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

First I'll say, what I will write may appear un-related, but it may also help in finding similar configurations that hold some clues.

I have two HP Pavillions-dv6 and dv7, both with Windows Vista 64b Home Premium and they BOTH do EXACTLY the same thing your Dell XPS 13's are doing! I go through all the same steps to no avail, as the laptops will hang up in all the same ways. many lock-ups seem to happen when Vista tries to install critical updates.

Alot of it happens when Graphic intensive games are being played. We have to do the Battery removal thing too, but eventually, the laptops will start locking up again.

We are running ATI Radeon V-cards, so it is not NVidia drivers.

I am beginning to suspect-like a previous poster in this thread- that it has more to do with Vista 64bit OS.

Wonder what would happen, if I just do a full re-install of OS, but this time around, get out my XP CD and use that OS?

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I am posting from: Dell 8200/ 2.3P4/ XP/ 1gig Ram/  80gig HDD/ NVidia chipset on an Asylum Ge-Force FX 5600, 256mb.....It runs faster than the brand new laptops!? lol.

Folks -

I've stated it here before. When I installed Vista 32bit and its accompanying 32 bit drivers (I'm still on BIOS A06, btw) my freeze-ups disappeared without a single recurrence. Use my laptop all over the place, on battery power and AC; games, web cam chats, and general web development. No hardware replacements have been done, and I bought mine at Best Buy.

First I'll say, what I will write may appear un-related, but it may also help in finding similar configurations that hold some clues. I have two HP Pavillions-dv6 and dv7, both with Windows Vista 64b Home Premium and they BOTH do EXACTLY the same thing your Dell XPS 13's are doing! I go through all the same steps to no avail, as the laptops will hang up in all the same ways. many lock-ups seem to happen when Vista tries to install critical updates. ...... I am beginning to suspect-like a previous poster in this thread- that it has more to do with Vista 64bit OS. Wonder what would happen, if I just do a full re-install of OS, but this time around, get out my XP CD and use that OS? ______________________________________ I am posting from: Dell 8200/ 2.3P4/ XP/ 1gig Ram/  80gig HDD/ NVidia chipset on an Asylum Ge-Force FX 5600, 256mb.....It runs faster than the brand new laptops!? lol.

Folks - I've stated it here before. When I installed Vista 32bit and its accompanying 32 bit drivers (I'm still on BIOS A06, btw) my freeze-ups disappeared without a single recurrence. Use my laptop all over the place, on battery power and AC; games, web cam chats, and general web development. No hardware replacements have been done, and I bought mine at Best Buy.

This has been confirmed on another forum that I'm watching where people are reporting issues. It seems that it is most likey the 64bit version of Vista. I'm hoping that Windows 7 will be supported on this laptop and not have any issues.

I still have hang up's (currently running A07) but there infrequent and never seem to follow a pattern. Typically once every three to five days now.

I cannot completely agree with you on that. This is because my laptop is running on 32-bit OS and A07 BIOS. (The laptop came with A07 BIOS.) Still it hung twice in last 1 month.

Though my porblem is not as severe as what people in here are describing, I have a bad feeling that I went for M1340. :( I bought my laptop on 6th June 2009.

Cheers

NoeL

I am running 64 bit vista ultimate on my sxps 13 and after installing the integrated camera drivers, i have had NO problems. I am running a07. I think there just might be some drivers a few of you haven't installed. I dont really see how this many people could be having hardware issues.

Yes, apologies to all. I overlooked posting this earlier, but if you are having lockups, update your webcam driver.

Just FYI, I had already updated and also disabled my webcam entirely and the freezing still was occuring.  I can't say that it was any less frequent either.  Still working on updating everything... and I am also hoping that a switch to Windows7 will fix these problems.  It would be nice if Dell could get someone to fix these issues or at least give us a copy of Windows7 (discount... something?!) since we all paid for Vista and it doesn't work correctly.

Thanks for being here for us Bill.

After reading all these laptop issues, I began searching through forums at all the major PC manufacturers and it appears that laptops in general are just total crud.

I really would rather purchase desktops, but these days, retailers aren't carrying desktops anymore. Just the laptops, which none seem to be worth the $2000.00USD I have already invested.

Answers seem to range across all possible issues for these hang ups and I personally, believe the issue is laptops in general, which cannot seem to handle the power we are cramming into them. Then there is this deal about driver this, patch something here and upgrade that, to the point it becomes a murky ocean of garbage, that everyone keeps writing back, they never wanted.

Seems PS3's and XBox360's also crash and burn within a year and the companies responsible do not really give a hoot.

Isn't it silly, that these PC makers keep adding doo-dads, utilities and apps, that they think wil improve our PC experiences, only to find out they are actually ruining it?

The best of times on any PC,

Dell8200 and Windows XP.

Set it up custom, gaining plenty more speed,

Brand new OS's were never a need.

Give me the old days, when things stayed the same,

Not todays techies, staying ahead of the game.

They advance it so quickly, it muddles the brain,

While forgetting to BETA test in the slow lane.

Yes it is true that laptops generally fare worse than desktops, which is why if you want to go for an expensive portable option then you should get some kind of comprehensive warranty.

I believe the reason for the problems with this laptop can be narrowed down since:

 - the laptop freezes not just when normal programs are running but when they're not - I remember it once froze while vista was doing an update after the logging off bit. I think this safely rules out my own software.

 - the laptop works in safe mode. this indicates to me it's either a video card issue (as stuff like DirectX doesn't work in safe mode), or an audio issue (audio is completely disabled in safe mode), or to do with something else that doesn't run in safe mode like the webcam.

And I don't know if it helps the people (if there are any) who are working on this problem but when it freezes in NVIDIA's 'save-power' mode it has the black screen with a bit of my 'normal' screen (static) at the top with colourful horizontal lines 3/4 of the way up, and in the 'boost performance' mode it freezes so the screen is static with all of the 'normal' screen showing (i.e. without the black & colourful lines). I know this is a really bad explanation but I can't think of the right words right now.

I've updated every possible thing I can (including, but certainly not limited to: the webcam, audio and video drivers) - and it now has Vista SP2 (I had to run it in normal mode for a while to get the update installed and it crashed in the same way after the update, after 14 minutes). It would be nice to hear from one of the many people whom have reported such crashes about whether safe mode works for them so that I know my issue isn't actually an unrelated one.

It would be nice to hear from one of the many people whom have reported such crashes about whether safe mode works for them so that I know my issue isn't actually an unrelated one.

I also have the same experience that my computer doesn't crash in safe mode.  Like I mentioned above, I think I have eliminated the webcam (at least for me) because I have kept it disabled.  When my computer crashes, however, there have never been any lines, no black/blue screen, nothing.  The computer screen looks exactly like it should, except that my mouse doesn't move, the keyboard doesn't work, my buttons don't work (the disk drive won't eject, for example) and if I leave it, it never un-freezes.  My freezing happens most often right after I turn the computer on if I try to do anything.  I find that I have better success, though not complete success, if I don't touch anything until after a few minutes (I normally shut down my computer as opposed to putting it to sleep).  It also happens late in the day if my computer gets warm.  Like I said, I was able to alleviate freezing almost entirely in power-saver mode with the use of a usb-powered external cooling pad.  At first, before I found this thread, I was almost positive it was the Dell Sidebar or my Trend Micro internet security.  Because so many people have this issue, I am now doubting that.  But once again, no issues in safe mode.  If Dell actually has someone working on this (which I am doubting because I would think they could have figured it out by now), then perhaps the fact that the freezing doubles (happens at least twice as often) if the computer is in the high performance setting would be a place to start -- something that causes the freezing must be in operation more often or at full capacity in that mode.  Same with the safe mode, since it seems we don't have freezing in safe mode.

Hey everyone, I solved my issues completely. What I do is, start up Vista, let everything load and then turn sounds all the way up to max. Then disable the sound controls and all the horrid garbage and services- I have them about memorized by now. NO more lock ups or crashes! Ever! It has to be the sound app doing this, since I  tax the video card to maximum. My sound still works, but I just can't turn it up or down or access the other features, like equalizing and fader, etc.

Since almost everything we use has its own sound configurations and controls, I simply control sound from the programs themselves.

I just got my latest Dell catalog yesterday and WOWZERs! They are now offering alienware laptops for gaming?! I like this new offering, but now I am really really really concerned that melting mobos will be occurring. lol.

As for extended warranties. so what if you get one. The point here is, there is a 100% certainty that you will be servicing it within two years. That is exactly and unequivically, just as bad and not a solution at all.

They should NOT BREAK AT ALL for 1000 bucks, I mean seriously now; warranty?! That was a lame excuse. not an answer to faulty equipment and yes, Laptops that won't last 5 years at 1000 dollars a pop? That is exactly like selling a car that breaks the lemon laws. Its not only bad business, these manufaturers KNOW that laptops are just no good, so it is clearly fraud.

The difference between HP and Dell is like night and day. Dell are VERY much, on the more helpful end of the spectrum here.

I think I've got it!

I tried the sound thing and went all out with disabling everything audio-related. That didn't work (still kept freezing up).

However, it got me in the mood for disabling devices. I disabled both the NVIDIA things under 'display adapters' (I had to disable it in a particular order because the first one I tried wouldn't disbale without the other one being disabled first). If you leave it like that it won't freeze (I probably had it on for ~5 hours before I moved on)....

After a while I finally had a go at laptopvideo2go's instructions. I actually used the 'have disk' method for these drivers, using the instructions here. So I upgraded the drivers while they were still disabled (I did this for both of them - the one with 9400 first in the name goes to MCP79MX which is the other name for it and the one with the 9200 first goes to something with just 9200 in the name) and then I enabled them (it doesn't need to be restarted). I prefer it to the state with them being disbaled because I can use programs that require DirectX and the screen's a lot easier to set eyes upon! Also, you have to do your browsing in Firefox (or probably Opera/Chrome/Safari are OK too) otherwise as you move your mouse across any button or link which responds to the mouse being on top of it (in IE) - it makes a horrible flash. And wesbsites with moving advertisements - it's not like those things are bad enough. And you have to live with the fact the mouse can go off the screen, to the right, so, if you use the scrollbar, it makes browsing non-Persian websites quite annoying sometimes!

Maybe using another driver from laptopvideo2go would work better if anyone wants to try.

And I'm not sure what happened when I restarted the computer (which McAfee wanted me to do) but the drivers might have rolled-back or something because not only did the mouse not roll off the screen anymore but it froze in a few minutes. Upon starting-up again I immediately tried updating the MCP79MX to the new driver but this didn't work. Next time I tried disabling both of them, upating both their drivers, then enabling. It worked again. And I've now tried going into System Configuration (click on start and then start typing its name) and going to services, sort by manufacturer, and disabling the NVIDIA one. I haven't rebooted yet (I'm using hibernate for now) but I'm hoping when it does it stops the the drivers switching back although that might be MS.

I'm pretty confident this is as about as good a home-made solution is going to get. I've been going about 10 hours now so something must have fixed it!

Obviously it's a pain not being able to get the most out of the NVIDIA 9500 set-up so I just hope Dell release a graphics driver which doesn't actually disable your whole computer. Surely this would be cheaper than sending repairmen out to replace motherboards and all the rest of it?

I think I've got it!

Clearly not... it froze about 15 minutes ago so it had a good run but that driver didn't solve the problem (and when the computer started up again it started with the old drivers so the system config change didn't help with that). I'm now using it with the display adapters disabled and if it's still working tomorrow I'll try another driver from laptopvideo2go. If it crashes with the display adapters disabled I think I'll be out of ideas.

Sorry everyone. I didn't want folks to start disabling things unless you know what you are doing. The reason those processes will start back up on you is because the background service that maintains it is still running in your background Willwac.

You need to make sure you read up on background services and how best to kill them and also, you will need to make a restore point and also a hot list, in case you must restart the background services manually. Once you kill them, they will not start again except manually.

The reason disabling sound apps works for me, is I have the ATI Radeon card. NOT Nvidia. And, my laptop- although it has identical crashes as you folks- is a Hewlitt Packard dv6 and also a dv7.

I know, I know; what the hay bale am I doing in the Dell forum? Quite frankly, it is because the HP forum is completely useless and they are not at all concerned with helping solve end user issues.

I truly wish, I had got the Dell Inspiron, I was looking at first. It was about the same price and I do miss my Dells. I only made suggestions in this forum, because I was sure it was more of a Vista issue, than a manufacturer/model issue.

My good friend does have the XPS13 like you folks and he did what another user in here suggested. He installed Windows XP and the 32bit drivers and his laptop runs flawlessly now.

I also randomly experience hard locks. I have all the drivers and BIOS up-to-date, but there doesn't seem to be a rhyme or reason. Today, just trying to CTRL+A on a CD of 24 pictures caused it to randomly freeze again and in the process, corrupted my BIOS. The BIOS checksum failed and all my settings (including date and time) were reset to default. I thought it may have been heat, but I grabbed a 9-cell battery which lifts the back end of the laptop up and allows it to cool, but that hasn't helped either.

I've tried Windows 7 RC x64 (build 7100) and it also hard locked. I thought it was related to the Hybrid SLI driver, but I experienced a couple of hard locks in Ubuntu 9.04, one that completely corrupted the installation ... so I'm positive it's the hardware.