Windows 10: windows 10 20H2 update on T5600 DELL impossible task

Hi! I am trying to update a DELL T5600 with "Windows 10 Pro Update 1909" installed. The automatic update tried to install the 2020 October 20H2 update but it failed 3 times. After that I tried to install it manually with "Windows Update Assistant". That didn't work either. It gave me 0xC1900101-0x20017 error in the SetupDiagResults.log file The problem is always on restart, when it crashes and it rolls back to 1909. One second of windows logo and black screen and a line of pixels on top in about 10 seconds and restarts by itself after that. After the "Windows Update Assistant" fai

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Dell Precision T5600 does not wake up from sleep

The Issue

All (7) of the Dell Precision T5600s in a computer lab do not wake up after going to sleep.

Background Info

I work in the ITS department for an educational institution that has some T5600s in use in the Math/Computer Science department labs. We upgraded to Windows 10 last summer and later discovered that they do not wake up from sleep. At this point the user performs a hard reset to restart the machine. Due to numerous hard resets some hard drives were failing, prompting the call to ITS, etc. etc. Because these machines are all identical, all are experiencing these issues, so this is not an isolated incident.

System Specs
Dell Precision T5600 (2012)

• 1 Intel Xeon E5-2603 (4 core, 1.8 GHz)
• 4x2GB PC3L-10600R RAM
• Nvidia GeForce GTX 560 SE (no integrated graphics)
• 1 500GB WD5000 HDD
• No additional PCI cards
• Second CPU socket and RAM slots are empty
• Windows 10 Enterprise, Windows 7 Enterprise/Pro (read on)

What I have tried
Prior to downgrading to Windows 7:

• Disabling hybrid sleep and hibernate
• Updating drivers for the storage controller, video card, usb controllers, etc. to the latest version.
• Updating the BIOS to the most recent version (A14 for this model)

After downgrading to Windows 7:
NOTE: We have an image that we apply to our systems with some pre-installed software and several Windows updates already installed, which is what I used to downgrade.

• Rolling back to drivers released prior to Windows 10
• Using a different video card (specifically tried the GeForce 210)
• Removing all Windows updates that were not yet released before the summer upgrade
• Stopping and disabling as many services as possible
• Uninstalling all end-user software (since this is a CS lab computer that includes Visual Studio and all that entails)
• Installing Windows 7 Pro SP1 from a disc (so absolutely no 3rd party software installed beyond the Nvidia driver for the graphics card)
• Physically transferred the hard drive containing Windows 7 from the T5600 to a Dell Optiplex 780, let Windows find the 780's drivers, restarted to apply the changes, and successfully slept and woke the 780 using the hard drive from the T5600. The only changes were the drivers.

Additional Notes

• Windows 7 doesn't even boot if RAID is turned on. The drive must be imaged as AHCI-only. This makes the least amount of sense as these machines have RAID on by default. I suspect that this may be another symptom of whatever is causing the sleep issue.
• If you didn't know, Windows 7 will not go to sleep with the basic VGA driver. The proper driver for the graphics card or integrated graphics must be installed before sleep is available.
• This can't possibly be a group policy-related issue as I still encounter the issue on an unbound machine and also when I installed Windows 7 Pro from the disc.
• Based on the troubleshooting I've done so far, the issue seems to be caused by either a bad driver update or a hardware issue.

My Question
I'm at my wits' end. I've done just about everything but replace the motherboard. Are there any other ways I can troubleshoot these machines? If this is a driver issue as I suspect, which one would it be? Have you seen anything remotely like this before?

 

Update 20h2

Hi Wicki,

I am Sumit, an Independent Advisor and a 3 year Windows Insider MVP here to help.

20H2 should not be installed right-away on your device - MS said the rollout is only to a fraction of users and would be labeled as an optional update initially. Are you enrolled in WIP?

You may uninstall 20H2 using the steps below:

https://www.yourwindowsguide.com/2020/10/uninst...

Content on the above blog is written by a Microsoft MVP so it is safe. However, do watch out for the ads.

 

pc 100% disc issue - impossibly slow. windows pro 10 on dell optiplex

You're correct that task manager in S Mode doesn't show disk activity:



(I did that using PrtSc, then Paint to crop it and save it as an image file).

Suggest you proceed with an in-place upgrade repair as above.

Have you seen excessive CPU use again?