ygohome

I finally got around to adding the interpose and adapter, etc to my 7710. I also got a new Samsung 990 EVO Plus 2TB PCIe. That is the newer gen PCIe SSD from Samsung, but it's backwards compatible to work in my PCIe gen 3 laptop. It was a good price on amazon, so I got one for my Dad too who has matching 7710 laptop (we work together). I bought the 7710 in late 2015 and it arrived in early 2016. It's had the OEM Samsung SM951 PCIe 512 GB as the C: Boot disk; and the Samsung PM951 PCIe 1 TB as the D: Data disk; Both of those disks were at least 80% filled, so I was wanting to upgrade. I cloned D: 1 TB SSD to the new 2 TB = the 2TB becomes my D: Then I cloned C: 500 GB SSD to the 1 TB = the 1TB becomes my C: Then I formatted the 500 GB SSD to be empty = the 500GB becomes my E: <== this one goes in the interposer 2.5 caddy adapter area. Now I have doubled the capacity of my C drive, doubled capacity of my D drive and also have an extra 500 GB SSD using the interposer to use for whatever. Very happy! The interposer does run that E: 500GB PCIe via x2 lanes instead of x4, but still way faster than standard sata3 and it's basically just bonus storage. I used MiniTool Partition Wizard Pro to clone the disks and extend the partitions. I like it alot and I paid for lifetime unlimited upgrades a few years ago so its now my go-to for this sort of thing. Although there are other great cloning utilities such as Clonezilla. Clonezilla was a favorite of mine for many years and it is still one of the greatest for cloning, but I like the GUI of the MiniTool and it's very intuitive.

Ahh, yeah. The chart does say that the 2.5" area has x2 PCIe Lanes instead of x4 lanes. It'll be faster than sata though, so that still good

Instructions link: https://www.dell.com/community/en/conversations/laptops-general-locked-topics/adding-2nd-m2-ssd-to-precision-7510/647f6333f4ccf8a8def59eb7?commentId=647f640bf4ccf8a8de062e4c#M884913 Now I just need to find out where to buy all these weird parts Found them: Y1WJX - M.2 bracket and WPTND - M.2 Interposer Board together as a set: https://www.ebay.com/itm/296839655402 Found the thermal cover directly from Dell: https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-copper-plate-for-m2-pcie-ssd/apd/hr8p8/storage-drives-media Very cool. Still, I'm not totally sure these will supply PCIe Gen3 NVMe speeds, but I think they will. We shall see.

I found this chart listing the parts I may need: https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-us/000178253/m-2-nvme-device-specifications-and-upgrade-requirements-for-precision-optiplex-latitude-and-xps-systems Precision Systems System Maximum internal drives supported Drive configurations supported (max) PCIe lanes Parts to install a M.2 device into a M.2 slot Parts to install a M.2 device into a 2.5-inch bay Additional information 7710 7720 3 3x M.2 1 x 2.5-inch 2 x M.2 + 1 x 2.5-inch M.2 slots support 4X. 2.5-inch supports 2 x. 1 x HR8P8 - Thermal cover (includes cover and thermal pad) 1 x 4270E - Screw (secures cover on top of the M.2 drive). 1 x 745TM - 2.5-inch metal bracket (most units already include this part). 1 x Y1WJX - M.2 bracket (mounts to 745TM). 4x 2864D - M3X3 screw(most computers include these. These secure the Y1WJX M.2 drive carrier, or a 2.5-inch drive into 745TM) 1 x WPTND - M.2 Interposer Board(installs into Y1WJX) 5x 4270E - M2.0*3 L screws 1 x HR8P8 - M.2 thermal cover Find instructions on the Dell Community Forum page. 7510 7520 2 1 x M.2 1 x 2.5-inch 2 x M.2 1 x M.2 + 1 x 2.5-inch M.2 slot supports 4X. 2.5-inch supports 2 x. 1 x 745TM - 2.5-inch metal bracket (most computers include this part). 1 x Y1WJX - M.2 bracket (mounts to 745TM). 4x 2864D - M3X3 screw(most computers include these. These secure the Y1WJX M.2 drive carrier, or a 2.5-inch drive into 745TM) 1 x WPTND - M.2 Interposer Board(installs into Y1WJX) 5x 4270E - M2.0*3 L screws 1 x HR8P8 - M.2 thermal cover Find instructions here on the Dell Community Forum. 5510 5520 2 1 x M.2 1 x 2.5-inch 1 x M.2 + 1 x 2.5-inch M.2 slot supports 4X. 2.5-inch bay is wired as SATA. 1 x 88DJK - Thermal pad (no plate required) 1 x 4270E - M2 x3 screw 1 x XDYGX - Cable 2 x 3XYT5 - Rubber side isolator 1 x 3FDY3 - Metal hard drive bracket (some units may already have this installed even if a 2.5-inch drive was not ordered from Dell originally). Discussed on the Dell Community Forum page 3510 1 1 x M.2 1 x 2.5-inch M.2 slot supports 4X. 2.5-inch bay is wired as SATA. 1 x X3YR8 - M.2 end bracket 1 x 1 x2MT - Thermal cover 2 x 4270E - M2 x3 screws Discussed here on SpiceWorks 3520 2 1 x M.2 1 x 2.5-inch 1 x M.2 cache drive + 1 x 2.5-inch M.2 slot supports 4X. 2.5-inch bay is wired as SATA. 1 x 2FFR0 - End bracket 1 x X3DN4 -Thermal plate 1 x 4270E - End screw

Actually, I'm not sure I have the correct part linked above. That might be the connector for a regular old SATA drive and not for an m.2 NVME SSD. I need to do some more research. I'm pretty sure I remember way back when Dell said we could purchase an interposer cable connector to use m.2 in that 2.5" area. I need to find the correct cable part. I'll be back after I research more.

Hello, I have a Mobile Precision 7710. It has two slots for PCIe Gen3 NVMe M.2 SSDs. It also has a 2.5" SATA3 drivebay caddy, near the removable battery. I currently have two M.2 PCIe SSDs. I'm considering a 3rd to put in that vacant 2.5" area. Dell has advertised that it is possible to install a PCIe m.2 SSD in that 2.5" area by purchasing a Interposer Connector and Cable. Does anyone know if that interposer allows for PCIe Gen3 SSD speeds? (for example up to theoretical 3500MBps?) Or will it be limited to SATA3 SSD speeds of about 550MBps? I'm also unsure if I'd need anything else to secure an 2280 M.2 in that area where it's normally meant for a 2.5" drive. Will it just flop around in that caddy area or do I need to order another part I'm unaware to secure it? Thank you, Benny Edit: *I was wrong about WYWRF, that is just the normal already existing connect for SATA drives. Please read my follow-up replies further below

Also, here the results of hw-probe on my M6500 running Fedora. At the bottom of this report link there are more links (look under LOGS label) that show more detailed report info about the laptop: https://linux-hardware.org/?probe=5b287ea21f I'm not sure why it says 2013 as build date. But I think I recall submitting a ticket with Dell support and they sent me a newer system. I can't remember what that ticket was about, but now I'm curious to remember and I'll look it up and report back here. * Dell Support History doesn't go back that far in their online website. Perhaps if I called them they could tell me the support history. But if I had to guess, it probably had to do with the 1st gen SSDs or getting Windows XP-Mode to work inside of Windows 7 or a booting issue with old OS, or something weird like that. I'll tell you, this has been an awesome laptop. Still works perfect today, and for my type of work... database and application support, mostly via ssh to other servers... this is a beautiful machine. 16:10 1920x1200 is nice!

Using Veeam Linux Agent to backup my M6500 that is running on Fedora39: I've been using Veeam Backup and Replication software since 2018 to manage my backups of VMware ESXi guest VMs and also to backup my physical servers and workstations running Windows and Linux. The actual backup repository are on two small mini towers running Linux, connected to my ESXi and other physical servers by 10Gb switches and network adapters. The laptops are backed up via wifi. These are incremental backups, so a daily backup doesn't take too long. A full system backup of a laptop could take awhile via wifi (especially if lots of used disk space is on the laptop), but we only do those full backups occaisionally, or when first adding a computer to be backed up. The incrementals are fast. In order to use Veeam to backup this M6500 laptop that is now running Fedora39 kernal 6.6.4, I had to first upgrade my Veeam Backup Servers to latest V12.1 (which just released on Dec 5 2023). About a month ago I had just upgraded them from v11 to v12, and so it's funny I had to upgrade Veeam once more so soon. But it's working great. The only trick was that I had to manually install the Veeam Linux Agent into Fedora manually. Normally the Veeam Servers will connect to the managed computer and install that stuff itself, but there is an asterix footnote in the System Requirements for Fedora saying that for Fedora39 we have to install that Veeam Agent ourselves: - first, needed the dnf (yum) veeam repo entry by downloading https://www.veeam.com/linux-backup-download.html, which is an .rpm we install and that expands into the /etc/yum.repos.d/veeam.repo when we issue: rpm -ivh <filename.rpm> - dnf update - dnf install veeam - then reboot because that "dnf update" likely updated a bunch of other system packages and a reboot is needed. - then back in the Veeam console on the Veeam Server, issue a rescan of the laptop. Had to do that twice because first time it installs veeam certificates. 2nd time finalizes the other veeam software such as Veeam Transport, etc. Heres the link to the Veeam v12 release notes. https://www.veeam.com/veeam_backup_12_1_whats_new_wn.pdf Under "Agents" is where it describes howw Fedora39 is now supported under Veeam v12.1

Here is output of an lspci report I ran while still in Fedora. Not sure how to interpret all this info, but it's interesting. This is ust another way to get info on which GPU driver is being used.

I've since run dnf update in this Fedora 39 installation, and the linux kernal is now sitting at 6.6.3-200.fc39.x86_64 and it also updated alot of other packages. I think I'm in luck and Fedora has the open source driver for the FX3800M built in. There is an open source driver under the parent name of "Nouveau", and they have drivers with codes that begins with "NV" followed by the Nvidia chipset number. They have a driver for even the older Nvidia GPUs, including my Nvidia Quadro FX3800 Mobile GPU. https://nouveau.freedesktop.org/CodeNames.html G92 is the graphics chipset used for the Nvidia FX3800. When I ran dmesg|grep -i nvidia that reports back that it is using nouveau for the Nvidia G92 chipset. Also, when I click on About in the Gnome desktop Setup menu and then I click on System Details that shows, among other things, that the Graphics = NV92 NV92 (G92) GeForce 8800 (GT, GS, GTS 512, M GTS, M GTX) GeForce 9600 GSO, 9800 (GT, GTX, GTX+, GX2, M GT, M GTX) GeForce GTS 150(M), GTS 160M, GTS 240, GTS 250, GTX (260M, 280M, 285M), GT (330, 340) Quadro FX (2800M, 3600M, 3700, 3700M, 3800M, 4700 X2), VX 200 I don't know how up to date this open source driver is, if it compares well against Nvidia's own 390.xx drivers, but this Nouveau open source driver for the FX3800 is working to my satisfaction. I guess the Oracle Linux 8.9+ does not have that driver. I kindof wish I had run "dmesg" while I still had Oracle Linux 8.7 (OL8.7 was working with the M6500, OL8.9 is the one that wouldn't boot) to see what driver it was using. I may still try Ubuntu on the laptop later, to compare and decide which distro I like best. I also need to see which open source office apps are best for things like email clients, etc. Thanks! *here is a cool feature matrix of the Nouveau drivers: https://nouveau.freedesktop.org/FeatureMatrix.html the FX3800M is in with the NV50 grouping of Tesla cards

We'll I'm on latest Fedora 39 on the M6500 Linux kernal is 6.5.6-300.fc39.x86_64 In the short time I've been using it and rebooting it a few times, it's working great! I'll update with more as I get more experience with it. I've not used Fedora before so this is cool. I'm unsure what the deal was with Oracle Linux 8.9. OL is more of an enterprise linux server setup and, to maintain stability with Oracle DBs and Apps etc, it is slow to receive updates. I'm wondering if Oracle Linux just isn't as rich as Fedora is when it comes to drivers and such and OL is perhaps best kept to servers. Thanks.

Installing Fedora 39 Workstation on the M6500 now, and so far so good. It's strange that OL8.9 and OL9.3 and Oracle Unbreakable Kernal UEK7 had issues on my M6500, but the latest Fedora 39 is installing okay. I thought the newer Linux kernals didn't have the wifi adapter or GPU driver for my fx3800, but maybe that wasn't the issue at all because right now I get a display showing during the Fedora 39 installation. We'll see how it goes after it is fully installed, and after a dnf update, and reboot, etc.

Hello, Decided to try out my Dell M6500 Covet (orange aluminum shell with glass over the display). Pulled it out of the original shipping box from my storage. I remember we ordered it December of 2009 and received it Feb of 2010. Feel free to use this thread for anything related to M6500. As far as I know, this is the only thread here on the M6500. This post is mainly about me trying to get latest Linux distros installed on my old m6500 laptop. It has the original hardware from Dell exactly as we ordered it: Intel i7 x920 (1st gen i7) 1920x1200 GPU FX3800 (NVIDIA) 1x Samsung PM80 256GB SATA II SSD 1x Samsung PB22 256GB SATA II SSD at some point we had upgrade it's RAM using 2x4GB sticks and 2x8GB sticks for 24GB total. We also replaced it's battery at some point too (it's also in Orange to match). The CMOS battery is questionable because when it first booted it didn't remember the date. It had an early Windows 10 installed long time ago (2016?) but now it wouldn't boot. BSOD saying Inaccessable Boot Device. I think it was trying to use the default RAID option, but was probably setup to use AHCI. If CMOS battery died then maybe the computer forgot which to use, RAID or AHCI. Regardless, I set the correct date and time in BIOS and set it also to AHCI. It still wouldn't boot, and instead tried to go into Window's "Diagnosing" and then "Preparing Automatic Repair". I didn't want to wait for that (and it seldom works if it gets to that point), so I decided to start all over and to use Linux instead: Installed Oracle Linux 8.7 onto the original SSDs using a Linux logical volume group setting it up having Linux raid 0 for that Logical volume. I then tried to upgrade it to Oracle Linux 8.9 and it looked like it was working, but until you reboot after the upgrade it is still using the Linux 8.7 kernal. When I tried to reboot into the newer OL8.9 it began to load, but then the screen froze and CAPSLOCK and SCROLLOCK LEDs would flash on and off and then it would shutdown. I checked the RAM to be sure it is seated, but same error. I told Linux grub kernal selector to go back to 8.7 and it worked fine again. So then I tried Oracle 8.7 with the Oracle "Unbreakable Kernal" and it booted fine, but the wifi adapter could not be discovered. Weird. I think the OL8.7 still has the drivers for GPU FX3800 and wifi adapter, but maybe the UEK7 and OL8.9 do not. It's probably too old of a GPU. I also tried latest Oracle Linux 9.3 but it wouldn't even boot into the installer, for probably the same reason. I may try Fedora or even Ubuntu. But if FX3800 is too old and it's driver has been removed from Linux then I'll just have to run older distro versions. Currently I have it back on OL8.7 *used "grubber" to set that as the default kernal. I really like having Linux on it though with Gnome desktop and some opensource office tools and email client. It's a great setup. Just wish I could have newer Linux kernals that support my old, almost 15 yrs old laptop

The new display is working great. Parts People packaged it really nice and it was brand new, although old stock. The part Parts People shipped to us is B173ZAN01.0 which is exact same as the one I removed. When we ordered from ScreenOrama in 2022 they sent a revision .4, not a big deal because to me they work the same. I knew the version I was getting when I ordered it from Parts People Not only does my new display work, it is much brighter than the one I removed. Obviously the one I removed was completely broken, but in months leading up to that I noticed it was getting dimmer. I figured it had always been that way and it was only appearing dim next to my newer external monitors. It was dying for sure the past year because this new display is super bright, like looking into the sun in comparison. It also has really good vibrant colors. I only use these for coding so I'm no color expert, but it looks great to me. Very happy puchase. I accidentally cracked the corner of my display bezel during removal. It's just a hairline crack but it bothers me I think I may order a new replacement bezel from parts people too. Then one of the bezel magnets fell out and I couldn't figure out where it was supposed to go. So I reassembled it without the magnet, but then I learned the laptop uses the magnet to know when the lid is closed. I figured it out eventually here is where it goes if anyone else is slow like me:

We have two Dell 7710 4k laptops. Our other DELL 7710 original 4k display quit working today. Not the replacement display that we installed Dec of 2022, but the original display in our other laptop. ScreenRama is out of stock on the 7710 4k panel that we ordered last time. And I don't really feel comfortable ordering from overseas, especially if I need to RMA or warranty the panel later. I decided to order from Parts People who are in Austin Texas I want to keep these laptops lasting as long as possible. At about 8 years old, these are the longest lasting laptops I've owned. Very thankful for their longevity. Next big task will be to get these on Win11 sometime early next year.