XPS 8940, constant freezing

Uninstalling the HD Audio driver did not work unfortunately. I first upgraded from BIOS 2.4.0 to 2.5.1, but still had freezing issues. Now downgraded to BIOS 2.3.0 and system stable for 2 days.

Yesterday I ran the F12 Advanced diagnostic for something more than 8 hours (I lost track of the time).  Nothing was found.  However the day before the 8940 froze twice.  The second time there was nothing really happening as I was watching television.

I've speculated that it is a deadly embrace but who knows?

A lot of this is summarized in the other longer thread mentioned above but it seems that can't be posted to any longer.

The bottom line is that BIOS 2.3 is the only version that appears stable with respect to this problem.

It is not a Windows problem in my opinion, as I put Linux (Arch) on my 8940 and have the exact same problem. I have tried everything. I tried BIOS 2.2 (the oldest one I can revert back to) and that was stable for a few weeks and then resulted in the freeze-up, which wiped out some libraries and required an OS reinstall. Not a happy person about that.

An older Nvidia driver gave me so many other problems I gave up on that route.

I am hoping the 2.3 will be stable for me as others have found. Ideally a newer BIOS will finally fix this one day.

@chipschap 

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@chipschap wrote:

A lot of this is summarized in the other longer thread mentioned above but it seems that can't be posted to any longer.

It is not a Windows problem in my opinion, as I put Linux (Arch) on my 8940 and have the exact same problem.

 Yes, it is not a Windows problem. Someone else posted in a thread they were on Linux and had the problem as well.

Dell is going to replace my motherboard. For US 8940's there are a few of them:

=============

KV3RP Foxconn 02012PQ00-600-G, Released July 9, 2020
427JK Foxconn 02012VY00-600-G, Released March 15, 2021
K3CM7 Foxconn ??, Released July 14, 2021

====================

I'm on the 427JK and I'm getting the K3CM7. Even that one has been reported to have a failure on, but they still want to do it.

From all the reports, it appears it is NOT Nvidia card or driver related. Not Windows or Linux either.

So, one is left with h/w and/or BIOS. 'We' do know it is BIOS but is that the root cause, or is it a combo of other parts I guess is the question? Dell has produced/released 3 BIOS versions and they do 'improve' the situation in mean time to failure, they have not fixed it totally.

So, I'm thinking is it:

• Motherboard?
• RAM total size?
• RAM configuration, single or dual channel?
• CPU model?
• Cooler model?
• PSU size?

Any and all of these in some combination could be the culprit along with the BIOS?

However, I guess I'll get a chance to tell if just swapping out the motherboard alone will fix it for me.

Bad part is I'm running V2.7.0 now. I've had since it was released 3 fails. It turns out that 2 of them did some damage. One I lost setting in one specific program, not big deal. Last one, a lot of problem. Windows Setting for Proxies changed on me, FireFox URL Icons on the desktop all changed to blank icons from the website icon. Took some time to fix that (I had backups but I didn't want to do a complete recovery as the backup was a few days old).

@ispalten  - If you're losing software settings etc, I'm starting to wonder if there's an issue with the NVME SSD. Is your SSD a Dell OEM SSD or one you installed, and exactly which one?

Is there anyone out there having freezes etc -or not- and only has a HDD as the boot drive and no M.2 NVME SSD?

@RoHe 

Ron, no, this isn't an SSD problem (WD 512GB NVMe SN530) and up to date on the f/w. It came with the XPS 8940. Have a second Mechanical Hard drive too which came with the XPS. No additional drives other than the one External 4TB I use for System Backups only. I don't think Dell even sold an 8940 with a Mechanical boot drive? SSD is not in a slot but on the motherboard.

This is the Nvidia/BIOS 2.4.0 and up problem.

Same things can happen if you just power off a running PC depending on what is happening at the time. Files are always open, usually DLL's, but those that are READ/WRITE files can get corrupted. In some cases, easily determined that the programs has a setting wrong and easily fixed. Some are not so easy.  Corrupt a major Windows file, you might not even be able to boot.

Of course, if one had a Mechanical drive, there is a possibility of damaging it. As the PC it turned off, the heads retracts and can with residual magnetism write or damage some sectors. This is NOT a problem with an SSD of course.

However, OPEN files not closed properly or those being written to at the time of the lockup can be corrupted.

I have not had a lockup when on BIOS V2.3.0 nor the HD750 with any BIOS. It is not an SSD problem I'm 99.9% sure.

I'm on 2.3.0, turboboost off, ddu uninstalled and re-installed newest NVidia Drivers (Gtx 3070) and my 8940 is still randomly freezing (needs hard restart) at least once a week. Just froze a few minutes ago and froze yesterday too.

So for me, the firmware has no impact on the stability of my system whatsoever.

@ispalten  IMO, nothing you said rules out an SSD problem directly, or even indirectly because BIOS controls NVME. Otherwise, why/how would you lose icons etc unless files stored on the SSD are getting corrupted?

If anyone has only an HDD, it would be interesting to hear what their freeze/crash experience has been.

@RoHe 

I guess your hypothesis hold true, but with the speed of an SSD, it might be questionable. Of course writing a large file back is going to take longer.

I had 2 problems with the last Lockup:

• My FireFox Desktop URL Icon's turned from Web Site icons to Blank Default icons.
• FireFox had some problem on some web sites:
  • T-Mobile, kept getting the 'not secure' error. Same URL used on my iPad and wife's PC worked?
  • Creating NEW icons on the desktop resulted then being either BLANK or FIREFOX as the icon.

Found the problem of the first one was a PROXY setting in FireFox changed to USE SYSTEM DEFAULT which was NOT set to OFF...

Second one was a little more work. Had to REFRESH Firefox and then ALSO CLEAR all COOKIES and CACHE before that got fixed.

I doubt anyone had a shipped 8940 with a Hard Disk, SSD's are the standard install. Possible someone installed a Hard Disk and has more than one OS on the PC and Windows is on the Hard Drive and also has the Nvidia card, could happen, but chances are slim I suspect.

Yes, a lockup could cause big problems, it isn't the powering off via the Power Button that creates the corruption. If the OS basically 'stopped' waiting for a process to complete and the 'hang' was a specific application or process, but the rest of the OS was operable, then disk corruption might not happen, except for the hung program/process. However, since once can't move the mouse, wake up the display with mouse or keyboard AND the CLOCK stops, I think it is safe to say the OS is not doing anything and incapable of doing anything. The 'damage' if any, was done already.

But supposed it is the SSD, why would BIOS 2.3.0 work OK? I'm SURE more people have the same SSD I do? Diagnostics do not report SSD problems either?

Oh, Dell service was her and replaced my motherboard to the latest version. Once installed, no fans ran, no BIOS coming up on the Monitor. Tech checked every connection again... and was ready to leave. I insisted that the OLD motherboard be put back in. He did it, and I'm using it now. Odd, you'd think Motherboards be tested before being used and/or sent out?

, I just check the INVOICE!!!

These are the possible Motherboards:

------------------

KV3RP Foxconn 02012PQ00-600-G, Released July 9, 2020
427JK Foxconn 02012VY00-600-G, Released March 15, 2021
K3CM7 Foxconn ??, Released July 14, 2021

===============

What I was SUPPOSED to get was the K3CM7, what the Invoice shows as shipped, KV3RP!!!!

The instructions for the CASE # was "Reason = Per L3 (xxxxxxxxx) decision, setup an onsite service to replace the motherboard with the latest revision K3CM7 motherboard"

Someone messed up it seems.

Forgot to mention that my board is 0K3CM7.

Also did a mega cleanup of anything Dell related using Revo Uninstaller. Will update if/when I freeze again.

@Oli456 

I hope it works for you. I did see another post (might have been by you) stating they had the same motherboard, and it failed for them.

Dell wanted me to try the K3CM7 so the setup a Service order to replace my 437JK. First time they did that, I got the ORIGINAL Motherboard sent to be installed. It was, and the XPS was DEAD after the install. Only then did we discover the old original Motherboard was what was shipped, the KV3RP Motherboard! So Dell Support shipped another one that was to be K3CM7. This time, before install we looked, was the 437JK that was already in my XPS... Call to Dell, they have FedEx'ed another one and say it is the K3CM7. We'll see...

However, it will be hard to tell possibly with the BIOS v2.7.0. I have had 3 lockups with it, but none recently? From the Reliability Viewer:

I had one on the 13th and 2 on the 15th, none since... and I don't know why it stopped happening?

I installed V2.7.0 on the 10th and had 3 days of it working, and 7 days since the last one... go figure?

Same freezing problem with the 8940 here.  

Dell charged me $436 to replace the CPU. Sent the 8940 back and the freezing problem continues. 

So it's not the CPU......