E6540 Owners Thread

I bought the E6540 in July back, upgraded to 16GB RAM, put samsung 840 EVO 256GB as primary disk and the original 500GB SSHD in a HDD caddy. A while back I also had my screen flashing black when it came out of sleep or when I plugged/unplugged AC adapter. It seems that they are driver errors when going in/coming out of sleep, since it also takes about 10secs for my laptop to go into sleep mode. Has anyone found a fix for this? I tried rolling back the drivers and ajusting settings but nothing seems to work. I'm still using the original W7 pro and have not tried reinstalling the OS, although I don't have problems with Ubuntu 13.04 in dual boot. (both OS are installed on seperate partitions on SSD)

 

The flashing black screen seems to be a result of the Dell Power Manager. I didn't have this issue prior to installing it, but need this utility to control the CPU and temperatures.

The Arctic Silver thermal paste and cleaning fluid turned up today. Feeling very reluctant about this! Should I re-paste the GPU too?

 

You have to repaste both. Removing the heatsink assembly will compromise the thermal integrity of both the stock CPU and GPU thermal paste, thus requiring you to clean and repaste both the CPU and GPU. It really isn't that hard!

Basically, you have to lift off the heatsink from both the GPU and CPU and once you do that, you've compromised the thermal conductivity.

 

Is the laptop level on the "perforated pad", or is it slanted forward like most laptop pads, stands, and coolers?

Same degree as the table

 

Applied the Arctic MX-4, but the thermal pads on the GPU memory tore when removing the heatsink. Order some new thermal pads off Amazon to cut to size, and will replace and re-paste again next week.

 

Well, mine toasted itself the other night. It was low on battery, so i plugged in the charger like normal. The screen flickered as it does when switching gpu's, then the laptop shut off. Pulled the battery, power drain, nada. Pulled CMOS, nada. Charger works fine in another laptop. She's toast. Haven't had a chance to call up support though...

Edit: Just got done with support chat. They'll have someone here tomorrow afternoon.. Was going to press for a system exchange since I've barely had the thing a week, but I figure I'd rather be up and running tomorrow.

 

Let us know what your temps are when you get everything replaced and re-pasted.

Also, can somebody who is knowledgeable on screens comment on the screen issue that I described. I know its superficial but it sticks out like a sore thumb once you realize its there... I've never had a panel do this. You would think that in 2013, decent panels would be using. I'm almost tempted in ordering an aftermarket IPS (this notebook uses a cheap TN panel) and replacing it. The installation is pretty simple, just pop off the trim around the bezel, unscrew 4 screws, disconnect LVDS cable from rear of panel, move mounting brackets to new panel, and reverse steps to complete install. Dell uses very standard panels.

http://www.screencountry.com/index.php?section=products&model=LATITUDE E6540&brand=Dell

 

Man, I'm really disappointed to learn that this model has thermal issues.

The cooling systems in these things should be over-built to handle the thermal load, so that they can better handle extreme situations (hot environments, dusty cooling fins, etc etc).

They seem to build them at the borderline of sufficient.

I want to replace my Precision m4400 that has had thermal issues since day one, but I don't want to struggle with the same issues that have plagued me for the last 5 years.

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Seems like the Radeon HD 8850m used in the Latitude 3540 should offer the same GPU performace, but at a much lower temperature.

 

A little update to my situation for anyone curious. Long story short, the service tech was terrible. The machine wasn't put back together correctly so it doesn't line up like it did before, and on top of that she got thermal paste on her fingers like 2 minutes in, then proceeded to disassemble the machine. She got it on the palm rest, Keyboard, screen and bezel and didn't clean it off. I tried to clean it off, but it stained everything.

Then she turned it on, got a BSOD and then it kept looping through post. "oh it does that, you might have to restore or something" and then she left. Without the machine working. If I was a regular end user, I probably wouldn't have been able to get out of that. Safe mode gave a BSOD, system restore failed repeatedly, eventually got to the desktop by using the windows CD. After that the screen kept flickering like it was being plugged/unplugged repeatedly..

Phone support was good and apologetic yesterday. They said they'd arrange a system exchange from the outlet (mine was an outlet new model), but it would take 7-15 business days. This morning the fedex guy shows up and drops off the replacement! The only issue being that it's a refurbished model, not an outlet new. I specifically asked about this yesterday because I paid extra for a new over a refurbished, and they said they "wouldn't downgrade" me..

 

Since Dell is only selling the E6540 in one configuration with the i7 and a discrete GPU, is it possible to completely disable the GPU in BIOS or even physically remove it?