Kitje

Oh dear, seems whoever was in this laptop last forgot plenty of screws... Especially for a laptop of this calibre. Time to hunt replacements. There are sets, but I think I need a specific type, and I know Dell lists them on the maintenance manual. What's missing seems to be for the palmrest, and battery. Some seemed quite tightly fastened too so that was a bit difficult but they're not too bad. There were two screws that didn't look like they belonged to the laptop, but I got those ones out. This is quite a first for me from a refurbisher.

That's strange. The 7530 manual says doing it completely and the 7540 as much as possible. But alright. I am worried about causing some discharge and damaging the mainboard as a result, since it's not simply just releasing from the lock mechanism on the older Precisions.

Ah alright. And since the battery needs to be apparently discharged before disconnecting, how far should it be until its safe to do so?

The manual states that I need to discharge the battery as much as possible before disconnecting it. You don't need to in the M4800 but in the 7540, is it still necessary? Also I'm not sure if you can remove the bezel without having to take the display assembly off.

Yeah it doesn't look like it'll be as easy as the M4800, or Zbook 15 G2... Although it's reminiscent of removing the Zbook's though. Secondhand images show some adhesive around it. Even then, the bezel of my Zbook reattached fine despite a cut finger or two.

Sorry for the bump, a newcomer for a recently acquired 7540. Finding the LCD in mine quite dim and lifeless, especially for an IPS. I was reading the maintenance guide and saw this: Disposable? Really? Does that mean it intentionally breaks?

I've bought a panel from Screenarama before and was sent the panel I was looking for. I think it was either luck or they do stock the panels they list on Amazon. The panel in my M4800 is an Innolux N156HHE-GA1 was what I was looking for due to specs, and works fine.

Those are X-brackets. Some new or used GPUs don't come with one meaning you have to take the one from your old card off or getting a new one with some adhesive to attach it with. I think my WX-4150 did not come with a bracket so I had to purchase one from eBay and upon discovering it had no adhesive I also bought a roll to adhere to the card. Fiddly process...

I ended up going with an i7 9750H RTX 3000 Precision 7540, and it seems that I'll be working on yet another laptop. It's in better condition than I thought it'd be but now it means there are three items needing to be replaced. It'll be LCD, SSD and a new battery over time. Since it has USB-C Thunderbolt 3, and while it has something akin to an RTX 3060, docking with an eGPU won't be so difficult. Although I wouldn't recommend doing what I do, it's a learning experience either way. Not perfect, but at least it has some benefits I wanted. Feels just as solid as my current two machines.

So I've been looking on eBay for second hand units and stumbled on a RTX 3000 Dell Precision 7540. It's tempting but unsure if anyone has compared it to an RTX 2070/3060/3050. It's almost perfect except I'm unsure of anyone's experience with them.

Looked into the Legion 5 Pro 16in, but discovered the fan noise emission is too high for me. Looked into the Dell G15, the reviews weren't positive on Dell's site and build quality doesn't seem great. The Dell G16 looks enticing but Dell isn't selling it in the UK. Ugh. I looked into the ThinkPad T15g second hand but for some reason the price is overinflated for such a model that doesn't have anything other than gaming orientated specifications, even a last gen RTX... This is silly, it shouldn't be this difficult to filter out the good systems that don't outright deny you on repairability and the artificial price hike. Considering what I'm doing now with Unreal Engine 5 the system I'm currently on is definitely showing its age.

Drivers updated? Also, you haven't taken off the bezel of your unit when you checked what kind of LCD you have, no? It could be something slightly loose where the camera is plugged into above the LCD. That could be a culprit.

I think it should work with hybrid, because then the iGPU would be driving the LCD. Output should be fine via DP and HDMI though.

They're slightly tinnier than the M4800, and not as great, but still listenable. Man I'd actually appreciate a raytracing GPU in the M4800. Shame there's no type-A MXM that does such a thing.

In my case the M4800 has a 120Hz panel in it and is a little flaky with the BIOS settings if they're defaulted. I have to leave CSM on and SecureBoot off otherwise while it does POST, there's no output until it's in Windows.

There's some pro and cons about it. It might be quite a list, might not but: Pros: Thunderbolt 2 eDP models, none of the LVDS transition to eDP like Dell Uses the later NGFF/M.2 format More BIOS security on some models, even BIOS recovery Doesn't use the rubber coating on the palmrest Cons: Servicing requires more disassembling, even for replacing a fan Fewer GPU support (anything newer AMD cards causes the fan to be 100% unlike Nvidia) Single fan Uses 2260 size drives, harder to find MUX with any new "unsupported" GPU results in black screen, always need Hybrid graphics on and secureboot off, might be the same for the M4800) Buying a Zbook that came with i5 dual core resulted in 2 memory banks instead of 4, I don't think Dell did this with the M4800 (?) Initially, the WX-4150 thats in the Dell now was for the Zbook, but discovered a setback with the thermal management. It wouldn't control the fan, resulting in 100% all the time. Now I don't know if it's a result of the VBIOS, because fan control in the Polaris BIOS Editor had flaky looking settings there... NotebookFanControl would've been needed but at the same time it wasn't worth it. I ended up with an M2000M in place of its original K610M. So the WX4150 was flashed with the Dell VBIOS and drivers installed without a hiccup. When I bought the machine, thinking "oh, 8GB RAM, no big deal" since it said on the listing on eBay, I got more than that. I booted to the BIOS and found out it was populated with 24GB RAM and a 4G LTE WWAN card. Needed a new lid and a new heatsink for a GPU upgrade and a new battery too, so it's almost fully upgraded.

I haven't undervolted my M4800, maybe one day but I haven't for stability reasons. I could do it though, considering it does get a little toasty on Turboboost... Also on an unrelated note, I might have mitigated the fan rattle/buzz. I took the CPU fan apart and was twisting the plastic casing of it slightly to bend it into a straighter shape. I don't think I need a new fan anytime soon now.

I don't think it's an eDP panel. Parts-People have spares of that part, and it's an LVDS panel I'm afraid.

I'd still stick with your LVDS unit, and perhaps over time get the parts needed in the meantime, and then when ready you'll have what's needed to make the switch. This should be a tip, too. If the eBay listing of an M4800 has the service tag on, look up on Dell support. If the spec mentions anything eDP like this, then it should confirm it's eDP. Even a low resolution 768p eDP can be switched to 1080p: If I find anything appear on eBay that's able to be shipped outside US or UK I can send the link over. But for now I'd save searches on eBay for these parts.

Going from LVDS to eDP board won't be a problem for the main base chassis. The difference is mounting the panels. You'd need a new lid with hinges, and bezel and even a new eDP cable.

Ouch. One of my major complaints over the M4800 is having revisions of the board using different embedded video interfaces... I don't think there should be issues running a newer GPU, but the use of Optimus/Enduro must be left on for output to the panel otherwise blank screen. And it also limits what you can install in there.

Does it say LA-9772 or 9771 on the board?

Oh boy the CPU fan's still exhibiting some rattle from the blades touching the casing of the enclosure. It looks like it teeters when spun slowly and it kinda looks like its the rotor being slightly bent? But for some reason if I reassemble the fan together again the noise stops. And searching for a new fan is difficult due to having more used than new.

It was a long trek for my M4800 (main) and Zbook 15 G2. My M4800 got the most. Initially it had an i5 4200M, got the 4810MQ as a boost. While the AMD FirePro M5100 wasn't a terrible slouch I wanted more VRAM, and I had my WX4150 laying about unused due to partial incompatibility with the Zbook 15 G2. This was where things got a little complicated. Mainboard didn't use eDP but rather LVDS, meaning a swap of the display assembly after getting the mainboard swapped. I guess it's an upgrade, going from LVDS to eDP. When I got that working, I wanted an 8-bit high gamut panel and bought a 120Hz Innolux N156HHE-GA1. After that I bought an MSATA drive, pieced together 32GB RAM and was done. My Zbook wasn't too complicated, but took effort. Went from TN to IPS, K610M to M2000M and put in an SSD for boot, and an HDD in an ODD bay and I was done.