Dell Precision 7540 and 7740 Owner's Thread

As I mentioned a few days ago, I have some hardware questions that have arisen recently. In no particular order:

• Since a Windows update about 6 or 8 months ago, Bluetooth on this machine has been horribly broken. Devices disconnect constantly, or refuse to connect at all. I thought at first it was a bad driver (and still think so) because the problem appeared suddenly after a Windows update from Microsoft, but I've tried the updated drivers from Intel's Driver Support Assistant, and that didn't help at all. Eventually I started suspecting a hardware problem with the Bluetooth adapter in my computer, but Dell kindly sent me a replacement under warranty. Even the new card has not fixed the problem. This also persisted across the motherboard replacement I mentioned in my prior post. I know it's not 'the peripheral" because I'm having the problem with at least three peripherals, all of different categories, all from different manufacturers, and not trying to use more than one at a time. I'm hoping this improves under Linux, but it's so frustrating now that I've stopped using Bluetooth altogether for the moment. Are others having similar issues, and if you have, what have you done to fix it?
• I purchased a Sabrent model EC-T3NS Thunderbolt 3 external NVMe SSD enclosure. It seems very well-made, but I can't get my 7740 to recognize it. The device does connect, but Windows says it requires alternative features that my hardware may not support. In the BIOS settings, I know that T3 support is enabled, and I've temporarily turned off any related security options just to be sure those aren't getting in the way. What appears to be happening is that Windows sees the T3 connection but doesn't recognize it as a storage device. This is the only T3 peripheral I have so far, so I can't easily substitute to see if the device is DOA. The official Microsoft page on this topic (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...cdae-3194-43743f30eed2#bkmk_improveconnection) has not provided a solution; I can rule out issues about power (the device has no external power port, so obviously designed for T3-delivered power), for external hub problems (device is directly connected), and wrong cable type (the cable shipped with the device from Sabrent and has the T3 lightning icon clearly printed on both ends). Any suggestions on what to try next?
• I've been trying to use YUMI to make a multi-boot installation and recovery flash drive. I'm able to get it to build bootable single-system images on the flash drive, but I have no success in getting the Dell UEFI boot menu to recognize more than one o.s. being available on the external media. I'll keep investigating this on my own, but I was hoping someone might have already done this and can offer a reference link or some config tips.
• Dell Command Update keeps wanting me to install an upgrade to Intel Management Engine, but I purchased this machine with that anti-feature disabled. Should I try to apply this upgrade anyway? IOW, is it harmless to try this update, or will it make a mess of things if I do? Or is there a way to inform the Dell utility that this upgrade is n/a for my system so it will just skip it and move on?
• I recently had to reinstall Windows because a failed Microsoft upgrade ate my system. Prior to this, I had calibrated my LCD panel with a ColorMunki colorimeter. I'm sure the color profile is on my [preserved] old Windows system disk somewhere, but I'm not sure where to find it.

Thanks for any recommendations and suggestions.

 

Bluetooth - I recommend trying the driver from Dell instead of the latest one from Intel, if you haven't yet. I don't use Bluetooth much so I don't know about that, but I've had several occasions where using the "latest" Wi-Fi driver caused issues while the one that Dell had up worked fine for me. (In general, I recommend using drivers that Dell is posting instead of drivers straight from the vendor, unless you have a specific reason for needing the vendor driver.)

UEFI USB multi-boot - Never tried this but I seem to recall, in BIOS setup in the boot options, there is a button that actually lets you "browse" the file system and pick a boot loader out of the EFI partition to add to the list. (Maybe you can't do this with USB drives...?)

Intel Management Engine - Not quite the same as Intel vPro which is probably what you are referring to having disabled. vPro runs on top of IME but you can't actually disable IME. It's normal to have the drivers installed and yeah I'd say go ahead and update them if Dell is recommending it. Seems like it's pretty common for it to have security patches.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Management_Engine

 

I'll give that another try; thanks for the insight. Currently I'm running only the driver provided by Microsoft; I haven't reinstalled the Intel DSA since reinstalling Windows, because it wasn't proving to be helpful.

I should have mentioned in my original question on this, the symptom is that the BT radio fails to reinitialize after suspend/resume cycle. If I go into Device Manager and manually "disable" then "enable" the BT radio (the Intel device), this almost always brings BT back online until the next suspend. I still have the frequent disconnect problems, but this initialization problem (the error says the device didn't respond to an ID query on init) is the primary issue. The low-level nature of this error message is what led me to suspect hardware, but after a new motherboard and a new BT radio card, I think we've ruled out the hardware. (Again, there's the "coincidence" that this happened instantly after a Windows 10 update, so I think there's something broken in Windows' suspend/resume handling.)

I know this can be done from the GRUB command line, and you may be right about a way to do it from the BIOS. I tried from the BIOS setup dialog, with the USB device inserted, and didn't see it there, but maybe there is a way to browse the media from the one-time boot menu as well. I'll take a look next time I cycle power.

Thanks for the info about vPro and IME difference. I'll revisit that driver recommendation from Dell and see which one is specifically mentioned. At worst case, when I tried that driver upgrade before, it failed but didn't seem to do any harm for having been attempted. So I'll try it and escalate to Dell support if it fails. If their Command Update is recommending a non-applicable driver for my hardware, then that's a bug they should fix anyway.

 

This can be automated. (I know that's not a "proper fix", but it's something.) Go to Event Viewer and identify an event that occurs when the system is "resumed". Go to Task Scheduler and set up a job to fire on this event. DevManView offers a command line interface to disable and enable a device.

 

Hey, thanks! I didn't know it was feasible to automate things like that in Windows. I'm still planning to migrate my main environment to Linux soon (I just need to finish shuffling some data around to free up the target SSD for reformatting), but I may give that automation a try if I find that I still need a bootable Windows (as opposed to VMware or Virtual Box guest) after I get Linux fully provisioned.

 

Update: I installed the IME patch from Dell today, and there were no issues. Apparently the current version is smarter than the one I had tried and failed to install a few months ago, and it didn't complain about the vPro being disabled. Thanks for the advice; it worked.

 

PSA for anyone having Thunderbolt 3 issues, particularly with external PCI devices or storage controllers, on the 7740 (and maybe the 7750, but I don't have one of those):

I've been completely unable to get a Sabrent EC-T3NS external NVMe enclosure to work with my 7740, until today. No matter what I set in BIOS, it would detect only in USB fallback mode and did not support the PCI bridging needed for the NVMe SSD.

As of today, I applied the latest Dell firmware update (via Command Update), including BIOS and Embedded Controller, and voila! My Sabrent enclosure and the SSD inside are working flawlessly. If I recall, the release date on the latest firmware version was June 21, but don't quote me on that. In any case, I hope this information helps someone else who was having T3 problems.

 

BIOS 1.13.1 is out but does not install on my 7740.

I get two message boxes:

"Could not find valid Policy or Resource Payload."

"Error: Unsupported BIOS image."

Downloaded it twice to be sure it is not a broken download.

Any ideas, or just wait for an update from Dell?

 

Hmm, after starting the bios setup explicitly as admin it worked. Went flawlessly.

 

I updated to BIOS 1.13.1

I had skipped 1.12.1 that I read here that gave problems.

After the BIOS was downloaded and updated automatically by Dell Assitant I got message that firmware update was successful.

Computer got stuck showing that message.

After waiting for long I could not power it down by pressing the power button. I had to disconnect the power supply and the battery.

After that the laptop does not power up.

Dell Tech Support has told me to press Ctrl + Esc and connect the power supply.
I have also removed hard drives and memory sticks, disconnected the battery and tried the above and still it does not power up.

Dell is going to change the motherboard.

I am praying that I won't lose data.

Any ideas of how to try and power up the laptop?