Studio XPS 13 (M1340) freezes for minutes and HDD LED continously lit

Hello,

This is my first post and I'm not a native English speaker, please bear this in mind

I have searched the forum for descriptions similar to my problem, but could not find any messages with the exact same problem description.

My Studio XPS 13 (M1340) freezes every now and then, getting to an unusable state, and the HDD LED stays continously lit during the period. This condition lasts for minutes (more than 2, one time I got a 10 minute freeze!), and then the system gets back to normal. No BSOD, no error message, nothing. During this "frozen state" I can't do absolutely nothing: can't ALT-TAB windows, system doesn't respond to mouse clicks, not even CTRL-ALT-DEL works. After the system resumes to normal condition all key presses and mouse clicks done during the frozen period are "interpreted", as if they had been queued while the system was frozen.

I'm running Vista Ultimate 64 bit (even did a fresh install). The HDD is a Western Digital WD3200BJKT. There's no clicking sound whatsoever, as a matter of fact I can't even hear HDD activity during these freezes, it is just the HDD LED that gets continously lit (i.e. no blinking).

I called tech support in Brazil, upgraded the BIOS to v A11 and did a thorough HDD test while in the call. HDD passed each and every test. Because of this the tech support guy refused to authorize service on the notebook, saying it is a software-related issue.

I'm waiting for my Windows 7 upgrade kit to arrive, hoping that this is an issue with Vista. I'd appreciate any suggestions.

Specs:

* Intel P9600 processor
* 4GB RAM
* WLED display
* NVIDIA GeForce 9500M
* 320MB, 7,200RPM hard disk (WD P/N: WD3200BJKT)
* Dell 1510 WiFi
* Dell 370 Bluetooth
* Vista Ultimate 64 bits

Thank you and best regards,

Paulo Mario

 

By all the stated reasons it sounds like HDD but if you ran a thorough test of diagnostics on HDD and it past then your HDD still might be good.

Keep these 2 things in mind!

1. Dell's Diagnostics isnt the best tool, it might not detect problems that other tools might find. (Im not sure which software to try, but you can look around on CNET's download.com

2. Dell always says everything is software related! 90% of the time its not true they are just idiots..... But there is a small chance that it could be software related heres why: I have clean install of win7 and when I install Avast antivirus my computer always freezes up in control panel on the first try! the second time I open control panel it works fine.. I've tried everything, and as soon as I disable Avast all goes back to normal. So you might not know but if you do have any any and again ANY 3rd party software, then disable it so see if it works, even if you think its not effecting it just give it a shot.

If that doesnt work then demand a refund then they will be forced to switch parts or w/e else you need.

 

I'm having a very similar problem to this, running Windows 7 Home x64 on a XPS 13 with 250gb WDC WD2500BJKT-75F4T. This issue, as far as I can gather, has only been documented in these other threads:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=5501104

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=432728

As you've described there will be a period of HDD activity (i.e. light stays on) but with the machine being in some way unresponsive. This is usually triggered on mine when I have ejected something from the DVD drive. The HDD light then stays on (I can hear clicking) and am then unable to eject anything from from the DVD drive. The machine is usually able to be used otherwise, windows will sometimes freeze certain applications (i.e. windows/internet explorer) and will cause windows to be unable to shut down, requiring a hard reset. Alternatively I have tried simply waiting for the HDD to finish whatever it is doing, which sometimes works, other times it blue screens with a 'DUMPING PHYSICAL MEMORY' error sort of thing.

I have tried to isolate the cause by doing several clean installs and seeing which drivers are causing the issue (as all HDD Diagnostic tests I have tried have found nothing to be wrong with the drive itself). I did recently think that the Nvidia chipset drivers on the Dell support site may be causing the issue to some extent, as one of the above threads hinted at, but removing these altered the nature of the problem such that instead of the DVD drive becoming unresponsive/intense HDD activity, I was getting intermittent HDD hanging w/ clicking and a momentarily frozen machine. I also wondered whether the card-reader drivers which were installed by windows update were the problem but this doesn't seem to be the case either.

As one of the above threads mentions I am seeing nvstor64 events in eventviewer but these haven't obviously correlated with the periods of the HDD/DVD drive being stuck.

The HDD sometimes also emits a short beep/whine, although this hasn't correlated in any obviously significant way with the above problems.

I'm close to just buying a seagate drive and putting that in instead, but not before going back to windows XP and seeing if that fixes it.

 

I was unable to get past the pre-loading of drivers from the XP disc without blue screening so I've gone back to Vista 32-bit instead, and the same problem is still occuring, intense HDD activity and non-responsive system. I am beginning to believe that there is something with the Western Digital hard drives which is causing problems. Is there any way of alerting Dell to this issue/thread?

 

To OP, I replied to you here too: http://en.community.dell.com/forums/t/19308762.aspx

Basically, here's my situation (which looks to be the same problem as yours):

My Specs (for Studio XPS 13) :

* P8600 (2.4GHz)
* 4GB RAM
* 9400M G Only
* Hitachi 7K500 (500GB)
* Windows 7 Ultimate 64-Bit



This seemed to only happen to me after replacing my original hard drive (250GB Seagate) with my current hard drive. But like the OP, I can confirm there are no issues with this new drive (ran multiple tests and S.M.A.R.T. reports OK); everything else is perfect.



What I've found is this:

* It occurs with Manufacturer, Dell and Windows Default Drivers (With that I conclude that it's not a driver issue)
* Likewise, this problem is present on a clean install of Windows 7 64-Bit (No Programs or Drivers installed)
* It only happens once every cold boot and begins after the OS is finished loading (or roughly around that time)
* It lasts for a minute or so, and during the time, the entire computer is unresponsive EXCLUDING the mouse and music apparently can still play
* The hard drive light is on the whole time, with no apparent hard drive seeking, writing or reading
* There is nothing in the performance log of Windows about this



I'm not sure where the problem lies (though there's a good chance it could be the BIOS), but I am quite confident that this is not a software issue (unless it's a direct problem with windows itself). I do hope this issue will not be ignored because of the fact we are not using the Dell provided hard drives (Seagate).

 

I can confirm that in my case, it was the SATA driver from the nVidia chipset package. Once I reverted back to either 10.3.0.42 or the base driver loaded by WIN 7, my problem has since disapperared.

 

I think that driver actually fixed it... will test for a bit longer and see if it still happens or not

 

Me either, I am facing the same problem with you..
I also use an WDC WD2500BJKT-75F4T HDD..
I removed the driver installed by nVidia and selected the standard driver of Win 7..
Still now the problem does not appear again..

Still waiting ..

 

Oh no, it happens again..
My HDD driver now is loaded by Win 7: disk drive..

 

Try the 10.3.0.42 driver.. it's been pretty solid for me

 

I'm sorry but where can I find the 10.3.0.42 driver..
On the support driver page, there's only 2.08 driver of nVidia..

 

It's inside the 20.08 package:

Windows XP 32-bit:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce_winxp_20.08.html

Windows XP 64-bit:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce_winxp64_20.08.html

Windows Vista/7 32-bit:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce_vista_20.08.html

Windows Vista/7 64-bit:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce_vista64_20.08.html

 

Thank you very much..
Updated and testing

 

Thank you all for the replies. I'm testing the driver and will report if the problem was solved.

 

Yeah, I think that the problem was solved

 

hey... my sxps is frezze like you too. but im not wait till 10 minutes and i dont know is the system is back to normal or not. i just turn it off and turn on again.

btw "10.3.0.42 driver" what is that driver ? i mean its a GPU driver or sata driver ?

i allready update GPU driver from nvidia website. but still sometimes i got black screen and frezze.
im update with this driver.
http://www.nvidia.com/object/notebook_winvista_win7_x64_195.62_whql.html

im using 250GB sata 7200rpm
vista 64bit.

 

See DemonicHawk's post. The 10.3.0.42 driver is for SATA, but is included in the 20.08 package from NVIDIA (which contains drivers for other parts of the system as well - e.g. Ethernet). Although the GPU driver is also listed in the package release notes, the Dell GPU driver that was previously installed on my M1340 was kept untouched while I instaled the 20.08 package.

I'm now using the latest GPU driver downloaded from NVIDIA's website. Never had any problems with video, just the HDD. I've always waited for the system to come back from the freeze because of fear of data loss if I turned off the notebook while there was HDD activity. The new driver apparently fixed the problem.

 

my nvidia SerialATA driver is already 10.3.0.42 version

but still sometimes frezze and black screen

 

I'm about to try this with my m1340. my specs:

P8800
3GB DDR3
320 GB scorpio
9500M

gonna try the new nvidia chipset drivers. i was having this problem since i got the computer. defraged countless times. checked disk many times. couldn't figure out was going on...

downloading the chipset driver now. it's huge! 180mb!?!?

 

well, i uninstalled the drivers that came from support.dell.com,and installed these. now there's an unknown coprocessor.

 

update: ok, resintalled all nvidia drivers (chipset and display), and it seems to not have issues with unknown devices anymore.

fingers crossed on no more hdd freezes

 

still freezes. that new nvidia chipset driver does not fix the problem for me.

went back to dell drivers for both chipset and display, and it's been working ok for now.

 

You do not need to install the entire package nor the graphics driver, the only issue is the SATA driver. If you read the thread carefully, you will notice that the 10.3.0.42 was for the SATA.

BTW, this package is not NEW, in fact, the newer versions of the SATA driver are the ones causing issues.

 

Not trying to hurt anyone's feelings, but I also had this problem when I was using the Dell driver. My lappy would freeze every once in a while for a couple seconds (~15) and become unresponsive except mouse and maybe audio.

I installed the SATA driver from the NVIDIA official nForce 730i driver package 15.49. The SATA driver is version 11.1.0.33 and works without a hitch.

 

yea the dell drivers are still having problems too.

gonna try the 11.1.0.33 drivers. will keep y'all posted

 

just tried nForce 730i 15.49 drivers and the computer froze on the welcome screen with the hdd light on. lol

will update later

 

still freezing. the freezing is not as long as before. but still there

 

found the fix!!! omg!!!

i was wondering why the computer works fine before i reformated the default dell installation.

Apparently, the new chipset driver dell has on it's website is really ty and doesn't work with this board.

I looked it up and I found the original vista 64bit driver for this computer.

I've attached them here.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=F9STM3C8

I think they're also on the driver's disk that comes with your computer.

my computer works again!!!

 

my laptop dell 1340

i install windows 7 64bit is freeze for minutes

but i install windows 7 32 bit not freezing

what propblem ????

 

OMG U R DA MAN!
I was experiencing the constant freezes after my fresh install and it was driving me nuts. I am running Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit and was experiencing what many have and that was a once in a while freeze where the HD light would stay on but no drive noise and I could move the mouse but everything else was frozen. I finally came across your post and gave it a try yesterday with your recommended drivers. Well, all I have to say is my computer works again as well! 2 days already without a freeze. I wonder if this bug is isolated to just the Western Digital drives and if I were to buy another one from a different manufacturer, could you use the newer drivers? Just curious...

Anyway, thanks again for bringing back my baby

 

anyone have random freezes during video playback?

 

i'm pretty sure this is across the board with any hdd model. the nvidia chipset controls the sata/ide ports for this mobo. the drivers that dell had for vista worked great in vista and when upgraded to windows 7. for some reason, their newest A11 driver causes this problem in windows 7, but not in vista. i'm thinking it's just a driver mixup (common with dell computers, lol) and sooner or later they'll recognize it. until then, this is the only solution i've found

 

Had the same problem with a Refurb I bought(received 2 weeks ago). Just shipped it back this last Friday. Went back because of 2 bad DVD drives mainly and the wait time, but also couldn't figure out what was up with the control panel. I also run Avast as well.

 

Still having freezing problems even after installing these drivers. Right after install, i blue screened. After restart, i opened up a browser window and it froze again. Did i have to uninstall the old drivers first? All i did was install these new ones over it.

 

same with me
please help