Dell Inspiron 17" 7786 2-in-1 Troubleshooting

The device has a loud fan noise, is hot to the touch, and turns off or restarts after a few minutes of being on.

You can hear a loud, constantly running fan. This could signal a dust accumulation in the heatsink. Without the heatsink, the fan is working harder than normal to compensate for the faulty heatsink. You may need to take the computer apart to use compressed air to clean the heatsink out or a microfiber cloth.

Computer case feels hot to the touch. If you have fan noise and ruled out malware or other types of software problems, then a faulty or clogged heatsink could be the cause. You can also download temperature utility applications on your device to check the temperature.

When the temperature reaches a critical level, the system will shut itself down, restart itself or will stop randomly. This is to prevent permanent damage. The system shutdown will also show an error message. This may be a sign of a faulty, clogged or dead heatsink or fan. You may need to replace the heatsink or fan.

The device has a loud fan noise with no air coming out of the vents, is hot to the touch, overheats, shuts down, freezes, and you can smell some odd smells coming from the computer.

Check and clean the air vents because obstructions can restrict airflow causing the hardware within the pc to overheat. The heat then causes performance issues, reduced speeds in the processor and in turn making a loud noise. Sometimes you can smell an odd burning plastic smell and the laptop freezes/turns off for no reason. Proper ventilation is needed for better air circulation inside and outside of the the computer. This helps the PC perform better. Try keeping the computer in a colder area.

Try updating the BIOS and device drivers to keep software and hardware up to date and increase stability. You can run a diagnostic test to help identify hardware related problems. Check task manager to make sure your applications aren’t draining the CPU and RAM. Some laptops can’t handle a huge workload and you would need to shut some down that aren’t in use. An overload can cause the fan to be used excessively, then causing a loud fan noise.

The pc is shutting down and freezing at random. You can hear beeping coming from the motherboard and essential functions are resetting, disappearing and having trouble with internet connectivity. Files may become corrupted out of nowhere and you can see a blue screen with white text before restart.

The CMOS battery powers the BIOS firmware in the laptop. When it fails, the BIOS firmware shuts down and defaults to original settings. Without it, this can cause freezing, shutdowns, beeping, date and time reset, drivers disappearing, and internet connectivity. Replacing the battery is recommended.

The PC may be randomly restarting while you are in the middle of something or it freezes randomly. Before it restarts, you may get a blue screen with white text briefly before shut off. Files may become corrupted out of nowhere. This can worsen over time.

The device itself can function only when it's plugged in via charging cord, rendering the device immobile; The battery does not seem to keep or hold power even after at most one hour of charging.

Over time, maximum power on the batteries will decrease or even begin developing issues for the user. It may be necessary to replace the battery if it has not been changed in some time. Dell notes that batteries may begin to degrade after 18-24 months.

There is no indication of power on the device even when having it plugged in, or, the device still has sufficient battery life left, but is not detecting the charging source.

Dust accumulation or any other forms of debris can buildup inside the charging port. Blow some compressed air into the charging port and inspect that you have no obstructions on both the charging port and the AC plug.

This model's AC adapter does not feature a light indicator. Ensure that the outlet does have an electrical current flowing through it using another appliance, such as a lamp. If the laptop does not charge with this adapter, it may be best to obtain a new AC adapter, as the current one may have gone faulty.

In some cases, the charging port on the laptop itself may be damaged or faulty. In this instance, replacing the port will require some disassembly in order to replace the port itself.

Your device can power on and operate pre-boot menus, but cannot boot into the storage drive itself, or is displaying error screens while booting up the system.

There comes to a point that SSD devices will begin to display symptoms of slower data transfer, slower loading /saving operations, and frequent corrupted files appearing in your folders. If you begin to notice some of these errors on your device, it is highly advised to create an immediate backup on another storage device you can rely on, then seek to replace your SSD.

At this point, your storage device has been used up to the point that it is nearly, or even completely unusable. It is greatly advisable to be creating backups of your data to prevent a complete loss of data in the event this error will occur. Replacing the SSD should allow continued usage of your device.

The device's keyboard has no function whatsoever

Software issues are usually the culprit of an unresponsive keyboard that is already integrated to the device. Ways to resolve some of these issues is to connect a USB keyboard or enabling the on-screen keyboard of your device and entering device manager to re-enable or do a hardware scan for the internal keyboard.

If by chance the integrated keyboard does not interact with the device whatsoever, there is either the chance that the connection between the keyboard and the device has gotten loose.

If all connections are known to be properly inserted, and the keyboard still does not interact with the device, the keyboard itself may be faulty and must be replaced.

If peripherals like the keyboard, mouse and touchpad aren't responding, there is a chance that the CMOS battery has failed. The keyboard may have reset to its original configuration. The icons won't respond to clicks or key inputs. The cursor may not be moving or responding.

Essential functions of the pc may not be working. The time and date reset, the drivers disappear, and you can't connect to the internet. The pc may freeze or restart at random, along with a possible blue screen with white text. You may hear beeping coming from the motherboard, as well as corruption of files out of nowhere.

A power strip and a surge protector are not the same thing!

Without a CMOS battery, the computer may not boot up at all. If the battery is nearing its end, several things may happen. The date and time can reset. The drivers can disappear. You can also have difficulties connecting to the internet. The computer also freezes or restarts at random. You can use this guide to replace the CMOS battery.

You can hear a constant beeping noise from the motherboard. This indicates a CMOS battery failure. You can check the CMOS battery status on the computer by using the built in checking.

Computer is restarting or freezes when you are in the middle of something. You can see a blue screen with a white text showing briefly before the pc restarts. Files you access frequently are now corrupted out of nowhere. You also cannot install a new program for an unknown reason. Your PC may produce multiple beeps or a continuous beep when you turn it on, and may indicate bad RAM. The memory modules may have had a power surge damage, electrostatic discharge damage or even excessive heat damage to the RAM. You can follow this guide to replace the RAM.

If you recently replaced the RAM, it's most likely faulty. It is possible it was part of a bad batch from the beginning so the best option is to replace it. You can use the Windows Memory Diagnostic tool to see if you can figure out if there are memory problems. Try removing them and placing them in different slots if diagnostics doesn't show any problems. The memory modules may have had a power surge damage, electrostatic discharge damage or even excessive heat damage to the RAM. You can follow this guide to replace the RAM.