has PCIe 3 so getting a PCIe 4 drive won't get you any benefit. Can't really go wrong with Samsung drives, Samsung 970 EVO Plus is a good value.

Doing a clean install is fine. You will need to install the "Intel serial I/O driver" before the touchpad will work. Windows Update will pick up just about everything. If you have a fingerprint reader, then install the ControlVault driver package from Dell. You'll need to install the Intel Thunderbolt driver and current Thunderbolt firmware update manually, as well as the current BIOS update for the system. The only actual non-driver Dell software that I keep installed on my systems is Dell Power Manager.

 

So these things are never easy - I have another part number question.

It seems the company I bought the RTX off didn't check the labels very thoroughly, and it's actually an RTX 3000, not 4000. I have decided I might keep it anyway (not 100% yet - but the 3000 should be good enough for what I use it for).

But apparently the heatsink might be different. Can anyone with an 7740, RTX 3000 confirm the part number of the heatsink? And can anyone confirm if it's the same as for the 7730?

This is what I've worked out so far:

7730:
Card (not sure of the options):
Heatsink (Q1+Q3): D1HY2

7740 AMD 3200:
Card: 1CJ3C
Power: CCDPW
Heatsink: 69PVF
2 DGFF connectors

7740 RTX 3000:
Card: RY4MY
Power: ? (I assume CCDPW - looks like the same socket)
Heatsink: ?
3 DGFF connectors

7740 RTX 4000:
Card: 5HPJW
Power: CCDPW
Heatsink (Q3+Q5): FHD64
3 DGFF connectors

DGFF connectors:
NGRJG

 

RTX 3000 7740 parts:

 

Hi,
Does anyone have BIOS 1.7 and could share it? Dell removed it from the site...

 

Hi All,
Just ordered a Dell 7540 (as you may have guessed!).

I was just wondering what the latest news is regarding 3200 DDR4 memory? From this post ... http://forum.notebookreview.com/posts/11010946 ... it seems that it isn't actually compatible with i9-9880H?

Based on that, I'm going for Crucial/Corsair 2666, but I'm not sure that the Corsair is worth the extra £20?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Crucial-CT2K32G4SFD8266-SODIMM-260-Pin-Memory/dp/B07ZLCC6J8/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1STHWC2GWVM1T&dchild=1&keywords=sodimm+2666+64gb&qid=1602257298&refinements=p_36:428448031&rnid=428432031&s=computers&sprefix=sodimm+2666+64,computers,143&sr=1-1
or
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Vengeance-Performance-Unbuffered-Generation-notebooks/dp/B07YBW84K9/ref=sr_1_2?crid=1STHWC2GWVM1T&dchild=1&keywords=sodimm+2666+64gb&qid=1602257298&refinements=p_36:428448031&rnid=428432031&s=computers&sprefix=sodimm+2666+64,computers,143&sr=1-2

Any help or recommendations greatly appreciated in advance!

Also! I have about £50 left in my budget ... has anyone got any good ideas on what i should spend it on? Apart from alcohol obvs. :0)

Cheers,
James.

 

Might have a reason that Dell removed that version, so use it at your own risk ;-)

https://1drv.ms/u/s!An2fiiM3hV0Kkd0XW8m8E588tCYpbw?e=vhn29u

 

Thank you! I got my 970 drive in and had to do a clean install anyways, so just for reference windows did install most packages just fine. I then installed the intel driver update and there was 3 drivers: bluetooth, integrated video, and wifi (or ethernet, iirc). After that, I did the driver update assist on dell and it came up with 4 drivers: nvidia quadro, intel ME chipset, network ethernet controller, and intel thunderbolt controller. Call me a paranoid clean freak - but I like the clean install and getting rid of that dell color management power saving setting that was washing out the screen colors.

Just for reference, with the 970 plus drive vs the stock intel nvme drive, performance was nicely boosted: https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/33947874

 

Stock Windows 10 2004 downloaded straight from Microsoft will support the touchpad directly, so even easier.

 

Has anyone managed to use Dell Flash utility Flash64W.exe with Precision laptops like 7530, 7540 or 7550?
I think this tool is not any more supported with three latest Precision laptop models.
Some older 7540 BIOS versions like 1.7 update works to latest 1.10.2 but 1.9.0 may fail.
How do you update your BIOS with Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager / SCCM?