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XPS 8940, intermittent freeze, possible solution
XPS 8940
Hi all,
Like many other owners of an XPS 8940/50 with an NVidia RTX (3060Ti), I’ve been having problems with the machine randomly freezing every 2-5 days for many many months. I have to hold down the power button to reset and on the rare occasions where I’ve had a mini dmp, the error is always VIDEO_TDR_TIMEOUT. If I disable the nvidia and run purely (multi mon) on the Intel mobo gfx, there is no lockup. Using Bios 2.8 and obviously latest drivers and Win 11 updates.
Dell support have been responsive, but for those of us who’ve been in IT (dev) for several decades, it can be a painful process. I’ve had replacement (refurb yuck) mobo and gfx card to no avail and the only other step to take which I’ve resisted as it didn’t seem to have worked for anyone was Win 11 reinstallation (which would be win 10 then upgrade again).
As a desperate last hope, I determined to clear out as many warnings / errors from EventViewer as possible. This was when I found that if I actually do a Shutdown as opposed to a Restart, I ended up with EventID 14 from source nvlddmkm. Watching the startup I could see a screen flicker when this happened and caused the nvidia to instigate a recovery. This is essentially the same timeout issue which appears to precede the hang, so resolving this seemed likely to be important.
Following this rabbit hole led to an interesting point that stated this could mean there was some sort of device contention problem. Turning off the onboard Intel gfx in the bios however (not recommended) didn’t help with getting rid of the event error however. I pondered the fact that this was only happening after a full Shutdown and (perhaps incorrectly!) wondered if it could be related to something I’d seen in passing on one of the many web sites I’d been digging through - Windows Fast Startup.
Once I finally found the option to disable this (see below) and did my 400th shutdown and start for the day (aaaaargh) I was blessed with a clean bill of health from EventViewer! Something within the Fast Startup mechanism was causing it - perhaps someone with more energy left can figure out the details for interest:)
So having resolved this, the machine has now been up for 6 days and counting, which is longer than any previous good spell. I’m hesitant to say the war is won, but it just might be and perhaps it’s worth letting the rest of you poor forlorn ‘freezers’ give it a go
Hope this helps - let me know how you get on, instructions below.
(@Dell - if this is the fix, do I get a reward?, I think I’ve just saved you over $100k 🥳 hehe)
- Press Win + R to open Run.
- Type control and click OK to open the Control Panel.
- Go to System and Security and then click on Power Options.
- In the left pane, click on Choose what the power buttons do.
- Next, click the Change settings that are currently unavailable link.
- Under the Shutdown settings section, uncheck the Turn on fast startup option to turn it off.
- Click Save changes to apply the changes.
wcypierre
19 Posts
0
May 4th, 2023 05:00
Surprisingly, updated to bios 2.10 and nvidia driver 531.68 and I have been running it for a week without any hiccups.
That being said though, I was already on bios v2.10 and still having issues, but seems like updating the nvidia driver to the above version and (touch wood) I haven't been having issues since
ispalten
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May 4th, 2023 16:00
@wcypierrem,
I was basically OK on the some Nvidia Driver and BIOS V2.10.0,
Even with BIOS V2.11.0, however using GeForce to install new Nvidia Drivers caused lock-ups for me..
I"m on the last one out a few days ago from Nvidia, 531.79 on BIOS V2.12.0, and that one DID not (I was running with the Nvidia Driver you have, Game Ready version) did NOT cause a lock up.
However, with that driver on the day I installed it, I did experience a 'new type' lock up. I had Firefox open with about 7 or 8 tabs open. I've got and Add-on that puts an X on the right of the tab bar that will close the last open/active Tab. Since I only wanted the first one, I started clicking on the X. Fast too, and when I stopped clicking, 2 tabs were open. However my MOUSE BUTTON no longer worked... I could move the mouse all over, but no button, nor may Keyboard worked... Power Button time to recover... new one to me, but it seemed fast clicking the mouse caused it. Have NOT been able to recreate it though.
wcypierre
19 Posts
0
May 17th, 2023 17:00
@ispalten I guess I'll stick with 2.10.0 in this case then.... but its been 24 days and I'm still lock free, so that's a good progress
ispalten
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1.8K Posts
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May 18th, 2023 06:00
@wcypierre
Staying on older BIOS versions means you not have the latest Security fixes. You are now back 2 versions, 2 sets of fixes. Are you going to be 'exposed', no clue, but why chance it?
There hasn't been many 'lock up' complaints recently, new or old ones continuing. Mast have probably moved up on BIOS releases too, either manually or it was forced on by MS Update or accepted Support Assist/Dell Update suggestion.
At least you could always go back (but I don't trust that all the time myself).
Bruno D
10 Posts
0
September 14th, 2023 17:24
Is this still an issue? I might've found a workaround:
- disabled sleep, in just put hibernate as the only thing that happens in sleep settings after a while (say after 30 minutes inactivity)
- I also used a tool called Awake, from the windows Powertoys bundle. It's just a toggle feature which forces the pc to stay awake. I use it only in some cases, say when I'm going for lunch an don't want the PC to hibernate itself, or when I want stuff running uninterrupted.
I'm not 100% sure if I did it or if some bios update, but just in case...
reeve11
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9 Posts
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April 1st, 2024 20:25
I think I found the solution to this problem. I've been fighting this for about a year and a half now!
I purchased my XPS 8940 with Nvidia 1600 SUPER graphics card and received it Nov. 2022, It came with Windows 11 installed and I immediately downgraded to Windows 10. At first, the lockups were only about 1 per month. I've only had 2 BIOS upgrades since, the last one about 2 months ago, but the problem became noticeably much worse with each upgrade. I leave my computer on 24/7 and, since the last upgrade, I would find the PC was getting daily lockups/freezes every morning when I woke. It would be rare to have a morning without a lockup. The only way to recover from them has always been a hard reset.
After this last BIOS upgrade, I researched this problem more extensively and found an article that said you should not get your driver updates from anyone except your PC manufacturer, such as DELL. It said that companies like DELL will sometimes have their own hardware/license codes for 3rd party OEM equipment and an upgrade from the OEM manufacturer (like NVidia) may not be compatible with your PC and BIOS. I had been getting my updates from both DELL and NVidia, as NVidia's drivers were always much more current.
So, I decided to download the DDU driver uninstall program ver. 18.0.7.4 https://www.wagnardsoft.com/display-driver-uninstaller-DDU- and uninstalled the old NVidia drivers and installed a clean copy of the latest driver from the DELL website. Since doing this, I've gone from having daily lockups every morning, sometimes twice a day, to not having a lockup for the past 5 days.
When Running DDU, it's recommended to have the PC in Safe Mode (without Networking or Command Line). You also need to download the DELL Driver and have it ready to install, then disable your network so the PC doesn't auto-update while the Driver is removed. Inside the DDU program, you can click on the top right drop down box to select GPU, and then click to uninstall the drivers at the bottom right of the screen. it will remove the Video and Audio drivers in less than a minute and you can see the progress. Then, update with the DELL latest version of the NVidia driver/software and reboot normally.
I hope this helps you all like it did me. DELL's support has proven to be pathetic and not worth the cost or aggravation they typically cause consumers. All they can do is to go through the same sheet of "Try This" options, have you doing numerous unrelated reinstalls and resetting things, and then they don't know what to do. If they are using special hardware and licensing codes in their systems, this should be an obvious solution and their DELL technicians should already be made aware of this and have a solution available. I think I'm done again! They can have their messed up SupportAssist, too!
(edited)
dshafer4cfc61
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April 20th, 2024 19:06
I'm sorry I can't provide a detailed history of my problem which was the same as that being detailed here, but my issue started when I downloaded the up-to-date studio driver for my RTX 3060 using the GForce Experience app sometime about a 6 months ago. Random freezes, which seemed to kill any USB hardware began almost immediately. All I did was go to Dell Support site and download the recommended driver from their site for my card (version 31.0.15.3640). I didn't uninstall the old driver; simply installed the Dell Studio driver "over the top" of the current driver. No issues ever since. I am currently on BIOS version 2.18.1 and there was just an updated NVidia driver from Dell (version 31.0.15.5168) which I installed a few days ago. It's the studio driver rather than the gaming driver, but for me everything is good.
(edited)