XPS 8960, perpetual issues

Question

While my PC was still under warranty, it started experiencing crashing of all my internet browsers along with periodic blue screen crashes. This persisted to a point that a new issue developed where the pc lost all capabilities of connecting to the internet.

Despite professional IT support, could not get these issues resolved without a fresh windows install.

When the issues still continued to persist, I reached out to Dell and was guided to test for hardware issues using Dell’s built-in utilities. The results did not point to any hardware errors so Dell was confident the issue was software related. This I was told is not covered under warranty.

Out of share frustration I brought my PC in to a highly credentialed local PC repair person. His vast testing that included another fresh windows install, ruled out any software-related issues. He suggested I prolong the DELL warranty coverage that has recently expired, so that spare parts can be ordered from Dell in a trial and error manner of swapping 1 part at a time until the issue resolves.

I reached out to Dell requesting a courtesy extension of the warranty period due to their misdiagnosis that occurred while still in warranty period.

My request was denied. I had continued to request to pay out of pocket for the warranty extension, but was again denied based on the now known “pre-existing condition”.

Given no other option, the repair expenses continued to pile up, first with the purchase of a replacement motherboard. With issues persisting, we will need to proceed with the purchase of cpu and then if that doesn’t resolve it, possibly afterwards, the processor.

Such a pity, I paid over $1200 for an upgraded system while looking forward to many years of quality use This is only to find myself with multitudes of hours, data, energy and work lost due to a highly unreliable system.

MastiffX · Answer

You should reinstall the factory software. This is the software that was on your computer when it left Dell's factory. It's stored in a special recovery partition that Dell included with your computer.

See Reset Your Computer

You already know that there are no problems with your hardware. And now you will be reinstalling the very same software that Dell put on your computer. This is as close to a solution as you will ever be. You have the original hardware and the original software.

This solution can only fail if someone tampered with the recovery partition that Dell put on your computer.

aonefun · Answer

thanks for your input though as explained software issues have been ruled out with several fresh installs

aonefun · Answer

my continued research is leading me to believe this is due to a known issue with intel i7 processors. my technician will be testing soon. responsibility will still lay on dell. sadly they totally ignore this known cpu issue when providing support and pretend it doesn't exist. lots of precious time and money wasted as a result.

MastiffX · Answer

@aonefun​  I'm sorry that I can't provide help for this 'known issue with intel i7 processors' that you believe Dell wants to 'totally ignore' because you didn't say what the known issue is. But I wonder if you might be referring to this:

aonefun · Answer

yes this is precisely the known issue. i believe to have explained in my initial post on what issues were manifested by the processor defect

FredZeppelin · Answer

@aonefun​ - I am having multiple issues with my 18 month old XPS 8960, too. I am running an i9 CPU and Nvidia 4680. The issues started gradually, now this POS crashes once or twice a day. I paid $4k for this thing and it's junk. All Dell's advise, all their tests, everything shows no issues with any software or hardware, yet my event view shows hundreds of warnings and errors a day. The black screens don't always say the same thing, either. I have tried all the online advice I can, wiped the hard drive twice using only Dells official and Windows running clean and updated with nothing else installed, and it still does it. Due to bad prior experience with their service department, I don't trust Dell one bit.

aonefun · Answer

@FredZeppelin​ are you down to replacing the cpu? that is what did it for me finally! As per the IT technician I hired, he suspected either the motherboard or CPU and after replacing one at a time it was determined to be the cpu. see previous post above about known issues with intel processors.

XPS Desktops

XPS 8960, perpetual issues

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