My brand new XPS 630i freezes randomly!

I bought my son a 630i 7May 2009. After reading all these posts, I called him and asked if he was having any lockup problems and he told me not really. He said every once in awhile when he tries to get in a certain game he has some issues getting in, but after that it is fine. He does mainly gaming and he would let me know  if it wasn't reliable. So, it seems it must be working OK for him. For what it's worth here is his config.

Q9650, 8GB, 800MHz, AMD Radeon 4850 Dual -P117a, dual 300GB SATA HD 10KRPM West Dig,  VR150, Vista Home Premium 64, 6X blue-ray RW,

@Mikes-123 - I did set my chipset voltage to 1.35 as you suggested in your post.  Sorry I did not include that detail.

One thing I noticed is my temps were almost 80C so I went into my control panel and cranked most of the fans up to at least 50%.  This brought most of the temps down to 51 or so degrees.

I'll read and learn more if/when I have time.  My goal is a stable system and if I slightly OC it, thats fine.  Otherwise, I'm not going to be a tweeker and I want to set it and forget it.

To conclude my involvement in this thread...

...Dell dispatch arrived with PSU, memory and a mother board and did the replacement work yesterday.  Testing was stable last night with all OC and voltage settings at an auto or optimal configuration (default).  I have been using OCCT to test and at times ran the CPUID HW monitor tool to check metrics.  I did notice one of my +5V lines in CPUID which was bouncing around prior to the work was stable around +4.95V.

Thanks to all who directly and indirectly helped.  I learned a ton about the system and found a lot of great XPS resources in the community.

Dave

I was having the same problem.  While streaming Netflix, the computer would lock up and make an annoying clicking sound.  I would have to hold down the power button to reboot it.  It got to the point were it would happen every couple of hours that I was streaming video.  The solution to my problem was for me to go into the BIOS and increase the CPU voltage.  I increased the voltage by about 15 to 20% and now the problem is completely gone.  My PC has now been running almost 4 months without a single crash.  I hope this helps.

From the looks of it they are giving up, the XPS 630's are now dirt cheap, they had also made an anouncement that they were discontinuing. I ended up with a Studio XPS and it's not bad but not great, I still have not updated the bios for fear of a crash.

I have three 630i systems I am working on, all with the same configuration, Q9650, 8 GB and nVidia cards in SLI with RAID 1 enabled on WD v.raptor drives.

Two are running Vista x64, one with a 30" dell on SLI and the other with dual 23" with SLI.  The third is running Win 7 x64 has its SLI off as it has one 30" main center monitor, and two more 20" monitors.  The one Vista machine 30" in SLI and the one Win7 with 3 monitors experience the lockups.  The other Vista machine has not experienced a lock up as of yet but it not used as much as the other two are.

Have not tried any voltage settings or queue settings yet.  I am running the latest nVidia drivers for the chipset from dells site and video card from drivers from nVidias site.

Just thought I would post this as to inform of the lock up issue occurring with both SLI/non-SLI running and Vista x64 and Win7 x64.

I was on the phone with Dell Tech support last night for over 2 hours explaining what was going on with 2 of 3 630i's I had lock up and they had me run their diag tool on the board which found nothing after 3-4 hours wasting all that time.  They will call me back on Saturday for more troubleshooting I guess but I am convinced that it is a BIOS/voltage setting, chipset/voltage issue (or SATA controller issue) or faulty BIOS chips.  One system I have has ESA installed and the other does not, both lock up randomly so the ESA app being used is eliminated as a potential cause.

Now, on the other hand, I do have the Windows 7 x64 machine running at a chipset voltage of 1.5v and the queue feature on the drives disabled as of last night.  These are troubleshooting steps that I picked up from forum members here, not that tech support guy I talked to last night.  I asked him if they were aware of the abnormal amount of 630i issues due to the posts on THEIR forum website and he had not idea???  Really?  You can not check your database of trouble tickets for 630i issues and see what has already been done to try to resolve this issue?  Anyhow, tried the 1.5v on the Win7 x64 machine and it was just reported to me by its user that he has had no lockups all day.  However, the other Vista x64 (installed by Dell) machine is still locking up.  I guess I will try the 1.5v setting on that machine as well, maybe skip the disabling of the queue option to try to pin point what that actual fix is.

I have read here that some people tried the voltage change of the chipset and the lockup problem was reduced but still existed.  Needless to say, I still expect the Win7 x64 with the 1.5v chipset to lock up at some point, just not as often, so far so good.

The tech support also mentioned that over heating could be an issue and I have heard a lot of you here state that as well.  None of my 3 630i systems have been over clocked, and the amount of heat coming out the back seems relatively normal for its components.  But the fact of the matter is, why are these systems in danger of over heating in the first place?  Dells tests should have indicated that they had the proper cooling in place BEFORE they started selling them.

What really confuses me is that the third 630i system that is also running Vista x64 (also installed by Dell) has not had any issues and is the same hardware configuration, the system just do not get used as much yet.

@ Thorf and knrkmartin

This issue does not stem from the hard drive.  My 3 630i's are using the WD vraptor drives, 1 with RAID and the other two without (just a single drive configuration).

"I installed a Western Digital Hard Drive and installed windows and all the Dell drivers again and have not had a single issue with freezing since."  You must just be having a little luck but the WD is not why your system is currently not locking up.  Hard drive type is most likely not the cause.

Just for the record, I went the return route rather than continuing to try to diagnose the problem and Dell eventually provided a very satisfactory replacement to my 630.  I would advise those who find their patience growing thin to turn to "unresolved issues" if/when they feel the struggle is no longer worth the candle.  You will have to exercise patience either way...there is no such thing as a free lunch...but I feel that Dell did finally step up to the plate and deal with my complaint.  I haven't had my new system long enough to draw any definitive conclusions (especially since my 630 didn't start manifesting its problems right away,) but so far, so good.

What was the replacement machine that you were provided?

730x...which has also been discontinued, I believe.  It's HUGE (weighs 75lbs) but also a significant upgrade.

Hello all I've ordered an xps 630 recently, haven't recieved it yet, do don't know what my experience will be yet.  That said, a quick question, does anybody do line conditioning or just simple ups on these systems.  I'm not an electrical engineer but I would be curious to see what your line voltages are.  In a perfect world electric runs 60 cycles a minute, go below  60 your voltage drops, go above and your voltage increases. That part is simple even for me to understand, where the brain hits the pavement is what amount of voltage tolerances each pc can handle how much the power supply capacitor absorbs each change in cycle.  I see that some have success upping voltage on either the chipset, memory, video, etc some get a more stable system with small amounts of changes.  Again i'm talking about about a subject I know nothing about.  But it would seem logical if you boost the voltage up your headroom for any minute voltage loss would be greater thus giving that component more tolerance for any voltage swings coming across the grid.   I would love to hear more if anyone has tried this.

I am going through the same issue with my XPS 630i.  Its been going on for months and like the stubborn fool I am I kept trying to resolve it myself.  From what I've read online this seems to be a well documented issue.  I've call tech support and my computer froze up while they were trying to do remote access.  The person seems to have no idea about any problems with the XPS630i.  Instead she went into my MSConfig, disabled everything and had me reboot.  Her response was to give me a case number and to call back again if it kept happening.  Completely disregarding she had disabled all my startup programs.  So I resolved that and just plan to count the mintues until I have to call back.

I've tried the memory voltage adjustments and all of the recommendations from this thread with no luck.  I feel your pain and hope they get your issue resolved.

- Jon

Hi People!, When i bought my XPS 630i it crashed the 1st time i started it, it then crashed every day (Only the Once) about 30 or so mins after start up. i tried the most simple thing, I Edited the Schedule for System Restore, it was set to run at every start up every day, i change it to run late on sat night instead of every day and it hasn't Crashed Since! ( It also Used up alot of HDD space if you want to Clear this there is an option in disk clean up, I freed up 250GB!!)  Hope this helps!

-Aud