Pro Plus 13 PB13520, freezing during camera usage

Question

Hi, we have multiple Dell Pro Plus 13 PB13520 devices that are freezing during Teams/Slack/Zoom video calls. It has gotten so bad that the users cannot even use their computer on a daily basis, even at idle it runs at 60%. When the computer freezes, event viewer says Windows Camera framework 7034 has crashed this has happened X times.

Now, some users who did not run dell command update before the last week of October dont have this issue. It seems to be some sort of driver that once downloaded causes this freezing.

I did see on another post: ‎Pro 14 Plus PB14250, freezes when using webcam with Teams or Zoom | Page 3 | DELL Technologies

While this is for the 14 model line, the issue are exactly the same as we are witnessing. Only issue here is that, that post Dell created a new driver yesterday and claims it is the fix. We cannot use that driver as we are on the 13 pro line and that driver is for the 14 pro line.

Any support is appreciated, we have over 200 users with this model and have reported almost 110 computers that are reporting this issue, about 20 of them flat out cannot use the computer and we have bought other brand computers to replace them as this has left a sour taste in our mouths with Dell.

nikiluk · Answer

I do confirm the issue here https://www.dell.com/community/en/conversations/dell-pro-laptop-computers/pro-13-premium-pa13250-camera-turns-off-by-itself-in-the-middle-of-the-call/68e03d5d6f463023aa8c3c28

Having a similar problem on my PA13250

Tried everything from reinstalling drivers, to completely reinstalling the system using Dell Recovery Image: nothing
Dell ordered Camera & Monitor substitution: nothing helped

Dell now decided to substitute the motherboard. Waiting for the service now.
This bug makes my workflow completely broken

Trident49110 · Answer

@nikiluk​ For us if we use an external camera it does help somewhat but we cannot give external cameras since we are buying these devices with brand new internal cameras that dont work. We have 0 success with Dell and are speaking with our legal team to see if Dell can put out a warning or recall on this model since there are so many users reporting this error. We also have about 80% of our staff that have this model go days without being able to use their brand new Dell computers which is another huge can of worms.  We think this is with the Pro Plus line, whether 13 14 15 or 16 in model they all have defective cameras and that a defective driver is the issue here but Dell is blaming everything but themselves for this.

kfullmer87 · Answer

Same issue here with the Pro Plus 13, we have deployed ~90 systems and see about a 50% rate of issues. The amount of disruption ebbs and flows with staff reporting they are completely unable to work one day, and then no freezes the next. Dell has provided us a handful of early release drivers over the last 2 months of troubleshooting but nothing fully fixes it.

cs438455 · Answer

@kfullmer87​ How much time have you spent going back and fourth with Dell to get to this point, where they're sending over early release drivers?  I did consider raising this with support, however the triage process, my initial thoughts are that Dell would simply want to replace hardware in the first instance.

kfullmer87 · Answer

@cs438455 it has been nearly 2 months of back and forth so not exactly a great process. Based on the models impacted it wasn't clear to me if they even offer a model that is not having some sort of camera based issue that would still fit in our enterprise and if they all have a ~50% failure rate like OP and I have experienced, I am not sure replacements even help.

We are at the point where anything helps, both because we need it to be fixed and because I need management to see that we are doing everything we can.

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Pro Plus 13 PB13520, freezing during camera usage

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