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December 16th, 2020 06:00

Precision 7550 randomly freezing with new BIOS (1.5.1) on Ubuntu 20.04

Hello,

I have a brand new Precision 7550 (Intel W-10885M, RTX5000, 128 Go Ram ECC) with a dual boot Windows for Workstation x64 / Ubuntu 20.04. Since the new update of the BIOS (1.5.1), I got random freezes (3 for now, but it never happened before) : screen is frozen, keyboard and mouse not responding, if a sound was played before the freeze the last second of it loops infinitely, etc... It does not necessarily happens when the computer is particularly solicited or a high temperature. Last time it happened I was editing a text document on emacs.... The only thing I can do is turn it off.

I use Ubuntu for my work most of the time, so I do not know if it also happens on Windows (I would need to use only Windows for several days to see if it happens). The only thing I know is that it happens on Ubuntu, and it happens since the BIOS update.

If someone from DELL could contact the teams who develop the BIOS to transmit a bugreport. And if anyone has any idea of what I could try (beside waiting for a BIOS update), let me know.

14 Posts

December 16th, 2020 08:00

I believe it's Ubuntu 20.04 issue. I am using a thinkpad p15 (10885M, RTX5000) and having EXACTLY the same issue. Just using vim and listening to youtube music, system has no load, laptop random freezes and last second sound loops infinitely.

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274.2K Posts

December 18th, 2020 08:00

Were you running on battery on AC? I've only seen it in battery so far.

4 Posts

December 18th, 2020 09:00

I was running on A/C. What do you think is the probability for it to come from hardware and from software (BIOS, Windows, Linux...)?

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274.2K Posts

December 18th, 2020 13:00

Swaying toward OS/drivers at the moment since I've had a lock plugging in displaylink as well

Bios tests all passed and all day soak test passed as well

It's frustrating! How long were you running on the old BIOS with no lockups?

 

 

 

 

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274.2K Posts

December 19th, 2020 01:00

@vince-fr were you using NVIDIA proprietary or Open source graphic drivers?

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December 19th, 2020 04:00

some fresh thoughts:
1. Switched off any logitech services between freezes - no lock
2. When "freeze happens" I quickly press power button to put laptop on sleep and press it again to wake up - everything goes back to normal.
So I assume culprot is touch screen?

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274.2K Posts

December 22nd, 2020 03:00

For ref, Ive downgraded BIOS to 1.3.2 and will see if that stabilises things!

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December 23rd, 2020 07:00

@vince-fr @RuiRuiRui Just got this again on the old BIOS so sounds more like an OS problem as you note. Did you find anything more?

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274.2K Posts

December 23rd, 2020 08:00

Sadly I can confirm this also has occurred on Windows, so in my case at least, its the device that's at fault.

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December 31st, 2020 22:00

freeze again today. check syslog. seems related to this:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/mutter/+bug/1892573

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg-server/+bug/1870597

 

@Anonymoushas Dell replaced your 7550? Are you still getting random freeze after replacement?

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274.2K Posts

January 1st, 2021 00:00

@RuiRuiRui went back for a refund.

Mine was a complete lock up with no unusual details logged in syslog.

I could not access the machine remotely either

As noted, I also had lockups in windows as well

January 4th, 2021 07:00

I hope this works! Dell has been zero help and as far as I can see this has been an on and off issue for the past 6 years!

January 22nd, 2021 09:00

Hi,

 

I bought a Precision 5550 without the touchscreen and I am having the same random freezes as this thread is talking about. It has happened while plugged in the AC or on battery. Sometimes I can go for days without it freezing and sometimes, it will freeze twice within an hour. No real commonality between all the freezes and no error messages in syslog or kern.log either.

Interested in what you are finding.

January 22nd, 2021 09:00

Hey! Here are my two cents. My Precision 7750 doesn't have this problem although the version of the BIOS is the latest. However, I am using Fedora OS with the XFCE desktop environment. I don't know if you tried another Linux distro, but it would be interesting to know if another distro makes any difference.

January 22nd, 2021 09:00

@nerijusgaliauskas That is an interesting point. I am using Mint, so it would be interesting to try something else and see if it happens again. Right now, I am using the laptop pretty heavily and it would be super disruptive to reimage it, but when things quiet down, I'll give it a try.

 

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