Bug: New XPS 13 9300 slow boot caused by intel INF errors

Can confirm the same, my boot takes up to sixty seconds. i7-1065G7, 16GB, 1TB SSD, UHD+touchscreen. Brand new laptop.

My previous laptop, a nine year old Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro (i5, 8gb, 256SSD, UHD+touchscreen) would be around fifteen seconds.

Hi All, anyone found a solution for this issue? Just got new laptop and have exactly the same problem. After reading this I opened a case with Dell support, I don't have high hopes but maybe they will advise something.

@Anthony81 Thanks for opening a ticket, I hope they take a look at this thread to see the issue is widespread. No fix here, even with the driver and bios updates...

Edit: It appears that Dell posted some new intel chipset INF files today, though I'm not sure if it's anything new as the version number is the same as previously listed. In any case, I installed them all and there is no difference in the boot time.

Hei all.
Just to give another update. Just had the DELL XPS 13 9300 and I experience the same behaviour as you guys.

With the preinstalled image and with a fresh new one.

Hope this thread gets some view from DELL Support.

@Kyle Sh.How did you install these new INF files. I can't seem to match these INF to anything and there is no installer in that zip file.

Dell messaged me back but nothing useful so far. If I get anything useful from them I will post here.

chipset INF  is microsoft/intel not dell

Just finished remote session with Dell. Complete waste of time. Things "engineer" did (of course any of these makes no sense)

- clean temp folder in Windows

- clean temp folder in Users home folder

- disabled ALL startup apps

- disabled ALL startup services (including AV as he said it is not necessary to run!)

Of course it all made no difference. His conclusion: "everything is fine, system works as designed".

He suggested return if I am not happy with a product.

He didn't check any system logs or boot logs, nothing. Total waste of time.

I wonder what else can be done, there must be a solution. As @Kyle Sh.  mentioned and I would agree it has to be some issue with a driver or service that is trying to load and delays boot. Boot time using fast startup is normal (12s) so that would again indicate that issue is with drivers. 

Has anyone have a system that boots quickly? Maybe we can compare drivers and find some differences.  

Mine is the same - I had pre-ordered mine so one of the first batch I would say.

When I switched it on the first time, I noticed the boot time being quite long but ignored it as I thought it would be the Dell image and knowing I would be doing a fresh install...

But the boot time since a fresh install (twice now) is very hit/miss.  Sometimes it takes a handful of seconds, other times it seems to match what you all are facing = up to a minute.

I have largely ignored the issue as it has not hampered performance once in but will follow this thread as it would be nice to resolve.  Mine is the i7/16gb ram variant 

@Anthony81 To install the new (?) INF files, I downloaded the old exe installer, extracted it using 7-zip, and copy/pasted the "new" INF files into the x64 folder where the previous INF files were. Use the exe to install it after that. Side-note: I found a trick online to force the installer to install EVERY inf file (using -overall in cmd line)... don't do this. It caused my touchscreen and trackpad to no longer function. Fixed it since then, but that wasn't fun...

Interesting that fastboot is fast for you. It's around 30-40 seconds for me. I wonder if this has anything to do with how much memory you have? (16GB here)

@speedstep Thanks for that info. Intel referred us to Dell, and Dell keeps saying it's normal, so it's a both a cat&mouse and dead-end here... I appreciate the links you posted, I will try that out. Thank you!

The NEW DCH driver model means that INF installs are not backward compatible, which means that you should not rollback to the legacy drivers after the upgrade and if you do that, it can lead to stability problems.

Again thats Microsoft WHQL and INTEL not Dell to fix.

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000031275/graphics-drivers.htm

Can I do ‘INF/Have-disk installation’ for the graphics Windows DCH Driver?

No. This method bypasses the Intel installer, which is designed to install the new DCH graphics drivers. Doing this can result in minor to catastrophic issues on your system and system instability.

 Intel® Driver and Support Assistant (IDSA).  is recommended.

@Kyle Sh. . I have 16GB too in mine (it is i7, 1TB SSD, 16GB, FHD panel).

INF files didn't make any difference I guess, right?

I tried a few more things myself. I found that during boot process this driver tries to load 5 times (dxgkrnl.sys). Actually goggling it leads to similar issues with a boot process reported on different laptops. I followed it and installed beta Intel graphics drivers but again no difference. Tried to reinstall DirectX but no luck either. Maybe someone else can try with better results.

I still think it has to be something with one of a drivers or services.

I messaged my companies account manager in Dell and told him i am not happy with a product and technical support that was a waste of time. Will see if he can maybe get me in touch with level 2 or 3 engineer.

I don't think the INF file will be capable of addressing the issue.

I checked Event Viewer and "acpi_hal" is apparently stalling the the bootup process by 30 seconds or so. Not sure how to go about resolving this issue.

Does anyone using the Ubuntu Developer Edition encounter slow bootup times as well? Just wondering if this is confined to Windows.

Quick update, I had a call with premium support engineer yesterday. Took almost 90min, he run number of tests and tried to changed a few settings in BIOS. Nothing solved the issue.They good news I guess is that he admitted that this is not normal and there is some fault. He arranged for on site engineer visit next Tuesday. First thing they want to replace is a hard disk.I will report back once this will be done. 

@describee Interesting... I do not have any message in event viewer regarding acpi_hal. I do have a couple of ACPI related to power management, but all 8 events go by within a second...

@Anthony81  Great news! Thank you for continuing to escalate this.

I should be clear that I do not actually know if the slow boot time is caused by INF errors - it just seems to be the one large difference I see on each computer through the bootlog...

Anyone knows how to use WPT tool to analyzie boot process?

Found this thread which I think can give us answers what is the reason for delay, just can't get it right:

https://superuser.com/questions/1093178/windows-7-freezes-at-windows-logo-on-startup-and-then-boots-up-completely-after/1093522