Dell Precision 7540 and 7740 Owner's Thread

Adding details to this post. With Lightroom minimized, the power state goes to D0, however, once I start a video in the browser (Netflix for example), it will go back to D3.

Do I need to disable hardware acceleration in the browser? If so, wouldn't that be much slower in general because of this?

This behavior also happens when I'm playing a video locally with my video player. I am using MPV for this.

 

Try forcing the browser to run on the integrated GPU.
Start → Settings → System → (scroll down) Graphics settings → Add a profile for your browser and set it to use the "power saving" GPU
(then close and restart all instances of the browser)

 

Hi everyone,
One question. How HDMI and Displayport ports processored in Precision? Through CPU or discrete graphic card?
Is it possible to
connect a VR headset to hdmi or displayport so that they processored by dgpu?
Many peoples can't use headset Oculus with their Dell G5 because hdmi is processored by CPU only.

 

HDMI and DisplayPort on the rear are attached directly to the dGPU.
If you use the USB-C ports on the side then you can actually choose in the BIOS whether they will attach to the iGPU or dGPU.

 

Funny thing,
My coworker just had the issue with 7740, straight out of the factory it wouldn't display anything on the mDP and HDMI ports.

The issue was that the idiot putting it together in the factory has stripped the first rotation of the screw.
The stock screw would then not fasten the connector (screw was spinning freely in the screw hole) to the passthru board (He only has intel HD)...
Sorry for the bad pics, i only had my phone and it doesn't focuswell from too close.
The stripped rotation on passthru board:

The good screwhole on the motherboard:


I've put a slightly longer screw in that i found (M2x4mm) and the ports are fully working now.

Aparently testing the ports is not on to-do list in the QA team, very dissapointed and so was my colleague.

Also what's the deal with these docks, i've gone from TB15, TB16, TB18DC to WD19DC, all had connection issues, and the WD19DC is the worst of all, brand new dock would not get recognized 4/5 times unless the laptop had its own power supply plugged in aswell.

 

Hi All

I've just got a new 7740 (i9-9980HK, RTX 4000, 128GB RAM)

I've bought two Sabrent Rocket M.2 NVME internal drives which work fine (so now have 3 internal SSDs in total).

The problem is with an external Sabrent Thunderbolt 3 drive I've bought.

It's this one:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sabrent-Ro...07XQZPX81/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

It's advertised at up to 1000 MB/s.

According to Amazon.com reviews (all the .co.uk reviews seem sponsored), people are getting these speeds:





Now, when I run these same tests, my results are:


Any idea why they could be so slow? I have just turned Bitlocker on for the drive, but before that the SEQ1M Q8T1 read speed was still only around 650-700 MB/s. I know bitlocker will slow it down a little bit, but wouldn't have expected a drop from 650-700 to less than 500. The write speed seems only slight affected by Bitlocker.

Here's one of the tests I ran before I turned Bitlocker on:


I have formatted the drive as NTFS with 64k allocation unit size as the drive is going to be used for storing photos and videos.

Device manager tells me the driver is up to date (can't find one on Sabrent's website) and I've applied the following settings:


I'm planning to return it to Amazon, but wondered if anyone had any suggestions for something I could try first.

Many thanks

 

Also just noticed the drive is red hot to the touch - it's plugged in, but hasn't been used for at least an hour. Just sitting doing nothing.

I have tested it when it's first plugged in and still cold and get the same results....

 

Hello!

I am looking for powerful machine for working in After Effects, Photoshop, Lightroom and Cinema 4D and need a bit of help with configuring Precision 7740. Would you be so kind to answer some questions.

1) Will the RTX 3000 be enough for supporting 4k internal display or better to choose RTX 4000?
2) 4k display is 8 or 10 bit and does it have installed profiles like Adobe RGB, sRGB etc.?
3) Doubting between Xeon E-2286 and i9-9880H. What would you personally recommend and why?
4) Would you recommend buying RAM with ECC or without it?

 

1. RTX 3000 is fine for 4K. (Intel HD graphics can even drive multiple 4K displays without issue.) I do recommend having an NVIDIA GPU, but only if you are doing moderately intense 3D work would you need to upgrade to something better than the 3000-level Quadro. I don't think RTX 4000 would offer any serious improvement when working with Adobe products.
2. The 4K panel is 8-bit. (I don't know about the color profiles stuff, not in my area of work.)
3/4. The only reason to get the Xeon is for ECC memory support. The only reason to get ECC memory is if you want to be very protected against memory faults. (I think there is a modest power consumption + heat penalty to choosing ECC memory.) In my opinion, this isn't something that most people need to worry about as ordinary memory modules can be beat up all day long without producing any errors (and if this is not the case you can have them replaced under warranty), so the i9 plus regular memory is fine.

 

Good day, all! I'm going to reply using multi-quote, since several people responded very helpfully to my questions. Hopefully this makes the list less cluttered than if I replied back-to-back. Thanks very much to all who replied! I was first introduced to these forums back in 2016, and I'm always pleased that this is one of the few such venues where I can get solid, peer-level technical advice from the community, and usually without a lot of interpersonal drama.

Ellipses are used below to indicate where I've removed text or paragraph breaks from quoted posts, for brevity.

The fingerprint reader would be a nice-to-have, but your Optimus assumption is 100% correct. For what I'll be doing, Optimus is a non-issue and would probably be turned off in BIOS (if possible), or at least in the o.s. settings for either Windows or Linux. Thanks for the notes about installing the NVidia closed-source driver. I've done that before on other machines, so knowing that's all that is required gives me confidence of smooth config. I'm an open source advocate but not religious about it, so using a closed source driver is not a problem for me as long as the manufacturer is good about maintaining it (which Nvidia is, generally). Thanks for sharing the link about hopeful Nvidia open source trends.

I'm in discussions with HID Evolution to see what they can configure and how it works with Dell's warranty (and extended support). I don't presume to speak for HID Evolution in any way (and, in any case, the info I have is informal so far), but one of their reps told me by phone that they can and will source the Precision 7740 for me and configure it to my spec. I haven't asked about repasting yet, but they offer it on the other Dell machines.

+1 on your comments about the service manual. I took the time to review it carefully online, especially some of the procedures that I thought I might be likely to need to do myself (such as replacing the keyboard). I have a professional colleague who is certified to field-repair Dell laptops as part of her job (she works for a large educational institution's IT department), and she concurs with your assessment of the serviceability of the Precision series. She says the Alienware machines are not bad systems but aren't quite as easily repaired as the Precision. Another interesting note was that the way Dell runs the cables for touch screens (not an issue for my system) makes it tricky to replace the panel unless you're very skilled and very careful.

I'm definitely planning to get the Dell extended onsite service warranty (exactly how long and which "level" still TBD). I plan to ask HID Evolution about how that works if I buy from them.

Interesting. I'm not averse to springing for the Xeon, since the price difference is insignificant as a percentage of the total, but I'll check with HID Evolution to see what they can offer in CPU options. I've basically decided that if I can get this thing with an 8-core i9, that will be fine for my needs. I don't "mind" a Xeon, but neither do I feel (based on posts here and on the Unity forums) that it will gain me any real benefit.

Extremely helpful info, thanks! I found some extensive benchmarks of the RTX 4000 mobile vs. RTX 5000 Max-Q vs. RTX 5000 mobile, and the RTX 4000 holds its own against the other two options in the mobile platform; it appears those who say the RTX 5000 only makes sense in a desktop (or maybe if I went with one of the mechanically larger "beast" mobile gaming machines that has more airflow). At this point I'm pretty firmly decided to go RTX 4000 and redeploy the US$1200 saved from that into getting more system RAM and an additional 2 TB NVMe SSD.

This tells me that (assuming this is the machine I end up buying) I need to do some stress-testing of my own within the allowed return period. This also argues strongly for repasting, whether I have it done by HID Evolution or do it myself. The aforementioned Dell-certified colleague also told me that this series of machines benefits from a laptop cooling pad. Since the majority of my work is done from two specific desk locations, I'll probably get two of the same cooling pad and keep one at each desk.

One fortunate factor in my workload is that although I tend to push the machine very hard, I often am loading the GPU or CPU heavily while only lightly loading the other. This is because my long-running builds are almost 100% CPU with minimal GPU load, and my long-running lightmap bakes are almost 100% GPU with minimal CPU load. That may help my overall cooling situation and may also keep the system-wide TDP low enough that the stock 240 W AC adapters can keep it charged. Again, based on your advice I'll make sure to test this when I first get the machine (if I do buy the 7740).

The 8 cores are what I really need, even if I have to undervolt and not max out the clock. Over time, my creative tools are increasingly able to exploit more than 4 cores.

Thrilled to hear the display is good -- that matters a lot to me, and the 4K non-touch is exactly the version I have in my spec. Too bad about the keyboard, though -- I'm a very fast touch-typist who wishes all laptop makers would provide a great keyboard (but they don't). I am, however, excited that all three of my "short list" contender machines have the pointing joystick devices embedded in the keyboard. I used a Lenovo W700 for years (and still own it as a "lab bench" machine) and loved that TrackPoint for times when I didn't have a good surface for a real mouse. I'm not at all a fan of touchpads -- for one thing, even the best-quality touchpad doesn't work well for Unity or Blender.

Thanks! I've been (along with others) pushing the Unity developers to get serious about crossing the proverbial finish line with the Linux-native Unity editor, so it could be production-grade releases like their Windows and Mac versions.

Ugh! That's definitely something I'll need to test carefully. It may still be okay for my workloads, but I won't know without testing. In some of my company's servers, we were apprehensive about moving from an 8 core Xeon at something like 3.0 GHz to a 16 core Xeon at around 2.4 GHz, but it turns out the workload not only keeps pace, but in fact is significantly faster overall on the slow-clock, high-core system. The point is that performance is going to be very workload-specific in this level of machine, so I'll just have to test it against what I have right now with my 4 core i7.

{sigh} I would have hoped Intel would have fixed at least some of those issues in more recent silicon steppings.

Good to know about the Intel WLAN issue. I'm not married to one specific WLAN adapter, so I'll check to see if there are other options and then research their compatibility. OTOH, by the time I'm able to even consider Linux as my production o.s. (that is, when Unity is fully supported), the 5.5 kernels should be s.o.p. for stock Ubuntu.

Fortunately for me, I have no plans for the dock. For whatever reason, I've just never cared for docking stations on any of my laptops. It's good to know about the issues as general background, however, and of course there's a good chance that info will help others who read this thread.

Preach!!! I use that config all the time with my current 15" system and also did with my prior machine (Macbook Pro Retina). Mac OS does pretty well in that setup; Windows does tolerably well; Linux just doesn't yet do a good job with mixed-DPI setups.

To paraphrase Lrrr from Futurama, "That bug is chalky and unpleasant-tasting!"

Thanks again to everyone who took the time to write such insightful and useful replies. I'll update to the thread as I learn more and once I've made a purchase decision, although I plan to carefully avoid putting myself in a position of any appearance of speaking on behalf of HID Evolution or Dell -- I have no right nor legal standing to do that.