New Latitude 5470

Yes, that's correct. Although it happens even with the Transcend removed. My XPS 15 is temporarily unusable (broken power jack, and I wasn't able to borrow a spare USB-C dock from work ) and I've been using the E5470 yesterday and today (part is coming tomorrow) and I got the shutdown even with just 16GB in it (one 16GB module.)

The memory modules (I have one here since the other is out) are DDR4-2133 16-chip 16GB each CT16G4SFD8213.M16FB 1.2V Cl15

I may swap all the way back down to the original 8GB DIMM, or pick up a replacement battery to see if that helps.

Doing fine with the Sandisk X400 1TB (SATA M.2, not NVMe though.)

Worked great plugged in. My power-related shutdown problems started when I put it in, but given that I'm still seeing those problems even with other bits taken out I'm inclined to think it might be unrelated; I'm wondering if I somehow damaged the motherboard or battery.

That's where I got mine.

--

Overall, after using the XPS for 5 months I'm pretty amazed at how happy I am to be back on the E5470 and if I can fix the battery shutdown problem (or talk Dell into it) I am half inclined to go back to this for day to day. Keyboard and touchpad ergonomics are hugely better, and without the HiDPI the general "snappiness" of windows is actually better despite a modestly slower processor.

If I do go back to this, I definitely need to get an NVMe drive. The little bit of work I did today on it (I mostly still use a desktop) was fine for CPU stuff even with only 16GB but waiting for indexing was painful on SATA.

 

I am thinking as well it is due to the SSD. To me happens even with original memory of 8GB. And SSD i got with it is SanDisk SD8SB8U256G1122 (X4140000) of 256GB. This is NOT laptop's original drive, it was manufactured with HDD. The previous owner put that SSD. When I was buying the laptop, I was going to install Linux and test it at the sight. I put the Fedora USB in, and unplugged the power, and all of the sudden seller basically became nervous, started saying he does not have time, and I should install Fedora on the bus on the way home. Which I did, and got one shutdown on the way. Did not think much about it. It was with 8GB and with SSD SanDisk SD8SB8U256G1122 (X4140000). Battery and laptop were already year and a half old at the time, now it is well over 2 years.

Maybe related to that, when doing SSD write operations, I get some kind of coil whine, but much different than my X220T which whines when saving power.

Today i got CT16G4SFD824A crucial memory because I thought it is 8 chip per module. When it arived i counted the chips it is 16 per module. I already arranged to return it, without even trying. I tried memory it does exactly same as Kingston I have. Only thing I wanted it for, it is because I saw 8 chip picture and 2048Meg so it means 2GB per chip. But got 16chip with 1GB per chip.

I stressed it with linux stress utility and seems it is shutting down when battery is less than 50 percent. It does not happen over 50. I did testing with 32GB of Crucial ram i just returned. Also it mostly shuts down when doing disk operations. So I will probably test it with mechanical HDD when I get time to pull out one from my thinkpad. I think that 2.5 SATA SSDs are all more power hungry, and this laptop only comes with mechanical HDDs and with m.2 SSDs, so that is what I should try. And with SSD, not exceed spec.

 

Since it is weekend, had some time to do more testing and thinking. Not yet tried with mechanical HDD, for that I would need to take apart Thinkpad X220T and can't do that right now. But I did strest esting and checking battery voltage in linux. Shutdowns happen when battery is giving less than 7.3V. It starts with 9.2V or so, and while discharging it goes down with voltage. I have big battery, I think it is 62Whr but little degraded. Here are output in Linux

sudo upower -i `upower -e | grep 'BAT'`
native-path: BAT0
vendor: Samsung SDI
model: DELL TXF9M69
serial: 33928
power supply: yes
updated: Sat 07 Oct 2017 04:30:37 PM CEST (109 seconds ago)
has history: yes
has statistics: yes
battery
present: yes
rechargeable: yes
state: fully-charged
warning-level: none
energy: 61.9932 Wh
energy-empty: 0 Wh
energy-full: 61.9932 Wh
energy-full-design: 61.9932 Wh
energy-rate: 3.6632 W
voltage: 8.471 V
percentage: 100%
capacity: 83.9157%
technology: lithium-polymer
icon-name: 'battery-full-charged-symbolic'

It is on AC right now so does not give 9V. It is 7.4V battery. And I found on eBay a battery that is part number NGGX5 with declared 11.14v 47wh. It says it is compatible with e5470 and e5270. So I did little research, it seems that 5270 supports 16GB ram and has only one slot. So I think this battery can pull 16GB modules. But I have my doubts. I find it very peculiar why is this not better documented on Dell site, and I am little scared that 11V battery might burn motherboard.

What do you guys think about this? Should I try? And if it works, how much runtime of this battery I can get? If I can get 4 hours with low brightness but with 32GB and full reliability (no shutdowns before 1% battery) I would be extremely satisfied. I would even stockpile 2 or 3 batteries for future so I have it when first one degrades.

 

Notebooks often support different battery voltages. A single lithium cell is around 3.7V. Two cells in series gives 7.4V and three gives 11.1V. I'm not sure how the computer checks the battery voltage. Perhaps the information is held in the chip in the battery which is responsible for charge management.

I reckon that, under light usage with a dim display, you should get a power drain of 4W to 6W. You can find out for yourself using BatteryInfoView. 6W average power drain should give around 7 hours (there are always some spikes in power consumption). If your power drain is above 6W under light usage then you need to find out what's guzzling the juice. You should also try to avoid draining the battery below about 10% (20% is even better) as full depletion is bad for the Lithium chemistry.

John

PS: I was checking for driver updates for my Precision 5510 and noticed this "Urgent" Intel Rapid Storage Driver. " Enhanced system power consumption and stability." I appreciate that you are running Linux so that update isn't applicable but it points to a know issue with SATA and system stability.

 

I don't get how my 62-whr battery is specified at 7.5v and gives up to 9 and decreases as discharges under 7.5V and causes shutdowns when it is under 50%.

And the smaller 48whr battery I am looking to get is specified at 11.2V. I am hoping this one will not ever decrease below 7.5 and cause unpredictable shutdowns. I know I should avoid discharging it completely.

Thanks for responses.

I am not sure about that rapid storage driver, is it about NVMe or SATA? Or all. I have SATA 2.5 inch SSD, I could probably swap for NVMe M.2 or SATA M.2.

 

Thanks for the additional battery info. It looks like the 62Whr is 4 cells configured as two parallel sets of 2 in series while the 48Whr is 3 cells in series. Whatever voltage comes from the battery is converted to the voltages used within the computer and normally this will be stabilised so that the reducing battery voltage has no effect.

I would also run a battery calibration to be sure that the reported battery % charge is correct. The procedure is (i) fully charge the battery, (ii) fully discharge it (leave it running at the BIOS screen); then (iii) fully charge it again. Before you start make a copy of all the BatteryInfoView info and do the same afterwards so you can compare the numbers in particular any change in Full Charged Capacity.

The Intel Rapid Storage Driver is for SATA.

John

 

Thanks. I was thinking about ordering the battery.
I beleive I have this battery:
https://www.parts-people.com/index.php?action=item&id=21246
My service tag is SNIP so the battery DP/N is 7V69Y. On dell site it says 4-cell on partspeople it says 6-cell. Picture shows cells are organized in 2 series.

I want to get this one

https://www.parts-people.com/index.php?action=item&id=19819
This is clearly 4-cell 52whr battery and cells are orgnaized in 4-series. It is rated at 11.1V. While mine is 7.4 or 7.5, not sure.

It would help if other owners of e5470 post their battery info. I assume all who report shutdown problem have a 62Whr battery like mine. But I don't know.

Thanks everyone.

PS: Also, seems that I don't get a cable with this new battery. Can the old cable from old battery be plugged out and used with new battery? I did not pay attention to that when I was opening my laptop.

 

As of when I bought mine, I'm pretty sure there were some 2.5" SATA SSDs available as BYO options premier for it.

Yeah, 62W/hr, type 6MT4T, 7.6V per the label on the top. I can run the battery information in Linux when I get home, as I need it up in windows for Outlook while I'm at work.

 

It seems that we both have Sandisk X400 SSD, your is m.2 mine 2.5 inch. I updated a bios today because dell person told me it will fix the issue. But it did not. In dmesg i have two errors

ahci 0000:00:17.0: port does not support device sleep
...
[drm:intel_cpu_fifo_underrun_irq_handler [i915]] *ERROR* CPU pipe A FIFO underrun

First message is about SSD. Sata controler is on 0000:00:17.0. Found Ubuntu bug report about it, they recomend SSD firmware update. Sandisk says that one can be done only in windows. This message is most likely culprit why sometimes laptop does not wake from sleep mode but instead starts up the system again

Second dmesg error happens when I get screen flickering. It is repordedly ben fixed with BIOS update, but not if you use intel_iommu=on flag like me. It is also connected to power management. I think when those two are fixed, the shutdowns will go away. Both are firmware problems, so they manifest both in windows in linux.

 

I think you (and other e5470 owners) should try new BIOS from 28 Sep 2017 . For me it seems to fix shutdown problem. Not a single shutdown since I updated. Dell person on dell forums directed me to new bios.

http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/drivers/driversdetails?driverId=MYYHP