Zbook 17 G6 randomly crashing

[pevsonic]

So, I finally received my 17 G6 a couple of weeks ago (after 9 weeks waiting for delivery!) and I’ve had a few problems.  Mines the Xeon 2286 version with an RTX 3000, and I’ve installed all latest BIOS and firmware updates. Has also had a Samsung 960 Pro and Corsair MP510 disk added. OS is dual boot Ubuntu 18.04 and Debian 10.2.

firstly it always takes more than ten seconds from power on to make it to the BIOS splash screen before even trying to boot. Is this normal? Even my old G3 was nowhere near that bad.

secondly in the boot logs for both OS I get temperature warnings for the Xeon within a couple of mins of boot without loading it at all. That seems worrying.

lastly and most importantly, I get random crashes where the system just resets to a black screen. It becomes unresponsive for maybe 20-30 secs, then caps lock light flashes on and the system can be turned on again with the power button. Recently I’ve found that a particular software compile can repeatedly trigger this if I do a “make -j 16” ie build using all available cores. This is REALLY bad as it means the machine is completely unusable for any serious work.

have any other G6 owners had any similar experiences?

[RogerAndOut1]

I put my ZBook17 G6 on shelf just in case BIOS update will arrive and mb fix something -- otherwise its useless.
https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Business-Notebooks/ZBook-17-G6-fan-spin-at-max-during-sleep-or-shutdow...

I have 960 Pro as well. Same here -- it thinks something for 8-10 seconds before BIOS splash screen,
no matter what settings you try (fast boot, legacy/uefi -- no visible changes). But this is a minor issue compared
to others that eventually broken down something in firmware.

Most probably thermal interface on your particular CPU was badly applied somehow. I have 2286M Xeon version too
and it behaves pretty well thermally, no crashes no matter 1-thread at max
or 8/16 threads (not sure for 100% about throttling though on all cores). Intended usage was building software too
(C++, JS Webpack, golang).
Pretty sure that reapplying the proper thermal grease and checking that everything aligns tightly (if fans work!) 
will fix the issue for you. You don't even need to disassemble too much, but unscrewing and opening middle cover
would probably void the warranty...

[pevsonic]

Update : I've installed Windows 10 and discovered that windows 10 *also* randomly crashes. This is really hopeless for a top end flagship machine... I've had resets maybe 30+ times now and its not possible to use the machine for any kind of serious work.

Have opened a support case - I would recommend that any potential purchasers stay well clear of the Xeon machine for now as it seems like its a design bug if happening to multiple machines!

[pevsonic]

Thanks for the info - yeah it could be, I do see lots of short high spikes on the core temps before throttling kicks in and was wondering if that was connected or not as it regularly hits 99 degrees in a second or two. I was wondering if maybe the temp sensor calibration might have been out as the machine seems to sit constantly at (reported) 50-60 degrees under no load, whereas in the BIOS cpu stress test it's reported at around 35 degrees under test...!

[pevsonic]

RogerAndOut1, I logged a case with HP last night and had a phone call first thing this morning saying that they will send an engineer to come and have a look ASAP  - so not resolved yet but seems HP are doing the most they can be expected to do. Probably worth following up on yours in the same way.

[pevsonic]

Updated info for anyone reading or searching for similar ZBook issues - I've spent quite a lot of time investigating this for HP (where do I send the invoice for a days time & effort?) and Ive installed Windows especially and think I can reproduce this (or at least something similar) reliably.... 

If you install 3DMarks test suite it seems to be able to stress the machine hard enough to re-produce. You can install it by installing Steam from : 

https://store.steampowered.com/about/

Once steam is installed you can find 3Dmark in the store and install the free demo / trial from there. 

On my machine with a new windows 10 installed with all updates installed to todays date, and all power profile options maximised, if I run 3dmark with the battery around 33% or lower, the machine will reset after the loading screen with a progress bar before it starts the 3d test itself.

Trying to work out why it seems harder to provoke under windows than linux, I installed passmark's performancetest (free trial) from : 

https://www.passmark.com/products/performancetest/

If you benchmark this with the mains adapter plugged in, you get a very respectable score. However if you benchmark a second time on battery, the CPU performance reduces by around 30% (17,300 -> 11,000 in their terms) and other benchmarks reduce similarly - I'm not massively familiar with windows but this seems to be why its more stable as it's artificially throttled performance massively! I've had a dig in settings and cant see any options to get performance to where it should be. 

If anyone reading fancies having a crack at re-producing for more info to pass to HP it would be appreciated - or indeed if you know how to stop windows throttling performance on battery so I can re-test properly it would help me too!

Thanks.

[Stoyanov]

Hello,
I have a laptop is an HP ZBOOK 17 G6 with i9-9880H processor.
The same defect occurred to me. Did you understand the cause of your problem? Maybe it's a battery failure?

What happened to your case?

Thank you!

[pevsonic]

I can’t give you good news I’m afraid - more than two months later and HP Support are no closer to doing anything about fixing this than they were before, they are truly useless 😞 

I’ve provided them with full info on how to consistently reproduce, videos of me replicating it under both Linux and Windows and yet their first line support still are trying to get me to do nonsense things like reinstalling windows with secure boot enabled (as if that had anything to do with the problem!) 

I had a chat about it over on reddit and someone else could reproduce there and by fluke an ho employee saw my report so Managed to get it elevated to a higher support team (weird huh?) but still a month later nothing has happened. I’m really at the point where I’m ready to send back for a refund as I’ve never before had to deal with a support team so incapable of solving problems! 

sorry, but I know that’s probably not what you want to hear... is your replication the same where the machine auto powers off of loading all 16 cores hard at the same time while on battery? If so, might be worth letting them know it’s the same as my case to add some weight...

[Stoyanov]

Thanks for your reply!
I'm not sure the problem is power management to the processor cores. I have a suspicion that the "culprit" is the battery. Can you check the status of your battery with "HP Support Assistant" and share the results with me?

Here is the result of my battery test:
Warranty Type: 3
Cycle count: 14 / 1000
Manufacturer: 333-1C-26-A
Battery Age: 0 Year, 7 Months
Serial Number: 00903 2019/07/08
Temperature: 25 °C
Design Capacity: 8310 mAh
Full Charge Capacity: 7769 mAh (93%)
Remaining Capacity: 7466 mAh
Current: 0 mA

Terminal Voltage: 12818 mV
Design Voltage: 11550 mV
Cell Voltage 1: 0 mV
Cell Voltage 2: 4273 mV
Cell Voltage 3: 4271 mV
Cell Voltage 4: 4274 mV
Status: E0
AC Power: Yes
CT Number: 6GWTA08WYCI193
Failure ID: OK
 
Could the problem be in a damaged battery cell?  ( Cell Voltage 1: 0 mV )

A broken cell can cause these randomly crashing.
According to specifications, this model should have a 6-cell battery - HP Long Life 6-cell, 95.6 Wh Li-ion polymer (https://support.hp.com/ca-en/document/c06409806#AbT12).

When I work with my laptop laptop, I feel like the power is dropping too fast.
Example: At 100% charge, I play videos on YouTube (1080p quality,  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiqlZZddZEo). Laptop settings are: PowerMode - Better performance; Ethernet, BlueTooth and BitLocker are off, Dsplay Brightness is 50% off. In these catches, the battery drops from 100% to 67% in just 30 minutes. This is too fast!

How you feel about the power of your battery?
------------------
I'm sorry for my bad English

[pevsonic]

To be fair to the support guys, the first thing they did was to replace my motherboard. The second thing they tried was replacing the battery. Neither fixed the problem and now they're completely stuck as it seems they're only real problem solving approaches are to replace components and ask people to reinstall windows!