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

try reading the recent 9550 threads as you will see active discussions.

 

I'm still having issue with USB 3 devices on my system mainly USB pens and HDDs. They keep coming up in the event viewer as NTFS disk errors but its happening to about 4 separate devices ONLY on my laptop... I have a USB3 extension cable but omitting that doesn't help either...

Worth noting that im running USB2 devices like mouse keyboard and USB pen with no issues on those...

Most Recent Error:
Windows has stopped this device because it has reported problems. (Code 43)

A request for the USB device descriptor failed.

 

I have a lot more success with USB3 keys using the left hand port. Give that a try

 

Unfortunately thats the one I'm using

 

-Deleted-

Doesn't work on linux live CD either it eventually just stalls.

Thought it might be loose USB ribbon but the ports are all soldered on?

 

dell replaced my motherboard after making my laptop bricked from pressing F8 during startup. Does anyone had same issue?
Also the revision on new motherboard is A02 is there somewhere list of revisions?

 

No list yet and for god's sake no one press F8 during startup unless you want to kill a working machine!

 

I sometimes randomly jab at all the high end F keys on boot because I can't remember the one that loads BIOS or Boot Menu....should probably stop doing that...

PS. My USB issues seem to stem from a general lack of USB power output (USB 3 devices try to take more juice) ...if I plug the problematic devices into a powered hub everything seems to work! Just one more thing to remember, but a corrupt drive from forgetfulness isn't exactly a heartwarming thought.

 

Too late.

Sent from my Sony Xperia Z5 Compact

 

You can fix the brick yourself. Look in the forums, it has been discribed here (had the problem myself). After that, just do not press it again.

 

thank you man, I feel sorry for asking so late now could have solved it without dell technician having to tear down my laptop to pieces . Anyway I have checked this thread and could not find a guide. Could you please point me to a right thread?

thanks

 

just wondering, but does anyone think i have legal recourse if dell tries to charge me for the incorrect laptop they sent me? they said something on the phone last time about how if they didn't receive it in 7-10 business days that they could charge me for it, but they also told me to wait until tomorrow for instructions on sending it back. i hope they don't but the way they've handled everything...

 

Is anybody having random freezes (Not BSOD) where only the touchpad and caps lock button work? The screen is totally frozen, I tried every possible Intel Graphics driver (even the latest from Intel site). I am currently on AHCI with Samsung NVMe drivers. I installed Windows 10 as a clean installation with latest drivers from Dell. I'm running BIOS 1.02.00.

Here's a video about the crash I'm experiencing.

https://goo.gl/photos/4Yrgw6vkGJEofhvCA

Thank you!

 

never had a problem, the recovery team will phone after a month has passed since a failed collection to rearrange it.

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

 

guys,I am using my laptop in AHCI mode and have Samsung NVMe driver installed.

My laptop likes to wake up from sleep randomly when in my bag. I will usually find out after 3 hours when laptop burning. I have reinstalled it once more, used all the latest drivers still no help .

 

untick wake on magic packet in the wifi card adapter properties.
It has another option in the BIOS as well that may be enabled.

 

ughhhhh, so i sent an email yesterday asking for a response that they promised me and today while i was at work i got an email from the same idiot that sent me the 9530 before and guess what? in it, he's like: "blah blah blah, here's your new system" and i look and it's another 9530! i sent back a reply saying i swear they better have not already sent it or else i'm gonna be furious.

 

So so so sorry for this mixup sir. Here is your new Dell 3059 as compensation: http://notebookspec.com/all-in-one/316-DELL-Inspiron-One-3059-W260612TH.html

 

I just had a tech over to fix my sound disappearing after plugging in headphones. He had to replace the motherboard. I showed him why I needed a thicker pad on the VRAM and he used my gelid gc to repaste.
We noticed that the left two screws on the heat spreader actually were detached (the sockets) from the old motherboard. Not good!

He gave me a win 10 pro key to upgrade to for free after swapping the mobo. Nice guy!

 

Hi, same think happened to my. I had laptop with Win10 Home and he gave me new sticker with win10pro and also there is a win10pro key recorded in UEFI bios, so I actually have two.

Anyway, I would rather have my laptop fixed by myself (had turn on black screen issue) than having to replace the whole motherboard, as I believe once this laptop is teared down it will never work that well.

Btw what revision is your new motherboard? Mine has yellow stickers on ram slots with Revision A02

 

Damn, Dell is getting worse and worse. At this rate, seeing what everyone is going through, I may just ditch the warranty and send one of my machines to one of you guys to fix if it every goes seriously wrong!

 

I'm actually not sure. They were either yellow or white. What are the options?

 

Actually this is not necessary. Only the audio board needs to be replaced. But Dell has problems to supply this one as single replacement part and that's why some people get a complete exchange.

When the technician came to replace the audio board (exact same error as yours) I carefully checked them. While the new board had a newer manufacturing date the revision (A00) was identical. So it looks like Dell had a batch of broken or quickly failing audio boards during production, and there exists no dedicated change or fix for this 'audio gone until next reboot' issue. My 9550 now works near perfect with the new audio board, at least phones and speaker never fail.

The Realtek drivers still suck. As soon as an external audio interface is connected a fourth instance of the HD Audio Background service shows up and hangs at 25% CPU load. One has to manually kill it to get rid of it. What worries me is that this specific problem has been reported through forums for around two years already on different Dell notebooks, so it looks like this **** will not get fixed. It will be a major reason for anyone using the 9550 as Digital Audio Workstation to look for another brand...

 

Anyone having these issues with display scrambling?

 

Came to say the same thing. I just replaced my audio board via an ebay seller for $25 and everything is working great again. It's a bugger to pull the whole motherboard out, but it gave me a chance to repaste and swap out the awful wireless card as well.

Considering I bought this 1080p, 512GB, i7 machine on Ebay for $900 refurbished, the wifi card and audio board swap is a small price to pay for what is really one of the best windows laptops available.

 

Yep me!

 

i had a similar issue with Firefox.

Solution:

Uninstall the Graphics Driver comes with laptop(Don't Upgrade ). also don't download graphics driver from dell website.
Reason: dell always post old version of driver on website after testing. only thing dell does is validation and that's it.

go to Intel website https://downloadcenter.intel.com/pr...-i7-6700HQ-Processor-6M-Cache-up-to-3-50-GHz-
does not matter if your core i5 model. the drivers are same for 6th gen graphics.

download latest driver (not beta) and keep an eye on this page time to time to update your driver.

here is direct link. https://downloadcenter.intel.com/do...ows-10-and-Windows-7-8-1-15-40-?product=88967

Repeat this for nvidia driver as well. http://www.nvidia.com/download/driverResults.aspx/105039/en-us

 

does anyone know if there's a direct line to call the resolutions expert center or whatever or can i be connected just by asking the first agent i connect to or will they try to stonewall me? i found where i could do an email submission form for "repeated or unresolved issues" that's supposed to connect me to resolutions and i really don't feel like calling regular support again only to be given the runaround.

 

Yes sir, thank you for contacting Dell's resolution center. Please hold for just a moment...

 

Thanks for the reply, I was planning to do this. Its very troubling to find out that Dell does not support their computers with easy update process. The update tool provided simply checks and downloads and installs any updates available and there is no clear way to check for updates and then be able to decide which I want to install. Samsung was much superior with that.

 

Looks like the Intel drivers will not install on the latest XPS 15. Getting "This computer does not meet minimum requirements to install this software". I did uninstall the driver from Dells website and tried both the exe and zip versions of the 64bit drivers from Intel website. The comp is running win10 64bit crap OS. Tried using the driver updated option in device properties and thats no go as well.

 

hmm. this happens when the existing driver is signed by vendor. even though you have uninstalled the driver from control panel windows 10 fetches drivers from windows update servers (vendor signed driver). so download the driver from intel and turn off the WiFi or LAN during this process. after uninstalling from control panel. please go to device manager> display adapters and right click on Intel HD Graphics 530 and uninstall (Make sure you check this box " delete the driver software for this device" )and then run the setup. if same thing try updating driver manually by extracting driver files from zip files using 7-zip. hope this helps.

 

did you manually point it to the inf instead of just the folder as it works for everyone else?

 

yes I did, the downloaded and extracted package is win64_154025.4463.zip

"Make sure you check this box " delete the driver software for this device"" I did that as well before my post. But I was online so maybe windows did download the driver while I was installing new one. Will try with going offline. Thanks

 

I'm getting random black screens where the computer stops responding but the keyboard still lights up when pressed. I have to hard shutdown maybe twice a day because of this lately.

I'm on the latest Windows insider build. Running AHCI w/ samsung's drivers. Undervolted -110 core/cache -80 igpu. Could it be the UV? Any ideas?

 

I had black screens but the keyboard worked fine. A screen through the HDMI cable also worked fine.

The problem was an internal screen cable that was knocked slightly out of the socket. That connector is located near the battery under a silver colored metal tab which has a black screw. Use extra care when removing that screw as it is of a special Japanese size so a normal philips screwdriver will strip it. Also the connector is impossibly small given the number of contacts so use care.

Note, it took me a few tries and blowing the connector with compressed air to get it seated reliably.

You can see my post for details.

 

It isn't the screen, though - the laptop becomes unresponsive.

 

If you can't get an HDMI signal after the screen goes black, then the screen cable is likely not the problem.

After my screen went blank, I pressed a bunch of keys and managed to brick my laptop. Somehow I bumbled around and got a clean install of windows to work. There is a post for that but I encourage you to do a more scientific approach to troubleshooting.

Good luck!

 

I encountered the same problem - and might have found the reason at least with my system. Updated post coming.

 

I've had luck fixing sleep problems by reinstalling the intel drivers. This happens completely randomly (watching youtube, on desktop, listening to music)

 

google "why doesn't my laptop go to sleep", one of the 1st hits takes you to a page with commands to see what stopping sleep.

 

removed

 

yes I did, the downloaded and extracted package is win64_154025.4463.zip

I finally was able to get the Intel provided video driver installed.

1) downloaded latest exe install package https://downloadcenter.intel.com/product/80939/Graphics-Drivers
2) turned off WiFi (this is the part I skipped last time
3) in Device manager uninstalled the device including "delete the driver software for this device"
4) Ran the installer
5) installed the NVIDIA driver right on top of the older one

intel 20.19.15.4454 --> 20.19.15.4463
nvidia 10.18.13.5894 --> 10.18.13.6881

So far no display issues

Thanks for the suggestions!

 

I think my black screens were caused with a too high undervolt. Went down to -100mv, no crashes yet

 

(d)oh

 

Was stable - but then I forgot I got a new motherboard when they fixed my audio jack. New mobo, worse UV values!

 

Spoke too soon... crashed (external monitor was frozen, internal went black) right after making that post :/

 

remove the underclocks until you figure it out?

 

you guys don't have usb-c adapter problems?