XPS 8930, PCIe training error (epsa 4306.25)

Looks like problems started when you replaced the Dell original SATA cable.  Have you tried reusing the old Dell SATA cable?  If not, give that a try and see what happens.  If its back to working OK then the replacement SATA data cable is the issue.  If it doesn't help at least the new cable is eliminated as a problem.

@RJ63 - Dells says: "This error is generated because the desktop PC's PCI-e video card is not seated properly in the motherboard PCI-e slot."

Are you sure you re-seated the add-in video card correctly in the XPS 8930? There's typically a "hook" on  bottom rear corner of the card (farthest corner from video output ports) that has to engage at the back end of the x16 slot. If you just push the card into the slot without engaging the "hook" properly, the card won't be seated correctly.

And double-check that the PCI-e power connection(s) to the top of the card are correctly seated too, assuming that card uses a PCI-e power connector(s).

Yes, I did try the original cable, plus a couple others! Thanks for the idea though.

Yes I assumed the same. I never uninstalled the card as part of my SSD upgrade, although one must unlatch and slide open the hinged power unit box that presses against one side of the board to reach the SATA connections on the motherboard, so I assumed maybe it had been jostled in that process.

 But I've reseated it three times now, with the hook inserted and the blue clamp clicked into place. The card has no external power connections. I had never had the card out until now because I only discovered the error notice in researching the bios crawl after the ssd install. It might have been there all along, as the machine was always notoriously slow booting with the original hdd. (I just tried reseating it again, and same result.)

One other note: It seems to boot far, far faster with a shutdown/reboot than with a Windows restart. I saw another thread by an 8930 owner with that same issue that he never fully resolved. Makes me wonder if it's a motherboard issue, but all seems to be running fine once up and going, and no errors in any hardware diagnostics.

Is Windows Boot Manager first in the Boot Sequence in BIOS setup? If not, make it so, save the change and exit BIOS setup. Any faster now?

Did you do a clean install on the SSD or did you clone the HDD and move that image onto the SSD?

Is the HDD still installed and does it still have the OS on it or did you initialize the HDD after putting the OS on the SSD?  NOTE: Making Windows Boot Manager first in boot options and still having a HDD with the OS on it may change the drive that actually boots the PC. So it's important to know about the HDD.

Is BIOS set to RAID (factory default)? Some SSDs don't play nice with BIOS set to RAID. But do not change it right now!

@RJ63 said: It seems to boot far, far faster with a shutdown/reboot than with a Windows restart. .

That sounds like you may have a Fast Startup issue. Some Windows updates can't be installed when Fast Startup is enabled. PC tries/tries/fails to install them and eventually boots. The only way to install those updates is a full power-off shutdown. You can see if that's part of the problem by disabling Fast Startup:

1. Boot to desktop
2. Open: Power & Sleep screen
3. Click: Additional power settings
4. Click: Change what power buttons do
5. Click: Change settings that are currently unavailable
6. UNcheck: Turn on Fast Startup
7. Click: Save changes
8. Do a full shut-down, not just a restart. Then power on and boot

Does that help the boot time?

And do a BIOS reset to see if you can clear the 4306.25 error:

1. Reboot and start tapping F2 when you see the Dell splash screen to open BIOS setup
2. Copy down all current BIOS settings, to be safe
3. Power off, unplug
4. Press/hold power button for ~15 sec
5. Open case and remove motherboard battery (check Service Manual for details)
6. Press/hold power button for ~30 sec
7. Reinstall the battery
8. Close case and connect mouse, monitor and keyboard
9. Reboot and run the ePSAs again

If you still get the same PCI-e training error, you might have a bum video card. 

BTW: The monitor is connected directly to the add-in video card, not to either of the two onboard Intel UHD Graphics ports, correct? What port(video card)>port(monitor)?

@RoHe: Thanks so much. In order:

• Windows boot manager is set for boot 1 position in bios
• SSD with OS was installed with an image of original hard drive using Acronis
• The original HDD is disconnected, a new HDD internal Sata storage drive is installed
• Bios is set to RAID, as before

----

Tried disabling Fast Startup, rebooted, very slow restart boot (approx 2 minutes). Reenabled fast startup.

Shut down and did full power off, removing battery, draining, reboot, as suggested, ran epsa diagnostic and got same error.

The machine is still booting up quickly from shutdown/restart (about 20 seconds), very slowly from Windows restart (90 seconds to 2 minutes). 

Ron

Oh also:

The graphics card is running two Dell monitors, one HDMI, one DVI, and they are connected to the card itself.

Yes, disabling Fast Startup may delay a cold boot. Fast Startup writes a 'hibernation' file and puts the PC into a low power 'hibernation' state which is more awake then a full power shutdown, even though it looks like the PC is powered off. It's one of Microsoft's tricks to make the PC boot faster.

Lots of complaints on the net about slow Win 10 restarts vs cold boots. There are comments on the Microsoft forum saying when you restart Win 10, it doesn't write that hibernation file so it takes longer to restart, and that's equivalent to the time it would take for a cold boot with Fast Startup disabled.

If you only tried cold booting with Fast Startup disabled once, it's possible it was busy installing Microsoft updates that can't be installed without a full power off. So I'd give it another try...

Are you powering both monitors on before powering the PC on? Try the ePSAs again with only one monitor connected to HDMI (remove the DVI cable from PC).  And then with one just connected to DVI (remove the HDMI cable from PC). If you still get the same ePSA error and PC is under warranty, you should contact Dell tech support.

FWIW, I'll time cold boots vs restarts on my XPS 8930 and see what happens...

Look on Startup tab in Task Manager, in upper right corner, if you want to see the actual BIOS time. My last BIOS time was 16.2 sec with Fast Startup enabled, booting my XPS 8930 from NVME SSD with i7-9700 CPU.

And another thing is how much unnecessary junk is loading in the background. Look on that same Startup Tab and disable anything you need to load at boot. Just don't disable video, audio, mouse or anti-malware services...

And one more thingy... It sounds -to me- like you installed a SATA SSD to replace the HDD, instead of an NVME SSD. An NVME SSD is typically ~5-6x faster than a SATA SSD of the same storage capacity...

Good point @RoHe about initial/subsequent boots with Fast Startup disengaged. I turned it off again and did a couple boots, then reinitiated it and did a couple more to compare times. (Ran this cycle a couple times to check for anomalies). Results:

Fast Startup Off
Cold boot
1:15 to first Windows screen, 2:15 to functional desktop
Restart
1:45 to Windows screen, 2:00 to desktop

Fast Startup On
Cold
:45 to Windows, 55 to desktop
Restart
2:00 to Windows, 2:10 to desktop

Clearly it is running a very long BIOS sequence either way on restarts. The boot time on shutdown/button start I guess I can live with -- it's under a minute with Fast Startup on. (I actually don’t often do full boots, but put machine in sleep mode at night most of the time, which seems to work fine.) But the restart hang is sort of a drag as that’s what really prompted me to switch to SSD for the boot drive in the first place. It’s still faster in bootup and a world faster in operation, of course.

The monitors go into sleep (“power saver”) mode when not engaged; I never power them completely down. I haven’t tried rebooting with only one or the other connected to see if that affects the error, but will give that a shot.

The machine (of course) is out of warranty, so if the card or board are bad, it’s on me.

Last BIOS time listed there for me is 24.8 seconds as listed in Task Manager. 

I did go with the SATA SSD when I read elsewhere that the mobo in my machine would not actually realize the advertisted speed of the NVME (another thread on here, IIRC). No idea if that's true! Might also make a difference in boot times I suppose. 

I've disabled most of the startup functions except for a couple I want running for backup/security purposes.

If you want to compare, you can go here and use their benchmark tools on your SATA SSD, etc.

The Dell OEM Micron 2200S NVME 500-GB SSD in my XPS 8930 gave these results:

That is a cool tool, thanks! It wouldn't give me a full benchmark of this SSD as it has ram cache turned on, but from the other benchmarks I've seen on it, yours is likely 3x faster. The sata is fast enough for me for the moment, and far faster than the old Toshiba drive. At some point I'd probably be smart to install an NVME and do a clean Win install on it, and just use the SATA SSD as storage. Had a load of software on the old drive I didn't want to deal with a clean install at the moment.

That benchmark also really identifies the graphics card in my system, Nvidia GTX 1050-Ti, as a fairly weak link. I'm not a gamer but do photo and video editing. Never had issues with the card, but if it is indeed flawed somehow and causing my bios error, might be a good excuse to swap it out with something else.

Keep in mind that you have an OEM video card, and they tend to perform less well than the equivalent retail version of the same card. And who knows how many OEM vs retail cards are included in the comparison with yours?

If you have a spare x16 video card handy, you might want to swap it into this PC, at least to see if the ePSA error goes away.  But as long as the PC is working ok, you probably don't need to worry about the ePSA error, for now...

You could image the existing SATA SSD and move the image onto a new NVME SSD and make that the boot drive, without having to reinstall Windows and apps. Macrium Reflect (free) is perfect for making an image and moving it onto a new drive.

Hmm. Well, the semiconductor industry can thank you  as I am mulling that very idea. Do you mind my asking which drive gave you those marks, and whether you would choose the same again? I am somewhat partical to Crucial just because I have bought gear from them for a long time without issues, but open to competition.

The idea is somewhat more attractive because I have another Dell tower sitting here, an XPS-8500, that's perfectly functional and would be probably be a great candidate for the SATA boot SSD currently residing in the 8930 (re-initialized, of course). I don't believe it has an MVET slot but haven't been inside it for a while. I abandoned it due to a clunky HDD and Windows problems a couple years back, but it has a capable processor and memory. Could be a two-fer.