Dell XPS Speed Shift

You are using 3rd party software to run it on the 9550, the 9530 has it enabled in the BIOS so windows will use it, the 9550 doesn't have it enabled in BIOS so windows ignores it.

Unless we are using 3rd party software.

I guess I should have made that obvious the 1st time.

SST will not run on the 9550 without user intervention, be it a BIOS shell hack or software.

 

If I understand what you were trying to say it would be that there is no windows update to enable SST?

The 9350 does not have anything in the bios that shows SST at all yet it was enabled before I installed throttle stop...

 

Ok what I am saying is.

It is well documented the SST was enabled in windows 10 last year, google it.
It is also documented the Laptop has to support SST, google should make reference to that as well by googling the above.
The XPS13 9350 had a BIOS update that enabled support of SST early in it's life. It was posted on this very forum. It also has to have a supported operating system, in this case windows 10 but only after I think the RS1 release.
The XPS 9550 & 9560 has had no BIOS update to enable SST so no amount of supported operating systems will enable it by default.

To enable it on the 9550-9560 you have to either hack the UEFI BIOS to enable the bit (still a minefield as not all options are known) or use 3rd party software such as throttlestop.

Now I ASSUME throttle stop also depends on being used with an operating system that also have native support such as the windows 10 RS1 release.

I could be wrong but you are not making this easy for me.

 

Nope. Speed Shift is a feature of Intel Skylake and Kaby Lake CPUs. It can be enabled in any version of Windows. I have it enabled in Windows 7 without any problems.

The bios sets up a lot of different things in the background. A fully unlocked bios would likely have an option available so a user can decide if they want to enable or disable Speed Shift but I think most laptops will not give a user any options to control Speed Shift. The bios will either enable or disable Speed Shift in the background. After booting up, if you run HWiNFO or ThrottleStop, you will be able to see what state Speed Shift was set to by the bios.

When CPUs are updated, Intel tends to stick with the same registers. I can confirm that Skylake and Kaby Lake use the exact same registers to control Speed Shift.

 

Good to know, Iirc though windows 10 RS1 is the only OS to support it without 3rd party tools?

 

1. Yes, changing CPU msr register you can enable SST anywhere even if DOS (if you will find how to run it ). But there is another part - SST gives controls to OS through "hints" mechanism + availability to force low and hight performance states (read - choose almost fixed frequency). And this part will be working only on supported OS - like Windows 10 rs1 and newer and so on.

2. SST can be easily enabled on any DELL laptop with Skylake+ CPU. For 9550 - i wrote exact bios variable that is controlling this (yes, this option is already in our BIOS - just hidden from user eyes. And there is way to unlock a lot in gui - but i will not experiment with that bcz my 9550 is my main working machine, and i have not so much time to restore it after experiments - i spent too much time restoring it with hardware programmer last time. But i discovered two things - corrent value for SST enable/disable UEFI variable. And second - dont try to change DVMT-prealloc parameter through uefi shell - it will make your machine unusable :-D ). For other models - it's possible to analyze bios to find corrent variables as well. If somebody will do that.

 

Hi goodwin_c,

I really appreciated your post regarding the UEFI Shell for 9550 and just tried to look up the value of the 0xd8 variable you mentioned in your post. Problem is it returns some really different value instead of 0x00. Are you sure it didn´t change?

 

if you can give screenshot - i can look on it. in other case it's hard to tell something. also, what version of BIOS are you using? I did this in 1.2.16 as i remember, and as setting is sitting there persistently after all further upgrades - i assume they didn't move this variable to another place (sad but DELL is using AMI bios as base - and it is overall very weird realization of UEFI specs. especially when we are talking about NVAR storage architecture)

 

Oh, I wasn´t precise enough...I now own a 9560 and just tried what I did on my "old" 9550. I don´t know how to take a screenshot in Shell so I write down whats on the screen

> Setup_var 0xd8
> looking for Setup variable...
> var Name :Setup, var size:12, var guid: ec87d643 - eba4 - 4bb5 - a1 - e5 - 3f - 3e - 36 - b2 - 0d - a9

-->GUID does not match expected GUID, taking it nevertheless...
> expected a different size of the Setup variable (got 5117 (0x13fd) Bytes). Continue with care...
> successfully obtained "Setup" variable from VSS (got 5117 (0x13fd) Bytes).
> offset 0xd8 is: 0x69


On the 9550 it works flawlessly. Now I´m on a 9560 with BIOS 1.0.3.

Thanks for your effort!

 

You must have a phone?

 

Thats right, but the quality of the image paired with the tiny letters because of the 4k not scaling properly lets me do this by hand. The image taken is a pain to look at...

 

But you asked for it So here you go!

 

Can you please make bios backup with this tool http://kom-servise.ru/images/BIOS/Universal_BIOS_Backup_ToolKit_2.0.rar
Dell bios update images are tricky and will not give "real" bios image in output, so only way to get real snapshot is to use this tool - in that way i got my to disassemble and get internal information
But i can't guaranty that it will be fast - i'm a little bit busy this days. But when i will find time - i will try to check it and tell you proper variable offset for this model.
Also, good that you didn't try to change this variable - between models they have different layout for variables. And AMI bioses has no "strict" naming for uefi variables - they are just offsets in special region of bios flash chip. So, normally, they are not changing between bios updates (in other case it will mess all things between different versions of bioses). But they have different layouts between laptop models. So be careful for which model you are doing such things.

 

Thanks for your help!!! And I promise not to change anything I don´t know at least a little about I´m quite happy with my 9560 and it is flawless (till now). So the aim is not to brick it...
I did a backup of my BIOS and ist about 16MB... So no way to attach it. Can you PM me an adress so that I could mail it to you?

 

and yes, it is same size as in 9550. but better make zip with it

 

Thanks for your help! I backed up my BIOS with your tool. The file is about 16MB of size so no way to attach it here. Could you PM me your email for sending it to you by mail? It would be really great of you to help us getting deeper into this thing.

 

goodwin, you got mail...

 

Yes, got it. Will check as soon as will find spare time

 

Take your email out b4 it ends up on a spammers list goodwin!
Send a PM next time

 

I finally took the plunge and enabled this using the EFI shell. Thanks goodwin

 

It´s really nice if enabled in BIOS. The dropdown menus in the processor power plan pressing "revealed" in the first post here are now working fine. Give it a try

 

Yep I have just been tinkering with those with HWinfo64 running in the background, you can see the processor basically sat at 3.5ghz with the energy performance preference at 0%
I left it at 50%

 

Right, that was my experience, too. For the power plan on battery I put it to 60, I think. Don´t know if it was much of an improvement. But it´s fine to get it integrated in the system without having to use additional Software. I for myself have to wait till we get to know the variables for the 9560.

 

You are welcome Just trying to fix Dell stuff... I'm working closely with Hackintosh project for this laptop - you can't imagine how much problems dell "features" are bringing...

 

@Rockstart75

I know that this is little bit faster that i promised :-D But just accidentally found all needed tools around in my lappy (i thought i moved them already somewhere), so there is info for 9560

Code:

0x3F50B             Setting: Intel(R) Speed Shift Technology, Variable: 0x4BC {05 91 B6 01 B7 01 D3 01 01 00 BC 04 10 10 00 01 00}
0x3F51C                 Option: Disabled, Value: 0x0 {09 07 04 00 30 00 00}
0x3F523                 Option: Enabled, Value: 0x1 {09 07 03 00 00 00 01}

So, your variable offset will be 0x4BC and value to enable as usual 0x1 (0x0 to disable - in any case)

 

GoNzO said anything neccesary Wow! i will try asap!

And I did it It seems to be the right variable and it works great with the onboard controls. Thank you goodwin!!!

 

GoNz0 confirmed that EPP of 50% and 65% allow his 9550 i7 CPU to hit max speeds

Rockstar - can you confirm if EPP of 50% allows your 9560 CPU to hit max speeds?

__________
Not an XPS but a new Kaby Lake CPU....

Uncle Web recently posted that his Kaby Lake CPU speed was capped unless EPP was below 80 (80 of 255) or below 30%. You will need to check your CPU but that implies you can reach max CPU speed with EPP only in these ranges:

0%~30% (on 100% EPP scale)
0-80 (on 255 point EPP scale)

[EDIT] See below:

 

Just tested it on 50 and 65 (65 is for battery) and on both it hit 3.5 on the TS bench 1 thread

 

Do you mean 50% and 65%? Or are those on confusing 255 scale?

Is that on your 9550 (I know answer)?

 

50 & 65% and yeah the 9550

 

On my 9560 the max. Turbo (3,8GHz) is hit with EPP set to 25, 40, 45, 50, 60 and 75 (0%-100% scale). So no problem with the i7 7700HQ.

 

Did you try to enable SST? Is it working as expected?

 

Jipp, I enabled it via BIOS by setting "your" variable to 0x1. It works perfectly. The settings I mentioned above are made via the dropdown menus in the powerplan options of windows. Throttlestops realtime monitoring of the EPP values works fine, too. The only downside will be repeating the process if a new BIOS by Dell shows up (like on the 9550). As I said, you´re the man

 

I thought it followed BIOS updates on the 9550 so it shouldn't need doing again on your 9560?
Will find out in the next few weeks no doubt

 

Ok, then I remember it wrong and thought you had to repeat on the 9550. I had to return mine shortly after enabling it for the refund because of SpeedShift not working and thought somebody wrote the value was overwritten. But it´s true, we´ll find out!

 

So, after being quite happy with SpeedShift enabled via Bios (Thanks goodwin again ) I would like to give something back to this forum by writing my steps to get it working on my 9560.

But: Please keep in mind that this method could easily brick your laptop and there will no easy way to get it back working! Everything you do is on your own risk. I`ll just describe how I got there but cannot give any guarantee that it will work with your machines, too!

The goal is getting SpeedShift enabled in BIOS. You won´t have any "switch" in the GUI, but SpeedShift will be active after every reboot/wake up etc. It´s just enabled and you don´t need any kind of third party software.

Here you go (after you made up your mind if you really want to do this ) :

This is for the XPS 15 9560 only!!! For the 9550 go to http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/dell-xps-speed-shift.796891/page-5#post-10400525

1: Format a flash drive with FAT32 filesystem
2: Download that archive https://www.firewolf.science/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/EFI-shell.zip
3: Extract the files into /Boot/bootx64.efi on your flash drive
4: Go into your BIOS by pressing F2 and disable secure boot in BIOS. You could activate it afterwards again.
5: Boot from flash drive. If it is not booting - go to bios, boot sequence - and add custom entry pointing to that efi file. Then reboot, F12 and choose your custom entry.
6: If everything works you got UEFI Shell running in a small GRUB environment.
7: Type

Code:

setup_var 0x4BC

8: It should return the value 0x00. Disregard some little warnings from UEFI regarding the size.
9: Modify the value by typing

Code:

setup_var 0x4BC 0x1

Disregard the little warnings again.

10: Now you could control your work by typing

Code:

setup_var 0x4BC

and it should return the value 0x1

11: Leave UEFI Shell by typing

Code:

exit

Reboot and don´t forget to enable Secure Boot in BIOS again.



Now SpeedShift is enabled. You could check by running Throttlestop or HWiNFO64. To get rid of this BIOS entry just repeat everything but set the variable back to 0x0.

Now it´s worth checking unclewebbs post http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/dell-xps-speed-shift.796891/#post-10361703 to enable the powerplan options in Windows. It works flawlessly (at least for me).

All the credits for this should go to goodwin as I just took his instructions and put it right for the 9560 (with his help).

 

I stuck up a similar guide on the 9560 page I started with links back to the power plan options as well

 

Damnit, I didn´t see it there. But fortunately we wrote the same

 

Shoot - I forgot about that. I was waiting for someone to confirm it worked on a 9560 before linking it to the guide.

Regardless, both are now linked to the first page

 

Lets face it, the next 10 newbies who sign up will still ask despite it being posted on EVERY relevant thread!

 

But credit to Goodwin & RockStar for a lot of blood, sweat and tears on the SpeedShift research!!

 

Just thought how great this is. On the 9550 it took about one year since inital release to get it working the BIOS way. This time it´s only been a couple of weeks! I really wonder why Dell isn´t putting it themselves...but I don´t know how often I asked myself this question

 

I suppose this is some misscommunication between company layers - engineers, developers, marketing guys, higher management etc. Low-level guys don't have task to do this - high level guys don't understand what is that and why people are complaining and so they are not pushing anybody inside to make it. Also, higher management in most cases believe in statistic - and most probably most of buyers of this laptops even doesn't know what is SST. If somebody someday will find way to knock to some guy from Dell that is some Boss and explain him why they are assholes and are making stupid decisions - maybe that day something will change. Until that - i don't think we will see any big improvements

 

Anybody know why my 9560 keeps going into DellAssist when booting from the USB?

 

FYI - Procyon is trying to get SpeedShift running on his 9560 via BIOS as RockStar just did a few posts back...

XPS 15 9560 owners thread.

 

Did you disable SecureBoot? This worked for me.

 

Follow the 1st post and add the boot option as it states.

 

I did

 

Hm, strange...did you do what GoNzO wrote? I sticked close to my instructions and it worked. Did you format the USB right (Fat32)? The bootx64.efi should be in a folder named "Boot" etc. try comparing what you did to the instruction.