l702x black screen forces reboot.

Hi

Have recently been getting occasional black screens on my 2 week old xps l702x which forces me to do a reset.
Seems to be completely random, for example today I turned on for the first time, loaded firefox and the screen went blank. I have been having the occasional flicker making the screen go black.

Anyone had a similar problem?

I`m running the nvidia 270.51 beta drivers , perhaps i`ll try uninstalling them.

Only other changes i`ve made recently are adding a new ssd drive and reinstalling windows, so have all the latest drivers installed. Checking through the windows logs shows nothing happening out of the ordinary at the time of the blank screen.

Thanks

 

I had the same problem when I plug in the external hard drive onto one of the usb 3.0 ports. In your situation, I think it might be wise not to use beta drivers for the moment.

 

ah yes I do have an external drive plugged in. I`ve just reverted back to the dell nvidia drivers and see how it goes.

Thanks for that.

 

I might be the USB 3.0 port that's causing the problem. The XPS line seems to have problems with those new USB ports. Follow the thread on the Dell community forum.

Dell XPS 15 - USB 3.0 Problem - Laptop General Hardware Forum - Laptop - Dell Community

 

Well I removed my usb 3 lacie drive yesterday afternoon from the usb 3 port and didnt have any blank screens for the 5 hours i left it running. So yes it looks like a usb 3 problem.
I`ve also reverted back to the older nvidia drivers. I do occasionally see a blank screen when changing tabs in firefox 4 but nothing that is permanent and requires a hard reboot.

 

So I've had my usb 3 ports empty for a few days and no blank screens. Then today I copied some files to my lacie drive. Disconnected it and about an hour later had a black screen which required a hard reset.
I'm also noticing a black screen flicker when occasionally switching tabs in FireFox.
I'm using the original NVIDIA drivers that dell recommend.

Anyone seen this problem? Otherwise Im on the phone to dell for the fourth time!

Thanks

 

Been on to dell about this as now I`m power on the laptop and getting occasional beeping, happened 3 times now in the last few days. Also had the screen go blank whilst playing crysis. very annoying.

 

I've been watching this thread.

Does anyone have any new information regarding the Black Screens? It had happened to me a while ago and has not happened again; I was just curious in case it started to happen again.

Thanks

 

I've had the same issue with my 3D XPS 17 L702X. I have tried to isolate the problem and debug the memory dumps and found that this is caused by a nvidia driver failure when the screen refreshes and takes a longer time than Windows is expecting (i made it very simple). I tried reinstalling various drivers, clean install Windows and restored factory image. None helped.

The most probable cause is when using 120Hz mode for display. I also have non-3D 1080 XPS 17 and its seems to work great. Try going to 60Hz refresh rate if you are on 120Hz and see if that helps. If you already at 60Hz than there's nothing that can be done except wait for a driver update from Dell or nVidia. But I'm sure its caused by 120Hz refresh.

 

Webcivilian, what are your impressions on the matte screen on the non 3D XPS?

 

The screen is good but I think I'm too used to the glossy screens that all devices these days seem to have from the phones to the TVs. It taking a little time to getting used to. I think Dell could have chosen a better matte screen in terms of the matte coating which I'm not a huge fan.

It boils down to preference. If you don't like reflections its the screen to go with. Its definitely a great screen with good brightness and color reproduction. On the 3D glossy screen you get much smoother look and feel as you have the 120Hz refresh rate.

 

Thats good to hear thanks. I was in the process of having dell send out an engineer to replace the motherboard/gpu but theyre currently out of stock of the item so have to wait.
Lets hope its just a driver issue. To be honest its quite rare it happends, maybe once every 3-4 days. I do have more issues when coming out of hibernation though so have disabled that.

Paul

 

I bought a new XPS with Intel 2820QM, Nvidia 555M 3GB video card, 12GB RAM, 3D FHD 17" screen, 1 TB 7200 Seagate.

Brand new only 2 weeks ago I started using this computer and the screen has turned off no power in screen only, while the rest of the computer continued to run and still function ( When I pressed the volume up and down it still made descending and ascending sounds). I was forced to reboot as well and the only error was an unexpected shutdown. This has happened 8 times.

I called Dell and they tried to tell me it was a software issue and not covered. I said BS and eventually the Tech took remote control just to tell me they would send a new motherboard for in-home repair, call back 2 weeks later to tell me it was on backorder and they would send a new computer equal or better, send a computer exactly the same only MISSING the TV TUNER, telling me all their exchange computers are missing the TV Tuner cause its not part of the core configuration and he would send a motherboard to a tech to install in-home or send the exact same computer without a TV TUNER AGAIN so a tech could install the Motherboard he would send to the TECH. A MOTHERBOARD ON BACKORDER. These Idiots from INDIA should all be fired and Americans hired to replace them.

 

Yeah and then add $500 to the cost of your laptop.

Mine seems to be behaving itself now, I think turning off hibernation and sleep functions has cured it. Have been using it for 2 weeks without any issues.