Some Progress in the frequent BSOD Issues in XPS 9550

Over the last few months I have suffered from BSOD issues in my XPS 9550.
This is not only my experience. Please google "XPS 9550 BSOD" and you will find a lot.

There were different BSOD bug check strings like:
IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
UNEXPECTED_KERNAL_MODE_TRAP
KERNAL_MODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED
PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA
...

However, no specific cause of these problems could be identified. It occurred when playing a game, watching videos, browsing websites, starting up the system, or even when the laptop is idle. The driver causing the crash was usually nstoskrnl.exe, but if you google this, you'll find that it didn't help.

Last week I found an instruction on how to identify all the potential drivers that may cause a BSOD/crash:
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...behaving/f5cb4faf-556b-4b6d-95b3-c48669e4c983

After letting certain drivers causing an artificial BSOD, you can use BlueScreenView and Debugging Tools for Windows to look into the DMP file and find which is the problematic driver. If the DMP file cannot be generated, you may need the exclusive method.

If you follow this, many "murderers" will turn up. if you handle all these sick drivers, the possibility of BSOD will be greatly reduced.

The following are my Driver Verifier results:
(Note - These files are only the most underlying causes, and you may not need to kill all of them.)

1. qmudisk64.sys - causing BSOD at system startup
It is a part of a Chinese software called Tencent PC Manager. Please uninstall it.

2. A driver in Sangfor SSL VPN - causing BSOD at system startup
It is a software that I used for accessing my campus network. Please uninstall it, and you may need to cleanup the corresponding driver file in C:\Windows\System32\Drivers.

3. bcbtums.sys - causing BSOD at system startup
The Bluetooth Driver. Please disable the Bluetooth in the Device Manager.

4. dptf_cpu.sys - causing BSOD at system startup
It is a part of the Dynamic Platform and Thermal Framework Driver. Uninstall it from the Control Panel. Please remember to manually delete the dptf_cpu.sys in both C:\Windows\System32\Drivers and C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore as soon as possible, or the driver will rebirth shortly.(This should be done in an external operating system like winPE)

5. bcmpciedhd63.sys - causing BSOD after logining into the system for 1 minute
The driver of the WLAN card. It remains unsolved because every version of this driver led to BSOD. You can choose to use the Win8.1 version of the driver, but it will stop working after several hours (without BSOD, but need a force restart).
If you google bcmpciedhd63.sys, there are a lot of people reporting BSOD causing by this file in Dell Community, but Dell haven't got a solution yet.
I think the best solution is to use an external WIFI card, although it sounds annoying.

6. xlguard.sys - causing BSOD at system startup
In a Chinese software for downloading called Thunder. Uninstall it.

7. Drivers in Kaspersky - causing BSOD at system startup
It is embarrassing.. But I chose to uninstall it for a while.

I'll update the thread if there is any more good news.

 

I had not one BSOD in 4 months usage.
So the title is a little missleading as there are no frequently BSODs.

 

Do you have Razer Synapse installed? I had mayor BSOD problems with similiar culprits as you especially bcmpciedhd63.sys and general nstoskrnl.exe ones.
It's only a day now, but since I disable Razer Synapse I had not one BSOD.

 

Even after a complete rebuild/reinstall using GoNz0’s excellent clean install & custom ISO, I’m still getting frequent but irregular BSODs at a rate of 1-2 a day. I’m now trying determine the root cause (e.g. working without WiFi and BT) plus selectively upgrading drivers (e.g. ‘Urgent’ Intel HD 530 Graphics driver 20.19.15.4454 from Dell) and other software ‘one at a time’.


I was originally wanting to use the TB15 but having read the extensive list of problems with this device in particular and TB3 in general, I’ve avoided this route to date. (Is it a coincidence that the Startech Thunderbolt 3 Dual-4K Docking Station has been “Coming Soon” for many months now?) I’m currently using a Startech USB Type C DisplayPort adapter to drive a BenQ BL3201PT 4K monitor alongside the 4K laptop screen. This configuration was working well (except for the aforementioned BSODs) but have currently reverted to driving the BenQ via HDMI to try and eliminate the TB3 port.


Next on my ‘hit list’ are the two ‘Urgent’ Thunderbolt updates that Dell released earlier this month

Intel(R) Thunderbolt(TM) 3 Firmware Update Intel_TBT3_FW_UPDATE_NVM16_A04_2.16.01.003.exe 6-Jul-2016

Intel(R) Thunderbolt(TM) Controller Driver Chipset_Driver_D91CC_WN32_16.1.47.275_A02.EXE 6-Jul-2016​

Not sure of their impact when using TB3 just to drive a DisplayPort device but probably need to be applied anyway. Is there any way to determine what the current level of TB3 firmware is installed?


I may well get to try the driver verifier but have the following comments on your test results

When you say “BSOD at system startup”, have you seen this failure or is this the result from the driver verifier?


Bluetooth and WiFi (Dell 1830) – have been running for the last few days with both devices disabled via Device Manager but BSODs still occur. Not saying they’re completely clean, just not a cause of my BSODs at this time.


Anti-Virus –Your observations on Kaspersky are interesting; I’m using Norton but may remove it for a few days to see if it impacts the failure scenarios at all


Intel Dynamic Platform and Thermal Framework Driver – Have consulted Google but what’s this for precisely? Can it be removed safely? If it’s not essential (Dell class it as “Recommended”), why is it installed on the XPS 15?​

Thank you for raising another approach to the XPS 15 / Windows 10 BSOD issue

 

It seems that you are focusing on the potential cause in TB3 now. That's great as I haven't got a TB3 device to test.

As for your comments:

1. BSOD at system startup means: when I enabled the Driver Verifier, system crashed into bluescreen while the small white circle was circling in the blackscreen at system startup. Then I used Bluescreenview (a third-party software) and Debugging Tools (included in the Windows Kits) to look into the DMP file, and the software told me a certain driver was likely to be the cause.

2. 3. They are all potential causes. However, I think bcmpciedhd63.sys in the WIFI driver is sure to be a primary one, but I'm still trying to resolve and prove this. This is the only "problematic" driver I had to using exclusive method to identify, because the DMP file could not be dumped so the driver could not be tracked when system crashed (I mean when using Driver Verifier). It looked so strange, and I also used Memtest86 to ensure that my memory cards work well so that memory should be dumped under BSOD.

4. I only know it is a system that help balance both the performance and the temperature, but even after uninstalling this my laptop behaves with no difference. Actually I just wanted to kill dptf_cpu.sys to see whether it is a cause of the crash. Unlike other driver, it is really very tenacious even after you uninstall it.

Next I'm going on two ways to get rid of the bcmpciedhd63.sys:
1. Win7 - it seems that the wifi driver for win7 doesn't contain this file
2. Get an external wireless card, or replace the Dell 1830 wireless card with another one

 

I don't think I have had a BSOD; getting a clean install to work took a week of frustrating trial and error as you can see on my posts but my 9550 runs flawlessly now.

 

powercqcq. Thank you for elaborating on the driver verifier process.

The Startech cable is I believe an ‘active cable’ so I guess it is technically a TB3 device, or if it’s not, it’s bit pricy for a passive cable!

I think there is a very low opinion of the Dell 1830 both here and on the Dell laptop support forum. The consensus seems to be that the Intel 8260 is faster (despite only using two WiFi antennas vs three on the Dell 1830), more stable and with better driver support. Both Dell and Broadcom appear pretty tardy in this respect. I’ve not gone down this route to date as I prefer a wired connection while deskbound and would like to avoid opening the case if possible, even if Dell would ‘support’ the 8260 by supplying the drivers.

I did have a number of DRIVER_PAGE_FAULT_IN_FREED_SPECIAL_POOL BSODs attributed to bcmpciedhd63.sys before I did the rebuild but nothing since. Like you, I got no dump, just the information on the BSOD screen for these.

The Intel DPTF drivers are a bit obscure as they don’t actually seem to be listed on Intel.com so there’s no updates available that I’ve found other than via Dell itself. I’ll reserve my option to uninstall these at a future date as I’ve a few other changes I’d like to try first.

One of the major problems with this entire process is that it really is a matter of making one configuration change and then waiting maybe a couple of days (twice the average failure rate!) to see if things improve or otherwise change. Try to move any faster (unless the changes are interdependent) then you’re never quite sure which one made a difference.

BTW just had CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED BSOD while typing this update. Doesn’t appear that connecting BenQ via HDMI rather than TB3/DP has improved matters at all.

Will probably do the TB firmware/driver updates next as they’re ‘Urgent’ followed by some of the outstanding ‘Recommended’ updates.

 

pressing. Congratulations on a BSOD free XPS 9550. Not unknown but certainly not as common it is should be from all I’ve read!

For myself, once all the backups were done, I repartitioned the old C: partition for dual-boot

Win10-Old 120GB
Win10-New 120GB
Data 240GB​

This was so I could continue working with the original build while installing/testing/reloading apps without just blowing everything away.

At this point, performance was much better than the original build and relatively stable so I restored a backup of the new partition over the old. This was probably a bit premature as I’ve had 1-2 BSODs per day every day since reinstalling the bulk of my desktop apps.

Most of my desktop apps are pretty common and I run them on a couple of other systems without problems so I’m still inclined to look at hardware/driver problems first.

Might be educational to restore a backup of the bare GoNz0 build with all hardware/driver/Dell/Microsoft updates in place and see how stable that is. The problem is that I want to use this system, not just test it. At this point, I’m still inclined to try and go forward rather than spending time backtracking, but I may yet have to.

 

PhilTheHill, just like what you said, this method may be ponderous, but I think the possibilities were greatly narrowed through the driver verifier.
Now, the only possible cause is Dell 1830 for me. If it is prove not to be the bad one in the future, I'll throw this laptop away...

Anyway, there some new findings to post again, about bcmpciedhd63.sys.

A list of different driver versions in Dell's website for Dell Wireless 1830 WiFi Driver:
For Win10:
1. 1.442.0.0, A00
2. 1.519.0.0, A01
3. 1.555.0.0, A03
4. 1.566.0.0, A04
For Win8.1 ( compatible with Win10 for my experience )
5. 1.400.66.0, A01
6. 1.400.31.0, A00

When stressed by driver verifier:
1-4 caused BSODs after logining in shortly.
5, 6 didn't lead to BSOD.

With driver verifier disabled:
1-4 intermittently led to BSOD. 5 would make the wireless card dropped out after one or two hours of use, and requested a force restart. Normal restart would lead to BSOD showing DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE. 6 was BSOD-free but no SSID name appeared in the wifi popping up list.

Now here's a trick: simply replace these three files in 5:
bcmpciedhd63.cat
bcmpciedhd63.inf
bcmpciedhd63.sys
with the corresponding files in 6.

It is now working very well without dropping out. I'm observing if it will last for a long time.

 

Do you get the BSOD that causes the drive to vanish when it restarts with no memory dump?

If you do could you plugin a USB stick and divert the memory dumps to that?

I tried to do that and it never friggin crashed for 2 weeks but the little shiney silver memory stick was more than my 2 year old could ignore so I had to take it out

Might be worth you joining the insider program and trying the anniversary edition?

 

Hi GoNz0.

Thank you again for all your efforts on the clean build. It’s a great timesaver and much appreciated.

I’m not sure that I ever had a “BSOD that causes the drive to vanish”. In fact, I don’t think I ever got a memory dump of any description from the original build but I put it down to the fact that the drive was BitLocker encrypted. The new build has both boot partitions unencrypted and just the data partition encrypted. Bit of hassle but it works OK for my purposes.

I’ve not tried dumping to an alternate device before but have now configured “Automatic Memory dump” to an NTFS formatted USB 3 memory stick F:\MEMORY.DMP. (I had already disabled automatic restart so I could view the BSOD if I wasn’t at my desk when it crashed.) If it doesn’t crash for two weeks, I’ll be slightly happy, in a funny sort of way.

I gave my son his first computer when he was two on the basis that it kept his hands off mine. He’s now 23 so if he removes my memory stick, we’ll be having serious words …

As for the Insider Program, I joined about six months before Windows 10 was released and still have it configured in a VM on one of my servers. I run it up periodically to look at new functionality but otherwise haven’t done much with it. As the anniversary edition deployment is imminent, I probably ought to try it on a physical machine before it gets dropped on us. A whole new world of pain awaits!

 

Fast, slow and preview ring all have the RC now, Microsoft's just adding patched to the final build instead of new builds.

 

I'd try to use some live Linux like Ubuntu too.
I was on the verge of sending mine in because I thought it was a hardware fault.
When I had no freeze or any problems at all while working with Ubuntu I started to look at
Windows drivers and programs again and found it to be Razer Synapse.

 

As a update to this thread, I’ve now updated TB3 driver to 16.1.47.275, BIOS to 1.2.10 (only because TB3 firmware needs it), and TB3 firmware to 2.16.01.003. Display Port monitor on TB3 works OK and I’ve not personally seen any of the ‘flickering’ issues others have reported with the 1.2.10 BIOS. Unfortunately, I’ve subsequently had CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED crashes with my external monitor on both HDMI and DP so the problem remains (and still no dump to USB stick so reverted to default location).

The original post by powercgcg did however prompt me to review the installed drivers and I was surprised at the number shown when using “Select driver names from a list” for which the provider and version were “<unknown>”. Looked at a number of these manually and four of them appear to be part of Norton Security which was a bit of a surprise. As the driver verifier run powercqcq did had already highlighted Kaspersky AV as a potential BSOD candidate, I decided to see if there had been any reported issues with Norton Security.

From the Norton forums, they seem to have released a major update 22.7 mid-june that has caused BSODs for quite a number of people/configurations so it’s now become the prime suspect. I’ve used a wide variety of security suites over the years and Norton for the last four on all our Windows systems because it’s normally relatively low impact and low maintenance. All are now Windows 10 of one type or another and my XPS 9550 is the only one that’s had any problems.

The forum responses seem to indicate that Norton believe the problems are resolved but some respondents beg to differ. I’ve unceremoniously removed it from my XPS 9550 and reverted to Windows Defender for the time being. Early days yet but so far things are looking better and I’m hopeful this may prove to be the root cause of my BSODs.

 

Good news:

It seems that all things go well after the installation of the "hybrid" wireless card driver mentioned in my previous post.

When using a normal driver for Dell 1830 for win10, the laptop was bound to crash into BSOD in two cases:
1. After surfing the internet for no more than 3 hours
2. After playing an online game for no more than 1 hours (Maplestory2 or Hearthstone).
As for the second point, I guess it was the overheat to accelerate the crash of wireless card. The overheat may be due to the uninstallation of Intel DPTF. Anyway, it doesn't matter now.

Although those BSODs didn't generate DMP files, I think it is about the wireless card driver, because now it is working fairly well even after several hours of use.

If it continues going well for some time, I'll try to install things back one by one to see they are fake causes or real ones.

 

Just been into another infinite BSOD loop, at the start up when the dotted circle was circling.

I couldn't even go into safe mode as well as USB-guided WinPE, near to giving up.

However, when I disabled the C state and Hyperthread in BIOS, everything came back.

In this way, these two options were proved to be the cause.

 

powercqcq. Glad to hear you’ve found a ‘solution’ to your BSODs. Can you clarify if just one of the changes was identified as the resolution or if you applied both changes at the same time?

I saw your update yesterday and did a brief look around disabling c-states. There’s certainly quite a few problems reported around the turn of the year with hangs and hard lockups but updated microcode should have resolved these by now. Not sure about the XPS 9550 though as the Dell BIOS updates have had problems of their own. There are also a few warnings about disabling c-states permanently (e.g. https://www.reddit.com/comments/4csxfz) but it appears to be a common practice among gamers to get maximum performance.

IMO disabling c-states should not be necessary to get stability on a laptop as battery life will undoubtedly suffer. Probably best viewed as an interim fix but not one which resolves the root cause.

 

A blitz of five BSODs on 31st July for me; diary was as follows …

With the prospect of the AU release imminent, I wanted to try and get all other pending updates installed. (I have Windows 10 Pro and am configured to ‘defer upgrades’ but this has been ignored before and didn’t want the AU update to complicate things further.) So just bit the bullet and undertook to install (or re-install) everything that was outstanding.

Early on Sunday morning, the first change was

MS Office upgraded itself to 16.0.7070.2033​

The system then had a CRITICAL PROCESS_DIED while updating off-line backup to disk on USB 3 port.

Unbowed, I then

Reconnected Logitech K&M to Tecknet hub on LH USB 3 port (but still on WiFi)
Removed Logitech SetPoint and Unifying software
Updated VirtualBox from 5.0.24 to 5.1.2
Updated Realtek CR driver to 10.0.10586.21289
Updated Realtek HD Audio Driver from 6.0.1.7737 to 6.0.1.7829
Uninstalled Devolo Cockpit (service already set to manual)
Updated NVIDIA driver from 10.18.13.5894 (Dell) to 368.81 (NVIDIA latest)​

I was then stressing the system reasonably hard; running (at different times) multiple VMs, video encoding, backups, restores, etc. Max 99.5% CPU usage, temperatures OK at peak of ~75 degrees, disk and network throughput good.

And then three BSODs within 30 minutes. Very nearly threw the bl**dy machine out of the window! However, went for a walk instead and returned to the fray.

Did a video encode which completed and then while getting a coffee, another BSOD after ~15 minutes of just background activity.

Applied fix to resolve ‘Air Space Channel’ events (caused by earlier update to MS Office).
Uninstalled IDPTF
IDPTF 8.1.10605.221 re-installed via Microsoft Update on reboot (but no program entry so re-installed again using Dell package)
Re-enabled Bluetooth device
Re-installed Norton Security and Backup 22.7.0.76
Re-installed Logitech SetPoint 6.67 & Unifying 2.50 software
Reverted pagefile from 16.01GB to ‘system managed’ as still not getting any dumps
Reconnected hub in BenQ monitor to RH USB 3 port
Reconnected Ethernet to Intertek hub​

It’s now been almost two days since the last BSOD with no configuration changes at all.

Personally, if I was using the 960m, I’d suspect the NVIDIA driver but I’m not a gamer and not knowingly using any application that makes use of the 960m.

I often listen to audio, either video soundtrack (e.g. iPlayer) or radio via BBC Radio Player so the Audio Driver would be suspect except I’ve had four BSODs since the driver was updated.

In summary, I can’t be certain precisely what change has bought about this period of stability or if I’ve simply hit some magic sequence of updates that just works. I list the changes above in the hope that they may assist others in their own investigations.

 

I think the C state and Hyperthread maybe only apply to me. Because for me, the C state led to BSOD at system startup, and the Hyperthread led to BSOD after 1 min since startup. There should be some flaw in my operating system since these happened suddenly, and I may have to reinstall Win10 soon.

Three days ago my wireless card totally crashed. It suddenly appeared an exclamation mark in the Device Manager and didn't work. Every time during its driver installation BSOD would come up. Now I disable the wireless card in BIOS and I am using an external WLAN card.

An interesting finding is that with these two options disabled, the laptop is much cooler than before, especially the part on the left of keyboard. This part used to be rather hot even when I was browsing simple webpage.

Everything looks stable now, and I'm waiting for the Intel Dual Band 8260 to come.

 

At last I managed to replace Dell 1830 wireless card with Intel 8260. Then I turned on C state and hyperthread, and no BSOD.

As the annual update of Win10 has some problems, such as explorer.exe freezing randomly after double-clicking an executable file, I reinstalled the previous build 1511.

Now XPS works well and I hope all things ended up.
It seems that a few Dell 1830 cards do have crucial flaws, not only in my case.

Actually the Driver Verifier gave me a correct direction, and it didn't lead to only futile efforts.

Long-term stability needs to be observed, but I wonder if the title of the topic in this forum can be changed..

 

powercqcq. I hope it works for you and please update again when you feel the system is stable to confirm if this upgrade has resolved root cause for you.

I'd also be interested in your view of the relative performance of the two cards via WiFi. (Personally I've been less than impressed with the 1830 to date but I normally try and avoid WiFi for serious work.)

 

how many people here get critical_process_died bsod's whereupon reboot they can no longer boot into windows and have to either reinstall or restore from backup?

wondering if this is super common or i just got a bad refurbished model.

 

No it is normal, force power down by holding the power button and it will work again (has for me)

Still waiting to see if it happens on my new ISO with 15 series intel Raid/AHCI drivers

 

I've never had that issue, what SSD (or HDD) do you have in your laptop? If it's a samsung, are you in raid or ahci mode?

 

once i have the critical process died bsod, no matter if i power down or not, it won't boot. since installing your iso, so far i haven't had an unrecoverable bsod but i have had numerous bsod's so far. i just had a video scheduler bsod trying to play the new batman telltale game but thankfully i was able to boot back into windows with a power down.

i have the pm951, i'm in ahci. i was having more bsod's using the standard microsoft nvme controller and now i'm using the samsung 950 pro nvme controller. that helped with the number of bsod's but still getting them.

 

Interesting, I was going to suggest using the samsung nvme driver as I had a PM951 with BSODs that were fixed with that driver.

 

yeah, i know that has helped a lot of people. to be sure, it's helped a pretty good amount but still not fully.

 

If you are getting a bsod due to a video driver I would check you are using the latest ones.

Sent from my SM-G920F

 

One of the main advantages of using AHCI rather than RAID on the 9550 is that you can then monitor the S.M.A.R.T. statistics on the NVMe disk using CrystalDiskInfo. (I don't know of any other facility that can currently obtain SMART stats for NVMe drives.)

On my 9550, every time I get a BSOD, I get the "Unsafe Shutdowns" increment by one (which is understandable) and the "Number of Error Information Log Entries" by between two and six. I suspect these are probably 'DMA transfer could not be completed' messages or similar but does anybody know how I can actually view the log entries on this configuration?



It would also be nice to clear the error log but I can live without that.

In all other respects, the disk appears to be healthy and performance is OK but I like to try and be forewarned if a disk is starting to fail.

 

I also get BSODs now after Anniversary Update. I would like to change AHCI mode back to RAID as it was far more stable to me, but suddenly I can't. After changing AHCI mode to RAID in UEFI I can't boot even to safe mode. I just get BSOD related to not finding storage media. Before Anniversary Update I could change modes back and forth without any problems.

 

if i'm getting video scheduler bsod's while running graphics intensive games despite being on the latest drivers, is that a sign for me to back my settings off or is there something else afoot? i'm also running a slight undervolt on the igpu.

 

remove the undervolt, see if the problem stops.

 

Update:

After the replacement of the wireless card for 3 days, new series of BSODs popped up.
The tracking process was rather complicated, just about the results:
SSD not stable when enabling all the 4 cores in CPU in BIOS.

So what does "not stable" mean:
files in the SSD will CRASH randomly, then comes the BSOD. After a restart, the crashed file contains nothing (I mean it's totally blank). However, it still remains the original size. It's very strange but I haven't found out the mechanism yet.

Why it has something to do with the CPU:
When I enabled only 3 cores of CPU, the SSD seemed to be very stable. No BSODs.
However, 3 cores also had some problems. For example, I was not able to restart my laptop normally, because it would freeze on the black screen and never enter the startup process.

At first, I thought there were some flaws in the SSD (Samsung PM951 512gb), so I replaced it with Samsung 950 Pro 512gb. Then I realized that I was wrong. It was about the CPU (or probably the motherboard).

A temporary solution I found:
Install windows using 3 cores configuration. After installation of the chipset driver and AHCI driver, switch on the 4th core, and then the system will be stable. (It's been stable for 3 days, usually no more than 1 hour)

Actually, yesterday Dell released the newest BIOS update 1.2.13 A12. It's "urgent" including the following fix:
"Improve system stability with PCIE NVMe Configuration"
If this is for my problem,,, I just want to die..

 

pwercqcq - what a frustrating experience...but you are tenacious!

I hope you get this sorted. At some point, you might consider an unidentified hardware issue under warranty (Dell has had a good share of warranty claims on these, particularly the early productions I suspect).

 

Just a short follow-up on my BSOD's; I've not had any for more than 10 days!!!

And the resolution was IMO the installation of the Samsung NVMe driver. I've not made any system configuration changes since this was installed on 30th August following an UNEXPECTED_STORE_EXCEPTION and have been BSOD free since then. (Prior to that I had been getting a variety of crashes including CRITICIAL_PROCES_DIED, KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE_ERROR and 'unknowns' where I wasn't present when it crashed.)

I am still seeing the number of Information Log Entries increase steadily on my PM951 but have drawn a complete blank on trying to find out what they are. I last tried Fedora 24 with the latest smartmontools package which does support NVMe drives but even this is still considered experimental and yielded nothing useful about the error log entries.

If I were to speculate, I would probably suggest that the Samsung driver is either handling or ignoring new error information log entries which cause the Microsoft driver to crash. If this is correct, this fix may not be appropriate for other manufacturers NVMe devices or if the error information log entries are not increasing.

Although the 01.02.13 BIOS looked promising for it's NVMe updates, it's failings became all too apparent in this forum before I had time to try it and as everything is running nicely at the moment, I'm still on 01.02.10. Sorry GonZ0, still no flickering apparent at any screen brightness.

 

You must be the exception as everyone else seems to have it around 20% brightness
If you have the 4k panel can you get the model number ( I use Aida64)
I have the Sharp LQ156D1 (Dell 7PHPT)

 

Mine looks to be the same as yours

[ Sharp LQ156D1 (Dell 7PHPT) ]

Monitor Properties:
Monitor Name Sharp LQ156D1 (Dell 7PHPT)
Monitor ID SHP143E
Manufacturer 7PHPT_LQ156D1
Monitor Type 15.6" LCD (4K QFHD)
Manufacture Date Week 40 / 2015
Serial Number None
Max. Visible Display Size 346 mm x 194 mm (15.6")
Picture Aspect Ratio 16:9
Maximum Resolution 3840 x 2160
Gamma 2.20
DPMS Mode Support None

Supported Video Modes:
3840 x 2160 Pixel Clock: 533.25 MHz​

Have tried viewing NBR (for thebright background) fullscreen with brightness down to zero. There's no apparent difference between brightness at 0 or 10 (BIOS restriction I believe you indicated) and minimal brightness increase at 20. I'll try it again this evening in a darkened/blackout room as it may be more apparent then.

​

 

I'm glad to hear that you found a way to sort out this issue.
But I wonder what does IMO mean? Uninstallation?

 

Still had no BSOD since my anniversary update ISO with the new intel drivers in it.
Also put the Toshiba NVME driver on now as it added support in the last update.

 

It's been about 20 days since I enabled 3 CPU cores in BIOS without a single BSOD.
Today I attempted to change this setting back to 4 cores and BSOD occurred within 1 minute after startup, so I had to change it back.

The only problem is that the system will stick at Dell logo during booting process if I'm using the battery. However, this is not bothering me because now I am always plugging the power adapter in my laptop.

I suggest all of the people suffering BSODs have a try to see if this is a common solution, thx~

 

powercqcq, apologies my lazy typing. IMO - In My Opinion

 

I have read so many forums and posts on the BSOD, it was driving me crazy, I didn't return the machine cause i fell in Love with it.

What solved the problem for me was downloading the latest Smasung SSD driver NVMe, even though my ssd doesn't have specific drivers, downloading them did it.

Make sure you have latest BIOS and other drivers are up to date