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XPS 17 9700 Blue Screen Error while sleeping: Thunderbolt(TM) Bus Driver to blame
I am experiencing a series of issues resulting in blue screen errors on my new XPS 17 9700 when Windows 10 is in idle sleep mode.
Previous threads I have started:
- 01-22-2021 12:22 PM XPS 17 9700 crashes when sleeping - Googix fingerprint to blame?
- 08-21-2020 01:38 AM XPS 17 9700 Blue screen while sleeping: Thunderbolt(TM) Bus Driver to blame
- 08-01-2020 12:49 AM XPS 17 9700 crashes when sleeping - Goodix fingerprint to blame
I bought this laptop within a month of them coming available under 6 months ago. While the Goodix fingerprint device issue has recurred for me since Dell replaced the motherboard, the workaround I identified in the first thread works for me and many other Dell laptop owners with this device.
I am now faced with a reappearance of the Thunderbolt(TM) Bus Driver causing a crash while Windows was sleeping due to a memory access violation exception not being handled. This has happened twice in the last 4 days:
As you can see in SupportAssist. Digging for a bit more information with WinDBG (MS app available from the Microsoft Store) it says this is due to a memory access violation:
ERROR_CODE: (NTSTATUS) 0xc0000005 - The instruction at 0x%p referenced memory at 0x%p. The memory could not be %s.
I do not know how to go about remedying this but will update this thread if I figure anything out.
Note on motherboard replacement:
I had hoped that this issue had disappeared after Dell replaced the motherboard. I didn't experience this crash for a few months since that was done. The motherboard was replaced due to a power circuit issue with the early batch of laptops which resulted in the battery draining pretty quickly if the laptop was under load for extended periods (video encoding, gaming etc.) This was due to the early motherboard not being able to draw full power from the 130W power supply.
Steven Pavett
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February 19th, 2021 00:00
now its over a week later and I haven't seen this bluescreen reoccur in that time. I do still have a problem with devices becoming disabled when the laptop resumes from sleep as I describe above, basically I can live with that. What I think has made the difference is introducing hibernation as an idle state (this isn't enabled by default). This laptop seems to have only one other supported sleep mode:
I have now set it to hibernate after 10 minutes on battery and after 70 minutes on power (it sleeps after 4 minutes). That seems to have banished the BSOD memory error that was the original motivation for posting here.
I still get an issue where when I wake the laptop from sleep a few devices appear as disabled - this manifests by Windows Hello face recognition no longer working and the laptop reporting that it can't use this method to unlock - at that point I can unlock with the finger print reader. So I can live with that.
I have a Dell Thunderbolt dock also attached to the laptop with a Logitech Brio webcam and a Behringer UM-2 external USB sound card, and a Display Port monitor attached. It may well be something to do with this combination which is causing my issue, rather than a clear fault with the laptop.
Dell support folks tried to help and wanted me to test with all these devices detached (which I have done - for the last couple of days which seems to be fine - no devices disabling on wake, no BSOD) and to disable all non-Microsoft services in Windows. This just isn't feasible for the way I use this laptop on a daily basis so I will just live with it as it is for a while and when it all becomes too irritating I will try a full reinstall in the hope that that addresses the issue. For now I'm marking this as the solution, despite it being more of a partial workaround.
Steven Pavett
25 Posts
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April 3rd, 2021 05:00
Hi @hard2kill,
I have reinstalled Windows from the SupportAssist OS recovery tool something like five or six times now since I got this laptop in June 2020 (ten months ago). Word of warning - it may not fix things if you reinstall as the Dell support engineer suggested.
WORKAROUND
My laptop has stopped crashing when sleeping for a couple of weeks now after I disabled Windows Hello devices in the biometric devices section of Device Manager: both Goodix fingerprint and Windows Hello Face Software Device. Right click them and select disable device. I have to type my PIN to unlock but that's an inconvenience I'm prepared to live with to have a laptop which doesn't crash when sleeping.
Thoughts / Rant:
The first line guys who answer calls and respond to posts in this forum have a limited set of trouble shooting steps to follow and the Microsoft/Dell/3rd party ecosystem is just inherently complicated and tedious to trouble shoot. I'm not ignoring the massive improvements in the ecosystem over the years and the good will of Dell staff to try and fix things but like how often do you see here in the community: "oh yeah I called up Dell and the guy totally fixed the issue"?
Every time I've reinstalled Windows on this mid 2020 XPS 17 it has been due to either this thunderbolt issue or the fingerprint reader issue I have posted about previously and my growing frustration that coding projects I'm working on with a team of other people get messed up, or that I come back to my laptop from taking a break to join a meeting to find it's crashed to a recovery screen. I'm so frustrated by the flakiness of this ecosystem. It's infuriating. This laptop is my daily driver and I can't afford the additional time suck.
The last time I went through this cycle started about six weeks ago. I take a day or two reinstalling updating and so on to get back to an up-to-date vanilla install (following the recovery tool sequence of steps it guides you through). After that its fine for a while until one day the crashes start to occur again on a daily basis.
This time I got the impression that things start to go wrong once windows issues a major patch to the OS through the standard update process. I can't confirm this but I can't think of what else changed that went from stable system to crashing once a day. My guess is that there is some kind of config change which results in these devices no longer being able to work right with the power management in Windows but its just a hunch.
The only positive in all this is that I've learnt a bit about recovering Docker container state (used in my dev work) after such crashes.
Steven Pavett
25 Posts
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January 31st, 2021 12:00
Happened again today - Dell support ticket is open.
DELL-Cares
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25.1K Posts
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February 3rd, 2021 01:00
Can you see if you have the same issue with services cleared out?
Disable any BIOMETRIC logins before you do this.
https://dell.to/3oKAOgc Windows key + X key. And select Run.
2. Type msconfig in the Run box and hit Enter.
3. On the Services tab of the System Configuration dialog box, tap or click to select the Hide all Microsoft services check box, and then tap or click disable all.
4. On the Startup tab of the System Configuration dialog box, tap or click Open Task Manager.
5. On the Startup tab in Task Manager, for each startup item, select the item and then click disable.
6. Close Task Manager.
7. On the Startup tab of the System Configuration dialog box, tap or click OK, and then restart the computer.
^JKC
DELL-Cares
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February 4th, 2021 16:00
Hi just wanted to follow-up. Did my last recommendation yield any results? ^JKC
Tesla1856
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February 4th, 2021 18:00
Update BIOS and then update to latest Thunderbolt driver.
Steven Pavett
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February 5th, 2021 01:00
@DELL-Cares There are services for all the hardware on this laptop and a number of other applications I use like Docker for development. Even with a fresh install on this machine there are a ton of services from Intel (thunderbolt, killer wifi etc) Are you saying these are not needed for this laptop to operate normally?
Steven Pavett
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February 5th, 2021 01:00
@Tesla1856 I updated the BIOS as soon as it was available in Dell Update a couple of weeks ago but I still get these system shut downs due to Thunderbolt memory access violation - there are no updates suggested to me in Dell Update which Thunderbolt driver are you referring to?
Tesla1856
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February 5th, 2021 08:00
Yeah, well I suggest you verify that BIOS got updated. There are also several other sub-system firmwares included. If you start to run it again (from Windows) it should show that all embedded controllers are already proper version. Then, you can "bail out" if you wish.
I don't use Dell/Alienware Update.
I see 2 relevant files here:
https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-us/drivers/driversdetails?driverid=tapof&oscode=wt64a&productcode=xps-17-9700-laptop
and
https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-us/drivers/driversdetails?driverid=tbt75&oscode=wt64a&productcode=xps-17-9700-laptop
Steven Pavett
25 Posts
1
February 10th, 2021 05:00
Thanks for the suggestions @Tesla1856 The BIOS had indeed been updated and all additional firmware applied in the process.
I also reinstalled the Thunderbolt controller driver - I couldn't however reinstall the Thunderbolt controller application as the installer just exits with return value 1 (failed) and there isn't a great deal of info about why in the associated logfile - I tried running the steps in the associated Powershell script in the install package to get more insight but that also just fails unhelpfully. Not sure what to do to rectify that just hope a subsequent update sorts it out.
So I am trying a couple of other steps as I have seen a few additional patterns. When my laptop goes to sleep (standby) on wake it frequently (not always) reports that a number of devices have been turned off due to a driver error (code 43). This affects Thunderbolt controller system devices (I have 2), Detection Verification system device, HID Sensor Collection V2 sensor, Windows Hello Face Software Device biometric device and sometimes also the Surface Arc Mouse Firmware Update system device.
This smells of a power management issue when in standby and seems to be a theme with the other issues I've had with this laptop. Three of the listed devices above have power management settings. I have disabled the "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" option to see if that prevents further failures or memory access violations while in sleep (standby)
I'll update in a week or so if this seems to be successful. There is also a power setting on the Detection Verification device which I have left enabled for now but might experiment with this also if issues persist.
Steven Pavett
25 Posts
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February 19th, 2021 02:00
Clarification on my last post:
I only get devices disabled on waking the system issue when I have the external devices plugged in via the Dell Thunderbolt dock. On it's own, the laptop doesn't display this issue. It did however display the BSOD without the devices plugged in, but possibly only after it had been plugged in to the dock since booting.
hard2kill
7 Posts
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April 1st, 2021 11:00
Hi Steven,
It was about two weeks ago that started having this issue with my XPS17 9700 with I9.
I received the device early December 2020 and had it connected to the Dell WD19TB (130W) docking station from day one.
Until recently, I didn't have this issue before.
But recently, I opened the lid and pressed a key to wake up the PC and it wouldn't.
It was just a black screen so I thought it may have been an overnight update that had an issue.
But after that first time, it's happened everyday.
At first I thought it was turning off because it was just a black screen.
However, I noticed it was still warm and you can hear it running at times.
I would hold the power button for over 30 seconds thinking it would turn on.
But it wasn't and now I know that I was forcing it to shut down - thinking it was already turned off.
In one of the instances doing this, I noticed that signing in by fingerprint wasn't an option.
Now, I've felt that my trackpad has had issues since receiving the unit and talked briefly to support in February.
They said that I'm not using the trackpad correctly and referred me to an article.
I tend to look for issues before calling support because it is time consuming, but this issue finally drove me to call in on 3/31.
Two hours later, the rep reinstalled drivers, bios and unchecked fastboot from sleep option.
He said to see if the issue continues and if it does, then it's possible it an OS issue and you may need to reinstall.
With hopes that this issue was fixed, I opened the lid and tried to awaken the unit.
This time it froze on the background image, which finally helped me realize it was freezing and how I was able to find your post.
hard2kill
7 Posts
1
April 5th, 2021 09:00
Hi @Steven Pavett,
Thanks for the detailed instructions on avoiding this.
But for a top tier unit, this is unacceptable!
I really like this 9700, but it seems like they cut corners.
In my previous XPS 15's, I rarely had any issues.
The only major issue was an BIOS update that created and issue about two years ago.
I'm also frustrated by the flakiness of this ecosystem because I've lose work due to it crashing overnight.
This is also my my daily driver and can't waste time troubleshooting an issue such as this.
But this crashing has caused me to lose work that wasn't saved.
Steven Pavett
25 Posts
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April 10th, 2021 09:00
Another week on and I'm still happy that this workaround has prevented the crashes I was previously experiencing.
I know that the next version of Windows is meant to include some changes to the Hello features - like being able to switch between built in and external cameras. I'll no doubt have a go at reenabling these devices then or if I notice that the Goodix device gets an update via Dell.
At the end of the day I didn't buy this laptop because it had a fingerprint reader or face recognition but I do miss the convenience now I have disabled them.
hard2kill
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April 14th, 2021 15:00
@Steven Pavett
Thanks for the update.
I notice this issue only happens when either plugged into docking station or USB-C power brick overnight.
If not plugged in, it doesn't happen.
I spoke with DELL support again about this issue and they suggested replacing the motherboard.
It sounds like you did that a few months ago and it didn't resolve the issue.
Is that correct?