Dell XPS 9560 Clean install guide + custom ISO download.

Well sir,

thanks for your helpful comments, much appreciated! Fun isn't over yet: after uninstalling the Sammy driver, laptop became unbootable due to inaccessible boot device BSOD error. Even several restarts wouldn't help. But that's on me, should have disabled the driver and install the Microsoft one instead. Shame on me

Anyhoo, I've decided to format SSD drive again and did another clean Windows install using your custom ISO. To my surprise, I got a BSOD, this time "critical process died" one. It happened during the "Getting devices ready" process. Had to shutdown, naturally after start, Windows wouldn't come up due to some critical error during installation. So there we go, another clean install followed. This time, no BSOD and I booted to your Windows version. That BSOD was still on my mind, so I said to myself, let's do another clean install, for verification purposes only . Sure enough, during the "Getting devices ready" process I got the very same BSOD with critical process died message. So another clean install off the USB stick - 4th in a row now - followed. No BSOD after that one.

This makes me think there are 2 scenarios there:

1) some of your drivers are still prone to a sudden BSOD

2) there's a possibility of a hardware failure soon to be found on my system, going into motherboard (more than likely). Guess too many BSOD's played their part as well.

Currently running on AHCI with Microsoft Standar NVM Express Controller version 10.0.10586.0 and Defender disabled.

I'm afraid BSOD's aren't over yet though . Dunno what's worse, to have the 100% disk coming back or BSOD's. Just wonder if it's next to impossible to get rid of both of these plagues?

IMPORTANT EDIT: it started to turn into a nightmare, so it did! Got 3 BSOD's with critical process died message after 3 reboots within less than a minute after each reboot. Interestingly enough, there seems to be no BSOD for at least 10 mins now after I installed Sammy's driver for the 950 PRO SSD.

It seems like these 2 problems are related though: with task manger opened I could see the disk usage to become 100% and literally seconds after that BSOD came up...

With Sammy's driver I barely had any BSOD's of any kind. But the 100% disk was there on ocassions (not all the time, it came up eventually after 30mins of computer usage, another time it took an hour to show).

Must dig furthermore to discover the culprit of the 100% disk issue...

 

I did get a BSOD 1st attempt at installing but I thought that was the nVidia driver installer as it was a hack job to get the software to install, I removed that from the release and left it as driver only earlier on (before getting devices ready) then had both pro and home install on US and UK ISO's on my test laptop aka my Daughters
The dell drivers still use the Dell exe with a simple /s on the end so they "just install" for the part where is says getting devices ready.
Chipset is still an ongoing issue with no fix as we only have one driver to use so kinda stuck on that. You will find it scattered around the net and not just the 9550 where it BSOD and doesn't write a crash dump with (sometimes) no boot device on the restart. I get the feeling the issue lies with them.
I hope the upcoming anniversary edition of windows has an updated generic driver instead.

 

It truly is a sad fact Windows 10 cannot be called a nearly 100% reliably enough running operating system . Add different manufacturers like Dell, HP, Sony, Acer, Asus, Microsoft etc. and there's a hell to be unleashed when it comes to a system stable enough not to provide us with goodies like BSOD's on pretty much daily basis...

Fair play to you for creating the custom ISO with an attempt to offer us as smooth XPS 9550 experience as possible, but if there's a poor support/development on the side of big players like Microsoft (and Dell in this particular case), nothing more can be done.


Back to me case though. Haven't experienced a BSOD for the last 2 hours (and more), so the Sammy driver works good enough that way. Bad news is, even disabling Defender couldn't prevent the 100% disk usage which I got after having Photoshop installer running and youtube music playing at the same time. I've disabled the "System and compressed memory" feature in Windows for now, because that one seemed to be doing too much until I could have used mouse cursor only with 100% disk running.

In the end it's like in that saying where one's looking for a needle in a bottle of hay.

I wonder how many other Dell XPS 9550 users have come across the 99-100% disk usage issue where they could see mouse cursor running only and everything else was frozen, but with no signs of BSOD?

EDIT: After I finished this message and Photoshop installed, another 100% disk disabled the system. Hard reboot followed. "System and compressed memory" is not the culprit then.

Next tricks I applied straight away are disabled Superfetch, Windows Search and BITS from within services.msc. Google is your friend, so let's see if that helps.

 

Gonzo,
Thanks to this thread, I was able to use NT-Lite and integrate the drivers into a fresh copy of windows and my laptop is running in tip top shape. I was tempted to just use your pre-driver integrated iso file, but I wanted to do it myself with the drivers I wanted. Safe to say that it worked like a charm. Although it did take about 2 hours to integrate all the drivers into the ISO, I'd say it was a worthwhile learning experience + knowing what drivers I'm using is a plus (I hate being unsure of something).

For anyone getting random BSOD's and such, I'd suggest doing what I did, and that's integrating the drivers yourselves using NT-Lite and doing it. I've been using the laptop for a couple of days now, and never had a single BSOD or any crash. It's always good to know the contents you are installing on your machine. Although Gonzo is a trustworthy person, not all of us have the same machines.

Thanks Gonzo, wish I could donate, but I only have cash on me at the moment.

 

Got my XPS 15 not too long and working well (knock on wood). Don't know if I should do a clean install since I have had no issues and really not a lot of bloat other than Dell Support Assist. Worth my time doing this? Not as techy as I used to be.

 

If it works and you're happy then leave it alone m8.

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

 

Time for me to update my status here .

I was so desperate with the 100% disk usage issue that in the end I even tried downgrading to Windows 7, which didn't turn out well for me, so switched back to Win 10 Pro again. After playing with different drivers (Microsoft, Samsung, Intel and their older or newer versions) finally I seem to have a BSOD free and also 100% disk issue free machine running it in RAID (that's right, no AHCI here) and latest Intel NVMe controller as mentioned earlier in the thread:

• >64bit Intel RST(e) AHCI/RAID Drivers v14.10.0.1016 WHQL<(>MIRROR<)

Running along with the 2006 dated Microsoft driver.

So far so good . The laptop is even quieter during operations, the fans don't kick in that often as they did before. Also, I've uninstalled Dell touchpad drivers entirely, they were extremely limiting, right now I'm running on very basic Microsoft HID-compliant mouse drivers, this way zooming in and out works nice enough using the touchpad.

Regular backup routine with Acronis true image is a must, obviously.

GoNz0, your WIN 10 PRO ISO works very well for me now!

 

I have said this I another thread. NVMe drivers are not used in raid mode. Someone else was wondering why his 950 pro wasn't recognized by Samsung magician and showed it as a weird name. You should find it listed as a raid device instead of NVMe

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

 

Apologies for the misinterpretation, it is listed in Device manager as Intel Chipset SATA RAID controller, indeed. I'm kinda scared of switching back to AHCI, in case more BSOD's start to pop up. Speaking of them now, got one earlier today, but it was the one with error 0xc0000021a message, which I believe was caused by me trying out different drivers for touchpad from the following website: http://dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com/dell-touchpad-drivers/.
Currently running off latest Synaptics drivers, seem to run OK.

Been playing with Audio drivers as well, Realtek vs. Intel smart, staying with Realtek ones for now (seem stable enough).

Here comes an interesting "feature" I observed a couple of times already - an occasional black screen desktop background for a second or two. Never seen it before, perhaps some driver acting, could it be one of the display drivers? I have both the latest Intel beta and the NVidia one installed from within the provided WIN10PRO ISO. Just wondering there...

 

I think the wallpaper is a sync issue if your account spans more than one pc?

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

 

Well, time for another update. Eventually I've decided to switch to AHCI, mainly due to the fact the SSD itself is recommended to be kept in that mode (and I don't have 2nd disk on my XPS 9550). As soon as I did that, several critical process died BSOD's popped up, like 3 within hour's time, which was ridiculous. So yeah, I switched back to Samsung's NVMe driver (where it all started). Although I haven't encountered any 100% disk plague anymore, the system sometimes freezes fully (including mouse cursor). Happened to me twice within the last 2 hours while browsing. Funny enough no BSOD , staying like that for 5mins until I lost my patience and did a hard reboot then.

Prior to system freeze had the black screen moment there as well, this time it was complete, not a desktop background only.

All this got me thinking to check the actual disk health/consistency, so tried the well known sfc/ scannow command. Sure enough, errors were discovered. Using the Image Health cmd script from here:

http://www.eightforums.com/performa...-dism-restorehealth-repair-corrupt-files.html

I managed to get those corrupt files fixed and for now I seem to have working system. Let's see how long will that last...

EDIT: Back to 100% disk usage issue with Sammy 1.1 NVMe driver . I'm giving up at this stage, honestly. Just wondering here, anyone else who (with actually working Storage controller drivers) reads this great thread, do you have the following 2 items listed in Device manager under Storage controllers:

Microsoft Storage Spaces Controller

Standard NVM Express Controller

Both are dated 6/21/2006 from Microsoft. I don't experience any 100% disk usage with these in AHCI mode, but suffer from BSOD's with 0xc000021a.

I'm nearly 100% sure it's either an unreliable driver for Sammy 950 PRO or a failing motherboard.

Any help is much appreciated

 

Hi everyone, I want to do clean install. I see 5 partitions on 512GB SSD. Do I need to keep them or I can delete all of them during installation.

I see recovery partitions #4, #5. How to run recovery from recovery partition to restore 9550 to the factory settings? F8 doesn't work.

What the sense to keep #4, #5

 

Wipe the lot then take a backup with Macrium reflect to an external drive when you have installed it all.

 

Hi genzo,

I am using your ISO for a coupe of weeks. I noticed that there is a lag, taking a second, whenever i opened a file. Why does the system respond a bit late?

 

Thank you for the respond.

1. Run Windows 10 setup from USB
2. Delete all 5 partitions and create 1 new during the installation
3. Install clean Windows 10
4. Make an image with Macrium Reflect

Am I correct?

 

Always been that way for me, even on my Desktop and that thing runs like it's on crack.
Does edge open instantly? mine does for some reason but the rest take a bit longer.

Yes, you can schedule differential backups as well on the free edition.

 

Partition #1 and #2 were created by Windows.

What the sense of the recovery partitions #4 and #5? I am assuming they were created by Dell. Am I wrong? Why F8 system recovery doesn't work in this case?

How to restore computer for the factory conditions? Any ideas?

Thank you!

 

Yes 4&5 are Dells work.
F8 isn't part of this configuration, it is a failed boot option that will automatically come up if windows fails to load after a couple of attempts.
The other way to get to it is by holding the shift key while pressing "shut down" from the start menu and exploring the options.

 

Thank you for the info! After I delete all recovery partitions the combination "Holding Shift key + Shut down" will not work anymore.

 

It will still work, you no longer have the Dell recovery option though.
http://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/2294-advanced-startup-options-boot-windows-10-a.html

 

Yes, combination will work but there no Recovery Partition from Dell to restore the factory settings

Do we need it?

If I install clean Win 10 the Advanced Startup Options will work with combo Shift + Power

 

I would say based on you being in this thread you are no longer needing the Dell recovery partition

 

One of my friends installed Win 7 on 9550. Win7 works awesome on it! But need to replace Wi-Fi from Dell 1830 to Intel 8260

 

I have the exact same problem as you, so let me know if you have any news, I really don't know what to do

 

It helps if you quote the post you are referring to as we have no idea what you are on about?

 

Whoops, sorry!
Fixed!

 

unrelated I was surfing last night after noticing superefetch was on ( I was looking at the explorer lag when opening it on the taskbar vs WIN+E) and fell onto a thread about 100% CPU, they disabled superfetch to fix it so it may be worth looking at that.

 

Hi GoNzo,

I want to install clean Windows 7 or Windows 10, still debating.

What way is better:

1. Setup Windows in ACHI then switch to RAID
2. Setup Windows in RAID then switch to ACHI
3. Setup Windows in ACHI and keep ACHI
4. Setup Windows in RAID and keep RAID

I read that the stock SSD (PM951) that's not stable when using it in AHCI mode, whereas RAID mode is stable but reduces performance to 50% after sleep.

Now, installing the Samsung drivers ver. 1.4.7.17 allows to use the XPS in AHCI mode without the performance issues that you would see in RAID, and without the bluescreen issues that you would see in AHCI.

In which mode you using your 9550?

Whats the difference based on BSOD, SSD Performance between ACHI and RAID.

 

Just curious there, how did you manage to fix that annoying 100% disk usage problem?

What I did now, I've installed a clean WIN 10 PRO 64bit ISO (dated April 2016) and did all the driver updates myself through device manager using built-in Windows updating system with the exception of Intel and NVidia drivers. Also used 3rd party driver updater called Driver Booster 3 and updated already existing drivers to their latest versions (had to be careful there not to have interference among the actual drivers, was a bit tricky).

Currently running on AHCI mode with Samsung storage controller driver and after 1 day of usage seems to be stable enough, no BSOD's and 100% usage disk yet. Had to do sfc/ scannow and related commands again, since there were come corrupted files/errors found on the disk.

I'm holding my breath yet though...

 

1,2,3,4, read my 1st post.

5, seems to vary according to different people.

6, See #5

7, see if you can figure that out from my 1st post as well

8, see #5

 

You wrote use AHCI for SSD only installs. How about after Win install? Continue to use it in ACHI or switch to RAID.

 

I have no idea why you would think to install as one then swap to another is an option but no it isn't.

 

Because I read your post http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...oftware-problems.784691/page-43#post-10201256
that you installed in ACHI and switched to RAID.

BTW, I am assuming that you have Samsung 950 Pro. I am using stock Samsung 512GB (PM951). But should be no difference!

 

I would have put it in this thread if it was a used step, I was pointing out that it can be done as I had messed around to try and find the best way to do things (as in get rid of the ****ing BSOD's), then listed those in my opening post.

The 950 pro went in my games PC in the end as I got my laptop replaced with the 1tb SSD that is a Toshiba, and yes I still have BSOD's now and again.

I can get 3 in 2 days or none for 2 weeks as is the case as of today but saying that it will no doubt BSOD now.

It is a windows bug or intel chipset as they are 2 factors that can't be changed at the moment.

 

Yeah

Some users wrote that there no BSOD in ACHI http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...oftware-problems.784691/page-51#post-10204412

 

end of the day YMMV

 

Maybe you need to try install in RAID? Some users reported that no BSOD in RAID mode but 50% less in speed after sleep. In my opinion better 50% lees in speed compare to BSOD.

 

It happens in Raid or AHCI, less in AHCI hence this thread coming along.

 

Did you try to install Win 7? Looks like no BSOD

 

Did you try to install Win 7? Looks like no BSOD

 

No.

 

GoNz0, I have a question. Does the Toshiba nvme drive bluescreen on ACHI? Im just wondering because my laptop has the toshiba drive instead of samsung's.

 

yes it doesn't matter what drive you have, BSOD can be weeks apart.

 

Problem -
Error message (....) trying to clean install Windows 10 Pro ISO via USB key again on Samsung 850 EVO m.2 250 GB drive.

Looked for GonNz0's ISO to solve but didn't find it (I was looking at older posts and that is not in his signature as I figured out after the fact)

Fix -
Reset "BIOS" in the options available at "power button + F2" a few times. Reset secure boot on, legacy off, AHCI Then try installing Windows 10 Pro a few times until it worked

_____

Detail-
So during the LCD screw connector-screw debacle I tried reinstalling Windows 10 Pro "blind" on my Samsung 850 EVO m.2 250GB SSD; that install failed because I could not see the screen or external monitor.

Once I got the LCD working again I tried to clean install Windows 10 and had some problems.

FYI - I was using the same Rufus ISO USB key from last week, the latest BIOS 1.2.00, UEFI, secure boot on, legacy off, AHCI.

Problems started after the Windows installer drive partitioning screen and at the "Installing Windows" screen. During the "Status - Getting files ready for installation" the following message popped up (at varying % of "getting ready"):

Windows Setup - "Windows cannot install required files. Make sure all files required for installation are available, and restart the installation. Error code: .."

Couldn't find out what that code actually means...

I tried installing >10 times and that message would not leave me alone. I tried reinstalling the same ISO on the key, downloading a new ISO, swapping the RAM, reseating the Samsung 850 evo m.2 drive, disconnecting the second HDD....

Reset "BIOS" via "power button + F2" a few times. Then tried installing Windows 10 Pro a few times until it worked.

Once that worked, I tried yet another clean install for fun and that ...... code popped up a few more times, until I reset the "BIOS" a few times.

Anyways, no issues so far...

 

Sounds like your SSD is on it's way out?

 

I was thinking the same. The SSD is brand new with probably 10 hours on it. But I will find some diagnostic tests to see what they say....

 

--removed duplicate--

 

Thanks for this ISO, just reinstalled after following instructions with very very few problems. (Mostly me not reading.)

Main stumbling block, was that I was one of those people who needed to reset the BIOS to default for it to recognise the USB stick!

 

I performed the reinstall. There seems to be no BSOD's in ACHI using the toshiba ssd.

 

You just tempted fate!