I have a new XPS 13 9380 running Ubuntu 18.04 that is experiencing very strange issues after booting or suspending the system. These occur on a system with BIOS 1.6.0 and a fresh install of the latest official Ubuntu 18.04 OS with default settings found at https://downloads.dell.com/Restricted/FOLDER05575621M/1/Dell_XPS_9380_20190321_210_A02.iso

When the system is shut down, booting it by pressing the power button will sometimes go to a black screen that it stays on forever. This can happen either before or after the Dell logo appears on the screen. From here, I have to hold the power button to turn off the machine and try again. This doesn't happen all of the time: sometimes it boots without a problem. When the system fails to boot, it often fails several times in a row requiring a hard shutdown before finally booting.

I have similar issues when the system resumes from suspending. About half of the time it resumes normally. The other half of the time the backlight repeatedly turns on and off although the screen is still black. Sometimes after a minute of this it finally goes to the login screen. Other times it finally gets stuck on a black screen or a screen with all of the pixels flashing random colors and stripes on one side of the screen (see following photo).

 

 

 

When this happens, the only solution seems to be to hold the power button down to force shutdown the computer. This tends to lead to a sequence of ~5 failed boots before the system finally comes back online. This can take 10-15 minutes. In normal operation the system seems to work fine most of the time, although it has randomly switched to the screen with pixels flashing random colors a handful of times.

Has anyone else experienced a similar issue? I have not found anything similar on these forums or in any google searches. I also tried installing the latest Ubuntu 18.04.3 image but ran into the same issues.

I already sent in this brand new laptop to be repaired once because the touchpad was faulty. That issue was fixed in the repair. I am not sure if the screen issue was present before that repair or if it only showed up afterwards. It does appear to be getting worse over time though.