E6540 Owners Thread

The bios upgrade went fine, but I'm still having USB 3.0 issues. My machine cannot boot (hangs at the Dell logo) if an external hard drive is plugged in. The drive works when you let windows boot first, but drops out randomly every 10-minutes or so, making it impossible to actually do work on. I'm starting to think that I have a bad chipset. I reinstalled the USB 3.0 drivers again, no luck...

 

I can't reproduce the issue on mine, so I agree you might have a bad one.

 

Does anyone know if the original Dell Windows 8.1 drivers for the AMD 8790M do work in Windows 8.1? Because some months ago I installed the Windows 7 drivers, but all I've got was a flickering screen, had to reïnstall Windows to have everything work again.
After that I installed the drivers from LeeKM: leekms.blogspot.com, but not sure which one I need right now. Back then I installed "AMD_Catalyst_13.11_Mobility_BetaV8(Enduro_Fix)", but don't know if I need particular Enduro drivers yes or no...

 

Try the 14.2 beta drivers, I'm running them on my machine and they seem to be pretty good - switching is working.

 

I never had this problem either, sounds like a lemon.

Just a final wrap up from me, my machine was received at Dell and so was the spare heatsink they demanded I send back. I'm still waiting to get my promised warranty extension, hopefully that'll happen tomorrow.

I still have the drilled bottom cover and the frame if anyone here wants either for the cost of shipping!

Good luck!

 

Installed BIOS A08, but did not get any display after that. After some restarting eventually I got something on the screen, saying the drivers were not found. Installed Intel HD graphics again, and latest drivers from LeeKM, but do not get any switchable graphics anymore so it looks. When opening AMD Catalyst Control Center, it's saying "AMD Catalyst Control Center cannot be started. There are currently no settings that can be configured using AMD Catalyst Control Center."...
Don't know what's going on with A08, installed it because I did not get any display when putting the laptop in the docking, but now it seems worse...

 

Don't know how it's working again, but I plugged in a VGA monitor, with that after some time I got my display back again, but failed drivers.
Removed the Intel & AMD drivers, installed the newest Intel drivers, after that installed the drivers from LeeKM, but graphics where not working.
After that I installed the official AMD 14.2 beta 1.3 drivers as suggested, with that it seems to be working again...

 

Posted at Dell forum: I've managed to secure my loaner E6530 for a longer term, and I think I'm going to take this to the BBB. Dell insists everything is fine because it passes the built-in diagnostics, but those never touch the discrete graphics at all! Loading the CPU and the discrete GPU is the best way to illustrate the problem, and Dell seems uninterested in what, to me, looks like a design flaw that only occasionally manages to perform as intended.

BBB complaint ID 9951230 opened. Maybe this will get their attention. I know big companies hate dealing with the BBB.

 

If still available I will take them, I will send you a PM.

 

Should go out tomorrow!