Dell Precision 7540 and 7740 Owner's Thread

I can't think of any reason why this would mess with the warranty. Worst case, Dell would require you to connect the "original" power supply and confirm that you're still having an issue before they would service the machine.

 

The old AC adaptors direct from Dell are certain to work fine.

The third-party ones, however, might be suspect. That said, Dell itself uses parts from said companies, so there isn't likely to be much problem.

Modern notebooks are fairly good at regulating the power they draw; even if you feed a 330 W AC adaptor into the notebook, the notebook will only ever draw what it needs, and not a jot more.

Warranty claims are unlikely to arise because of AC adaptors.

 

Was thinking more about any damage caused to the PC by a faulty old PSU... Don't know how likely (or even possible?) that is?

 

Ok, thanks. I've got 3 PSUs for my M6700, only one of which is an original Dell. I've been using them all for several years and they all work fine.

I have had a PSU replaced by Dell under the warranty, but that problem only affect the PSU itself, and had no knock on effects on the laptop.

Sounds like I could save myself some money by reusing my old M6700 PSUs then. 2 of the 3 sit in the same place and never move so not bothered about the extra bulk.

Thanks

 

I've seen failing power supplies cause strange issues (normally lock-ups). I think that it would take a power surge to cause actual damage. Now in my days of building desktop PCs, one time my company purchased a bunch of "shady" power supplies and they would die after just a few weeks of use with a "pop" sound and a power spike, frequently causing permanent damage to the motherboard, CPU, and other connected devices in the PC. I would think/hope that Dell's PSU QC is such that an issue like this is unlikely, but I guess you never know what will happen as your power supplies age.

Here's a real-world issue I had with Dell power supplies. When I first got my M6700, I purchased three extra 240W power supplies from eBay. They were actually Dell power supplies, but Dell outsources their PSUs to various companies and I could tell from the label that they were made by a company "Delta Electronics". All three of these started giving me trouble after a few years. The problem that I got was simply that the laptop would complain about an insufficient power supply being connected and throttle the CPU and GPU. I could normally resolve it just by unplugging the power supply and plugging it in again, but it got to be a hassle so I ended up replacing all of these.

Personally, if I were paying for the system out of my own pocket, I would just continue to use the old-style power supplies with the new system for as long as you are not having any issues with them.

 

Actually, the PSU I'm using right at this moment is a Delta (it's pretty hot at the moment but it's been working fine for almost 2 years now, used for about 35 hours per week).

I am paying for the system out of my own pocket, but your experience of damaged motherboards has worried me! When ordered with a new PC, Dell want £56 for each additional PSU which is a lot cheaper than the £139 they charge if bought on their own...

 

Thanks for the tip to enter the service tag and then search for related accessories. The 450-AHHE power brick is what they suggested, which also matches Aaron's response (which I never doubted, but just sayin').

As I said I knew they were all compatible, but that wasn't what I was asking.

Thanks all for the responses. Brick is on the way.

 

Hi,
After BIOS 1.5.1 installation the Intel Thunderbolt 3 Firmware Update version 4.41.108.003, A00 just hangs the Windows. The update software fails to start. Only power button works. Luckily all computers come today with 4.41 so no update is actually needed.

 

Hey guys, i've been following this thread extensively and ended up ordering a 7540 with i9 / rtx 5000. Now I've seen the item "490-BFRY: Pad for Nvidia RTX 4000/RTX5000 Graphic Card" in the order details. In respect to repasting, does that mean i'll only have to repaste the cpu or is this gpu cooling pad in addition to the paste? Still waiting on the order so i am asking to make sure i'll do nothing wrong. Thanks in advance!

 

No one here has seen a Precision 7540 with RTX 4000/5000 cards yet. It's possible that they are using a different cooler for these cards. Post some pics once you open it up...

The heatsink is a single assembly that covers both the CPU and GPU, so if you remove it, you'll have to repaste them both. I rather doubt that they changed this even though it looks like they have made some chassis modifications for the new graphics cards.