XPS 8930, freezes for 3-5 seconds

@dustynz 

Wow! Amazing work. Yep, it could be just one "bad apple" of an application that upsets the apple cart. I hope others can get this confirmed too...

"Dell-S/W-free" and "freeze-free" here since 9/27/2019

So... Success I think

Stopped all the dell services, One at a time until the freeze stopped occuring

The culprit is

Dell SupportAssist Remediation service

Here are the logs, nice and predictable, As you can see I should have been expecting a freeze between 2,5 or three hours and I have just hit 4 hours. This is the second time I have run the test, Same answer. Now to restart the desktop and only stop this service then restest.

======Restarted : 10/06/2019 18:48:54
Freeze: 1 / 36134 : 10/06/2019 19:54:53 , 6151.2965
Freeze: 2 / 135155 : 10/06/2019 22:55:34 , 6154.4344
Freeze: 3 / 234181 : 10/07/2019 01:56:16 , 6113.5992
Freeze: 4 / 333204 : 10/07/2019 04:56:56 , 5404.9386
Freeze: 5 / 415719 : 10/07/2019 07:27:32 , 6217.0498
Freeze: 6 / 514743 : 10/07/2019 10:28:14 , 6146.069
Freeze: 7 / 613767 : 10/07/2019 13:28:55 , 6116.9893
Freeze: 8 / 712788 : 10/07/2019 16:29:36 , 5733.3366
Freeze: 9 / 795257 : 10/07/2019 19:00:11 , 6036.7765
Freeze: 10 / 894281 : 10/07/2019 22:00:53 , 6034.6178
Freeze: 11 / 993305 : 10/08/2019 01:01:34 , 6167.3967
Freeze: 12 / 1092328 : 10/08/2019 04:02:15 , 6063.0455
Freeze: 13 / 1191350 : 10/08/2019 07:02:56 , 5467.5632
Freeze: 14 / 1273871 : 10/08/2019 09:33:32 , 6046.3592
Freeze: 15 / 1372895 : 10/08/2019 12:34:13 , 6040.4137
Freeze: 16 / 1471918 : 10/08/2019 15:34:54 , 5798.0925
Freeze: 17 / 1570943 : 10/08/2019 18:35:35 , 5374.3823

@dustynz,

Excellent work!! Well done!

I think I'll give my XPS a few more days with all of the Dell Services disabled (jut in case I have a slightly different issue) & then, after that, I'll probably re-instate every thing EXCEPT Dell SupportAssist Remediation service!

Regards,

John-Jay

Hi @dustynz 

Outstanding job, THANK YOU!

Please keep us in the loop with any further updates.

Given this status I will go back to my Dell PC and adjust it accordingly to further test.

@whoareyou_2009 

Did you remove the Dell services yourself? Were they not added during a clean Windows 10 install? 

You mentioned a Windows upgrade in a prior post, was that an update to 1903 done recently? 

reply to @John-Jay 

I think I'll give my XPS a few more days with all of the Dell Services disabled (jut in case I have a slightly different issue) & then, after that, I'll probably re-instate every thing EXCEPT Dell SupportAssist Remediation service!

Refer back to this to outline initially on the other thread I did back on 08/15/19 and again on this post

As far as driver and software packages, with a clean install and not using a Dell recovery disk:

Dell downloads off their site not necessary to install:
Dell Digital Delivery App
Dell Update- Support Assist Update Plug in
Dell Mobile Connect Driver
Intel Ready Mode Technology App
OTB Survey-Dell Customer Connect

Just do a clean install with recent W10 ISO that has most recent drivers and is a stable build.

Stop there!!!

Do not install:

Killer Control Center
Intel RST software
Any of the Dell Downloads from the website listed above

I would uninstall any of those Dell downloads from my machine if they are present.   

Doing this would have already solved those Dell software related freeze issues.

@rjbards  "Did you remove the Dell services yourself? Were they not added during a clean Windows 10 install? You mentioned a Windows upgrade in a prior post, was that an update to 1903 done recently? "

1903 was upgraded.  The original Windows 10 (pro) install was clean. I had no problems until end of August. I removed the services myself.  They are gone.  

My issue also consistently logs

Log Name:      System
Source:        Microsoft-Windows-NDIS
Date:          10/8/2019 1:06:41 PM
Event ID:      10400
Description:
The network interface "Killer E2400 Gigabit Ethernet Controller" has begun resetting.  There will be a momentary disruption in network connectivity while the hardware resets. Reason: The network driver detected that its hardware has stopped responding to commands. This network interface has reset 1 time(s) since it was last initialized.

It's possible I have a hardware issue, but it doesn't seem like that's issue to me.  Anything is possible though.Guess I'll do what I should have done a while ago and disable ethernet to run on the wireless card.  

Would it be possible to run one more command (with admin privileges) for some info?

pnputil /enum-drivers 

It will simply list out all drivers on the machine.

You can redirect output to text file, or just cut and paste.

To confirm, Stopping the "Dell SupportAssist Remediation" service this has stopped the freezing.

Disabled the service and then restarted the desktop. No other changes.

Ran last night for 7.5 hours, no freezes.

I am using "Insomnia" to stop my desktop going to sleep

Here is the powershell script to log the freezes. Basically samples every 100ms and logs freezes greater than 2000ms

$logFile = "c:\temp\freeze.log"
$DatePast = Get-Date
$FileLog = "======Restarted : $DatePast"
Add-content $Logfile -value $FileLog
$CountNo = 0
$FreezeNo = 0
while ($x = 1) {
$DateNow = Get-Date
$TimeNow = $DateNow.TimeOfDay
$DateDiff = $DateNow - $DatePast
$DatePast = $DateNow
$TimeDuration = $DateDiff.TotalMilliseconds
$CountNo = $CountNo + [int]1
if ([int]$TimeDuration -gt [int]2000)
{$FreezeNo = $FreezeNo + 1
$FileLog = "Freeze: $FreezeNo / $CountNo : $DateNow , $TimeDuration"
Add-content $Logfile -value $FileLog
write-host $FileLog
} else {
$FileLog = "Normal: $FreezeNo / $CountNo : $DateNow , $TimeDuration"
write-host $FileLog
}
start-sleep -milliseconds 100
}

By the way.  How do you add attachments to a post.  I see people have done this, but I don't see anywhere to do this.

@whoareyou_2009 

Upgrades to Win 10 1903 have caused many issues. I tried an upgrade to 1903 on my XPS in June and it did not solve any problems I had before; it seemed like the number of issues multiplied.

You can (like you said) disable your Killer network hardware in Device Manager and use wireless only; see if the hardware resets go away.

While I did install Win 10 1903 from an ISO, I do have the Killer control panel installed. But, windows installed it, not Dell.

If you can't do a clean Win 10 install from an ISO, I think @Ajwe had a great suggestion to "fix" a corrupted Windows system using "Windows Repair": it's a highly-rated repair tool. Major Geeks has this to say...

"Tweaking.com - Windows Repair is an all-in-one repair tool to help fix a large majority of known Windows problems including registry errors and file permissions. Video tutorial available.

Some situations this could work for you might be any type of error message you receive where something no longer works like it used to. A very common use for Windows Repair is after a malware infection. While there are a lot of tools out there to help remove the infection, many times you will have issues left over like a disabled Action Center, firewall, anti-virus or even worse, internet connection. We’ve seen these hundreds of times. By booting into safe mode and running this program it can get these problems solved and everything working again. Occasionally you might have to change back some settings you have modified, but it’s worth it.

The program continues to add new features, has no third-party software, no nags, no usage or time limits this truly is a breath of fresh air."

@rjbards 

Thanks.  I might try that utility, but I only have a couple of freezes a day so it's only a very minor annoyance.  I'm not in any rush to fix, so I'll give it a bit more time and see if it works itself out with future updates.

Earlier today, I installed the October 8 cumulative update which supposedly fixed print (and other) driver / windows compatibility issues. I'm going to run with this cumulative update and see if this resolves my issue.   If still not resolved I'll probably wait out a couple more cumulative updates - or possibly the next major upgrade if things stay the same.  

I'm now over 12 hours with no freezes, which is about "right" for me. 

I've also now broken out windows performance recorder, and I have it capturing data since that last update,  but I  really don't want to spend much time with that analysis. 

But ... if there's a freeze, the recorder will capture the process blocking the system.  Just not sure how much time I want to spend on that analysis.  

As you mentioned - there is a life besides computers

Hi, @HanoverB ,

Thanks for that!

I'm still planning a clean install. However, because I've paid for some software via the Dell Direct Delivery Service, I may have to install that (& then either disable or un-install afterwards).

Regards,

John-Jay

Hi, @DELL-Cares ,

It would be good to receive an update, from Dell, on this issue!!

Particularly as various Posters (effectively in response to your comment:- "so that we can isolate if there is any software or update causing the system to freeze") appeared to have isolated the issue down to Dell Processes/Apps/Programs!

Regards,

John-Jay

Still no signs of Freezing, since I disabled all Dell Processes/Apps/Programs.

Also note that my Reliability Monitor Graph (Control Panel\System and Security\Security and Maintenance\Reliability Monitor) hasn't shown any Application Failures, Windows Failures or Miscellaneous Failures in that same time period!

Regards,

John-Jay