Dell XPS 15 (Skylake) 9550 Owner's Lounge

1.25 is better than.

 

1.40 runs fine here. It is out several weeks already with zero complains in this forum AFAIK.

 

Does Dell sell the 97Whr battery? Any link, please?

 

I bought a 960 pro 512GB from yesterday's Rakuten deal for use in my xps 15 9550. Coming from stock pm951 512Gb. Any caveats? Heat probs or success stories with this ssd upgrade?

Sent from my SM-G955U1 using Tapatalk

 

I‘m Running this combo in my 9550 w/o any Problems for several month. Before installing the 960pro, Download and install the NVMe Driver Version 2.2 from the Samsung Page.

 

Make sure you reuse the thermal pad or it will overheat if stressed, and as above you can use the Samsung driver and you need to set the laptop to AHCI for this as well.

I hope you mainly did this to increase capacity as you will see little speed increase.

 

Dell seem to be getting a little more active on the battery recall. https://overclock3d.net/news/system..._are_suffering_from_battery_swelling_issues/2

 

Why no 9560?

 

It's already a revised battery but it may follow, needless to say anyone who has this will be able to get the battery swapped.

 

I had the battery swelling issue in December last year. It was more swollen than the 2nd pic on that OC3D post. I contacted Dell and after much persuasion on the safety of swollen batteries they finally replaced the battery, trackpad, and palm rest. I was in a remote part of southern Thailand at the time so happy they replaced it with an onsite Thai tech (no english).

I am glad I bought the extended warranty and got Dell because of their global service ability which syncs in nicely with my global travel. That said I could write a book on all the issues I have had with this 9550! I am up to about my 8th onsite service and have basically had the whole machine rebuilt several time. I know I can get a replacement but that requires flying back to my country of purchase which I won't be for about 9 months. I might write that book or at least a new thread about it

 

Hi Guys I am getting close to pull the trigger on a SSD disk for my 9550 ( probably on black Monday or something). I got the non-SSD version of the laptop unfortunately. I am planning to keep the 1GB disk as back-up and get all the softare on the SSD.

I was trying to decide and I have a couple of quetions. I was looking to buy
Samsung 250GB 850 EVO M.2 SATA or Samsung 250GB 850 EVO mSATA Solid State Drive.

They are about the same price and I was trying to figure out if this laptop will support them and if there is any actual difference between the two of them. I mean they both apear to have the same speed and use SATA, but I haven't read a lot of stuff regarding SSD technology so I would like to know if any of these have any advantages and differences apart form the form factor.

How straighforward is it to just install win10 on the SSD. I am planning to do a clean isntall since I am having some issues with my PC lately. Also do I need to know anything and change setting regarding raid or ACHI if I jsut want to run both disks in and just see on drive as C: and the other as D:

 

You need to buy the m.2 as that laptop doesn't have an msata port. The difference is only physical as they fit different sockets but ar eboth sata based so limited to 500mb/s
If you can afford it buy an nvme drive (it is m.2 as well) as it is a hell of a lot faster than a sata based drive. https://www.samsung.com/us/computin...ate-drives/ssd-960-evo-m-2-250gb-mz-v6e250bw/ This will be about 4 times faster than the sata SSD's

Install wise it is very easy, I have an ISO hosted to do this (it's for the 9560 but will work on yours) or you will find another guide on here and finally just the ISO straight from microsoft that should also work without much fuss.
I am sure someone will be able to verify the stock microsoft ISO works in the next couple of weeks.

 

http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/drivers/driversdetails?driverId=X37VM
Intel(R) Management Engine Components Installer
Fixes
- Enhanced power transition
Enhancements
- Improved system stability
Version 11.5.0.1020, A01
Release date 24 Oct 2017 Last Updated 24 Oct 2017

An update for the additional restricted Intel backyard processor which most (with the exception of a few admins in very serious companies) would prefer turned off because it is of no use to them except for being a perfect candidate attack vector and possibly causing issues very hard to debug.
https://puri.sm/posts/purism-librem-laptops-completely-disable-intel-management-engine/
I'm curious which bug this fixes, possibly the sleep issues?
Another one that actually mentions sleep:

http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/drivers/driversdetails?driverId=TWP50
Realtek USB GBE Ethernet Controller Driver applicable for TB16/WD15/DS1000 Dock
Enhancements:
- Improved the stability when the system is resumed from the sleep mode.
Version 2.43.2017.907, A08
Release date 20 Oct 2017 Last Updated 20 Oct 2017

 

Thank you I will see what i can do maybe they will have a dicount on the 960. How come this is faster is it PCI based? And are you sure that XPS 9550 will support it? I read some stuff about problems with 960 Drivers in particular. Problem is that I cannot find a reliable product guide that says if XPS 9550 supports PCI SSDs or not.

I hate these new sites where they overmnarket hardware and you have dig around all day to find the actual specifications you want.

 

It is PCI based and m.2 fitment, drivers are fine as you have microsoft or Samsung and it supports it.

 

Hi Guys,

I was wondering if anyone knew the likely cause of the vertical dotted line that recently showed up on my display? looks like a row of dead pixels,although they also kinda look like they are stuck on blue, i'm not sure if the screen or the lcd controller are likely to blame. I own a XPS 15 9550 with the 4k display. Please see below photos of the dotted line. This shows on in BIOS and does not show if i hook it up to an external monitor. Annoyingly my warranty ended 3 months back. the laptop is only 15 months old (got it refurbished from Dell).

Dell as currently in the process of sending me a new battery, so i'll be opening the laptop up soon anyway, so any advice on any loose cables to check etc would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks,
John

 

Sorry to say it is a faulty panel 99% of the time, you can try reseating the cable but a single pixel line normally needs a new panel. See if you can buy the 4th year, they should sell it you.

 

Many thanks for your quick reply. They quoted me £255 to extend my warranty a further year which understandably i was hoping to avoid!

 

about the price of a panel without fitting!

 

Hi, Dell sent me a free 84Wh battery for my xps 15 9550 because many users are experience swelling batteries. My current battery appears ok and I am wondering whether I should store the new battery until the current one wears out or should I install it now anyway?

Sent from my SM-G955U1 using Tapatalk

 

By all means store it but you should put it in every few months and make sure it's between 30 and 50% as letting it go flat isn't good for them, same with storing them fully charged. Most seem to ship around 30%.

 

Last week, I opened up my XPS 15 to replace my wifi card. I noticed that my 84Wh battery has mild swelling. I thought it was just normal. Today I got an email from Dell saying that my unit is affected by this battery issue. I would hesitate to use the old battery as this can be a fire/safety hazard. It could also damage the laptop (swollen battery pushing the laptop chassis and trackpad). Aren't we supposed to return the defective battery anyway?

 

A01 should have already opened your eyes. You fell for the usual Dell nonsense/error to update both Release date and Last Update date on the download page. It is 1 year old.

 

I received an email from Dell today wanting me to update to the below app. Is this really necessary?
Thanks in advance.

Dell Command | Deploy WinPE 10.0 Driver Pack
http://www.dell.com/support/Home/us/en/19/Drivers/DriversDetails?driverId=VX00R

 

Not 100% sure what this is. I'd expect it to contain the drivers needed for the Windows Preinstallation Environment to boot an XPS (probably only RAID mode supported). But WinPE is typically needed for recovery from backup after a disk failure or such afaik. Maybe lets you make a WinPE disk with the needed drivers included, which I guess vendors are not allowed to distribute.

 

The sheet that came with my replacement battery states that the old battery needs to be returned within 10 days, but that may just be standard language for these types of exchanges.

 

One way to find out, don't return it and see how many months it takes them to ask

 

Hey guys, i'm new to the community. So i have the 9550 with 4k, 1tb ssd, 16 ram, i7 6700hq. I noticed that i have a lot of power throteling, i undervolted it -0.150v repasted both the gpu and cpu, noticed a 15-20 decrease in temperature un cpu, and both the gpu and cpu are around 70-75 degrees while playing shadow of war/doom/wolfenstein. But i play them at 720p low settings, and i don't know if that's the normal, because i noticed also that this power throteling takes away around 40 fps from the initial 70. Is there something i can do to make it a better experience/

 

Well, I just got my replacement battery and swapped them out. Apparently my battery, which looked fine externally, was slightly swollen. The install was easy, even if it's not a quick disconnect like you get on a Thinkpad it's perfectly serviceable as long as screws don't stress you out. Why does Apple glue everything down? Wait, don't answer, we all know why.

Shipping the faulty battery back to Dell tomorrow. I suspect they're requiring returns so that they don't get reports of the faulty batteries being resold and then causing Dell PR issues.

 

Wonder if someone can help. Performed inline upgrade to Fall Creators Update last week and ever since my 9550 has been a bit off. Issues:

1. Laptop wont shut down, when you initiate a shut down it just cycles back to log in screen. Only way to shut down is to do a hard power down. Not found anything online.
2. Laptop reboots or restarts in airplane mode, have to reconnect to networks.
3. Restarts often seem to loop requiring me to enter login details several times. Many seem to be suffering from this one.
   
4. OneDrive got screwed
5. Various minor Hyper-V issues

Tried troubleshooting to no avail and so today decided to do a clean install using GonZo's new FCU iso:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...tom-iso-download.789769/page-60#post-10618519
Thanks to @GoNz0 for putting that together.

Have let updates do its thing and all went fine, now have nice clean install but issues 1-3 still remain, damnit.
Can anyone help?

Also, I downloaded all drivers for my service tag from Dell Support UK in case I needed them but strange thing is when I try and run them I'm getting messages along the lines of not a genuine Dell device and they won't run. What's happening there? Do i need some Dell tool installed before I can run their drivers?

Any advice greatly appreciated.

 

1, check the event viewer, it should log the cause, that will no doubt be a driver.
2, probably related to 1 or the network driver
3, Rather annoying but if many have it expect a fix.
4, define screwed?
5, such as?

My ISO only installs a couple of non Dell drivers, main one is the video driver (intel) but windows soon downgrades that to a faulty one.

Open the device manager and post up the driver versions for.
WiFi (including make)
IDE ATA/ATAPI controller
SSD make
Storage controller (Microsoft or?)
Both video drivers

 

Thanks for getting back to me.

WiFi - Killer Wireless-n/a/ac 1535 Wireless Network Adapter
12.0.0.428, 21/08/2017

IDE ATA/ATAPI controller - Intel(R) 100 Series/C230 Chipset Family SATA AHCI Controller
15.8.1.1007, 07/08/2017

SSD make - Toshiba THNSN51T02DUK NVMe TOSHIBA 1024GB, AHCI mode, the poorer performing G4

Storage Controller -
Microsoft Storage Spaces Controller, 10.0.16299.15
Standard NVM Express Controller, 10.0.16299.15

Intel(R) HD Graphics 530
21.20.16.4664, 21/04/2017

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M
22.21.13.8477, 29/06/2017

To be clear I was having the shut down / restart issues even before clean install using your ISO but only since FCU (RS3) same along.

Also just noticed that my CrystalMark scores are way lower then when i last run it at the beginning of the year. Like half the speeds.

Any idea why effectively, since clean install using the ISO, Dell regards my device as a non Dell device so as I cant run any of their drivers or installs?

Aside:

• OneDrive app got corrupted and wouldn't launch or allow sign in. Stored files were safe and OneDrive web was fine.
• Hyper-V issues - can't maximise/minimise/resize guest screens without screens going grey. Restoring to full screen mode resolves the issue until i next want to move a screen around. Disrupts my workflow. Maybe caused by FCU but can't find anyone else reporting issue.

 

To start with install the Toshiba nvme driver, see if that fixes the reboot issue.

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

 

Hold on, might be getting somewhere:

Reverted WiFi Driver to an old 4.0.2.262 (27/10/2016) and
Intel Graphics driver to an old 21.20.16.4627 (09/03/2017)

laptop will shut down and doesn't seem to be restarting in airplane mode.
Getting there

 

Cheers, from memory didn't think there was one for Toshiba, will take a look tomorrow.

 

Ok, actually the problems are still there. Back to where I was ... won't shut down and restarts in airplane and wont connect automatically to known networks.

Tried installing what I think are the Toshiba NVMe drivers 'ocznvme-1.2.126.843_whck.zip' but I can't make out any difference, the storage controllers listed in device manager are exactly the same. I also tried installing Tosh's SSDUtility but says no device detected.

And this morning gets worse ... Now getting activation message. I thought the licence should get picked up automatically. Yes I have a Pro licence.

https://imgur.com/a/GeuoL

 

Not sure about the activation, I have had it before and ended using microsoft support to fix it for me, make sure the idiots don't try and change the install to home, make it very clear from the start.

NVMe driver https://www.ocz.com/download/drivers/nvme/windows/ocznvme-1.2.126.843_whck.zip

 

That's the driver I installed. Should I see a new listing in storage controllers?

 

Yes but you may need to manually change the samsung driver to the OCZ one. The inf needed is in the zip file.

 

Dont think I have the Samsung installed

https://imgur.com/a/CTqem

What do i need to do please?

 

Change the standard one you highlighted. For some reason I thought yours showed Samsung

 

Sorry can you tell me how?

 

1. Go to Control Panel and open Device Manager.

2. Find the device that your are trying to install a driver

3. Right click the device and select properties.

4. Select Driver tab, then click the Update Driver button.

5. Choose Browse my computer for driver software.

6. Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer

7. Browse for the .inf driver file. Open and Next.

8. The driver will be installed.

 

Of course, dumb question.

Ok have upgraded driver, chose XG3

https://imgur.com/a/upJbo

Problems persist . Still wont shut down and restarts in airplane mode

 

XG3 is correct, maybe you need to start looking in the event viewer for clues.

 

EV Criticals
Just several messages saying not rebooted cleanly (which we know) but doesn't suggest why.

EV Errors
License install failed ...
Host network-service ...
Security-SSP, Licence activation ...
DistributedCOM ...

https://imgur.com/a/KEAUV
https://imgur.com/a/Aqe2t

Nothing jumping out at me as to the root cause of all this

 

Dunno then.

 

OK I'll redo clean install and failing that restore to pre FCU and block it forever
Thanks for your input

 

Hi everyone.

I have finally the money to swap the 32 GB cache SSD in my XPS9550 to a better one.

I am between
Samsung (MZ-V6E250BW) 250GB EVO PCI Express 3.0 x4 NVMe Solid State Drive and
Samsung 500GB 850 EVO M.2 SATA Solid State Drive

I know that both them can be placed in my laptop, but I am not sure if I should go for fast speed or bigger capacity. I intend to keep my 1TB disk for photos etc. I will just install programms on the SSD.

Could you reccomend one and give the reasoning.

Also do you have a guide regarding the steps I should follow. I know how to open the laptop and replace the hardware, I am just not clear regarding what it is needed to make the SSD work as there are reports regarding the compatibility of these SSDs.

I intent to do a clean install of windows 10 on the SSD since my computer needs a format anyway.

From what i have gathered I need to have win10 in a stick add my SSD disconnect my HDD.

Switch my BIOS settings to ACHI and not RAID and then proceeed as normal, format perhaps the SSD and install. I should also not install the intel rapid storage technology.

I would like to ask if there is a difference in perfomance if you change from RAID to ACHI and if this affects the speed of the SSD.

 

If you install a lot of games/programs on your SSD I recommend the 500gb evo vs the 250gb 960 evo. When using my laptop I can't really tell a difference between my msata vs nvme ssds. Sure benchmarks are much higher on the NVMe drives, but that doesn't translate at all into real world usage.

I recommend AHCI for performance. With NVMe drives it allows you to install the samsung NVMe driver.