I recently purchased a new XPS 8900 from Costco. I purchased a Intel 535 SSD 240GB and wanted to use it as the boot drive and I was going to format and use the 1TB that came with the PC as a storage device. I originally cloned the OEM drive to the new SSD drive. This didn't work so great - slow boot times - about 35 seconds.
I did a clean install of Windows 10 and tweaked the UEFI settings. Computer was booted without the OEM drive hooked up at this point. Boot time now is about 26 seconds. A little more than 18 seconds of that is playing with the BIOS/UEFI. None of the changes to the BIOS seemed to make any change. I was going to live with this, but I have 2 Win 10 laptops that are booting in 8 seconds and 11 seconds. I had pretty much everything loaded programs wise.
I next booted with the OEM drive hooked up and the SSD boot drive. I was going to format the OEM drive and on boot up I'm met with ePSA screen with Error Code 2000-0723 - Hard Drive - Drive error detected.. (which apparently isn't a code Dell recognizes?) Hitting Continue I'm at the desktop. I already had the Intel SSD Toolbox installed and had optimized the SSD drive. I did a quick diagnostic scan on the SSD drive and it reported no problems.
Restarted the PC and hit F12 to do the Dell Diagnostics testing. I now see a 2000-0142 error code. It indicates there is a hard drive failure with the new SSD drive. I reboot past the error message and do the Intel's Full Diagnostic Scan. Intel reports no issues. Hmm? I turn off the PC and disconnect the SSD and boot to the OEM drive. I get the same ePSA screen that popped up previously, hit Continue and I'm at the desktop. Reboot and run Dell's testing, the hard drive now passes and it passes all the other tests. I turned off the computer, removed the AC power cord, CMOS battery, and held the power button. Put it back together and clear the log files. I'm met with the same ePSA error code 2000-0723 screen.
I have another SSD - SanDisk 240GB. I disconnect the OEM drive and hook up Intel and the SanDisk. I cloned the Intel to the SanDisk and boot only to the SanDisk. Same ePSA screen pops up, but now Dell diagnostics passes all the tests. I run the Intel Driver Update Utility, which shows no updates. Device Manager shows all devices operational.
If you've made it this far, I appreciate it. :-)
Questions -
Dell sees something it doesn't like with the Intel SSD, but Intel says it's working fine. I could return it, but I'm thinking there's nothing wrong with the hard drive. I'm not sure what to do next.
How do you get rid of the ePSA warning? This pops up regardless of which hard drive boots.
Is there a different BIOS/UEFI that's available? I've pretty much exhausted the changes and 18 seconds seems like a looong time.
Thanks!