XPS 15 9530, NVIDIA not loading

Question

User slisse85 made a post about the same problem, but about their XPS 15 9550:
"Hi all, I have a XPS 15 9550 and yesterday have noticed that the NVIDIA graphics card is not running properly. Since I bought the laptop 6 years ago it was running smoothly without issues, I updated OS and drivers regularily and maintained it in good order. Here are the things I tried to fix it:

1) Update the drivers through GeForce Experience. After downloading the drivers I get an error that this version is not supported by Windows 10 OS.

2) In Device Manager I noticed that the card is not even listed in Display Adapters. On Show Hidden Devices it shows as grayed out and disabled saying "Currently, this hardware device is not connected to the computer."

3) In Support Assist everything is up to date, and there are NO issues listed.

4) Running diagnostics through Dell webpage also shows there are NO issues except for the Battery having Fair performance, however, only my integrated Intel graphics is available and tested.

5) I am able to download Video driver through Dell webpage, but upon instalation it also says that Driver is not supported.

6) BIOS shows Video with only an option to adjust brightness levels, no other mention of discrete NVIDIA card is present.

7) Restarting the computer in Safe mode does NOT show graphics card in Device Manager.

Running diagnostics on Startup does NOT show any errors."
The above is the first half of their post. This ALL applies to me and what I've tried/seen, as well something later in their post that mentions their NVIDIA working perfectly from draining the battery, but 2 computer restarts later (for me it was one restart), all the problems were found again: "One more computer restart and we are back to square 1, card is not listed in Device Manager, NVIDIA control panel does not work, driver update says it is not supported."

How can I fix this on my XPS 15 9530?

DELL-Jesse L · Answer

To receive assistance from Dell chat support, they need to verify the warranty status and ownership. Then you must troubleshoot with them.  Click the 'Get Help Now' icon on the right to start a live chat session. If already out of warranty, click here for the Dell out of warranty offering.

XPS_Man · Answer

Some other XPS models had similar issues (i.e. xps 9700) where NVIDIA disappears or shows in an error state in the device manager. Those models received an Nvidia firmware update. This model doesn't have such an update.

This can lead to a motherboard replacement so I would suggest backing up your data before troubleshooting.

Perform a BIOS recovery: Hold control and Escape while powering on and choose to recover

Peform a hard reset - Open backpanel : Disconnect battery cable. Hold the power button for 30 seconds.

rwuduke · Answer

Request for MB replacement.

oz34T · Answer

@XPS_Man​  exact same issue  going on here, except for the laptop is less than 8 months old and have only been used for the last 1.5 month. Had discovered that GPU is not showing when was upgrading the drivers.  Had asked for a Motherboard replacement, it unfortunately, did not fix the issue... any ideas??  I get exact same error (code 45), when show 'hidden devices'... is it just bios version issue? please help... hopeless

robotmatt · Answer

I've had the same issue for a while now. Multiple reinstalls of drivers, BIOS resets, motherboard replacement etc.

The best I can get is I can force the BIOS to redetect the GPU, but then the blue screens of death soon follow and the GPU is no longer detected.

This seems to be a widespread problem with a recent BIOS update...

https://www.dell.com/community/en/conversations/xps/xps-9530-2023-nvidia-graphic-card-not-found-after-update-bios-to-v190/659fc8254cc1fe3336e8ec58?page=3

https://www.dell.com/community/en/conversations/xps/blue-screen-missing-gpu/664263423a00f4589788e857

HolyCow791 · Answer

Same problem since today...

Blue screen with VIDEO_TDR_FAILURE message if I boot on windows. If I boot on Ubuntu everything freeze completely when I reach the identification screen. Same if I boot on an Ubuntu live USB Key. I am working far from home this week and the only way a found to use the computer is using Ubuntu in safe graphics mode but impossible to plug external display. I tried multiple video driver clean re-install both on Linux and windows (by booting in safe mode) but nothing work. The rtx4070 is recognized on Linux if I do nvidia-smi but I saw nothing about it in bios menus (maybe this is normal?)

I really dont know what to do... A 3500€+ computer of one year with low usage since I use my desktop when I am not in displacement...

mangoloco · Answer

hey everyone, although i usually dont really post on forums, i figured this time would have to be an exception as this problem is absolutely unacceptable and i dont wish for anyone to struggle with it. ofc i cant know for sure if this fix will work for everyone, but its what worked for me. you should be able to find all the links at the bottom of the post. FYI my computer is a Dell XPS 15 9530 (NVIDIA RTX 4050ti). also please keep in mind i am as far from a professional you can imagine, so please bear with me!

TLDR; exact same problem as many of you, basically the computer could not find any traces of an NVIDIA GPU anywhere. first thing i did was to open the Control Panel and click on "Uninstall a program". i then uninstalled any program that had anything to do with NVIDIA, and restarted my computer. then, i downloaded a BIOS update found on the Dell support website, and therefore updated my BIOS to 1.17.0 (link). this took me to a Dell Flash UI app that recommended me a bunch of updates, to which i just clicked on update. once that was finished and my computer restarted (you need to scroll down on the Flash UI app to find the restart button), i opened the Dell Command | Update app (link to download if missing) and it recommended me with a single "Critical Update", which was to download the NVIDIA drivers. so did that, and the NVIDIA GPU reappeared in my device manager! i then downloaded all the latest NVIDIA drivers and updated my GPU both manually and then reinstalled it through the new NVIDIA App.

here i'll spend a bit more time detailing everything that i tried to fix it beforehand, and what actually worked in more details.

THE PROBLEM

i think that the biggest red flag i got was when my computer got the blue screen of death 2-3 times in a row for no reason. i was basically just trying to update my NVIDIA drivers, but with the new NVIDIA app, for some reason it wouldn't update my drivers and would just keep displaying the spinning wheel as if it were loading the page. to go around this issue, i tried to download the drivers directly from NVIDIA, but when i tried to download them i got my first blue screen of death. i therefore restarted my computer and tried to install the NVIDIA drivers manually again, but thats when the installer said that there were no compatible GPUs found in the computer (or something along those lines). thats when i started thinking there was something seriously wrong with the computer... indeed, i then checked my device manager and the NVIDIA driver inside of Diplay adapters wasn't there. it was hidden, so i managed to reveal it when i clicked on "View" and "Show hidden items". as @ghost0hunter suggested in another thread, I opened the BIOS when booting up the computer (spamming F2 when booting up), and basically did a factory rest of the BIOS settings. this worked temporarily, as it re-enabled the NVIDIA diplay adapter. however, i got yet another blue screens of death when trying to update my drivers, along with a prompt from the BIOS saying the computer was overheating, therefore shutting down on its own; weird as I wasn't doing anything but updating my drivers). also it might be worth noting that loading the factory default BIOS settings only worked ONCE. anyway after this i tried completely uninstalling the NVIDIA display adapter from the device manager, as i couldnt figure out how to make it show itself as enabled. i was expecting for the NVIDIA GPU to reappear (at least hidden) upon restarting the computer, but this however made it even worst, where the NVIDIA GPU apparently completely disappeared from my system. wherever i checked, it felt like the computer had absolutely no clue about any NVIDIA GPU... smh...

WHAT I TRIED (but failed)

1. so first thing i tried was to reset my BIOS settings to factory default. to do that, i booted up the BIOS, and clicked on the bottom left button "LOAD DEFAULTS", and then clicked on "Factory Reset" (or similar - the right-most option). as mentionned above, this worked temporarily but after a single restart, the GPU was back to hidden in my device manager.

2. second main fix i tried was to uninstall the NVIDIA display adapter but that clearly didnt work as it made it completely disappear from my system.

2bis. still within the device manager, i tried uninstalling the intel driver too, as i thought this might force NVIDIA to reappear somehow - didnt work.

THE FIX! (for me)

finally to the fix! so what i did to fix it was already explained in the TLDR above, but i'll explain it some more detail here.

1. make sure to uninstall everything associated with NVIDIA from your system. i did that by going to Control Panel > Programs > Uninstall a program > Uninstall anything with NVIDIA written on it. once done, restart your computer.

2. follow this link and on here click to the right under "Which product can we help you with?" on your computer (in my case the XPS 15 9530).

this should take you to the page shown below in step 3.

3. you'll be sent to this page where you SHOULD (hopefully) find a Critical driver update. for me, this was the Dell XPS 15 9530 System BIOS 1.17.0 update.

once downloaded, this will send you to a Dell Flash UI app. make sure you update everything you can in there! btw for me i had to scroll down to find the buttons to "Update" and "Restart" after the update.

4. after doing this BIOS update, i ran the Dell Command | Update app (link to download) and downloaded the "Critical driver" update this one suggested; this critical driver update was to reinstall the NVIDIA drivers! once completed, i then restarted my computer.

5. to make sure the drivers were correctly installed, i then downloaded the correct driver from the NVIDIA website (link) and followed the installation steps. basically i knew it was going to be good when the NVIDIA driver updater didn't give me the error saying that no NVIDIA GPU was detected. once that was done, i restarted my computer

6. to really make sure everything was up-to-date, i then ran the NVIDIA App (the new GeForce Experience) and re-installed the Game Ready Driver. once again when that was done, i restarted my computer.

so basically having had the same problem as many of you, i managed to fix it following the steps specified above. i can now happily confirm that my computer KNOWS about my NVIDIA GPU!!!!!!

i hope this will help some of you, and im sorry if it doesn't fix it for you. honestly Dell and gaming go together like oil and water do; completely heterogeneously... such a shame when paying such an amount for a performant GPU and CPU! whats even more alarming is Dell's capacity (or lack-thereof) of helping its customers fixing their problems. absolutely infuriating. anyway good luck everyone! <3

Links to apps and driver update websites
Dell BIOS Update: https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-uk/drivers/driversdetails?driverid=gxff7
Dell Command | Update: https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-uk/drivers/driversdetails?driverid=w4hp2

NVIDIA Driver Download: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/drivers/

Adonis Penalva · Answer

Hello, everyone! Unfortunately, after just one year of using my XPS 15 9530 notebook, I'm also experiencing the issue of an intermittent graphics card. My GPU would not initialize during the first startup of the day. After using the machine for a while, and then shutting it down and turning it back on or restarting it, the graphics card would appear and function normally. I contacted Dell to resolve the issue. They ran some tests on the machine which showed that the GPU was working, and they told me it was likely a software problem. They advised me to reinstall the video drivers, which I did. Unfortunately, the problem got worse — the system started showing blue screens or shutting down randomly. I contacted Dell again, and they advised me to format the SSD and reset Windows. I followed their instructions, but now, after the reset, the graphics card no longer appears at all. I can’t install the drivers. I’m going to try one last format, restoring to factory settings — this time without using Dell's recovery assistant to update Windows. At this point, I’m starting to lose hope. I’ll post the results of this final attempt here before considering paying for Dell support.

XPS

XPS 15 9530, NVIDIA not loading

THE PROBLEM

WHAT I TRIED (but failed)

THE FIX! (for me)

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