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

regarding 4)
200% is usually slightly better than the default 250%, if the resulting size is good enough for you.
For programs that do not scale well, you may want to try using external application manifest files (just google for "high dpi external manifest"). The result is not as crisp, but sizes are great.

 

Just upgraded BIOS and Bit Locker disappeared from control Panel, just vanished. The drives are still encrypted, and they unlock just fine during startup, but I lost all the security tools. It's like Bitlocker was never installed on the machine, and the only information left is that the Disk Administrator shows the drives as encrypted.

After update I had to use recovery key for the system drive, but that was before Windows even booted.

 

I am having the same problem here. I have no clue as to what could be the cause or the solution.

Matthias

 

uninstall intel RST and it should come back, e-drive encryptions been broken in Intel RST for a long time.

 

Thanks, but I'm running AHCI and didn't install RST. Just went back to restore point from 4 days ago and all is good. I lost also "Storage Spaces Controller" (and Storage Spaces control panel applet didn't work) and "Intel serial IO I2C host controller". I don't even know what exactly caused this, most likely it wasn't bios update - I just didn't notice it before. Restore point was created by windows update but I see no updates installed on that day.

 

Bit random that, did you look in the event viewer to see if it threw an error?

 

I can confirm that installing the Samsung NVMe drivers eliminates BSOD's (at least in my case).

 

Good for you!

Perhaps it introduces an other problem on your machine: rebooting might fail .
That occurred sometimes with the 1.07 bios, and every time with the 1.15 bios.
But better that then random BSOD to me. Also the Samsung driver gives better performance, both in AC and battery scenarios.

The dell xps 15 gets better and better. Short wishlist: SST in bios, rebooting, and a way to enable TPM in bios (since it is disabled in my configuration).

 

I will test the reboot failure shortly. Has anyone or you noticed a slow / laggy / stuttering USB wireless mouse? it's a high quality mouse, and the distance is minimal, not sure as to why it persists.

 

I can confirm:
- Reboot failed sporadically with Samsung NVMe drivers and BIOS 01.00.07
- Reboot always fails with Samsung NVMe drivers and BIOS 01.01.15

Matt

 

Device manager -> Network adapters -> Wireless controller -> Properties -> Advanced tab -> find "Bluetooth collaboration" in the list of items -> set to "disable"

...drastically improved the stuttering with my bluetooth mouse. I am not sure if this also applies for a wireless USB mouse, but I guess it is worth a try.

Matt

 

Thank you, I will give it a whirl.

On the note of the failing reboot, I just experienced one myself, dell assist popped up telling me there was no hard drive installed. Is this similar to what other users are experiencing, or referring to when they say failing to reboot?

Thanks.

 

Correct, that or keeps stuck at the Dell logo.

 

Thanks, worked for me

 

I'm confused what you mean by Processor SST is not available. You should be able to open up task manager, click on the performance tab, and watch the clock speed of your processor go up and down.

 

no they are referring to speed shift, which is a specific to Skylake feature that needs to be enabled from BIOS. Its a new method of ramping up the CPU.

currently the BIOS doesnt have this setting, so its not available to us.

 

Correct.

Ramping up is normally an OS task, since Skylake the CPU can performe this task. Much better and quicker than the OS can. The latest build of W10 is able to support the SST feature.
It should result in performance gains, varying from a few % to uo to 50% in some scenario's.

http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/1/9238379/intel-skylake-launch-ifa-2015-kirk-skaugen-interview
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2490551,00.asp
http://www.anandtech.com/show/9751/examining-intel-skylake-speed-shift-more-responsive-processors (best article)

 

Hello!

I'm a new here and would appreciate if anyone would help a bit.
I was originally having the 1TB + 32 GB SSD model. I then put in a Samsung 256 GB 950 pro SSD in the M2 slot replacing the 32 GB SSD.
The system wasn't allowing me to reinstall the OS into the SSD after I changed the boot sequence and tried installing through a bootable USB drive (although the drive is detected). I'm getting message, 'Please ensure that the disk controller is enabled in computer BIOS menu'. Also, to be safe, I haven't changed the Raid setting in BIOS.
Do I have to remove the HDD for solving this issue? I read some cases where this solved the issue although I'm not sure.

Also, is transferring the OS to the 256 GB SSD best was to configure the machine?
For the time being, what I've done is I've used a portion of the 256 SSD as cache for the 1 TB HDD and kept the remaining unused for manually installing any software there.
Did some bench marking tests for the HDD and SSD separately and I was getting read/ write as expected (2283/946 MB/s for the SSD). Also, the cache seemed to have improved the read performance of the HDD as I'm getting around 1500 Mb/s. The boot up time is also quite good. Was wondering if its best to leave in this configuration rather than installing the OS again in the SSD?

 

If you need to install in RAID mode, you have to load driver manually to Windows installation. Switch to AHCI if you don't want.

 

Which driver for RAID mode are we talking here?

 

Intel RST - f6flpy-x64.zip

 

Tried loading that driver but Windows 10 installer still couldn't find my SSD unless I switch back to AHCI?

 

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I think that driver is supposed for AHCI.

 

iaStorAC.inf is for RAID and iaAHCIC.inf is for AHCI. Both are in the Intel(R) Rapid Storage Technology Driver.

 

Thanks!

Verstuurd vanaf mijn SM-N910C met Tapatalk

 

Thanks. Actually I had tried loading the the RST driver during installation. In UEFI mode, despite loading the driver, I wasn't able to see the M2 SSD. In Legacy boot though, it was seen after loading driver.
But still it wasn't allowing me to install the OS onto it. Was getting an error 0x80300024.
If removing the HDD, then installing OS on SSD and then connecting back HDD is the solution, then I'm thinking to leave the OS on HDD as before with the M2 SSD for cache and storage. The cache has also improved the performance of the HDD.

 

these work for me (14.7 x64) First RST(e) v14.7 Series drivers:
I am about to install 14.8.x
>64bit Intel RST(e) AHCI/RAID Drivers v14.8.0.1042 WHQL<

link http://www.win-raid.com/t2f23-Intel-RST-RSTe-Drivers-newest-v-WHQL-v-WHQL.html

Confirmed on 14.8 now

 

Hi all,

My machine has been experiencing the "cannot recover from hibernate" problem for weeks. It showed error code 0xC0000411 in the event viewer. Has anybody encountered with this issue?
And when I run powercfg /energy, it says that the Realtek HD Audio Driver is preventing the system from entering sleep automatically.

 

Sorry for duplicated posts

 

Hi all,

Just received my new machine few days ago, had a tough time with it. The machine is unresponsive whenever I watch a video on youtube and I have no other choice but to do force shutdown. I updated Bios and Video Drivers from dell but to no avail. I am not sure what is the problem with my machine and can't find a fix online. Hope somebody here could help. Thank you.

 

I recently had a problem where the Realtek driver was preventing the machine going into sleep; I ran the powercfg /requests command to see what process or driver was preventing the system from sleeping; what I saw was a message saying that the Realtek High Definition Audio was reporting "An audio stream is currently in use" (this may be related to activating Cortana on Windows 10 but I am not sure). I solved this issue by issuing another command like this:
"powercfg /REQUESTSOVERRIDE DRIVER Realtek High Definition Audio SYSTEM"
Hopefully that may help solve your issue.

 

Thanks, I tried that command and it still says it's preventing the system from sleeping automatically. I found that it's related to "Hi Cortana". If I turn that feature off and run the command again it works.

Well that can be ignored compared to the hibernate problem. But thanks again!

 

This is interesting: http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/p/19659947/20862614#20862614

 

I have Precision 5510, and there doesn't seem to be as active a community around that model, and I have found a lot of helpful information in this thread. So I'm posting here because our computers are almost identical.

I was having BSOD issues related to my 512 Samsung NVMe card. After diags flagged drive, dell replacing drive, diags still failing, then Jan BIOS update, drive NOT failing diags, still BSOD, etc...

Over on this thread I find the Samsung NVMe driver suggestion. I do this, and it FIXES BSOD. YES.

But just as many here report, the computer will now not reboot - I get a "drive not found" error in the bios, then it shuts down. HOWEVER, if I do a cold boot, it boots up fine.

This would be a small inconvenience.... but unfortunately I've also found out that my computer CANNOT RESUME FROM SLEEP. If I enter sleep mode, either through closing lid or tapping power button, upon resume it just hangs on black screen for a while, then initiates a new boot. THIS is a deal-breaker for me because it means I have to close out of everything I do everytime I want to move. Obviously not okay.

Dell tells me that this is *clearly* a sign that my motherboard needs to be replaced. But due to the mis-identification of the past issues, as well as the current reboot problem, my guess is that this is NOT a motherboard issue and in fact an issue with the system BIOS not being able to handle the NVMe drive upon waking.

Anyone else have this experience with Sleep resume bug? Any suggestions?

 

1st thing I did was a full reinstall, latest drivers and not a single issue.
Search my posts for a custom ISO of home or pro, never had that issue nor a BSOD.

 

Hello,

first of all. thanks for this post. It's good to be not alone with all these problems.

I ordered the full XPS 15 9550 4k with 1TB NVMw PM951 SSD.

This is how my problems started:

- Windows 10 HOME installed (on a 2.800 EUR Laptop... nice one DELL..)
Tried to reinstall 10 pro with 8.1 pro license but could not activate. Microsoft told me the key was bound to my old laptop and i have to install windows 8.1 first and activate to get my hardware registered.
Reinstalled Windows 8.1, but no WIFI available, so I installed Windows 8.1. driver from the US website for WIFI (A00 Version than the windows 10 one, but much important it also contains a bluetooth driver!).
Wifi available and i could activate Windows 8.1 and reboot to install Windows 10 Pro.
After installation, no WIFI was available. So i downloaded the Win 10 x64 driver A02 and installed... Bluescreen
Reboot again, now a boot loop as the driver was loaded on windows start and the bluescreen came with every boot.
After that i went into windows recovery and restored the previous state.
Did that 2 times until i called DELL Support, and he said i should install the previous driver A01.
Installed the A01 but the system crashed and showed the Firmware update screen with "Firmware update failed!"
The system booted then successfully but no wifi was availble.

I checked the dell website and saw that on 06. January a new BIOS was released.
After installing the latest bios (took 10 minutes), the system booted again and i could install wifi driver A03 and i could use wifi again.
I also installed the latest Bluetooth package again to make sure that the latest BT Firmware is installed.
After that I tried to connect my Bluetooth mouse, it was connected but it wasn't moving. the mouse (Logitech M557) still was blinking ready to connect.
I played around and changed the Dell Bluetooth driver to the Generic Bluetooth Driver and the mouse was connecting and woking properly.
Then I reinstalled the Dell Bluetooth Package and the Mouse was still working.

After maybe 10 crashes with "critical process died" my mouse was not working anymore showing the LE Enumerator in the Device Manager with a yellow exlamation mark "DEVICE_POWER_FAILURE".
I rebooted two or 3 times until the mouse worked back again.

List of issues:
- WIFI slows down to 11KB/s while connected to full N WIFI. This lasts for 10 minutes until it workes again
- Bluetooth issues (Headset bad connection (tried the collaboration fix with wifi) , Mouse sporadically not working but showing as connected in Bluetooth
- Random freezes with "critical process died" -> Installed Samsung NVMe driver (fingers are crossed)
- Reboot not working (Hangs at black screen after DELL Logo)
- Power on sometimes cycles two or three times until finally DELL Logo comes on
- Dell Diagnostics expects physical moving HDD not a SSD and fails with some tests
- Disturbing Blue-White box / retangle appeared when moving windows. Turned out that this was the "Display Splitter" functionallity of Dell Premier Color (FIXED)

Thanks,

André

BTW: I also managed to install latest Ubuntu on it with using nouveau.modeset=0 and changed some settings for the touchpad.

 

Happened to me as well. Reason are the stupid Dell tools that download a firmware update invisibly in the background and queue it for installation at the next reboot. If that reboot is caused by an Windows update process or others then the update will fail and bad things follow. Solution: delete all the Dell crap. Update manually.

 

latest BIOS from the start, no BSODs so far, hooray.

i do have the reboot/stop at DELL logo screen. i'm thinking it must be a BIOS-correctable issue ... how it could be a driver issue once we are out of Windows?

on last boot/restart, got one of those "hard drive not found" messages. ran diagnostic, everything is fine. go figure.

one thing i just noticed, and am going to try:

"Dell recommends that you install the drivers in this order: Application, Drivers, Firmware and BIOS. If drivers are installed out of order, they may fail on installation and/or your device might not work correctly."

going to do a clean install following their suggestion, see what happens. as long as nothing is broken, and i have no BSOD, that's all that matters. already spent a day trying to set this thing up while i work ... falling behind sched!

 

Dell has the order wrong imo. backwards.

 

Yes, it doesn't make sense in the order DELL recommends. BIOS ---> Firmware ---> Drivers ----> Applications is the right order. Anything else is surely wrong.

 

dbl post

---------

ah, actually while i have this post space, just to add some notes on the physical, now that i've had it for a while, before doing a clean install:

1. no coil whine
2. what's wrong the speakers? they sound great to me, no crackling at all at louder volumes. not as "beefy" as the the sound from my MSI, but then again the 9550 has no subwoofer.
3. build quality is great, no sharp edges where the aluminum meets
4. trackpad is about 300x better than any other Windows one i've ever used -- and by that i mean it's actually useable
5. spacebar: don't know what i was supposed to be looking out for, but the keyboard has been fine, all the time.

i guess in other words: i have not noticed any hardware issues

 

re: Dell's recommended installation order

it seemed a$$-backwards to me too, but something happened that made me think otherwise. or at least give it a shot.

i updated the BIOS before my first clean install. no issues. once i got to desktop, i updated the Touch FW --

http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/Drivers/DriversDetails?driverId=09P0C

-- which went fine. then followed up with the Thunderbolt 3 FW, again thinking "of course, FW first", here:

http://www.dell.com/support/home/us...-15-9550-laptop&languageCode=EN&categoryId=CS

about a 1/4 of the way through, the installer stopped and told me i that i did not have Thunderbird 3 on my system.

on a hunch (and because there was nothing else to do, really), installed Thunderbolt 3 drivers FIRST. that went off without a hitch. and when i tried the TB3 FW again, it installed fine.

anyhow, i'll give Dell's method a shot, and report back. not using RAID, so i'm not going to install the Intel RST package, but will go with the Samsung NVMe driver.

 

I've been wondering that too because no matter what drivers I installed the problem still persist. Even on safe boot the bug is still there

There's a greater chance its the BIOS because when I do reboot then go to BIOS setup before it tries to boot the system the BIOS really lags before it gets into settings window.


Please report back when done. I would like to know the outcome as I did the same as still have the reboot bug on AHCI mode but not on RAID mode.

 

1. I too don't hear any coil whine
2. Agreed
3. Have you checked the sides of your laptop? I didn't know I got this issue as well until I did the repaste
4. Totally right. Its almost like I'm on rMBP

 

Can I ask why you installed the Touch FW? Do you have that FW listed under your tag number on Dell site?

 

ah yes, good question! the answer is YES and NO.

i ordered my 9550 from Dell Canada., so i use the Dell.ca site.

not sure how (i`m guessing cookies?), but my tag number also got loaded into Dell.com, the US site, where all the Dell bloatware, a different set wireless drivers (which was curious, but i didn't use), and the Touch FW was available.

at the time, i didn't realize i wasn't on the Canadian site. it wasn't until after i installed the Touch FW that i realized what i had done. firmware seemed to take fine, didn't notice any difference.

but now the "bigger question": are 9550s for the USA and Canada different builds (and hence, different drivers?)? even though the service tag number seems to work on both?

 

doing my 2nd clean install right now, this time using Dell's procedure. for reference:

- i7/16/4K
- BIOS 01.01.15
- on ACHI
- SecureBoot off
- FunctionKeys set
- booting from USB
- diskpart > clean

1. after Windows has finished installing and is "finishing up", the 9550 reboots itself and goes to Windows' "Getting Ready" screen.

2. screen and keyboard go dark, system reboots itself again.

3. Dell logo screen comes up and guess what? system stalls. no moving dots, nothing. but just to be sure, i wait a few minutes before hitting the power button once to shut it down, and then again to reboot it.

4. system boots into Win10 setup.

this is before a single Dell or other driver is installed, and before a first boot into desktop. gotta be a BIOS issue

 

set up Windows how i like it, ran O&O ShutUp (twice, because of the sticky telemetry setting), restarted (twice). each time: stalls on DELL logo. have to press the power button again to boot into Windows.

again: no Dell or other drivers installed.
thinking: gotta be a BIOS issue

okay, gonna set up drivers using DELL's seemingly nonsensical ordering sequence next, starting with the Dell Premier Color app. of ALL the drivers and apps to install, Dell says this one first ...

 

an interesting development to share. note that i did not restart after each driver install (having to hit the start button twice to finish each time), instead only doing so when prompted by the installer. so far i've installed nine drivers, had to reboot four times, i think.

1. Dell Premier Color
- installed first, as "recommended". tried to run, nothing happened. app is installed successfully (so says the log), and it's there in the Start menu. doesn't show up when right-clicking the desktop.

2. BT, Serial IO, Wifi, Intel HD
- nothing to note

3. Intel HD Graphics 530
- after install and restart, noticed the screen got noticeably dimmer. still comfortable and useable, but dimmer. and now Dell Premier Color works. the default setting was sRGB, and adjusting for AdobeRGB and other settings changes the "tone" of the screen.

4. TB Controller, Realtek Audio, Intel HID
- nothing to note

5. nVidia GTX 960M drivers
- after install and restart, the screen is now back to original 100% brightness on the sRGB setting in Dell Premier Color. however, switching to AdobeRGB dims the screen to 17%.

don't know what this means, except it seems that between Intel and nVidia driver installations, the brightness of the screen changes; but the settings can be adjusted via Dell Premiere Color. fwiw: both my sRGB and AdobeRGB brightness is now at 100%

 

just to follow up:

installed the rest of the drivers, with the exception of Intel RST. using only the Samsung NVMe driver. Windows Device Manager shows no exceptions, as expected.

once connected to my network, Windows automatically updated and activated, and -- holy hell, Microsoft! -- installed Candy Crush and Twitter, which i promptly uninstalled.

installed Kaspersky, and going to my work apps installed, and then get this bad boy hooked up to my 34" Ultrawide monitor and get cooking. if any BSOD or OSOD pop up, will report back. but so far -- and mind you, it's only been half an hour or so -- using Dell's installation order hasn't caused anything out of the ordinary.

anyhow, the gist of these posts: the reboot issue is NOT a SSD or related driver issue, as it happened before i even got first boot in Windows, and continued throughout my install process. hope/expect that Dell will fix this in an upcoming BIOS update, but until then, double press to restart is going to be a fact of life.

also, during this installation and all the reboots, not once did i get a "drive not found" error.