Dell XPS 13 2015 external display with closed lid problem

having weird problem with Dell XPS 13 9343 (i5, 1920x1080, 8R/256SSD) Win7 Pro..
Using external Dell 22" LCD with DisplayPort to HDMI cable in mirror setting.
When I restart everything seems to be working Ok if I leave laptop lid open, the ext. monitor syncs perfect.
However when I restart with closed lid the picture never shows up (on laptop or LCD) even though I see blue sync light on Dell LCD. There is no picture even if now I open the lid....
In such situation nothing seems to be working to bring picture back so I have to do hard reset with Power button.
Called Dell and they installed newer Intel HD 5500 video driver A01 which somehow initially helped but it now does the same thing like before. Sometimes it works, but most of the time it does not..

Does anybody have an idea what could be a problem here?
TIA for any advice!

 

Turn the monitor off, and then back on.

When doing things like switching resolutions, output devices, etc, the GPU actually re-initializes the HDMI signal. Your monitor may have missed the HDMI sync / handshake when this happens, causing a blank screen or corrupted image.

Turn the monitor off, and then back on, to force a new handshake.

 

Unfortunately that's not working either. I hit Dell's LCD Power Button ON & OFF multiple times, including pull power from monitor as well..no help
Any other idea?

BTW, Dell was telling me I can't get picture on ext. monitor after lid is closed and restarted with any laptop. "It is not designed for that..."
I have a hard time to believe this BS since sometimes it works but not all the time which is just annoying.

Besides I was thinking maybe my new out of box Dell LCD (model SP2208WFP) has compatibility issue or defective HDMI port.
So I tried to run it with Apple MacBook Air through Thunderbolt/HDMI adapter. No problem whatsoever, out of five times I got picture every time with closed lid.
So if Apple MBA 2013 model can do it I don't see reason why Dell XPS 9343 2015 model couldn't do it as well....

 

SAME ISSUE.

If I restart with lid closed (I used Dell 23" external as main and only screen), it will give me massively loud beep beep beep with orange light flashing. First time I saw that, it freaked me out.

I need to have the lid open just for the post. As long as Win 8 logo appears, I can close the lid. It's not that inconvenient, since I have the lappy on 24/7, but definitely looks like bios related thing.

Trust me, I was like, "holy fxck is my laptop just deadddd"

 

Oh men, that's what happened to me as well at least a couple times and you are absolutely right - it's just freaking scary! Is that another bug or what?
It suppose to be Battery-status light but flashing orange with loud beeps sounds like something catastrophic just happened...
Does anybody have any insides?

Dell should investigate this symptom since it happens in Win8 and 7 as well.
BTW, what version of BIOS you running on your machine? Mine is on latest A04.

 

Same issue here. It's on the entire XPS13 product line.

I reported it to Dell i may who investigated it, change motherboard and so on, nothing worked. After a month they realised this was a bug but said that "Erm, this is.. not meant to be working!".
They were not interested in fixing it.
A really crappy answer. I told them that if this is really is "by design" (a nice feature?) maybe they should market this very nice freaked-out-error-beep-preventing-boot-feature on their homepage?
They were not interested in this either.

For me this happens if you run the computer in legacy mode (if you run Linux you are doomed, or Windows or other on MBR partition).
After the problem has occurred you'll see power error codes in the BIOS error log.

The problem is related to that the XPS does not properly work with external monitors, and since the lid is closed, it does not recognise the internal monitor either, and starts screaming about display errors. The number of beeps you hear in row is the error code.

It doesn't mather if you use DisplayPort or HDMI.

Dell should fix their issues, not ignore them.

 

Hi,

Randomly at boot I have some loud beeps matching your description but my lid is open.
I wanted to try with closed lid to try to reproduce your problem and see if it's the same kind of beeps, but I didnt manage to reproduce... How do you make the laptop start with lid closed ?

 

The issue happens when rebooting. I have the same issue on several (but not all) of our deployed XPS 13 9343 systems for our company. It does not seem to be BIOS specific, as it has happened on all BIOS versions from A02 to A05. Issue will happen regardless of using the mDP to HDMI, VGA, or DVI adapters to an external monitor, as well as a USB Dock with external display capabilities. Disconnecting the Dock, or display and manually booting the system seems to bypass this, but becomes very annoying. Frequently, users will connect larger external monitors while working in the office and close the lid to work primarily off the larger screen. When the need to reboot arises, it causes the beeping to occur. the system will beep 8 times indicating that the system does NOT recognize the built-in LCD. Oddly, this issue does not occur on every XPS 13 9343.

Running a comparison between system having issue and system not having issue, the systems will be using the same video drivers (version A01). If using a Display Link USB to external display, there is no difference or change in using any Display Link driver from v7.4M to v7.9. Doubtful it is the Display link driver as issue happens with mDP to external display adapters, too. Thought it could be a possible Windows update, so tried to roll back updates on system with issue, but the system without issue has latest Windows and driver updates. Rolling back updates had no effect.

Another odd issue is that the problem systems did not have the beeping issue originally and worked as expected for an extended period of time prior to the issue. Some problem systems manifested the issue around 3 weeks after opening the box, while others have been up to several months.

Still have not found a resolution to issue.


Main testing has been with Win7 Pro. Only minor testing has been done with Win8 & Win10, but the video issues reported have currently been consistent in all OS versions.

 

I'm adding another post instead of updating my previous because this is not really an amendment to previous information. Dell is changing the specs of the XPS 13 9343 systems. They are going with the Intel graphics HD 5200, instead of the Intel Graphics HD 5500 that was originally used. Looks like they may be changing this graphics chipset on many of their systems, including the Latitude series. Dell may also not be the only company doing this as there have been issues with the HD 5500 chipset. I have not yet been able to identify that the chipset is what is causing the issue, but it has been related to issues like screen flickering with the Latitude E5450 when on a docking station. The HD 5500 chipset has even been linked to issues with non-Dell machines, like the Microsoft Surface Pro 3, also with screen flickering or inability to detect external monitors. These other manufacturers are also looking into doing a graphics chipset change. The HD 5200 is an older chipset, but is definitely more stable & tested. After checking specs, the chipset seems to be slightly better, although it's more of a lateral comparison and not really an upgrade or downgrade. Problem is this change doesn't help 1st Gen. 9343 users.

 

As mentioned before, this error happens when booting the computer in Legacy Mode (setting in BIOS) or/and if you turn off secure boot. This is something you do if you wanna use Linux or Windows 7, or Windows 8/10 on an MBR partition. This is also something you wanna do if you for example would like to encrypt your hard drive the proper way.

In the BIOS, under Power Events you may see the Dell Error code for this. This is a bug in the BIOS and has nothing to do with Windows or drivers in Windows. In fact you will experience this error with any operating system, or even with none installed, since it happens before the bootsectors are read and the OS is loaded. I don't think it has something to do with the chipset since there are computers with HD5500 and HD5200 that does not have this issue.