Anyone else having freezing issues with Dell Latitude 7490's?

Hello Alan, am very glad reading your comments on this subject matter.  In my own case I suspect is caused by my BIOS, because I have been trying to update it but no luck.

I tried updating on dell support platform but it get hooked at 80%. Also I downloaded the update file but when run it's requesting for BIOS password which I don't have.

Can you help out pls?

It is worked Thanks for suggestion

I reseated my DIMMs a year ago and the computer was fine. Last week, the problem returned - multiple freezes in one day. Opened it up, removed memory modules, re-inserted, and it's fine again. Obviously an issue in the design at Dell on this one.

I believe it is a design flaw of bottom cover, when somebody is trying to move their laptop from one location to another and grabs, the bottom cover deflects/presses against the electronics hence the freeze and not the blue screen. I opened the bottom cover, added some tissue papers in the form of spacers and vola, issue got rectified.

Few months later here. Still no problems. reseating the DIMMS does solve the problem. It's obviously a chassis flex / ram slot issue.

I'd believe that, but, my problem was happening not when putting any force on the bottom cover. All I had to do was pick up the laptop (even "tip" it up) from the left hand side (opposite power button) and I got random BSODs.

It doesn't happen every time, but it is happening quite often. It's as if picking it up from a certain position either causes the board to flex or the cover plate on the bottom to touch a hardware component on the board. The second scenario is when it's docked, it will be working fine, then when I un-dock from the USB-C the screen remains black and is completely unresponsive. 

I bought used 7490 and same issue as described before. Picking from left front corner or applying the pressure and its freezes. I made some very simple modifications and I was able reinforce the bottom cover. I replaced the center screw with longer one because I added a stack of washers (about 4mm altogether) underneath the back cover, that made cover to stay away from the memory modules. (as U may know already the memory modules are reason why it freezes. But that's not it. I added some tape to back cover, right there where it touches the rubber supports on motherboard (they should be a bit higher to protect the memory modules) I added a stack of tape, maybe 1-2mm. Even that's not it, I added a stack of tape to the cover right there where the cover touches memory modules holders. There is a clever trick, check the silver tape on the back cover, there are marks where it connects to rubber supporters and memory module holder. There are marks where memory modules  touch the tape so for the love of good don't but a stack of tape on those marks. To me it was 20 minutes of easy work. I don't take any responsibility.

In our case, we switched the RAM module to the second slot, which is in our case, empty.
It fixed the issue on around 100 devices (Latitude 7480/7490).

We are unable to use second RAM module, as they are broken in some way.

It only happens when picking up the device and moving around. I am still asking how this can pass quality control. Millions of devices designed faulty.

In my case i had to use particular display driver version, newer versions did not help including 30.xx version line from Intel themselves.

File name is Intel-UHD-Graphics-Driver_R8T3C_WIN_27.20.100.9171_A19_01.EXE
But since i have Windows 10 21H2 installer failed with "operating system not supported" I had to unpack driver, use Device Manager/Update driver/Have disk option to force it upon my system. After that laptop runs fine on battery power, no freezes. I deliberately grabbed it by different corners as described here - no freezes.

https://dl.dell.com/FOLDER06980950M/2/Intel-UHD-Graphics-Driver_R8T3C_WIN_27.20.100.9171_A19_01.EXE

Forgot to add link to the driver:
https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-us/drivers/driversdetails?driverid=r8t3c&oscode=wt64a&productcode=latitude-14-7490-laptop

Same frustrating and time-wasting situation here (random unexplainable crashes in both Linux and Windows) but it looks like I finally managed to stabilize the OS.

BTW, a motherboard replacement in the past didn't help, i.e. as soon as the BIOS was updated both Linux and Windows started again crashing randomly.

On Linux, adding i915.disable_dc to kernel parameters does the trick for me (but you may also need to disable C-states).

To stabilize Windows I re-installed as follows:

1. boot from a Linux USB with the above kernel parameter set
2. reboot and install Windows 11
3. apply all Windows 11 updates and reboot as needed (you may see crashes during the process, rebooting into Linux and then Windows seems to help going through); if you updated the BIOS, also reset its configuration to BIOS default settings
4. install Dell Support Assist, update all drivers and reboot as needed
5. from device manager, uninstall the video adapter, including driver files, and reboot; do this until the resolution is clearly lower than possible (and external displays don't work)
6. manually download and install the latest video driver from the Dell support page for the machine

I had tried different solutions with no success earlier, both from this very thread and others, including disabling GPU power-saving and disabling CPU C-states.

I hope this may help others as well as this is a great machine IMO, although with an unfortunate BIOS/drivers history.

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On Linux, adding  i915.disable_dc to kernel parameters does the trick for me (but you may also need to disable C-states).

Correction: i915.enable_dc=0.

You can find more information and options (e.g. for C states) here.

@tony.bowman-licor.com​

I have the same issue, and this sounds like the solution. Is it simple to do? Reseating means taking it out and fitting it better? Have to find a reliable shop then...