Inspiron 13-7370, LCD won't wake up

@DELL-Cares What sort of technical follow up is this receiving at Dell? As you can see, this thread grows longer and longer--there are many frustrated people including people saying "I will never purchase a Dell again." This is affecting other models, too--my organization especially finds that a percentage of our devices in the Latitude 5490 and 5590 lines have this problem. 

It seems people are having success installing an older version of the Intel video driver. It's worked for me as well--the Intel UHD 600 series version 24.20.100.6170 A06.

Can Dell work on getting the latest version of that video driver to behave correctly? I think @kbj0001 has a good observation and lead here with "I have also noted that when the machine turns off the screen (turn off the screen after x min), it will first flash up the windows 10 lock screen, which the newer driver does not seem to do (once it turns off the screen, you see nothing else and then it never comes back)." [my emphasis] This seems consistent with one of my users reporting that if he locked Windows (CTRL+ALT+DEL > Lock) then he'd be able to wake the screen when he comes back, but if the display went to sleep on it's own that is when he couldn't wake it.

Please, people have been trying lots of things at Dell's suggestion and on their own (see this post for example), but one of the main causes of this issue really seems to be a bug in the video driver. For the sake of Dell's reputation and costs, this needs a solid solution. (Dell replacing system boards for this issue does not seem cost effective!)

This is not a Windows issue, this a a Dell hardware issue. Has anyone been able to have Dell fix this via warranty at least?

Hi @pembo13
I had my motherboard replaced under warranty. It failed again within 3 months, so had it replaced again under motherboard warranty, as PC warranty had then expired. Bit of reluctance from Dell who said it might not be the same component at fault (not going to be much else with a motherboard with soldered RAM and CPU). I normally use Ubuntu, but suspected fault was beginning to return one time I booted to Windows.

Hi,

Been experiencing the same issue. Tried every suggestions. Nothing works. I've tried booting on an external SSD connected via usb (WINDOWS 10). Surprisingly, I can close the lid, put the computer to sleep and wake it up. 

Same problem here. Doesn't matter if I boot Windows or Linux. Sometimes I can wake it up by hitting the keyboard brightness adjustment button repeatedly, and sometimes by plugging in/removing the charger. The problem started less than a year ago, before the computer was fine. Such a shame. I will certainly be very hesitant buying or recommending Dell in the future. I'm thinking of downgrading the BIOS to see if it helps, but I'm not sure if that's wise.

I have a 7370 that began doing this, confirmed on win10pro and assorted ubuntu flavors. Updated bios to 1.16 (iirc). Wasted hours. Only workaround is that if I plug in a thumb drive the display comes on. Not all thumb drives work. This hack works in both win and ubuntu. It sure seems like there oughta be a bios workaround for this...

What kind of thumb drive are you using? Is it a sure fire way to boot the unit everytime?

I am using a small sandisk USB3 32GB. It does work every time for me. I don't recall which drives did not work. Will be curious to know if this works for anyone else.

On this machine it wakes up the screen after I open the lid. Until I plug in the thumb drive the screen remains black. A couple seconds after plugging in the drive the screen turns on and I can log in normally. i'm not experiencing any boot issues, not sure about those.

Does this wake up the screen? Can this also solve the no boot problem?

I have another work around that is working for me (and I got the idea from the guy who mentioned using a thumb drive).

I plugged in a wireless mouse (I am fairly confident a wired mouse or any USB device, like a thumb drive, will also work), and that is it. As long as that USB device is in the USB port when the screen goes off, then the computer will wake when you click the touchpad or press a key.

This explains why I've had the issue on and off for the past 3 years. I usually leave the little wireless USB receiver for my mouse in the USB slot. Occasionally I'll take it out and use the mouse on a different computer and then forget to put it back on this laptop and I'll just use the touch pad and I'd have the issue with the screen not waking, but I'd never put two and two together. This is still not a really good fix (looking at your Dell) but this little wireless USB receiver is small enough I will just always leave it attached and I should be able to get by. Would someone else be willing to try this on their machine to verify.

Other info about my current machine in case this fix is dependent on something else too.
Dell Inspiron 13 7373
Windows 10 Home with update 20H2
BIOS is 1.17.0
UHD Graphics Driver 26.20.100.7263, A08
USB Wake Support Enabled in BIOS
Using the original motherboard that came with my machine that I bought in March 2017
Everything else up-to-date in Windows and Dell Support as of today 10-30-20

I hope this helps others.

Interesting about how the wireless mouse works for you. That's great, beats the alternative. What model/mfr is it?

I did try an assortment of USB devices including the entry level logitech mouse/kbrd dongle. The only thing that worked for this particular unit was the sandisk thumb drive, which is low profile like the dongle so can be safely left plugged in.

And on this unit, just leaving the thumb drive in does not cause the screen to wake up when the lid is opened, I have to plug it in after I opened the lid. And the other day I did that and it did not wake up the screen. I plugged it into the USB port on the right hand side and it woke it up.

Something is clearly on the hairy edge. I'd still put my money on hardware or bios power management, simply because this is happening on win10 and multiple ubuntu flavors. All just speculation... At this point I don't have the time to fool around with earlier bios versions.

Any bios version has the same problem. I've tried different bios version. I think it's a hardware problem (ssd connection) because I can put the laptop on sleep mode and wake it up when I'm on Windows-to-go connected via usb C. 

There were similar developments from previous posts that you might want to compare with (look for mentions about USB Wake Support; I think @gillyboat from last year gave a good summary on that progress).

My current experience regarding USB devices so far is that if I leave my USB 3.0 Ethernet adapter plugged in before I boot up (not wake from sleep), my laptop will 100% run into this problem.

I would be interested in trying the recent recommendations, may I ask how you have been conducting tests?

Side note: My laptop also runs into this problem whenever I restart my laptop, which is a huge bummer regarding updates (with one exception during a recent Windows update so far). I think the random occurrence rate for this problem on my laptop has been low since I set my screen off and sleep timer to be the same. I still use force shutdown and F2 to get my laptop to properly boot whenever I run into this problem.

I didn't do anything tricky. I literally grabbed a handful of thumb drives and some wireless dongles, and a wifi dongle. Close the lid, wait 10-20sec, open lid, keyboard illuminates, screen is black, touchpad and keyboard do not wake up the screen. Plug in a USB device, wait a few seconds, screen lights up and touchpad and keyboard work. If that doesn't work remove and plug it into another USB port. That's it. That sequence worked reliably for me when I found a drive that did wake up the screen.