BSOD - Random Reboots - May 2026 Dell Updates - Dell Support assist probable cause.

We are currently have this issue in our environment. We manage to remove using Intune detect and remediation script. But some users seems got worst case that can't manage to login screen. Just black screen. Dell 5440, 5450, Precision 7770 and 7780

Any workaround Dell? 

@Maverick78​ thanking you!

@JGarri​

Disclaimer: It seems from the posts on this forum that the effects of the Dell “update” vary widely from one system to another, I have NO idea if the steps below will work for any other individual system, I only know what worked for my son’s Alienware M16 R1 laptop, it is fairly extreme, but it did work.

The Alienware M16 R1 was totally unusable after the Dell update push.  It started a continuous boot loop immediately after the Dell update installed on Monday afternoon, May 11.  It was NOT possible to get the system to a state where the Support Assist could be disabled or removed, the system was very close to being “bricked” by the Dell update.  Reading this forum made it clear from statements by @Dell posters that Dell would not do anything proactively to assist customers whose systems were out of warranty.

Here is what had to be done to get the laptop functional again:

1. It had become fairly evident that the endless boot loop had apparently corrupted at least parts of the boot partition on the SSD.
2. At this point, several days of research and planning were performed. And the repair efforts started on Friday evening May 15.
3. First, the memory was tested using a memory test application (MEMTEST 86) downloaded to a USB drive (then boot from that USB drive to run the tests).
4. All memory tested good, this process took approximately 6 hours for 64 GB of RAM.
5. A new SSD drive was purchased and installed to replace the corrupted drive: Cost $250.
6. Because the Dell OS Recovery Tool said that it could not find an image for the Service Tag #, a Bootable media (USB) Microsoft Windows license was purchased: Cost $150. If the Dell OS Recovery Tool IS able to find the image for your Service Tag # you would be able to create a bootable install USB for free and it would make the Windows reinstall simpler because all of the required drivers will be loaded to the bootable media (USB) created.
7. With the generic Microsoft Windows 11 PRO boot media, It was necessary to download and extract the Intel Rapid Storage Technology drivers from the Dell website and extract them to a second USB drive (the bootable Microsoft Windows USB was hard write protected). This was REQUIRED before proceeding because the generic Microsoft Windows 11 install program WOULD NOT recognize the SSD drive without this driver.
8. At this point a new copy of Windows 11 PRO was installed without ANY Dell utilities since they are all HIGHLY SUSPECT at this point.
9. Once Windows was installed, drivers were installed as needed to make the laptop fully functional once again, without installing Support Assist or ANY other Dell update utilities or drivers.
10. Personal files were then recovered (were possible) from the corrupted SSD drive using an external USB SSD reader.

At this point it seems apparent that the constant boot loops corrupted the boot SSD (there were corrupted files found when examining the drive using the external USB SSD reader). The memory testing may not have been necessary, but was performed as a precaution.

This process took several days to plan out and MANY hours of repair/reinstall time, and cost a total of $400 because Dell has TOTALLY abandoned its customers with out of warranty devices, despite the fact that they CAUSED this issue with their negligent update.

 It is one matter if an out of warranty computer has a hardware failure due to age of the device, it is an ENTIRELY different matter if the manufacturer of the computer pushes an “update” that behaves like MALWARE and renders the customer’s computer unusable without massive effort and some expense on the part of the customer.

There are updates to SupportAssist components showing up in DCU.  Do this address the BSOD issue?  I won't do a reinstallation of SupportAssist until it is confirmed the problem has been resolved.

@louismccut​ I removed all the previous SupportAssist components and used the new update from Dell Command. I have a Dell Pro Max T2 Desktop that was affected and have been testing it out for a few days. No issues and am currently running SupportAssist 5.0.1.

@louismccut​ The main SupportAssist app can be reinstalled as it was not causing the BSODs. It was instead version 5.5.16.0 of the Dell SupportAssist Remediation Service that was causing the issue. Version 5.5.16.0 has been removed and the fixed version 5.5.16.1 has been pushed out to resolve the issue. 

@DELL-Daniel V​ When I first started having crashes debug, at the highest level, pointed to SupportAssist.  I decided to do a wholesale removal of the product since it isn't essential and I didn't want to waste time debugging the component that caused it.

I'll cautiously do the install of the new version after a bit just to see if there is any negative feedback.  Dell's releasing of a product to assist the user that causes BSODs has shaken my confidence in their product testing.

@DELL-Daniel V​

I have seen that pushed but by playing by memory I uninstalled it by mistake thinking the bad one was Dell SupportAssist Remediation 5.5.16.1 instead of Dell SupportAssist Remediation 5.5.16.0.

Can you confirm that the Dell SupportAssist Remediation component is the one that you configure from SupportAssist under settings and takes some space on the disk to take regular OS snapshots / backups, so that without it you can only recover to a fresh OS image?

If yes, Is there any manual way to install just the Dell SupportAssist Remediation component 5.5.16.1?

It is not automatically on SupportAssist via "Update software", neither is available online in the support Dell page under download and drivers as an application to do it manually. I wonder what was the trigger mechanism to download it in the first place, as I have originally also removed the Dell SupportAssist Remediation 5.5.16.0.

Thanks.

Experienced the exact same issue with my Alienware m16 R2.
Sent it to a repair shop; they couldn't find the issue. They replaced the SSD card and removed Support Assist. Worked for five days, then had another critical error 0xEF issue. Called Dell, spent an hour installing/updating all drivers and BIOS, and running a diagnostics check on all the hardware. All hardware checks were fine. Still did not fix the issue. Asked Dell support if this was a common problem occurring right now, and was told no.

Looked into the Reliability History, discovered the WUDFRd driver failed the bugcheck, which would reliably cause the crash. Removing all traces of Support Assist and Alienware Command Center (AWCC) (connected to the WUDFRd driver) resolved the issue. Something about AWCC's AlienFXSubAgent was using anywhere from 40-77% of my CPU at random times, which caused the 2nd critical bugcheck error in the WUDFRd driver. No problems after this, but I run a business, so now I'm extremely paranoid to reinstall any Support Assistant or AWCC software back onto my laptop. (It runs fine without them for now.)

If anyone can confirm the issue is fixed for good, let me know. I thought sharing what I found may help anyone still experiencing this issue.

I noticed employee DELL-ChrisM2 started a new topic SupportAssist 5.1.1 on 27-May-2026 that says a new SupportAssist v5.1.1 is expected to be released the first week of June 2026.  Unfortunately, there are no details about what bug fixes, if any, are included in v5.1.1.

This may be a bit of a long shot, but you are still experiencing random system freezes, re-boots or BSODs after uninstalling the buggy Dell/Alienware SupportAssist Remediation v5.5.16.0 (see employee DELL-Daniel V's 13-May-2026 instructions <here>) and have Secure Boot turned ON in your BIOS then you might want to try turning it OFF to see if that solves your problem. See DavidKelly's 23-May-2026 topic System freezes even in clean boot environment, but not in safe mode w/networking in the AskWoody forum about how turning Secure Boot OFF fixed random system freezes on their older Dell Inspiron 3650 / Win 10 v22H2 ESU laptop.  Unfortunately, they were unable to identify the exact driver causing their problem, but the initial suspects were a buggy SupportAssist-related program or outdated graphics driver.

NOTE: If you boot up in Safe Mode or Safe Mode with Networking and your BSODs stop this is another indication that third-party software is responsible for your problem.  When you start up in Safe Mode with Networking your system loads a very minimal set of drivers and Windows services at bootup and does not load any third-party applications that are set to autostart.
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To see if Secure Boot is turned ON open a Run dialog box (Windows key + R), enter msinfo32 to open your System Information, and look for the field named “Secure Boot State”. From my Dell Inspiron 15 5584 laptop, which shipped from the factory in 2019 with Secure Boot turned OFF:

If Secure Boot is ON the Dell support video How To Enable Secure Boot explains how to enter your BIOS settings and turn Secure Boot OFF.
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Why Secure Boot might still be causing problems after the buggy Dell/Alienware SupportAssist Remediation v5.5.16.0 is uninstalled : 

If your Secure Boot is ON see the release notes for the April 2026 monthly cumulative updates released on 14-Apr-2026 for Win 10 ESU (KB5082200 OS Builds 19045.7184 and 19044.7184) or Win 11 (KB5083769 OS Builds 26200.8246), which both state in part: 

[Secure Boot]

•  ​​​​​​​With this update, Windows quality updates include additional high confidence device targeting data, increasing coverage of devices eligible to automatically receive new Secure Boot certificates. Devices receive the new certificates only after demonstrating sufficient successful update signals, maintaining a controlled and phased rollout.

[Vulnerable driver blocklist]

• This update introduces a security hardening change that adds known vulnerable kernel drivers to the Microsoft vulnerable driver blocklist. Backup applications that rely on blocked drivers might experience failures when attempting to mount or manage disk images.

If you have an older or insecure third-party driver that is now being blocked by the new Secure Boot UEFI CA 2023 certificates (see the Microsoft support article Secure Boot certificate update status in the Windows Security app and Dell support article How To Check Secure Boot Certificates) and/or that third-party driver is on the updated vulnerable driver blocklist this might explain why your system has recently become unstable.
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Dell Inspiron 15 5584 * 64-bit Win 10 Pro v22H2 build 19045.7291 * Firefox v151.0.2 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.26040.7-1.1.26040.8 * Malwarebytes Standard v5.5.6.254-156.0.5608 * Macrium Reflect Free v8.0.7783 * My Dell v2.2.6.0

I am looking for feedback from anyone running a Dell Pro Max 18 Plus (MB18250).  Since March, I have experienced intermittent BSODs that became significantly more frequent in May (approximately 20 crashes) ...

Several dumps referenced CrowdStrike's csagent.sys, although I am not convinced CrowdStrike is the sole root cause because the failures have occurred under multiple conditions and persisted after removing CrowdStrike ... No Dell SupportAssist installed

Hi mmirabito_57512a:

This topic is specific to a known issue caused on some Dell home consumer computers by a conflict between a recent release of Dell SupportAssist Remediation v5.5.16.x (also called Dell SupportAssist OS Recovery or System Repair) and Dell SupportAssist for Home PCs v5.0.x.  Employee DELL-Daniel V's 13-May-2026 instructions <here> in this topic notes that this issue should be solved by updating to SupportAssist v5.1.1 or higher, and that users should refer to the article How to Troubleshoot Black Screen Errors, Blue Screen Errors, or Stop Code Errors on a Dell Computer if updating to SupportAssist v5.1.1 does not solve their BSODs.

You said that Dell SupportAssist v5.x is not installed on your system, but the Dell Pro Max 18 Plus MB18250 support page at https://www.dell.com/support/product-details/en-us/product/dell-pro-max-mb18250-laptop/drivers does list a Dell SupportAssist OS Recovery Plugin v5.5.16.1 (rel. 14 May 2026). Is Dell SupportAssist Remediation v5.5.16.x emergency recovery software installed on your computer, and if so do you use the Dell Command | Update v5.7.0 app (in conjunction with the Dell SupportAssist OS Recovery Plugin) to keep Dell SupportAssist Remediation v5.5.16.x up-to-date?  

This may be completely unrelated to your problem, but your mention of CrowdStrike reminded me of hduong768's 27-May-2026 topic Dell Command | Update 5.7 DBUtilDrv2.sys getting flagged by SentinelOne Antivirus Driver Blocking Engine. CrowdStrike and SentinelOne are similar business security products that include an advanced malware detection platform called Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (see the DefendMyBusiness 07-May-2026 Top 10 Business Antivirus Software Providers) and perhaps the old, vulnerable DBUtilDrv2.sys v2.5 that was mistakenly bundled with Dell Command | Update v5.7.0 is causing an issue with CrowdStrike on your computer.
  

Since your Dell Pro Max 18 Plus MB18250 is used in a business environment (and you do not use Dell SupportAssist for Home PCs) it might be better if you started your own topic in the Dell Pro Max Laptops board so your intermittent BSOD problem receives wider attention.
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Dell Inspiron 15 5584 * 64-bit Win 10 Pro v22H2 build 19045.7291 * Firefox v151.0.3 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.26040.7-1.1.26040.8 * Malwarebytes Premium v5.5.7.255-157.0.5633 * Macrium Reflect Free v8.0.7783 * My Dell v2.2.6.0