Latitude 7400, fan noise, design flaw?

I am experiencing the same issue, fan never shuts up of turns off. General office PC use

Hi - I don't work for Dell.

What is your CPU doing?  If you go to Resource Monitor, what programs are running?

Also, note that I have made other posts about having to use Throttlestop as the 7400 does not seem to use Speed Shift technology as it should (make sure it is ON in BIOS, anyway).

If I do not use Throttlestop to activate speed shift (at level 128), the CPU freq is always maxed.  When I use TS the freq drops to base levels when the CPU is not doing anything.

First, assess what your CPU is doing.  My 7400 seems to work fine now, though of course I am using business apps and not gaming, etc.

R

@hefty-merv,

We have sent you a private message regarding the issue you have reported. Feel free to reach out to us. ^KR 

Yes. I just got the same Dell 7400 to replace a 4 yr old Dell. I am using on a thunderbolt dock with dual display and the PC is closed. At home which is quiet most of the time, the loud fan noise is really annoying, so much so that I have put the Laptop in my top draw filing cabinet to minimize the sound. 

My old Dell did not have this issue and most of the time the fan was off, so agree this seems to be a design issue that Dell have not got right.

I have also noted a 2nd issue that I did not have on my old Dell. When using the PC audio for conference calls, all audio appears to have some echo and so it sounds like everyone is talking in a tunnel or empty room. I have tried playing with some of the audio settings. But as I use my PC a lot for telephone calls, this is equally annoying. At this point I am not happy with this new 7400.

I will discussing with my IT folks if I can switch out this 7400 Dell for a MAC, which was the other option.

Regards

BH - Bay Area, CA

I agree with regards to the LAN port. We've had the same problem with the Dell laptops producing a lot of fan noise. Tooks us a couple of weeks to figure out that Microsoft Teams was the cause and to be specific, this setting Disable GPU hardware acceleration.  Enabling this setting solved the issue. Have you checked which process is causing the high CPU load ?

Had teams on mine, unistalled and made a little difference. Still works up quickly if I have a few browser windows open.

I don't think it's teams per say but it's easily demonstrated with it. When plugged in the cpu never throttles down.

I recorded task manager while on teams meeting and unplugged, the cpu sits at 0.8Ghz - 1Ghz with about 20-30% usage. As soon as you plug it in, the cpu speed goes up to 3Ghz- 4Ghz with about the same 20%-30%usage. Ofcourse sitting at 3Ghz - 4Ghz for a few minutes, the fan starts up like a jet engine.

Not sure how I can share this video.

Turn off Intel Turbo Boost in the bios, it's much quieter, and only a bit slower for most workloads

this is shameful to buy so expensive buisness laptop and got so poor quality...

do you know which models  in Dell's familly  are good and hasn't this symptoms ? or maybe You have idea which brand has got the model adressed to buisness with good screen and good cooling system and good temperature on housing ?

of course quality in my opinion in last post = thermal stabilization of laptop and fan's noise production. The rest keyboard, material which is used to make this laptop, good design.  good touch option, good fingerprint reader, 

what step ? I have only one piece and i managed to call DELL SUPPORT  they agreed a technician and he changed a motherboard and complete heatsink with FAN, thermal conductive paste. In this moment i wondering to sell this laptop and buy more comfortable model with more efficiency cooling system and little bit better screen (brighter)

@lakatus, Can you share how you came to this conclussion ?

What troubleshooting steps did you try ?

Do all of Latitude 7400's laptops in your possesion exhibit the same behaviour ?
At work we have like 10 those 7400 laptops but only 2 display this behaviour. 1 managed to solve but I think that other might be some hardware issue.

Hi - in my case I do not believe it is hardware.  If I run Throttlestop (as previously mentioned in this thread) the clock runs exactly as it should.

If I had to guess, my problem is related to some bug in the BIOS and speed shift, OR it is related to Dell Power Manager and the thermal profiles.

Some people are complaining about something different when it is related to a docking station or other peripherals.

My symptoms do not change regardless of what the system is driving or how it is powered (USB C PD or the power adapter).

R

How did you configure ThrottleStop? I installed ist, activated EPP and set it to 128, but FIVR tells me the EPP is 178 and I don't recognize any change compared to the behavior without Throttlestop