Dell XPS 15 (9550) list of hardware and software problems

I hadn't noticed but mines the same as some of the others posted up with the Thunderbolt port off to one side - I doubt I could easily get a lead in there without difficulty.

I'm going to download the service manual and have a go at straightening it up myself - I've also got a bit of OCD and now I know its off centre

I'm impressed with your abilities GoNz0, you should go and advise Dell as a consultant!

 

Guys I referenced this thread in my article. When I started writing it was "the 59-page thread on notebookreview devoted exclusively to issues endemic to the XPS 15 9550" but it's now become "the 61-page thread"... I can't keep updating it!

 

Sorry for offtopic, but what is OCD?

 

Obsessive-compulsive disorder.

 

Actually I have CDO, it's like OCD but in the right order



( I will get my coat)

 

Ha, I am Toshiba Epson & Smart factory trained, Dell engineers don't like coming to my house as I am normally old enough to be their Dad with better training (And I have read the service manual unlike them)

I had a PM earlier asking for it to be explained as English wasn't his language. I will post it up below as it will help when you read the manual.
Ignore the manual telling you to remove most things prior to the board as you can remove the board with the heatsink attached if need be.

Spoiler

Take precautions to discharge static by using an anti static mat and wristband, if you don't then be prepared to book a service call if you fry the board.
Once inside the laptop disconnect the battery.
If you have compressed air to blast out the laptop removing and dirt & debris from the work you are about to do then great, otherwise you could use a paintbrush at your own risk as static can kill a board
I ground down the mounting points in the picture by 1/2mm (half a mm not 1 or 2) to allow the case to fit together.
I protected the motherboard from metal fragments by covering it with a paper cloth (not shown as I forgot to take a pic) and made a small hole placed over each mount to prevent metal fragments getting on the board.
Grind a little bit off the mounting post, you can always take more off but never put it back.
After grinding down the mounts with my Dremel I tipped everything on its side and brushed off the loose filings then tipped upside down to remove the cloth. give the cloth a good shake taking note of the side that was up so you don't put in on upside down allowing any bits to fall in.





To align the ports remove the 4 screws marked red, they are not the same length so take note. The one holding the wireless card is attached to the metal plate so take the metal plate with the screw.

Loosen all the green screws and adjust the motherboard to align the ports. tighten all the screws and check the port is ok.

Replace the screws and check all are tight. (check twice)

 

This machine is driving us all a little crazy....

 

I am still on BIOS 1.00.07 (I think that's it?) that came with the laptop out of fear of .19 screwing things up haha.

After updating all of the software for the ThunderBolt Dock TB-15, it seems to be running just fine now. Before, the whole dock would disconnect and just charge the laptop.

 

Funny!


I feel sorry for you guys. After spending so much on your new toy, you have to mess around just to get it to look normal... Luckily for me I'm not seeing any of these defects on my unit.

 

Agh. FFS. Starting this morning, the computer just won't resume from sleep. It starts and then it dies. It just cannot resume from sleep. Any ideas? I'm not on the windows insider programme. It was literally working fine yesterday, and now today it can't. Did an update get pushed or something?

 

When it is starting, hold the power button down for 15 seconds or until it completely shuts off. See if it boots up. No updates were pushed that I am aware of.

 

Yeah I mean it starts/restarts fine. But when I turn it on from sleep with the power button it just doesn't turn on and will restart.

 

Dell planned to change my XPS 15 9550 i7/4K/512/16gb ram as touchscreen has dead...I'm hoping the second unit will be perfect. Really bad with Dell

 

And it's mysteriously fixed itself. Such are Windows pcs.

 

Just adding my experiences for other people that come across this thread via Google (as I did).

Switched to AHCI mode, wiped the SSD, installed Windows 10 Pro. Had frequent BSODs.

Did some Googling, found this thread. Upgraded to latest BIOS, installed the Intel RST f6flpy-x64.zip AHCI drivers. Still had frequent BSODs.

Installed the Samsung NVMe driver. Had one failed wake-from-hibernation.

Disabled the default auto hibernation after 3 hours feature (I generally do this anyway, but forgot). Not had a BSOD since (several days now).

So as far as I can tell, the Samsung NVMe driver was the key thing to finally fix the BSODs. Thanks to everybody that has contributed to this thread so far

 

Hey guys,
I have owned my dell xps 15 9550 for around 3 months now.
Suddenly, today...screen starts FLICKERING every second or so. Anyone have a resolution for this? Anyone encountered or know of the source of this issue?
Help would be greatly appreciated thanks!

 

F12 during boot, run diagnostic.

 

I've read just about every post regarding the 9550 and find some of it quite horrifying.

I received my XPS 15 9550 with 32Gb/1TB i7 back in January (although ordered in November 2015). Over the past two weeks (probably since updating the BIOS to 1.1.19) or so I have started having the 'Black Screen' fault where for no apparent reason the screen goes black and the system is unresponsive. The only way to get back in is to force a shutdown and reboot after which the laptop works fine - until the next black screen.

I have just spoken to UK Dell Tech Support who have asked me to connect an external monitor via HDMI (which I can and will do) to see what happens there and to roll the firmware back to 1.1.15. They have booked a follow-up telephone call for Friday to further discuss the issue. I've already said I would not be happy with a refurbished part or laptop to resolve the issue. I know it's likely to be a 'return for service' deal but at least I lodged my protest considering how much I paid for this laptop.

I have a Samsung 950 Pro sitting here ready to replace the 32Gb and I'm wondering whether to bother at the moment.

 

Mine was refurb and at 6% battery wear. I called Dell and after a couple of days they're seeing if they have the parts available to fix it in site. I know a lot of people are interested in buying the 6-cell battery, so this might hint at availability.

 

Mine had 3% but it was false as it showed it had charged to it's designated capacity not one reduced by 3%

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If I can get a free/new battery, I'll take it

 

new.

Funny man

 

Hi Eason,
I ran the diagnostic as u suggested and everything is OK.
my computer might work for 30 minutes normally then FLICKERNG appears...also sometimes when I adjust the brightness of the monitor by pressing the keyboard keys..cannot adjust brightness. I see the slider on the screen getting brighter/dimmer but brigthness remains the same.

Anyone have any other recommendations or know what it can be? I am in windows 10.
Screen DOES NOT flicker during startup when the dell logo comes on but once booting into windows might start flickering..

any help would be appreciated! thx

 

Hi everybody,

I have read all the threads I could find before purchasing the new XPS 9550 (FHD/i7/512go ssd). I received it a few days ago and started using it today. I just did the updates required by Dell Update (BIOS + something else and NVidia drivers). I am just a casual user.

However, I have two issues with the screen : One is a dead pixel ( a black one, but it is not really visible unless you focus on it so I don't really mind anyway, even though it's a shame for a 1600 eu machine). The second issue is more problematic : While leaving my computer for a few minutes and then going back to my browser (Chrome), part of the screen (usually the upper part) randomly becomes black and I need to change the page I am browsing in order to make it disappear.

Do you think it is a hardware (display) issue or just something to fix with the drivers ?





Thanks a lot for any help or advice,

 

Thanks to @GoNz0 for the guide you posted. Today I was able to line up my ports on both sides of my 9550 and it looks a lot better now. The board on both sides needed to come towards the front of the machine and ended up with the little locator pegs looking like in the picture above - they were in the middle to start with. I'd say the locator pegs in mine are a either in the wrong place by a very small amount or another component isn't quite the right size. Never to mind though as its a lot better now and was quite a straightforward job in the end.

Cheers!

 

Best bets to download Intel video drivers from Intel not Dell, you may need the zip version and updating via device manager pointing to the inf file in the extracted folder as running the exe may not work.

Also grab newish nvidia drivers, I think 361.75 are a safe bet.

Glad to help

 

Just to avoid further usage of wrong names in this thread or others: Lightning is the port found on Apple iPhone/iPad. It has technically nothing in common with the USB C port on the Dell. And this USB C port includes Thunderbolt 3, not Lightning.

Thanks for the aligning instructions!

 

Edited

 

Well they came today with a brand new battery in the box. 0 cycles. 6% wear. They're going to change it again.

 

fyi my new xps 15 came with around the same amount of wear. to fix it I discharged it from 100 -> 5%, then back to 100%. Wear dropped to 0.2%.

 

All four of my XPS 15 have the same problem. It needs calibrations. What I did was to run on battery until it is depleted and shutdowns by itself. Let it cool for a while(I waited for an hour) then recharge and start the machine. You may or may not see the battery wear goes down the first time but after two to three times the battery wear will goes to 0%. I saw some places (battery university?) claim it will increase the health of a new battery. I don't know if it helps but all four of my XPSs return back to wear 0% after one or two calibrations. I hope this helps.

 

Sorry duplicates

 

Hmm well, I ran it down and charged to full; battery wear didn't budge.

 

Well, I don't know what to say then. What surprises me is all four of my XPS come with 6% wear?! But they all went down and remain at 0% wear after a few cycles.

 

Where do you see "battery wear"?

 

I had the same but despite 6% wear is charged to it's max so it can be ignored.

 

If you install batterybar, you will be able to see the battery wear.

 

BIOS and diagnostics both show

 

Thank you GoNz0 for your help. I think I'll return it anyway as the laptop does not seem to be ready (Installing Intel RST from Intel's website caused 3 BSOD, and even though the dead pixel I had is finally a red stuck pixel, Dell's customer service is way worse in Europe than in the US, so I think I'll return it and wait the new Macbook Pro).

 

Can you all see thunderbolt anywhere in the device manager, it only seems to show if I run the firmware update?

 

I can recommend installing the newest audio driver from Realtek/Dell. Finally, the the volume is working properly. Beforehand, already very small values (like 10), were very loud, especially with headphones (I was usually only at a setting of 4!).

Now it is working as it should. The bug-list is shortening.

 

I also installed the new audio driver, but that did not change the volume behaviour. However the audio driver/software remembers the seperate volume/MaxxAudio settings for the laptop speakers and headphone respectively. So whenever I connect my headphones, the volume is automatically lowered. The previous driver also worked like this in my case, so basically nothing changed.

 

I thought that I had fixed the issues with my XPS 15, but today it started not waking from sleep properly. I will close the lid, putting it to sleep, then when I open the lid later, whether it is 5 minutes of 5 hours, it seems to be completely random whether it will actually wake up properly (giving me the Windows 10 login screen), or fail (giving me the Dell splash screen & booting from scratch). Anybody else experienced this & know a solution? Latest BIOS, AHCI mode, NVMe driver, no issues when actually running in Windows - just when trying to wake from sleep

 

Same here. How many people have this issue? Has anyone found a fix for this or is it hardware/mainboard related?

 

seems to be by design to try and cool the battery.

 

The same problem with my Precision 5110 (2 months old). At first, I assumed a relationship with a Windows Update on March 10, but after deinstalling that, it was not fixed. All drivers and BIOS are newest versions.
And I have the same issue with the fan noise when the USB-C dock is plugged in. This laptop is time-expensive :-(
Thomas

 

I can not see it. Also the Intel TB info tool is more or less empty. I thought with the oldest BIOS and drivers (just when I received the XPS) I saw something in there, but now nothing. Might be normal as long as nothing is connected.

 

There's no noticeable heat increase when the AC adapter is plugged in. It would be nice to find out if you're right though and the fans come on by design to cool the battery.

Could other people comment on this who have that same notebook. Does the fan turn on for you too when charging the battery and the battery is not fully charged?

 

Yes, and it is normal.
Also, if you touch your computer or phone while they are in a fast charge mode they are worm/hot, that is why the fan spins faster.

 

Out of everyone asked about the fan I think 2 people said it didn't spin the fan during charge. Anyway it will cut out around 80% as it leaves fast charge mode then to slowly take it to 100%.
2 out of say 40 would leave me thinking 2 people have faulty laptops or lower rated chargers not pushing enough for a fast charge.

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