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

I am currently looking at old post now, but if you have time to answer that be great. Do I uninstall the drivers I have now before doing this? No right? Just install them from the link after switching to ACHI in safe mode. Correct me if I am wrong. I am doing this now.

 

I just switched from RAID to ACHI via safe mode successfully. I tried installing from link and I get this message. Everything seems to be working fine for now though. Will I have any problems if I don't install from the link you provided? I already have a Samsung Nvme installed as I mentioned before. As long as I don't get and watchdog crashes I am good. Thanks!

 

open device manager, expand the "disk drive" and "storage controller" section and post a screenshot.

 

Never mind, I think everything is cool.

 

Toshiba XG3 firmware posted on the Dell driver page yesterday - for all XG3 (not the new batch that people have been getting) - Fixed issue encountered in some system where drive is unable to detect after dirty power down.
Link

 

3 years on and Dell wont replace with an upgraded system (again) I guess after 7 or 8 swaps starting with the 9530 and being upgraded to the 9550 they have had enough. My original purchase date was the end of Jan 2014 but I argued the toss with the 3 year warranty and made them change the start date to June 2014 as that was the day I finally got a fully working system. Just waiting for them to confirm it will be a full refund.

 

Share link please. I see nothing on Dell Driver page.

 

Click the word "Link" in the previous post I made about it

IIRC don't you have the XG4? you will know if you had to force the driver, I get confused as so many people on here

anyway the firmware will only install on the 3 XG3 drives listed so you can't cause any harm.

 

Here I thought I was the one who gave Dell a hard time with so many purchases and returns. What are you trying to get now? The 2019 Dell XPS? The 9750 Model that also converts into a boat and jet pack? I am sort of happy with my Dell XPS. Primarily because I got it for like $800-$900 straight from Dell after so many coupons, discounts, price matching, etc. That and because it is super user accessible and upgradable. Only thing I would love to see Dell change in the future with this machine is 1. improve the typing experience. It is honestly not the best. Key travel is too short for a device this big. 2. Center the god damn web camera. If those two things would have been golden from the get go I would have loved my almost free machine even more.
.........
And yeah, I guess I do have the Toshiba. Thanks again @GoNz0 for your valuable input. I remember bombarding this forum with silly questions even before my purchase but you and others have made my life a little better. I am sure others are grateful too.

 

I have a Dell XPS 15" 9550 maxed out with the Toshiba 1TB NVMe SSD.

There seems to be a performance error, maybe related to the latest intel rapid storage driver.
Or to the harddrive firmware or driver..

I get really slow write speeds when I run the "AS SSD Benchmark".
If I disable the "write-cache buffer flushing policy", it somewhat performs a whole lot better (even though not optimal).

HD model: THNSN51T02DU7 NV (Toshiba XG3)
This is what the spec should be:
Sequential Read (Max.): 2400 MiB/s［7］{2516 MB/s}
Sequential Write (Max.): 1500 MiB/s {1572 MB/s}

My Current configuration:
BIOS: 1.2.18 (01.12.2016)
BIOS HD mode: RAID
Intel Rapid Storage driver: 15.2.2.1030
Firmware version of disk: 57DA4103
All the latest driver updates from update tool and dell page.
And Windows 10 is also up to date.

Result with the write-cache policy:
Read and Write speeds:
Seq = 1637,56MB/s | 50,72 MB/s
4K = 17,61 MB/s | 1,69 MB/s
4K-64Thrd = 108,60 MB/s | 1.92 MB/s
Acc.time = 0,075 ms | 2,340 ms
Score = 290 | 9
Total = 373

Results without the write-cache policy:
Seq = 2162,72 MB/s | 1134,94 MB/s
4K = 34,65 MB/s | 106,19 MB/s
4K-64Thrd = 620,71 MB/s | 715,52 MB/s
Acc.time = 0,090 ms | 0,041 ms
Score = 872 | 935
Total points = 2209

Any help on this would be greatly appresiated!

 

AS SSD has a bug, use crystal disk mark or the OCZ SSD Utility

Also you should swap to AHCI mode and install the toshiba NVMe driver. Raid mode on this laptops for the cache drive and you don't have that, Dell are lazy and install a single image.

Search posts from me and you will find all the info, I repeat it so often it will pop up in the 1st hundred posts of mine!

 

I tried setting to AHCI mode, I got a bluescreen saying: "INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE".

Had to set it back to raid, guess I need to do something before I can do that?

Where can I find the toshiba drivers and/or firmware?

 

Start reading, the search functions really useful. http://forum.notebookreview.com/members/gonz0.606341/#postings

As for AHCI google how to "switch from raid to AHCI on windows 10."

Everything you need is in this thread.

 

Thanks for the help!

After I changed to AHCI, the drive was shown by OCZ software, says I had the latest firmware.
Now I installed the driver file and rebooted, going to do a test of the disk now to see performance changes.

Just got the laptop this friday, is there other issues I should address?

 

Any new member who comes in and starts asking questions should take a couple of hours to read through the thread as you will find everything you need rather than asking members to repeat themselves

You also have the owners lounge http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/dell-xps-15-skylake-9550-owners-lounge.783377/

Other useful threads can be found in this XPS subsection of the NBR forum. Happy reading.

 

Poor @GoNz0 How many people have you helped before? This guy sounds just like me. OP, at least spend some time readig through the forum. Don't make the same mistake I made before. Get into Safe mode first before switching over to AHCI. This should solve your issue. Avoid using RAID mode when only using one SSD or even two if it you aren't doing a cache set up. in lament terms, as dear Gonzo already mentioned. Peace.

 

Yes

 

Yeah you're good to go as a tech support engineer

 

In my defense, all the answers are in this thread!

 

XPS 15 9550 1.2.19 BIOS
Fixes & Enhancements
1.Fixed Pre-OS has no display on external monitor with Lid Close issue
https://downloads.dell.com/FOLDER04109999M/1/XPS_9550_1.2.19.exe

 

Nice to see dell still putting out bios updates for this machine.

 

They could keep coming for a while as this notebook is basically the same as the Precision 5510 and business users expect to see long term support.

John

 

Did anyone test the new Samsung NVMe driver (ver. 2.1) with the classic PM951 SSD drive? After several days using it I noticed visibly improved battery time but unfortunately the system had frequent hangs (mostly during resume or restart phases) and had to be repowered to start again... So I reverted back to ver. 1.1.

 

Yeah I finally dumped 2.1 on my 950 pro because of system hangs. 2.0 works fine for me though.

 

Must be chipset related, I installed it on my Asus PC and the 10 minutes I used it I didn't notice anything.

 

it took a day or so for me to notice it the first time, but it locked up while taking notes in one note. After the second time I erased it and haven't had a problem since.

 

I can confirm the same for me. Something within Samsung NVMe Driver 2.1 randomly made OS hanged and unresponsive at all.

P.S.: Samsung, if you read this go and fix it!

 

Thanks. I was worried that Samsung did something in the driver to break compatibility with OEM drives and only work with retail ones. Now I still hope they'll fix the issue and give great battery life AND no hangs.

 

Is the 2.0 available somewhere? I can only seem to find 2.1 at Samsung. I have updated it hoping to fix sleep issues, but now I'm not sure if things may actually be worse.
I've got the 1.1, this one okay for the 950 Pro?

 

I'm running the 960 Pro 1TB with 2.1 and have no problems - yet. No System hang or similar issues.

 

I had to do some digging to find an older version
here is where I got it:
https://onedrive.live.com/?id=5014229B9E752333!30939&cid=5014229B9E752333

 

Gonz, I managed to snag a 512 GB XG3 and tried to follow your link to the firmware update, but apparently its been deleted. Do you have anything new on it? Drivers?

 

I had posted a onedrive link from my personal stash but here is another https://1drv.ms/u/s!ArTAP9qwiGB0hPUdG0_HpCh1QdPeXQ

 

Okay, got it and I finally found the old post for the drivers which included, duh, the link for the firmware update as well. So, I am gathering together all I'll need to do a clearn, bloatware install----thanks again to you Gonz and the other pros for their help----and I realized that there is one thing I don't understand. I don't know if I've missed something, misunderstand, or am just to thick, but if the firmware update for the XG3 is to resovle a situation with some machines not recognizing the drive, how would I do the firmware update?

 

The issue is a chance it isn't detected when it reboots after a dirty shutdown, or a BSOD as most of us know it by. The driver is to stop the various BSOD.


Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

 

Ok, I missed that somehow. Now I'm up to speed for the moment. Thanks again.

 

Okay, well that didn't work. I created the boot disk alright and it booted the machine fine. The problem is that my machine did not find the XG3. I had the drivers on the USB stick that Gonz had posted for the XG3, but Windows didn't find them until I unchecked the box that said 'hide software that is not compatible with the system'. Even when I selected the Toshiba\OCZ drivers, Windows didn't find the new XG3. Finally, I disconnected and reseated it. Still, no joy.

So unless anyone can point out what I did wrong or missing doing, I am stuck wondering if I received a bad drive. Any advice would humbly be appreciated.

 

Are you taking about booting to do a fresh install as those drivers are for a completed install as they replace the storage controller. Chance is my ISO wont cut it without help as the raid drivers were made before the XG4 came out.
To allow the windows installer to see the SSD I would try the latest Raid/AHCI drivers here https://mega.nz/#!Zd9BHCxB!MFUitQiKyj8xu63bO9Tzt-Rkz711LcV3SqjNbGug7jo

You can throw them onto my ISO when it is on the USB, just create a folder you will recognise "RAIDdrievrz" or something and unzip the files into the folder you created then when windows says it can't find a drive and asks for driver point it there and click the one with AHCI as part of the name

 

Great. Thanks for the tip. I'll give it another try.

 

Does the BIOS see the drive?

 

The new drivers worked well but the problem turned out to be that having had a senior moment, I had forgotten to reset my BIOS to AHCI. Duh! Thanks again.

 

Swap over by going into safe mode before you do the BIOS change to avoid the BSOD

 

I did remember to that however, on our other 9550 I switched over to AHCI via safe mode having never gotten around to it and after only an hour we got our first BSOD ever. Not sure why.

 

Did you replace the storage driver with the one to match the SSD, did you note the BSOD, did it create a dump (installing whocrashed will let you know if it did and what it was)

 

I tried to replace the storage driver with the one you provided, but the installation program said that it didn't match my XG3. I tried a manual install, but windows wouldn't take it. So then, I installed the OCZ utility which showed that both the driver and firmware are up to date. I only had the one BSOD and none since, so maybe it was just a hiccup. Here is the first benchmark:

 

Here is the Crystal Diskmark results.

 

Decent speeds. So under storage controllers do you still have the microsoft nvme controller or does it say XG3

You can force it to update it.

 

The machine does feel marginally snappier. The storage controller now shoes 'XG3'. Thanks again. When you say, force it to update, I suppose you mean other than just trying to manually update. So, forgive my ignorance or lack of memory if you explained this before, you force it how?

 

You manually install it until you get the navigation box and point to the inf then when it says it isn't suitable you click install anyway

 

I my case, I get as far as the folder where the .inf file is and then when I hit next, it tries to install. stops, and then tells me I already have the latest driver. It doesn't allow me to specify the .inf file in the folder nor does any warning come up that the driver is unsuitable. What's strange is that the OCZ SSD Utility is showing driver version 1.2.126.843 installed which matches what I downloaded from your link. However, in Device Manager, it still lists the driver as 10.0.14393.0 dated 6/21/2006. BTW, the firware update failed with a message that it doesn't match my device and if I try it I'll be sorry!