XPS 8900, won't reliably boot up

Question

I have an XPS 8900 running as a 'headless' production appliance - so no strange user installs, etc. The system restarts by task scheduler twice a day - for good reasons. Sometimes it doesn't come back and we have to ask someone on site to power cycle it. Sometimes they have to do that twice or sometimes more! Eventually, it comes back up.  I haven't been able to find anything wrong with the hardware and have replaced the power supply.  The problem still exists and needs to be fixed. I tried today to find online 'diagnostics' with no luck. How do I get the current BIOS version remotely?  I understand this kind of problem may be BIOS related....

68cutlass · Answer

This will get you the bios versionCommand Line wmic bios get smbiosbiosversionPowershell  (Get-WmiObject win32_bios).SMBIOSBIOSVersion and the service tagCommand Prompt wmic bios get serialnumberPowershell (Get-WmiObject win32_bios).SerialNumber I find with all our xps8900 if they don't shut down 'cleanly' you have to hit the power button a couple times to get it to boot.

fcm339 · Answer

It finally failed fully. I'm convinced it must be the main board as everything else has been eliminated.

So, we are replacing it.

I haven't heard of any main board problems with the XPS 8900 but maybe I should have?

speedstep · Answer

MSINFO32

When you scroll down, you will find the BIOS version number next to “BIOS Version/Date” along with other useful information like manufacturer and SMBIOS version information.

https://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/04/sln268357/how-to-locate-system-service-tag-using-command-prompt?lang=en

WMIC in admin command prompt also works.

wmic bios get serialnumber gets the service tag.

wmic bios get smbiosbiosversion gets the version of the bios

wmic computersystem get model,name,manufacturer,systemtype

RoHe · Answer

When was last time the motherboard battery got replaced?

XPS Desktops

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