Precision 7550 & 7750 Owners' Thread

The slot won't accept a SATA card (that requires it to be hooked up to a SATA controller in the system which is not the case here).
NVMe ... maybe ... I believe that you can (sometimes) use NVMe drives in a regular PCIe slot (but it won't be bootable unless the BIOS specifically supports booting from that slot). At a low level, NVMe data isn't any different than PCIe data, and the NVMe controller is actually on the card, not on the motherboard.

BUT
If you pay close attention you will notice that not all M.2 slots are the same; they are keyed differently, partly to prevent you from inserting the wrong type of card into the wrong type of slot.
Examples:

Spoiler

The WWAN slot has a B-key connector. Most NVMe drives have an M-key connector, so they will not physically fit in the WWAN slot. You might be able to find a card with a B+M connector (but it's already hard enough to find drives in a size other than 2280...).

Your best bet would be a B-key card that allows you to attach a microSD card. (Still not completely sure if it would work, but at least it would be cheap to try.)
Example: https://www.ebay.com/itm/TF-micro-S...icro-SD-TF-card-reader-card-new-/124154347981

 

Thanks so much Aaron44126! I had misidentified it as m-key, and was planning to try an m-key 2242 NVMe drive in the absence of any confirmation around whether or not storage could be a thing in this port, so thank you for saving me from that mistake!

Indeed I've had no luck so far finding b or b+m key cards in 2242 That tf-card reader suggestion is something I wouldn't have thought to look for, so that's a great option thank you!! <3

 

Has any of you looked into if double sided SSD modules (2280) form factor will fit or if they are too "fat" to fit? I stumbled over some people complaining that they could not fit their SSDs in the XPS series devices, so I am getting cautious here.

 

ThinkPad 512GB PCIe NVMe M.2 2242 SSD | Hard Drives | Part Number: 4XB0T83221 | Lenovo US
https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/access...DD-BO-TP-512GB-NVMe-M-2-2242-SSD/p/4XB0T83221

https://www.wish.com/product/5eacc1787edfbd33ea47d42f

PC SN520 NVMe™ SSD - SanDisk | Mouser
https://www.mouser.com/new/sandisk/sandisk-pc-sn520-nvme-ssds

 

Someone tried a double-sided Sabrent drive in a Precision 7740 and it worked fine. Haven't heard any 7750 stories. But really you just need to check and see, if you can, if there is any room "below" an installed NVMe drive for some chips on the bottom side or if the drive is sitting pretty flat against the board. I'm thinking that 7000-series systems are probably fine but I'd be worried about the 5000-series.

(I hope that it's still fine, because I'm refreshing my home system next year and I'm planning on a massive storage array...)

 

i have the class 50 1TB drive that came with my system (the slowest by far) and then two (2) separate 2TB Samsung 970 plus drives (my fastest, one for OS and one for sensitive data) and then then the 4TB Sabrent rocket for a total of 9TB. I was worried bc the specs say it can handle up to 6.

I found the best spot for the Sabrent drive is the middle of the system, which btw I don’t know why they didn’t give me the back with the SD door. That would be much easier for me. But to answer your question yes it works.

One warning though. After I installed the drive I used the Samsung tool to clone my original drive to one of the Samsung ones. I noticed two issues. First my system CPU usage would slowly use more and more of my CPU and I was also getting some memory BSOD with iacStore.exe and freezes. I went though many different online idea too fix the problem. In one solution, it asked me to do a memory diagnostic. I set it to reboot and do that it will not work, it asks for the original USB to repair windows. No problems booting or using the system though except the random BSOD. Unfortunately I have that USB at my office and I won’t be there for months to come.

so then I started thinking maybe my SSD slot was causing the issue and I switched my 970’s to put the OS where it was with the original drive. That seems to have done the trick so I would suggest if you are copying your OS to make sure you put it in the orginal slot to prevent the errors I got.

 

so, i had a precision 5530 2 in 1 that had 8 repairs done in quick succession before finally i got fed up with infinite repairs and just asked for a system swap. of course they don't have any more of that laptop anymore so they offered me a 7550 with an i7-10850h vpro, 32gb of ram in 2 16gb dimms at superspeed 3200mhz, a 512gb ssd, quadro t2000 gddr6, ir webcam and 1080p screen. it arrived yesterday and im a little confused.

the ram is supposed to be 3200mhz and physically it is but why would they offer that on a cpu that can only run the ram at 2933mhz. it seems like kind of a waste to offer that. overall the system has been excellent and my gpu is turboing like crazy upto 1900mhz in fallout 76.

for those interested to know, i bought the 5530 2 in 1 new in box on craigslist for 400 dollars with warranty less than 6 months ago. the system dell gave me is so overkill comparatively that its not even funny. they even offered to let me keep my ssd from the 5530 which i took them up on. that system had 8gb of ram, and a quad core i5-8305g.

 

Have you checked to see what speed the RAM is actually running at? Even though the CPU is spec'ed at 2933 MHz max, it should be able to run 3200 MHz with XMP, which the BIOS will automatically engage with compatible modules.

 

i have checked in task manager, as well as in hardware info. the reported speed is 2933mhz running. but hardware info says that the ram supports upto "1600" which at double data rate is 3200mhz. maybe im missing the instructions on how to enable xmp or force it? the hardware is there but it doesn't seem to be enabled.

 

so, interestingly i realized the 3200mhz isn't an xmp profile but rather a jedec profile. i don't know if that affects it but maybe theres a different way to upclock to that speed without needing to enable xmp?



this is the stock ram from dell directly. but i didn't config this system myself. it was just what was deemed to be equivalent to my prior system.
it makes me chuckle because my old system had 8 gb of ram, a quad core i5 and radeon vega m gl graphics and a 128gb ssd. the new system has a hexacore i7, 32gb of ram 512gb ssd, and a quadro t2000 gddr6. not even slightly equivalent.