Dell Latitude 7480 Laptop that freezes up

All power management in windows and bios have been disabled as part of troubleshooting and it still does the same.

So I am also using the 7480 for work and I experience frequent lockups that require a hard restart as well.  Not sure if mine is the same as anyone else symptoms.  What I have noticed is that I'll be working along just fine with my laptop plugged in to power and using WiFi, when I will realize that I have lost my internet connection.  Not completely, but outlook will no long be connecting and webpages won't load.  But if I am connected to VPN or network, I can still access the fileshares.  I just can't get out to the web.

If I restart my PC as soon as I notice this, it will restart mostly smooth.  Sometime I have still have to hold the power button to kill it.  But if I don't restart right away, my computer begins to lock up on all windows apps.  start menu and notifications will open once, but not again.  Then all open windows become non-responsive.  At this point, I have to hold the power button down.

I have noticed that certain networks perform better than others.  I have not had this happen when at work on our domain and it rarely happens when connected to my guest network at home.  But if I am on the same network as everyone else at home or if I am on a busy hotel network, it happens about every 20 - 30 minutes.

I am running windows 10 and believe that all Dell drivers and bios are up to date.  We have also replaced the memory with a new set.  Right now I am trying the idea suggested in this thread to turn off WiFi and use a wired lan.

Chris J.   I finally got Dell to agree to replace the motherboard in my 7390 2-in-1 after 2+ months of this constant hang/BSOD.

They insisted on sending a tech out to do the work, I agreed to it.  The tech that came out said he has been so busy the last few months with MB replacements on xx80 and xx90 series latitudes.  He thinks there's either a design flaw or manufacturing flaw with the two series.

The MB that came in my system (built March 2018) was version A00,  the replacement they sent was A04.  It came with BIOS 1.5,  the tech updated it to 1.6.2.

So far for the last 3 days I have not gotten any hangs or BSOD.  This used to only happen on battery power.  Worked fine on AC or connected to Dock.  I've left it running 24x7 for the last 3 days on battery (except when necessary to charge it) and so far no hangs so it's a good sign.

One other thing I noticed is they didn't send any cpu heatsink paste with the replacement.  The tech didn't have any either, so he just put the heatsink back on with whatever paste was left on it from the old cpu.  I cringed a little when I saw this, and was expecting cpu temps to be high, but so far in the 3 days, the cpu temps while idle and under load has been lower than the old motherboard.  Also I noticed power usage has gone down and now I get longer run time on battery.  Was getting 8 to 10 hours when the system was new, but when all these BSOD issues started two months ago, the battery life went down to about 5 hours.  Now it's back at about 10 hours.

Not sure what changes they made between versions A00 and A04 of the motherboard, but so far it looks promising. 

You may want to contact them and have them send out replacement MB for your batch.

its becoz of driver not installed. Install win-10 it will solve your problem

So I am having this problem on both Windows and two different linux distros (Ubuntu and Arch Linux).

I have contacted Dell support (live chat) and it was a terrible experience: the person ran the hardware tests remotely which did not find anything (obviously) and then started trying to "Optimize my browser performance" by removing cookies, resetting DNS settings, trying to install Opera, and other random stuff that does not make any sense given the issue.

I checked the journalctl in Ubuntu but it is not recording anything prior to the crash. In windows there isn't any data collection after the crash as well. Will try to call the support this time. From what I've observed, it is always happening when idle on a Linux distro, but then again, it is also happening when doing something on Windows.

Sometimes, after the system freezes, the LED will flash: 2 amber - 1 white.

@JRony have you contacted support yet to get a replacement motherboard organised?

Can you confirm you are running the latest BIOS revision on the system?

Alan

@JRony that's good to hear that the replacement motherboard resolved the freezing issues for you. With regards to the problems with service, I would recommend lodging a complaint with the booking technician for them to escalate the issues with a manager.

Should you have any further problems with the system, please get hesitate to reach out to me on the forums.

Alan

I see the same thing. I can't remember freeze-up once while connected with the docking, but now more than 50 freeze-ups while on battery or plugged in. So I think your observation is key to the problem.

@Elsa_Frozen thanks for your contribution. Lock-ups and freezing can be caused by both software and hardware and can be quite tricky can pinpoint.

With the above comment about the Intel SSD's, if it was a batch issue it would be highly unlikely for the same issue to appear on drives made a year later.

For the freezing that you are experiencing, can you help me out with some additional details please - 

a) When the system locks up, its it a hard lock up where you have to restart the system or does the system fix itself?
b) Do you get any error messages before or after the lock ups?
c) Are the lock ups temperature related?
d) Are the lockups always within the Windows environment or can it happen pre Windows?
e) Have you run the ePSA diagnostics to check for any hardware issues or error codes? (To run the ePSA diagnostics hold down the Fn key and power on the system)
f) Are you running the latest BIOS and drivers on the system?
g) Have you tried reinstalling Windows at any point to address the freezing issues?

I'll drop you a private message to get your service tag.

Alan

I found out that if i lunched safe mode. PC was fine. and bs's only showed after i got artifacts on screen in normal bootup. so i uninstalled video drivers and i run pc on windows basic video driver. all good. so i manually installed drivers from intel assistant and now pc looks freeze free and no BS too. it looks like sometimes video drivers are not installed correctly or something and that causes the bs and freezes.

Win 10 pro version 1903 (build 10.0.18362)

and video driver is now 26.20.100.7372 used to be 25.20.x.x don't remember exact.

i hope this help some people. At least it helped me.

I have a Latitude 7480 Laptop that freeze up all the time ( I am an EE and currently hold MCSE, meaning I know hardware, software and Windows). After much investigated and observation, did some modification with thermal conductivity and dissipation...

Now my laptop is running all night without any issue, nor freeze and faster than brand new unit. Dock , undock, battery , AC adapter ...etc...no more issues.

Feel free to contact me then I will send you images for DIY.

Best regards,

Frank

So after a few months (since they changed the motherboard in august), I am facing the same issue again with freezes and blue screen on various OSs (Windows, Ubuntu and Arch Linux).

I just contacted a technician using the chat support but he just took control of my computer and ran the exact same tests I did. I told him beforehand that the tests would not find anything, he still did them. The tests did not find anything (exactly like last time) so he told me that my warranty does not cover it since it is not a hardware issue. So incompetence from the dell chat support again.

@JRony I am sorry to hear of the troubles you are experiencing again with our chat team and the system. I would like to help by looking into this further. Should you wish me to do that please respond to my private message.

Alternatively, there are other support channels i.e telephone support and our other social media platforms twitter, Facebook etc

Alan