XPS 8930, freezes for 3-5 seconds

@John-Jay 

Great to hear you are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel on the "freeze" issue!

It has been very quiet on this board lately with practically no input or feedback from the Dell Boys; they really need to take a good look at their own software...

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

Hey there, I was experiencing the same problem. I too disabled the Dell Remediation Service, and that seems to have addressed the problem. This thing has caused me a lot of pain -- do a lot of video capture, and a hesitation not only destroys the capture, it actually crashes my capture app and I lose the whole thing.

Hi @John-Jay @rjbards 

To be honest I doubt that Dell will officially respond with an update at this point. It would be great if they would commit to examining our findings but given that they never really seem to put much effort into helping us when the problem was more critical I doubt we will see any response now.

As I indicated before I have been a loyal Dell customer for over two decades but given the severe decline in after sales support I might as well assemble my own PC next time instead of giving my business to Dell.

For what it's worth, since I ran the tweaking.com Windows Repair tool (as described here), which was now six days ago, I haven't had the freezing problem at all.

Also, I *do* still have Dell software running on the computer:

So while some of this software may be causing the problems for some people, there might still be something else that's really the root cause (e.g., perhaps if something is mangled in Windows, it might interact badly with the Dell software).

I've been lurking here for a while now and I'd thought I'd share my experience. First, a bit of background.

I purchased a new 8930 i7-9700 from Costco about 3 weeks ago, within a day I noticed the freezing issue. I researched the problem but came away with no real fixes so back to Costco it went. I purchased another one from Costco, same model and brand same spec. Same problem (what a surprise). At least at that point I was convinced it was not a hardware issue since they both had it.

Fast forward to today. I've been running freeze free for almost 2 days (rare for this machine). The final fix appears to be disabling (stopping first) the Dell SupportAssit Remediation service in services.msc (it was set as delayed, automatic and it was running). 

I'm assuming its fixed since it would rarely go 3 hours without freezing for 2 secs. 

Thanks to all the posted and helped.

Now I might actually share my OOB experience with dell since they bug me every few days to do so.

Hi, @Alan K. ,

Welcome!

I think your experience is extremely important - simply because you are relating (on 2 occasions) "Fresh-out-of-the-Box" problems" - which eliminates any suggestion of:-

Mis-applied Updates,

User mis-configuration

User mal-functioning Software,

Etc!

I trust that Dell takes URGENT note, of this, & conducts their own Investigations (et al) rapidly!! Hopefully, @DELL-Cares will respond shortly???

Regards,

John-Jay

@John-Jay 

Thanks for kudo's.

Yes, it did eliminate a few things. The first box I updated it Windows and Dell updates completely, the 2nd box I decided not to even connect it to the internet to make SURE nothing updates and yet it too froze every few hours for 2 or 3 seconds. 

I am VERY HAPPY to say I am STILL Freeze Free!!! 3 days and counting!

The thing that made it clear to me was one day I was copying files (a lot of them) and it took about 5 mins. During the copy, my mouse froze (which was typically what most people notice) BUT I noticed the COPY froze too. Right then I knew it was really the whole machine that was freezing. What was odd is when it came back, it just finished like nothing happened.

Hi @Ajwe 

Thank you for sharing your feedback about the Windows Repair Tool (i.e. Tweaking.com). It is interesting that you remain micro-freeze free despite still running all the Dell apps & services.

Q1 -- Just for my understanding would I be correct in understanding that prior to running the Windows Repair Tool you were running into the micro-freeze on a consistent basis?

Q2 -- Other than running the Windows Repair Tool you took no other corrective action and now all the micro-freezes have disappeared?

Q3 -- When you ran the Windows Repair Tool did they generate some sort of report indicating what it did?

Thank you in advance for your feedback.

1. Yes, I was having freezes that would last approximately 3-5 seconds (mouse would freeze, keyboard input would stop) and this would happen between 2-5 times a day with no proximate cause.

2. Well, I tried a *lot* of other things. After spending time on the phone with tech support, Dell sent out a repair person to my house and he put in a new motherboard (but it was damaged & bricked the computer), so I sent the machine to Dell and they put in another motherboard but I still had the microfreezes. I then found this thread and tried disabling the Intel 630 graphics driver as someone had suggested, tried a new USB 3.0 hub (my old USB 2 one was pretty old), updated Windows several times, updated drivers, etc., but still had the microfreezes. That's when I started looking for a tool that might troubleshoot and found tweaking.com.

3. It does generate extensive logging. It runs more than 30 separate kinds of repairs and takes about 15 minutes to run and the log files take up more than 1 MB and are spread over a dozen or so files. I can't really share them here because they contain filenames, paths, and similar info that I'd rather not expose. But these are the sorts of things it does (these are the main log files, there are 2 others in a higher directory):

Hi @Ajwe 

Thank you for your detailed reply. The fact that you still run the Dell apps and services but do not run into the micro-freezes is critical. Please continue to monitor your PC and provide updates as to how your are fairing.

If anyone else with the micro-freeze problem decides to run the Windows Repair Tool please provide us with your results so that the community can benefit from your experiences. 

Hi, @Ajwe , @DellCan ,

Just a quick thought!

I realise that you are now Freeze-Free, after running the Windows Repair Tool (without removing the Dell Apps), is there any possibility that the Repair Tool might have disabled to Auto-Startup of these Apps??

Regards,

John-Jay

I don't think that's it. They show up in Task Manager as running, and in services.msc they're listed as follows:

(I don't know why all that stuff needs to be running, but that's a different issue...)

Hi @Ajwe 

Thanks for the confirmation about the Dell apps & services. Please keep us in the loop as to whether or not you get any micro-freezes.

Various fixes summarized from easiest to most time consuming.

1) If you have any of the Dell downloads from this prior 08/15/19 list, just remove them and related processes from your machine.  Just remove them period.  They are not necessary and would not be installed with a clean install which is a known solution.  Per @dustynz  Dell Support Assist Remediation Service appears to be an issue.  This service installs itself following the install of the Dell Update-Support Assist Update Plug in software and will update itself with later Dell updates.  Known issue with other Dell machines. (Sorry @John-Jay you have a reason to be upset)

2) Remove Killer Control Center and driver, restart the machine and let Windows 10 install the generic driver which should be the latest driver. 9.0.0.49.   Use the Killer Uninstaller software per this link per @whoareyou_2009  to remove all traces of the Killer software.

3) Remove Intel RST software per @Tesla1856 

4) Use the Windows Repair tool per @Ajwe  from this post

5) Clean install per @rjbards using latest W10 ISO for v1903 which will install the latest drivers. 

RAID or AHCI SATA Bios settings both are fine
No Dell drivers or Dell software.

Following the clean install, do not install:

Killer Control Center
Intel RST software
Any of the Dell Downloads from the previous list

Follow Philip Yips detailed instructions here on how to do the ISO clean install.  Use a USB stick and RUFUS and will work as intended.