Latitude 7450 Owners' Thread

Also does anyone know how to turn off the backlight on the F4 button? I can't find an option anywhere in the bios

 

It is unusual to see such concentrated bright areas. They could be caused by the bottom part of the display (where the backlight is located) being squeezed. Maybe the problem is with the bezel. Are the bright patches noticeable in normal use?

You can upload an image using the "Upload a File" button below the right side of the message reply box.

Regarding the light on / under the F4 key, the light on top is triggered when you mute the microphone with Fn+F4. The key cap backlights can be seen under the keys if you sit back in a slumped position. All the backlights are controlled together using Fn+F10. Each press of that key combination cycles the backlight control through Low - High - Off - Low ......

John

 

That's very much like the sample I'm working with. When the display is active, it's not as noticeable, but then the light falloff at the top edge is severe. (almost looks like there is a drop shadow)

Interesting that the image there looks nearly identical to what I observed.

 

The picture was taken at maximum brightness. I normally use the laptop at a dimmer level, about halfway so those patches aren't noticeable unless the whole screen or bottom section of it is black. Nevertheless, I can always see it during the windows 7 loading/start up.

Funny thing, the bezel was also replaced along with the screen. This was because my initial warranty claim was for a faulty bezel that wasn't glued on properly. The technician whilst replacing it saw the light bleed and suggested that the screen should be replaced as well. So both the bezels and screen were replaced, but the light bleed still won't go away...

My laptop didn't come with a microphone, so I guess it's permanently muted? Even if the backlight on the keyboard is off (FN+F10), the tiny circle on the F4 key remains lit.


Also I don't see the "Upload a File" button...Below the right side of the message reply box are the "Post Reply" and "More Options" buttons

 

I think your photo would be sufficient to get Dell to send someone to do a further screen replacement.

That's a nasty side-effect of not having a microphone. Maybe, if you have another visit by a technician then they may be willing to pull off the key cap so you can paint the LED with a black marker pen in order to dim the light. Or you may feel brave enough to try removing the key cap yourself. They normally use a scissors mechanism which clips together.

Did you check under More Options for the Upload button? If it isn't there then it may magically appear soon. The forum is set to have reduced functionality for people with limited post counts in order to suppress spam.

John

 

Here's some thermal images of my E7450 after running DoTA 2 for ~15 minutes.

i7-5600U, GeForce 840M


Please note the 840M is overclocked core to 1260Mhz and it's memory to 1100Mhz.










There shouldn't have been any throttling when I removed the battery as I was using a 130W AC Adapter that came with my dock.






I have the raw images so let me know if you want me to add additional measurements etc.

Measurements are not emissivity corrected but that shouldn't be a huge deal as most surfaces were matte. I used 0.95.

 

I have swapped the 500G HDD in my E7450 with a Samsung msata 850 EVO 500 GB SSD (installed in the interposer frame). The system is configured for AHCI and I am running Windows 7 x64.

For some reason Samsung Magician tell me start the SSD is only running at SATA2 speed (3 Gb/s). It seems that something i preventing the SSD from running SATA3 (6 Gb/s).

Is this a restriction imposed by the msata bracket. Are anyone else haveing this issue?

 

That's a lot hotter than when I checked out my E7450 using 3DMark. I wonder what the power drain at the mains socket is? Is the fan blowing out a lot of hot air?

I presume that the images of the insides were taken with the bottom off which may have worsened the airflow since the air would be sucked by the fan directly and not passing over the components. Nonetheless, the keyboard area looks uncomfortably hot. Was it too hot to touch?

My 1TB 840 mSATA has no speed problem but Samsung Magician is confused about the interface because it is in Dell's RAID mode. Did you run any performance benchmark? Anything above 300MB/s is SATA 3 (actually a bit less due to handshaking overheads). Samsung Magician includes a benchmark but you can use CrystalDiskMark for a second opinion.

John

 

I have made the reading below for the E7450, my stationary PC and my ThinkPad X240. It seems that there is indeed some issue with the E7450.

I am using a DELL msata interposer that bought of ebay. It might be from an E7440 but I would assume that its the same parts being used for the E7450. Also, I reused the SATA cable from the HDD.

It's very strange. The SSD version is running SATA3 (and is very fast) in the X240, while the msata version in the E7450 seems to be stuck running SATA2.

 

Thank you for the extra info. I think it's far more likely to be a driver issue than the interposer (mSATA on the E7440 also runs at SATA 3).

In Device Manager you can try seeing if Driver Update for (i) the storage device and (ii) the storage controller find a better driver which fixes the problem. If that doesn't work then you can try removing these devices in Device Manager and rebooting so that Windows can redetect the hardware.

John