XPS 8700 Black Screen on Boot

What version of BIOS is on the motherboard? There were issues with version A06 and WiFi/Bluetooth drivers causing delayed boot and shutdown issues.

They're up to BIOS A10 now, and I presume A08 and A10 fixed whatever the issues were in A06.

See this thread and this one too.

EDITED

Sorry I forgot to mention that the BIOS on my original PC was updated to A10, but at that time I only had problems with my USB 3.0 connections. The currently installed motherboard also shows A10 when you enter the F2 BIOS setup mode. The Restart and delayed Bootup issues only began with the second motherboard re-installation (the first re-installation being completely DOA as I mentioned). For some odd reason there is no problem with the Shutdown process.

To add to the above. There is also another strange issue with the current motherboard. When I connect a recently purchased mains-powered USB 3.0 Hub (SAVFY make) and turn on the power to the hub, the PC also hangs completely during Bootup. If you look within the PC, the red motherboard light continues to remain lit (even if you pull the power plug on the PC). With the power to the hub turned off, the computer Bootup proceeds as before. It seems that the power from the USB hub is feeding back into the PC and somehow preventing the Bootup. This never happened with my original motherboard installed.

Ron, thanks again for your suggestions. Here's an update on what I did:

- I first removed the drivers for the Wireless/Bluetooth card. These were found in Device Manager under Bluetooth and Network adapters.
- I then Shut Down, removed the power cord and pressed the power button for 15 sec.
- I then removed the motherboard battery and again pressed the power button for 30 sec.
- At the same time I removed the Intel Wireless/Bluetooth card (Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC7260)
- I then powered on the PC.
- The bios had clearly been reset and I was asked to press F1 to continue or F2 to go to the BIOS, but unfortunately my wireless keyboard was not recognised.
- I attached a USB keyboard and repeated the boot up and this time the PC restarted.
- I then reinstalled the Intel 7260 Bluetooth Driver from the Dell Website (XPS-8700_Communications_Driver_32KKW_WN_3.1.1307_A00)
- I ignored the other driver called Dell Wireless 1703 802.11 Bluetooth4.0 Driver (XPS-8700_Network_Driver_K19V9_WN32_10.0.0.301_A01) as the pdf file associated with this referred to a Qualcomm Atheros card which is not installed in my PC. I don't know why Dell recommend this for my PC.
- I then Shut Down and reinstalled the Intel Wireless/Bluetooth card.

On then booting up the PC I found the following:

- Now the bootup process was normal. The black screen delay was gone.

- The shut down process was normal.

- Unfortunately the restart process continues to hang (failing on Shutdown)

- Also the PC will still not boot up with the powered USB hub (with power on) connected.

So we are part there but not all issues resolved – the most important being the Restart problem.

.

Have you tried disabling "Boot from USB" in BIOS setup to fix the problem with the powered USB hub?

Thanks for the suggestion, however, the faulty PC has now been returned to Dell and I have been issued with a replacement.

I transferred my 1TB mSata (with Windows 8.1 installation) to the new PC, updated the Bios to A10 and set the Bios to AHCI and all (except a USB 3.0 issue) works OK. The issues with failed restarting and slow bootup do not appear with the new PC.

The USB 3.0 issue is the same as what I had with my original PC and affects, in particular, the two ports at the front of the PC. I have tried connecting two new 1TB Seagate USB 3.0 external drives and find that both of them occasionally fail when transferring large folders (>50 GB). Moving the connections to the rear USB 3.0 ports seems to give more stable results. It would seem that this intermittent problem with USB 3.0 connections is a common issue with this series of PCs.

As you can imagine I'm not keen on repeating the exercise of swapping motherboards so will have to live with what I have. Perhaps a future Bios upgrade might address the issue.

Thanks again.

1. Disconnect all USB devices except mouse and keyboard
2. Open Device Manager and expand list under USB
3. Double-click a USB root hub
4. Click Power Management tab
5. UNcheck the box "Allow PC to turn off..."
6. Click OK back to Device Manager's main screen
7. Repeat for all USB root hubs
8. Exit Device Manager and reboot
9. Hopefully problem will be gone - fingers and toes crossed!

Have already done this for all Generic USB Hubs and USB Root Hubs where Power Management is an option, but this has no effect on stability of USB 3.0 connections.

I was aware of this solution for certain problems, in particular refusing to enter sleep mode, with previous PCs and was one of the first things I tried.

Thanks anyway.

Thank you again for the advice. I did as you suggested and bought a USB 3.0 PCI-e card (Inateck 5-Port PCI Express Card with Power Connector and internal USB 3.0 20-Pin Connecdtor, KTU3FR-5O2I). Now the USB connection, stability and speed are significantly improved - particularly for the front two sockets which can be rewired to plug into the 20-pin internal connector on back of the card. I also found the front socket cable only just long enough but will shortly add an extension to remove any tension.

Kind regards.