aleks94

Distinguished
Sep 18, 2011
19
0
18,560
So i've had this laptop for about a year and a half now. within the last few months i was having thermal trip issues. i replaced the thermal paste and it seems to have fixed that issue and i found no more errors in my logs.

Although, the same time that was happening i was also getting random shutdowns/restarts. which is still an ongoing issue. I completely wiped the system and did a fresh install hoping it was on the software side of things but that doesnt seem to have fixed it.

Anyone experience anything similar or know why this might be happening? I would greatly appreciate the help.
 
Solution
If you are not finding any Viruses on the system, which I am surprised at, then I would start to wonder if the hard drive is failing. However, since you stated that it doesn't happen in "Safe Mode" I would not go to replacing the drive just yet.

You may want to do a back up of your personal stuff on the system and do a full on reset.

aleks94

Distinguished
Sep 18, 2011
19
0
18,560


Yeah im fairly certain, i've had it shut down when it was cool. i was monitoring the temps (40-50C) and it just shut down on me.
Sometimes the readings jump to 70C for split seconds. could have something to do with it. but im running out of ideas and its very frustrating.
 
Try starting it up in "Safe Mode" and see if the same thing occurs. Granted, you can't run a lot of things when in "Safe Mode", but it will help narrow down if it is something on the computer (virus, malware, bad program, etc.) or if it could be hardware.

How to enter "Safe Mode" when booting the computer.

In Windows 8 and 10...

As your computer restarts, press F8 (possibly a few times) to enter "Safe Mode"

a. Press the "F4" key to Enable "Safe Mode".
(The computer will then start in "Safe Mode" with a minimal set of drivers and services.)

b. Press the "F5" key to Enable "Safe Mode" with Networking.
( Once "Safe Mode" with Networking starts, Windows is in Safe Mode, with additional network and services for accessing the Internet and other computers on your network.)

c. Press the "F6" key to Enable "Safe Mode" with Command Prompt.
(In "Safe Mode" with "Command Prompt" starts Windows in Safe Mode, with a Command Prompt window instead of the Windows interface. This option is mostly only used by IT professionals.)

Now sign in to the computer with your account name and password. (If you have one set.) When you are finished troubleshooting, you can exit "Safe Mode" restarting your computer.


In Windows 7/Vista/XP...

1. Immediately after turning on the computer, or restarting it (usually after you hear your computer beep), tap the F8 key, repeatedly, in 1 second intervals.

2. The computer will then display hardware information and run a memory test.

3. Next the "Advanced Boot Options" menu will appear.

4. In the "Advanced Boot Options" menu use the arrow keys to select "Safe Mode" or "Safe Mode with Networking" and press ENTER.
 

aleks94

Distinguished
Sep 18, 2011
19
0
18,560


Alright, ill give that a go. What exactly am i looking for? Like, how does running it in safe mode tell me whats wrong with it? I would think id get some errors in my logs, but i get nothing. Oddly enough i was working on my laptop just now, only had a couple tabs open in chrome and it shut down.

 

aleks94

Distinguished
Sep 18, 2011
19
0
18,560


I havent ran it in safemode yet. but i did open up cmd and ran "powercfg -energy" to see what it pops back at me. and supposedly ASPM is disabled due to incompatible hardware. any insight on that? could that be the cause? also, i dont have any peripherals or anything. computer completely stock.
 

aleks94

Distinguished
Sep 18, 2011
19
0
18,560


I just had it shutdown on me today, happens everyday pretty much. whether plugged into the ac adapter or not.
I ran it in safe mode for about 30 minutes to see if i can recreate the shutdown. ran some stress tests while in safe mode and nothing. Diagnostics reports that all hardware is functioning correctly. Logs in bios dont report anything either. Im really stumped and not sure what it could be. After running a battery report i didnt really know what i was looking for, nothing seemed abnormal. Although, i did do some research saying that weak cells could cause a shut down. (keep in mind i experienced the shutdown when plugged in too) so im not sure what else to try at this point.
 

aleks94

Distinguished
Sep 18, 2011
19
0
18,560


Hmmm, ok. well see the thing is. I was having this problem on the original dell install (well actually it was an upgraded version of windows 10, i had windows 8 prior to this) I recently did a clean install, no more than 2 weeks ago. hoping that would solve the issue. after the clean install, i did all the necessary updates. went on dells website and got all the drivers. I dont think id have a virus or any malware and such on a clean install, i did also do a full scan yesterday and nothing came up. For the most part i dont do anything heavy on this laptop. light photoshop work, web browsing, writing emails etc.

Frankly enough, all these problems started happening shortly after i got windows 10.... windows 8 was flawless for me.

I even had a couple issues on my desktop with windows 10 (was running windows 7) theyre fine now but i swear windows 10 is just terrible. i dunno if im having bad luck or what.

 

aleks94

Distinguished
Sep 18, 2011
19
0
18,560


Yeah, either all my problems are a coincidence or this OS just really is that shitty. I mean, they did kind of push it on everyone.

Anyways, i just had it shutdown on me mid work. Really getting annoying. All i had open was my browser with one tab.... Im running out of troubleshooting ideas. any thing else that comes to mind?

P.s i appreciate all your help thus far.

 

aleks94

Distinguished
Sep 18, 2011
19
0
18,560


So i just remembered i could check crashlogs and ive got a plethora of reoccurring errors and warnings.

For starters i get the same 4 warnings all in a row at the same time regarding the cpu. (im assuming for each core)

Kernel-Processor-Power (Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-processor-power) event id: 37
The speed of processor 0 in group 0 is being limited by system firmware. The processor has been in this reduced performance state for 23 seconds since the last report. (for the other 3 errors instead of saying processor 0, itll say processor 1, 2 etc)

The next thing i get is a critical.

The source is Kernel-Power, event id: 41
The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly.

finally this is the other error i get, this is the one thats quite frequent. other than that, there arent many other errors.

The source is DistributedCOM and the event id 1005
DCOM got error "1084" attempting to start the service dps with arguments "Unavailable" in order to run the server:
{DDCFD26B-FEED-44CD-B71D-79487D2E5E5A}

Now for the error above, the number slightly changes as does the event number, although the rest of the error is exactly the same.

Sorry to kinda dump this all in one message, any ideas or thoughts? I dug up a little info on the power error. Supposedly thats a power supply issue, that error is exactly when my laptop shut off today. which leads me to believe its my battery thats the issue. even though i said this happened while plugged in as well, its quite possible that it being plugged in is irrelevant because the battery would still be active, just charging. Previously i suspected the battery to be the culprit even before i made this post but i kind of came up with my own conclusion that it was not because after running cfg -energy in CMD nothing checked out wrong for power. But, knowing that upfront diagnostics may not always find the errors behind the problem, i decided to check crash logs. seems like ive got a lot of valuable information here that could determine the exact cause of the shut downs.




 
If you are not finding any Viruses on the system, which I am surprised at, then I would start to wonder if the hard drive is failing. However, since you stated that it doesn't happen in "Safe Mode" I would not go to replacing the drive just yet.

You may want to do a back up of your personal stuff on the system and do a full on reset.
 
Solution

joshua.grippo

Prominent
Dec 2, 2017
1
0
510


Did the reset help? I am having the same issue. This is currently a clean install. I have put sql server, node, and visual studio community on it, but that is about it.
 

dc_persian

Prominent
Dec 11, 2017
1
0
510
I just received my new XPS 13 and it restarts at least once a day. I've had it for 5 days.. wtf Dell?

This is brand new the only thing I have installed is firefox.