XPS 8930, freezes for 3-5 seconds

Sorry for all the duplication in posts... I was having problems yesterday.  I would post a reply and it would disappear so I would try again.  Now today all these posts are back and showing up.

Bill

@RoHe 

Not sure on the F12 thing.  I pressed the key immediately after I clicked on Restart.  I don't think I could be any faster.  Do I press and hold F12 or do I repeatedly press and release?

The problem did not occur when I first got the PC last May.  It started maybe sometime in November or December.

I will try CrystalDiskInfo and see what it says.

I use Norton 360 and Malwarebytes Premium.  I was using both of these when I first got the PC and have been using both on Dell computers for at least 6 years without problems till November/December.  I tried WD and didn't like it so stuck with Norton which overall I've been using for over 20 years.

I know they are really hard to fix which is why I posted here hoping someone would be able to help.  I do really appreciate your efforts to try and help.

Thanks,
Bill

Power the PC off, wait a few and then power on. When you see the F2/F12 notice in lower right corner of the Dell "splash" screen, tap F12 a couple of times. Don't hold it down or you'll get a keyboard error.

A whole bunch of MS updates caused issues over the last 3-4 months, so anything is possible...

Running 2 anti-malware apps at the same time is never a good idea. They tend to fight with each other and that causes problems. Pick one and stick to it. And make sure the other one is fully uninstalled. Some of them have their own separate removal tool that you'd have to download from their site...

@bilhen- Other users have had similar forum issues lately, so don't take it personally.  My forum contact reviewed and cleared the problem for your account, but the duplicate posts weren't removed. Hopefully this won't happen again for you.

You have to be really quick about pressing F12 when you first power on to get to that menu, especially since (I presume) the OS is on your SSD.

When did this problem start? Is it something new or has this always been an issue? There have been some issues with recent Win 10 updates...

Grab a copy of CrystalDiskInfo (free) and check your SSD and HDD.

What anti-malware are you running: Windows Defender, McAfee, Norton or...? If not Windows Defender, you could disable what you're running and use WD for a while since it's already built into Win 10 to see if that helps.

Keep in mind that random issues like this are really hard to find/fix...

Power the PC off, wait a few and then power on. When you see the F2/F12 notice in lower right corner of the Dell "splash" screen, tap F12 a couple of times. Don't hold it down or you'll get a keyboard error.

  --- I did this and it did work, but I didn't see the F2/F12 notice until AFTER I tapped F12 a couple times on the Dell "splash" screen.  The diagnostic found no errors.

Running 2 anti-malware apps at the same time is never a good idea. They tend to fight with each other and that causes problems. Pick one and stick to it. And make sure the other one is fully uninstalled. Some of them have their own separate removal tool that you'd have to download from their site...

--- I've been running both for 10 - 15 years and have never had an issue.  Malwarebytes says their software will run with other programs fine and it always has.  The fact that it worked fine for the first 6 or 7 months makes me think this isn't the problem.

As far as CrystalDiskInfo goes, I ran a VirusTotal on the install download and it was flagged as malicious by one site.  I usually don't run software that is flagged like that.

Bill

After checking several places on the web I figured CrystalDiskInfo was probably just fine so I installed it.  It came back with everything being flagged as "green" on both my HD and SSD.

Bill

I have crystaldiskinfo on my PC and never had an issue.  i did block it from accessing the web without asking for permission.

And little by little you're ruling out hardware. You may want to run chkdsk c:/r in the CMD window (run as administrator).

At some point you may just have to bite the bullet and do a clean install of Win 10 and all your apps. Be sure to make an full image of the SSD on external media first, just to be safe. You can use Macrium Reflect Free if you don't have a preference for some other app. And make sure you know the product keys for all your apps (eg MS Office, etc) and have the installation media or can download the software from the web...

@RoHe 

I'm not quite at the point yet to start all over with a clean install of Windows.  The problem is irritating, but at least for now it doesn't happen often enough to really bother me.

In any case, thanks for the efforts to help me out.

Bill

I received my XPS 8930 in January 2019 and it worked fine for months, then it suddenly started freezing for 3 to 5 seconds just as others have described in this thread.

Dell pushed out a BIOS update via Dell Update just before mine developed the problem. I always suspected it was that BIOS update that caused the problem. When they pushed another BIOS update a month or so ago, I had my fingers crossed that it would fix the problem, but sadly it did not.

A couple of weeks ago I did a Windows reset because Windows was having update problems. Again, I hoped that would fix the freezing problem but sadly it did not.

At least one other poster, like me, did not have an issue until late last year, around the time of one of the recent BIOS updates. While some other folks in this thread have reported that their machines are brand new and freezing. Those machines would have probably come with the latest BIOS.

I think Dell should look at those recent BIOS releases to rule them out as the source of the problem.

@davefdev- My XPS 8930 came with BIOS 1.1.08 in mid-Nov'19 and had random freezes right out of the box. BIOS 1.1.10 is the latest version and was released 25-Nov'19. Updating my PC to 1.1.10 didn't stop the freezes. So I don't believe it's a BIOS issue.

There was a SupportAssist plug-in update in Dec'19 so maybe that, and/or some Win 10 update, triggered the freezes on your system. There's a new update for Dell Update, so you may want to install this one and see if it helps.

That said, did you try disabling or uninstalling both Dell SupportAssist and Dell Remediation Service?  Stopping those seems to be the solution for most XPS 8930 users, including me.

Dell has been fully aware of the problem for a while. And I forwarded the info recently posted by a user in the Optiplex forum about SupportAssist and freezes to their team because it may help pinpoint the issue. 

I have no idea how long or how complicated it will be to correct the problem. So your best bet -for now- is to disable SupportAssist and SupportAssist Remediation Service and see if things improve.

Other owner's freeze issues have definitely not been solved with disabling these services (like me).  

I have my own theory as to what's going on, but that's neither here nor there.

For me the solution "hack" was to use MS's Standard SATA AHCI driver in place of Intel's driver.   I got to that point, after countless hours of frustration (and clean installs), and was at the point of believing this was bad hardware.  And to top it off, whatever was going on with my configuration crashed the entire driver stack, and it sure ended up looking like it was bad hardware.  In my case it consistently crashed the onboard killer network and  caused network resets.  

Luckily I saw another user's post discussing the SATA driver solution.  How long will this solution work?  Who knows.

So, even though I've sorted my machine out, I'd like to know what Dell's official position on this is.  

Are they testing anything? 

They could have easily replicated the issue by simply having a user ship them a machine exhibiting the issue.  My machine is out of warranty, so that wasn't going to happen.  But for those under warranty, isn't that what the warranty is for?

Rant over.

@whoareyou_2009  -  I said "most", I didn't say "all"...

@davefdev  didn't say if he tried disabling SupportAssist and SupportAssist Remediation. That's a whole lot easier than doing what you ended up doing with the AHCI driver. So lets get a response about that first.

I doubt Dell needs to re-capture a system from a user that's still under warranty. It seems likely any XPS 8930 they pull off the assembly bench may have the problem. And keep in mind, if it's a simply a software issue, the warranty only covers software for the first 30 days from invoice date...

Don't work for Dell so I have no insights about what/how they're troubleshooting this issue. All I know is I've raised this issue with my Support contacts whenever I can, and as mentioned above, I recently forwarded the  info posted in the Optiplex forum, which was about an XPS 15-9560, to them for evaluation. The only things that probably are in common between that laptop and an XPS 8930 desktop is software.

---

@RoHe wrote:

Dell has been fully aware of the problem for a while.

---

I seem to recall one of the "Dell-Cares" Reps (Dell-GopalD) specifically saying that he appreciated all the Information that was being gathered & that he would respond further!

The precise date/time of that Post, based on UK time, was 27th Sept'19 @ 02:14 AM!

Since that Post, I have noted that Dell-Cares has NOT posted again, in this thread!!

Regards,

John-Jay

@RoHe Windows had stopped updating, displaying "Could not connect to the update server" message, months before the freeze problem started, so in my case I don't think it was a Windows update that caused it. But, as I mentioned previously there was an update via Dell Update that included a BIOS update. There may have been driver and other Dell software updates in that too. I just don't remember.

A couple of weeks ago I reset Windows back to as it was shipped to fix the update problem. After the reset, I went through all the Windows updates and also all the Dell updates so my original update history was lost. I can't confirm what may have updated before the freeze problem started. I only remember the BIOS update.

As for disabling Support Assist and Support Remediation, I hadn't done that, but I just did so now. I will post if it fixes the issue or not.