Help! My new Dell Studio XPS 13 Laptop keeps on freezing up!

Hold down Fn key while you power up and run through all the basic diagnostics. Then run it with one RAM chip in - then swap them over. Do this now as it will save you a lot of mucking about with support when you finally do call them.

Having said that, I've not had any screen flickering or anything like that so perhaps you shoudl search elsewhere too as this thread is purely about the lock up issue.

Don't suppose you noted down the error when you got the blue screen did you?

@Jangla

I am yet to do the basic diagnostic... the reason being many have already told in this thread that it was just waste of time as it showed that everything is OK. Meantime, what is did is, I updated the Nvidea driver to the latest version as told by @DELL-Bill B (http://en.community.dell.com/forums/t/19279904.aspx).

I have not done anything to the BIOS yet because my laptop already came with A07 BIOS version. Since ppl in this thread are speaking of unstabilities with A08, I have not installed that.

Now I am waiting... Hope things will get better for me. Else, I am going to call the tech support!! :)

I didnt not down the error code... But it said that the error is something to do with the USB mass storage driver. I wonder how. Because, I had no USB connected to laptop except my external mouse!

Cheers, NoeL

hi,

running A07.

also, when i uninstall ethernet nvida driver and install an older driver the issue seems to go away?

3909:

It really makes sense to me. Actually, I am running the A07 and the only time that the PC froze as after I spend the night talking with my girlfriend by skype, when the computer stays in my side in the bed, and don't have many ventilation.

For exaple, I used it two days ago and I felt in sleep, so I woke up in the middle of the night and turned it off. When I turned it on in morning it froze before even the windows starts.

It can be a clue. But how I could DELL solve this problem to us?

Bill any news to us?

Interesting point, 3909. I am curious now. If anyone would like to provide and post a little documentation on this thread, we can get a good look at it ourselves. Try running 3DMark on BIOS rev A02. Then update to A07, and run it again. Post back screenshots of your final scores.

I have engineers looking to examine affected systems. I sent emails to 2 customers on this thread reporting the problem this morning. I have  not heard back yet. Getting the systems to us would involve exchanging the systems for new ones. If anyone else in the US only is interested, post back and let me know. I will get with you in email.

This is purely my expierence with A08. It crashed my computer (the screen went black - the computer would not respond to keystrokes - the hard drive light was lit up but I wasnt able to get the computer to respond - had to manually shut it down by holding down the power button). With A07 I had 1 time in the last three weeks where it crashed. I installed A08 yesterday and had it crash 4 times last night after installing it. All I was doing was browsing the internet. Seems like the same issue from before.

Hello again,

I've been busy because I had a test to study for this past week, so I still haven't installed A07 or A08.  However, I think I may have found something interesting.  While studying I was on my laptop all day (literally, it was on ALL DAY).  It froze on average once a day in the late afternoon after it had been on a while.  One day it froze twice, but the second freeze was after I restarted my computer without waiting very long after the first time it froze... this lead me to think that maybe the computer hadn't cooled off and was overheating.  I happen to have an external  usb-powered cooling pad that can be placed under laptops, so I tried this.  My computer (still running the "faulty" A02) hasn't froze once in three days, and it's been on pretty much all day.  

I don't know all that much about computers, but it is possible that these BIOS versions are just a way for Dell to reduce our computers' performances so that they don't overheat as easily.  If this were true, why did we all spend money for a computer with pretty components if we can't really use them at their full potential (without an external cooling pad).  I have yet to switch my computer from power saver mode in the performance settings, but I will be testing that as well and can report back if it causes problems.  At any rate, I'm becoming convinced that it may simply be poor engineering on the part of Dell that causes these computers not to vent well enough and thus overheat easily.  (Who puts the ONLY vent BEHIND the screen?!)

I had my Studio XPS13 when I was in the US in February this year. It hung up the first time I turned it on. I had to do a hard reset and when it had restarted the multimedia hotkeys wouldn't work. I've tried restoring the system installation back to the factory set up many times but still the problem persisted. I've even tried reformatting the drive and started a fresh installation using all the latest drivers available from dell but still no improvements. I have all the latest drivers now as well as the BIOS but it's gotten even worse. The multimedia keys do not work when the laptop is on mains (with the battery on, charging up or fully charged). I noticed as well that the 2 cores run at 100% with the battery in place and plugged into the mains power thus resulting the system to slow down and literally crawl. It only works perfectly well when on mains and the battery removed. When on battery, the probem happens randomly.

I'm not anymore hoping to have my laptop replaced since it's too late now and I'm in Norway. I just wonder when Dell could provide a really good solution to all these problems with the Studio XPS13. All I can do, I guess, is wait and just use the laptop on mains power without the battery while waiting for a miracle from Dell.

I don't doubt that it will show no hardware problems - it's just nice to have a clear conscience when they ask you if you've run them :emotion-1:

The final chapter in my Studio XPS saga is as follows:

Finally got agreement to refund. Followed by denial of agreement. Followed by agreement to refund... ad nausium - this went on for something like 4 days. Was told refund would take 3 days, then told 5-7 days, then 30 days, then 5 days etc.. Then they refused to issue a credit note to the amount paid (I bought mine from an authorised reseller and he wouldn't refund me till he had one). Then they agreed to send the credit note....and didn't within the time frame they agreed - finally was sent 3 days later than agreed. Doesn't sound like much but when it's a £1000 of your money sitting in someone elses bank account, you've got a hugely expensive wedding coming up in 6 weeks and your car's playing up, 3 days is a lifetime of stress I just don't need.

My advice? If you've  got the NBD warranty and you really, really are determined to have a studio xps then I would absolutely rinse them for engineer visits. Do it daily if you have to until every single component has been replaced. Then ask for a replacement machine entirely if it's still not right.

If you're not fussed about having one any more, insist on a refund and do it soon - they'll drag you round the houses and make you jump through a million hoops before you finally get it so the sooner you start the process, the better.

Figured I'd add my issue onto this thread. Just got my 1340 about a week ago. came with bios A03. i installed a temperature sensor program and it was running an average 65 degrees. i spent forever trying to get help from dell about installing bios A07, i was getting an error. "machine not found" and "wrong version" or something like that. found out how to get the bios installed ON MY OWN last night. Anyway, my issue is now that i have bios A07 and most if not all of the updates, I get the blue screen. Lets say i turn off my laptop and turn it on, i get the blue screen and have to manuallyshut down. the next time i turn on, it does so just fine. that whole cycle repeats itself every time. Are there any drivers or updates i should remove to get around the BSOD? I mean it's the equivalent of having a brand new car that dies after starting every other time i use it, what a pain!

I'm running vista ultimate 64, 2.66 ghz, 320gb HD, 4gb ram, Nvidia 9500, WLED....

Have you updated your webcam driver?

it looks like that did the trick. thanks. for some reason i thought i did all the urgent updates, guess not.

I've been following this thread from time to time and I believe I am having very similar problems. My 1340 laptop (which came mid-April) has been randomly freezing. Before doing any updates it would freeze every 5 hours or so (i.e. very rarely) and when it did, the screen would not respond to anything (nor would the keyboard lights). Although on battery it frooze almost instantly.

With the updates it seems to crash far more frequently and on the A07 BIOS update it can freeze after 2 minutes or after an hour (and the same when running from the battery - i.e. better on battery than before but worse when plugged in than before). While I had it on the A08 it was much worse so I went back to the A07. With the NVIDIA update which made it stay in the save power mode all the time - when it crashed, instead of the screen staying static, there would be a set of beautifully coloured horizontal lines and most of the screen being black with some of the screen visible. I am not sure if this indicates a video card issue or not.

Although the freezing seems completely indiscriminate (I am 99.9% sure it hasn't got anything to do with heat) it does seem to always freeze when copying large files to/from my external HDD. Although there will be times when the laptop lasts 30 minutes or so no matter how many dozens of times I try to copy this one 6GB file (which should only take a few minutes) it will always freeze. I have tried running it without the battery in and that doesn't work as it did for one person. I have downloaded and installed all the updates available and none help the situation. I also tried to work Process Explorer & Manager and although I consider myself to be a relatively advanced computer user I just couldn't work the programs out to be able to figure out what exactly is causing it to freeze. Hopefully someone at Dell can try testing one of the faulty laptops to figure it out. To be honest, considering how long this problem has been known about, I'm surprised it hasn't been figured out yet.

Despite all that, when the laptop is started in safe mode (incl. networking too) the laptop works fine (obviously without audio capability etc.). I require it to run a program called ArcMap so I now have it always starting in safe mode with networking. It lasts all day and night and I can copy as many large files as I want. I can listen to music (and run my softphones etc.) on my trusty 3 year old Acer which was only replaced because it would crash when running ArcMap after a while. I have vowed never to buy a VIAO after one gave up on my within a year and I will do the same for Dell (this is my first and only Dell). I can't believe the only laptop brand I trust is Acer, not to say I won't try others.

I paid a fortune to have the CompleteCare thing but as I bought the laptop in Canada and I am in the UK for the next 2 and a bit months I have to wait until Dell can release a fix for this which I hope is soon. Otherwise it would be nice to know that just in case that doesn't happen does anybody know if the new 1340s suffer from this? I will be asking for a replacement if it isn't fixed by September.

I purchased the Dell XPS Studio 1340 from Best Buy in March. It would freeze intermittently (once a week or so). I wish I had returned it when I had the chance. It has streadily gotten worse. I called the problem into Dell 2 weeks ago - receiving the "Dell XPS Experience"  - a BAD experience. Since then, I've spent over 20 hours on the phone troubleshoooting - running diags, reloading the OS (of course), changing default settings, and explaining the issue each time I call in. At one point, they transferred me to the Software support group and asked for a credit card!

Some support people are better than others, but each assures me that they have identified a fix. Since then, we have replaced the mother board, heat sync, fan, and hard drive. We have reloaded the image, altered the power settings, upgraded the bios, upgraded the video drivers, ran without the power supply, and reseated the memory. It is now a $799 brick - it hangs on boot-up. Now I need to send the laptop to Dell. I argued, pleading my case for a new laptop, but to no avail. So now it will be at least another 2 weeks before they either return it me, or, if they can't fix it, replace it.

I write this from my $400 4 year old Toshiba, which has only needed a $30 fan replacement. It's not fast, it's not sleek, but at least it works!

I will NEVER buy another DELL again. I discourage anyone from considering a DELL product ever again...

BillB 

The post that you have about updating the BIOS and the video card drivers has a bad link for the BIOS update.  Can you correct this?  Here is the link to the post I am talking about:

http://en.community.dell.com/forums/p/19279904/19503022.aspx#19503022