Dell XPS 15 (Skylake) 9550 Owner's Lounge

I went to X-KOM cause they got them in stock.

 

Good to know WiFi drivers for 9550 are baked into W10 Version 1511.

Seems Microsoft "pulled" the direct 1511 ISO download from the Windows 10 download site - but using another potential non-Windows browser (or emulating with IE, F12 Developer Tools, Emulation, User agent string) makes it show up.

 

Weird, seems yours has a better battery, but i5 and the smaller HDD.

I've pretty much set on going with the 512GB SSD version instead of the 32GB SSD + 1TB HDD. Sounded messy and inconvenient to me!

 

Guys, I have this issue with my external monitor plugged in the HDMI port: it doesn't come back on when the laptop's screen comes back from sleep (the screen only, not the whole laptop). I have to unplug and replug it to work. I don't have this issue with my older XPS laptop. Any ideas? I have the latest drivers (i7 with Nvidia).

 

You may of already figured this out by now, but to get the Samsung NVMe drivers to install on the Dell XPS 9550 you have to go into bios and switch the Sata mode from Raid to AHCI. Once I did that, I had to boot into safe mode and I then installed the Samsung Nvme driver that's on their website. It's (near) impossible to use F8 to get into safe mode as there is only like a 100th of a second of time to press the key. So I would recommend you use an alternate method to boot into safe mode. Now my Device Manager Looks like the image below. I'm getting 2500 read 1500 write.

Even though you've selected AHCI in bios, it actually works as NVMe. If you haven't installed Windows 10 yet, make sure to change the sata mode to AHCI prior to installl, then you wont need to install the (un-needed and incorrect for our purposes) Intel RST drivers.

Samsung NVMe driver download: http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/minisite/SSD/global/html/support/downloads.html



Side note: I'm 2 months in to owning this laptop, and I am extremely happy with it. This is the laptop to own, no question. I have bought dozens of flagship laptops over the past 5 years and almost all of them were returned with the exception of the MBP Retina. Buying today, the MBP is too dated. They haven't changed the body in 3 years, it lacks Skylake, Thunderbolt 3, 4/5K, USB 3.1, etc. We are a matter of months from a MBP redesign, so well see what Apple releases here soon enough. A year or 2 from now we are all going to be very happy our laptop has TB3, as there are some exciting possibilities with it. Maybe I'll hook up a Nvidia Pascal dGPU to it, and use it as a gaming computer to stream 4K games via Nvidia Sheild to my 78" JS9500.

 

Having the same issue. It's random for me, but happens most of the time. FHD/i7/256G version. Have all latest driver updates from Dell. Intel HD Graphics 530 driver in Device Manager is 20.19.15.4331 dated 11/20/2015. May or may not be related, but I'm using ICC profiles generated by my X-Rite i1Display Pro for color correction on both laptop and monitor.

Would like to resolve this. My current workaround is to set display timeout higher (or leave on until laptop sleep timeout) and when it does happen force the entire laptop to sleep and then do a wake from sleep. Waking from Sleep always seems to turn it back on. The sleep workaround leaves apps on the monitor instead of them all springing back to the laptop display if the monitors HDMI cable is dis/reconnected.

 

Does any know if the SST (Speed shift technology) instruction in the Bios of the i7 model is activated? HWinfo64 says it is not. If so, that is a major performance flaw.

 

I will be importing this to India so I want to be sure if dell worked on the problem.

Sent from my SM-N9100 using Tapatalk

 

Nearly 2 months since I ordered the XDYGX cable it still hasn't arrived.

 

Did you download/install this by yourself or its the default driver on your system? I seem can't find this particular driver from Dell.com and Broadcom

 

Hi

I am looking to buy the 32Gb SSD + 1Tb HDD model although I am having some problems finding it. I have found one source and I am waiting to hear whether they will ship to my location.

I understand that, as provided, the computer boots from the HDD and uses the SSD as a cache. Am I right that, after upgrading the SSD to a larger m.2 one, I will be able to configure the BIOS to boot from the SSD and use the HDD as a data drive?

TIA

 

Same! No SST!
We need to bug Intel, because this feature is important for notebooks usage.

 

I did the same in November and they sent me some other part which I had to return and then they wouldn't let me reorder. Depends who you talk to, I guess. I'd be interested to know if you ever get it and if it is the correct part.

 

Noticed that as well when checking for new updates on Dell's site. It's either the original Bluetooth driver it shipped with or from a Windows Update. All its driver Events are dated 11/29 on my system, which is after Dell built it, but could be from one (of many) System Restores I did.

 

I've also got the model with 32gb cache ssd. I've replaced this with a Samsung 850 evo m2 ssd. I changed RAID to ACHI in the bios and booted from an thumb drive to install windows 10. Works perfect!

 

Thanks. Did you do a clean instal of Windows 10? I've just downloaded the ISO from Microsoft and, from the filename, it looks like update 1511 is already included. I have read the the W10 product key is stored in the BIOS so I assume you had no problems with doing a clean instal on the m2?

I've heard back that the retailer will ship to me in Panama. So, a little, unusually, it is better value for me to order from a UK dealer and have it shipped here than buy one from the US, which is rather closer. I'll be ordering mine tomorrow and hope to have it in about a week.

 

@norm2002

Just make sure you are buying the right one from UK. I've seen several vendors from UK selling the XPS 9550 with EU keyboard layout.

 

Did you factor in import duty (on the amount including shipping and insurance) & sales tax?

 

I checked with the dealer it is a UK model with a UK keyboard. It's an i7 with 16Gb RAM.

 

Yes, I know I will have to pay import duties in Panama. I have used http://www.dutycalculator.com/ to work out approximately what those will come to. It should be about 12% of the cost plus shipping and insurance plus whatever administration charges the courier will make. Should still be less than the 20% VAT I would have had to pay if I were still living in the UK! And as I will be paying in UK Pounds, as I still have a bank account there, I will benefit from the recent weakening of the Pound against the Dollar (Panama's currency is tied to the Dollar).

 

I was just able to update the BIOS to 01.01.15 using the update driver software option from the device manager.

So far, so good...

 

Just updated as well.

Seemed to update quite a bit of stuff. But no more throttling confirmed. Display still flickers at low brightness though on FHD.

 

Nice find, now I know w10 can update firmware so easily.

1.1.15 seem newer than notebookcheck review, here hoping it fix the NVME bug, though a quick glance, the battery life report dont seem any better.

Cpu now can reach higher than 2.6ghz on battery, was on 1.1.07 previously

 

Can anyone with clean install Windows 10 check if they still have the "Firmware - > System Firmware" on device manager?
I used to have that before I did the clean install

 

Yes I have that, just updated to 1.1.15 super easily. Clean installer here

 

DId you install any BIOS driver prior to the 01.01.15 after you did the clean install? I'm still puzzled as to how I lost that option because I haven't touched the system much after the clean install

EDIT: I would also like to know your Windows build version.. this might be the culprit.

 

So what's the final verdict on setting up a 950 Pro SSD? Should I set to AHCI or Raid and which drivers should I use?

Thanks in advance.

 

Double entry.. Sorry..

 

@jaisah
Can't comment directly on that because I'm still with stock SSD. Going from standard driver to Samsung 950 NVMe driver (on PM951) I see the numbers went both ways. i.e., 4K read is a bit slower while 4K write is much faster (read: 42 -> 39, write: 140 -> 208)

One thing that puts me away from the said driver is the reboot issue when using it with stock SSD

 

Nice find, thanks for the update.

I noticed 4 firmware update:
1) system bios update (I think that was the text, since I started writing things down after I noticed their were 4 updates);
2) Intel ME firmware update;
3) Main TI PC 0
4) EC Bios

Anyone knows what 1..4 means??

I can confirm speedcapping issue is gone (i7, 4k, 1tb ssd, 16gb).
processor SST is (still) not available.
TPM still disabled.

Geekbench gives same results running on battery and AC, both ways peaks multicore at 3,3 Ghz and 3,5 Ghz singlecore.

Crystaldiskmark score (PM951, AHCI, Samsung NVMe drivers, software bitlocker) are same as before fw update:

 

I did a clean install using the windows media creation tool. This creates an usb of which you can boot. The serial is indeed stored in your bios, so no need for activation.

 

2 things I noticed with 1.1.15 bios
Fclk is now set to 1000mhz from 800mhz. Ya! This helps abit on the igpu performance.

Battery status now show 12h 35min remaining at 96%...could it be the promised battery life fix? Or just w10 silliness

Now we just need sst to be enabled. I searched the bios, no such options yet

 

Can you check real battery life with normal usage?

 

Probably needs a couple of charge/discharge cycles to get a better battery stat.

 

I just updated as well and the battery was initially showing at 10h 12min. Now it's at 5h 45min with 91% remaining with battery saver on.

 

Glad Dell is starting off 2016 with a nice little support update here to fix a few of the bigger issues.

 

Notebook review has posted that Dell advised Beta testers not to install 1.1.15 update as it does not resolve the NVME power save, and also has some bugs.

I did install the update via device manager and I can say there are issues with this Bios update.

First.
Windows is no longer activated, not sure how that happenedm
My office 365 also has lost activation
under task manager > startup > bios startup time shows some crazy numbers 1911 seconds this boot, and I see one that showed 244 seconds before. It should be around 2.1-3 seconds at most.

I'm going to step back down to 1.0.7 and see if this change is properly activating my windows back to normal.

 

Yap, i noticed that drop after i ran some more stressful tasks that clocks the CPU to 3.1~3.5ghz, but once i returned back to more idle use such as viewing a webpage, the battery report jumps back to 10hrs+.

I guess the only confirmation is to run our idle tasks till the battery dies, and see if there is any improvement. Hopefully notebookcheck can do a followup tests with the new bios.

 

Then why make it available? Gaah. I thought this was the fixed version.

Interesting that it is flashing multiple items.

 

My stuffs are still fully activated, no issues as yet. Where did u see the warning about 1.1.15?

With so many forums posts each with their unique set of bug, it seem like Dell is building XPS15 at many different places globally, each with their missing QC checks

 

After updating to new BIOS .15 -- Windows 10 is still authenticated, and even when on battery (after a reboot), I'm getting the full HD speed (stock 256 SSD). System is still reporting short battery life, so that hasn't changed. :-/ Soooo... seems like an improvement, but now I'm nervous about whether there are unknown bugs present. Just great.

 

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Dell-X...HD-InfinityEdge-Notebook-Review.156462.0.html
This is the only info I read on the "bad" BIOS versions, and it refers to .13 and .14. Does anyone have a reference for version .15? I can't find anything on my web searches....

 

Sorry to hear .15 (or something else?) does not work well for you.
I do not have these problems with the last update. Btw: Dell advised Notebookreview over the .13 and .14 versions. I don't remember .15 is mentioned.

 

Where did you see this? I've seen no references to anything but beta, pre-releases, that were still being tested (like versions .13, .14). Could you post a link to what you're referring to?

 

I've updated to 1.1.15 and so far so good. I actually didn't have any real problems before, and I don't have any problems now.

Are you sure that the crazy numbers are not just artifacts from the flash itself? My bios time says 10 seconds, which is far from 2 seconds, but definitely not 1911. Note that I don't have any idea what my bios time was before the flash. I've got the i7/512/FHD/16GB version

 

Sooo... does it make sense to buy an SD card or USB drive to augment the memory (say, for longer-term storage)? Thinking maybe stuff like iTunes downloads a lot of stuff, and it might be better to offload. I've done this with another computer. Not sure if I want to constantly take up a slot, tho. Decisions, decisions...

 

I've seen people giving advise against it since USB drive/SD card aren't designed for that type of use. Unless you are ready to lose the files from those when if breaks down.

 

Not sure how the activation disabled. I did image restore from full backup i had created 2 days prior to this update and now windows is activated on bios 1.1.15.
Not sure what went wrong.

I'll try to find the link I read about 1.1.15 not being complete, or maybe it was 1.1.14 that I saw and somehow thought of 1.1.15.

Everything works, but SST is still disabled (Bummer as it is important Skylake Feature).
Hopefully all NVMe protocol updates are in place in this bios to take advantage of lower voltages during idle.

 

I've updated to 1,1,15. MS Signature edition, no problems with activation. High BIOS startup time is an artifact of the update, just shut down the laptop and you'll see updated numbers. I'll check AC later, but it goes all the way up to 3.3Ghz on battery.

 

Already tried twice (ac-dc-ac) and no problem. So glad they released this fix early. And yes, CPU is hitting around 3400MHz! I'm liking my XPS more