XPS 8950, one year later *hiccup* solution?

Question

After extensive attempts to figure out why my computer *hiccups*, sometimes a bios update seemed to work, or not.

A year past, I had requests for all kinds of test information. Finally getting beyond my capabilities so I abandoned the advice given here.

Using the computer for audio and video recording was total frustration, but lived with it since it wasn't a commercial setting.

However, going into my Task Manager and ending every task beginning with the word "Dell" seemed to finally be the solution. It "seems" like one of the Dell tasks was monitoring or scanning, and would cause that brief interruption every 5 minutes or so. Zoom meetings were impossible as it would disconnect my audio and switch to a "default". Even with those uninstalled in Device Manager.

Is this possible or yet a bad idea?

mixmkr · Answer

Additionally, of course(?) all the Dell programs would start running again after rebooting.  All my audio recording friends call this 'bloatware' and why not to buy an 'off the shelf' computer.  However my XPS8950 with the i9 and dddr5 RAM and ssd, etc...just blazes, and at the time was a much better value.

kras1 · Answer

That is solid advice. I also got rid of all the bloatware. It is the first thing I do, usually with a 'nuke and pave' install of windows. I use a SB-Z soundcard connected to my receiver via optical cable and have not had any issues.

DELL-Chris M · Answer

However, going into my Task Manager and ending every task beginning with the word 'Dell' seemed to finally be the solution. Make a list of all that you ended into Notepad. Then, add one back. Retest. End it, add a different one back, retest. Do this for all of them one at time until you find the culprit. Once found, tell us and we can identify the specific software.

Tesla1856 · Answer

@mixmkr wrote:

However, going into my Task Manager and ending every task beginning with the word "Dell" seemed to finally be the solution.

That just ends them for that session. They will restart next time.

Better to uninstall them. See my answer here (especially the first paragraph). For successful DAW, you need a lean-system build-up.

https://www.dell.com/community/XPS/What-Dell-Software-Can-I-Remove/m-p/8249792#M100942

You can also just clean-install Windows (aka Nuke and Pave) and then, never re-install all the Dell programs.

https://www.dell.com/community/Windows-General-Wiki/Guide-to-migrate-to-a-New-Windows-11-computer/ta-p/8307872

mixmkr · Answer

Uninstalling tommorrow

mixmkr · Answer

There's 10 or more programs.  That would require quite a bit of testing.  I'm just going to uninstall as my audio computer has no need and I can manually update as needed.  Lastly Dell never notified me of the 3 bios updates I've done...so I'm not sure the updater is actually functional

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XPS 8950, one year later hiccup solution?

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