I have a Dell Latitude 7420 2-in-1 that started having issues after I disconnected the battery for some maintenance. Initially, the tablet mode stopped working unless I flipped it fully to 360°, and auto rotation disappeared from Windows. Then, it began freezing randomly, requiring forced reboots, and sometimes I needed to power it on and off multiple times before it would boot up. I performed a full EC reset—unplugging the battery, holding the power button for 60 seconds, leaving the battery unplugged for 30 minutes, and then reconnecting it. Now the laptop won't boot at all; it gets stuck at the Dell logo. I can't access the BIOS or the F12 boot menu. The fan spins and the CPU heats up, but that's it. I've read that my issues could be related to the nearly dead battery, but I'm not convinced that's the reason for the freeze at the Dell logo. I suspect it might be a dead motherboard, and I need to resolve this quickly since it's my school laptop. Any thoughts on whether this is a battery issue or if it's more likely the motherboard? I can't get in touch with Dell, and my warranty has expired.
2 Answers
You could try removing both the battery and the storage drives (the M.2 and SATA). If the laptop powers on and you can access the BIOS, that might indicate a problem with one of the drives. It seems like the initial weird behavior you experienced was software-related, so this could help narrow things down.
Can you try powering it on without the battery connected? Sometimes that helps eliminate power issues while troubleshooting.
Yes, I can power it on without the battery, but it still doesn't fix the issue.
I already attempted that, but it didn't resolve the problem.