E6540 Owners Thread

The screen was discussed on a earlier thread here. Also you can find a detail review of all the individual components including the screen here.

 

Dell Power manager is causing some weirdness with Windows 7. The Aero theme and DVD drive will occasionally reset themselves, sometimes forcing me to restart open applications to restore theme. I note the Aero and disc drives are included in the application, but I have these switch to OS controlled and supposedly permanently on.

Anyone else getting this?

 

If by Aero theme resetting you mean the screen turn black for a second, and sometimes it loses transparency for a moment, then yes I have it very often when I switch power settings or when I connect/disconnect the battery. It doesn't annoy me tough.
I don't have problems with the DVD Drive tough (which I replaced for a HDD). As far as I know only the settings "Extended Battery Life" disables the optic drive by default, and you can change that on advanced configuration (I can turn it on/off as I wish without problems)

 

I've installed a Crucial M500 SSD in place of the 500GB hybrid drive that came with it. With the hybrid drive installed, it takes 8 seconds for the system to shut down and power off. With the M500 SSD installed, it takes 45 seconds to shut down and power off. Anyone else having this problem? I cloned the hybrid to the SSD using EZ GIG IV, with the 4096 sector switch enabled. Bootup is very fast, and the drive appears to be running properly, except for the ridiculously long shutdown/power off time. Crucial suggests maybe I should try using the Intel SATA device driver (currently using a Microsoft driver). I'm in the process of locating that driver, haven't found it yet. I wonder if the Intel Rapid Storage Technology that came preinstalled could be interfering with shut down. I'm not that technical, just trying to get up and running ... don't want to fully transition to the e6540 until this is sorted out. Any ideas?

Twillo

 

Crucial Tech support had me delete the Intel AHCI SATA driver and then allow Win7Pro64 to reboot three times to force Windows to install its own Microsoft AHCI SATA driver ... SSD now running off a Microsoft driver, and shutdown time now only 6 seconds. So the "slow shutdown / power off" issue has been resolved.

Cheerio, Twillo

 

Yes, pretty much that. Always happens soon after plugging or unplugging power.

 

Noticed the inlet vents on the underside of the chassis are covered with a perforated panel. I wonder if it's possible to remove and improve airflow and cooling?

 

I'm not sure it would help much, and since the fan is just behind I would be afraid something could go in and hit it while it runs.

 

Finally I decided to buy the E6530, because of the non-existent customization options of the E6540.

 

My E6540 should be here tomorrow.. The ssd from my 1545 will be going in. Is the backlit keyboard standard? I got mine on the outlet (as a "outlet new") and it supposedly has the backlit kb, but it doesn't say that on the inventory sheet. Can someone with the blkb post what it shows for your keyboard? It reads as follows on my list:

X6HD6 Module,Keyboard,104,United States,England/English,ENDB3,E5