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October 28th, 2025 09:13
Pro Max 16 Premium MA16250, stability/system freezing issues
I purchased this laptop mid-August 2025 and since day one has been experiencing daily system freezes. The system freezes in such a way that only a very hard reset/reboot (holding it a long time) will clear the freeze. The screen turns a dark gray/blackish color, and the mouse, keyboard or system is no longer usable. I am running Windows 11 24H2. My system is not running the antivirus as noted in other threads. Working with Dell Support, all drivers, bios/firmware have been updated, and the problem still persists. We also did the F12 diagnostics and all was clear. I also eliminated a number of connected hardware pieces as a process of elimination. I've had many Dell desktop/laptops and never experienced this before. On 10/24/2025, Dell recommended a motherboard replacement on the laptop. Yesterday, the motherboard was replaced by an onsite technician working under the Dell contract. I will report back if that corrected the problem or not. The motherboard seems to have a revision to it and showed a date of July 2025 on the packaging but was unable to compare it to a date/revision on the existing motherboard. I'm reporting my issue here as well in case others are experiencing this problem and for Dell to understand the issue. Thank you.
Buds Place
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October 28th, 2025 16:48
Update: 10/28/2025, 1 day after motherboard replacement. Unfortunately, after only running the laptop for a few hours, it froze again with the exact same symptoms. Everything stops on the laptop, the screen turns gray black and the mouse, keyboard/controls and apps all become completely unresponsive. The only way to get out of this black frozen paralysis is to do a very hard reboot, by pressing the power for at least 8-10 seconds to shut it down and then turn the power back on. This is really, really bad and occurs each day I use the laptop. So, the complete motherboard replacement did not fix the issue. I will report this back to Dell. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know. I am not running ESET, but Bitdefender antivirus. I run it on other Dell machines using Windows 11 24H2 with no issues.
Buds Place
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November 1st, 2025 13:53
Update: 11/1/2025, Dell asked for further logs and came to the conclusion that the motherboard needs to be replaced yet again (within the same week). I asked what led them to that conclusion given they said the logs came back clean. I received no adequate response from support only that I need to comply with the second replacement. I also asked if the motherboard revision is different that would lead to a second motherboard replacement and they were not able to answer that question. I believe they are suggesting the replace the motherboard with the same revision, which is illogical to me and will yield the same result - unresolved.
I went ahead and tried a different test. I ran the laptop without the monitor and nothing else attached. I was streaming Youtube videos for four hours as a test. Generally, the system has a complete freeze/black screen within the first two hours. This test ran successfully. There has to be a conflict between the Dell Pro Max 16 Premium Laptop MA16250 (or the drivers or Windows) and the Dell Ultrasharp 27 4K Thunderbolt Hub Monitor U2725QE which are both newer models purchased mid-August 2025. The processor is the Intel Core Ultra 9 and the graphics card is the NVIDIA RTX PRO 2000 Blackwell GDDR7. It's going to be a total waste of time replacing the motherboard again, unless someone at Dell can in fact state that the motherboard has been upgraded since the motherboard replacement 6 days ago. Has anyone seen this type of conflict which results in a hard freeze when using this model and monitor? As a note all firmware/software is current. Dell never suggested to reinstall the Windows 11 operating system.
Per some Google Gemini info, there could be a corrupted or improperly layered chipset and thunderbolt drivers and a recommended approach is to do a driver purse and reinstall. Given this issue is occurring across two motherboards (one replaced) then it could be a software layering conflict with the handshake between the monitor and laptop.
(edited)