Optiplex 9010 I-5 3470 3.2G CPU - Intermittent Freeze

Bill,

I am having this exact issue and have been focusing on software till now. It was put in service in January, but started this intermittent freezing about two months ago...

I plan on updating the BIOS and all drivers tomorrow, and running complete diagnostics. Like you, the Event Logs are no help. SInce this system is being used as a Police Department dispatch computer, it is also pretty critical. 

I will post back in a few days once I see if the system becomes more stable or I discover anything.

Carl

Hi Carl,

Thanks for the reply. Do you have a similar system ? I've listed some of the things I have tried below. So far, none of them has corrected the problem. Since you may not have the same exact problem, you may want to try them anyway.

We got delivery of ours in August of 2013 and put it online in early September. Its been a problem since.

Since then, we have had 6 - apparently random - crashes, all seem to be at times of low load.

The next step Dell will ask me to do will be to wipe the drive and re-install the operating system, all the updates, and all the other software. This is at least a half day or more job.

I have requested that Dell send a new system, or just a similar one (a loaner) that I could install the existing Hard Drive in. This would allow me to isolate whether it was hardware or software. So far, they have not agreed. They prefer to troubleshoot the problem even though I'm the one that's spent hours of doing that.

Things we've tried - to no avail !!

Updated the Bios, first to A14 and then to A16 - No help.

Replaced both memory modules (2 @ 4 gig) - No help

Disabled "C States" & "Speed Step" in the Bios - No Help

Disabled TCP/IPv6 Network Adapter Properties

Disabled onboard NIC and installed a Realtek 1 Gig PCI Network Card - No Help -  other than now, when the system crashes, we don't lose the switch that is was connected to. With the onboard NIC, when the system crashed, we lost the entire 8 port switch that it was connected to. 

Ran Diagnostics (F12 key from restart). Ran both quick and "remaining memory tests" - took approx 80 minutes (for both) - no errors reported.

Updated the Network Driver and Video Driver from the Dell Driver Update page for our Service Tag

During all this time, we have continued with windows updates.

There you have it - Good Luck. Let's keep in touch.

Bill

BIll,

Not sure waht happened to my post - the last half word was supposed to be in the second paragraph- that is was interesting you had issues with the NIC and I was having conectivity issues.

Also, I neglected to answer your first question- this is a 9010 with an i7-3770, 8GB RAM, AMD Radeon 7470, RAID-1

Dos your system have RAID??? Mine does and in that other thread they had tried using Microsoft drivers for that instead of the Intel drivers to no avail....

Carl

Hi Carl,

Yes, when this problem fist appeared, it took the whole network down, since the 8 port Gig switch it was connected to was linked our other 10/100 switch.

At first, I did not think of the new system as being the culprit, so I started troubleshooting the Network.  Only after a while did I decide to use the old troubleshooting wisdom of "what did you do last". Sure enough, the Dell had crashed and as soon as I forced the shutdown, the network came back up. Thinking it was some sort of fluke, I put it back online. The network went down again four days later. This time, before I restarted the system (it had crashed again), I pulled its ethernet connection and - the network came back up. The rest is history !!

Bill

Hi BIll,

Oh boy- that does not sound promising since you seem to have done all the things on my checklist. And yes, my experience with Dell is that they will say do a reinstall. Never easy when you have dozens of apps that a police department uses and in my experience, never a solution when it is not a software problem.

So far I have not done much as it seemed to be an issue with a terminal emulation program they use to talk to the NJ State Police mainframe. There were times in the event logs where they lost connectivity to the state and the app would log thousands of reconnect mesages. But now it happens even without that app running, but your initial issues with the NIC seem interesting. I am wondering about the issues some systems have with TCP Offloading and related settings.....

There is another thread out there about 9010s locking up after multiple logoffs that have not been solved yet. Not sure if it is related to our problem or not....

Carl

Intere

Hi Carl,

The Bios in our system was defaulted to "Raid", when received. We are not using Raid, but I didn't switch it to AHCI, like it should be, since I didn't want to add to the issues.

I have to run to a client now, but will get back with you later.

Appreciate us working on this together

Thanks,
Bill

Hi Carl,

Just to keep you updated, we had two failures, one on 12/3 and another on 12/4, both early in the morning, sometime between 6 AM and 7 AM. Although an administrative "41 event is reported, "6008" System events state exactly (I'm assuming) when the system failed (not why) but its after the fact.

I've been in touch with Dell reporting all of this. 

Here's more details of our system and software ......

We're running Nextech Practice Management Software which uses MSSQL Server 12, compact version (Distributed by Nextech)

Nextech also uses "Sentinel Local License Manager" Service by Safenet, Inc.

True Image 2013 is installed for Image Backups

AVG 2013 is our Anti-Malware software (Full Version), Firewall is disabled

There is no version of MSOFFICE or other installed

Adobe Reader, Shockwave, and Flash are installed

7 Clients are on the Network

The System is connected to a small UPS, 700 Watts.

We have a 2 port PS2 style KVM switch attached

We were running uVNC as a service, but I have just disabled that.

Please let me know if you want any more details. Will keep in touch.

Bill

Bil,

Well I am no further ahead either. Friday morning I did the following:

Updated BIOS to A16 - the latest

Updated all drivers except NIC and Video) to latest on Dell site

Updated NIC to latest Intel driver as it had latest Dell driver

Updated video to latest AMD driver as it had latest Dell driver

Ran on-bard diagnostics which completed successfully

We've had a half dozen more freezes over the weekend, but the user now also reported an error "WINDOWS HAS
ENCOUNTERED PROB COMMUNICATING W/ A DEVICE CONNECTED TO " Not 100% sure if this was before or after the power off/reset

This sure sounds like a hardware issue.......

I am probably going to next try mirrioring the drive to another drive and swap out the whole computer with another 9010 we have. May not get to that till mid-week

Will let you know how that goes....

Carl

Bill,

Well, as farfetched as this may sound, "my" OptiPlex has been freeze-free for almost a week. Based on a couple of Google items that came up searching on Windows 7X64 freezing and USB 3.0, I had the customer replace the mouse and keyboard and move them to the front USB ports. SInce then, the computer has not frozen once!?!?!?  I am holding off moving the new devices to the rear ports until their agitation about the problem fades a little.

If this indeed is the issue, I am not sure how to determine if this is a Dell Motherboard problem, a driver problem, or a Microsoft problem. I have also not yet been able to stop in and see if they were moved from USB 3.0 to 2.0, 2.0 to 3.0 or the same version ports.

Not sure if this is something you have tried yet....

Carl

Hi Carl,

Thanks for the update. That's interesting - could it be something to do with the drivers for the USB 3.0 ports?

Well, wishing you luck that the fix will be permanent.

Since our system is connected to a PS2 KVM switch, I'm using the PS2 ports for the keyboard and mouse. However, based on your find, it may be something to look at.

Because this problem has been so intermittent and difficult to troubleshoot, I'm going to swap it with another system, that's in a less critical application, and see what happens. I still keep thinking that it has something to do with sleep mode, even though sleep & hibernate mode are disabled in the advanced power mgmt. section. Like I mentioned, our issue appears to only happen in times of very high idle percentage.

Will keep you posted.

Bill

I realize this is an old thread.  But I was curious if this random freezing issue was isolated down to a the usb ports indicated in the comments of the previous posts?

I experience the same issues from some of these 9010 machines during working business hours.  When the machines lock up, there are no technical details logged anywhere to error check.  My machines were deployed with the A03 USB drivers, and not the A01's.  I have gone thru and checked the BIOS settings, and made sure my drivers are running the most current version.

Wondering if anyone got resolution on this?

Hi Artistcab,

Because the 9010 was running a very critical service, I had to remove it. I replaced it, in mid December, 2013, with a 9020 which has been working well ever since.

I am no longer in touch with the 9010 system, so I can't tell you whether it is working properly or not. It was running Bios version A16 prior to replacement and had the symptoms I've described in previous threads, regardless of many Bios upgrades and the many hours of troubleshooting.

The 9020 is working well, but there are a few differences in the setup. I am not saying that any of these differences resolved the problem. I only mention them, just in case one of them might have anything to do with it.

The Bios settings (A02) on the 9020 have been modified as follows:

Serial Port; Disabled,   Smart Drive Reporting: Enabled,  Speed Step: Disabled
Turbo Boot: Disabled,   C States Control: Disabled,  Deep Sleep Control: Disabled

The Network ethernet connection on the 9010 was connected directly to a gigabit switch. The 9020 is connected to a gigabit router port (the router is, of course, connected to the switch).

Again, I am not sure that any of the above related to the problem.

Good luck,
Bill