Dell XPS 15 9500 Owners Lounge

Hi guys,

I am unable to find a thread for New Dell XPS 15 9500 version. Here is one.

 

This is my current daily laptop. Very satisfied with its overall build quality and portability, except for a wobbly touchpad since being received. Still think FHD/FHD+ is perfect for 15in.

 

Just ordered one too. Mainly for the screen. The 4K Touch screen is the brightest and most color accurate screen I've seen in my research.

 

I've been happy with mine, although I have the 1200p screen (I like my battery life). Just make sure you enable undervolting.

 

Are you on the factory image or did you do a clean install?

I have prepared the drivers list but not sure if I got it right or not, it's very confusing even Dell's online guides are very vague they just say Chipset, Card Reader, Network, system utilities, but there are so many one might easily mess up the order:

 

I did a fresh install, and didn't bother with most of Dell's drivers in all honesty.

Dell command is an automatic driver updater if I am reading their description correctly. I haven't used it, but I have used Dell update in the past. It works well enough on the wife's laptop so I don't have to check for updates manually (I'm lazy).

I did not install the Trusted Device Agent either since I don't use BitLocker or any of Dell's other "protection."

 

I wish the XPS 15 offered a more potent dGPU than the GTX 1650 Ti. If it had the same 1660 Ti Max-Q as the Surface Book 3, I would have gotten it instead of the XPS 17 I have now. Maybe that will change when Dell refreshes the line with 45W Tiger Lake H CPUs.

 

Yeah the 2060 in the 9700 is a much better option, cyberpunk ran great compared to my 9500...

 

How can I create an USB drive to be able to install 'Dell Factory Image' and 'Clean OS' later on without using internet during installation? I want to try both of these in future.

I checked Youtube videos about 'Dell SupportAssist OS recovery'. What I understood that it can create a bootable USB to install 'Clean Windows OS'. But to install 'Dell Factory Image', setup needs internet to download the latest image during installation process.

I have also been suggested to use imaging software like 'Macrium Reflect' to create a backup of OS for future use.

 

Unless you have the Dell Factory Image backed up as an image file that you can use Macrium Reflect to copy it back on to your SSD, there is no other way of restoring the factory image if you have wiped it or changed the SSD.

You can do a clean install though:

Windows 10 Clean Installation Guide
Macrium Reflect Installation/Usage Guide

 

Hello, can you recommend which drivers must to install without automatically installing by windows os?

 

What did you do about the wobbly touchpad? I ordered one last week before learning that this has been a common issue.

 

Try it

 

If somebody is looking for a Second 2280 M.2 SSD Heatsink Hard Drive Cover for Dell XPS 15 9500 :

https://de.aliexpress.com/item/1005001440970690.html?spm=a2g0s.12269583.0.0.1d64360a9o7lYU

I received mine within 10 days (shippment from China to Thailand) and the heatsink fits perfectly!

 

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Is the same part available from Dell? If yes, is this a better deal?

 

I do not know since Dell US would not ship to Thailand, so I ordered from AliExpress.

 

Hello, anyone sugguest undervolt for xps 9500???
Mine

 

I don't find that running CPU core and Cache at different voltages to actually do anything, but I believe my 9500 will hit -0.125 or so (I'd have to look). They are all going to be different so you have to do the testing to see what yours will do.

 

That's correct and neither does setting either of the offsets that low. The processor ignores such values.

 

I repasted, room temp is 29°C, surfing web for 50 minutes, fans don't run. It's awesome.
Undervolt: core - 181.6 cache -90.8 intel gpu -50.8
TPL
PL1: 45
PL2: 60
Timing limit 56s.

 

FYI

https://www.dell.com/community/XPS/...in-speakers/m-p/7864923/highlight/true#M83241

 

PS: one question... Is it worth replacing the thermal paste?

 

It's not an amazing drop, but it does go down and it does reduce the fan use.

 

Does the fans kick in by watching YouTube?

 

10875h did undervolt core 180 cache 80, tpl 40w/60w/40s. Fans don't run when i'm watching youtube.

 

How is everyone finding the battery life? I'm coming from an XPS 13 9350 i5-6200U and I'm finding my 9500's battery life almost atrocious.

My config:
i7-10875 (8-core)
4K touch screen
2 x nvme SSDs (SK Hynix 256GB + Intel 670p 1TB)

Other than on standby, the battery life just tanks. I'm barely getting 2 hours of normal use from full to empty. If I do anything more than simple use, it tanks even faster. (Dell's power optimization app reported battery health to be 100%, btw.)

How is everyone else with the 10875 faring with battery life?

I also find the palm rest to be quite warm.

Sent from my SM-N986W using Tapatalk

 

That is rotten battery life. Heating the palm rest takes a lot of energy.

You might try enabling Intel "Speed Shift" and setting EPP quite high to reduce CPU temps (the range typically is either 0-255 or 0-100). On your laptop there might be a switch in the BIOS to enable then the EPP settings are in the Windows Power Options. You might have a different Power Option on Battery so check that.

You might be able to undervolt the CPU, iGPU, adjust EPP, etc with free ThrottleStop software. They have some great tips on the ThrottleStop thread to remove background processes to get c0% below 1%.

Reducing the screen brightness will help a bit. You may be able to undervolt the nvidia GPU also.

Consider a clean install of Windows, removing all Dell's bloatware, remove other bloatware, remove unused programs, reduce number of programs at startup and in the background.

You can easily reduce fan speed with Dell Command | Power Manager (only Dell software I am running).

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/the-throttlestop-guide.531329/

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/dell-xps-speed-shift.796891/

 

Thanks!

Before I head down this road, do you have a similar config and if so, what kind of battery life are you getting?

Sent from my SM-N986W using Tapatalk

 

I ran older XPS laptops 9550 & 9560 (6th & 7th gen) and those got 6+ hours on batteries. Followed that basic config. I don't know why it would be much different on your laptop although the newer CPUs probably can't undervolt very much as Intel was squeezing as much performance out of these old CPUs as possible (also Dell might have locked undervolting out but you can get around that if you like).

Undervolting a Skylake CPU -180mv makes a world of difference. A -50mv undervolt on newer chips is not so drastic.

Actually I ran EPP around 80 (that permits CPU max turbo clocks on those CPUs; that varies by CPU so just requires a bit of trial and error).

Your 10th gen Intel laptop is significantly revised but still runs the old 14nm CPU, very similar to the old Skylake 6th gen. Still a very good CPU and laptop. Good luck.