E7440 running very hot?

Question

I need to check the normal operating temperature for the Dell Latitude E7440. My fan is constantly on and the air coming out the side vent is extremely hot. I have installed a temperature app and with basic use (windows 8.1 and 2 or 3 apps open) the core 0 and core 1 of the processor are running between 85 and 90 degrees Celsius. When plugged into power, the fan is permanently on high speed. I don't know if this is normal. I dont understand why it is getting so hot, i have the i7, 8GB, 256GB SSD, so literally no moving parts to generate heat. Any ideas?

My battery (47Wh) drains very quickly as well, 2 1/2 hours max.

CMBrandon · Accepted Answer

Hi,

An update for you.. I reloaded my machine about a week ago and only added the dell drivers that were needed (the drivers that windows 8.1 didn't pick up) I did not use the Dell system restore either, I deleted all partitions and recreated them from scratch.

Since then, my machine has stopped overheating and is running around 50 degrees celcius with a VM running, it was running at 97 degrees Celsius when I first got it. My battery life has been extended from 2 1/2 hours to 7 hours now. Processor usage has dropped by over 25% as well.

To me it seems as if there was a problem somewhere in the original Dell system image that the machine was shipped with.

After the reload, all working 100% now. :-)

lattitude guy · Accepted Answer

Glad you made progress. And just to make something clear to everyone, you need to spend some time on Google to find out how (it's been a few months since I did it), but you CAN disable vPro in BIOS as long as certain security features have not been enabled (contrary to what Dell support tells some users). From the factory these security features are NOT enabled which means you can still get into a different part of BIOS where you can alter the vPro settings.

IT departments for enterprise applications can lock down vPro in a way that it cannot be disabled without a unique password. This prevents a thief from disabling vPro on a stolen laptop. But, for non-enterprise customers, Dell really should ship their laptops with vPro disabled by default as it does cause performance and battery life issues.

For those who don't know, vPro literally establishes its own independent network/internet connection before your laptop even boots. And it maintains that connection any time the laptop is powered on. So that part of vPro is independent of any Windows drivers. It's even if there if you boot into Linux from a thumb drive.

By first turning off vPro in BIOS, and THEN re-installing a CLEAN (not Dell's restore image) copy of Windows, you should be able to avoid most vPro issues. If you want to be extra careful, do NOT install the Intel Management Engine. That will leave an exclamation mark in the Device Manager but it's not needed on a personal laptop (it only benefits large companies doing centralized PC management).

Basically vPro is a good thing for big company IT departments but a bad thing for end users. And, vPro aside, it doesn't excuse Dell shipping high-end laptops so crippled they're barely usable out of the box. it's apparent Dell likely "hand tweaks" the PCs they send to the big review sites. It's a shame they can't clone that configuration and ship it to everyone.

Finally it's often possible to obtain drivers directly from the hardware vendor's website (i.e. the sound chip, ethernet chip, WiFi chip, etc.). Those are often much less bloated, and much more current, than the Dell versions. For one thing Dell tends to bundle several drivers for several different versions of hardware into a single driver file. A given laptop might ship with three different ethernet interfaces for example. So, instead of breaking them out, Dell just lumps all three into a single file.

You only need one driver but you get a bunch of extra stuff that only clutters up your hard drive with potentially hundreds or thousands of useless files that don't even apply to your computer (for proof of this look in the folder Dell's driver files are unarchived into). You can also safely delete the driver folder made by the Dell installers after the installation is complete and working. They're only used for the installation while the actual driver files are installed elsewhere. Dell's method of packaging drivers just eats up (and fragments) hard drive space.

Vintron · Answer

Hi,

I have the exact same issue. My Laptop is fully up to date with drivers from the dell website, yet it still overheats.

I initially thought the BIOS update to A07 and the docking station firmware update fixed this issue, however i have just turned it on today and within 30 minutes the bottom is hot, hotter than normal. I have only been surfing the internet and sending a few emails. Nothing too taxing for i7 pro 8GB RAM, 256 SSD, Windows 8.1 64bit.

I would expect a company like dell to thoroughly test these laptops before making them publicly available, as i feel i have wasted time trying to find a solution to something that is impossible to solve without correct drivers.

Please can your supply a fix as this heat isn't doing my laptop and good especially in the long run.

thanks

Vintron · Answer

Many thanks CMBrandon, I will have a go with your solution.

lattitude guy · Answer

I also had to do a clean Windows install with my E7440. The Dell Bloatware on the system was causing all sorts of problems including long boot times and unexplained CPU usage. Doing a "clean install" using the Dell recovery partition does nothing but restore it to the same broken state as all the bloatware is part of the recovery image.

Intel also deserves some of the blame with the Intel Management Engine and vPro. The vPro (Intel AMT) software is always running in the background and it is enabled in both BIOS and Windows by default with the Dell factory configuration (assuming you have an i5 or i7 E7440). Several reviews of the E7440 and similar laptops have commented how vPro degrades performance and shortens battery life while monitoring everything you do and providing covert "back door" access for sys admins.

All the rest of the Dell bloatware causes further problems on top of the vPro issue. Out of the box, a $300 Asus 3rd generation Celeron laptop booted faster and outperformed the factory E7440 4th gen i5 configuration. Even the drive image is badly fragmented further degrading performance (and creating problems with SSDs). It's really sad Dell can't be bothered to ship a fully tested and optimized configuration on a laptop with a 4 figure price tag aimed at business users.

Bala R · Answer

I purchased the same laptop a couple of weeks ago and have the same heating problem. Based on a chat with the dell support I learnt that the vPro (Intel AMT) software unfortunately is part of the intel chip set and cannot even be disabled in the bios settings. So I'm presuming, based on the above discussions, that the only option is to install a clean windows. Could you kindly let me know if a clean installation resolves the issue ? Does the vPro continue to cause heating issues even after a clean win 7 installation ?

Bala R · Answer

Hi VINTRON, I purchased the same laptop a couple of weeks ago and have the same heating problem. Based on a chat with the dell support I learnt that the vPro (Intel AMT) software unfortunately is part of the intel chip set and cannot even be disabled in the bios settings. So I'm presuming, based on the above discussions, that the only option is to install a clean windows. Could you kindly let me know if a clean installation resolves the issue ? Does the vPro continue to cause heating issues even after a clean win 7 installation ?

Hodgo2008 · Answer

I have the same issue. Rebuilt with clean 8.1 and the fan is on constantly, and side almost too hot to touch. PErfromance and battery seem 100%, just them temp is the issue, and annoyance of a constant fan.

Bala R · Answer

After getting in touch with DELL support, I ran the latest bios update and it helped to some extent. You might want to try that. While trying a clean install using the DELL windows recovery CD I noticed that the OS seems to use only 700MB of RAM while the 10 essential DELL drivers that they have recommended are the real culprits taking an additional 800 MB. Particularly the audio driver (400MB) and the intel vpro. I am thinking of trying an off the shelf windows 7 to see if the basic default MS drivers could prevent the issue. This is supposed to be a high end Lattitude and not an inspiron.. it's quite disappointing. But do let me know if you figure out any other solution.

CurbedLarry · Answer

Comforting to know other people have horrendous BIOS, driver, software utility issues like me!

Contacting support I found none of these are formally supported unless you buy a software support contract. Only other alternative is this forum and as in this case, there's no guarantee your problem will be picked up or resolved.

I also bought a business-class Latitude E5440 in the belief I'd get rock-solid reliability and long term support. I wasn't expecting a ton of buggy, proprietary power management stuff that doesn't work and clashes with the BIOS and Intel drivers.

None of my issues have completely stopped me working but my confidence in this machine is totally shattered.

I'd love to go for a fresh install but want to apply thermal modes to cut fan use. That needs a Dell utility to be fixed to talk to the Dell BIOS. CPU thermal management had been broken on the E5440 since its release in 2013.

CurbedLarry · Answer

Do the processor management and other options work for you guys in Advanced Power Settings?

Anyone tried Dell Power Manager 2? When I try to use it to set a thermal profile it just throws an error. Dell have acknowledged/recreated the error but no ETA on a fix.

Seems like a lot of Dell machines of this Exx40 generation are permanently stuck on a "Cool" profile that leaves the fan running constantly trying to achieve an impossibly low temperature.

I wanted to use the Intel Extreme Tuning Utility to tweak my E5440 but says my system in unsupported. Not sure if because of proprietary Dell drivers.

Hodgo2008 · Answer

Im on the latest BIOS, clean build, also 16gb RAM. Watched a 3hour BR film with no fan and heat (on my lap), then later docked on an e-series fan starts up.

Hodgo2008 · Answer

Just tried applying the BIOS V14 update released yesterday I think. No difference. I'll be f***ed if Im going to rebuild again. As a sys admin the amount of tools and managenet apps we need take shours to install and set up. Cant see the point in fresh build as you will eventually have to put the driver on thats causing the issue, unless someone can dentify it?

Just in case Dell is listening. I WAS GOING TO PURCHASE 150 OF THESE FOR MY STAFF, BUT NOW... I DONT THINK SO. Anyone got the number for HP?

CurbedLarry · Answer

OS seems to use only 700MB of RAM while the 10 essential DELL drivers that they have recommended are the real culprits taking an additional 800 MB. Particularly the audio driver (400MB) and the intel vpro.

Going back to this comment, this is insane bloat. I was wondering why Windows 7 was taking so much memory after a boot compared to my previous HP.

I hibernate my machine to save time but it takes almost as long as a full boot because it has to write/read almost 2GB each time!

My Intel wireless driver and PROSet connection manager are taking 456MB of disk space. Absolutely Looney Tunes.

Bala R · Answer

So here's what I've done. I've reformatted my drive and installed a clean windows 7 from a win 7 disc that I had Dell send over to me. Pls note: this is not the recovery disc that is created using the preinstalled version on the laptop. Without any of the drivers the OS took up 600MB of RAM. Then I've installed only the mandatory drivers:

1. Chipset_Driver_3664N_WN_9.4.0.1027_A03

2. Display driver

3. Dell Wireless Controller (Network_Driver_F2C1D_WN_10.0.0.268_A02) - this seems to be another messy driver

The heating issue seems to have stopped and the performance is excellent. Dell insists that all 10 drivers must be installed but I am going to observe for a few weeks if things work. Everything seems to work well as of now. I'll keep this post updated..

And on your other comment, yes, my 7 year old HP Pavillion with a 2 GB RAM seems to work much better with a clean win 7 !!! doesn't even heat up or run into memory issues despite its 2 GB RAM vs the Dell's 8 GB RAM. I guess it all boils down to those bloated driver software.

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E7440 running very hot?

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