XPS 13 9360 Windows 10 random hangs and cursor lags

Freezing - as in "the whole _system_ stutters or hangs" as opposed to "isolated applications have trouble" are indications of kernel-level challenges (at interrupt level). This could mean drivers being corrupt, out of date, or defective - or the backing hardware being broken.

Generally speaking, Windows 10 Home runs extremely smoothly on the XPS 13 9360. For me, the laptop hardware serves Windows 10 Home and up to three Linux virtual machines in parallel. I have zero complaints.

It is unclear why your Linux installation is doing fine - but then the kernels and drivers are different across these platforms.

Try a fresh Windows 10 Creators Update installation from USB (_not_ factory image restore) and run without any driver updates for a while. The Dell XPS 9360 works out of the box with such an installation.

Then keep third-party low-level software off the system - specifically, do not add any so-called security products and do not tweak anything within the networking stack.

If you reset the BIOS to defaults beforehand (watch Intel RAID), your chances of smoothness will be maximized.

@shoffmeister I will have to try with the Creators Update ISO... When you mention the intel RAID what exactly do you mean? You suggest this being enabled or set to AHCI?

Intel RAID: www.dell.com/.../DriversDetails

Configuration in the BIOS is as shipped, i.e. not AHCI. I'd rather not meddle with that.

I used www.microsoft.com/.../windows10 -> "Create Windows 10 installation media" to create a bootable partition on an external USB hard disk, ran setup from there, from the _existing_ Windows 10 installation, and chose not to keep anything. This was quite painless.

Ok I will give this a try too and post results as soon as I find some time... So no Dell drivers at all?  Chipset Audio Video and stuff?

UPDATE:

I have clean installed the Windows 10 Creators Edition from ISO as suggested. At first boot everything seemed to work all right... However, due to my frustration I really wanted to find the "guity" driver for all this mess...

So I tried installing one by one the Dell provided drivers  from the support site and note down its effect... While my initial suspect was the killer network driver, what I have found to cause all this trouble is the Intel HD 620 provided by Dell....

So far I have every Dell driver installed (Chipset. SATA...etc) except for two:

1. Waves Audio, Default Installed version is 6.0.1.7989 while Dell provided is 6.0.1.7982, so kept original
2. Intel HD Graphics Driver, Default installed version is 21.20.16.4526 and Dell provided is 21.20.16.4574

Although the Video driver from Dell is newer, as soon as it gets installed it seems to cause these issues...

I will continue to test the setup to make sure this was the cause of the problem, and then report back the final results...

Feel free to comment! Thanks

I tried this on my Dell XPS 13 and it seems to work:

Click Search> type cmd > right click Command Prompt> click run as administrator> click yes > type the following
command: sfc /scannow

I did originally wonder if it was temperature since it would make sense - its taking time to cool down. However its never been hot when it happens. I always check by touch.. although thats obviously not that accurate but you can tell if its 'hot hot'. If I do something overly stressful then the base can become hot to touch but this is never the case when it has these 'episodes'.

I have the laptop in 'cool' mode too - so the fans switch on prematurely to keep things cool, yet half the time it happens, the fans haven't even came on.

It has also happened a few minutes after being switched on, before which it had been off all night, so I doubt its temperature.

Reset ipad

I can verify that after all the mentioned Video Driver version from Dell is the cause of my problem. Been using the laptop without any freezes for a week. I will go on marking my response as the suggested answer

Exact same issue. Cursor lags, windows intermittently freezes up. Not relegated to a particular browser or application.

I am facing the same problem specially being visible with regards to the touchpad, but noticed recently that the entire system slows down as well.

I have reinstalled Windows, removed all Chrome or Google products, reinstalled all browsers, etc. Been there, done that, with no results.

The only solution that seems to work is restarting the whole device and waiting for things to go bad once again.

I am very frustrated with Dell and wish I didn't buy the XPS 13. I think the reviewers try it for a brief while then sing its praises because they haven't seen the dark side of the terrible quality control of Dell over its "premium" line.

Also Windows probably shares the blame so my next laptop is a Macbook Pro.

No help from Dell. Nothing worked.

[tag:Sad]
[tag:makelaptopsgreat]again

Hi, Any solution yet how to fix the issue? I also having the same problem, randomly freeze for few seconds. Planning to send it back

@WRZ67M From what I have seen the problem was the video driver... Leaving the default one (and not install the Dell one), seemed to resolve the issue... However I am not sure about the latest... Try the latest, or leave the default windows installed. Please inform us for any progress on the matter

face the same issues...its getting more annoying. so disappointed on having dell.

Hey everyone, I have the same problem on my XPS 13 9350... It's been working perfectly fine until relatively recently. Random mouse cursor hangs, and complete lockups at least once daily causing me to lose all my work!!! This is very inconvenient. I cannot find any error or stop codes in Event Log. Everything is fully updated, windows updates, driver updates, browser and app updates. Ran malware and virus scan, everything came out clean. I know I dont have the same exact model but I'm trying to desperately find the solution to this. I hate reinstalling everything from scratch... it's more inconvenient

I was having the same problem. Have updated the last Intel Video HD Graphics and also the BIOS and the problem is gone, finaly!