Aurora R10, 3080Ti, crashing

Question

I bought my son an Alienware Aurora Ryzen Edition R10 with a 3080ti running Windows 11. It's experiencing some serious issues and while he works with Dell support I'm hoping someone else may have some insight. Below is a list of the issues and troubleshooting steps.

Almost all games he plays will crash, the screen goes black, monitor says "No Input" and the computer must be hard rebooted. You will sometimes see artifacts for a few seconds and then the screen flickers and goes black. So far Minecraft doesn't seem to have caused a crash. Modern Warfare, well, no such luck. Any other taxing game seems to do the same.
Before Windows and Nvidia updates - over or under clocking in the Alienware Command Center passed the test then immediately caused the flicker then crash.
After Windows and Nvidia updates - over or under clocking in the Alienware Commend Center doesn't even begin the test.
Dell support remotely connected and performed updates and ran the tests in Support Assistant. All passed though the video card "Stress Test" doesn't really stress the 3080ti.
HAGS (Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling) has been tried enabled and disabled with no change in the crashing.

Any tips are appreciated.

Jonny · Answer

Funnily enough, just this week after the latest Modern Warfare update my R13 with a 3090, doing the same, hard reboot, but only with Modern Warfare.

The wifes R10 with a 3080 on windows 11 had the same issue you describe above but with all games in general, we sorted it by switching back to a Bios from late 2021.

I will let you know when I figure out my issue incase it helps you, although I'm confident its not hardware related my end as I just throw cinebench r23 multi, time spy and Heaven Unigine on a loop and let them run with zero problems.

Vanadiel · Answer

Liquid or air cooled?

ProfessorW00d · Answer

What CPU, PSU & RAM in that rig?

JoeSnuffie · Answer

Sorry, I should have known to list that.

AMD Ryzen 9 5900X Processor (12 Core, Up to 4.80GHz, 70MB Cache, 105W)
32GB (2X16GB) 3200MHz DDR4 XMP UDIMM Non-ECC
Alienware Chassis with 1000W Power Supply (Dark Side of the Moon)

JoeSnuffie · Answer

Liquid cooled CPU. Air cooled everything else. Alienware Command Center show CPU and GPU temps never get into a dangerous level. GPU stays between 60 - 70 in heavy use. The system will often crash in the lobby before the gameplay starts. It will also crash when changing any GPU settings in the Alienware Command Center with no games running.

JoeSnuffie · Answer

We've done some more troubleshooting.

Uninstalled Alienware Control Panel and the problem persists.
Drastically reduced the quality settings in the game and the problem persists.
Reseated the GPU and power connectors and the problem persists.

Another issue I have identified is that the computer only reboots about 1 in 3 attempts. At first I thought my son wasn't giving enough time after a cold reboot but I tried it myself and we have to hit the power button a few times.

Here's what happens when the reboot fails -

The lights come on, the fans start up
The fans quickly slow down and become almost silent
The lights on the front of the case remain on
Nothing appears on the screen

Sometimes the keyboard will light up but then go dark.

My son is on the phone with Dell again to try and sort this out.

ProfessorW00d · Answer

That is a nice rig . . . should not be crashing. Try uninstalling Dell Support Assist.

Consider an nVidia driver clean install;

Tube Vid instructional

Display Driver Uninstaller

nVidia driver download page

JoeSnuffie · Answer

Drivers were already uninstalled with DDU and reinstalled. The Dell technician did his best but the reboot issue is progressively getting worse. We've had to pull the power plug twice and hold the power button down 40 seconds to do some sort of reset just to boot.

Good news is that Dell is sending a box and it will go back to them to repair. I just had this done to my Alienware laptop and they turned it around in 1 day. I will post back when I have more info.

Larcade · Answer

make sure you're not plugging all power cords into one power splitter.

Jonny · Answer

Well bizarrely for me it was Steam crashing my PC, all sorted now, hope you get fixed soon

JoeSnuffie · Answer

By the end of last evening the computer wouldn't reliably boot and when it did just about anything would cause a crash. Even opening Chrome would do it. A return box is already on the way to my house and I'm going to let the warranty do its thing.

JoeSnuffie · Answer

It's the Battle.Net version.

Jonny · Answer

I would whip it back out, I ended up with the same problems not being able to boot etc, to the point I thought my PC had a more serious problem with hardware. Have you by any chance got Modern warfare on Steam as it is a problem for a few people. I followed this guide https://youtu.be/JS1wQJO-xAM

Restarted PC, had another crash on mw, followed by an update on mw then all back to normal. Steam and mw2 definitely haven't had a great start

One thing with a PC, never give up to easily as if its a software issue you can normally do it yourself with some persistence

Tesla1856 · Answer

@Jonny wrote:

I will let you know when I figure out my issue incase it helps you, although I'm confident its not hardware related my end as I just throw cinebench r23 multi, time spy and Heaven Unigine on a loop and let them run with zero problems.

Right. Just remove the games from the equation.

@JoeSnuffie I keep HAGS off and

I suggest no over-clocking of anything (run all at stock-clocks).

JoeSnuffie · Answer

We ended up having to send the computer back to Dell to be fixed and they replaced the GPU.

Alienware Desktops

Aurora R10, 3080Ti, crashing

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