Dell Precision 7540 and 7740 Owner's Thread

Oh, yeah, forgot about that—I was recalling my original copy of the 7530. The replacement unit I received had the pad, too, but it fell off rather quickly. I was planning to add a copper fin array to the PCH instead of the thermal pad.

 

Yes, it doesn't help. dGPU wakes up when starting to play a movie. I also set my browser to run on Intel GPU as well as the video player app. Tried different apps.

I used the NVidia Control Panel to set the preferred GPU to Intel and I also used the Windows Control Panel to set it. Same result

I bring dGPU to D0 power state using the 3D app minimization technique, then fire up the video player. dGPU still at D0, but once I load the movie, it goes to D3 power state regardless if I have 3D application in the background (minimized or not). So probably if I just use the laptop to read PDF it will work fine, but it would be better if this would be valid when playing a movie.

Those are good temperatures, nothing to worry there. PCH should not go higher than 70C in full load.

 

Have you tried clean (using DDU) reinstalling manufacturers' latest iGPU and dGPU drivers? I had some success with that approach, coupled with setting power saving mode, adjusting the power options to max power saving on battery, and using conservative TS settings. That said, I've recently noticed a regression on my m15 R1 (12->18W draw) , will have to repeat/investigate soon myself.
Edit: At a risk of mentioning the obvious, GPU tuning apps such as Afterburner running in background tend to turn on the dGPU (not sure if this applies to Quadro cards)

 

It's very straightforward with Manjaro:
1. Install Manjaro via USB drive
2. Go to Software Update in start menu, open up preferences, select your country under repositories, under AUR tab tick "Enable AUR Support" and close
3. Back in Software Update search for Intel-undervolt and install it.
4. Once installed edit the conf file to set your undervolt settings (paste sudo nano /etc/intel-undervolt.conf edit the settings to how you wan them and press CTRL+X and select yes to save)
5. With settings saved start Intel-undervolt service and set it to auto start (sudo systemctl start intel-undervolt.service and then sudo systemctl enable intel-undervolt.service)
6. To confirm your undevolt settings just type sudo intel-undervolt read
7. Go to Manjaro Settings and under Kernel download the latest and reboot.

For TLP optimisations all I did was download TLP-UI from software update and then open it via start menu. All appropriate settings seemed to be already configured by default

I previously had 7530 with a Nvidia GPU and no matter what I tried I could not get more than 5-6 hours out of actual use in Windows (sitting idle I could get it to display up to 8 hours of estimated life). I also noticed that if I switch to dGPU-only mode in bios my idle battery life was nearly the same, so I came to conclusion that Dell implementation of dGPU is flawed on these laptops as it seems that they never really fully power down. This is why I went for Intel GPU only model with a 7540, as I can use an eGPU when I need it, but I use battery more than I ever do any gaming.
Hopefully Manjaro will yield you some extra life, but if I recall correctly dGPUs in Linux may also require some tinkering to keep them from consuming power.

 

Have I made the right decision?

I'm replacing my well-used M6700 (i7-3740QM; K3000m). I just ordered a 7540 (i7-9850H; RTX3000) for $2500 CAD plus tax. I'm worried that the downsize to 15.6" from 17" will be intolerable, but I just couldn't refuse what I think is a good deal (isn't it?). I plan on doubling ram to 32gb, and adding a 2TB evo drive aftermarket. I figured if it doesn't work for me, I should hopefully be able to resell it without taking any losses.

Am I thinking straight? Any gotchas for previous m6700 owners?

 

I actually use both a M6700 and 7530 every day and I don't think the drop down to 15.6" is not that bad. If I didn't have the two side-by-side then it wouldn't be noticeable really. The screen resolution is the same and it is not hard to work at 1080p or 4K@200% on the 15.6" display. Not much difference in terms of specs either (compared to 7740), you just lose out on one NVMe drive and the higher-power GPUs (and maybe cooling is modestly better on the 17"). If you're happy with the deal you got then go for it.

[edit]
Meant to say that the drop down is not that bad, instead of just "that bad"

 

My 2 month old 7740 has just in the last few days completely locked up twice, needing to have the power button held down to restart it. Not ideal for a new PC.

According to the reliability monitor, this is what's happened both times:



Does that mean anything to anyone?

Any ideas how to stop it happening?

I think it's probably a windows issue (my previous M6700 never did this on Win7, but as soon as I "upgraded" to Win10 it started doing it), but thought I'd see what you all thought....

Thanks guys

 

If File Explorer is hanging, first try to kill and restart it (Ctrl+Shift+Esc to bring up Task Manager, find Explorer in the details view and kill it, then File→Run and type "explorer" to start another one.)

In my experience, this is virtually always because of a third-party shell extension -- a "plugin" for Explorer if you will. This program can show you a list of installed shell extensions and you can selectively disable them. Sort of trial-and-error to find the problem.
https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/shexview.html

 

Thanks.

I only have a couple of seconds between Explorer hanging and the whole PC completely freezing so I'd have to work pretty quickly to kill it before it disables the whole PC, but I'll try it next time.

You think it's cos of a shell extension, even if I wasn't using Explorer at the time? If it's relevant, I was typing something into Chrome whilst Photoshop processed some images in the background when it crashed....

Thanks again

 

I think that it is less likely that it is a shell extension if you are getting a full PC hard lock (can't even move the mouse or anything). That points more to a hardware or maybe driver issue. In this case honestly I would wonder if there is trouble with the system drive or drive controller.

* Are you using the stock Windows 10 image that came shipped on your system or did you install Windows yourself?
* Which type of drive(s) do you have installed?
* Is the system set to "AHCI" or "RAID" mode in the BIOS?
* In Device Manager, find your drive controller (under "IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers" or "Storage controllers" depending on the above), what is its name and driver version?