Dell XPS 15 (Skylake) 9550 Owner's Lounge

The TB3 dock looks fantastic is every aspect except for the price

I'm wondering what will happen if I connect the TB3 dock to a "pure" USB Type-C without TB3?

 

I noticed when in Raid mode I lost the nvme controller, back in ACHI and ASSSD and Samsung magician both report the drives running on the nvme controller.

I have not had a lost drive event but also had the samsung driver issue causing the laptop to hang for up to a minute on a reboot so I have raised a ticket with samsung via my engineers account, I have already had a reply back asking for full system details and what steps I had taken, life is so much easier when your former employer was a Samsung repair partner.

 

Interesting, no luck keyboard and mouse still have the same issue, and i've tried different USB mouse and keyboards..

ironically if i only have one mouse/one keyboard plugged in, there are no issues. I wonder if it has to do with these cheaply made KY-688 units. Maybe one more return and that will do it for me for type-c adapters.

 

Is anyone else having slow wireless speIs anyone else having slow wireless speeds that seem to be bottlenecked at 3Mb/s (measured with SpeedTest.net)? I get around 11Mb/s using the SpeedTest app on my iPhone and 29Mb/s on my hardwired desktop. I've reset the routers and reinstalled the 1830 drivers as well as installed an old version and the speeds are terrible still. My XPS 13 9343 did not have the best wireless speeds or connectivity either so I wonder if this is a design issue.

 

disable any antivirus/firewall on the laptop & router to rule those out, getting very good speeds on mine.

 

Hello
First time posting here. I have a i7/4k/16gb/512 p951 with all the drivers loaded from the dell website. I ran crystal mark and got numbers that l can't tell if they are good or bad or average. I didn't do anything to device manager or the bios.
Are these ok numbers ?

TIA

 

Could be better. I7/PM951 (raid in rom).

CrystalDiskMark by Raymond Dijkstra posted Jan 2, 2016 at 11:48 AM

 

how do configure that , in the bios?

 

It should be set to RAID from the factory. Did you run the BIOS update? The only other suggestion I have is to plug in the AC power and re-run your test. :-/

 

Ok, I went back and read what everyone did. I forgot to reset the bios to default after flashing to .15 After I did that I got the same numbers as others with 512 SSDs. thanks

 

Disabled and no increase in speeds, also sat right by the router. I tested with another laptop and got around 13Mb/s. What driver are you running? I did not notice the speed as an issue until I updated the drivers. I rolled back and am running 1.519.0.0 A01 instead of the latest 1.555.0.0 A03.

I have two days left to decide if I am going to return this laptop. Have not been impressed at all with the battery life at all, the speakers are terrible, I am having wireless issues, the thing is ridiculously slow to boot and wake from sleep, and I have the misaligned front right corner where the carbon fiber meets the aluminum. All drivers and BIOS are up to date. I love the build quality of this machine and the keyboard is better than expected. Touchpad is not bad either. Any quick fixes I can try before my return period is up?

 

I noticed the new bios and all, starts the XPS15 in airplane mode, wifi is still useable but capped the speeds from 1.3gb to 200mb.
Check from your notification panel if so and uncheck airplane mode.

 

Try a windows refresh as it seems to be your problem only, it could be an issue with the routers wireless drivers so it may be worth swapping/updating the router firmware?

If it starts in airplane mode then check the BIOS settings.

 

Wireless - I just measured wireless throughput (9550/i7/1830adaptor) at about 95Mb/s down and about 20Mb up. (100Mb/20Mb internet service) The results were the same on 2.4 and 5Ghz bands, But just as reported by others, the Bluetooth mouse was slow and erratic when using 2.4GHz. The mouse is essentially unusable if the wifi connects at 2.4GHz. (I have checked several types - all have the same problem - the newer Logitechs included.)

Windows Backup - There is a backup program in W10 accessible via the control panel icons. I kept getting errors trying to restore from a backup. This backup program can generate a bootable optical 'recovery disk', then booting from that disk allows the opening/restoring from the files on the actual backup disk. I discovered this also invokes the 'RST Driver' problem. In the restore program screens, there is also a box to check if drivers need to be loaded, similar to when the initial OS is being installed.
So, to successfully restore, be sure to have the RST 'F6' drivers available. The restore program will crash without those drivers.
(HInt - it seems the windows program ONLY will create an optical disk for booting to the recovery program. But if the files from the optical disk are copied to a USB, then the USB can be used as the boot drive using the F12 at startup. The RST F6 drivers can ALSO be copied to that USB stick, so they are handy to load. I used a USB/Portable optical disk unit to create the restore disk, then did a copy of all the files to a USB stick.

I suspect this RST driver problem will fade as NVMe drives gain market share, and OS's and programs will become NVMe aware. But for now, raid is needed to support NVMe, and that means having the F6 RST drivers handy.

 

Excellent thread going here. I really had my doubts about hanging on to this laptop (i76700/4k/16gbRAM/1tb Samsung NVMe) in the beginning but it is now a keeper. I upgraded to Win10Pro just by adding my Product Key (and it actually worked), updated Windows whenever it found updates (this XPS would hang anytime/anywhere) and applied any Dell driver updates it found. I never changed anything in the BIOS, but I did look around out of curiosity. I updated the BIOS using the incomplete version found under Device Manager (that corrected the throttling issue) and then updated with the Dell version released last week. It does take around 20-30 seconds to boot up from the time I press the power button. Otherwise, all is well on a very nice device.
I have red shift when looking at the display off angle but straight on it is BEAUTIFUL. It also ghosts (I used the link earlier in this thread) but I am going to live with that. No mouse issues with a P-n-P Logitech mouse I had lying in a drawer. The build quality is very good; no edge issues or dodgy spacebar (I'm fortunate, I guess). Here are the CrystalDiskMark results I ran:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 5.1.0 x64 (C) 2007-2015 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 bytes/s [SATA/600 = 600,000,000 bytes/s]
* KB = 1000 bytes, KiB = 1024 bytes

Sequential Read (Q= 32,T= 1) : 1673.893 MB/s
Sequential Write (Q= 32,T= 1) : 959.218 MB/s
Random Read 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 591.800 MB/s [144482.4 IOPS]
Random Write 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 372.049 MB/s [ 90832.3 IOPS]
Sequential Read (T= 1) : 1301.931 MB/s
Sequential Write (T= 1) : 955.736 MB/s
Random Read 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 43.641 MB/s [ 10654.5 IOPS]
Random Write 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 178.429 MB/s [ 43561.8 IOPS]

Test : 1024 MiB [C: 8.4% (79.3/941.3 GiB)] (x5) [Interval=5 sec]
Date : 2016/01/09 8:46:14
OS : Windows 10 Professional [10.0 Build 10586] (x64)

Anyone see anything out of the ordinary for the NVMe? It is listed as such under the Device Manager.

Just my contribution, FWIIW.
Jeff

 

Those readings are virtually identical with mine.

 

you can use a windows install to do the recovery stuff, I am uploading a 4+gb image to mega.nz that is a win10 Pro with embedded RST/Ahci drivers included in the boot image and most of the current drivers that will install prior to reaching the desktop for the 1st time, the remaining 2 drivers are pulled from windows update soon after. I will post up a link later.

 

For those who can't boot a standard image or recovery this is windows 10 pro (1511 TH2) UK English with the intel drivers needed to boot in Raid or AHCI modes, I put in all the drivers on Dell's site that had an inf after extraction, it is missing a couple that windows update pulled down a few minutes after reaching the desktop but most important is it had the storage drivers and the 1830 wifi drivers so you can sign straight in with a microsoft account.
Latest Intel HD530 + Nvidia drivers as it is a personal preference to have those.
I am only putting this out here to help those who struggle with integrating drivers and no I wont be doing custom requests
If enough people ask I will have a go at a win10 home ISO.
https://mega.nz/#!Os9wGaib!2MMY9Soud3I9KHqjJ5aRRoPw3vZpfSwdPSioqAKngTo

The main reason I did this was to install my 950 pro & wanting to see how it benchmarked in raid mode, I went back to AHCI due to no nvme driver in Raid.
Oh and having a win8 pro licence to use (digital entitlement).

 

I have a new problem that pops up every now an then. My system does a core dump and reboots. Gives a 0x00000663 error. I had disabled Bluetooth Collaboration. Don't know if that is related but I put it back on auto, so lets see what happens.
I am using the Broadcom 1.555.0.0 802.11 driver. Any of you have this ? Heres a dump using bluescreenview

 

I would greatly appreciate a Win 10 Home version!

 

mines the UK language, is that ok?

 

I suppose if the translation for USA was in there, but if not, then I'd be stuck. Thanks anyway.

 

Hi Owners, does anyone feels the transition animations in Windows is still jerky, quite bad if on battery.
Seems the HD530 has a hard time rendering 4K and then resizing the Windows?

 

Nice work. I don't need it but I'm downloading it anyway for that day that I do.

 

GoNz0, thanks for taking the time to do that.

Can we not just download/change the language after installing?

Then check the boxes to copy the settings to the welcome screen and accounts:

 

Good question.

 

Hi guys, I'll get my device tommorrow. As many recommends here to do a fresh install instead of using the pre-installed windows (with all the bloatware)...:
On the dell support webpage are many many drivers and firmware listed. I can't figure out exactly which ones I really need. For example: Under "chipset" are many driver listed. I'm not sure if I really need all of them.
Is there a list here which shows which driver are recommended to install on a freshly installed windows?

 

Yes you can

 

With a lot of companies designing new GPU docks that connect via Thunderbolt3, is the new XPS a candidate for this new technology? I'm looking for a quad-core ultrabook that I can connect a Titan X to via a dock and I'm very interested in the XPS 15. Does the CPU throttle at all?

 

I ordered the 32gb+1tb i5 option. I upgraded the 32gb drive to a Samsung evo 850 256gb drive. Both drives show the proper space allocation in RAID. Didn't want to mess with AHCI due to all the reported problems (none of which I've encountered in RAID).

 

really interested in buying this laptop, but the model I want (i7/FHD/16gb/512gn) is $1779, which is a couple hundred more than I would like to spend. The $1449 (i7/FHD/8gb/256gb) model is more my speed. I figure I can haggle with the customer support on the chat to get 10% off, since the Microsoft store sells this laptop with a 10% student discount, so if that works the price would come down to around $1300. The question is, could I upgrade the RAM and ssd to the same as the more expensive model while still keeping the cost under $1500 - $1550 (not including tax/shipping)?

My only other concern is the smaller 56whr battery, as I would greatly prefer the larger 84whr battery. I know there was a thread on here about battery swaps, but I don't know if anyone actually managed to swap batteries with people, and I can't find the thread. Is there a way to get the larger battery? If I can buy it, I would rather buy the larger battery instead of the 512 gb SSD, since battery life is more important than storage to me, and I can upgrade the SSD later down the road.

anyway, i'd appreciate any advive

thanks!

 

Yes, the XPS 15 includes a USB-C Thunderbolt 3 port. The only throttling that I am aware of is when you are on battery power to improve battery run time. I think that is user controllable thru the power management settings but not 100% sure as I haven't looked into it in detail.

 

Well, in that case GoNz0, if you are willing to do the Win 10 Home, I'd be grateful.

 

More good news. Thanks.

 

I would also be very grateful if you could do a Windows Home version. UK is perfect for me.

 

Is it possible to put in a 9.5mm 2.5" ssd into this machine?

 

I don't think so. 7mm formfactor.

 

Only if you can live without a back cover

It's 7mm only with the smaller battery.

 

LOL!

 

Not sure if this has been posted yet, but it looks like the Dell Thunderbolt Dock is coming out on Jan 28th for $299. Anyone plan on getting it?

http://www.slashgear.com/dell-outs-usb-c-and-thunderbolt-3-docks-and-macs-can-play-too-06420821/

 

As I now have a pro install I am unable to give this the once over. What I have done is check the version and integrated the same drivers, it will be missing bluetooth, thermals and the chipset but it seemed to pull those off windows update, either way I would install the latest to be safe but at least this will get you to the desktop with wireless enabled.

FYI it always says technical preview

Code:

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.10586]
(c) 2015 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Windows\system32>dism /Get-WimInfo /WimFile:d:\sources\install.wim /index:1

Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool
Version: 10.0.10586.0

Details for image : d:\sources\install.wim

Index : 1
Name : Windows 10 Technical Preview
Description : Windows 10 Technical Preview
Size : 47,990,217,487 bytes
WIM Bootable : No
Architecture : x64
Hal : <undefined>
Version : 10.0.10586
ServicePack Build : 0
ServicePack Level : 0
Edition : Core
Installation : Client
ProductType : WinNT
ProductSuite : Terminal Server
System Root : WINDOWS
Directories : 19478
Files : 106864
Created : 30/10/2015 - 18:35:12
Modified : 12/01/2016 - 00:14:26
Languages :
        en-GB (Default)

The operation completed successfully.

C:\Windows\system32>

https://mega.nz/#!348HkbZD!ni8rK7ZZj6zwbHPDGiKOe7s-ayTagQeoATlpdfB1mHE

Anyone stumped by the Queen's English during install should get by knowing the @ symbol and " are reversed.

 

I do

 

My speakers have gone to crap. They are so distorted. I think I'll have to call dell to get them replaced

 

Is that with the MAxx audio speaker enhancement turned off?

 

Does anyone know if any M.2 SSDs will work with this Dell?

Thinking of grabbing this one - http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148955

 

Yes it will work.

 

Ok, so i managed to call Dell and got the part # but they are back ordered for the 84Whr. The part # is 1P6KD 6-Cell. They are out of stock and backordered. The price of this is $104.99. The agent told me, this spare part is available to order but its refurbished and comes with a 3 months warranty instead of 1 year. There is a separate listing for new battery but not available to order. I'm guessing since this machine is so new, they have allocated resources for orders first.

 

I've just installed my 500Gb m2 SSD and 960Gb SSD and done a clean install of W10 Home. Running the Thunderbolt firmware update from the Dell website but I get an error that Thunderbolt firmware update is not supported. 'Your system does not contain Thunderbolt.' I haven't got any Thunderbolt devices at the moment to check. Any ideas what may be wrong. I made sure the BIOS was set to defaults before starting.

EDIT: OK, you can ignore this. I don't know what has changed but after doing some other updating, I tried again and this time it worked. Phew!

 

XDYGX 2.5" SATA interposer cable for XPS 15 9550 - SHIPPED with tracking number (U.S.)!

 

I'll be opting for the WD15 as I only have a requirement for a single monitor.