XPS 13 9343 Unstoppable Freeze

Anyone?

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@davecosta wrote:

Hi,

I've owned a XPS13 for about 7 years now and I love it, design-wise.

Unfortunately it has produced two big issues so far. One just a few months after I bought it, which led to the complete replacement of the motherboard and, more recently, a new one: random freezes.

Basically the computer freezes, without any distinguishable pattern, except most of the times it happens when the little circles are spinning below the Dell logo, just before Windows 10 welcome screen kicks in.

Some fewer times it happens just after that, or 1 hour later, etc. It can happen when browsing the internet, or it can happen as I'm beginning to type my password on the welcome screen, but mostly just before loading the welcome screen. No blue screen, no logged error codes, nothing. It doesn't even produce sounds if I'm hearing music, it just goes silent, with the screen frozen.

One small clue is that in the logs sometimes the audiodg.exe error shows up, but it doesn't seem 100% related, and I've been through all the fixes and scans concerning that specific file. I've done all the diagnostics I can on memory, disc and processor, everything seems fine. 

I've tried to reinstall windows from the recovery menu. It froze during installation once, but even after being able to install it, it freezes again.

I've formatted the HDD and installed Windows 10 again, same thing.

I've installed Windows 7, same thing.

I've installed the latest Dell drivers (when I'm able to do so), same thing.

I've tried to switch off the battery, same thing.

I bought a new HDD, same thing.

I've tried to reset the BIOS to factory settings, same thing.

I've basically tried everything, and I'm growing desperate.

The only environment in which it doesn't freeze is Windows Safe Mode.

 

Can anyone help?

 

 

 

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@davecosta Hi Dave, 

Thanks for listing all of the troubleshooting steps that you have carried out. As the system is freezing pre Windows on the Dell logo that pretty much suggests hardware failure. Logic would suggest either motherboard or hdd.

As you troubleshooting has included formatting and reinstalling Windows multiple times, that tends to rule out the operating system being at fault. The only part that contradicts this is your comment about the system running fine in safe mode without issue. That would suggest Windows or driver related issues. It could be that the hard drive is failing but not to the point where it gets flagged up during the hardware diagnostics. It would also help to explain why it hangs just before handing over to the OS and sometimes logging into Windows. It would also correspond to the system freezing during the install. 

Going on that info I would say it's more than likely to be a hard drive fault rather than a motherboard fault. As the system was introduced in 2015, I'm not sure it will still be in warranty. That would depend on when you bought it and if you bought it with a 3 year warranty.

I'll drop you a private message to get your tag details.

Alan

@muluman88 thanks for the contribution to the thread. Officially that version of Ubuntu hasn't been certified for use on the XPS 9343 due to the age of the system. 

That detail aside, we need to determine whether the freezing is being caused by that version of Ubuntu or there is a hardware fault as per the other forum poster.

a) Has the system only started freezing since upgrading to 18.04?
b) Have you tried reinstalling 18.04 to see if that improves the situation?
c) If you install 16.04 on the system does it still freeze?
d) When the system freezes, is it always within the Ubuntu environment or does it happen pre boot?
c) Can the system freeze very shortly after booting into Ubuntu or is it normally after a few hours of use?
e) Does the system appear to be running warm before it freezes?
f) Have you done the extended online diagnostics to see if that throws up any errors rather than the ePSA diagnostics? https://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/04/product-support/product/xps-13-9343-laptop/diagnose I would run the full test.

I hope this helps.

Alan