XPS 8930, constant freeze

Cool!  Please keep us posted.  Thanks.

some great posts here despite endless hyjacking . (flood of contradictory problems for sure using 1 word freeze)

one poster even saw the CPU % go way to high(spike) then never told which named process did that?,

new batteries for that wireless HID. (sure)
try wired HID>? wow, so easy no? even disable the wireless HID?

turn off wifi, totally in device manager (disable it) and run only wired ethernet, (seems not yet)

learn that WIFI stinks, if traffic on your (wrong channel (1?)) is overloaded the wifi stalls.  that is what WIFI does.

you said it spiked, so turn it off and try ethernet, and all other things in the home work to the www. ok.

google why wifi **bleep** , read and learn how the radio channels are SHARED, !!!

but wifi should not freeze your desktop or freeze any HID ever, only www traffic ends, unless the wifi driver is wrong. so use  ethernet, see who great that WORKS, ?

turn off all sleep and hibernate , etc, even put PC W10 into full blown presentation mode."projector mode"

if Anydesk(tm) PC1 to PC2 (frozen) works then the PC2 is not frozen. the HID is dead. only.

The ePSA passes, test sure, (call desk knee jerk, answers.)

run Linux DEMO live, media (free) and Pc run runs perfectly?  (costs nothing if USB stick is in tool box now)

my guess is Linux runs all day no issues.... (ubuntu v17 up, boot it click "TRY ME" and is harmless. 100%

safe boot off or booting USB fails.  ok?

run full smart tests on the HDD/SDD.?  must not fail, (im sure it passes on a new PC but....)

sure reload w10 last, at wits end. (  do not do that now and never first thing...) 100 apps gone now. hah don't.

sure you w10 is infected, but how and why only remains. (my guess is bingo)

HID NOT bad,  using Ethernet now, wifi fully disabled. and it still freezes?

sure if you  had removed the hdd, and put your blank spare HDD in to the bad PC, then loaded free w10 fresh from Microsoft and it did not freeze now (using only wired HID ok?)and only ethernet (WIRED)

this works?

then your removed HDD was in fact infected,, (any of 1000000 ways)

my word  infected can be vast things, virus, malware, wrong drivers. and errant applications, etc.

windows is  dirt sponge... learn that and you  can find out way, using tests that I showed you here.

did you empty the startup box first>? all but defender. empty all that JUNK from this PC.

run SFC ? and DISM test per Microsoft.com steps?  (infected?)

does PC only freeze running some unstated browser , only running games.

what are you doing at the freeze, ???? exactly or is it many things that freeze, do be specific?

fixing PCs blind , in a text box or call desk , help, is near impossible. (no don't take that bad job)

hands on testing works only, in most cases.  ok.?????? after all it's a computer not a toaster.

in all cases, we first do tests, to prove it's not   hardware. first. (if not then w10 is in fact infected some way)

testing hardware is vastly more easy than cleaning up any WINDOWS system.

tested with Linux media, and spare fresh loaded SSD test disk with w10 fresh loaded on it.?

just 2 tests and bingo see the hardware is good or not.  (does you help desk know that, probably not) tier1.

all I get is burned toast.

" about 30 letter "a"'s got inserted into my text since it was the button I hit just as it froze. "

so the keyboard data was captured by the OS, but was backed up in the KEYBOARD FIFO buffer, sure.!

what  happened there is the screen updates are dead. (even a bad video card or iGPU driver BAD)

the desktop software is freezing, ! that is what you proved  and so would ANYDESK remoted in freeze too.

My guess that....

why not use taskmanager to see what code (processes) are, overloading, my guess is task manager freezes.

why not leave task manager window (processes) open all day to see what does at the freeze,?  simple no?

if yes the OS is infected.(why remains)

task manager must not freeze ever,  it is  low level service .(loaded first in FACT after Kernel loads)

MS did that so it  is ROBUST this util.  (NEXT LOADS, DEFENDER, FOR SAME REASONS)

the only time I see that happen 2018 to 2019 is with games, only them. (TM LOCKED UP)

In the olden days all  viruses locked TM up, and even CP control panel dead.

but not today, only those nasty games do that,  I have  over 50 AAA games at steam so know all that)

I can on demand (me) lock up METRO , EXODUS , EPIC GAMES LAUNCHED, I spam ESC and it LOCK dead.

I learn that skipping intro screens by accident. so only this one game can I lock up dead TM taskmagager

so tell use what TM does first EXACTLY., or this post may go to 1000  pages fast.

most games crash , vast do , but never locks up TM ever, but just one …. Metro.

and I have over 100 apps loaded on one of my PCs. ( even DTP ,  nitro PDF publisher and lots more)

no crash's ever, no lock ups ever, (besides the metro example and only me , doing that)

I can watch 100s of movies on my 2 video servers here,  not one lockup on any PC here or any TV.

ever. (by design)

you said form?,  is it a PDF form what form?, where. on your PC, on you USB stick , on line where? in general.

or just in a browser? if yes what browser? if only locks in browser , say so. ok?

only online?

do you have  local game,  say old ,DVD version of COD MW2 that you can hard load to a PC and use that to test it>?(no NIC, no wifi no Ethernet> all that disabled. (even unplug all that)

or run PASSMARK on the PC see if that works then furmark to see if the GPU has issues>

when doing diagnosis , first test with NO INTERNET at all, if that fails the we now have just  the PC to fix.

see why that makes a job more easy , I hope so...

now some comments on steam

that application has many settings.

so with steam (I keep my games all on DRIVE G:/games, ) (never beat the C: SSD to death.)

I go into steam setting and all 50 titles are set to DO NOT AUTO UPDATE

can you see why>?  only let it update those game by YOUR DEMAND.

and do not let steam itself auto update. (to some degree this may be impossible IDK but is a FACTOR)launched.

settings is complex in steam, no lie,

settings in-game turn off overlays

interface, do not check load steam box, at windows start (or that be asking for trouble?)!@!!!!!!

interface , see those words there about GPU and all that,  ? do not leave steam running full time.

download,  turn off downloads. uncheck all 4 box there, and only update manual, or only the game you USE NOW.

CLOUD: See this, consider those 2 boxes carefully.

each game has its own rules in the left side of the steam screen you can tell what games you want updated

if any.   right click game line, properties set update to only update this game when I launch it; (1 of 4 safest one)

now you know why to keep steam off, when not using it.

I'm still having this problem, too.

I hope Dell can come up with a solution to this problem. There are way too many of us having it ... there must be a common denominator.

Let's see if there's a common theme here. What brand of memory do you all have in this PC? And what configuration, eg 1x8 GB, 2x8 GB, etc?

If you don't know what RAM you have, you can use the free CPU-z to find out. The Memory tab will tell you how much total RAM is installed and whether Channel # is "single" or "dual". The SPD tab will tell you how much is in each slot, who manufactured it and when.

And if changing Power plan settings and/or disabling gaming or something else solved the problem for you, be sure to mention that too.

It's not the memory here.  I had the problem with the original stick(1x8Gb, single channel) and with the new ones(2x16Gb dual channels)

I tried 2 approaches together last week (both discussed here, see below) and have seen a reduction in the frequency of freezes; but it still happens several times a day. Waiting for a fix!
<< Expand list under USB and double-click a root hub. Click its Power Management tab and uncheck the box "Allow PC to turn off..." Repeat for all USB root hubs. >>
<< Turn off the "game bar" and gaming mode and the Microsoft game recording stuff. >>

@rjbards- Did you also do the same thing for every Human Interface Device entry in Device Manager that has a Power Management tab with that same "turn off" box? And what about making all the changes to the active Power plan I suggested?

And just because someone said here that swapping RAM didn't fix the problem for them, doesn't mean that might not help others. As I've said multiple times in this thread, there may be more than one problem going on here with the same symptoms...

@RoHe 

As mentioned, I turned off gaming -
<< Turn off the "game bar" and gaming mode and the Microsoft game recording stuff. >>

I only made changes in Device Manager to USB Root Hub devices -
<< Device manager: USB Controllers: USB Root Hub: Uncheck box "allow computer to turn off" >>

I also had issues when I bought the XPS in May where the processor fan speed went wild at random, this power setting solved the problem -
<< Advanced power settings: Maximum processor state: set to 96% >>

The XPS was purchased at Office Depot and came with 8GB memory and 16GB Intel Optane memory. Memory testing using BIOS diagnostics showed nothing. Online Dell diagnostics showed nothing.

And memory info - 
DDR4 8GB Single Channel in Slot 2 DDR4-2666 (1333Mhz) by Samsung PN M378A1K43DB2-CTD Wk/Yr 46/18

Other suggestions?

replying to all posters hyjackers and all,

first  off my posts are not based on warranty answers ever.(outside my pay grade, )

I assume your PC shop is helpless? they forgot the art of PC repair? or are you trying to learn it the long hard way?

first off you must test and learn if the problem is hardware or software caused, I guess posters here don't want to do step one and this page goes for  9 blocks long , is that it?

does the PC run on Linux boot disk all day,?  y/n.  why not run the free Linux demo live boot media....????

and /Or ,  put in a test drive, (a SSD 60GB up is best, dirt cheap too and #1 best way to test , cheap and fast )

did you skip these so very easy tests?

then load w10 64bit free, costs you NOTHING for 30 long days,  load it to the test drive, SMART TESTED FIRST> (S.M.A.R.T) using at least 2 smart test utilities. (to spare SSD IS BEST (for speed and fast installs)

then load w10 fresh,  if that runs all day or all week long then you hardware is ok, or your original HDD is bad.

if the original HDD is good, then the OS IS BAD, or any thing in it bad. (infections,drivers,apps, and more)

why can't anyone do this,?

Most PCs that run slow (not hardware) is from infections , 24years, of infected PC, billions of hits , on GOOGLE>. see it's not a DELL issues, it's a general PC issue  or more accurately a COCKPIT ISSUE. (even kids playing with dads PC problems)

endless ways to infect any PCs,  bad apps, email attachments, **bleep**, email links, drivers loaded not from MS or Dell. all infected,  or even , omg, defective, applications, even ones that have updates that stall your PC.

or even MS doing UPDATES, with you not learning how to control that.... and you CAN.

endless ways to miss up the virus magnet WINDOWS. (a sponge) less so today but ,,, sure. still is.

stalls in just hardware are mostly what?

1: bad HDD.

2: over heating CPU or GPU. chips.

3: take the PC down to minimum stated, strip it down, all PCIe cards out wifi modules pulled too.

4: if it failed in linux too, strip it down. test the hardware until the stalls end then put back things removed 1 by 1.

at the least , the above. 

(loading windows then stuffing back 50+ applications all day long 8 hours, so fast you never learned what APP was in fact bad, is not going to work>)?

that is all I have to say on stalls.

(when it stalls does taskmanager keys stall too.... this is what any tech does in second flat)

see the degree of the stall now,   TM must run at all times, if it stalls the OS is stalled, or CPU overheated..

ALL CPU made stall or go super super slow when too hot, this is a hardware feature , not stoppable.

until repaired.

mostly today my PC's only stall if running those very nasty games (AAA+ newest are very buggy)

But even windows explorer crashes still 1 time a month, but self recovers fast. (self aborts)

all my pcs have software loaded that throw up warnings,  (GPU or CPU overeheating NOW)

so can you.

fan speed went wild (a clue never to ignore if ever there was) but if PCs in the garage at 95F , normal.

will that can be cause by:

1: gee it is too hot,  the BIOS runs the fans it's, not dumb; it is  smart and runs that as it needs, self preservation.

2: or the sensors in some PC (outside CPU/GPU or IS) are too hot or failing. vents blocked case fans bad?

3: or buggy BIOS> (did you up grade BIOS yet)

why not run fan and PC temperature monitors on the PC , an APP.  then when the Fans go nuts you know why?

or at the least which sensor is showing too hot?

@savvy2 

My XPS was brand new, right out of the box from Office Depot, sitting in an air-conditioned dining room. Fan got loud 2 minutes after startup. I was inclined to return the monster...

I found a Dell-recommended solution here: https://www.dell.com/community/Desktops-General-Read-Only/XPS-8920-Ridiculously-loud-and-annoying-fan/td-p/5180636

I now have spent 2 trial hours today running Linux Mint 18.3 with no freeze issues. I have also started running HWiNFO64 (back in Win 10) to monitor temps on all sensors. I want to catch a snapshot of the system temps if a freeze takes place.

We shall see...

(duplicate removed)

@RoHe 

I have been free of random freeze-ups on my XPS 8930 for the last 48 hours running Win 10. Here is a summary of all changes made to the original factory settings:

I turned off gaming:

<< Turn off the "game bar" and gaming mode and the Microsoft game recording stuff. >>

Made these changes in Device Manager:

<< All USB devices - USB Controllers with power options: Uncheck box "allow computer to turn off" >>

<< Killer E2400 Gigabit Ethernet Controller - Power Management: Uncheck box "allow computer to turn off" >>

<< Qualcomm QCA9377 802.11ac Wireless Adapter - Power Management: Uncheck box "allow computer to turn off" >>

I also had issues when I bought the XPS in May 2019 with fan speed, this power setting solved the problem:

<< Advanced power settings: Maximum processor state: set to 96% >>

Dell-recommended solution here:

https://www.dell.com/community/Desktops-General-Read-Only/XPS-8920-Ridiculously-loud-and-annoying-fan/td-p/5180636

The XPS was purchased at Office Depot and came with 8GB memory and 16GB Intel Optane memory. Memory testing using BIOS diagnostics showed nothing. Online Dell diagnostics showed nothing.

My memory info - DDR4 8GB Single Channel in Slot 2 DDR4-2666 (1333Mhz) by Samsung PN M378A1K43DB2-CTD Wk/Yr 46/18

I have been running HWiNFO64 (in Win 10) to monitor temps on all sensors - None out of normal range in last 48 hours.

The combination of power setting changes in Device Manager seems to have been the fix. I will try some additional testing restoring gaming stuff in the future.

Bob