I've seen this similar issue. I have rolled our approx 90 E7450 and E7250 laptops and so far about 6 employees have reported the machines crashing. So far only from the E7450. Same symptoms you have listed. Screen is black, no HDD activity, Caps lock light does not come on when pressed. So looks like the machines has completely frozen. Only option is a force shutdown and restart.
Checking event viewer i cannot find anything pointing me in the right direction.Just a normal note -
"The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly."
Drivers up to date with the Dell Command utility!
PC's are running - Win7 64bit OS
Its not been reported from all machines, but slowly growing. machines have been in the field 1 month, and in the case of the last report had been fine for 3-4 weeks and then had his first experience of this issue...
Now obvious updates...
Very Strange
If anyone has any suggestions on this im all ears.
Two of them had motherboards that died; the computer would boot up but was not able to see the hard drives. I replaced the hard-drive cables, and still not able to see the hard-drives, So they replace both motherboards. But both of the users still reporting lockups and freezing issues.
Out of the nine users, so far we have three that are freezing up once or twice a week. I'm going to have to replace them with the other series laptop, until I can find out. What is causing the problem.
One thing that is starting to surface from my talks with them, is when using Office 2013 that lock up/ freezing of the laptop that requires a forced shut down and reboot. They also said when they came back to the computer, they found it locked up.
Two of users reported 2nd monitor that is hooked up on the port replicator is flickering/ going black. I replaced the port replicators with new one's and still getting the same issues.
I have been using my E7450 for a few weeks now and have the same issue, at least every few days when I undock my system and then try to resume, I have the black screen of death... We are about 500 people on HP's and I have just managed to switch around 5 people to the Dell E7450 but they are all reporting the same issues, not a good situation for me at the moment at work :(, I have put out a notice internally that there are to be no more purchases until this issue is fixed, hard reboots are not acceptable, to much work is being lost, hope they fix it soon.
Occasionally the external monitor attached to the dock station will blank out for a second and come back. Have updated to latest Video driver available on DELL website (MW8G3), but still happens. Just updated to A04 firmware. See what happens with this.
Hate to sound like a broken record but just got our 2nd replacement laptop with Dell and as soon as I even added it to our domain and rebooted the video went out. Literally out of the box for 10 minutes. Anyone have success talking to Dell about this? If so what was your solution? Docked it works great!
I will try your suggestions, maybe the latest bios is the cause of all the freezing and locking up.
We have al ready replace two motherboards out the 12 computers we have. Last week one of the hard drives was making lots of noise and died. So far out the 12 computer we have half the users are not having issues and rest are experiencing locking up and having to force shutdown.
Nothing in the event viewer to show what is causing the locking up issue.
Anyone have any tools or suggestions on how to find a freezing issues on a computer, all I getting for Gold support is that it's the image causing the problem. After a few rebuilds of the image I come to the theory it's not the OS and has something to do with something on the hardware.
From the latest updates in Dell Command Update - I have installed a bunch of updates System BIOS, WiFi Driver, Graphics driver, USB 3.0 driver, Touchpad driver etc on both series laptops on the 02/06/2015
23/06/2015 I haven't heard anything back with any of the original issues - Hopefully it might have resolved it.
Just letting you know that the flickering external monitor issue when docked only happened to our first eval model of E7450. This model had a nice smooth rubbery feel lid.
We then got another model in later on, and this had a different type of lid. It was a bit more rougher and plasticy feel. Anyway, we could not reproduce the flickering problem on this model.
Anyway, one of the service desk guys logged a call with DELL and they came in and replaced the motherboard on the first eval model we had, and had no problems since.
I'm running into the same issues, as described (which I have also posted to two other threads), and have just started applying BIOS A04 and the latest Intel HD drivers [10.18.14.4170]. Given that I am just recently encountering these issues, can any of you say that the BIOS and/or video driver updates are indeed the resolution?
Note: In at least once case, where the system's display not only blanked, but experienced a BSOD, the event logs did document a thermal event.
Since updating the bios to A04 and updating the video drivers. The freezing and locking up, BSOD have gone away. We had about 7 users that had these issues and they are no longer having problems.
I about to start re-ordering that laptop again. We switched back to the E5450 because of the issues and the lack of support from the Dell Gold Support team was horrible. They keep closing the cases I opened. They blaming it on the OS we used. Also, the Gold support team has no clue what KACE System is, and they telling me it was KACE's fault and not the hardware.
We have been experiencing an issue with our ~80 E5440s. When docked or undocked they shut off. After going through the "update everything" phase. Dell suggested replacing the motherboards. Now Dell is having us ship them directly to the depot for repair. We have had 5 go to the depot in the past two weeks and around 20-25 in all with boards replaced. Some of the ones with boards replaced had the issue come back. What's going on? Bad supply of boards? Something else? What are they replacing at the depot?
TomoPowell
3 Posts
1
April 23rd, 2015 08:00
Hey,
I've seen this similar issue. I have rolled our approx 90 E7450 and E7250 laptops and so far about 6 employees have reported the machines crashing. So far only from the E7450. Same symptoms you have listed. Screen is black, no HDD activity, Caps lock light does not come on when pressed. So looks like the machines has completely frozen. Only option is a force shutdown and restart.
Checking event viewer i cannot find anything pointing me in the right direction.Just a normal note -
"The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly."
Drivers up to date with the Dell Command utility!
PC's are running - Win7 64bit OS
Its not been reported from all machines, but slowly growing. machines have been in the field 1 month, and in the case of the last report had been fine for 3-4 weeks and then had his first experience of this issue...
Now obvious updates...
Very Strange
If anyone has any suggestions on this im all ears.
Cheers
Tom
madcowthomas
10 Posts
0
May 13th, 2015 10:00
We have deployed out nine of the E7450's.
All are machines run "Windows 7x64"
Microsoft Office 2013
Adobe Acrobat XI
All images are deployed with the KACE system
Drivers are updated /bios updated
Two of them had motherboards that died; the computer would boot up but was not able to see the hard drives. I replaced the hard-drive cables, and still not able to see the hard-drives, So they replace both motherboards. But both of the users still reporting lockups and freezing issues.
Out of the nine users, so far we have three that are freezing up once or twice a week. I'm going to have to replace them with the other series laptop, until I can find out. What is causing the problem.
One thing that is starting to surface from my talks with them, is when using Office 2013 that lock up/ freezing of the laptop that requires a forced shut down and reboot. They also said when they came back to the computer, they found it locked up.
Two of users reported 2nd monitor that is hooked up on the port replicator is flickering/ going black. I replaced the port replicators with new one's and still getting the same issues.
Siboneh
1 Rookie
•
3 Posts
0
May 14th, 2015 08:00
With regards to the flickering monitor - When you prompt for admin access the screen appears to stop flickering.
I was wondering if it was some sort of docking related issue.
I am going to order some new Dell docking stations and see if the flickering still persists.
Waynef1975
1 Message
0
May 19th, 2015 18:00
Hi Si,
I have been using my E7450 for a few weeks now and have the same issue, at least every few days when I undock my system and then try to resume, I have the black screen of death... We are about 500 people on HP's and I have just managed to switch around 5 people to the Dell E7450 but they are all reporting the same issues, not a good situation for me at the moment at work :(, I have put out a notice internally that there are to be no more purchases until this issue is fixed, hard reboots are not acceptable, to much work is being lost, hope they fix it soon.
Narcisoneves
2 Posts
0
May 21st, 2015 07:00
Hey,
I've seen a similar behavior on my Dell e7450 Laptop. Sometimes all the lights get off and I got a black screen.
The solution I have is to close the monitor and open it again. In my case the computer gets "alive" again without loosing anything.
Best regards,
Narciso
DMK111
15 Posts
0
June 9th, 2015 18:00
In Similar boat here.
On E7450 A02 firmware.
Occasionally the external monitor attached to the dock station will blank out for a second and come back. Have updated to latest Video driver available on DELL website (MW8G3), but still happens. Just updated to A04 firmware. See what happens with this.
DM.
vtdev
2 Posts
0
June 12th, 2015 14:00
I'm also having this same issue with Newly Deployed E7450's I"ve updated the BIOS and Video Driver with no results.
Did updating the Firmware fix the issue for you?
Thank You.
Daniel_Ross
1 Message
0
June 15th, 2015 11:00
Hate to sound like a broken record but just got our 2nd replacement laptop with Dell and as soon as I even added it to our domain and rebooted the video went out. Literally out of the box for 10 minutes. Anyone have success talking to Dell about this? If so what was your solution? Docked it works great!
Narcisoneves
2 Posts
1
June 15th, 2015 13:00
So far, after loading A04 firmware, the system is stable. Graphic card is an Intel HD Graphics 5500 and driver version is 10.18.14.4099.
Best Regards,,
Narciso Neves
madcowthomas
10 Posts
0
June 15th, 2015 13:00
I will try your suggestions, maybe the latest bios is the cause of all the freezing and locking up.
We have al ready replace two motherboards out the 12 computers we have. Last week one of the hard drives was making lots of noise and died. So far out the 12 computer we have half the users are not having issues and rest are experiencing locking up and having to force shutdown.
Nothing in the event viewer to show what is causing the locking up issue.
Anyone have any tools or suggestions on how to find a freezing issues on a computer, all I getting for Gold support is that it's the image causing the problem. After a few rebuilds of the image I come to the theory it's not the OS and has something to do with something on the hardware.
Siboneh
1 Rookie
•
3 Posts
0
June 23rd, 2015 01:00
From the latest updates in Dell Command Update - I have installed a bunch of updates System BIOS, WiFi Driver, Graphics driver, USB 3.0 driver, Touchpad driver etc on both series laptops on the 02/06/2015
23/06/2015 I haven't heard anything back with any of the original issues - Hopefully it might have resolved it.
Simon
DMK111
15 Posts
0
June 29th, 2015 17:00
Just letting you know that the flickering external monitor issue when docked only happened to our first eval model of E7450. This model had a nice smooth rubbery feel lid.
We then got another model in later on, and this had a different type of lid. It was a bit more rougher and plasticy feel. Anyway, we could not reproduce the flickering problem on this model.
Anyway, one of the service desk guys logged a call with DELL and they came in and replaced the motherboard on the first eval model we had, and had no problems since.
DM
jddfw
2 Intern
•
87 Posts
0
August 10th, 2015 09:00
I'm running into the same issues, as described (which I have also posted to two other threads), and have just started applying BIOS A04 and the latest Intel HD drivers [10.18.14.4170]. Given that I am just recently encountering these issues, can any of you say that the BIOS and/or video driver updates are indeed the resolution?
Note: In at least once case, where the system's display not only blanked, but experienced a BSOD, the event logs did document a thermal event.
madcowthomas
10 Posts
0
August 12th, 2015 13:00
Since updating the bios to A04 and updating the video drivers. The freezing and locking up, BSOD have gone away. We had about 7 users that had these issues and they are no longer having problems.
I about to start re-ordering that laptop again. We switched back to the E5450 because of the issues and the lack of support from the Dell Gold Support team was horrible. They keep closing the cases I opened. They blaming it on the OS we used. Also, the Gold support team has no clue what KACE System is, and they telling me it was KACE's fault and not the hardware.
Good luck and hope it solves your issues.
btokarski
2 Posts
0
August 12th, 2015 14:00
Hey,
We have been experiencing an issue with our ~80 E5440s. When docked or undocked they shut off. After going through the "update everything" phase. Dell suggested replacing the motherboards. Now Dell is having us ship them directly to the depot for repair. We have had 5 go to the depot in the past two weeks and around 20-25 in all with boards replaced. Some of the ones with boards replaced had the issue come back. What's going on? Bad supply of boards? Something else? What are they replacing at the depot?