Dell XPS 15 (Skylake) 9550 Owner's Lounge

No, unless you break something. Just keep original parts in case it has to go for warranty


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Typically you would use the SSD for your C drive/operating system and files that require fast performance and you would use the HDD for bulk storage and files not requiring fast performance. Frankly, with the price of SSD's coming down, unless you have tons of storage requirements, like if you are a photographer or something, I would just go with a larger SSD and be done with it. Performance is soo much better with SSD's. The only place I use HDD's anymore in in my NAS for bulk backup storage ( dual 2 TB redundant drives).

 

I swapped my 32gb ssd for a 250gb 950 pro. I personally think this is a good compromise, an ssd for Windows and games, the Hdd for bulk storage. Only thing is you can hear the Hdd spinning. I've got an 850 evo 1tb on my Amazon basket if it gets too annoying

Sent from my OPT

 

I was going to go for the on board SSD but the price put me off and the SanDisk 2.5 inch was on special offer. It should be plenty fast enough for me and save a few £'s for now. I ordered the 16GB HyperX Impact 2133Mhz DDR4 SODIMMs (2x8GB) after reading reviews about them on the American version of Amaz - I couldn't chose this spec from Dell so have made it as I wanted and for what I think is a reasonable price. Can't wait to get my hands on it!

 

Damn I couldn't stand that spinning noise lol. Got a 1 TB crucial mx200 ssd and brought silence upon myself. To be honest, the hdd also brought very slight but noticeable jitters in performance that are nowhere to be found now. Go for it

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

Yeah, there's been a couple of times when I was almost tempted to replace the hdd.

Does any one here know the difference in power draw between a 5400rpm hdd,7200rpm Hdd and the different SSDs available?

Sent from my OPT

 

Please keep us posted about results. Which laptop u want to buy instead of XPS 15

 

I am keeping the laptop, I really like it. I just need the damn thing fixed and be proper.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Ah, you are doing the same thing I was thinking of. Did you buy the i5 spec for the FHD screen?

I am having a change of heart though, after seeing the weird looking plastic bezels on the 1080p version

 

And also the overall price after upgrading (including the 84 wHr battery whenever it's available) would end up pretty high anyway

 

What wrong with bezel on 1080p?

 

Anyone have issues with their hard drive? I received mine, and pre boot diagnostics said hard drive not installed. System worked sometimes, but froze sometimes. Intel Driver crashed multiple times. They sent a replacement 512gb SSD but same thing happened.
I'm getting a replacement now so I'm not looking for a fix. Just wondering if it's a common problem.

 

Don't know man, did that research while trying to get an ssd. The power consumption isn't that large tbh. Especially in real world use. About the same/slight increase in battery life and this varies based on what you're doing anyway. I just switch out the ssd based on speed and that archaic noise

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

I did, I didn't need a 4K screen or the touch capability so the i5 suited me better and was a better price. A few little upgrades and it will be just what I wanted.

 

have you noticed any difference? dell's website is very short on details about this update

 

I'm okay with my 4k, tho scaling is a small issue, but I like the fact that I can put two web pages on my 15" screen side by side, while ones playing video or whatever and I'm doing stuff on the other. The 13" doesn't have enough real estate for me.

I have some bleeding light issues with the front power light and the front metal bezel does stick out a bit. But I decided i'm gonna live with it
because the laptop runs without issues and if i exchange it, I might have a lemon. The slightly sticking out metal actual helps me open
the laptop because it gives me something to grip.

I like the stiffness of the hinge. Its good for those that use the touch screen. Ever touch those 2 in 1 laptops? The screen moves back when you touch
the screen, but not on the XPS15. I really didn't need a touch screen but after using the iPad I got used to touching the screen. Then when I work on
the pc I'm finding myselft touching the screen (doh!). So its nice to have on those occasions where I find it easier to just do it with my finger than use
the mouse because I'm already staring at the screen, whereas I have to look for the mouse cursor and then move the mouse to do what i
want.

i had to move the unifying receiver on my anywhere mouse version 1 to right side usb otherwise the mouse movement is flaky.

 

I bought the i5/1080p/1tb model. I may just swap the 32gb m.2 with a larger capacity and keep the 1tb installed as a built in backup drive. But yah the mechanical sounds will probably annoy me especially when it needs to wake from sleep.

 

It's not just the sound, that hard drive slows down the system. The cheapest SSD will improve the performance. I would replace both, the m.2 and the main drive. That's what I am doing once Dell fixed or replaces my xps


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

It's not just the sound, that hard drive slows down the system. The cheapest SSD will improve the performance. I would replace both, the m.2 and the main drive. That's what I am doing once Dell fixed or replaces my xps


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

i got the same model. popped a 256gb m.2 in as the new primary drive, the 1tb lives on as my main storage drive (for photos, backups etc). the m.2 is large enough for everyday use. fwiw i don't hear much noise, and am getting ~5-6hrs battery life while using chrome, some trading applications, excel etc. can't be happier (except for the strange speakers and how the black finish is a complete fingerprint magnet)

 

Two questions as I'm still getting used to my XPS 15 9550 (4K/1TB SSD/960M/16GB RAM model):

1) I unplugged my laptop last night and closed the lid (put it to sleep). It had been at 100% battery life. I turned it on this morning and the battery is at 60.4% (48,792 out of 80,826). What would cause 40% battery drain overnight?

2) This is unrelated to question 1, but something I tried a couple of days ago and had trouble with. I've seen a few people mention AHCI as giving better performance, so I thought I would try it out. I booted into the BIOS setup and changed from RAID to AHCI. However, when it rebooted, Windows gave an error that indicated it couldn't find a boot device. I switched back to RAID and it worked fine. Assume there's something else I need to do but not sure what (every time I've seen this come up its just a recommendation to use AHCI).

 

You can disable the warning in the bios.

 

Boot into safe mode by checking the safe mode flag in msconfig, reboot again into safe mode and change the bios setting to AHCI, reboot again to safe mode and untick the safe mode flag, then reboot back into normal windows.

You have a sleep bug so either check software you have installed or change "allow wake timers" (google it) to disabled on battery,
Finally check wake timers by typing "powercfg -requests" into an admin command prompt.

 

Thanks. I'll try that method for switching to AHCI!

Re: sleep -

I did powercfg -requests and this is what I get:

I googled allow wake timers, and after reading about it I went into Power Options and went to the Allow wake timers section of my Balanced (active) power management plan, and it already has "On battery" allow wake timers set to Disabled.

I'm not sure what else to do - I even did powercfg -lastwake but it didn't show anything there.

 

One hit in that, steam. for some reason steam is preventing sleep. Why I do not know as I often shut the lid on this and steam is active, it nods off.

 

Maybe it's because Steam had downloads it was working on when I shut the lid. I guess that would make sense (on my old PC I'd often also see Steam prevent shutdown). I'll try quitting steam and seeing how that does.

 

Hey guys...my XPS15 is wonderful. EXCEPT THIS SQUEAKY SPACE BAR!

Should I return it - or is this a known issue that everyone just deals with? I know it might be a typing style thing - but I hit the space-bar with my right thumb and I notice hitting with the right thumb is more severe then left. No way I can retrain myself to use the left thumb though. Every other key is quiet and well behaved - just this spacebar driving me crazy.

 

Hi guys. Sorry if this has certainly been asked, but what model of SSD can I buy that would be compatible to replace the 1TB Hard Drive that comes with the i5 of the laptop?

Would this one work?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-inc...TF8&qid=1453803814&sr=8-5&keywords=laptop+ssd

 

replied to the other identical question, yes.

 

Many thanks GoNz0!

 

Are there any of the driver updates on here that you recommend definitely installing?

http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/product-support/product/xps-15-9550-laptop/drivers

I installed the BIOS update, the Intel Graphics Driver and the Audio driver; which seems like definitely helped in removing ghosting artifacts on the monitor and improving the sound quality.

Are there any other updates that you would recommend to a new owner?

 

So, I shut my laptop lid last night with 60% battery - woke up this morning and it was completely dead (laptop wouldn't even turn on). Once I plugged in the charger it showed it was only at 1% battery.

I did powercfg -requests and got this:

Is that Legacy Kernel Caller a thing? When I google that, I do see people saying that is something preventing their laptops from sleeping.

But I'm not sure how to identify what's causing that here - I don't have any legacy hardware plugged in to my laptop.

No idea what's causing this, I haven't had this problem previously

 

I had the same problem. It was caused by a scheduled task Windows scan media librairy or something like that, which wake up my computer in the night.
Go to Windows event collector/ Windows logs/system to see which app wake up your computer.

To prevent a wake up on battery I went to task scheduler to modify conditions of wake up

 

So I'm looking through all my system logs in Event Viewer, and I'm not seeing any events at all between 11:37 PM last night when I closed the lid and 9:30 AM this morning when I turned it back on.

I also already went into the power management and turned off the functions for it to allow wake from sleep when on battery.

 

Hi All

I was planning on buying the 4K base modle and replacing the 32GB SSD with a 512GB Samsung Pro 950 NVME, and also the 240GB sata from old laptop to replace the 1TB sata drive. My apologies in advance if this has been asked already, but I couldn't find specific answers to the following:

1) This guy said during a disassembly guide on Youtube that by opening the case you void the warranty. Is this true? I've got heaps of spare hard drives, so I could just set aside the factory 1TB hdd + 32GB sdd and then swap them back in if I ever needed to claim warranty. Would Dell even know the difference or care?

2) What's the best method to do this? If I swap the PCIE ssd for the new Samsung Pro, can I then just copy across the drive image from the hdd? Or will it cause problems trying to boot from the hdd with the 32GB cache drive missing?

3) Do I need any additional parts? As far as I understand, if I purchase the base model with 32GB ssd + 1TB hdd it has all the parts I need.

4) Which specific m.2 drive should I get? I would like to buy the 512GB Samsung Pro NVMe, but which is the best option, i.e. which exact model should I get? It seems there are different variants that fit into the m.2 slot.

Thanks in advance

 

I rather save the headache and get 1TB SSD and bigger 84whr battery.

 

Yeah but when they get a bit cheaper I could put a 2TB SSD into the sata bay...

The battery is not a big deal for me as I use the notebook at home, so I'd rather have the additional disk space.

 

Hi there.

1) I don't know (legally for Dells obligation) if just opening the case will void the warranty but I very much doubt it - as long as you don't damage anything doing so why would it? I'm opening mine up (when it eventually arrives) and doing a similar upgrade. If Dell produced a model that allowed a configuration to suit a broader customer base (like the US) then I wouldn't have to open it up IMHO. I'm pretty sure a manufacturer could tell what part has failed and why these days.

2) Best method from my research of this model - (anyone pop in and correct me as I haven't actually done it yet!) - is to upgrade the machine to the latest BIOS, reboot and test it first, then enter BIOS and turn off the RAID to AHCI- shut down and open it up. Remove the 32GB SSD and 1TB after disconnecting the battery, install the new parts and reconnect the battery. Clean install from a USB flash drive of a previously downloaded Windows 10 media.

3) I don't believe you will need any extra parts at all, other than some thermal 'tape' for the m.2 - if required, (check the manufacturers FAQ's) - to allow the m.2 drive to conduct heat from itself onto the aluminium chassis and dissipate the heat it produces. This is one reason I chose to just fit a standard 2.5" SSD as I didn't want any heat issues and doubt I'd use the extra performance to be honest. The standard 1TB HDD is the bottleneck on this model in my humble opinion and even a basic SSD will let it stretch its legs!

4) I really can't answer this one, I guess it depends on your budget and what your main use of the XPS15 will be. Whatever you choose, please come back and let us know how it goes.

Woody

 

Hello everyone,

Not sure if I posted in this thread or another one, but I had the following issues

a) trackpad was not working properly - got it replaced and the touchpad (palm rest assembly) is amazing once it works the way it's suppose to.
b) the alignment of the bottom piece (housing) that issue was not fixed by replacing the palm rest. When the tech opened the laptop, the F screws were not aligned properly inside the laptop. So, Dell is replacing the laptop for me. I must say, Dell PRO support is amazing.

Dell has some serious quality control issues, I wish these could still be assembled in USA. The laptop is a beauty, easy to work with inside in terms of SS/RAM/M.2 upgrades. I suggest everyone to check theirs upon receiving one for defects. Someone here mentioned that they cut themselves due to that defect.

I have the i5 model with infiny display (not 4k)


Cheers.

 

do you have any pics of the unaligned palm rest, or is it very noticeable? Mine will be here in a few days and ill keep a look out.

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Do you guys expect an eGPU will be available soon through TB3 and most importantly to use on the laptop screen rather than external monitor, because I have read from other members that's due to dGPU already on the XPS15.
I am in the market for laptop and that's a decisive factor(other options like gs60/ MBP 15)
Thanks

 

I also can't choose between XPS 15 and GS60

 

That is awful, have you opened it up to look for a reason?

 

Yes, inside the screws were overtightened and misaligned. It was done in a hurry. My build date is early December. The tech who initially was replacing the palm rest had hard time with the screws. I wish I took the pics to show the community how the board was aligned. Once I receive my replacement I will open it up to take a look.

P.S. The tech screwed up the speakers, and now they are not working, but I don't care as replacement is coming and no antistatic wrist band was used, he didn't even have a proper mat to put the laptop on. He used mine that use to work on my electronics. If the second laptop that comes in has issues, I will file a claim via my credit card.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Bump - anyone else suffer from a squeaky spacebar on their XPS15 keyboard?

 

Fix That Squeaky Key on Your Mechanical Keyboard
http://www.daskeyboard.com/blog/fix-that-squeaky-key-on-your-mechanical-keyboard/

It's likely the stabilizer bar under the spacebar cap... the one "mechanical" key on a laptop keyboard.

Laptop keyboard squeaky spacebar noise
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2330336/laptop-keyboard-squeaky-spacebar-noise.html

Although it isn't old enough to have gathered dust from use, there might be something from manufacturing caught under the cap, and a shot of compressed air from one direction or the other might blow it out.

 

Have you guys tried downloading the latest Intel Dynamic Platform and Thermal Framework driver from Dell? After the download, Windows is telling me the signature of the executable is corrupt or invalid.

Sent from my OPT

 

worked fine for me.

 

Thanks for the detail - I also googled a Dell 9343 squeaky keyboard fix on YouTube - and saw a video where a guy was describing his "sticky" space bar. Look quite fragile to yank the thin plastic space bar off the keyboard - but I guess this is what I would have to do to DIY this? It doesn't seem too difficult - but messing with breakable plastic clips is a little...scary...on a $1800 machine!

I guess I need to lube the two metal bars underneath the spacebear, focusing on both the attachment to key itself (small plastic clips) AND where the metal bar connects to the keyboard base. If someone has done, please give me any tips. I'd prefer not to do a full replacement for this issue.