Dell XPS 15 (Skylake) 9550 Owner's Lounge

On the issue of TPM not being recognized / detected by BIOS and Windows 10:

Chatted with Dell Support. It's actually a lot easier and better than speaking to them over the phone IMO.

* Rep initially stated TPM was not on the laptop but took the step to verify it. Later conversation then assumed the laptop did have TPM
* Apparently Dell is aware the new update erases the TPM option in the BIOS, recommended that I downgrade the BIOS firmware
* I pointed out that I already tried it on BIOS version 1.0.0 and 1.1.15. I asked for a link to 1.1.19 which was the last version I had no issue with TPM/Bitlocker.
* Rep could not provide that version and consulted with supervisor/technician
* Concluded that some motherboard controller / chip is defective and since there's no jumper to manually reset it, my motherboard will be replaced under warranty.

It took about a hour to reach resolution, but since it happened over chat, I didn't really wait on them. Overall I'm satisfied so far. I at least didn't have to describe what TPM, Bitlocker, and encryption was in contrast to the bad luck this guy above had. If nothing else, chat is far better than calling them.

 

But when you phone them you can hear when they are in a corner, you hear the whimper starting after they come back from the supervisor (google) then strike while the irons hot. Break their spirit, make them regret taking a high paying job (27 pence per day) troubleshooting XPS customers who know wtf they are on about

 

Yeah, exactly the same issue I'm experiencing. Received a replacement motherboard yesterday but have not yet had a chance to install it. Will update when I do
Good advice on using chat. I initially started that way but agreed to switch to phone when we started with BIOS troubleshooting. Even worse was when they were remote controlling the comp and I literally had to sit there and watch them mess around with unrelated settings for an hour. Close to qualifying as a form of torture

 

Guys, anyone noticing a weird very low sound consistently present when 2-fingers trackpad scrolling especially in browsers?
It lasts as long as the bar keeps moving up and down the page.

 

Regarding the tpm 2.0 I tried to install it and it told me that tpm is owned. Please clear tpm before....

What does this mean?

Another question,is it really worth it to update tpm? What exactly does it do?

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Just follow the installation instructions.
All steps you have to do are explained on the download page.

 

As TDO says.

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If you have an encrypted drive and care about security more than the average user, yes. Otherwise no, or at least no rush to do so
Personally I plan on doing a clean install when the Windows Anniversary Update comes out in July. Will just update it then and re-encrypt primary drive

 

I really don't care about encryption. Plus I guess it may have impact on performance?

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I had a sniff of the Anniversary update yesterday, looks great. Shame Kaspersky doesn't work with it so I had to restore an earlier version.

No the TPM is hardware based and can now deal with different types of encryption as well. It seems Dell had this in mind when designing it but Dell being Dell they didn't have a 2.0 firmware at the time!

 

So you say it's seamless? I've heard that it actually reduced performance. Maybe thus was old and now it works better

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I thinking of buying this laptop, but I have a few questions after some research.
1. How long is the battery life between the 4K with 84whr vs. the FHD with the 84whr?
2. Will they be updating the models this year with improved GPU (GTX 1000m series)?

 

Good to hear about the anniversary update. All reviews I've seen so far are very positive and looking forward to getting the final release
And yeah, no effects form TPM 2.0 update. Plus, aguadallago, since you don't use encryption your TPM is essentially inactive and thus wouldn't have any effects on performance regardless of update.
Not that it matters much, but as far as the TPM 2.0 firmware, I wonder if Dell didn't provide it from the factory due to using the same motherboard as the Precision business model. Noticed that the XPS 13 comes with TPM 2.0 out of the box, but not the 15, and assume that was done on purpose for compatibility with enterprise encryption, but who knows.
Also, general question. When I do the clean install for Windows Anniversary Update, is there any need to fully decrypt the drive before? Could I just temporaily disable bitlocker, restart and boot into the Windows 10 installer, and then quick format and overwrite the encrypted bits? I don't see why not, but have never done this on a secure boot comp and wanted to confirm.

 

Well, it took all of the six or seven months I had my machines to finally have a reason to use a SD card. What a shock it was for me when I inserted the card and-----it didn't lock. In fact, it doesn't insert more than three quarters and then stops. No spring lock like all my old machines. I tried it in both machines and it was the same. The slot does work, but how cheap is that!

 

1, YMMV, how long's a piece of string
2, No one here can predict the future.

Turn off Bitlocker on the drive.

I know it it piss poor, you can get a 3/4 length micro sd adapter if needs be.

 

Anyone has the TPM 2.0 update for the 9550? I found one on Dell's website but it said that it was for a different system when tries to update.

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How much of a performance hit is there when you encrypt the drive?

Powered by: Quad Core Exynos + 6820HK

 

http://www.dell.com/support/home/uk/en/ukbsdt1/Drivers/DriversDetails?driverId=2105J

None if it is a self encrypting drive.

 

Good evening everyone. So I ended up buying another 15" XPS...fully loaded with the 1TB pcie SSD, 32GB, 4K Touch...

I already have a 512GB Samsung 950 Pro m.2 that I would like to put into the new XPS and use that 1TB perhaps in my other laptop? And/Or...if anyone is interested in the 1TB stick, feel free to PM me.

The XPS that I just bought

Makes sense if it's all on the hardware end...

Well in that case I'm all in...so just follow that link and the rest is history eh? Any other tips or pointers?

Thanks.

 

find a SED for starters, the 950 pro as of yet doesn't have support. The toshiba drivers do not and I doubt will. Samsung OEM may have, dunno.

If you have the 1tb Toshiba it is as fast as the 950 in most things.

 

Samsung has a longer warranty and I prefer Samsung over Toshiba anyday. However, it will only be a matter of time before Samsung releases their 1TB.

I bet Samsung already has it and like most all electronics, just time releasing...As a leader in chips/memory, Samsung probably already has the 2TB sticks LOL...it's the same ol' story with the flat screen TV's....which they are also leaders of as well.

 

You will never see Raid 0 on this laptop m8

 

Oh my ROLF! I stand corrected...For some reason I thought I was replying in the AW thread hahahaha...wow...

I haven't had my coffee yet...

 

Got my new XPS today, works well so far. No problems with the ssd changing. Will test it now. Hope I am lucky his time.

 

Excellent! Always great to hear that all lights are green....what configuration did you end up getting?

Cheers

 

FHD 16 GB 512 SSD for 1480€ with 3 year warranty and support

I found two negative points so far:

- keyboard is higher than on my old device, but I´ll get used to it
- The light under the mousepad isn´t shining, when should it shine or is it broken? Does it have any use or can I forget about it?

 

Hi everyone. I installed my 950 Pro 512Gb moths ago and its working fine but I have one annoying issue that I haven't been able to work out. The computer (Device Manager) recognises it as a 950 Pro but the Samsung magician software doesn't which means I cant use all the features like Performance/OS Optimisation and firmware updates etc. Check the screen shot to see what I mean. Does anyone know how to fix this?

If it helps; the method I used was to use macrium reflect to copy my OS/files from the stock SSD to the 950 Pro.

Cheers in advance,
Jay

 

Have you reallocated your m.2 SSD before moving over Windows?

Is the driver up to date?

In BIOS, is it set to UEFI mode and not Legacy mode?

These are just a few things on top of my head....

 

Light under the mousepad?
Can say for sure I have never seen a light under the mousepad and I have been through 4 of these things.
Maybe you had a refurb that has had the mylar removed from the back of the keyboard allowing light bleed.(you are supposed to reuse it but due to engineers not reading manuals they rip it off and toss it in the bin)

Major huge clue.

AHCI n/a

The 950 is designed for AHCI mode along with Magician so leaving it in Raid mode will cause those results.

FYI you cannot optimize the 950 anyway but you are still better going into AHCI mode so it used the NVMe driver.
You may get a restart bug (hangs for 30 seconds before POST) using the Samsung driver (unless a new one is out, 1.1 was the last) but the windows driver works just fine.

 

Take a look under the Mousepad, it should light white while connected and charging and light orange, if the battery is low.

The small white light, look at this picture.

http://cdn2.pcadvisor.co.uk/cmsdata/reviews/3632560/dell-xps-15-review_thumb800.jpg

 

Oh the charging light, it will be off when the battery is full.

 

Thx, will test it, maybe it was full. ^^

 

Led is working well, thx.

 

Led is working well, thx.
Got a little bleeding under it but I don't mind.

 

Finally got the time to replace my motherboard today. Completely resolved all issues with the TPM, and everything works perfectly again.
Also, it seems the coil whine is much more muffled on this board (although it may be too earlier to confirm this). I can hear it if I put my ear to the comp in a quiet room, but its no longer noticeable in normal use. I may have gotten lucky, or Dell may have made some improvements. It is, however, a refurbished board and was pretty dirty with what looked like thermal compound.
I ended with a good repaste, and am overall pretty happy with the replacement, even if I wish I never had to do it in the first place

 

Excellent. What did you repaste with? I'm going all out on mine with the new Grizzly Conductonaut. It's done wonders in my AW and I'm sure it'll do well in the XPS.

* If interested or to learn more about the new paste you can click on my sig where it says, [Grizzly Conductonaut] and read all about my experience.

 

I tried downloading and installing the Samsung NVME driver that it suggests for the 950 Pro on the Samsung website but I got this error (see screen shot). Any idea how to fix it? :/

Also I tried going into the BIOS settings and changing to AHCI instead of raid but the computer didn't start so I'm assuming there are no AHCI NVMe drivers installed.

 

open msconfig and set the safe mode flag, reboot into safe mode then reboot into the bios and select AHCI, reboot into safe mode, open msconfig, remove the safe mode option and reboot back into windows.

 

Hey guys, how do you clean your FHD display, everyone is telling me to use a microfiber cloth, but that would lead to scratches or not? Thanks.

 

Andi,

A. I am concerned about two key issues when cleaning the screen:

1. Physical scratches
2. Damaging the coatings

Check with Dell for any special instructions. In general, I blow off dust frequently and use damp wipes made specifically for matte-finish screens on occasion. I don't use things like: household cleaners/soaps, dry cloths, used cloths with dirt trapped in them, tap water, etc.

B. With a laptop, also be careful of crushing it inside a bag as any pressure on the top of the case could damage the screen (scratches, blotchy pixels, bright spots, etc.) by:

1. pressing the screen into the keys
2. physically pushing part of the back cover into the back of the screen

Thinner computers are likely more prone to B-type damage, and I have had that issue on two Dells; I don't know how the 9550 will fare but the metal back should be an asset and the hyper-thin design a liability...

 

Thank you very much for this informative post. Yeah I am concerned also about these thing. I will ask Dell if they can recommend a preceding for cleaning this Laptop. ;-)

 

Hey everyone,

I have a i7/4k/16/512GB model, and its the best machine I have ever owned. Here are a few tips I have learned:

If you have screen flickering issues, where the screen goes black for a few seconds, buy a new wifi card! I swapped in an Intel 8260 for $27.

If you have random resumes in your bag, or just waking from sleep in general, get a new wifi card! The stock Broadcom one has issues powering down and has no generic driver available.

 

Actually the wifi issue is as simple as ticking wake on magic packet only in the device properties, a little less drastic than changing a wifi card

 

That did not solve the problem for me :/

 

Mine has a bit of light bleed at the bottom along where there's the seam of the case. It looks normal to me. My case fits together well. BTW, I haven't noticed it being any color other than white (when charging) and off.

 

I found it had multiple causes. Not only magic packet, but disabling SATA ports caused issues as well.

 

You, sir, are a legend!! It worked. I don't know why, but it worked so thank you. Now Samsung Magician recognises it and I'm getting almost the 2500Mb/s read and 1500Mb/s write that's advertised

You get rep points for that

 

Nah I'm not a legend, I just know googlefu

 

Would you XPS owners recommend buying one of these off ebay refurbished? They seem heavily discounted. I'm looking for a 15" work laptop with a 960m, and am a sucker for a good display.

 

Yes i would wholeheartedly recommend it. Both my xps 15 9530 and xps 15 9550 4k 512GB 16GB came refurbished from Ebay and looked like new. You are a thief from your own wallet if you don't buy this way.

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