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

On this NBR forum there are several people running some 32GB G.Skill memory (some posts are from December and the spring, and some might not be Ripjaws, maybe a few typos below).

1. "Peter DNA" runs GSKILL 32GB
2. "dgeeks" runs GSKILL 2666 32GB
3. "zuffy" runs GSKILL 2133 32GB (I think RIPJAWS based on his posts but not sure)
4. "mazyarjr" runs 2666 32GB RIPJAWS in "similar" Dell Precision 5510 (2666MHz, Precision has slightly different CPU and other tweaks)
5. "toakes88" also runs GSKILL 32GB (2800 RIPJAWS, posted this month at Reddit.com apparently - does not run at full 2800 speed as 9550 does not support that speed)

Did you try swapping the G.Skill cards to different slots? Maybe you have some defective new RAM? Or maybe newer batches don't play well with the 9550 anymore? If swapping the slots don't work I would try returning the RAM and try replacing new cards...

That is your SSD - I think they generally come from the factory with a strip of foamy thermal pad which touches the bottom of the metal case, helping to cool the SSD.

 

This is the ram i have Model F4-2400C16D-32GRS. Isn't 2133 the max this laptop can handle? non of them report any issue with the 32gb ram ? I will have the ram replace might be defective
I am on the line with dell right now about the issues i came across with online Diagnostics.
Not the SSD check the circle on the picture.

 

No one has reliably reported the 9550 RAM running faster than 2133, although some people have misinterpreted system reports. Some users are using faster RAM that underclocks to 2133, but is a crap shoot as it is not guaranteed to work.

I just summarized 5 people at NBR and Reddit that report using G.Skill 32GB memory on a 9550; I did not see any complaints from them but frankly only did a cursory search looking for incompatibilities as I am in the market for 32GB RAM also. Armed with that data, you might want to contact them directly or do a more thorough search.

My apologies as the circle is not showing up on my screen. Still looks like your SSD is missing the factory thermal pad

 

That thermal pad is sticking on the back cover that's why you don't see it. I'm going to have it replace soon.
As far as the web testing, It seems to be working fine now after I made a new windows user account.
Still some minor problem like screen turning blank when under load like gaming I am assuming it still has sometime to do with the driver
Is there a solution for it ? Are you guys running on the latest drivers / bios ?
For people running on 32gb ram can you please do a f12 test see if you can pass the test without screen getting distorted

 

Mine works just fine but I have the factory 2133 Samsung DIMM's

 

Of course there are.
Just look in this thread: http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/need-32gb-for-your-xps-9550-on-the-cheap.791494/

 

did a new bios meanwhile solve the issue where the fans are constantly running in charging/plugged in mode, while on battery they are dead silent?

 

LCD died this morning. Laptop works fine with external monitor via HDMI.

Can't see screen, so can't run basic diagnostics beyond the following, which show no lights or beeps:

f2 + power button
fn + power button
D + power button

Those tests are initiated from an computer that is turned off.

[Edited for clarity and missing info. See below "resolution"]

 

Fans on while bulk charging are by design. it will taper off from 80% on.

Hold D while it is powered off and tap the power button whilst still holding it. This starts screen diagnostics. If nothing happens apart from the power light then yes it's fooked.

 

Forgot to note that I tried the power +D also. That didn't work either.

So just for fun, I opened the laptop and reseated the troublesome LCD cable once again and... all tests pass. That is a finneky cable.

I am thinking about NOT returning the laptop to Dell now. Should I call them and just tell them it works fine but will return if LCD fails again?

 

I would be asking for a replacement personally
If it happened twice it will happen again but you need assurance they wont just reseat the cable and send it back as I bet money that is all they will do.

 

Man, this is a mess.
I had the screen of my XPS 9550 4k touch replaced, as the screen was coming loose in the right and left edges against the bezel.
After two visits, the technicians finally managed to replace my screen without breaking something else (i thought).
It turns out however, that the laptop doesn't recognize when the screen is closed anymore, so when i close the lid the touchscreen goes haywire and starts clicking on things instead of the laptop entering sleep mode.

Does anyone have an idea if it might help resetting the BIOS or something (due to it being a new screen)?
Or if the technician did a shoddy job screwing the new screen on, forgetting to reconnect the 'is the screen closed' component?

Funnily enough the new display has a bit of flex on the sides up against the bezel as well, not as much as how my previous display ended up though.
Anyone else experienced something similar? Searching hasn't resulted in anything.

 

Hi. Newbie here. This month I got a new XPS 9550 (512 SSD, 16GB RAM, 4K) and I have some questions for anyone who can help me:

1. I'm having an ackward moment trying to update my system, using SupportAssist. There are 4 available updates that cannot seem to install or get detected correctly, because they always reappear as "available" after I install them and restart. Anyone else having this issue?



2. Windows Management tools and Defraggler detect the harddrive as an HDD and not SSD. Drive is a Toshiba NVMe THNSN5512GPUK NV. Every tool designed to "read" the drives lists this drive as HDD. SSDlife tool won't even recognize any SSD installed.



BIOS came configured as Raid On by default. I tried to change it to AHCI but it results in a BSOD. I believe I'd have to reinstall Windows 10 with AHCI configuration to try it, right? Or am I wrong? Would this make any difference? Since I only have the 512GB SSD, do I need RAID ON and Intel Rapid Storage? I'd be willing to format my system to choose AHCI just to see if I have a better performance and SSD is read accordingly

3. Until a month ago, I had a Dell 9530, and now this "superior" and better 9550 seems to load a little bit slower. There two moments before Windows 10 starts, black screen and white Dell circle logo; and then the same black screen and white Dell circle logo PLUS a small circle icon of "loading"... first screen has a delay greater than with the old system, of about 10 seconds. Is this normal?

Current readings in CrystalDisk. Is it alright?

 

Okay someone in another thread posted this about the dell xps 15 9550 when i asked about the SSD for this laptop


Your 9550 has two slots for external storage (some only have one slot FYI):

1. The m.2 style is very small and can run the very fast new nvme drives
2. The 2.5" bay that accepts thin SSD or HDD units (with a different connection than m.2)

No, not any SSD will work properly. You should study NBR threads to see which drives work for members. Some SSD are junk, some overpriced, and some don't seem to work well on this laptop. The 2.5" bay probably has a max thickness that will fit so that is a factor

FYI the only way you can truly "wipe" a drive is complete physical destruction (e.g. large bonfire).

I have a Samsung m.2 850EVO at 250GB and it works fine and fast. I know there were issues with the earlier 840 on a bunch of systems. You should keep a SSD about 30% empty for best performance. I find 250GB a bit small so would recommend you think 512GB.

One guy here reported that a 850EVO SSD running in his 2.5" bay ran slowly (SATA2 speeds but should be at full SATA3 speeds) so maybe the m.2 is the place you might focus on.

This autumn you will see a bunch of new m.2 drives from Samsung and Intel. The nvme drive can be fast.

There is a "clean install" thread which discussed reinstalling windows and plenty of new drive discussion. That forum might help a bit regarding data transfer but there are better forums on NBR for data migration I imagine. If you are willing to study those thread CAREFULLY, people can help you get up to speed. If you don't have the time, then maybe you should have someone help you.

Good luck



Does this mean many of the SSDs on amazon are not compatible? Almost all the SSDs on amazon are 2.5' so I'm confused what he meant by this. Can someone tell me what exact SSD models will work with this?

 

All ssd should be compatible if they fit in one of the slots .. some are just better than others. Usually Samsung is reliable and fast.

 

Time to stamp your feed at the piss poor service and demand a NEW one is build expedited. They had plenty of chances and send inept techs out so why let another have a go?

To get it into AHCI as needed by the Toshiba drive you need to set the safe mode flag in MSCONFIG, reboot into safe more, reboot into BIOS and set AHCI, reboot into safe mode again to clear the safe mode flag and reboot back into windows.

You can also install the Toshiba OCZ driver and software.

https://ocz.com/us/download/
https://ocz.com/download/drivers/nvme/windows/ocznvme-1.2.126.843_whck.zip (AHCI driver)
https://ocz.com/download/software/ssd-utility/2.2.2645/SSDUtility_2.2.2645.exe (Software)

 

I've experienced a weird issue that I have not read on these forums yet. My system has been stable for half a year. I usually run my system without sleeping for extended times and have it connected to AC. Three weeks ago I found my system had rebooted during the night, but I could find no reason in the system logs.

One day later, I found it in a strange state with the keyboard and power lights on, but fans where not running and it did not respond to anything. I could restart it after holding the power button for some time. There were no events in the log. Today it happened again after I came back after leaving the system for a short while. Has this happened to anyone else? Does anyone have any idea what the problem is?

I fear that this may be a hardware problem. One of the most important aspects for me is system stability and since this seems to have happened very non-deterministically, this seems to be very hard to reproduce. I would have no idea if Dell did anything if I would call them and send my device in.

 

well, on my it didnt. when plugged in, it never remained as silent as on battery, the fans started all the time in idle, while on battery they were dead silent.
isnt this the case with yours??

 

It runs a higher clock on mains power so it may be the usual **** paste job and warm ambient temps causing it to have the fans on.

 

higher clock on main power??
that makes no sense. especially in idle.

 

Obviously not on idle. Just tried to help. I wont go into details as the informations available via a google.

 

what details are you talking about?
did you read my posting? i described the behavior in idle.
so do you have noticebly more fanaction when plugged in (and charged) vs battery?

 

Yes due to the cooling policy. I suggest you explore the power profile differences under processor cooling. Core parking is hidden but also active on battery.

Sent from my SM-G920F

 

you are not really suggesting the problem relates to simply changing the cooling policy?? wow.

anyone else?

 

You don't have to be rude to suggestions. A standard policy per machine is passive fans during battery and active fans during AC power. It may be software related to be forced this way. This is how my Lenovo from work behaves, but not how my MSI behaves. Lenovo has custom profiles and policies when on battery so it forces lower performance and passive cooling, which has to be disabled.

Not sure if you can tweak your own fan profile for AC to ensure silent operation while connected and idle.

 

Should you have been a little more polite I may have been more willing to help. Instead I have given a little bit of information that you could have found out for yourself such as active vs passive CPU cooling hence the power profile information. Now you can sit and wonder or start reading the forums as I doubt anyone else will offer to help now.

 

Friendly reminder that positive interactions will get you the best responses around here. . .

 

OMFG, just got off the phone to Dell who called me back with a ticket update to yet again tell me to roll back to BIOS 1.1.15 to fix the flickering, even though that causes the BSOD on the Samsung drives (my Daughters 9550)
After 15 minutes of me ruining the rest of his day he spits out that they have a Samsung fix for the NVMe drive, a mysterious firmware update that they never released on the support site.
He said he would email me said firmware.
I have copied the email into a quote taking out the unimportant parts.
Have a wall handy to smash your heads into.

My reply (Slightly annoyed)

I need a drink.

 

Wow, a real technical support specialist
Must be the same guy: http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...ty-display-2015.776840/page-297#post-10147922

 

i didnt expect such a newbie suggestion. especially when this seems to be bios related, when plugging in to charge that the fans start spinning.
i had minimum 15 notebooks in my life and never seen this behaviour.
so yes, i was kind of dissapointed with such an obvious newbie answer. i apologize if i transported this too harsh.

 

It has been asked many times and we all get fans on charge, everyone except one person has this and it does seem to kick off around 80% as the bulk charge ends and it tops off the battery. Also as noted this has active on mains and passive cooling on battery so it will stay off. also it has a capped max mhz on battery but even on idle the CPU will still ramp up when requested, on battery this is capped (can't remember the limit.)

 

Although I paid for a 3 year warranty with my 9550, having read the myriad encounters with Dell 'engineers' and support staff I must say I'd be very, very unwilling to let them anywhere near my system unless I really had no alternative.

I realise that the contributors here are the 2% that have problems and the silent majority are probably quite happy but even knowing that, it doesn't make me feel any happier. You have my sympathies GoNz0.

 

It's ok, most Dell techs have a cuppa while I fix it myself

 

Smart! Spare parts delivered by personal courier (and they wait to take the old ones away).

 

I'd be willing to be that there are a lot more folks like me who have a few problems, but have had so many unpleasant run-ins with Dell's useless customer service reps that having a three year warranty we are just bidding their time, suffering, pissed off, until they have to get Dell involved again.

I'd send mine to GoNz0 if he would be willing to fix it-----and if I could afford him.

 

Nah he lived under a mile away so he picked the bits up on his way to the depot the next day

 

I bumped into GonZ0 via google regarding a mysterious red "SST" text in HWINFO64. That is Intel Speed Shift, which is the new and improved Speed Step. Dell has not yet enabled that in our BIOS although the feature has been available for about a year.

1. User Uncle Webb notes how he manually activates it below.

2. For those using ThrottleStop 8.20, click on the TPL button and in that window select "Enable Speed Shift when ThrottleStop starts". HWiNFO64 then will show "SST" in green. Turning off ThrottleStop, SST is still enabled. Turning off laptop, SST becomes disabled (until you launch ThrottleStop again).

For those wondering what the Speed Shift min and max multipliers are for

 

Thanks, I didn't know we could enable this using software.
I fired another email to Dell to ask why this isn't enabled yet.

 

I don't have this since following your tip and installing Dell Command Power Manager and switching to Quite mode. But I would not recommend doing this unless you have done a repaste and have healthy system temperatures, as it caps the fans at 3,700rpm. Also, it does a weird thing where it caps the CPU speed at 800Mhz when under load on battery, but I can live with that.

Admittedly, for me the fans can kick in during idle or light loads when charging, however, the fans are capped at 2,500rpm under light load so I don't notice this. More of a work around than a fix, but it is much less irritating than the default Thermal settings.

 

Last night I enabled SpeedShift via the ThrottleStop checkbox and did some quick testing:

1. RealBench (StressTest and Benchmark) results were virtually the same (as expected)

2. Overall user experience was fine - generally no difference noted in operations

3. Unfortunately, with SpeedStep enabled, I noted a potential latency issue. Whilst playing "virtual piano software" into the XPS, I heard significantly more "clicking" sounds in my headphones. This is with aggressive settings (high rate, low sample sizes). Those clicks are typically from the CPU being unable to process large sound samples in real-time (CPU is too slow, other processes jumping into the cue, bad implementation of process...).

** Tried with a bunch of scenarios including:

a. ThrottleStop 8.20 running and not running
b. CPU with undervolt and without undervolt
c. SpeedStep enabled and disabled (I don't think that should matter but who knows)
d. SpeedShift min max parameter adjustment (1-255 & 32-32, the latter which is i5 max speed)

** Potential issues:

a. SpeedShift not officially supported by Dell for 9550
b. ThrottleStop 8.20 might not properly enable SpeedShift
c. Virtual piano Software issue with SpeedShift
d. ThrottleStop 8.20 not fully tested on Skylake processors

With respect to item (d) above, I believe UncleWebb (the ThrottleStop engineer) did not have a Skylake system when he released v8.20. Good news is that he has been testing on a Skylake system and hoped to release v8.30 this week.

==> So currently I am getting slightly better real-time performance on real-time virtual-instrument software using SpeedStep than I am with SpeedShift

==> Maybe "writing 1 to MSR 0x770" is the proper way to enable SpeedShift, rather than using the ThrottleStop checkbox. I don't know how to do that unfortunately. Any suggestions?

 

I see that the first post hasn't been updated since December 2015, is the list of suggested things to do first when getting this laptop up to date ?

 

Best to take a couple of hours to read through the threads then make your mind up.

 

That will take a while but I will then.

 

Detailed review of the newly released Kaby Lake XPS 13 follows. It provides some clues about what to expect for the updated 9550 Kaby Lake, which some expect Q1 2017:

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Dell-XPS-13-9360-QHD-i5-7200U-Notebook-Review.178844.0.html

 

I got my XPS 15, did a clean install using GoNz0's ISO (thanks for your work mate), and I was wondering: should I look for SSD issues like the OP is saying ? Should I do this ?
"If you don't use 32GB SSD cache drive or RAID, remove the Intel Rapid Storage Technology in Control Panel and install only AHCI drivers: 1) download latest Intel Rapid Storage Technology in a "f6flpy-x64.zip" variant 2) Extract the .zip package 3) Using system Device Manager manually update AHCI drivers only (iaAHCIC.inf and iaahcic.cat) under IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers in the Device Manager. [This will fix the issue number 6 and 7]"

I can't even see IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers in the device manager.

 

Nope, I offered to give someone the first post long time ago but nobody wanted it. So it's not up to date. I gave up and went for the Surface Pro 4. Now I am reconsidering XPS 13 with Kaby Lake but based on the reviews, not much has changed in terms of performance or battery life...

 

Ok, thanks for your answer !

 

If you clean installed you won't have installed Intel rst software anyway?. What hard drive configuration do you have?

Sent from my SM-G920F

 

I have the 512 Gb Samsung P951 version.
Indeed I don't have Intel RST but I don't quite get if it means I have nothing to do (English isn't my first language so it doesn't help)

 

With that SSD the install you did contained everything you need to do. You may need to install the Samsung SSD drivers to help with the BSOD you may get. http://www.samsung.com/semiconducto.../software/Samsung_NVMExpress_Driver_rev11.zip