XPS 8930, Screen goes black and requires pulling power cord to get it back

You might follow up with the drivers from Dell's support page for this model.

Might be a Windows Power plan issue:

Reboot and immediately press F2 to open BIOS setup. Look for the USB Wake Support option in the Power Options area of BIOS. Make sure USB Wake Support is ENABLED. Save the change, but do not change anything else in BIOS setup. Exit BIOS setup.

When PC reboots, open Device Manager and expand list under USB. Double-click a USB root hub and click its Power Management tab. Uncheck the box "Allow PC to turn off...". Repeat for all root hubs.

Now expand list under Human Interface Devices in Device Manager and uncheck that same box for any HID entry that has a Power Management tab. Exit Device Manager when done.

Next, open the Windows Power options screen and identify the active Power plan. Click the link to change its settings and on next screen click link for Additional Options. On that screen, disable Hibernation, disable Hybrid Sleep, disable USB Selective Suspend, and disable PCI Express Link State Management. Save the changes to the power plan and reboot.

Does that help?

 

@RoHe, Appreciate the suggestions.

I did install the Dell Update app which installs any drivers out of date. It didn't find anything out of date so I never bothered to download anything else from Dell's site.

Are you suggesting that I compare all driver versions installed to each version on the Dell site?

I made the changes you suggested and haven't see the issue again but it's only been a day so we will see how it goes.

Dell OEM hardware, especially video cards, tends to be slightly different than the retail version and Dell may tweak the drivers. So if someone is only using "generic" drivers installed by Windows and has problems, it's a reasonable approach to try the OEM specific version.

I think your issues were due to the power settings so -hopefully- they're gone for good.

BTW: Was USB Wake Support disabled or enabled in BIOS setup? We've wanted Dell to change the default to enabled for a long time so I'm curious to know if.

Post back and let us know that the problems are solved...

USB Wake Support was enabled by default

wrong drivers.

end.

I have not seen the screen go black again but I have had 3 BSOD's with the two error codes:
IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION

So, I exported the driver information from the Dell Update application/System Information. I did a comparison and these are the differences I found:

Driver,  Dell Pre-Installed,  Clean Windows 10 Install
AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT, 26.20.13001.9005, 26.20.13002.133
Intel(R) UHD Graphics 630, 26.20.100.7262, 25.20.100.6615
Intel(R) Serial IO UART Host Controller - A2A7, 30.100.1725.1, 30.100.1713.2
Intel(R) 300 Series Chipset Family SATA AHCI Controller, 17.2.6.1027, 17.5.3.1026
Intel(R) Display Audio, 10.26.0.6, 10.27.0.5
Intel(R) Chipset Device Software, 10.1.1.44, 10.1.18019.8144

Drivers ONLY on clean windows install
Killer(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX1650x 160MHz Wireless Network Adapter (200NGW), Not installed, 21.20.0.5
Killer E2400 Gigabit Ethernet Controller, Not installed, 9.0.0.49

Drivers ONLY on pre-installed 8930
Intel(R) Wireless Bluetooth(R), 21.20.0.4, Not installed
Killer Ethernet Performance Driver Suite UWD, 2.1.1295, Not installed
Killer Wireless Driver UWD, 2.1.1295, Not installed
Dell Digital Delivery Services, 4.0.41.0, Not installed
Dell Mobile Connect Drivers, 2.0.8401, Not installed
Dell Update - SupportAssist Update Plugin, 4.4.1.9851, Not installed

Several of the driver differences are very close. However, the big difference I see is the driver used for the Killer WiFi, Bluetooth and Ethernet card.

Anyone want to take a guess at which ones I should remove/install with the pre-installed version or do you think should I update them all?

Thanks for the feedback so far. Hopefully by documenting my issue, someone down the line will be able to search for the same.

I have not seen the screen go black again but I have had 3 BSOD's with the two error codes:
IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION

So, I exported the driver information from the Dell Update application/System Information. I did a comparison and these are the differences I found:

Several of the driver differences are very close. However, the big difference I see is the driver used for the Killer WiFi, Bluetooth and Ethernet card.

Anyone want to take a guess at which ones I should remove/install with the pre-installed version or do you think should I update them all?

Thanks for the feedback so far. Hopefully by documenting my issue, someone down the line will be able to search for the same.

I am trying to add a new (long) post to this thread.  When I add a new post or even when I try to update a previous post as you suggested, I can see it is posted it but when I go back to "XPS Desktops board and go back into the thread, my posts are gone.

Maybe they are something an admin has to approve.  I remember seeing something about "spam" when I tried to post the first time but the posted message took me immediately to the login page and the error message was gone.

I don't see anything in my profile area to indicate my posts are waiting for approval so I'm confused as to what is going on.  I guess I need to send a note to an admin.

Also, my long reply made mention that I have not see the black screen since I made the changes but I've seen 3 BSOD issues which is may be driver related.

I have not seen the screen go black again but I have had 3 BSOD's with the two error codes:
IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION

So, I exported the driver information from the Dell Update application/System Information. I did a comparison and these are the differences I found:

Driver, Dell Pre-Installed Version, Clean Windows 10 Install Version
AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT, 26.20.13001.9005, 26.20.13002.133
Intel(R) UHD Graphics 630, 26.20.100.7262, 25.20.100.6615
Intel(R) Serial IO UART Host Controller - A2A7, 30.100.1725.1, 30.100.1713.2
Intel(R) 300 Series Chipset Family SATA AHCI Controller, 17.2.6.1027, 17.5.3.1026
Intel(R) Display Audio, 10.26.0.6, 10.27.0.5
Intel(R) Chipset Device Software, 10.1.1.44, 10.1.18019.8144

Drivers ONLY on clean windows install
Killer(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX1650x 160MHz Wireless Network Adapter (200NGW), Not installed, 21.20.0.5
Killer E2400 Gigabit Ethernet Controller, Not installed, 9.0.0.49

Drivers ONLY on pre-installed 8930
Intel(R) Wireless Bluetooth(R), 21.20.0.4, Not installed
Killer Ethernet Performance Driver Suite UWD, 2.1.1295, Not installed
Killer Wireless Driver UWD, 2.1.1295, Not installed
Dell Digital Delivery Services, 4.0.41.0, Not installed
Dell Mobile Connect Drivers, 2.0.8401, Not installed
Dell Update - SupportAssist Update Plugin, 4.4.1.9851, Not installed

Several of the driver differences are very close. However, the big difference I see is the driver used for the Killer WiFi, Bluetooth and Ethernet card.

Anyone want to take a guess at which ones I should remove/install with the pre-installed version or do you think should I update them all?

Thanks for the feedback so far. Hopefully by documenting my issue, someone down the line will be able to search for the same.

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@Bill Settle wrote:

Hum....  I have tried to post a reply twice and both times it disappears after I post.  Am I locked out of posting? (that is what this post is about)

---

Were you trying to start a new thread or add another post here? Since your latest post got through you're not locked out. Might have been some glitch in the forum. And keep in mind if you were trying to post an image, no one else will see it (even though you can) until the moderators approve it.

So either try making another new post here, or if that's still a problem, click the 3 vertical dots on the right side of your last post and select Edit from the menu. Then add in whatever you wanted to ask and post it.

Thanks for the update on the default BIOS setting for USB Wake Support.

Is your screen wake-up issue fixed?

Looks like all your missing posts magically re-appeared...

Was there more to the SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION error, like a mention of a specific process that failed or a bug check number?

Manually check for Windows Updates on the Privacy/Security screen. And then check the update history to see if something "failed" and didn't get successfully installed later on.

Right-click the Start button and search for command prompt. When it appears on the list, right-click it and Run as Administrator. When it opens, type in: chkdsk /r at the prompt and press Enter.

When that's done, in same CMD window type in:  DISM /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth and press Enter. And when that's done, type in: sfc /scannow and press Enter.

Each of those can take a while so be patient....

As for the Killer drivers, read the post by KillerNetworking here and here about installing their software and drivers on the XPS 8930.

Man, did they ever, LOL!  I guess I tried posting it more than a 2 times.

There were no failed updates in Windows but I don't understand what you mean by the Privacy/Security screen.  Can you elaborate please?

I'm running chkdsk now.  It's due as I've not run it on any of my external backup USB drives.  Now that I think of it, all three BSODs were when I was copying files from the backup drives to the internal drive so running chkdsk is a good idea.

The BSODs were during my copying about 10TB of data from the external to internal drives so a LOT of USB traffic was happening when it BSODed.  It hasn't happened since I got everything copied over.

Thanks for the link to the Killer uninstaller and information.

A Dell rep send me a PM that said to also install the Support Assistant to see what it says about the versions of the drivers installed.  Once the chkdsk is done (12 hrs left), I'll continue checking things.

I meant to look for the link to the Security page where you can find a link to the update history, but you already said there are no failed updates.

Run chkdsk on the internal hard drive and on your external drives too.

If this were my PC, I wouldn't go near SupportAssist. There are 2 ginormous threads about ~3-5 second freezes on the XPS 8930 that users eventually traced back to SupportAssist Remediation Service, and they've either uninstalled or disabled SA to fix the problem. Even on systems where SA doesn't cause freezes, it can be a nuisance, a nag, and -occasionally- just wrong. But that's my 2 cents so you decide if you want SA or not, and be prepared for possible freezes if you do install it.

@RoHesaid: If this were my PC, I wouldn't go near SupportAssist

Yeah, I agree, that is why I did a clean install to keep it clean so I'll check out that thread.  Thanks!

copying 10tB and it BSODs

my gawd what uses 10TB?

BIOS are the key diagnostic, here.

bad ram

bad PSU (makes noise,  old PSU get dried out CAPS and now makes tons of chopper (SMPS) noise, all bad.

bad GPU driver (not iGPU its off line now) (try the all if smart, even the card makers version !!!)

or a bad HDD (boot drive)  if the drive fails smart tests the w10 Kernel code sure can go corrupt.

run the PC in Safe mode, fastboot (F8 is gone) read how to do this and  turn it off,  boot from image file to normal file by file booting,  see if that works ok.

my 2cents  ,see vast BSOD but GPU drivers wins the HIT max.

good luck to you,   the blue screens some have bar codes,  that you can look up  at MS,  100 BSOD codes at MS. explained.