Dell Precision 7540 and 7740 Owner's Thread

It's m.2. It came from a laptop that only took 2.5", but I had the foresight to buy an m.2 drive and a cheap adapter.

 

Do note that unlike the 7X30, the 7X40 systems do not take SATA M.2 drives in all of the slots. The one that is by the battery should work.

 

oooops

 

Here's the Intel spec:


Most notebook manufacturers adhere to this specification, so you can get a combined 4x PCIe 3.0 bandwidth out of the chipset (counting NVMe, LAN, WLAN, WWAN, USB, Thunderbolt, etc). That's not a lot: slightly less than 4 Gb/s, which can be saturated by a single high-performance NVMe drive.

 

I remember noticing that in the review on 51nb that the BIOS lists two m.2 SATA slots and not four. (https://www.51nb.com/review/20190816/961.html). But thanks for the reminder--and I don't know how well marked they are and I can see myself forgetting in all the excitement.

Just got my tracking number from Dell. They estimated 9/30-10/3 when I placed the order, looks like it will actually show up on 9/26.

 

According to this review:
https://translate.google.it/translate?hl=it&tab=wT1&sl=zh-CN&tl=en&u=https://www.51nb.com/review/20190901/1058.html

slot #5 do not recognize any m.2 sata ssd
(from the review: "the original factory pre-installed Toshiba 256GB M.2 NVMe SSD at #5 was removed, and the Western Digital M.2 SATA 1TB was installed. After booting, it was not recognized. There is no display information here.")

All the others do.

So you can use up to 3 m.2 sata ssd in 7740.
Moreover (the following is only valid if "RAID ON" is selected):

-Any m.2 sata ssd in slot #3 will always be displayed as "M.2 SATA"
-Any m.2 sata ssd in slot #4 will always be displayed as "Primary Hard drive"
-Any m.2 sata ssd in slot #6 will always be displayed as "M.2 SATA2"

If instead you populate every slot with only nvme ssd, the correspondence is the following:

Slot #3--------------------->M.2 PCIe SSD-0
Slot #5 (only nvme)----->M.2 PCIe SSD-1
Slot #4--------------------->M.2 PCIe SSD-2
Slot #6--------------------->M.2 PCIe SSD-3

In this case, except slot #3 which can only be ssd-0, all the other slots can be displayed under different ssd-X.

For instance: slot #5 can be ssd-1 only if slot #3 has a nmve ssd; but slot#5 can also be ssd-0 in two cases:

a)- m.2 nvme ssd in slot #5 and empty slot #3 (that's typical when you order with just 1 ssd like the unit reviewed on 51nb)

b)- m.2 nvme ssd in slot #5 and m.2 sata ssd in slot #3 (the latter will go under "M.2 SATA" like mentioned above, so slot #5 'climbs the rankings' taking ssd-0 spot previously occupied by slot #3)

The same story goes for slot #4 and #6:
slot #4 can be ssd-0,ssd-1 and ssd-2
slot #6 can be ssd-0,ssd-1, ssd-2 and ssd-3

It all depends on how many ssd you put inside your 7740 and who takes the 'empty spot'.

The author of the review also noticed these two things:

-M.2 PCIe/NVMe SSDs installed at #6 location cannot participate in RAID arrays
-SATA SSDs installed in #6 location can participate in RAID arrays

On 7730 thread, i remember several users complainig for metallic noises while typing.
That was caused by empty ram slots under the keyboard.
I see that you've ordered 7740 with 1x8 gb ram.
Like the reviewed unit, chances are that the ram stick will be located in dimm B, so you would need to remove the keyboard to access it.
Once you've done it, it's recommended to put your 2x16 hyperx ram sticks just on these slots under the keyboard to prevent any strange sound (chassis is the same so maybe 7740 still has the same problem).

 

Ok, I'm typing this from a shiny new 7740. RAM and SSD install went without a hitch except for one thing, which seems embarrassingly simple, but I'm sure y'all can help...

I can't get the lock for the battery cover to engage.

The cover came off with no problems. When it came off the lock slider slid back to the locked position. I assume this is normal?

Anyhow, when putting the cover back on, I held the slider in the unlocked position and then put the cover on. Tricky to do with only two hands, but the cover feels like it's on properly. I expect that if one of the tabs didn't engage that it would bulge somewhere, and everything looks smooth. But... the lock slider to hold the cover in place will not slide back to locked! At least it won't slide back with the pressure I've applied so far--I don't want to break something by pushing too hard.

 

I don't know if this is it, but on the 7510, when putting the cover back on, it is not necessary to "hold the slider in the unlocked position". As I recall that is just needed to take the cover off. When you put it back on you don't have to mess with it and it just nicely snaps in place.

(I also have 7530 but they made that one different, the entire bottom cover is just one piece, there is not a separate part for the battery.)

 

On my 7730 I can slide the battery cover back in position without having to touch the slider. The lock slider gets moved to the right open position automatically when I push the cover back into position and then the lock slider snaps back. Don't know if the 7740 is different there or if some part is broken or in the way.

Does the slider still return to locked when you remove the cover again?
Otherwise you might want to check your warranty options.

 

Was stock 8gb ram stick located under the keyboard ?
Do you confirm you replace it with 2x16 hyperx ram ?
Did you buy this right ?--->HX426S15IB2K2/32
Also did you put them on those slots under the keyboard right ?

What about the 256gb stock ssd ? Mind if you can tell the model ?
What slot did you use for your 2TB m.2 sata WD 3D Blue ssd ?