Latitude 7470 Owners' Thread

I think that the BIOS looks to see if a fan is connected before proceeding with the boot process (did you try a simple disconnect / reconnect of the fan?). It might be worthwhile putting in a replacement fan to see if that will fix the problem although there's the passibility that the fan acted as a generator and zapped something on the mainboard.

John

 

That's my guess as well. I usually hold the fan in place with something and then clean it out. Sorry to hear it speedy1979.

 

Disconnecting the fan does nothing.

 

Assuming that you then plugged it back in (no connected fan will stop the BIOS proceeding to load), the next step is to try another fan. Any fan with the same connector might be suitable for this test even if it's the wrong size for the notebook.

John

 

So tired a new fan and still no post. Out of curiosity I connected the fan to a multi-meter while using canned air and I barely got up to 1 volt; 0.5 thru 0.7 were common.

 

It seems that I managed to lose the cover of the SD card slot... Does anyone know where I can find one?
A quick search on eBay brings back several and different (among each other) results, so I don't really know if it fit in my 7470.

 

Put a micro-SD to SD adapter into the slot - it fills it nicely and means that you have the capability to read micro-SD cards without having to look for an adapter.

John

 

Hello everybody,

I have an issue with the battery level of my Dell 7470 since I've received from Dell Outlet, last year. It was a certified refurbished unit.

A lot of times, when the battery charge level reaches something between 15 - 20%, the percentage will suddenly drop to 6% and Windows 10 displays a warning with critical low battery charge. It doesn't happen every time, but around 2 out of 3 times. It is quite annoying when it happens. Windows displays that you still have 30 minutes on battery and then suddenly drops to 5 minutes.

I had the battery exchanged on warranty, but it behaves exactly the same with the new battery. So for sure is not a battery issue. I upgraded the BIOS to the latest version, but I still have the issue. Could it be a motherboard issue ?

Thanks.

 

It might be a battery calibration problem which means that the chip in the battery hasn't got an accurate set of voltage-charge data. You can recalibrate by (i) fully charging the battery; (ii) fully discharging the battery. The last part of this needs to be at the BIOS screen as Windows automatically shuts down / hibernates when it there's a few % remaining; then (iii) fully recharging the battery.

Or it may be that Windows changes the reported charge remaining (I've never figured out how the reserve battery level interacts with the low battery and critical battery). You can run BatteryInfoView which provides some useful data on the battery.

I would also note that it's not good for the long term battery heath to be regularly discharged below 20%. If you are finding that the battery struggles to give you enough time away from a power outlet then consider getting a higher capacity battery.

John

 

Hi John,

Thank you for your message. I remember that with the original battery, I did exactly the battery calibration procedure that you mentioned, but the issue remained. I will try it again with this replacememnt battery and let you know of the results. I have the new battery installed in January this year. Most of the time I used the laptop with the charger connected to it and I limit the charge level to 65% to protect the battery, but from time to time I need it on battery too.

I have the BatteryInfoView already installed and I'm using its logging feature. When the issue appears, the BatteryInfoView clearly shows in the log that the charge drops from 15% - 20% directly to 6%. I can post some logs if you think you can figure out more on this issue from the logs.