Dell Latitude 7480 Laptop that freezes up

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@SurgeM wrote:

Hi Alan thanks for the quick replys

Can you help with a few more details please - 

a) These systems that are freezing, is it when you disconnect them from the dock that they freeze or is it when they are used off the dock in general they freeze?

Off the dock in general - it does not happen when you disconnect, just when they are being used on battery or AC power

b) Is it a hard lockup where you have to restart the system or is it a soft freeze and windows fixes itself and the system can continue to be used?

Hard lockup, complete failure, have left a machine on the lockup overnight and it never unfreezes.

c) You mentioned the following statement - I ran one of the affected machines in SAFE MODE for 1 hour so far and it does NOT freeze up - was that using the system off the dock?

Yes Safe Mode seems to prevent whatever is causing the lockups when off the dock, just not sure what component that it is disabling to fix it, network adapters possibly?

I look forward to your reply.

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@SurgeM

Thanks for the clarification, I am full agreement with you that it's definitely something within the Windows environment that is causing this and I think you may be correct with it being driver related. Identifying the exact driver may be more difficult.

If possible, during use can you have the task manager running in the bottom corner of the screen to see if something is causing these lockups

Also, during use could you, or the user, use the system as normal and note down the time when the system lock up occurs and once you have restarted the system check Event Viewer and export the log from that time so we can analyse them to see if we can pick up on what's happening.

Lastly, apart from the dock, do you have any external devices connected to the system at all?

Alan

The same issue with 7480 on my side. Here what happens:

1. Never freezes while connected to docking station

2. Randomly freezes after few minutes, either just freezes with unresponsive mouse and keyboard or with 0% progress blue screen

3. Uninstalling video driver helps. I had it with MS Basic Video Driver for more than a week without freezing

4. Installed video driver 02 and it freezes immediately after boot

5. With any other video driver version it freezes

6. OEM Windows installed

Hrvoje

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@BasicH wrote:

The same issue with 7480 on my side. Here what happens:

1. Never freezes while connected to docking station

2. Randomly freezes after few minutes, either just freezes with unresponsive mouse and keyboard or with 0% progress blue screen

3. Uninstalling video driver helps. I had it with MS Basic Video Driver for more than a week without freezing

4. Installed video driver 02 and it freezes immediately after boot

5. With any other video driver version it freezes

6. OEM Windows installed

 

Hrvoje

 

 

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@BasicH, thanks for adding to the thread. The more information I have really helps. As per my response to @SurgeM can you also check the following -

If possible, during use can you have the task manager running in the bottom corner of the screen to see if something is causing these lockups

Also, during use could you, or the user, use the system as normal and note down the time when the system lock up occurs and once you have restarted the system check Event Viewer and export the log from that time so we can analyse them to see if we can pick up on what's happening.

I also drop you a private message to get some tag details from you.

Alan

No other external devices connected... We have searched through the event logs multiple times and there is no abnormal events logged before the freezing, it is instantaneous- and then the logs continue afterwords with the normal 'unexpected shutdown' etc... from holding the power button. I will see if I can collect some for you when I have some time today in case we are missing something.

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@SurgeM wrote:

 

No other external devices connected... We have searched through the event logs multiple times and there is no abnormal events logged before the freezing, it is instantaneous- and then the logs continue afterwords with the normal 'unexpected shutdown' etc... from holding the power button. I will see if I can collect some for you when I have some time today in case we are missing something.

DELL-AlanD
Social Media Support
#IWork4Dell
I'm based in the UK and I'm usually available Monday to Friday 9am-4pm GMT
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@SurgeM, thanks for the update, I look forward to the logs.

Alan

We are using the same image for all laptops, and have a whole pile of 7480s (146 total) and 7490s (27 total) that do not exhibit this issue. 

User has not seen the blue-screen, but it continues to lock up off of the dock. User took the dock home with him over the weekend, and the machine behaved fine, at home, on the dock, but locked up off of it. Strangest thing.

Drivers are all updated. BIOS is updated. All using the Dell Command Update tool.

Machines are imaged with Windows 10 1709 using KACE, with drivers downloaded via KACE from Dell.

Basically, what SurgeM is seeing with their 7480, I'm seeing with this 7490, with the added twist of I can't downgrade the video driver. I can set it to the Microsoft default video driver, but that won't support external displays on the dock.

My next move is to re-image with the Dell Restore tool to the OEM image.

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@krwright wrote:

We are using the same image for all laptops, and have a whole pile of 7480s (146 total) and 7490s (27 total) that do not exhibit this issue. 

User has not seen the blue-screen, but it continues to lock up off of the dock. User took the dock home with him over the weekend, and the machine behaved fine, at home, on the dock, but locked up off of it. Strangest thing.

Drivers are all updated. BIOS is updated. All using the Dell Command Update tool.

Machines are imaged with Windows 10 1709 using KACE, with drivers downloaded via KACE from Dell.

Basically, what SurgeM is seeing with their 7480, I'm seeing with this 7490, with the added twist of I can't downgrade the video driver. I can set it to the Microsoft default video driver, but that won't support external displays on the dock.

My next move is to re-image with the Dell Restore tool to the OEM image.

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@krwright going by the information that has been provided by others I don't believe the freezing issue is connected with the image and whether it's OEM. We can also rule out it being connected to the 1803 Windows update as you are not yet running it and also experiencing the issue. I suspect it's driver related as the issue doesn't appear until you enter Windows. Other users have advised through testing that you can leave the system on the lock screen and it will not hang. As of today a few drivers have been released : - 

Docking Station network driver this may take case of the performance issues encountered with the docking station in conjcuntion with the BIOS released last month for both systems. It can be downloaded here - https://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/04/drivers/driversdetails?driverId=G8VCP

Depending on the hardware configuration (Inetl or Qualcomm) both the wireless and bluetooth drivers were also updated. They are the same drivers for both the 7480 and 7490. I would recommend updating all 3 drivers and letting me know if it improves the stability of the systems or if the lock ups still occur both on and off the dock.

Alan

I just installed the drivers you pointed to with an 8/7/2018 date, the system locked up about 30 seconds after I unplugged it from dock. Our team does not have the bandwidth to spend more time troubleshooting these affected machines, I am most likely going to have to call in and get them replaced. I don't see how it can be a driver issue when 95% of the machines are OK but 5% are failing with the same software. I think there may be a hardware component starting to fail, hopefully this does not spread any further

Just based on what I am seeing, I believe the blue screen and the lockup are a result of the same problem. When the blue screen is thrown, it never reboots, it is frozen on the blue screen at "0% Complete". I think they are both a result of the same root cause. Thank you I will PM you my information

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@SurgeM wrote:

I just installed the drivers you pointed to with an 8/7/2018 date, the system locked up about 30 seconds after I unplugged it from dock. Our team does not have the bandwidth to spend more time troubleshooting these affected machines, I am most likely going to have to call in and get them replaced. I don't see how it can be a driver issue when 95% of the machines are OK but 5% are failing with the same software. I think there may be a hardware component starting to fail, hopefully this does not spread any further

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@SurgeM thanks for the clarification on testing the latest drivers. Whilst I understand your frustrations, I'm not confident that replacing the motherboard is going to completely resolve the issue. 

The issue we have is that there appears to be 2 separate issues here - freezing / lock ups and the bluescreens. So while one issue may be resolved by drivers, the other may require hardware replacement. 

I read back through the posts from page 1 with numerous other posters posting the same fault with numerous mentions of motherboard, SSD and memory replaced multiple time and the issue was still present, whereas others have had motherboards replaced on multiple systems with only some systems actually working fine rather than all. There is a BIOS update due for this system along with an updated graphics driver. It could well be that you need a motherboard replacement and the driver/BIOS update in order to resolve this issue.

I am going to escalate this further given your unique situation to see how we go about getting the best resolution for you. I'll drop you a private message for some more details.

Alan

Hi,

I was Using Dell Laptop From few years I didn't face any issue then after few months an issue has been arises which are freezing issue then I changed my laptop and I brought Apple Ipad in that also I am facing Apple Application Error which I have solved from Apple Application Support.

Hello,,

I'm just picking-up that thread to bring my testimony on this "7480 Freeze Up".

We have several laptops freshly delivered by Dell experiencing this error.

It occurs always after the following sequence.

Laptop is not connected to any device: no network, no docking station, no mouse, no keyboard, no screen attached.

Only connection is the power supply.

Laptop is running on Windows 7, all drivers and BIOS have been updated with Dell Command Update.

Power-on the laptop, Windows is loaded up to the "Control + Alt + Del" to log-on.

Disconnect the power supply: laptop freeze up.

The same is happening when connected to the docking station WD15.

When starting on Windows safe mode it never happened..

The Freeze Up" was happening first in normal operational configuration: docking station, network, mouse, keyboard and screen connected while the user was undocking the laptop to move in a meeting.

We tried to eliminate all potential causes, and finally we ended the simplified configuration described above, and were able to systematically creating the error just unplugging the power supply.

We tried different Dell power supply delivering different power from 65w to 130.

It should be noted that we run at the boot during several hours the ePSA test without any errors even when disconnecting and reconnecting the power. We could monitor on the test screen the good use of either the power supply or the battery as well as the battery cycle charge.

So far Dell France support did not help us either than telling us to restore the Windows 10 factory built !!!

Hi,

as Alan suggested, I took the latest updates and installed the following:

1. BIOS update

2. Network driver

3. Dock driver

4. Video driver

The results are:

It looks like updating the drivers resolved the problem with system freezing when disconnecting from the dock. Yesterday I was running the laptop the whole evening on either battery or charger and I almost thought it was all resolved but today again it froze. Just like that, nothing has changed, all programs running as yesterday, nothing new installed. I restarted (off-on) and after 30 seconds it froze again. I'm running now on dock and it works normally without any issues.

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@Vildasha wrote:

We are having the same issue with E7480. Sometime it freezes and only hard reboot possible, sometime it bluescreens all the sudden with "WHEA_Uncollectable_Error" message and freezes again when collecting the dump, so can not check the dump to check with bluescreen view. It is not happening when connected to docking station, mostly when moving laptop from one location to other and also when laptop is slightly bumped on something. All drivers and BIOS up to date.

Downgraded video driver to this as suggested. Will see it if resolves the issue.

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@Vildasha, thanks for getting in touch, I look forward to hearing how you get on. Downgrading the video driver may improve stability but will not resolve the issue with the system. From previous responses it has helped other users, but others have noticed very little or no difference from rolling it back. We are waiting on an updated BIOS and graphics driver to resolve the issue.

Alan

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@Ponos wrote:

Hello,,

I'm just picking-up that thread to bring my testimony on this "7480 Freeze Up".

We have several laptops freshly delivered by Dell experiencing this error.

It occurs always after the following sequence.

Laptop is not connected to any device: no network, no docking station, no mouse, no keyboard, no screen attached.

Only connection is the power supply.

Laptop is running on Windows 7, all drivers and BIOS have been updated with Dell Command Update.

Power-on the laptop, Windows is loaded up to the "Control + Alt + Del" to log-on.

Disconnect the power supply: laptop freeze up.

The same is happening when connected to the docking station WD15.

When starting on Windows safe mode it never happened..

The Freeze Up" was happening first in normal operational configuration: docking station, network, mouse, keyboard and screen connected while the user was undocking the laptop to move in a meeting.

We tried to eliminate all potential causes, and finally we ended the simplified configuration described above, and were able to systematically creating the error just unplugging the power supply.

We tried different Dell power supply delivering different power from 65w to 130.

It should be noted that we run at the boot during several hours the ePSA test without any errors even when disconnecting and reconnecting the power. We could monitor on the test screen the good use of either the power supply or the battery as well as the battery cycle charge.

So far Dell France support did not help us either than telling us to restore the Windows 10 factory built !!!

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Hi @Ponos thanks for your contribution to the thread. As I understand it the freezing is connected to an error in the video driver. This has been fed back to Intel to develop a newer driver revision to resolve it. The combination of this updated driver plus a new BIOS that is due out out in the very near future should resolve the freezing / lock up and bluescreen issues that yourself and others have reported. 

In regards to the recommendation from French support to install Windows 10, that is the recommended troubleshooting step as Windows 7 is not supported on these systems. Were can only provide support on operating systems that were shipped with the system. 

Alan