Dell XPS 15 (Skylake) 9550 Owner's Lounge

the long bios time iirc is a bug with fast startup and can be ignored.

 

Just tried with AC..Yep, t's finally resolved

 

That's too bad-- Amazon has a deal-of-the-day on 'em.

Oh, and the computer is now reporting that I have over 9 hours left on battery. 9! It has not done that before. We'll have to see if that's real, but I had it on for a while, and it seemed to use less battery.

 

I don't know what Dell did, but this BIOS update did increase battery life in idle scenarios (slow web browsing, monitor at 30%), I'm getting one extra hour, for sure.

 

Anyone getting stuck at Dell logo when doing a system restart after BIOS update (1.1.15)? Cold boot is fine though

 

Does anyone have a link to the 01.01.15 BIOS?

 

You can install it through windows device manager by clicking on firmware-> sytem firmware-> update

Sorry for the Dutch system

 

Dacht dat ik de enige NL was hier .....

 

Removed

 

Door je naam had ik zo'n vermoeden

 

I'm also interested in downloading the BIOS and install manually rather than the above suggestion. I tried twice with that method and both failed (prevents my system from rebooting but cold boot still fine.

 

Yes i just found out im affected by this bug!
On Windows restart, the laptop is unable to load into Windows. It will do the bios load thing but get stuck at the Dell logo.
If you hit F12 fast enough, it loads into the bios. Hence something must be messing up the NVME SSD on system restart.

 

I gave up on fixing that I've tried many different ways to see what's being affected that's preventing the OS to load on reboot, i.e,, safe boot, AHCI/RAID driver, Storage driver, display driver, etc.. I also tried fresh install and different drivers.. all for nothing


Anyone with PM951 that's not suffering with this bug?



On a side note, how do you bring up the advanced options during Windows 10 install? I'm had a hard time doing the system image restore. The windows is too small due to the 4K display and no other option available but "Install"

I'm spending more time tweaking/fixing the laptop than enjoying it

 

Hm, I'll try this later today. I was able to reboot from Windows with no problem right after I upgraded it

 

Just an update for anyone else who is thinking of changing wireless cards, my Intel 8260 wireless card finally arrived (exact model is Intel Wireless-AC8260 NGW) and it works perfectly. No more poor bluetooth performance as with the Dell/Broadcom 1830.

 

Double post

 

I know Skylake-Mobile is new platform, but it is ridiculous how incompetent Dell software team is. How can you hang up the laptop just by restarting? It is Windows restart, not something new.
I dont think Apple will commit such sins, heck i dont think Asus or Lenovo will be that incompetent. Frustration for such a 'lifestyle' laptop.

 

Here are some sins by Apple, iOS 9.2:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7264910?tstart=0

"Firstly when I'm on the music app it will randomly shut off for no reason at all. I can be listening to somethinng the gym and then the music will stop and I'll have to unlock my phone and hit play. Then when I'm off of wifi and have no data at all, when go to the music app and go to the my music section its just a blank white screen. Then when I'm texting and switching from app to app the keyboard will sometimes not be visible at all. I am getting and tired of this"

"Notification sounds randomly do not play, usually the first one of the session. Apps crash and close for no reason.
Siri opening sound has gone completely and google maps voice directions sometimes do not play. Also some apps are not working at all now."

"But after the 9.2 update my phone and the Apps on it have not been the same, I experience to or three crashes a day! "

https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/3wa5kg/ios_92_issue_with_mdm_managed_applications/

"There is a developing issue with iOS 9.2 and installing new managed applications that is affecting all MDMs. We are recommending customers advise existing users with managed devices not to upgrade to iOS 9.2 unless they are able to re-enroll their device."

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/ios-9-users-reporting-wi-fi-connectivity-problems-how-fix-them-1520656

http://www.gottabemobile.com/2015/12/21/ios-9-2-problems/
"iOS 9.2 problems include issues with personal hotspot, issues with the smart cover volume display, an odd keyboard bug, various iOS 9.2 installation problems, Wi-Fi problems, issues with Calendar, clipboard issues, new Apple Music problems, Touch ID problems, and more."


To stay on topic - another person who has the restart problem stated that it "Could be because I switched to AHCI & samsung NVMe drivers (for the PM950 pro) while I have a PM951." did you also do anything similar? Change any related BIOS setting?

 

The restart issues with prior BIOS, 01.00.07, also happened on AHCI, but had at least for me different behavior: the BIOS failed to recognize the SSD. I'm still running 01.00.07 on AHCI and haven't seen the restart issue for some time.

 

Ok, I got back home and checked my laptop. It reboots just fine with 1.1.15. It's MSSE (Microsoft signature edition), without any customizations, PM951, 512Gb, Intel RST mode. So, it doesn't look like a Dell problem at this point.

 

First time post.. Thanks for the many insights from this forum!
(9550/i7/4k/950Pro512 running raid mode with intel IRST driver at OS v1511 install)
I have the 'battery life problem' - about 9.5 hrs battery life as measured at constant min screen idle. (Very similar to the German notebook review results.)
Thanks to the folks here, I found out bios 1.1.15 was available. So I downloaded, installed, and - NO CHANGE in battery life. (The upgrade went smooth with no problems.) I was quite disappointed. I tried rebooting a couple of times with no change.
Then,,,, went in to BIOS and did a 'restore to BIOS defaults' - That did the trick!!!
Now idle battery life is between 14 and 16 hours. The reset bios reduced power drain by over 3 watts. Wake from sleep is now near instant, and the Bluetooth mouse does not drop out on occasion like it did.
I only changed things in v1.0.0.7 BIOS like the brightness of the keypad, etc - the bios settings were essentially stock.

So after the v1.1.15 bios upgrade, I would recommend going in to BIOS via F2 and restore to bios defaults - perhaps it puts all the internal bios parameters in place that an upgrade did not quite do properly. (Though I would think the BIOS setting for AHCI/RAID should remain as it was at the time of the OS install.)

 

Did this but no luck for me. Still showing about 5Hr of battery. (UHD screen with the 84Whr Battery)

Whoaou I am actually realizing that you had 9hr of battery previously? I just went down to 4.5hr with 89%. I am not getting this right I think...

 

Kristoffr - Keep in mind I am checking battery life with the windows battery icon, with a fully charged battery, while the screen is a minimum brightness and totally doing nothing - no programs open - idle.

I do find this measure of battery life to be valuable and describes how much power is being drawn just 'sitting there'. These new numbers now match my previous Dell 9530, or perhaps are a bit better than that older version laptop.

Of course, once programs are opened, the battery life does drop!

 

Settings -> Devices -> Mouse & touchpad -> set delay option to 'no delay (always on)'

As for Bluetooth mouse... Scanning this thread, it looks like the only mice that have no problems with XPS 15 hardware are:

Logitech Master MX
Logitech MX Anywhere 2

and I want to add Microsoft Bluetooth Mouse 3600 (new mouse from MS, cheaper, but still solid option), absolutely no problems.

I haven't noticed any lags with intensive WiFi operations.

The one thing in common between these mice is the use of Bluetooth SMART (LE), so we may be good with any SMART / LE mouse from a reputable manufacturer.

 

Since I run the .15 bios I did have the "reboot" problem. That is, the machine won't reboot.
Cause is probably the fact that I have AHCI enabled in Bios & use the Samsung NVMe driver that is designed for the PM950 pro ssd.
Btw I have a PM951 ssd.

I was wondering....

So I

• uninstalled the Samsung NVMe driver,
  
• enabled safe mode (via MSCONFIG.EXE);
• powered down;
• power on, went into bios & reset bios values to factory defaults;
• powered down;
• powered on. The machine rebooted in safe mode. disabled safe mode via MSCONFIG.exe
• rebooted.

That worked. After the reboot the "Intel Chipset SATA RAID controller" appeared in config/system/device management.By the way: the diskdrive is mentioned as: "NVMe PM951 NVMe SAMSU".
Note that I did not install the Intel RST drivers from Dell.

I ran some benchmarks, including AS SSD en ATTO. To my surprise I got the same values as with the 0.07 bios with AHCI & the samsung driver. They used to be quite higher then the standard Dell configuration. Now, due to the 0.15 bios????, not any more.

So I plan to stay on this configuration, because of ease of normal rebooting. And no gain of AHCI/NVMe driver of my current configuration.
If I get sudden BSOD's, I'll let you know.

 

That's odd, iOS 9.2 fixed things for me. I found 8 and 9 to crash the browser constantly, but 9.2 is pretty stable.

Mine's pretty stock and OK I think? I would suspect it's one of the mods y'all are doing....

 

Is this setting to be used instead of changing the "collaboration" one? Or is that for 2 different things?

What about the Microsoft Sculpt Comfort Mouse? It is cheaper than the 3600. Looks like it has Smart too, so should be OK? I may give that a try.

 

Thank you for the tip. I have no explanation for why this works but it definitely seems to for me. My battery life is almost 7 hours (i7, 84 wHr, 4k) after the BIOS upgrade and setting reset. Notably, the BIOS update doesn't seem to address the loud fans while charging and using the Thunderbolt 3 port, and the Windows powercfg report still states:
Platform Power Management Capabilities PCI Express Active-State Power Management (ASPM) Disabled
PCI Express Active-State Power Management (ASPM) has been disabled due to a known incompatibility with the hardware in this computer.

 

Hey there. So I have my XPS 15 since about a month and I'm really happy about it. No issues so far.
Spec : i7, 4k, 950 Pro + 1HDD, BIOS 1.1.15, W10 Edu (fresh install)

I wanted to do some benchs and they are pretty impressives :
http://www.3dmark.com/sd/3688673
http://www.3dmark.com/fs/7064822

screenshots : http://imgur.com/a/pX5e0

I'm literally in the top 20 for the given specs (i7 and 960M). This PC is a beast !

 

Raise the end of the bottom of the computer. The space will give more air and the temperatures will be lower.

 

It isn't just mice though, it seems to be anything connected via bluetooth. For example, bluetooth headphones/speakers; they'll work fine, but connect to a 2.4Ghz network and copy a large file to a network location (so that it maxes out available wifi bandwidth for more than a few seconds) the audio will lag/crackle/stop. Same goes for my bluetooth mouse (MX Master). Even with bluetooth collaboration disabled.
I changed the wireless card to an Intel AC8260 and the problem is solved.

 

I have an exchange system (9550/i7/4K/1TB PM951) arriving today and wanted to get an objective recommendation re: whether to leave it in RAID mode or make the shift to AHCI. My previous system seemed to work well enough in AHCI mode - it never exhibited any of the restart issues that others have reported - but wanted to better understand the tradeoffs from a stability / performance perspective. I also do not intend to upgrade the SSD to a 950 Pro at this point in time. My personal preference is to have a more stable system, as I am not doing many I/O intensive tasks on the machine at the current time.

 

I use 5Ghz but I'll try 2.4 once I'm back home

 

I would suggest leave it in RAID, update the bios to v1.1.15, and then within the bios, reset to bios defaults for a 'clean start' for the BIOS.
Reports are that the ssd now works just as fast as AHCI, and also provides the benefits of NVMe.

 

5Ghz worked fine for me too, no problem with the MX master or bluetooth audio. Just seems to be 2.4Ghz, which makes sense as it is the same frequency as Bluetooth.

 

Thanks, appreciate it. Is the standard Dell-supplied RST driver good enough or should I install the Intel version?

 

Hi guys,

I do have an interesting finding: I'm running the 512GB NVME drive from Samsung. I switched from RAID to AHCI and did a complete Windows10 install from scratch. Now when having multiple file-copy-tasks going on I get a BSOD with "KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE_ERROR". I called the helpdesk and they asked me to go into the Diagnostics Tool (F12 during boot).

The diagnostics gave me the following error:



Now I wonder if this is really a hardware-defect are if this is because of the AHCI setting. So I changed back to RAID and did the diagnostics again, now it doesn't detect my HDD anymore which is probably because the diag-tool might be missing the RAID drivers.

So just to be sure, can anyone confirm that:

1. even with AHCI setting that error shouldn't appear
2. even with RAID setting the HDD should be detected by the diagnostic-tool.

Thank you so much, guys!

Cheers,

quicky

 

I am using the latest from the intel site, but the dell version worked quite ok too. The intel version is a bit newer than the Dell.

 

Hi Wendelly,

I posted my experience going back from AHCI to raid before in this thread. See page 53.
After that I did NOT install the Dell supplied RST driver, nor the Intel one, because it was stable running (and still is).
Performance wise the RAID configuration is on par with AHCI and Samsung NVMe driver.

 

Hi thanks, appreciate the input.

 

Been using my Logitech MX Anywhere 2 since Christmas with no problems; connects on startup and reboots and no noticeable disconnects or lags.

 

Ok, so it does interfere with Bluetooth mouse on 2.4Ghz, it gets worse if you use 40Mhz and not 20. With collaboration enabled cursor immediately starts lagging, with collaboration disabled, it lags only if you use all available bandwidth as you mentioned above. However, I believe it's more of a software problem. After some googling I found that apple uses the same broadcom chipset with no problems in Mac OS, but it has exactly the same problem running Bootcamp. Ie, windows driver is ****ty.

 

Hi,

Is your system stock/from factory or clean install?

Did you try rebooting from Windows (not from BIOS)?

 

I have a stock system, no clean install. I am (now) able to restart /reboot from within windows

Verstuurd vanaf mijn SM-N910C met Tapatalk

 

Thanks for the confirmation.

Will let your guys know when I get some progress.

 

A warning to owners, I tried install 950pro drivers for the stock pm951 because of the restart bug and now my laptop is fugged. I get inaccessible boot drive or the Dell no hdd error screen. Even after resetting and system restore, it will have trouble completing the installation of Dell wireless drivers. (My w10 1511 do not come with these drivers)

Looks like I have to do a clean install again. Should I do raid this time? Seems more stable with regards to the restart bug.

 

@dansi

That would be the safer route for you to try. It seem the new BIOS + AHCI = reboot bug.

I've been trying to find a way to switch from AHCI to RAID but no luck.

 

Windows 10 does NOT have the RST driver. Presuming you made a USB installation stick via the windows 10 website, the driver RST driver files need to be copied to a directory on the USB stick. They are the 'F6' drivers on the intel site. During the W10 install initial screens, there will be a checkbox for 'load drivers'. Point to the directory on the stick, W10 will find the drivers and then the SSD. The NVMe properties of reduced latency, etc do not happen under AHCI, and RAID is the way Dell intends to run the NVMe SSD.

 

Thanks you Ken, I will do clean raid install this time. Nope everything works out then. Btw, do you have reboot bug with 1.1.15?

 

I did the same thing on my XPS (i7, 8g, 256g, FHD, .15 BIOS, clean Windows 10 with AHCI/NVMe driver) but every time after i uninstalled Samsung NVMe driver and switched AHCI to RAID in BIOS, Windows does not boot and i got a BSOD said "INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE".
Would you please tell me how do you "uninstalled the Samsung NVMe driver", or where I did something wrong?

This is my first post here so if i did something against the rule of the forum please tell me, thank you.