Help! My new Dell Studio XPS 13 Laptop keeps on freezing up!

Hey guys..

well .. i just got my otherwise fantastic Studio XPS 13 a few weeks back, as a replacement for my old M1330. Iv been very happy with besides the occacional freezin up.. BUT, to all of you who just press down the kill switch when it does that and wonder why its messed up and reports various problems afterwards - try letting it think instead... -.-'

Iv noticed when mine does it, its the harddisk thats working "overtime" (the harddisk indicator light is perrmantly lit) ... BUT if I just wait between usually 2-6 minuts it unfreezes again (havent tryed that it dident unfreeze!!).. and i can resume work.. (you will see the HDD indicator light start blinking again or just turning off, and your pc will have unfrozen, so whilest its thinking you may close the lid if u feel like it (unless you've made it go on standby when you close the lid.. in that case i wouldent recomment it :emotion-5: )

soo, for now my personal idea of what might be wrong, is either a BIOS thing, or its a problem with the harddisk.. soo, if some of you would be so kind as to mention what harddisk your system is buildt with we might be able to see if theres an pattern going on there..

my system info -
Win7 64bit  (Havent heard of anyone els running Win7 have ANY probs at all whatsoever!!!)
T6600 Core2duo
2gb Ram
9400M G Nvidia
WDC WD2500BJKT  (WesternDigital 250Gb 7200rpm SATA2)

And just as a final note.. if your PC freezes up.. try letting it think for a few minuts, mine is usually fine again after 3min - it will save u alot of trouble !!

EDIT:: Just read the above mention of the GPU driver, sounds interesting.. in that case, is the problem because of the driver it self, ie specific to a specific Graphics chip eg. the 9400M G as im on, or do you guys have other chips in ?? (might be looking at a better chip for cheap if that turns out to be the problem :emotion-2: )

Regards
PFW//

Hi.

I consider this a significant issue and am not sure I understand why Dell isn't doing more to find a solution. I would call tech support as mine is still under warranty, but they do not seem to have helped anyone that has posted to this board. I have tried your suggestion on disabling the microsoft composite battery and we will see what happens. The laptop I have is a replacement for the first one I bought in April and I still have the same problems.

The technician replaced my system board a month or so ago and it resolved all my problems.

fortuna96,

Have you updated the BIOS and the WLAN drivers? If not, please let me know if this corrects the problem. 

Please post the model WLAN card you are using If you are still having trouble after updating the BIOS and drivers.

Regards,

Brad

Unfortunately, I just received my laptop and experiencing a lot of freezing problems. It It froze on the first day I got the laptop. It have BIOS A11 and Nvidia 73.1.0.0 already installed. Dell wanted to charge me $89 to look at it. If I knew of this problem, I would have never brought it. I am still within 21 days, so I will try to return it, but Dell keep "loosing" my call. I have always used Dell, so it did even look at other laptop.

Had my laptop for two weeks and I don't even use it anymore because it keep freezing.

I tried several times trying to talk to someone and they keep transferring me for 4 hrs. I know they just wanted to me give up and not return the computer even though my computer is only 2 weeks old and I can't even use it.

I am keeping track of all my calls and time I spend and will contact BB. I don't know what else to do.

I've posted on another thread here what I believe is the answer to many if not all these problems that folks have had with their M1340's freezing. Studio XPS 13 laptops are beautiful but this freezing problem is really horrible and Dell's inability to properly troubleshoot is really inexcusible. Go over here to check it my step by step with the help of others on the Internet that found the problem before I did -- I give them full credit:

http://en.community.dell.com/forums/p/19308762/19618450.aspx#19618450

Your experiences are not the norm. All the driver hacks and so forth that are being recommended will just make the problem worse. A system board replacement will resolve the issue. My system not only doesn't lock up any longer, it runs much cooler. Some have reported it took a couple system board replacements to finally get one that works, so keep at it. I'm guessing they may have run through whatever bad batch was out there however, so you'll probably get a good one on the first try.

Hi,

I'm Onin from the Philippines.
I thought sharing my experience with freezing StudioXPS 1340 might be of help to some of you guys.
I bought my laptop at BestBuy when I was in the US in February early this year.

Original System specs:

BIOS version A04
Vista Home Premium SP2 64-Bit
Intel Core 2 Duo P8600 2.4Ghz
4GB DDR3 RAM
nVidia GeForce 9400M G
Seagate ST9320421ASG 320GB HDD
TSSTcorp DVD+-RW TS-D633A
Dell Wireless 370 Bluetooth Mini-card
Dell 1515 Wireless-N adapter
Ricoh card Reader
ITECIR Infrared Receiver
IDT High def audio

The first time I booted up the laptop it froze right away.
Later after that there were times when the multimedia hotkeys would not respond.
It's frequent when plugged into the mains power while charging, but not when it's just on battery.
I tried running system mechanic and it showed that it was the HDD that's faulty. So I replaced the 320GB with one
from my portable Seagate FreeAgent Go (500GB). But the problem was still there and found out that the original 320GB HDD
was ok. So instead, I reset-up my laptop with the Seagate 500GB ST950032 5AS, fresh installation (not factory restore). It's
been months now and I've never had a single freezing problem nor the problem with the hotkeys not responding.
The nVidia SATA Controller driver version is 10.3.0.42, same as the snapshot posted by alexsirota on the 27th this month.

The following are the apps and driver versions I installed (all downloaded from Dell). The order of installation also goes
as the list below:

BIOS version            A07
Notebook System Software     R214475 A02
Chipset                                        R202284 A00
Video Adapter                             R215056 A05
Network Interface Card             R202279 A00
Dell Quickset                              R200495 A05
IDT 92HD73C1 Audio               R214419 A14
Wireless N Mini-Card               R198377 A01-1

Input Device Drivers:
- Touchpad                              R203482 A04
- Webcam                                R213648 A06
- ITE IT8512 CIR Receiver    R196531 A07
- Ricoh card Reader              R188094 A01

Wireless 370 Bluetooth Mini-card Driver             R204794 A01
Wireless 370 Bluetooth Mini-card Application    R189325 A06

TSST TS-D633A 9.5mm Slotload SATA DVDRW Firmware        Version DW20, A08

Good luck!:emotion-1:

I am currently using a sata driver the came with Windows 7 instead of Nvidia and it haven't freeze in two days now. It used to freeze a few times a day.

What I like about Dell is you buy a laptop and it came with issues. If you want to resolve the issue, just spend 6 hrs with tech support and they won't be able to help you. If you pay them $89 and if you're lucky, they might be able to resolve it. If you want to return your laptop within the 21 days, forget it.

I had exactly the same thing happen and they replaced the computer after 5 months.  However,  DELL does not replace a defective computer with a new computer. They  give you a REFURBISHED computer and the warranty period will be transferred to the replacement computer and run ONLY for the balance of time remaining on the original warranty.  DELL does not disclose either of these facts and you only find out when you have a problem and contact them. 

This is a very real problem both with this particular model and with their Customer Service policies.  I will never buy a DELL again.

i had the same issues with my 1340. i did a fresh install of windows 7 ultimate 64-bit and the problems went away. i have been running 7 for 3 months with no problems. the other issue i had was my screen would not come on.it would work if i hooked a monitor up to it . the fix to that problem was to reseat the connections to the board 

Normal 0 7.8 磅 0 2 false false false EN-US ZH-CN X-NONE Actually this problem bothered me quite a long time too, but recently I find functional software which can fix all these problems just with one click: tuneup360, maybe you guys could have a try.

I need a help can you give me detail of your disk drive.

Actually at first i was having 9500m graphics with my notebook one month before motherboard get damaged.

Now i had purchased a  second hand motherboard with 9400m graphics but my HDD(ST9320423ASG) is giving lot of errors.

I guess this board is not compatible with my HDD so can you tell me what is yours is tit AS or ASG model.

thanks in advance

Akhilesh kumar