17R3 unresponsive

Getting a strange behavior from my 17R3, right after a clean install no less.

I have it set to not go to sleep while on AC power, just turn off the screen after 5 minutes. Sometimes, the system will no longer respond after the screen is turned off. All the lights are still on, HDD indicator light will still flash occasionally. But it appears the system has crashed. Windows events state system has rebooted from a bugcheck. Only way to get it to respond is to press the power button (not press and hold) to shut it off then start up like normal.
Any ideas?

 

SSD as your boot drive?

 

Yup. Samsung 850 EVO m.2

 

You mean 860 Evo Right I don't recall 850 Evo M.2 Did you check your Samsung Drivers ?

 

Yep, there is known issue which I also faced. Sometimes it won't boot in AHCI with Linux and now its fine since pwr mgmt is disabled.

It uses Intel IRST drivers.

 

Im guessing its a driver issue with your M.2 have you tried the other M.2 slot?

 

Maybe IRST RAID/AHCI messed up?
@radji can you make a recovery drive containing your BIOS as per this link *OFFICIAL* Alienware 13 R3 Owner's Lounge
Once you see options Reset BIOS and recovery option. Choose BIOS reset and see whether the issues is fixed or not!

 

No, Samsung EVO 850. It didn't use Samsung drivers. Just Intel RST.

It boots fine. Just when the screen turns off after inactivity does it have this problem.

Great idea. I never considered it to be the m.2 slot. I'll swap over to the other m.2 slot tonight and see if that makes a difference. Doesn't happen a lot so it may take a week or more to see if the problem still persists.

I hope Intel RST didn't get all screwed up. I just did a clean install last week and used the latest Intel RST drivers from the Dell website. Before I was using an older version of Intel RST. But I was also getting an increasing number of BSODs, courtesy of Microsoft and their half a**ed updates. I was having the non-responsive issue then too.

 

No dice still. System still often freezes right after the screen turns off per the power settings. Using a different m.2 slot and different Intel RST drivers has not helped. I will try the BIOS recovery then swap the entire SSD for a different one. Running out of ideas, though.

Now, my 840 Evo will boot just fine. It has issues when I leave it idle for a long time. Screen turns off after 10 minutes per the power policy and I have it set to never turn off the hard drives or go to sleep. Just one out of every three times the screen turns off the system freezes and has to be hard restarted.

 

Those instructions were for downgrading BIOS. Never done a BIOS recovery USB before so not sure if that is the correct procedure or not.

 

Its for AW 15 r2(17 r3) and above.
I found it thanks to @c69k
I bricked my board after flashing modded BIOS and USB recovery drive worked.
Don't recover, first use Reset BIOS to Defaults option and see the issues go away.

 

Did so. It then refused to boot. Turns out the drive mode was set to RAID instead of AHCI by default. Once I changed it back to RAID, Windows booted fine. But system still freezing when screen turns off.

 

Dell doesn't reset CMOS after BIOS upgrade.
Uninstall Intel rapid storage storage, KIONIXX driver afterwards reboot.
Download IRST driver from Intel and latest KIONIXX freefal driver (UWD) made for AW17 r5. It solves certain freezing issues. Thanks to @VICKYGAMEBOY for testing it.
KIONIXX UWD driver solved freezing/stuttering issues.

 

I had this problem before.. This might be a silly solution but have you every tried installing the latest igpu driver from intel and nvidia driver 390.77(this is the driver i use as latest is not always greatest).. But please use DDU to uninstall the exsisting drivers..
from what I think it is most likely from intel driver issue.. the nvidia driver that i am talking aboit is just me saying that is what i use and without any issues.. hope this helps..
edit:
from my experience it is more of a graphic driver issue.. If you have updated to bios 1.4.4 there is a chance that messed up something with your laptop..
Also disable fast boot in windows if you haven't done it..

 

Done and done. I will return the screen settings to normal and see if it still freezes when the screen turns off. I also disabled link power state. Apparently some Samsung m.2 SSDs have issues with the aggressive link power state settings.

BIOS for 17 R3 only goes up to 1.3.12. And fast boot has been disabled for testing but showed to not be the issue.

 

Wow, that really helped. I have only had one BSOD in the last 7 days of continuous use. No freezing or unreponsiveness. BSOD was a memory management bsod so that is probably the razer driver or Intel iGPU drivers being faulty again.

 

Had one freeze up and 3 BSODs since updating the Intel GPU and RST, and freefall sensor drivers.

 

Win 10 update build 165 is problematic too. I'm using the latest drivers sourced from Precision 7710 especially the airplane driver.
@VICKYGAMEBOY Keep an eye on precision 7710 driver page to get new TB3 firmware(needs TB3 device to be connected for FW to be upgraded), Airplane driver and few others. Good luck.

 

What airplane mode driver should I use?

 

This one:
https://www.dell.com/support/home/in/en/indhs1/drivers/driversdetails?driverId=RN8CN

 

System went back to black screen non-responsive and BSODs every day. I tried using driver verifier (as recommended by another forum) and it bricked my R3. Could reverse driver verifier and system restore and Reset my PC failed miserably (both recovery drive and external USB). Currently wiping my SSD using my desktop and will start fresh. Any advice would be appreciate, especially which driver versions I should use for the 17R3.

 

Anyone know which driver are verified stable for the 17 R3? My Intel and Nvidia GPU driver came from Windows update and have not triggered a blue screen with verifier.

Wondering about the touchpad, chipset/Management Engine/RST, memory card reader, airplaine mode switch, Soundblaster audio, OSD/Command Center, and Freefall sensor.

The network, wifi, and GPU drivers seem to work fine so I don't see a reason to use the older Dell versions.

 

Get the touchpad,audio,OSD,AWCC driver from dell. Use 15r4's Freefall sensor driver. Memory card reader from station-drivers,airplane mode driver from precision 7710.

 

Unsure what station-drivers are.

I can leave all the Intel drivers to the Windows update installed defaults (chipset, Management Engine, RST)?

 

Simply google this "realtek_cardreader_10.0.17134.21306( www.station-drivers.com)" and intel_dptf_8.3.10207.5567( www.station-drivers.com).
Install latest IRST,chipset and MEI from intel

 

Thank you for the advice. I still am getting Memory Management BSODs. Swapping out the RAM did not help. Now I am disabling the internal sound card and my Razer mouse and their associated software. Turning off certain devices one by one and seeing if that stops the crashing will be easier than using Driver Verifier.

 

Have the same unresponsiveness after nvidia driver update.

 

Actually I'm just running the Nvidia driver installed from Windows Update.

 

OK, Thanks.

 

Should I update to the latest release from Nvidia? I figured the Microsoft driver would be the safest/stablest.

 

Crashed again. The dump files are showing it's the Intel GPU. At this point I've tried multiple drivers for the Intel 530 so either each version of the drivers are having issues or the Intel GPU is defective.

 

Have the same issue as well. I'm using win64_24.20.100.6136 version of intel hd graphics and testing if the mobo is failing or has failed?

 

I also had problems after installing the newest 6194 Intel driver. I reverted to 6136 and all is good.

 

For me out of the blue, intel and nvidia gpu were disabled whilst playing GTA 5 saying error 43 and after using DDU, it seems to work. I think the game is corrupted since I blindly deleted some files using wise disk cleaner.

 

I hope my mobo is not failing. Dell support replaced it last year. Praying I wasn't given a dud.

 

Finally figured what was causing the issue. Guess what, I don't have enough RAM and W10 isn't flagging out of memory and simply closing apps or force crashing itself on 8GB.
As a test I ran sleeping dogs DE at extreme settings w/o lags since it consumes just 2-3GB whilst Witcher3 uses 1.5-2.5GB for just loading the game and loading the save game actually takes 90% usage before force crashing itself.

If you're getting memory BSOD very often eventhough the RAM is good, I think W10 blocking bug that stopped RS4 being deployed. I believe you have a false +ve.

 

My R3 has 16GB in it. It should not have issues with force crashing due to lack or RAM when my CPU meter states is only is utilizing 1/3rd of the available RAM space.

 

Wow, you all were right. I installed 24.20.100.6136 and have run for almost 2 days with no BSODs.

 

4 days on 24.20.100.6136 before I got a BSOD. Crashed while the screen was off. But definitely more stable than before.

 

Maybe you need NVRAM reset using AMI WinGUI utility. /P /B /N /Shutdown should do the trick.
You need rom file to flash and reset the BIOS.

 

Not sure what that is/does, but I will try it.

I also changed the power settings for the Intel GPU to disable all power saving features. Just set everything to max performance and disable power saver. We'll see if that makes any difference.

Its interesting since before I was getting all Memory Management BSODs. But this last one was System Thread Exception Not Handled. First time that has shown up.

 

Look at AMI website for more info. AFUWin or AFUWinGUI x64 will do.

 

Aptio 4 or V?

 

Aptio 5.

Sent from my iPhone X Papusan edition using Tapatalk

 

Done.

Out of curiosity, what will an NVRAM reset have to do with BSODs caused by the Intel graphics?

 

Reverts all BIOS settings to factory defaults like new PC. Any BSODs?

 

Not in the last 24 hours.

 

Ugh. No dice. Just crashed while the screen was off.

 

Hi @radji, If you suspect that it is a software or driver issue why don't you do a proper clean install following tihs guide: http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/nbr-windows-10-clean-installation-guide.781178/ to just get over with it and roll out the problem whether it is really a software problem or a hardware issue.. As I am assuming you keep windows update on, especially with windows 10 as a malware nowadays which is causing more headache to users.. It might be a hassle process but it is very worth it.. I followed the guide and I am now headache free..

 

Appreciate the advise. But I now have confirmed it is a hardware issue since it crashed to BSOD while running in safemode.