Fan Malfunction Lattitude 7380

Question

Good day,

I have a user with a Dell Latitude 7380 laptop which developed an issue with the CPU fan. One morning the user told me she's getting a warning/error prompt when booting up the laptop and the message says:

Fan malfunction. Press F1 key to retry boot. press F2 for Setup utility. Press F5 for onboard Diagnostics.

I have performed the F5 diagnostics multiple times and each time it passes everything. It does do a CPU fan test, whereby I can hear the fan spin up for a second or two. Does the fan actually work? Yes. If I do a stress test within Windows the fan spins up and does what its supposed to.

I have since updated all drivers and BIOS to the version 1.11.1 and now to the latest version 1.12.1 and this does not fix the problem. The user has told me now it sounds like the laptop wants to take off. When I had a look again, the fan sounds like its spinning up then slowing down again, spinning up and slowing down constantly. It's almost as if the controller for the fan is faulty. It spins up and down like this constantly and goes on until the laptop cools down.

There's two things I've found:

If I go into Bios Setup and restore BIOS settings to factory default or Bios default settings, the fan spin up/spin down noise goes away. This normally lasts for a few days until the problem re-occurs.

Secondly, I've seen that if the user puts laptop in sleep mode (closes lid) whilst fan is working normally (without issue) when the laptop re-opens the fan starts spinning uncontrollably again. This is also whilst the laptop is connected to Dell Docking Station USB Type-C device. I'm not sure this occurs every time, I'm still testing this theory and will update when I have more info.

I have googled this and scanned these Dell forums and found other users complaining of similar issues but nothing I've read helped me fix the problem. I'm beginning to think it could be faulty fan or motherboard, but it is strange that resetting BIOS settings seems to clear the issue.

Thanks in advance

ShootyYou · Accepted Answer

I eventually sent the laptop back for warranty RMA as I suspected fan controller to be faulty. It was replaced by Dell and the laptop works without issue now.

ellepsis · Answer

I have a Dell Latitude 7490 laptop, and I was faced with a similar issue. Usually, the fan runs smoothly, but sometimes it starts working as a pump, increasing and decreasing the revolutions about once per second.

After restarting, a fan failure message is also displayed, prompting you to run diagnostics by pressing f5. Diagnostics do not find problems, and after that the message about "fan failure" sometimes disappears on subsequent launches.

I have the latest BIOS version (1.6). Resetting BIOS settings to factory settings also does not help. Sometimes a reboot solves the problem.

It seems to me that this “pumping” effect occurs when the fan exceeds a certain frequency, or when it sharply raises the frequency. After the fan slows down, the next starts can be smooth even without rebooting.

I did some stress tests. The sound of the fan processor increases smoothly for 1 minute, after which it operates at a constant speed without any jumps in rotational speeds. The temperature of the processor is kept at values of about 75-80 C.

ShootyYou · Answer

Thanks for the reply - our issues sound the same. The fan does have a pumping sound, like a whoosh whoosh whoosh noise as it speeds up and slows down over and over and over (Can go on for 5 or 10 minutes). Agreed Diagnostics find nothing wrong. I have the suspicion that this issue is linked to updating the BIOS.

The issue on the same laptop just started to present itself once again since I made the last post.

Has Dell got a fix for this issue or should I just RMA this laptop? Its under warranty and quite frankly, I don't feel like doing Dell's job for them in trying to diagnose under what conditions this keeps happening.

I have a Latitude 7390 laptop which works wonderfully, so I'll likely move the user on to this and RMA the 7380 if I don't get any useful information to fix this issue.

PS. On this 7390 I kept default BIOS and did not update... no swoosh swoosh fan noise!

ShootyYou · Answer

This guy might be on to something:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ughnEQL_Fks

When he mentions that the BIOS tells the motherboard not to send energy/power to the fan.

If you read my issue - the laptop suffers from two different issues.

One - upon boot the BIOS/Laptop doesn't detect the fan and says the fan is not functioning and it halts the boot process. Diagnostics do not find anything wrong.

Two - The fan sometimes spins abnormally and makes a swoosh swoosh swoosh noise as it speeds up and slows down. This typically occurs either when the laptop comes out of sleep mode or from a cold boot. It's not always - but sometimes. And as I say, a BIOS reset seems to clear this problem for days/weeks until it re-occurs.

Huckleback · Answer

I have Dell Precision 3520 and I am facing similar issue. I was trying to run diagnostics bug it never found anything. I was usually able to get rid of the noise by running some performance intensive tasks and after a fan started spinning at the highest speed then the issue disappeared but reoccurred after some weeks/months. Recently I found following thread: http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/dellfancmd-%E2%80%93-tool-to-enable-manual-custom-control-of-the-laptop-fans.827106/ and it was really helpful because I was able to execute following command:

DellFanCmd.exe ec-disable

It also set the fan to run at "100%" and after a while I executed second command:

DellFanCmd.exe ec-enable

And the issue was gone. Today I wasn't able to get rid of the noise for about 2 hours and half. I executed diagnostics again and it finally found the error:

Error code: 2000-0511
Validation: 121855
Fan - The (Processor Fan) fan failed to respond correctly

raf2222 · Answer

Thanks man for this tool. It is very useful but only allow 0%, 50% and 100% fan speed.

ap012345 · Answer

i have a similar issue (latitude 7480). were you able to solve this?

krnotley · Answer

I'm really amazed that Dell has had this problem for so long and has done nothing fundamental about it. I bought a Vostro 7590 in early May 2020, and it started failing immediately. After the usual phone consult, time waste, Dell sent someone to replace the motherboard, but afterward, he said the fan had failed, and that he would order a new one and be out in a few days.

Silence.

I called Dell, and nothing had been done. A repairman was sent with a fan, which of course, didn't work. After Dell attempted to convince me it was OK to be without a PC for 5 days while they fixed absolutely everything and return it "like new" (that's called a "refurb"), I told them I wanted a really new replacement for their lemon.

After waiting 2 weeks for the replacement, they cancelled the order--turns out they didn't have the working parts to build the Vostro 7590 that works. I'm now waiting, and waiting, and waiting for them to build a new laptop, new model to replace the lemon.

I've had Dell units for 30 years, but never, ever imagined I would have to deal with such rotten corporate service. And despite the fact the unit is a lemon, it's holding up extremely well with the fan used to cool the monitor. But I'm careful with it.

Awadov · Answer

I have the same issue now. How can I measure the temperature? I can't touch the laptop top during this time ... too much heat from the fan side.

ted22 · Answer

Thanks for your post.. I've been living with this error for 1 year.

( 1)My PC is silent, does not heat up

So why the error alert?

I will try some of these suggestions. If I fail..I am OK using the PC as it is..just the nuisance error msg!

DELL AIO PC BOOTING ERROR
OptiPlex 9030 AIO PC
Alert ! Power supply fan failure .
To continue press F1 key
To change setup option press F2 key To run onboard diagnostics press F5 key

GiovaX12210 · Answer

perodon, fue innecesario si el ventilador realmente esta giran disculpen las molestias

GiovaX12210 · Answer

Yo también lo estoy experimentando pero en una DELL Latitude 7490

-Procesador Intel Core i5 6th Gen

-Almacenamiento SSD

-Memoria RAM de 8GB

Lo mismo con el acelerar y desacelerar de los ventiladores y el mensaje de mal funcionamiento de los ventiladores. Pero me doi cuenta que el mensaje es innecesario por que realmente si estan girando.

Pero hablando de los otros problemas te recomiendo instalar la App de Support Asist que puedes descargar en la pagina official de DELL.

Solución 1 a estos problemas.

(No he hecho esta solución pero ok) Hacerle un downgrade a los controladores

Solución 2

Downgrade a la BIOS, ya que es la encargada de manejar toda la PC

Solución 3

Si es posible, desarma el equipo para ver si el problema persiste dentro de la PC.

Solucion 4 y final

Cambiar el ventilador por uno nuevo, es que según youtubers y otros de la comunidad, dicen que las laptops de DELL tienen un severo problema con la ventilación

(OJO) No significa que sean malas, son muy rapidas, hasta le corren fortnite (En modo rendimiento)

GiovaX12210 · Answer

INNECESARIO

ISOBOT · Answer

My DELL Latitude 5591 had a fan malfunction issue after just having updated the BIOS and drivers. The cause however was unrelated to them or dust or vent blockage. The issue is DELL laptops are very sensitive to being carried in a backpack or laptop bag. Even the slightest bouncing causes these fans to throw out the error. Dell obviously is aware of this sensitive issue and has done nothing o fix it. DELL used to be a reputable name.

Tony525 · Answer

What I find incredibly bizzare is the error message displayed by the BIOS during POST "Alert ! Power supply fan failure .". Power supply fan failure? Huh?

If I was a betting man I have been servicing Dells since early P3 days: desktops, laptops,AiO, servers. Based on that it's a feedback problem from the temp sensor that's confusing the heck out of the fan voltage controller. If so this is a chipset problem buried deeply inside the mainboard. The next time my 7380 starts sounding like a steam train I'll will fire up HWInfo and I am sure I will see voltage fluctuations. I wish I could explain the power supply fan error since one doesn't exist other than the chipset wasn't wired up just right and who knows what goes on in the BIOS to flag that error. Technically this isn't a Dell error, whoever supplied the chipset as a one size fits all missed something.

Latitude

Fan Malfunction Lattitude 7380

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