Studio & XPS Users experiencing video lockups and freezes / Throttling issues

I received my Studio 1747 as a replacement to a 1737 system. I've experienced ~10 or so system lockups, 4 of them just yesterday each less than an hour apart, they are not video related. The first crash was during logon screen w/ FastAccess about 3-4 hours after the system was unboxed and powered on, and it crashed again that day, and I uninstalled it and lockups continued during regular tasks like web, login screen, etc. Some of these crashes initially happened on the 90 watt adapter, and have continued with the 130 watt adapter. I've opened a case with dell regarding these issues on this new system (less than 7 days old).

System: Dell 1747 Core i7 720QM 4Gig 1333 RAM, 320Gig HD

Motherboard model number: OJ509P

Bios: A08

Using 130 Watt adapter & Soundblaster X-Fi MB software included with system

I just used the Intel INF chipset utility as a suggested step - only been an hour since then, but as I report further problems I'll list them here.

I really don't want to uninstall my X-Fi software to fix the issue if that is a cause of problems - I like using it.

Aside from these occasional, annoying lockups - the system seems sweet as cherry pie, and is a more than fair replacement.

The Dell Technician had me run my system in safe mode, and requested I attempt to run it for several hours in that mode to see if it would lockup, and if not it would indicate hardware was not a cause of problems. I did so, and that is when I did the chipset inf update, and I did Dell diagnostics on all hardware except extended memory and HD tests. He suggested if it crashed again when I went back into normal startup, to reinstall the OS & software from the CD's, not the restore option (as there may be a problem with OS image).

I'll continue to wait a few more days, and maybe bear a couple more lockups as more information is gathered on this issue before I do a lot of work trying to fix it myself.

I was watching some 1080p video today and experienced a BSOD, this was the first one I experienced in about a week since turning off Link State Power Management.  I went ahead and disabled ATI CCC Powerplay, I rewatched the same video and did not experience any throttling/freezing/BSOD.  Will post if I experience a crash again.

I did some more work on my system - and noticed my system too became unstable during 1080p Youtube videos - which Flash 10.1 beta did seem to fix. However, after two more lock ups back to back I felt I should post here again before these boards go read-only for a few days. The lock ups are simply described as the screen freezing, mouse/keyboard/anything unresponsive, etc. I gotta say, even though this is a replacement system for me, it's a very terrible out of box experience for me. With the issue being described by quite a few others as well it makes me wonder if this line of systems was tested as thoroughly as it should have been. Two other systems of mine before this, an e1705 and 1737 seemed to be "made better", were significantly more reliable out of box. They were also made in Malaysia. This 1747 is apparently made (assembled) in China - is that where the system images were developed and/or placed on to the systems? I really hope this is a software/OS image related issue, and that there isn't lots of bad hardware floating around out there.

Hi all, just thought ill contribute. Received my new Studio XPS 1645 on March 24 and I have experienced one crash per day so far.  Random crashes, a couple of times right after log in screen, another time coming out of sleep another time while browsing the web and another time while watching youtube videos.  It's done it like once a day. Processor: i7 720qm Ram: 8gb Bios: A08 came pre installed by Dell. Latest Flash installed Haven't updated the video drivers yes as when I tried, after installation I couldn't open ccc anymore so I just rolled back. 90w power adapter Just order the 130w power adapter to see if that helps, if not i'll try uninstalling the sound blaster driver, I'll keep you posted.

Updated Chipset controller with the one on the Dell downloads site

Updated Video Drivers to 10.3

Using 130w power adater

Freeze free for about a week, not a single lock up since.

Early February XPS 1645 arrived. Zero problems- until trying to run streaming video in full screen mode from sites like Hulu, Youtube etc. Did a new install of Win 7 and same results. No problems until running streaming video in full screen mode. - Studio XPS 1645 -ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4670- driver 8.632.1.2000 -BIOS A08 -90 Watt/ 130 has been ordered -Adobe flash 10.0.45.2 -Motherboard OY517R Putting a clean install of Win7 made no difference when viewing streaming video in full screen mode. Simply cannot get through a full screen video without one of these results---The screen going grey with sound continuing to play followed by lock up. Screen breaking into pixels followed by lock up. I see some suggestions I have yet to try, but for now I'll just put my experiences out and hope it helps.

Update.

130W power supply in use.

Installed all Dell drivers per Dell's priority installation method, including new ATI revision over the clean install of Win 7.

Happy to say that the lockups during full screen streaming video are absent, that with 120 minutes of consecutive use.

No other lockups or odd behaviour.

Hope that's all for me. If something report worthy comes up I'll be back with details.

UPDATE

Got the 130W Power Supply today. Plugged it in and its making a buzzing sound. If you disconnect the power from the computer (but leave it plugged into the wall) the buzzing stops..... I've logged another call with Dell over this as it could be a faulty part.

1080p Lockup

If you ENABLE "Hardware Acceleration" in Flash, then 1080p youtube videos crash the laptop.
If you DISABLE "Hardware Acceleration"t, then everything seems fine - although I don't know exactly what I'm missing out on by doing this.

For those that don't know, "Enable Hardware Acceleration" is in the "Adobe Flash Player Settings" (right mouse button click when watching Youtube, then click "Settings" and its the first tab)

Specs

Bios: A08
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4670 driver date 2/03/2010 version 8.712.0.0

tried the pci express link tweak : does not prevent lockups here. only thing so far is ati powerplay tweak.

well, installed the new flash beta 10.1 ...... and experienced a full computer freeze when playing crysis 2 720p trailer :/ (but hardware acceleration was "on" in flash config ...) - ati powerplay DISABLED.

ATI ccc 10.3

so much for so little.

Dell ? still no news ?

I'm not sure which settings worked to correct my lockups, but I did disable link state power management, and updated IDT audio software (released on dell for 1747 recently), and still using creative xfi mb (didnt have to uninstall), maybe a few minor other tweaks I've found throughout here... anyways, I've used my system for over 10 days without a single lockup. So far, I seem to be very happy with it.

well for your problem Bruce, the freeze ups are triggered (not caused) by creative's sound blaster XFi and if you uninstall or disable that program you will have less freeze ups (around 3 to 4 a month!) but the problem isn't caused by sound blaster XFi so it will not be completely removed by uninstalling it.

if you are in the first 30 days period, I would advise you to return this laptop and think of a replacement (from dell or elsewhere) because it has serious heat issues that cannot be resolved without a complete redesign.

DELL XPS 1645

BIOS A08

Power Supply 90W

Here is the problem that I experienced:

Throttling

System lock-ups

DVD constantly spinning

Fan constantly running at high speed

The above problem has disappeared for more than a weeks after I applied fix below.

Replace Power Supply with 130W

Reinstall Windows 7

Upgrade ATI Driver 

Upgrade Flash

I am still facing one major problem here, the CPU is at high temperature when it is fully utilize.  Under normal use with low CPU utilization at < 15%, the CPU temperature is at around 50 degree.  If I crank up the CPU utilization to 100%, the CPU temperature go up to 85 degree or more..  Is this normal.

Here is a test case:

Down prime 95 load test software, run the software to test the CPU for 5 minutes.  The CPU temp go from 50 degree to 85 degree immediately.

The CPU fan start to spin like crazy.

Is this normal?

Does anyone has the similar overheat problem.

I followed the advice of sabedisc and others to disable soundblaster but it didn't make any difference. My system still froze up 5 or more times a day, even when I was just running outlook. Yesterday I purchased a large lap top cooling unit with two fans. It has been 24 hours of non-stop running with no freeze ups. My system has never gone a day without a screen freeze so at this point it looks like sabedisc was right when he said the primary problem is overheating. I am sending my 1645 back for replacement with a 1647 - hopefully they will figure out how to fix the heat problem without throttling down the processor before my 1647 hits the production line.

Bruce

Bruce,

Are you sending it back under a 30 day replacement or sending it back because its a dud? The reason I'm asking is that many people have had their laptops for a few months, with many onsite and telephone support calls.

Any idea on when the 1647 does into production?

Simon

I had a record of calling in about the problem under the 30 day window and they said I could work with it for a while longer and still send it back. I don't know anything about the production on the 1647 units. I just assumed that they had stopped making the 1645 units will all the problems. One thing is sure. If the unit will only operate with a monster external fan system it isn't a workable lap top. I can't carry the external fan into my client's office for a presentation.