Dell Precision 7540 and 7740 Owner's Thread

The WWAN antennas are included in all systems, whether or not you purchase a WWAN card, unless you order one with a 4K display.
The WWAN SIM card slot is present in all systems no matter which display you choose.

So, you can order your own WWAN card and it should install without any trouble.
(If you order a 4K display then you will have to purchase and install your own antennas. Dell says that the 4K display causes "jitter" or issues with the signal, but a couple of users have gotten it to work in the 7530/7730 without hassle.)

 

I had assumed this was the case. It was this way on my M6700 and M6800. I am concerned on the 7740 because I contacted Dell and they said it is not something that can be added after the fact. Of course this was just a tech who is reading a document somewhere and not likely looking at the machine. Have you had the chance to confirm this on a 7740? Thank you for your reply!

 

Pretty sure that I have seen this confirmed in pictures of the internals from other users in this thread. In any case, it was most certainly true for the 7530/7730 and I strongly doubt that it would have changed for this very similar system. (The very first post in this thread has some photos; you can see that the SIM card slot is present but the WWAN antennas are not, but this is a 4K system.)

 

Maybe someone can answer this.

I have speced out an Dell Precision 7540 refurbished currently with FIPS fingerprint and smartcard, but am wondering if adding the NFC would be that much of a hassle. THanks for the help

 

Adding the NFC module is actually rather hard, because you'll have to find the part number for it: it's not officially released, and the whole module is glued to the palmrest, unlike the fingerprint reader and the smart-card reader. Consider getting the ordinary fingerprint reader and the NFC module instead; it's some $100 cheaper and does not make a difference for day-to-day work.

 

I've seen the palmrest for sale on ebay later on. Can it be added later on as part of the palmrest?

 

Pretty sure that if you got the FIPS fingerprint reader, then you have NFC as well.

 

Apparently not for the 7540. Here are the options:

 

@syscrusher, I was just reading through this thread when I recalled your questions about HIDEvolution and the Dell Precisions.

I've never personally dealt with HIDEvolution, so I cannot corroborate the OP in that thread. Even so, echoing everyone else there: beware the middle men; it's best if you purchase direct from Dell. Choosing HIDEvolution only because they offer to replace the thermal paste and 'tune' your notebook for you would be a dicey gamble (pun not entirely unintended). Most of these can be done fairly straightforwardly by yourself.

Furthermore, given you are considering a Precision workstation (which HIDEvolution doesn't officially sell, and adds another unknown into the equation), Dell takes them a lot more seriously than they do Inspirons and Alienwares. Like you, many others here use their Precisions to get paid work done, and cannot afford multiple days of down-time. Consider ProSupport (Plus if you think you'll be working in an environment where you might damage your notebook), and you will generally be in good hands; I have dealt with ProSupport, as have many others here, and they can attest to the (general) effectiveness of their service and repairs.

You mentioned you had a colleague/friend who was a Dell representative of sorts; do consider checking with her regarding this matter. I get a feeling she'd suggest something along these lines, too.

 

so I've just swapped my 7530 with 8850h and p3200 for a 7540 with 9980hk, 4K HDR screen and intel graphics. As expected, without dGPU battery life is a couple of hours better, however still some way off what Lenovo P53 achieves with a smaller battery with quadro graphics on board. DPC latency is still as present as it was on 7530, so I guess Dell still have some way to to on resolving that (I wonder of excessive battery consumption is somehow tied to the ACPI.sys regularly causing DPC spikes?).
Good bits are that 9980HK hits higher frequencies and lower temps when loaded on all 8 cores than my 8850H did, however there does seem to be some sort of hard limit of 44x multiplier when loaded on all 8 cores - even with throttlestop I am unable to push past it even when temps are lower than 85c. Has anyone found a way to push a little higher?
Will stick some liquid metal on soon (currently running with Gelid) to see how low we can get those temps down.
Whilst I do miss a built in dGPU, battery life was more important to me so I think I will end up getting a eGPU instead, as I only really game when plugged in at my desk.