Pro Max 16 MC16250, BSOD every 30min after BIOS firmware 1.13.1 automatic update

Hi everyone, 

We've been dealing with this since few days on one of our MC16250, following an automatic Windows Update that pushed firmware 1.13.1 and several driver updates. Since then, the machine BSODs every 30-40 minutes with CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED (0xEF). After uninstalling the Realtek A06 driver, minidump analysis revealed the actual root cause : Intel NPU driver 32.0.100.4512 (npu_kmd) crashing with [ERROR] Unsupported WDDM version 69639 on every dump. Updating the NPU driver to 32.0.100.4724 from Intel's website did not resolve the issue.

Root cause identified via minidump analysis (6 dumps collected): npu_kmd crashes on every single dump with [ERROR] Unsupported WDDM version 69639 - the Intel NPU driver is incompatible with firmware 1.13.1. Secondary errors include VPU critical trace header canary values corrupted and Unsupported Query type 39.

What we tried - none of it worked:

• Downgrade firmware to 1.12.1 → blocked by Dell ("unsupported downgrade")
• Uninstall Realtek A06 driver → didn't fix it
• Reinstall Intel NPU driver 32.0.100.4724 from Intel website → same BSOD, same errors in dump
• Disable Intel Smart Sound / SoundWire DSP drivers → partial stability only
• Dell basic support → ...

Machine is completely unusable. We're under warranty until 2029 but the downgrade block is preventing any fix on our end.

Has anyone found a working solution for the firmware incompatibility ? Is there a known way to force a firmware downgrade ?

Thanks in advance 🙏