XPS 9550 + Win 10 Creators Update (random freezes)

I would suggest trying the various combinations of intel and samsung drivers - or if its an option switch back from AHCI to RAID

 

Thank you to everyone for sharing their experiences; I would have been dead without it. I upgraded to a Samsung NVMe EVO 950 Pro SSD, but had some issues and decided to do a clean installation after disabling RAID mode in the BIOS so that Samsung Magician and the driver would work properly.

I had similar problems to others. With the latest (A09) Intel HD 530 Dell driver, the machine would periodically freeze, even under light usage. Using driver A08 and A07, I get situations where I can move the mouse pointer and there is sound, but other video hangs (like clockwork when viewing videos stored locally).

Now, I'm using:
- Windows Creators Edition
- Samsung NVMe Controller 2. 0.0.1607 (as recommended in a previous post; the latest version is 2.2)
- Latest firmware for the Samsung SSD
- Latest Dell BIOS
- Intel HD Graphics 20.19.15.4624 (ZIP file download from Intel, as recommended in a previous post)
- Disabled the nVidia driver (no big issue to me anyways)
- IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers -> Intel(R) 100 Series/C230 Chipset Family SATA AHCI Controller - version 15. 2.15.1058 (Dell A07 driver)

I fired up 3 videos and let them play, and wrote a batch file to create some SSD read/write access for testing purposes. The machine is running much better now.

One thing I'd like to share: if you are using an earlier version of a driver and want to temporarily prevent Windows update from upgrading the driver, get the "show/hide updates" utility from Microsoft:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-in...t-a-driver-update-from-reinstalling-in-window

Thanks again and good luck to all. This is not great support from Dell for what is a premium machine.

 

I had quite a few TDR stability issues with the intel driver in the Creators update and 5520 until I:

• Downloaded the latest Quadro driver (377.48-quadro-grid-desktop-notebook-win10-64bit-international-whql)
• Downloaded the latest Intel driver (win64_154519.4678)

Extracted the Intel driver to a folder and used the Device Manager to install the driver directly and by-pass the "customized vendor driver" warning the installer will give otherwise. Then used the device manager and fetched another minor update directly from Window Update. This gives me:

• Quadro: 21.21.13.7748
• Intel: 21.20.16.4627

And this solved the issues I was having:

• TDR blue screen after boot
• Black screen with blinking mouse cursor after sleep
• All kinds of windows resize issues after docking/undocking the Thunderbolt dock.

Remaining issue:

• SOLVED! When starting Photoshop I get an error telling me the ICC/Display profile is corrupt and I need to ignore it, or Photoshop crashes. Use the Display Driver Uninstaller to delete the Intel driver and install it again.

OF course today Dell releases new drivers for both the Nvidia and the Intel card. Now on these versions with no issues whatsoever:

• Quadro: 22.21.13.8205
  
• Intel: 21.20.16.4664

 

I also had, I say had the ICC issue. You need to run DDU to wipe out the intel driver, just uninstalling will not do it. http://www.guru3d.com/files-details/display-driver-uninstaller-download.html
Run DDU for the intel driver only and after the reboot you can run the intel driver installer (it will not moan about the wrong vendor now)
This should sort the issue out.
Now as I have not had this issue since I reinstalled a couple of months ago I can't be 100% it is just the intel driver so you may need to repeat with the nvidia as well.

 

That cleared the Photoshop crash, thanks! My color profiles dropdown still shows numbers an no names, but I can live with that:

 

That's the blue light filter levels.

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

 

double post

 

I have to say I haven't had any freezing or crashing issues with my 9550 and win 10 creators update or really ever. The only difference I can see with my system vs yours is that I'm running an m.2 sata drive with raid mode (not ahci). So I'm guessing it's either the nvme drivers or the ahci mode that is the cause of any instability issues?

 

@Schmoo2k any updates to your setup? I'm planning to do a fresh install to my 9550. But I'm using all stock hardware, with the Toshiba 512GB M.2 SSD.

 

Nope - same as first post:
AHCI Mode with latest updates from MS with the following exceptions:
* NVIDIA (latest from Nvidia)
* Intel Video (latest from Dell)
* IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers (latest from Dell - 15.2.*.*)
* Samsung NVMe Controller Latest from the 2.0.x series

The only _real_ black magic above is the AHCI Mode + Samsung 2.0.x NVMe driver. Since your using the Tosh SSD this thread may not even apply to you?

 

Do a clean install and put the Toshiba (OCZ) SSD drivers on and you should be good to go.

 

Reason I asked cuz the last time I accidentally click the Restart now prompt, it installed the Creators update. And upon booting into Creators update for the first time, I had random freezes, then BSOD. Probably this time I'll just try a fresh install and see how it goes, back then I still wasn't using the latest drivers for some items.

 

Hopefully it runs well. I'll give it a spin this weekend.

 

I have a Samsung NvMe PM951 SSD, and am running it in RAID mode with UEFI (default configuration). I am getting this same problem of BSODs.

My Device Manager shows the following drivers under Storage Controllers: Intel Chipset SATA/PCIe RST Premium Controller (version 15.7.3.1019) and Microsoft Storage Spaces Controller. I do not see the Samsung Driver.

Please advise.

Shall I switch to AHCI mode and install Samsung drivers? Or is there a fix with the RAID mode?

 

Check if you can get something more about the BSOD with WhoCrashed or such.

You can try switching to AHCI but it is not sure to fix everything. Then the SSD is taken over by the NVMe driver, firstly M$, then Samsung if you install it. Mind some have had temporary-freezing issues with the latest one, while older ones (2.0, 1.4) are not available at Samsung anymore.

 

The problem is that the computer crashes so quickly that it does not generate a dump file, so WhoCrashed does not help. This is the exact symptom many others have been reporting, eg. http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/p/20012799/21019123#21019123.

The older Samsung driver is linked in the first post, so I can use that. How do I go about switching to AHCI and installing the Samsung driver?

Is there anything else I can do with the RAID setup? I thought the RAID setup was supposed to be more stable. The computer worked well till a few months ago - a windows update must have clobbered something.

 

FWIW This thread wan't about BSOD, just random freezing (which is a lot harder to diagnose). I would suggest making sure your IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers are at version 15.7..*.* or 15.2.*.* (and not at version 15.5.*).

Also there is a link to the Samsung 2.0 driver in the first post.

(Given your IDE driver is 15.7.x.x it may be your BSOD is not caused by the IDE at all?)

 

Thanks a lot. I misspoke. My symptoms are just as described in the first post. The laptop will freeze randomly and used to reboot, but I disabled the automatic reboot so I could see the error message. The errors are usually Critical Process Died or Unexpected Store Exception - similar to what is described in the dell forum as well ( http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/p/20012799/21019123#21019123).

Yes, my IDE driver is 15.7.x.x but I do not have a Samsung driver installed (just the Microsoft one). I guess I need to switch to AHCI to install the Samsung driver ??? Or is there another way?

 

TBH I don't really know, since I had assumed this issue only related to folks already in AHCI mode.

It won't hurt to try I suppose as you will be able to switch back afterwards:
* WinKey+R: msconfig
* Boot / Safe Boot (on)
* Reboot and press F12 to enter BIOS
* Switch to AHCI mode
* Save and exit, then you will boot into windows safe mode (which will install the default drivers as needed).
* WinKey+R: msconfig
* Boot / Safe Boot (off)
* Reboot
* Install Samsung driver 2.0 (it will have defaulted to an old MS driver)

So the trick is to be in safe mode when you make the change.

 

Thanks. How would I install the Samsung driver? Through Device Manager - update driver - have disk route?

 

Not sure regarding more stable. It is what is officially supported by Dell, well they obviously can't manage the set of drivers they supposedly do. Most likely because the same setup is used also for HDD SRT cache configurations, and maybe actual RAID in some models which would have space for two drives.

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/t/20015317

Could it perhaps be your SSD failing?

 

It's an installer.

 

Normally I prefer to unzip the install packages and then manually update via the device manager, but I think this is not possible with the Samsung one - so its a straight install (I don't think it has any silly UI pieces).

 

This thought did occur to me, but I cannot test SSD with stand-alone software such as Crystal Disk Info as it states "Disk Not Found". Probably because it does not support RAID.

Samsung Magician says "this drive is not supported". I have used Dell Support Assist to check the drive and it always "passes".

Suggestions please as to how I could check the SSD better? I think this should be the first step before I change to AHCI (thanks for the suggestions on the Samsung installer).

 

The SSD will be fine, you have the typical RAID & Samsung issue that is fixed by going into AHCI and updating to the latest Samsung driver, ignore all the stories you here and try the latest driver & if it does play up you can try an older build.
People on the creator's edition of windows (ie anyone who has run windows update) should be fine with the latest driver, make sure you also have the latest drivers from Dell but don't go installing every one as windows update often beats you to it. Check each one in device manager 1st.
FYI the 15 series Intel drivers are a must.

How to get into AHCI without A BSOD has been posted earlier and any other questions about my post should be found via a google query.

 

Update to the latest Samsung driver, not the 2.0.x version?

 

That was the part where I said the latest driver

 

Thanks a lot. Will try and report back.

 

@Schmoo2k
Thanks so much for your investigation and to this thread all my random freezes are gone !!!
i was so close to put my 9550 xps on ebay after so many months with freezes.
i registered especially to let you know that..lol
THANKS

 

@Schmoo2k

Just like @studio-view, I would like to thank you so much for investigating, resolving and documenting this issue. Been struggling with these freezes for months and now the freezes seem gone!

THANK YOU!

 

@Schmoo2k
You are a genius! Thanks a lot!

 

Thanks a million! So far things are working well - full day without hang.

When I rolled back the Samsung driver I ended up at version 1.4.7.17 (long story). Is there any reason I should bring it up to rev 2.0?

 

[QUOTE="When I rolled back the Samsung driver I ended up at version 1.4.7.17 (long story). Is there any reason I should bring it up to rev 2.0?[/QUOTE]

TBH I don't know, but in general my OCD makes me get the latest version of everything...

 

There must be a residual copy of the 2.2 driver somewhere on my machine because every time I run Samsung_NVMeDriver_2.0.exe (after uninstalling the previous version) I end up with the evil 2.2 driver. In fact, after the Meltdown bug fix got pushed out I was back at 2.2. Things seem stable with 1.4.7.17 so I'm sticking with it and will check after each Windows update to make sure it's still there.

 

The next time that happens, go to device manager and select Storage Controllers/Samsung NVMe Controller, right click and select "uninstall device" - the following dialog has an option to "Delete the driver software for this device from your system"...

 

I must say thanks to everyone that lost time and nerve to bring us this, especially OP Schmoo2k.

Yah, it works.. not only it works, my machine is running a hell lot cooler and increased (+1~1.30h) battery life.
One thing i learned tho, if you "right click and select "uninstall device" - the following dialog has an option to "Delete the driver software for this device from your system"..." as Schmoo2k suggested, and you cant install the new driver, then reset and start windows in Safe Mode (windows will install a generic Ms controller driver ) reboot again in W10 and install Samsung_NVMeDriver_2.0.exe.

4 days no freeze (plugged or unplugged) and counting

 

You have made the machine heart of my laptop even more stony (I think you have described it as "rock solid" in one of your previous posts). However I think it now loves you! Finally it works as it is supposed to do (so far).

Thank you so much Schmoo2k!

 

I have just registered to thank you Schmoo2k. You made my day and saved me a lot of trouble.

 

I know this is kind of an old thread but I have been using the settings for the past year and have had a mostly stable system. Recently, with the newest windows update, my computer has gone back to frequent freezes. Has anyone else had this problem?

 

I did briefly retest the latest Samsung driver (2.3), only to have to roll it back to the 2.0 version again.

 

Windows display cache bug on optimus laptops.

 

I concur with Schmoo2k on the Samsung SSD driver. I rolled back to version 2.0.0.1607 (the newly released Samsung 3.0 driver gave me no joy)

After the Windows upgrade, I had some random freezing; especially when playing video. I think the latest Windows 10 Creators Edition also upgraded the Intel HD 530 driver, so I installed a known reliable version from Intel's downloads (21.20.16.4664; it will be listed as version [15.45]). My problems went away and I've been freeze-free for a couple of months now.

As mentioned earlier in the thread, you can download the Intel video driver version 21.20 but it will probably throw an error when you try to install it. I think you have to right mouse on the EXE (or ZIP) and extract the files, then install the driver using the device manager.

Intel site: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/do...-Intel-Graphics-Driver-for-Windows-15-45-?v=t

 

I tested mine with their newest 3.0 driver after I started to get more freezes with the windows update. It caused my computer to freezes almost every half hour vs once or twice a day with 2.0.

 

My 530 driver appears to still be the old version but IDE ATA/ATAPI controller was not so I will see if changing that is better. Also, the new frequent freezes only started about a week ago after my computer updated with Windows April update (17134.112) so I was thinking maybe that update caused the problem.

 

So what's the consensus here? Is it the Samsung SSD driver or the Intel HD Graphics Card driver that's causing the issue?

 

My setup is is stable and simple:
* AHCI Mode Enabled
* Hibernation Disabled
* Latest drivers from Dell except:
* NVidia (use latest via NVidia Experience)
* Samsung SSD (Use 2.0.x version from the first post in this thread).

 

I have the same setup except for a few notable exceptions:

1. I got all latest drivers either from Dell's website or www.station-drivers.com (my go-to site when looking for the most updated drivers), depending who between the two has the latest one based on release date and/or version number.
2. I just downgraded from Samsung NVMe driver 3.0 to 2.0 as you mentioned in the first post (not 2.1 or 2.2). I have yet to test if my system will still freeze on me.
3. I use Intel RST 16.5.1.1030 as recommended here. Why do you recommend using 15.7 or 15.2?
4. I use Intel Graphics 24.20.100.6194 as this is the latest one I can find that is applicable for the Intel HD 530. With this version installed, Dell Update still pushes me to install their latest driver (23.20.16.4973) but I just ignore the notification. Any reason to use a much older version (21.20.16.4664) as indicated in this thread?

 

3 - 15.7 is Dells latest version and was the latest version at the time I wrote that. The main point was to not to use 15.5!
4 - Again I use the latest Intel driver from the Dell updates any other version mentioned in this thread was probably the latest at the time of writing.

 

Ok, got it. But I think the main culprit is really the Samsung NVMe driver not being compatible with the chipset of this laptop.

 

Certainly for the drivers > 2.0.x