Dell Precision 7540 and 7740 Owner's Thread

Yes, it's a full hard lock. What happens is first the taskbar and apps lock up (which I presume is the Explorer crashing) and I get the blue spinning wheel, but the mouse still moves, but then a few seconds after that the whole PC completely locks up. Mouse and keys do nothing. Clock on taskbar stops counting the minutes.

* Are you using the stock Windows 10 image that came shipped on your system or did you install Windows yourself?
Stock from Dell

* Which type of drive(s) do you have installed?
1 x M.2 NVME 1TB that came with the PC - OS and software
1 x M.2 NVME 1TB Sabrent Rocket - temp files/scratch disc
1 x M.2 NVME 2TB Sabrent Rocket - storage only

* Is the system set to "AHCI" or "RAID" mode in the BIOS?
I don't use RAID, so does that mean it will be AHCI? I can reboot it and check

* 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?
Is this what you mean?



Thanks again!

 

Have you tried runnung the full Support Assist scan? Also might be worth trying the "Help->I've been experiencing Blue screens->Scan hardware" or something like that - although not an exact symptoms match, AFAIR it performs a deeper HW scan.

 

Haven't tried either of those, but will do. Thanks

 

Your system is in AHCI mode. I'm going to suggest switching to RAID mode and see if using the Intel RST driver instead of the Microsoft NVMe driver helps out. (This does not mean that you have to set up a RAID array.) This is how all of my systems are set up, I've found the Intel RAID controller/driver to be the most stable option. I'm actually surprised that they are shipping systems in AHCI mode, that is new, they used to always default to RAID mode even if you didn't order your system with a RAID array.

Here are the steps to switch.

* Download this driver: https://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/04/drivers/driversdetails?driverid=r93yc
* Run the executable and select "extract" and put it someplace easy to find for later.
* Restart Windows using the Start menu. Hold "Shift" while clicking the menu option for "Restart". After it shuts down you should get a menu with some options.
* Find "Advanced startup options" and select that from the menu.
* When the Dell logo appears, hit "F2" and access BIOS setup. Switch from AHCI to RAID. (It is important that you do this before allowing Windows to start booting. Otherwise back up two steps and try again.)
* When the system reboots again you will get the Windows advanced startup options screen. Pick the option for safe mode.
* Log in to Windows (in safe mode). Go to Device Manager. Find the Intel RAID controller under "Storage controllers". Pick "Update driver" and point it to where you extracted the drivers earlier. It should find the appropriate one to install.
* Reboot to normal mode... and see if things have improved.

If you do not boot with safe mode immediately after making the switch from AHCI to RAID mode, you will just get a BSOD at boot. Same goes for the other direction if you want to switch back to AHCI mode later.

 

You're a legend, thanks so much.

I'll give it a go this evening.

If I do something wrong and get the BSOD, I just reboot and try again to get into safe mode?

Thanks again

 

If you get the BSOD, you haven't caused any "permanent damage". You will need to switch back to AHCI mode for Windows to boot. Then you can try again.

This is the critical order of events.
Tell Windows you want advanced startup options on next boot → Switch to RAID mode before advanced startup options menu has the chance to appear → Boot safe mode
For some reason, Windows will "realize" that you switched the disk controller out if you boot it in the safe mode, and adjust accordingly, but it will not if you boot it in normal mode.

 

Thanks again - the driver is an exe file - is that right?

 

Yes, you will need to run the EXE to extract the driver files. (Don't try to install it after downloading, just keep the extracted files to pass to Device Manager later.)

 

Got it, thanks again

 

Tried to follow your steps, but when I got into the BIOS to change from AHCI to RAID, the only reference to them i could see was in the SATA Operation section, and "SATA Operation" was set to "RAID On" already. AHCI was deselected.

Was I looking in the wrong place?

Thanks