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

updated bios to 1.1.19 a couple of days ago.

just experienced my first CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED during typical workflow/apps, never had one with 1.1.15. screen froze, although mouse could still move. BSOD said it was gathering info, but got stuck at 0%

1.1.19 fixed a bunch of stuff, including the restart issue. but maybe introduced something else? just say'n.

edit: so, i just dug through Event Viewer.

message:
The driver \Driver\WUDFRd failed to load for the device ACPI\INT3400\2&daba3ff&0.

EventData:
DriverNameLength 24
DriverName ACPI\INT3400\2&daba3ff&0
Status 3221226341
FailureNameLength 14
FailureName \Driver\WUDFRd
Version 0

not sure what this means. isn't "WUDFRd" related to USB-drivers? but isn't "ACPI" pointing at power management?

i'll do some more digging -- but anyone else have this same message in Event Viewer?

edit #2: screw it.
got another BSOD. that's two in one day, and this is a production box. it's probably some Intel HW, but i don't have time to troubleshoot. rolled back the BIOS to 1.1.15 ... so i can't restart anymore, but no biggie, will just wait until the next revision after 1.1.19

 

I bought the configuration with one M2 SSD 32Go + one HDD 1To
I replaced the M2 SSD with SM951 512Go and HDD by old SSD 840EVO 1To
On AHCI in the bios and even with old bios version never had BSOD, my XPS is working perfect

Below the Crystalmark bench, the SM951 cannot give 8Gb/s as the XPS PCI bus cannot make it. May be on future XPS 9750!!!

 

Yeah same thing here. But today a changed to RAID and haven't experienced a BSOD yet

 

Why your 4K Q32 are half of the ones that I have on my Pm951 1Tb??

 

Do not know, I have two partitions on my M2 SSD, may be the cause

 

Are you using any power saving feature like power options or dell command power manager? If you are just select the normal settings

 

No feature, just normal options

 

I always wondered what these Dell tools offer (strangly, not all of them were installed on my XPS 15 when I got it)? Are there some screenshots out there? Is that power manager useful? I do not want to install garbage in my system, atm it is Dell free.

 

I like Dell Command Power Manager its pretty cool. I let me choose how the fans will work, and you can configure setting to prolong your battery health

Here is my speed test:

sorry for the ginormous pic! How do I make it smaller?

 

What about the other tools? Are they useful? Any recommendations?

 

Well using power options- power saver, give you a better battery life at the cost of some performance and battery saver i really dont know what it does hahahaha

 

Is this the drive that ships with the 1tb 9550?

 

Yes! The stock one! Why?

 

Interesting result. Thanks for sharing.

EDIT: Noticed your 4K write is low. Are you on Samsung 950 Pro driver?

 

I think that SSD included in XPS 9550 is fast enough to have a good performance. I don't understand why all waste their money in this way.
With all changes You made, it's quite normal that system got some errors.

 

Funny story *sigh* I had my 9530 replaced with the 512gb 16gb 9550 after 18 months due to the amount of replacements + service calls.
As it stands I now have 3 9550 512gb models sat here, 1 win 10 home and 2 win 10 pro's as I *****ed that I had upgraded my original system to pro.

All 3 have screen defects, the pro machines have identical marks under the glass due to a manufacturing fault.

Dell decided today that they have had enough of me and wanted to issue a full refund (after 18 months!)

I *****ed that it was unacceptable as they delivered faulty machines so customer resolutions agreed to a final replacement, I being cheeky asked if they would supply the BNX5516 & they agreed.

I have the 950 pro sat in this one and the pm951 512gb in my games rig but I may as well stick the 950 pro in the games rig and leave the 1tb in the next 9550 that is coming my way as it is fast enough!

 

That sucks! Well at least you are getting the top model now ! My SSD is pretty fast, the only problem is I'm getting BSOD on AHCI and I didn't knew power options affected 4K speeds. When using power saving settings my 4K speeds drop to half of what it was before

 

You got a replacement model that had the same exact identical marks under the glass in the same exact place? You sure they didn't just give you the same display back with new internals?

 

They are replacing my 9550 pro.. the tech that came to dismember my 9550 did just that. When the tech put the machine back together the power button became squishy like there was no resistance. He also bent the heat sinks on the processors and gpu and tightened all screws too tight. He ended up rounding a few screws with his drill.....last but not least my back cover did not fit well, the bottom edge was really rough, where I pointed out to him the sides are flush.

I called the case manager and literally *****ed.. they asked me to give them time to make it right.

 

They use contractors who don't bother with disassembly manuals, they are also paid per job not per hour so it's always done in a rush. And he used an electric screwdriver?

No, I have both sat here...

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

 

@pubbypaws if I'm not aware of Dell's ****ty technicians I wouldn't believe this has happened. It seems the tech didn't realize he's working on an electronics/laptop and not on a heavy equipment.

I couldn't think why or how Dell came up with the idea of hiring those clueless guys to do the repair. The rate they damage the parts will cost more than the amount they save on payroll.

 

Changing back to RAID seems to have fixed the BSOD!!! No more Critical Process died!

 

Well that's good news. I haven't had any BSODs or sleep/hibernate issues, but these machines are so picky...

 

Using the machine on raid with a sata m.2 drive .. Didn't change any settings in bios from defaults other than turned on smart monitoring ... I've had the machine for a few weeks and no blue screens at all

 

Hey guys I'm wondering if someone here that is using RAID Is still having the SSD speed slowed down after sleep?

 

FWIW, I don't get the "SSD Sleep bug - performance decrease after sleep" issue on my Dell XPS 13 9350. It has the PM951 (RAID) formerly on my Dell XPS 15 9550 which did exhibit the issue. I now use a Samsung 950 Pro 512GB in AHCI on my 9550. Seems perfectly stable with no out of sleep bug although I had to install Samsung 950 Pro drivers to fix "process died" BSODs.

 

Yeah exactly the problems that I'm having with mine. On AHCI I have the process died BSOD

 

I have an XPS 15 9550, UHD, i7, 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD (PM951).

After the latest BIOS update (01.01.19) I don't have any problems anymore when switching from RAID to AHCI mode. I did some speed tests. Although the differences are marginal, I seem to get the best performance in AHCI mode with the Samsung NMVe driver:


The older BIOS caused a hang on reboot when in AHCI mode. I did not have any BSOD as a result of switching from RAID/AHCI modes. I only had a BSOD caused by issues with the NVIDIA drivers (which was fixed in the latest update). Note that I did not install the Intel RST Driver or software (I understand that other had issues with this software).

I checked whether I have a decrease in performance after resuming from sleep, but that is not the case. In AHCI mode with the Samsung NVMe driver I get similar results after waking up from sleep:

 

The sleep bug only happenson RAID. On AHCI everything works perfectly, the only problem is the BSODs

 

Just wondering, do these problems usually show up in the first few days of purchase? Is XPS 15 known for having problems come up after a few months of usage?

 

Sad thing is, these aren't dell techs.. they're contractors.. the technician that came to repair my unit worked for team world wide tech services.

You guys would of cringed if you saw the way he dismembered this laptop.

 

If you use appropriate BIOS and driver settings, the problems are fixed. You just have to know them.

 

The BIOS is using the default settings and I'm using Dell provided drivers. I tried everything.

 

What about things like the motherboard and screen dying?

 

Could happen to any laptop. I do not have any particular quality concerns about the xps 15. For me, the investment has paid off. (Although you should make sure to read the full thread, but even then you might not discover all quirks... Anyways, this is something you have to figure out with any system (The normal user wont change a thing and therefore, will not run into issues).)

 

Man I wont argue with you, but you are obviously wrong. A bunch of people are having issue just out of the box, some are hardware related and some are not.

 

I know, the lack of training is shocking!

Yep, waiting for my 4th. Back when the 9530 was bought I had 4 systems sent out and ended up making 1 good one from the 3 I had waiting to return.

 

Is that on stock system or did you do clean install?

 

Probably lot of quality control issue with DELL.My XPS out of the box was crashing all the time.
I had to make a clean install

 

I've got a pretty serious problem. My system will only work with BIOS version 1.0.7. It absolutely will not work with any newer BIOS version. What happens is that soon after Windows is booted (i.e. reaches the login screen), the display will suddenly turn black. When this occurs is not always certain but it will always occur within 5-15 seconds.

The display hasn't disconnected or anything because the backlight is still clearly on as I can still see the tinting and backlight bleed.

This problem DOES NOT occur in BIOS version 1.0.7. Flashing a newer firmware, seeing the display crash, flashing 1.0.7 via DOS loaded on a USB drive, solves this problem so I am fairly certain that it is firmware related. What I don't know is what causes this problem and why it may occur. Resetting the BIOS does not solve this problem and I have tried many driver configurations.

1. OS version: Windows 10 Home.
2. Drives configuration: M.2 only 256gb stock drive.
3. BIOS version: 1.0.7
4. BIOS mode: RAID
5. Installed/not installed Samsung NVMe drivers: I don't think I have but I can't see why it would cause the issue.

 

You will read those messages about any laptop out there. I mean, about how many affected guys have you read in this forum (that really have a hardware fault)?
~10 vs. how many thousands of laptops nobody complains about...

 

I did a clean install of Win 10 Home.

 

That's strange. Did you do a clean Win 10 install and use the default Windows RAID controller driver? When do you get the BSODs: randomly or when performing specific tasks/using specific programs?

 

Hi How do you change / Go back to Raid from AHCI? I went into the BIOS menu and changed it but then the 9550 can´t start. I have to reset it to start again from AHCI.
Thanks in advance!

 

Did you OP your storage or partitioned?

 

You need to set Windows to boot in Safe Mode (e.g. using msconfig) before you change the BIOS setting. Then, after you changed the BIOS setting and rebooted into Windows (in safe mode), set the bootbmode to normal again.

 

What do you mean by 'OP'? Anyway, I deleted all existing partitions and created new ones during Windows setup.

 

I have the same freeze problem on my XPS 9550 (MS Signiture Edition - UHD • i7 • 960M • 16GB • 512GB-stock) after updating from BIOS 01.00.07 to 01.01.15. Fortunately the black screen freeze usually occurs 4-8 minutes after a restart so I have time to flash a different BIOS version.

What I learned is that on BIOS .15 if I reset to "BIOS Defaults" the freeze continues to occur but when I reset to "Factory Settings" the laptop is completely stable and is what I am running on now. BIOS .19, however, freezes regardless of how I reset it.

 

I'm just wondering why yours 33/396GiB only since we have the same PM951 512GB? Mine reads 41/476GiB...

 

Hi thanks for the prompt answer.

I tried to do that with F2 access but the computer fails to boot from there since it informs that there are no operative system installed to boot from.

I had some problems when I received the XPS last week as I wanted to do a fresh install of WIN 10 however I could not do that. I got stucked at the point where you will have to select where to install WIN 10 (Partitions window) None partitions where available, like they were hidden!

I called Dell Support and they told me to go into the BIOS menu (F2) and from disk management choose AHCI insted of RAID and yes that helped since I could now see the existing partitions and then do the format etc. So I installed an AHCI.

I might have done in the incorrect way. I don´t know.?

Best regards