Support, service, headache and all-all-all

Hello to all.

I decided to write this opus in order to give an insight into how the official support of Dell (including service support) now works.

This is not a criticism, not a cry for help, but simply your own experience.
')
Perhaps it will be useful to someone or be useful.

So…

It just so happened that my employer has a partnership with Dell, and therefore I have a working laptop - Dell.

Act 1. Authorized Dell Service Center

The story began with the operation of the Dell Inspiron 7720. It faithfully served for about six or seven years, after which two years ago the south bridge burned down due to a short circuit in the USB 3.0 port.

Dell's authorized service center (we can do without names, but let's say it is in Kiev) replaced the south bridge, after which new problems started: Windows 10 was loading, showing a great login screen with artifacts of such strength that it was necessary to blindly enter the login password. After logging in, everything started to work normally, except for the fact that a number of programs crashed on startup: Viber, some work programs, etc.

The same authorized service center didn’t find the diagnostics and recommended to reinstall the OS, saying “something broke when it crashed”.

Reinstallation of course did not help.

I had to do the tests myself and it turned out that iGPU does not pass a series of OpenGL tests - not all, but some. Unfortunately, Dell does not allow iGPU to be used in BIOS, but to leave only nVidia open for reasons of increased autonomy, and Windows, when loaded, uses iGPU by default - hence the artifacts.

For a period of time, I endured, setting up the launch of all dying applications forcibly on nVidia, but then I got bored, and again I went to the same service center with a detailed description of my finds. The guys conducted a “detailed test” (odd, but what happened before that?) And reported that during the combustion of the south bridge, the iGPU node in the processor was damaged. The rest of the processor is working, but how long it will stay like this is unknown.

In short, I replaced the processor.

After that, a new problem arose: the laptop began to turn off spontaneously. It was very similar to CPU overheating, but none of the utilities (AIDA, GPU-Z) confirmed overheating at the moment of shutdown.

The same authorized Dell service center conducted a test (taking money for diagnostics), but did not identify the problem. I do not know how they did not notice the gopher - but a fact.

The computer had to be written off.

Looking ahead - I gave the laptop to be torn to an ordinary service center in Donetsk. I will call them: "Chip-Center". The guys were busy with a laptop for a total of two or three months, but eventually found a temperature controller failure. Replaced. The laptop is working. The cost of repairs was a total of 1,200 rubles.

Act 2. Support of the Masters

It just so happened that you need to use a bunch of virtual machines, in addition to keep distributions at hand. That is, in the end, we have a lot of RAM + a big hard drive.

This all limits the choice to game models.

In total, the Dell G3 17 3779 was acquired. It turned out that the dealer did not have a system with Windows on board, and therefore had to take a license from Ubuntu and Windows Pro x64 separately.

It just so happened that at the time of installing the system, the same 1809 was still relevant ...

From the very beginning, with the installation of Windows and OEM drivers, a problem emerged: all video players, except those built into Windows (Movies & TV) and all browsers except IE / Edge, played video with short-term interruptions. even the built-in Windows screensavers behaved the same way:



It was found that the problem manifests itself only when using the Intel UHD 630 iGPU, the discrete nVidia works like a clock.

And it is clear that transferring all applications to launch with a discrete card is not comme il faut for the reasons stated above.

OK, we go further: as soon as Windows 10 saw the Internet, it immediately updated the Intel drivers, after which the problem was not corrected, and the Intel Graphics Control Panel of the system was completely gone, although the igfxEM.exe process and the igfxCUIService2.0.0 service remained active.

Since it is obvious that neither OEM nor Windows Update could help, I climbed on the official Intel support and downloaded the latest version of the driver. Installing them on top did not solve any of the problems that had arisen, and the installation completely after deleting with the help of DDU returned the Control Panel, but did not remove the lags.

The laptop is under warranty, I tried everything, so I created a ticket in the Dell Support Assistant and called for the official support of Dell.

The call did not give anything: the girl said that since my laptop was delivered with Ubuntu, the warranty applies only to Ubuntu. Yes, the computer can be with Windows. Yes, the iron is the same. And no - they can not help or comment on anything. The fact that the OEM driver crashes when you upgrade Windows - contact Microsoft.

OK - go further: Microsoft! The same stories, but in the form of a chat. Here, someone Andrei turned out to be more competent: he immediately warned that what we were doing was actually an advanced service, which costs about 1,500 rubles and for which then a 30-day guarantee. But within the framework of the demonstration, try changing the iGPU driver to an ancient one, like the shit mammoth of Microsoft Basic Display Adapter. The problem disappeared? Congratulations - you have a problem with the Intel driver! Contact Intel. Do you want to pay 1500 rubles and let us solve the problem? Sorry, but we can not guarantee. that the solution would not be a simple switch to the Microsoft Basic Display Adapter. The picture doesn’t like your resolution and there is no possibility of profiles from the Control Panel? OK - contact Intel!

So, hello, Intel! We open the support ticket, even two: about the lags (Case # 03879361) and the Control Panel (Case # 03879384). True, the second one is immediately closed as a duplicate, when trying to argue that the problems are different - they do not listen or they don’t hear. The first is discussed for a long time, transferred to competent persons, and then they say: You are a Dell user! Hooray - contact Dell!

A little more the same is reported in the Intel Community . Moreover: they say that even Dell will be more useful, who can promptly inform Intel about this and solve the problem together.

Everything is good, but only the circle is closed.

Act 3. Happy ending ???

All this correspondence and the war took me about a week and a half. And so, in the last two or three days, I discovered a strange activity on my laptop:



I have to say that I turned off the iGPU driver update in Windows , Dell SupportAssist runs only on demand, and Intel Driver & Support Assistant is not configured at all to automatically update - and neither of them see anything new on my laptop.

Activity took place 5 or 6 times. It’s clear who the vendor is. And yes - I authorized these actions. And what to lose ...

And the problem disappeared. Totally. Fully. There is a Control Panel, no lags, everything is OK.

A version of the driver iGPU was this: 24.20.100.6287.



And it works.

A little googling, I found that now Dell now offers this particular version of drivers, however, for other laptop families, for example, here and now , while guessing what has been fixed?

Fixes:
- Fixing the control panel where the control panel disappears after updating.
Enhancements:
- Supports Windows 10 October 2018 Update.

Well, as if the curtain ...

Epilogue

I do not even know ... For some reason in this whole story - two stories! - I was very disappointed in the Official Services and Supports and was very concerned about the problem of Big Brother. Good this. Like Santa Claus.

PS

Alas!

UPD

Do you really believe in upgrades?
Intel has withdrawn its newfangled uwd_win64_25.20.100.6444.exe.

The way it was before - above.

Are there any other people who want to update drivers and participate in a beta test with the latest versions of Intel products?

Alas!

The final of the story. Epic.

I have received your response from our engineers. However, it can be a problem.
Also, please try to get the drivers from the Dell website.

Best regards,
Andrei
Intel Customer Support