XPS 9550 + Win 10 Creators Update (random freezes)

Read this:

Windows 10 Creators Update not yet ready for Dell XPS 9550

 

Two separate issues:

Dell released a bad version of the Intel graphics driver -- resulted in BSODs, black screens, frequent GPU resets. This happens with or without the Creators Update. They released a newer drive just a day or two later that fixed it. Latest driver on Dell's site works.

Creators Update -- it IS the Intel DPTF. Or at least appears to be. Originally, waking from sleep my keyboard wouldn't work, seemingly 100% of the time. Sometimes, the touchscreen wouldn't work. I'm not sure what troubleshooting I may have done to cause my NEW problems, but now when I shut the lid it will crash/restart. If I let it sleep with the lid opened, the display will not return on wake. I've experienced the freezing you described. Viewing Event Viewer, there was an issue loading a certain driver, and the Hardware ID is for the Intel DPTF Manager. Considering this is the only error that seems to be relevant, I'm going to guess it's the cause.

A strange thing I noticed, which may be normal, is that when in Advanced Power Settings it shows 0mhz as the Max CPU Frequency. I changed it to 3500, and the problems continue. Not sure if "0" in this field just means "max" which is often the case.

Anyway, I'm sure a fix will be released soon. Will use my other laptop until then.

 

Hey Schmoo2k,
I tried to replicate your steps to deal with the problem, but it's still crashing for me at the moment (although it seems to happen less frequently since).
When you say you installed the new intel drivers from Dell, which ones are you talking about, and can you give me the drivers version number?
Also when you say that scanning the root node installs the oldest drivers bundled in, do you mean that after uninstalling every drivers and scanning, you had no "other peripherals" at the top of your tree? (because It shows there for me)
Also last question, which version of windows are you using? I managed to rollback to the anniversary update (which didn't change much), but maybe it's fixed with the creator one?
Thanks anyways

 

Alas I have still have no solution... #

I have (finally) formatted and clean installed from MS ISO.
I did already get a "similar" issue, where the start menu stopped working, but the rest of the apps worked and the win+x worked so was able to restart at least.

I will know better in a few days.

 

if been nearly error free with my setup now for two weeks, the only problem is still the bluetooth loosing connection when i'm not using the Mouse for a while.

I've got the RS2 installed with the following drivers

BIOS XPS_9550_1.2.21
Intel HD 530 - 20.19.15.4531 - 29.09.2016 - Intel Corporation
Nvidia GeForce GTX 960M - 22.21.13.8165 - 2017-03-31 - NVIDIA
Intel(R) Dynamic Platform and Thermal Framework - 8.2.10900.330 - 2016-05-16 - Intel
Intel(R) 100 Series/C230 Chipset Family SATA AHCI Controller - 15.2.10.1044 - Intel Corporation
PM951 NVMe SAMSUNG 512GB - 10.0.15063.0 - 2006.06.21 - Microsoft
Dell Wireless 1830 802.11ac - 1.566.0.0 - 2016-01-04 - Broadcom
Samsung NVMe Controller - 2.0.0.1607 - 10.10.2016 - Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd
Intel USB 3.0 eXtensible-Hostcontroller - 1.0 (Microsoft) - 10.0.15063.138 - 2017-03-31 - Microsoft

after there has been a recent release of new drivers (Intel GFX, Network and SATA) i will give my luck a try and install them to see if it works better now.


Just updated to the following, let's see if it still works without crashes.


BIOS XPS_9550_1.2.21
Intel HD 530 - 21.20.16.4627 - 2017-03-09 - Intel Corporation
Nvidia GeForce GTX 960M - 22.21.13.8205 - 2017-05-01 - NVIDIA
Intel(R) Dynamic Platform and Thermal Framework - 8.2.10900.330 - 2016-05-16 - Intel
Intel(R) 100 Series/C230 Chipset Family SATA AHCI Controller - 15.2.10.1044 - Intel Corporation
PM951 NVMe SAMSUNG 512GB - 10.0.15063.0 - 2006.06.21 - Microsoft
Dell Wireless 1830 802.11ac - 1.566.0.0 - 2016-01-04 - Broadcom
Samsung NVMe Controller - 2.0.0.1607 - 10.10.2016 - Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd
Intel USB 3.0 eXtensible-Hostcontroller - 1.0 (Microsoft) - 10.0.15063.138 - 2017-03-31 - Microsoft

 

Yep, reformated Windows Partition 4 days ago and installed Win10 1607, still freezing occasionally. (So i guess it's not directly related to CU itself, but some new drivers in Windows Update Repository that released with it?)
It got a bit worse now, as it does that weird soft-freeze, but now the start menu won't even open (previously it would expand but wasn't usable).

I will try the suggested driver combination from linl over the Weekend.

 

Are you in AHCI mode or RAID?

I am in AHCI mode, which might explain why more people aren't shouting about it?

Also I am on WIn 10 CU Pro with Hyper-V installed FWIW

 

I'm using AHCI (Archlinux Dual-Boot requires it).
I do not use Hyper-V. I tried Win10 CU 1704 pretty early, thats when the Problem started, but right now im back to Win10 AU 1607, but it still freezes from time to time.
As mentioned earlier, Archlinux has no freez/crash/hang on this Machine.

 

Today I have been freeze free with the following setup (Matching the SATA + NVMe versions from @linl above):
BIOS XPS_9550_1.2.21
Intel HD 530 - 21.20.16.4534 - 07.10.2016 - Intel Corporation
Nvidia GeForce GTX 960M - (disabled)
Intel(R) Dynamic Platform and Thermal Framework - 8.2.10900.330 - 2016-05-16 - Intel
Intel(R) 100 Series/C230 Chipset Family SATA AHCI Controller - 15.2.10.1044 - Intel Corporation
PM951 NVMe SAMSUNG 512GB - 10.0.15063.0 - 2006.06.21 - Microsoft
Dell Wireless 1830 802.11ac - 1.566.0.0 - 2016-01-04 - Broadcom
Samsung NVMe Controller - 2.0.0.1607 - 10.10.2016 - Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd
Intel USB 3.0 eXtensible-Hostcontroller - 1.0 (Microsoft) - 10.0.15063.138 - 2017-03-31 - Microsoft

 

I had the same problem with Windows Creators Update. My first solution was disabling Nvidia card however I still had occasional random freezes. After reading this thread I updated Intel(R) 100 Series/C230 Chipset Family SATA AHCI Controller to 15.2.10.1044 and downgrade Intel HD 530 driver to 20.19.15.4531, It seem to have solved the issue. No random freezes the last two days.
(Also in AHCI, I dualboot with ubuntu).

 

@Paulems - can you confirm which NVMe driver your using?

 

The last Setup i've posted on Friday works for me without any crashes. Laptop runs now 3 day 12h each day.
Still the Bluetooth problem exists but i can live with that for now.

 

Samsung NVMe Controller 2.2 (the last version on Samsumg website). I tried to match @linl setup, however for NVMe driver I went for the last version.

 

Uh, so I guess either I'm doing something wrong, or I'm unlucky...
here's my setup, and it crashes randomly... (sometimes I'm "lucky" and it crashes maybe one/two times per day, and sometimes it can be 10/15mn between crashes).

BIOS XPS_9550_1.2.21
Intel HD 530 - 21.20.16.4627- 09/03/2017- Intel Corporation
Nvidia GeForce GTX 960M - 22.21.13.8205 - 01/05/2017
Intel(R) Dynamic Platform and Thermal Framework - 8.2.10900.330 - 2016-05-16 - Intel
Intel(R) 100 Series/C230 Chipset Family SATA AHCI Controller - 15.2.10.1044 - Intel Corporation
SAMSUNG SSD 950 Pro 256GB - 10.0.14393.0 - 21/06/2006- Microsoft (can't seem to find the 10.0.15063.0, but might be exclusive to the PM951)
Dell Wireless 1830 802.11ac - 1.566.0.0 - 2016-01-04 - Broadcom
Samsung NVMe Controller - 2.2.0.1703- 17/03/2017- Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd
Intel USB 3.0 eXtensible-Hostcontroller - 1.0 (Microsoft) - 10.0.14393.0 - 15/07/2016- Microsoft (I see you're using the 10.0.15063.138 version, but as I'm using W10 Anniversary maybe that explains the difference? )

Also, I've installed Samsung Magician v4.9.7, and since I'm dualbooting Kubuntu, AHCI in Bios.

 

@Pi-dalo this thread is primarily for the random freeze (no crash). If you are experiencing crashes you can use your dump logs and event logs to pin down the issue, for us its a matter of trial and error (since the issue happens intermittently and doesn't show up in any logs).

Right now my money is on the SATA Controller, with the NVMe controller being a close second - I am testing some combinations of those with all the other drivers at their latest versions.

 

I guess I was not clear enough, I was indeed talking about the random freeze. I tend to treat it as a crash in my mind as well, my fault.

 

I am soft-freeze free for 4 days now with heavy use. I can't say for sure what the critical change is, so im just gonna list a couple of things:

Windows 10 Anniversary Update (v 1607)
AHCI Mode
XPS 9550 BIOS: 1.2.21
Intel HD 530: 21.20.16.4627
Nvidia GeForce GTX 960M: 22.21.13.8189 (381.89)
Realtek Audio: 6.0.1.7917
Intel(R) Dynamic Platform and Thermal Framework: 8.2.10900.330
Intel(R) 100 Series/C230 Chipset Family SATA AHCI Controller: 15.2.10.1044
Samsung NVMe Controller: 2.0.0.1607
PM951 NVMe SAMSUNG 512GB: 10.0.14393.0
Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless-AC 8265: 19.50.1.5
Intel USB 3.0 eXtensible-Hostcontroller: 10.0.14393.0

 

@NormanKD thanks for sharing - IMO I think its the following combination that is the key:
* Intel(R) 100 Series/C230 Chipset Family SATA AHCI Controller: 15.2.10.1044
* Samsung NVMe Controller: 2.0.0.1607

 

I was having the same problems with my Dell XPS 15 9550 with Windows 10 Pro Version 1607 (OS Build 14393.1066)

I had recently sent it to Dell for some repairs and when it came back the repairs were fine but sometimes Windows would just lock up.

Periodically/Randomly the current window I was working in would suddenly be listed as (Not Responding) and then I could click to a few other windows for a few seconds but never being able to open Task Manager or open the Windows start menu. Eventually it just got stuck in a perpetual spinner mouse pointer and never comes back. The only remedy is to do a hard reboot.

Other times I would leave the laptop on the lock screen and then try to login and I would click or hit space bar then the screen looked like it was going to popup the password field but then never does, and ends being stuck with the perpetual spinner mouse pointer.

Yesterday I uninstalled the Samsung NVME driver by downloading the latest Samsung NVME driver (Samsung NVM Express Driver 2.2.exe) and then trying to install it. The first window that pops up had an option to uninstall the driver. I clicked 'Uninstall' and so far for today, I haven't had a problem.

This was in addition to yesterdays attempt at fixing the problem by downgrading my Intel graphics driver so I'm now running:

Intel HD Graphics driver 21.20.16.4590

PM951 NVMe Samsung 512GB
Driver Provider: Microsoft
Driver Version: 10.0.1493.0

Standard NVM Express Controller
Driver Provider: Microsoft
Driver Version: 10.0.14393.206

Here's hoping this does the trick, I'll post back if I have anymore problems.

 

@pdude007 sounds like the same issue I have been having. With your setup above (specifically the Standard NVMe Express Controller) I would expect to see an occasional BSOD Critical_Process_Died once a day or so which I am not getting with the Samsung NVMe Controller: 2.0.0.1607 (and no freezes). HTH.

 

Dell have new SATA driver out today: Intel-Rapid-Storage-Technology-Driver-and-Management_CRRKJ_WIN_15.2.15.1058_A07.EXE

I am testing it now and assuming there are no freezes I will then retest with the newer Samsung NVMe drivers.

 

Release Date: 03 May 2017

Not today

 

...well added to their support web page + RSS feed today (does that imply they did some QA - sorry silly me).

 

Actually the one I am looking at, was released today: http://www.dell.com/support/home/ie...driverID=CRRKJ&productCode=xps-15-9550-laptop

 

Looks like they were a few days late to the party with the 9550 then
http://www.dell.com/support/home/uk...-15-9560-laptop&languageCode=en&categoryId=SA

Either way it will be an old driver, I always go for the latest intel from the winraid site (it's down at the mo)

 

...yes so do I, but in this case I _think_ the 15.5.x.x series may be contributing to the freeze issue (and it takes a day or two to verify any given combination is stable).

 

@Schmoo2k sooooo close...... just got BSOD Unexpected Store Exception.

When I first got the laptop back and was installing all my applications I got the BSOD Critical_Process_Died which prompted me to update the Samsung NVMe Controller driver to the 2.2 version.

Have now installed Samsung_NVMeDriver_2.0.exe and will see how this goes.

 

As much as I understand, the Intel RST driver is not relevant for the SSD in AHCI, is only in RAID.
While in AHCI you have either the MS or the factory NVMe driver (factories don't seem to dig drivers when the RAID controller is on).
I'm in AHCI and I've once tried Samsung NVMe v2.2 but it made things worse, random freezes. Things were better after reverting to 1.4. Not positive though if it was really this driver's fault.

 

Never noticed that, if indeed intel RST is installed with AHCI mode it could well contribute to the issue.

 

I tend to unzip the installer and manually install the needed drivers - this is the folder that matters:

Directory of Intel SATA 15.2.15.1058_A07\Drivers\Production\Windows10-x64
28/03/2017 13:13 1,050,232 dpinst.exe
25/03/2017 00:16 9,011 iaAHCIC.cat
25/03/2017 00:16 12,940 iaAHCIC.inf
25/03/2017 00:16 799,744 iaStorA.sys
25/03/2017 00:16 9,307 iaStorAC.cat
25/03/2017 00:16 14,340 iaStorAC.inf
25/03/2017 00:16 32,240 iaStorF.sys

As you can see it does have AHCI drivers.

So at this stage I am going to call it: To fix the random freezes (and BSOD Critical_Process_Died) ensure you have installed:
* The latest Intel AHCI Drivers on the 15.2.* branch (and not the 15.5.* branch)
* 2.0 Samsung NVMe driver

(Right now all my other drivers are up to date, with the above exceptions)

 

I've been trying to get back to the 2.0 Samsung Nvme driver from 2.2, but so far the .exe tells me I have a newer version installed, the device manager tells me the same thing (don't have the option to rollback since I installed 2.2 on a fresh windows install).
I've tried to uninstall the driver and deleting it from the device manager, but got a nice Inaccessible Boot Device BSOD on startup (not my brightest idea on hindsight). I managed to restore it somehow, and since I don't want to **** it up again, I'm turning to those who know more than me

How can I go back from 2.2 to 2.0? (I quickly searched the internet but maybe what I'm typing is not the correct phrasing since I'm not finding much that has to do with nvme boot devices...)

 

When you run either the Samsung_NVMeDriver_2.0.exe or the Samsung_NVMeDriver_2.2.exe after choosing the language do you not get a screen that gives you the option to uninstall the current driver? So then you could uninstall the current driver and install the version you'd like.

 

1. Control panel -> Add Remove Programs -> Look for Samsung driver installation and uninstall
2. Win+X -> Device Manager -> Storage Controllers -> Samsung NVMe Controllrt (right click and select uninstall)

Don't reboot before you install the 2.0 driver I have heard of one instance where the machine failed to (re)boot but it never happened to me.

 

Nope, it just tells me I have the latest version of the driver.

Ok, so I've done that, your first point goes fine. When it asks me to reboot, I said no. But then the nvme controller in the device manager is nowhere to be found, and scanning for hardware changes brings nothing. On top of that when I try to install the 2.0 driver (or reinstall the 2.2), it justs tells me that I need to reboot after the language selection screen....
Aaand I'm quite reluctant with this idea since the laptop did fail to reboot last time I uninstalled the nvme driver....

EDIT: welp nevermind, the laptop decided for me by freezing again. Everything went fine this time and I was able to install the 2.0 driver. Thanks for the help. And I will update you on the stability of the system.

 

just updated to the latest BIOSrealsed by Dell. 1.2.25. .

I'm now on this configuration without any freezes:

BIOS XPS_9550_1.2.25
Intel HD 530 - 21.20.16.4627 - 2017-03-09 - Intel Corporation
Nvidia GeForce GTX 960M - 22.21.13.8205 - 2017-05-01 - NVIDIA
Intel(R) Dynamic Platform and Thermal Framework - 8.2.10900.330 - 2016-05-16 - Intel
Intel(R) 100 Series/C230 Chipset Family SATA AHCI Controller - 15.2.10.1044 - Intel Corporation
PM951 NVMe SAMSUNG 512GB - 10.0.15063.0 - 2006.06.21 - Microsoft
Dell Wireless 1830 802.11ac - 1.566.0.0 - 2016-01-04 - Broadcom
Samsung NVMe Controller - 2.0.0.1607 - 10.10.2016 - Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd
Intel USB 3.0 eXtensible-Hostcontroller - 1.0 (Microsoft) - 10.0.15063.138 - 2017-03-31 - Microsoft

 

Hi again,

I have not yet updated to the latest Bios, but so far, the system has been perfectly stable. (Just quite a long time getting connected to my wifi waking from sleep).


BIOS XPS_9550_1.2.21
Intel HD 530 - 21.20.16.4627 - 2017-03-09 - Intel Corporation
Nvidia GeForce GTX 960M - 22.21.13.8205 - 2017-05-01 - NVIDIA
Intel(R) Dynamic Platform and Thermal Framework - 8.2.10900.330 - 2016-05-16 - Intel
Intel(R) 100 Series/C230 Chipset Family SATA AHCI Controller - 15.2.10.1044 - Intel Corporation
950Pro SAMSUNG 256Gb - 10.0.14393.0- 2006.06.21 - Microsoft
Dell Wireless 1830 802.11ac - 1.566.0.0 - 2016-01-04 - Broadcom
Samsung NVMe Controller - 2.0.0.1607 - 10.10.2016 - Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd
Intel USB 3.0 eXtensible-Hostcontroller - 1.0 (Microsoft) - 10.0.14393.0 - 15/07/2016 - Microsoft
Samsung Magician 4.9.7

Also please note that I am back on the Anniversary update.

Thanks for all the help.

 

I have the exact same issues, except i have done a fresh install. No BSOD, just becomes unresponsive.

The following might reveal a bit more light.

• Dell XPS 9550 4K touch
• Samsung 950 Pro SSD
• Windows Creators Version
• All the latest drivers (have not tried rolling back)

Here are some peculiarities:
I can close programs like dashlane, chrome, windows file explorer, etc. etc. (although i cannot navigate in them)

Outlook, Visual Studio, Edge, Sql Server Management, My own .Net Windows Form Apps are unresponsive, i.e., i cannot close them. I believe all of these are .net apps
They do give a 'this program is unresponsive dialog, do you wish to close it or wait' dialog, but even if i select close, the mouse just whirls in the blue busy indicator, and does not do anything.

After awhile ( a minute or two), everything becomes completely unresponsive. If the laptop goes to sleep for very long, it never recovers. I suspect that something with hibernate, even though i turned it off in the advanced power settings.

Possibly this is something with a low level hook in the .net framework apps, It could also be something when the dell tries to switch from the intel video driver to nvidia driver and hangs.
All very frustrating. I will try to install some of the earlier versions of drivers and see if that helps.

 

Hi, I installed the earlier version of the Intel HD530 driver.

Not been able to find a 2.0 version of Samsung nvme driver. (i am using ACHI, not Raid that laptop came configured with. I noticed in some forums that the reason dell put it in raid, was that the early drivers were not stable in ahci)

Can someone share a link for it.
Will report on stability.

btw, the reason i did a fresh install of the windows creator update, is that a few weeks ago, it ran the windows update (this time without my permission) and ended up bricking the machine. It got part way through, and then could not open the EFI file on boot. Even a boot repair did not help. I wiped the drive and started over. Prior to that was running on 1507 build, as never was able to do even a 1607 update. On 1507 it was stable.

 

I have updates the first post to include links to the two drivers you need (the first one is simply the latest Intel Rapid Storage Technology Driver from Dell).

 

Thanks for the links. When i installed an earlier version of the Intel HD 530 video driver last night (from intel not dell), looks like it also installed an earlier version of driver for 100 Series/C230 Sata AHCI (15.2.10.1044) controller as well. So it was not necessary to install this separately.

So far it is stable (knock on wood), which is a great improvement from the frequent issues about every 2 or 3 hours. I am going to hold off on installing the 2.0 version of Samsung nvme driver for now. Have not tested yet to see if recovers from a long sleep.

Thanks for everyone's diligence and hard work - saved the day.

--

EDIT: ok, so it lasted most of day, but then did same behavior. So i just now completed the final piece by removing the 2.2 vesion of smsung nvme driver, restarting, installing the 2.0 version of driver, and restarting again. Ran speed test on drive, about same as on the 2.2 driver read/write sequential (2.4 k / 1.4 k) IOPS (300k / 78k)

---
Edit 5/24/2017
Since changing the samsung driver to 2.0, has been very solid all day. Even woke right up from being put to sleep overnight.

 

Soooo... it tells me it's prepping for the upgrade. Should I let it? I have already run into the intel video driver problem, so if that's the only thing.... I haven't changed other things, such as using AHCI or alternate drivers.

 

I am on CU and 100% rock solid system, Just ensure that if your in AHCI mode you have the correct drivers from post 1 (and to be fair one of those is the current official dell driver).

The Samsung one is a bit sneaky as without it you get a BSOD and with the latest (2.2) you get random freezing.

 

I still use the default RAID On selection. Thanks!

 

Thank you so much! I was having this issue after the creator's update and have been trying to troubleshoot it. I ended up doing a clean install to narrow it down, and BAM, it happened again. I figured it was likely AHCI/SSD related and found this thread. Just installed both, let see how it goes. You rock Schmoo2k!

 

No issues with power management with the creators update?

 

nope

 

The Creator's Update went fine, except for having the flashing-screen problem back. This time, I went straight to look at the version of the Intel driver -- yup, it had updated. Curiously, the "roll back driver" option was disabled! I went to Dell's site and downloaded the latest install package. I'm now running version 21.20.16.4627, and haven't noticed the screen-flashing problems.

I wanted to mention this in case anyone else bumps into it when updating.

BTW, I'm still running RAID (the stock setting), not AHCI, which may be why I didn't run into other problems. There's some advantage keeping things pretty close to stock.

 

Hello everybody!
I'm new here and I found this discussion particularly interesting as it seems to be one of the few cases that are substantially identical to my problem. I just wanted to know how did you downgrade the Samsung NVM drivers to version 2.0. I downloaded and I did rollback the drivers to a really old version through the Windows device manager, but once I try to install the 2.0 version it tells me that the most recent version is already installed.

Hope you can help.
Thanks!

 

@fade993 You may need to uninstall the newer samsung drivers via the control panel?

 

I have the exact issue you described and followed your recommendations but it has not gone away. Have you had any other problems or did anything else that could help? Also, I seem to get the blue loading circle much more often then seems normal. I wonder if this could be related to my problem in that the computer is have problems loading from the ssd. The only difference in our computers is I have the Samsung 960 pro installed, i did not have any problems with the PM951 installed originally only when I upgraded it.