XPS 7390 2-in-1, blue screen, memory and camera issues

Question

Hi,

I have had my Dell XPS 13 7390 about 18 months. I've been a bit disappointed with performance.

Initially, every time I opened skype and used the camera for a call I would get the blue screen. I called Dell support who were helpful and updated some drivers and reinstalled skype and the problem went away for a bit and it now happens less frequently. (I don't use skype very often).

However, I do still get blue screens from time to time (every 2-3 weeks). It's always when I'm using an app that uses the camera (MS teams / Skype / Zoom). And normally it's making any change to the camera (e.g. turning it off or on) that triggers the blue screen. I use the camera a lot through MS teams - and it by no means crashes every time, but just every 2-3 weeks, I normally have a couple of chrome windows open plus outlook and maybe one or two small excel files.plus the standard background apps.

I have also noticed that my memory seems to run constantly at 70-90% usage, which surprises me seeing as I don't think I'm using anything that intensive and I got the largest memory available at the time (I think!) 8GB (which now feels low and wish I'd got more). I get the feeling it's the memory which is causing issues but I don't know why. All my drivers are up to date.

Also, about once a week when joining a teams call my camera won't work.. I have to 'disable' it and then 'enable' it in the device manager screen. Then it works again.

I will post an image of my task manager. I understand chrome can be quite memory intensive and it's usually the highest user of memory. At the point of taking the attached shot I had 3 tab open including gmail and 2 on dell site.

I also get the occasional screen blackout for about half a second when it gets a bit busy. This happens several times per day but only started when I installed microsoft visio.

I haven't really installed much software on this beyond what came as standard (I have some google drive syncing, MS office plus a handful of other utilities. )

Does anyone else suffer from this? Is the camera at fault? Should my memory be running at 70%+ from start up with nothing open?

Can dell help now I'm out of my 1 year service contract? I don't think I can expand the memory to 16GB, can anyone confirm please?

Thanks in advance for any help

DELL-Cares · Answer

Hi,   I have replied to you via a private message.   -Gautam.

sic_99 · Answer

This was latest blue screen message. Happens in normal use every few weeks, normally when camera is in use.

DELL-Cares · Answer

Could you share an image of the blue screen error/ stop code to smac_support@dell.com?   The subject line is Case #7427622.   -Gautam.

JMSD28 · Answer

Any luck resolving? Have same issues for 18 months+. Have yet to find a solution. Thanks

sic_99 · Answer

The blue screen happens less frequently now - in fact it hasn't happened when using my camera in several months and prior to that it was at least weekly with similar usage.

I updated all the drivers and things and also now have the latest windows and office. Otherwise nothing specific I can point to I'm afraid.

Good luck

JMSD28 · Answer

Thanks for the reply. I've emailed to that address. Here's a copy from what I can find in SupportAssist after it occurred yesterday  -

JMSD28 · Answer

Appreciate the reply. So you're on Windows 11? Did you by change notice a change after that update? I've updated EVERYTHING I can think of via Dell Support/Windows Updates. Still happens with no apparent cause. Have not done Windows 11 however.

sic_99 · Answer

Yes - am on windows 11. It was working better before the update. My usage isn't that consistent over the last year with covid etc so it's hard to say when it stopped crashing frequently.

That said - I felt the blue screen was maybe caused by memory usage hitting 100% and my memory usage is sometimes still above 90% still, usually c80% despite me buying a machine with the max memory at the time and only having a handful of basic apps open not handling loads of data.

The crashing was often when I opened the video - particularly skype, but also zoom and Teams. And having just used skype now it doesn't crash but my memory usage goes to 88%. (This is despite the sum of all programs not summing to anywhere near that in task manager). I don't know whether that's normal, but it seems from some googling it might be the way windows works.

So perhaps the root cause of my problem isn't solved and updates have meant my machine just uses a little less memory. If you can get a memory upgrade then I'd suggest that. Maybe try re-installing your camera its causing issues. But I just concluded Dell were just selling machines with not enough memory to cope with basic usage - but I don't know for sure. I wouldn't buy a dell again and I'd always make sure I have 16GB+ ram as a minimum.

JMSD28 · Answer

Thanks very much. Appreciate the detail. I've got 16GB RAM and am far from a power user myself. But I can see it being correlated to switching between calls, happening on camera launch (the camera doesn't always work in cases where it doesn't crash the machine as well), and/or when memory is temporarily maxed out. Mystery I guess.

Just unfortunate with such a highly reviewed/praised laptop with robust specs. My personal Mac is nowhere near as unstable.

sic_99 · Answer

Yes - when the crashing was less frequent towards the end of last year my camera would frequently not launch when using Teams or Skype whilst I was joining calls. And other than re-starting the only way to resolve was to disable and then enable the camera in device manager.

Although, I have to say I haven't had that problem once since being on windows 11 and Microsoft 365. It was probably happening 30% of the time before that.

Strange you have the problems with 16GB of RAM - I always assumed it was driven by a shortage of ram. Perhaps its a hardware fault then.

sic_99 · Answer

I wanted to add that not having had a blue screen for a while (albeit not using the laptop for work during that period) - I had a blue screen today.

I was on a video call and also had open a small/med sized excel of about 5MB. The memory usage was 90%+ and the excel was incredibly sluggish. Eventually it got to a blue screen. I can't recall the exact action that did it - perhaps switching between video call and excel. Maybe tapping enter in a cell.

WIth covid and the contract work I do my laptop usage is quite variable and I hadn't used excel in many months but by coincidence have started using it intensely this week.

It's basically unworkable. I can't believe they build top end laptops that can't do basic tasks. I also think the reviews are paid for. Wish I'd bought basically anything else.

XPS

XPS 7390 2-in-1, blue screen, memory and camera issues

Was this post helpful?