New Dell XPS 8300 constantly Locking up.. help

This is what I copied from the invoice emailed to me in which you can see that the video card I have is an ATI Radeon HD 5670 1GB GDDR5:

Item #           Item description

225-0146     XPS8300
313-3607     NO DIAL UP MODEM REQUESTED,DT
313-6138     NO SPEAKER REQUESTED,DIMENSION
317-5785     6GB DDR3 SDRAM 1333MHz,X
317-6080     XPS 8300, SNB, i7-2600 (3.4GHz)
318-0282     16x DVDRW Drive
318-0455     Windows Live Wave 4, CDT
320-1786     ATI Radeon HD 5670 1GB GDDR5
320-7810     NO MONITOR
330-1158     DELL USB 6-BUTTON LASER MOUSE,I/S/XDT
330-3620     DELL USB ENTRY KEYBOARD,KL,ENG,I/S/X DT
330-6097     WIN 7 LABEL,CDT
331-1418     DELL RESOURCE DVD,BACK-UP,XPS8300
342-2007     1TB SERIAL ATA 2, 7200 RPM
410-1867     ADOBE READER 9.0,MLANG,I/S/X DT
410-9449     McAfee Platinum, 15 Month, MUI, CDT
420-6436     PC-RESTORE, DIM/INSP
420-6576     DELL WELCOME,SW,DIM/INSP
420-9691     DATASAFE LOCAL BACKUP
420-9841     COZI-CALENDAR,DT
421-0756     SKYPE VOIP SOFTWARE APPLICATION,I/S/X DT
421-3645     Basic Stage, CDT
421-4337     WIN 7 HOME PREM, 64, ENG
421-4542     ROXIO CREATOR STRT,NO MEDIA,CDT
421-4652     Dell Support Center 3, CDT
421-9898     THX TruStudio PC
430-3775     INTEGRATED 10/1000 ETHERNET
465-8687     PLEASE CONTACT ME WITH MORE DETAILS
410-0450     MICROSOFT OFFICE STARTER 2010,CDT
920-5050     XPS WARRANTY SPRT, DIMENSION, INITIAL YR
938-3130     HW WRTY+SVC,XPS 8300,UNY,INIT,REL
938-3150     NBD OS,XPS 8300,UNY,INIT YR,REL

Do you think there is a conflict between the integrated graphics and the AMD graphics card?

This is the URL for discussion on the Aurora R3 freezing issue:

http://en.community.dell.com/owners-club/alienware/f/3746/p/19375646/19862917.aspx?PageIndex=1

Sounds just like our issue.

And here is another Dell system that is locking up:

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/desktop/f/3514/p/19256928/19866132.aspx#19866132

Anyone out there have any idea what is going on?

a49erfan,

Send to me in a prviate message your service tag number. Also, have you powered off, opened the case cover and reseated all memory, cards, cables, plugs?

This thread is just for the XPS 8300 lockup. Our test 8300s will only have the Dell drivers on them. We do not test retail drivers.

* Power the 8300 off
* Disconnect the 8300 power cord from the rear
* Open the side cover and remove/reseat all cables, cords, cards, ram
* Replace the side cover
* Connect only the mouse, keyboard, speakers, and monitor to the PC
* Those USB devices should be plugged into the PC rear USB ports
* The PC power cord should be plugged directly into the wall socket (for now) and then into the rear port
* Power the monitor on
* Power the PC on
* Reinstall our chipset drivers
* Reinstall our  sata driver
* Reboot the 8300
* Remove the retail video card driver and reinstall ours

Now, test the 8300 and post your results.

This could be the Power Options settings in Windows 7. The Dell XPS-8300 (amongst other systems) does not yet appear to support USB keyboard/mouse after sleep/hibernation. All you can do, if the power light is dim after sleep, is to reboot. Check Control Panel\Hardware and Sound\Power Options & Change when the computer sleeps - if necessary to "never". I can't I find hibernate options on my computer start menu - see MS http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Sleep-and-hibernation-frequently-asked-questions

Check the BIOS downloads  for updates from Dell to fix the problem - Current Download Type: BIOS Version: A03 Release Date: 01/03/2011

Cheers
Tom

Please test the USB keyboard on different rear USB ports.

Anybody tested this in Safe Mode?

Anybody looked at the USB Power Management tab in Device Manager and unchecked "Allow PC to turn off this device to save power" ? (Assuming Win 7 has same power options as earlier versions of the OS.)

Ron

Just returned from my long weekend away and switched on my new Dell now 8 days old. It locked up again within minutes, rebooted was fine for a couple of minutes and then locked up again while I was playing minesweeper (yes I still play that once in awhile  :) ). It hasn't yet spontaneously rebooted being locked in the game in full screen mode. I'll let it be tonight and then phone Dell tomorrow morning and let them try and deal with it remotely.

Or is it better to try your suggestions above first before I phone Dell? If I do that where do I find the chipset drivers, sata drivers and Dell video card drivers?

On other threads others were suggesting to completely and entirely remove the Dell video drivers for the ATI video card and install the newest ATI drivers from the AMD website. I have those and know how to uninstall and reinstall the Catalyst Control Centre. But I haven't ever had to reinstall chipset or sata drivers.

What think you?

Thanks in advance for your advice.

HI Tom,

Thanks very much for the suggestions. My XPS 8300 shipped with the most recent BIOS version (A03 - or at least that is what is listed when I run CPUID)  so I don't think that is a problem.

I went into Control Panel \ Hardware and Sound \ Power Options and changed the preferred plan labelled Dell so that the button beside Put the computer to sleep: now lists Never.

Has been running for a few minutes now without a lockup. Let's hope that does the trick.

Kind of a drag in terms of power consumption, however, if the computer cannot put itself to sleep after a couple of hours.

Incidentally, the default in the Dell power plan was to put it to sleep after 2 hours. Don't you think it strange that this setting would cause it to lockup after being on for only a few minutes?

ROHE

This is an interesting possibility that I never considered. I cannot find the USB Management tab in Device Manager for my OS (win 7 home premium). What I have found is:

Control Panel \ Hardware and Sound \ Power Options \ Edit Plan Settings

and then clicking on Change advanced power settings I get a popup window that lists a number of possibilities

Dell
Hard disk
Desktop background settings
Wireless Adapter Settings
Sleep 
USB Settings

Under USB Settings there is USB selective suspend setting and that setting is enabled.

Should that be disabled? 

I would try disabling selective suspsend for USB to see if it fixes the problem.

I don't use Win 7, but in XP, if you expand the list under USB in Device Manager and double-click on each Root Hub, you'll see a Power Management tab which has the "Allow PC to turn off this device..." option I mentioned. By default, it's checked (enabled) in XP. 

I don't know if the setting you found is the Win 7 version of the XP setting...

 Ron

Hi Ron,

I found the USB power management option. It is just as you described - I just had to hunt a little to find it in Win 7. What is listed in Device Manager under Universal Serial Bus Controllers is:

Generic USB Hub
Generic USB Hub
Generic USB Hub
Intel(R) 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller - 1C26
Intel(R) 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller - 1C2D
USB Mass Storage Device
USB Root Hub
USB Root Hub

I disabled "Allow PC to turn off this device..." option for the last two listed (USB Root Hub).

However, when I click on Keyboards and also Mice and other pointing devices under Device Manager I notice that this option to turn off the device is not enabled under Power Management whether or not I have disabled it for the two USB Root Hubs.

The good news is that my computer has now been running without locking up for two hours after changing the Power Options so that the computer never sleeps.

If this works, the next step will to figure out how re-enable the ability of the computer to sleep without it spontaneously locking up again.