Dell Precision 7540 and 7740 Owner's Thread

For reference, that was the UK Dell website I was quoting.

Yeah some of the 3200 modules have latencies over 20.

There's few options in the UK when it comes to 32GB modules.

At the moment it seems like the best configuration would be either (all non-EEC):

• 64GB at 2933 CL17 (4x16GB) or
• 64GB at 2666 CL15 (4x16GB) or
• 64GB/128GB at 2666 CL19 (2x32GB / 4x32GB)

For the benefit of others, I came across this memory setup guide for the 7540.

https://www.dell.com/support/manual...a070cc-7772-48fd-bddc-84b148afe28e&lang=en-us

This page does show that 3200mhz is supported. It also shows how the memory modules should be populated.

This page also shows some benchmarks of common 7540 components https://www.userbenchmark.com/System/Dell-Precision-7540/151415. Memory benchmarks are included.

This article may be useful for those that are doing video editing. It looks at the performance change of using faster RAM.

https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Does-RAM-speed-affect-video-editing-performance-1528/

 

hello everyone. i ordered a Precision 7540 (i9 9980HK, 2 x 32GB, RTX3000, Ultra FullHD Touch, WWAN, Ubuntu) yesterday. i ordered only 256GB M.2 SSD as I already have a Samsung 2TB 970EVO which will replace it as soon as the laptop arrives. i already have a licence for Windows 10 Pro which i will install after upgrading the SSD.

one of the three M.2 slot will be occupied by the NVMe 970EVO. in the balance two, i want to intall 2 x 2TB WD Blue M.2 SATA in RAID-1 for storing my data with ultra reliability. will the two M.2 SATA drives run in the system? also, can I set them in RAID-1 in the BIOS?

i have also purchased a TB18DC dock from Ebay. already have a Dell 240W adapter to power the dock. hope the dock and adapter will work with the machine?

also, anything else that i need to take care of which experienced users may have to share? like my existing Windows 10 Pro licence not working with 8 cores etc....

 

You can fill up the three drvies with NVMe drives and it will work fine. We have no reports of any drive that doesn't work so I am not worried about the specific model. You can set up RAID from the BIOS. In BIOS setup, make sure that the system is in RAID mode and not AHCI mode (this is the default). Then, press F12 at boot to get to the boot selection menu, and select the configuration tool from the list. (Seems like the name on the menu is not obvious but you can figure it out.) You can also set up RAID from within Windows using the Intel Rapid Storage configuration utility, if you are applying it to drives that are not the Windows drive.

240W adapter is perfect for the TB18DC, not worried about that either. TB18DC had some issues early on. Visit the Dell support page and find the firmware update for it, and make sure that gets applied.

Your existing Windows license should work fine with 8 cores. (Unless it is an OEM license which is not transferable.) Windows only cares about the number of physical CPUs, the number of cores in each one doesn't matter.

 

Thank you so much Aaron44126 for the response. Quite helpful.

However, I need to clarify on one thing. I intend running one M.2 NVMe drive (for booting) and two M.2 SATA drives (for data storage in RAID-1). I am pretty sure that all three drives being NVMe is not a problem. My apprehension is will the the two SATA drives work? I am sure one will as one of the M.2 slots next to the battery is used as pass-through for a 2.5inch SATA drive. SO a M.2 SATA drive in that will work. The apprehension is really about the second SATA drive...

It will be great if someone can actually tell which are the two of the three M.2 slots on the 7540 which support SATA. I am sure all three don't, as the BIOS references I see in the downloaded manual show only total of two SATA ports on the motherboard.

 

Ok, I didn't realize that you were talking about SATA drives there.

The bottom M.2 slot by the battery supports SATA. It is possible that one of the remaining two does, but not both. Someone checked out the 7740, which has four M.2 slots, and found that two support SATA and the other two do not. I don't think anyone has fully checked the 7540.

I asked a Dell product manager about this when the 7X40 series launched and was told that they aren't "supporting" M.2 SATA at all with this generation.

 

If someone with a 7740 can confirm that they see option for only two SATA drives in the BIOS then most probably the 7540 will also support two.

It will be great if someone with a 7750 can also confirm if they can see two SATA drives in the BIOS.

Meanwhile, I am also checking the manual of 7740, like i did for the 7540.

 

It is already confirmed 7740 supports two SATA drives (the option is in the BIOS, plus someone already figured out which two slots they are).

 

Apologies for not being clear. I meant if 7740 has only two SATA visible in BIOS and not more, as I have checked the the 7540 has two visible. Then, as it would be in the 7740 that the (only) two SATA in BIOS correspond to two SATA on M.2, same will be the case with 7540.

B.t.w. checked the manual of 7740 and it says only two SATA in BIOS: SATA-1 and 4. 7540 manual also says two SATA in BIOS: SATA-1 and 4. So very high possibility that 7540 also supports two SATA like the 7740.

 

The 7740 shows only two SATA drive entries in the BIOS. If the 7540 also shows two then I think that you are good. You will have to experiment to figure out which slots support SATA.

 

@acemanhiflier

Hi !
See this article as reference:
https://translate.google.it/translate?hl=it&tab=wT1&sl=zh-CN&tl=en&u=https://www.51nb.com/review/20190901/1058.html

and my post for further info:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...40-owners-thread.830037/page-27#post-10953436

7740 bios shows 3 sata drives entries: sata-0; sata-1; sata-4


The author of that review found out that only slot #5 didn't recognized his Western Digital M.2 SATA 1TB.

So with 7740 you can use up to 3 m.2 sata ssd

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"----------------->SATA-1
-Any m.2 sata ssd in slot #4 will always be displayed as "Primary Hard drive"---->SATA-4
-Any m.2 sata ssd in slot #6 will always be displayed as "M.2 SATA2"---------------->SATA-0



If you see 2 sata m.2 entries in your 7540 bios, you should be good using up to 2 m.2 sata ssd.