XPS 9550 Battery Freezing issue ???

I think there may be an issue with the battery or maybe something power management software wise as it appears to freeze when on battery. Move info:

I have been following the forum on 9550 issues and just yesterday I did a clean install of Gonzo's custom ISO. It ran all night, browsing, installing a few apps and dragging over 300Gb - not exactly giving it an easy time. Not one issue. Thanks Gonzo. However today its frozen 5 times in a row after being in Win10 for just 2-3 minutes. Cursor stops, keyboard or screen keyboard don't respond and hard power off necessary. I am on the AC right now and its been 20 or so minutes. Last night I installed with the AC in and never removed it.

Setup details - i7 16Gb 512Gb PM961 4K - OS drivers are as Gonzo had set them up as far as I can tell checking driver dates within Device Manager - updated Dell Audio Drivers and 1830.

 

Anyone??

To update, I have taxed this laptop whilst in use on AC, transferring large and small files unnecessarily, graphic work, playing videos in the background whether youtube or local 60fps HD content whilst working away and it doesnt crash. Remove AC and within minutes it freezes up like a deer in headlights. Spoke to dell but established quickly they were as much use as an ashtray on motorcycle.

I am still wondering if this could be a video driver issue ???? For example. A guarranteed freeze will be opening a drop down menu on a webpage or browsing locally stored pictures.

 

Are you undervolted?

 

I will throw an idea with video, the default driver causes freezes but they did update it on the 9560, uninstall the intel driver using DDU Link
As to what driver will be best, I don't know but official intel ones work well for us 9560 owners and I did have to do the same on the 9550's I had.
I am using 15.45 drivers Link
You may need to try others though.

Windows has been rolling back (actually a windows update forced install) to an older Dell driver so you need to keep an eye out for it installing the Dell one, usually clue is the screen blanking a couple of times followed by your problem returning. You can either roll back via device manager or install group policy (included in Windows 10 and disable driver installs for that video card only after you clean install it.

 

Its not under volted. I haven't gotten round to messing with that.

My HD 530 drivers are 21.20.16.4627 and Intel SATA are 15.2.10.1044 - both of which I think are from Gonzo's custom ISO. I have already downloaded the driver and DDU last night but not got around to doing them. Will get onto it later and post updates.

 

So I did the DDU, rebooted as it recommended and installed the 154519.4678 as per your link above ... device manager lists the driver version as 21.20.16.4678 and 17/05.2017 date. Disconnected power cable and it froze within 2 minutes. I reconnected the adapter and the screen gave a slight flash then it came back and appears stable, however Wifi won't switch on, regardless of turning it off and on or messing with flight mode. Restarted and wifi back.

My mind is back thinking its driver issue for power management. I still don't have any dell stuff install so no power management other than Win10. I vaguely recall something about making sure battery is set to standard but unsure why it was recommended but I can't see such a setting.

 

Have you manaully ran windows update, it tbh pulls down Dell drivers anyway and usually up to date, it's worked really well for me this year.

Are you in AHCI or Raid, i'm thinking you have nothing to lose going into safe mode then swapping to the other mode as a test.
We can pick through the drivers until we nail it.

It may also be worth running "sfc /scannow"
See this guide then after the SFC try the DCIM commands
https://www.windowscentral.com/how-use-dism-command-line-utility-repair-windows-10-image

 

Ok so repeated the above in a few scenario's of power settings and it freezes within a minute. However its now been 30 or so minutes and i've really hit it CPU & GPU wise. I changed the following power options for "on battery" :

Wifi - max performance
Sleep states - all were set to off because of issues I read on this forum
Intel graphics - Balanced
Link State Power Management - Max saving

Balanced power plan set however its been customised for lid, power button options etc aswell as processor states. Will update on progress.

 

If that works then make a copy of the power profile and set the standard back to defaults and see what happens?

 

Hi Gonzo

Its in ACHI, followed the board for a while on various issues! Anyways see above post. Seems stable. Got youtube playing in background, local video and been doing some photo cropping and colouring via photoshop.

Also I disabled driver update / privacy issues / speed tweaks and a whole bunch of other stuff via gpedit.msc and donotspy. Although Cortana is back again even though the settings say she is off!

I may run the DSIM anyway (just ran that on a machine yesterday) as I cant access system by right clicking my computer and going to properties. The link appears to be broken. If i run sysdm.cpl I can get into that side of things and right click start button and system also works.

 

So its ran all night with a variety of tasks all off battery and not a hiccup. Will probably play with the settings I've changed to narrow it down.

 

So today its frozen several times on battery today and I can't see via device manager or otherwise what has changed. I'm just about done now - I am just thinking its not even the laptop as I've got hassle all over the place from the car, constant issues with this new house and the family.

Thing is I cant put this on ebay with a freezing issue, it'll only come back on me and i'm not wanting to take the knock on price for spares or repairs after only having it briefly.

 

put it into safe mode (Step 1 here https://www.digitalcitizen.life/4-ways-boot-safe-mode-windows-10 (get your full password ready a the pin won't work), reboot and go into the BIOS, swap to RAID, reboot, take the safe mode flag off and reboot, see how you get on.

If it does it again download and run memtest86

 

Won't boot if set to RAID, just spins for ages then screen goes black until logo reappears then repeats issue.

Put it back to AHCI. I did run it with SATA disabled when I first installed the SM961 and was happier with quicker BIOS startup times, however i put it back to AHCI after reading posts on here. However another forum was insisting disabling SATA in BIOS and using Samsungs driver.

By the way the Samsung NVME driver is 2.1.0.1611 as provided by the ISO you created (thanks again by the way). I'm even contemplating getting a new battery to rule that out, which I could always sell back on if its not.

 

Try the latest 2.2 Samsung driver, if that doesn't work try the older ones as some people have good results with those. IA m sure someone will be along with that info

 

Will give it a go, not sure if 2.2 was giving me grief before, but that was with the previous OS build which had several other issues and had many driver installs and roll backs.

If i remember when in RAID with the previous Win10 install I had BSOD or inaccessible boot device if disabled - depending if I was on Microsoft NVME or Samsungs. The joys! I just dont understand why it was happy for several hours on battery across 2 days and decided to wind me up again.

 

Ok so it ran for like 25 minutes then froze, except the mouse cursor continued to move erratically. Touch screen and keyboard still worked! Eventually got into task manager with CTRL SHIFT and ESC and CPU was jumping 40 to 100% with disk useage jumping from 1% to 50 something.

By the time I got to the processes tab, it corrected itself except the wifi had an exclamation mark. Disabling / re-enabling in device manager or flight mode did not bring it back. Now this was the issue I had with the Killer 1535 - except it froze altogether and required hard reset after grind to a halt. So 2 different Wifi cards, same issue whilst on battery. This OS hasn't seen a killer driver so nothing to drag across from previous fault.

 

So its been a few days, mostly because I been out of action after a tonsilectomy - not fun recovering. Anyways laptop still hasnt crashed or frozen on mains, however as its on mains its been put in our office where the signal is next to nothing and disconnects aswell as being slow. In the living room where the router is it works fine. Other devices get almost a full signal. I really regret getting rid of my L702x now. It was far quicker booting up and speed difference in the OS is not that much better.

 

I'm back! After being re admitted to hospital with post op infection which went sceptic. So nearly got out but the antibiotics kept me alive.

Back to the problem of freezing:

Newer drivers were available for the DW1830 dated Sept - still loses internet but doesnt freeze half the time. Reboot necessary to get Wifi card back in Device Manager
Bought an Intel Intel 8260 and installed it about an hour ago, installed latest drivers - crashes within the 2 minutes of running off battery.

I still have the Killer 1535 kicking about and was thinking about installing that to see if its the same but my gut is telling me it will be. So I am back at looking at something else on the system. I am wondering if updating my BIOS to 1.3 again is worth a shot, i downgraded from 1.3 to 1.29 and I think this problem only came into existence then. When I first had it with the Killer 1535 it ran for a few hours of battery, but since its had a few OS reloads

Oh and that screen flicker is back.

 

Still looking for help but here's what I have done so far

Since updating BIOS to 1.4 it still loses the wifi on battery and the mouse is still jerky to move - like an old PC struggling. Although it can take 5-10 minutes to happen. I had changed battery to standard in the BIOS charging behaviour and disabled VMM features. When it the issue happens Task Manager shows "System" using 26% CPU resources, everything else in 1- 6% with memory upto 30% depending what I had opened. I am still on all the original drivers from GonZo's RS2 ISO except Samsung NVME is now 2.2.0.1703

I see there are more upto date drivers from dell / intel / nvidia and was wanting to ask are they stable on the 9550 to attempt an update? I dont want to chance creating additional issues to complicate this one.

Just for information - here's a critical list of device managers driver details


Intel GPU 21.20.16.4678
Nvidia GPU 21.21.13.7892
Firmware - System Firmware 10.0.15063.0 (Sure I saw this differently previous OS install)
HID - All Microsoft 2006 or so
Intel Chipset 15.2.10.1044
Intel Dynamic / Thermal 8.2.11000.2996
Intel Wifi 19.70.0.5
Microsoft Storage Controller 10.0.15063.0
Samsung NVME 2.2.0.1703
Intel USB 3 10.0.15063.296 - Microsoft Drivers

 

If you are in AHCI mode, you may want to use the 2.0 version of the Samsung NVME driver - see http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/xps-9550-win-10-creators-update-random-freezes.803412/ for a download link.

Also double check what IDE/ATAPI version driver your using is (again this is for AHCI mode)

 

Hi Schmoo2k

I have followed your thread before but see you updated 1st post Sept. As per previous post my IDE is 15.2 but have pre emptively downloaded 15.7. Just uninstalled / deleted the 2.2 driver via Device Manager and will try 2.0 NVME drive.

Its in ACHI. I did have SATA Disabled in the BIOS and it was much quicker booting to the BIOS screen but went back to ACHI given the problems. But given the number of OS reloads and other issues I can't remember putting it back to ACHI resolved at the time.

 

OK so I am bit excited. Downgrading to 2.0 NVME driver made no difference. Upgraded to 15.7 Intel 100 drivers and its been running on battery for the past 6 hours. Actually I am surprised as I am sure the battery didnt last this long before.

I am hoping this is it fixed - it gave me false hopes last time.