Dell XPS 15 (Skylake) 9550 Owner's Lounge

@trofi just follow the advice of @custom90gt

I have used the 9550 & 9560 with both Samsung drives so have directly relevant experience here.

The nVme is much faster in some benchmarks a bit slower in some daily tasks. Also, a laptop is built with many compromises for size, power consumption, price so there are plenty of bottlenecks. I used both drives for daily tasks surfing the web, M$ Office, and some huge 40GB live virtual instruments that require ultra-low latency & pushe the laptop hard (CPU, RAM, SSD...).

There may be other daily tasks where the nvme drive shines on your 9550 but I will let you search the threads.

IME, I noticed no difference between the drives. The 850EVO is a beast that significantly overperforms and has a superb track record over the past few years. Plus you get double the space.

BTW - I had that garbage 32GB SSD before. Completely worthless.

 

OK so I decided to restore laptop using macrium reflect to a point pre inline update to FCU/1709/RS3. I confirmed this restore had no issues with shutting down or restarting in airplane mode.

From there I did another clean install using @GoNz0's iso image and once finished I'm pleased to say the issues were still gone (edit: and Win 10 Pro successfully activated automatically). Clearly the inline update caused some issue (yet strange the first clean install didn't wipe those issues).

Anyway first task now is to do a macrium backup of this vanilla FCU/1709/RS3 and from there I have a solid basis going forward. I was going to paint the hallway tomorrow, sweet excuse not to while I progress with this

 

Great plan and tbh when i clean installed the Wi-Fi refused to connect automatically, a 2nd clean install did. Not Microsoft's finest release!

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

 

http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/drivers/driversdetails?driverId=TWKFC

Dell XPS 15 9550 1.5.1 System BIOS

XPS 15 9550 1.5.1 BIOS
Fixes & Enhancements
1. Enhance audio quality when the brightness is adjusted
2. Extending battery support
3. Allows Dell Command Configure to implement the required Thunderbolt Sec Level settings without the need to access the BIOS.
4. Fixed a Bitlocker recovery issue when Dell Thunderbolt Dock is connected to the system, and PCR1 is selected in the Bitlocker Group Policy
Updated Dell Dock Port Type Classification in SMBIOS Table
5. Fixed a Bitlocker recovery issue when Dell Type C Dock or Dongle is connected to the system, and PCR2 is selected in the Bitlocker Group Policy
Improved PCR2 measurement consistency when a Dell Type C Dock or Dongle is connected.
6. Updated the handling of pre-boot authentication information by firmware.
Updated UEFI variable input validation.
Updated the handling of 3rd party Option ROM loading.
Updated SPI flash command configuration settings.

Version 1.5.1
Release date 14 Nov 2017

Anybody tried out?

 

Hahaha. What a silly phrase!

Maybe Dell means to say that sound will not distort when adjusting screen brightness?

That would be a big fix as Dell has replaced a lot of speakers, soundcards, and motherboards in the futile quest to kill that bug.

 

This corrects the speaker distortion when changing screen brightness for the average user.

I'm not sure 100% of the distortion is removed but the fix seems to work good enough for speakers & earphones on youtube, BBC streaming via Edge, spotify app, M$ groove music.

The underlying problem seems to continue. Using professional audio software (RME ASIO) the distortion problem still exists particularly at rates different than 44.1khz.

 

Anyone with the 960 evo, a new firmware is out for it via magician and coupled with the 2.3 nvme driver is allowing me to set encrypted drive.

 

Hello!
I apologize for the carelessness. Can you help me figure it out?
I have a XPS 9550 (BIOS version 1.5.1) with "PM951 NVME SAMSUNG 512Gb" drive and I use the NVME driver from SAMSUNG version 2.0.
Can I now use the new driver version from samsung site (2.3)?
Previously, only version 2.0 was suitable for our drive (PM951). Now this is not so, or is it more reliable to stay on the old (2.0) version?
Thank you!

 

Anyone install the Fall Creator's Update and have the WiFi suddenly delay starting?

 

I've got the Samsung PM951 in my 9550 and have used version 2.0 (and earlier), 2.1, 2.2 and currently 2.3 without any problems to date.

However, I'm still on BIOS version 1.2.5 where everything is nice and stable; I was contemplating upgrading to 1.4.0 when 1.5.1 suddenly appeared so BIOS upgrades are currently on hold for me.

 

No WiFi problems with the fall creator update. But I have changed to an Intel AC 8260 because the Dell card caused problems (WiFi turned off when Bluetooth was swiched on).

 

Similarly. I have an Intel AC 8260 card and no problems with fall creator update!

 

Thnx! I will be updated.

 

I've had nothing but problems with the Bluetooth with the Dell card and have stubbornly been holding on to it because it uses all three antennas. I just bought an AC 8260 off eBay and I guess I'll give it a try.

 

I got mine from Dell for free.

 

Well, I wouldn't have minded knowing that before I bought mine!

 

I just noticed Intel Speed Shift was listed under Performance in the BIOS (where have I been?)

Has anyone disabled it to see if there was a difference in throttling on the XPS?

 

You may have Seen SpeedStep and Not SpeedShift.

 

Unfortunately, there is a major problem with some Intel firmware. According to Intel, "To determine if the identified vulnerabilities impact your system, download and run the Intel-SA-00086 Detection tool using the links below." This urgent note was posted by Intel 21Nov2017.

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000025619/software.html

When I ran the Intel-SA-00086 tool, this morning it said IME 11.0.28.3002 was "vunerable"

This morning I "updated" to 11.5.0.1020 from the Dell site dated 24Oct2017 as the Intel updates seem to have been scrubbed.

The Intel-SA-00086 tool says I am still running 11.0.28.3002 was "vunerable."

Get your s**t together: FBI, NSA, Intel, Dell!

 

Info on this was questionable all the time. The detection tool reported vulnerable despite the claims that only vPro systems were vulnerable, and XPS has neither vPro processors nor vPro wifi (unless switched). Nevertheless ME updates came. The detection tool still reported vulnerable. I understand the vPro bug was the most obvious and published, but the regular ME also had issues (the computer needs to be on so that the consumer ME is accessible, while with vPro they may be accessed even when off). Then the tool was updated and finally reported ok. Frankly I don't think it is ok until ME is dead. I did hear from a couple of corporation sysadmins though that they did actually use vPro for fleet administration, so ME isn't NSA-only.

Edit: This was for the previous round of ME vulnerability, now there's a fresh one.

 

I've installed NVM driver 2.3 (with PM951) as soon as it appeared. After a couple of days the computer froze. Came back to 2.0 and no freezing yet.

 

Intel-SA-00086 update status: TBD everywhere
http://www.dell.com/support/article...ntel-me-txe-advisory--intel-sa-00086-?lang=en

 

Thank you for the information!
I remember about such problems and spoke earlier when the driver version is above 2.0.
Most likely I will stay on the old verified version 2.0.

 

I have 2.3 driver and latest BIOS 1.51 and have no nvme problems on mine.

Sent from my SM-G955U1 using Tapatalk

 

Anyone experiencing high memory use of the Dell SupportAssist Remediation? It's currently consuming 1.123MB, which is a bit high This is since 2 days. Resolving it now, but wondering if others find this as well.

Edit: can't uninstall, keeps running. Cancelled. Not uninstalled. Anyone know where this is part of? I couldn't run a repair action.

 

I'm having audio jack issues with my 9550, since I've read about it here before I assume that this is a known problem. Is there a revised daughterboard available or do I just have to order one and pray that it works fine? I'm getting kinda tired of messing with the audio jack until it decides to detect my headphones..

Besides this small issue it's been a wonderful and troublefree workhorse for me

 

Not revised afaik due to it being such few units with the problem.

 

I think the 9550 audio jack is a bit quirky principally due to the audio drivers. There are a lot of posts here with efforts to resolve. I never really got the headphone out to work perfectly as I sometimes need to mess around with the sound panel to get sound. The good news is that the headphone out sound quality is quite good for a laptop. I use some Pro audio equipment so my situation is more complex.

Maybe using the latest drivers on the realtek site or MS drivers would work better for you. Of course the system always wants to roll back the audio drivers

Dell replaced my original daugherboard and speakers; same part numbers same performance.

If you need a gently used 9550 audio daughterboard, PM me. They work fine. But I think your issue is driver related.

 

Wont help you unfortunately but I'm hearing of many like Chang_loo who receive a card without question from Dell. Appears to be the norm not an exception, in case this helps anyone else

 

Sorry for crossposting. Anyone an idea what could cause this?
Touching the XPS 9550 on a specific spot on the bottom causes the screen to glitch and system to freeze as a response.

 

The audio driver works perfectly fine under Linux which I run full time on this machine. Issue is not driver related. I have to wiggle the 3.5 connector around in the socket to get it detected, slight movements can cause it to jump back to the speakers. Headphones work great on a myriad of other devices. Sounds like a hardware problem to me. Thank god it's not on the mainboard like the 9560, that'd be pricey to replace.

 

Thanks for the more detailed description.

Physical slopiness on the headphone jack is NOT a common issue on these forums.

I would guess either the audio board is not fully connected or broken or there is a short. Or the 3.5mm jack is a bit loose inside. A few things to try:

1. There are two cable connectors into the daughterboard. Disconnect the cables and reinsert carefully. Not sure if the corresponding ends can also be reseated.

2. You may have a short. I see the audio board has a plastic shield on top and the bottom is almost 100% covered with some type of black coating that may be to prevent shorts (you can see a bit of copper from factory design but make sure the protected areas are not damaged or bent).

3. Make sure the screws to the board are tight (not too tight)

4. If the 3mm jack is sloppy inside, I don't see an easy fix. Access inside might require unsoldiering the jack, disassembling it and returning to the board. But that might destroy the jack and is painful. Also the jack might have a failed soldier joint so you could touch them up.

 

Obvious answer is you are causing a short, the question remains why. If it is under warranty call Dell tbh if not open it up and check things are tight.

 

Thanks, Gonzo. Will assemble some more knowledgeable friends and open it up.


Boring Dell Support story, worth skipping.

The device just returned from Dells (paid) Diagnosis after three long weeks cause out of warranty. It's been happening since the beginning but it took me more than a year to figure out how to replicate it.
Sent it in with description of how to replicate it & a unrelated second q and only 'Diagnosis' was that there is a minor damage at the PCI-e bus that can't and doesn't cause any issue. To replace that would be euro1300.
Dells support didn't know if they actually tried to replicate the error or only did a surface check of the motherboard. On their recommendation I contacted local technical support, which asked me to receive the device - make a video recording of the issue and contact him again. Following him it's definately not the PCI-e bus thing. ---- Well, calling back I learnt that my case is apparently closed (as I declined the repair?) and if I want to talk to that technician or any other - I'll have to pay a second Diagnosis and send it in once more.​

 

Hey all got questions about my dell xps 9550.


My laptop is an i5 quad core laptop as oppose to i7. I notice the battery of it when unplugged probably is less than 40 minutes total. It might be 30 minutes only as I always have this laptop plugged in because i use it only inside the apartment etc. This is pretty normal right due to batteries wearing out? Also are you suppose to keep the charger plugged in all the time even if you are using it inside? The reason i did this is because i use to have it at 100 percent... then use it while on battery, the once it hit 10 percent or so, i plug it right back in to 100 percent. Then repeat etc. Is this the right way to do it or not? The reason i did not do this is because when im on the computer, im busy doing something and cannot have the battery go out and thus need all the battery there is. Because several times where im located at, there has been a short power outage and when thats the case, i have to have some battery on my laptop. But is the reason why my battery is much lower now due to wear and tear? Or its mostly due to me having it plugged in always? The thing is if this laptop had a battery where i could take it out externally easily, i would have done this instead. Thus take battery out, while plugged in. But the issue is this laptop has internal battery. But if im planning to use this battery only inside, i guess don't need a new battery right? How often you buy a new battery for this laptop?


I have lot of chrome tabs open. I have less than 10 but the issue is many of the tabs... i might have even 25 windows + opened for several of these. At the moment, it shows on task manager the cpu is 40 percent and memory is 93 percent. Basically the memory is almost always over 90 percent. Its close to 95 percent. But if i close all my chrome tabs, it goes to 30 percent or less. But if i have just a few chrome tabs where i do not have those 25+ windows in a few tabs, it would go to the 70 percent range. Is this normal or not? The thing is i do need those tabs though in my laptop. Is there another solution to this? I got message that it say to use microsoft edge because it uses less memory. The thing is my laptop slows down a bit because of all those tabs i got. So could i use another similar browser or do something else? Or is my only other solution get more ram? I have 8gb ram. And if i get ram, i believe i have 2 sticks of ram. So would getting one 8gb stick be enough? Or would i need two of them for 16gb total? Because even though i have 8gb ram, im sure its 2 sticks. Thus if i have 1 stick only, i could get 1 stick of 8gb ram for 16gb ram. Also what ram brand to buy? I seen some on amazon that has very good reviews. But how do i know if that ram is compatible or not? The other thing is this. There is no way im going to open the laptop up myself because i cannot do this and would have to go to a computer place for them to install the ram. This should be very easy for a computer place to open the laptop and do this right? The thing that worries me is im sort of worried if they opened the computer and install ram, the computer won't work because i read online there been cases where people installed new ram and computer does not work. Can someone tell me to those who installed ram, was this hard or not? And if there is ever an issue, what should i do etc? Also based on what i describe, should i buy 1 stick or 2 sticks of 8gb ram? 12gb ram should be enough? And it would certainly not show any lag then right? So instead of over 90 percent memory used, by having 12gb ram instead, it would go down to 60 percent or so? But if i get 16gb ram, then it would show 50 percent? And everyone here who recommend me to upgrade the ram right?


Can someone tell me about UPS? The thing is whenever my power goes out, my laptop can only last for maybe 30 minutes at the absolute max. I need it to last longer because im doing stuff online that cannot have the power to go out. I read UPS would keep your laptop or computer last a bit longer. Does anyone know how long it can make a laptop last longer for total? I checked amazon and there are a few that has good reviews. I assume the VA, the longer it can make the computer stay on with power. Does anyone have experience with using one for this laptop? What is the average watt that most people buy? Most importantly how long could it make your laptop keep having power for? I read that most only gives electricity for 15 minutes only? So there are no power supply that make your laptop last for at least 2 hours or more? Also i checked only there is also power supply that shows 450w or 800w or 1000w. Is that the same/different as UPS?


Thanks all.

 

Battery wear is caused by draining the battery when not on charge - this is called a discharge cycle, and lithium-ion batteries only have so many discharge cycles, so it is normal for them to degrade over time. Saying this, the best way to preserve your battery is by keeping it on charge, to limit your number of discharge cycles.
If you want to see how much you battery has degraded, install HWinfo64 and look at the battery "Wear Level" in Sensors.
For comparison, my 9550 that I bought on release over 2 years ago, has a Wear Level of 13%, and I have it plugged in 90% of the time. If regularly used it off charge, I would estimate the Wear Level would be 40-50% by now.
What is your Wear Level at?

 

Wow, I just realized my 256GB SSD is a PM951. All this time I was wrongly thinking it was an SM951. Did the 9550 ever ship with SM951's?

 

No, not to my knowledge

 

Can anyone here answer my questions especially the RAM part?



Would this kingston ram be 8gb be compatible? So if i get this, then i will only upgrade my ram from 8gb to 12ram right since i have 2 sticks of 4gb ram for a total of 8gb on my computer?


https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00J8E92I0/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1



Also a computer repair shop would easily be able to open this laptop up and install the ram right?


The thing is im worried after installing the RAM, there might be an issue with the computer. Can others confirm here upgrading the RAM on this computer at a computer repair shop would be fine?

 

https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-PC4-...019FRDAY6/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

Hey all. Is this what i need? Thus 8gb crucial ram? But i also read that you should have 2 compatible ones? Thus i have 8gb total ram at the moment but 2 sticks. So if i get this crucial 8gb ram, its best to buy 2 sticks because if i use 1 stick of this and 1 stick of 4gb, then the computer might have issues later on? I read that its best to use the same brand/stick exact one otherwise it would conflict? Is this true or not?

 

Yes, that Crucial RAM will work fine

 

Is there any other ram on amazon that you would recommend besides this one?

 

I had a look and the Crucial seems to be the best you can get for the money. It will be slightly faster than what Dell used in the laptops from factory. From factory they came with 2133MHz and that Crucial is 2400MHz.

 

Would it be better to get 1 stick of 16gb or 2 sticks of 8gb? Its cheaper for the 16gb. Also, if i get the 16gb, wouldn't that mean if i want to upgrade to 32gb in the future, then i could? But if i get 2 sticks of 8gb, i can't?

The other thing is this. If i get one stick of 16gb ram, would it be bad idea to put 4gb ram in the other slot for 20gb? I read that you should use ram of same gb on each slot. So i assume putting one 8gb ram with a 4gb is not good. But putting one that is 16gb and one that is 4gb might even make it worst?

 

2x 8GB sticks in dual channel is going to run faster than 1x 16GB stick in single channel. 16GB total RAM is more than enough for 99% of users, so I don't ever see the need to have to upgrade to 32GB.

 

buy 1 16gb now and another when you can afford it if you want, you can leave a 4gb stick in for now.

 

Gonzo.


But say the computer is using 90 percent ram to make it simple. It would show 7.2/8.0gb ram being used. But most of the time its higher than that when i have these tabs. It does goes to the high 80 percent as well but thats rare. Do if i upgrade is 16gb, will it show 7.2/16gb ram used or not? Or would it show something like 11gb/16gb? Also the 16gb will solve this lagging issue right? The thing is even youtube lags a lot because of this. Of course if i close all those tabs, that would solve the issue.


Also if i don't ever plan to upgrade to 32gb, i should just get 2 sticks of 8gb then right? Seems most people suggest 2 sticks as its dual channel? Of course i dont know what that means but most people seem to suggest to get 2 sticks each.

 

7.2/8GB used is extremely high if you are just browsing around and not using any demanding programs, so I think you have a lot of background programs running, which I think is your main issue and causing lagging. My system only uses 2.8/16GB, so even if I had only 8GB RAM, I would still have no issues because I don't play any games. I would first clean your windows or do a reformat, you should be able to get it down to something similar to mine, and if you don't play games, you have saved yourself money, because even 8GB RAM is plenty if you don't run games.
Upgrading the RAM is just going to band-aid the issue of high RAM usage, not fix it

 

It's impossible to know your ram usage m8 and performance between single and dual channel is not double but different size ram sticks will still run dual channel iirc. I am just giving you an option, I'm not saying you have to. I run 32GB and chrome loves to use 5GB, photo editing several raw files will use quite a lot so I'm letting you know it's possible if you want.

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

 

Okay well i am going to get minimum 16gb on my computer since 8gb is lagging. So obviously i will get 16gb ram. So you suggest 2 sticks of 8gb or 1 stick of 16gb? I also don't think i will ever upgrade my ram to 32gb though. And the thing is even if i get 1 stick of 16gb ram, would you suggesting using a 4gb ram i already have with it or not so 20gb total? Thus should i use 2 ram or just the 1? Because if you use 1, its single and not dual right?