XPS 15 9560 internal pictures

Hi all.

I opened up my new XPS 15 9560 laptop and took some pictures showing some obvious manufacturing defects.

http://imgur.com/a/a0uUj

The worst by far is how dirty the whole board is. It shows that the place assembling these laptops has a complete disregard for cleanliness and order. Anything can happen in a place like this.
I'm an SMT process engineer and have seen what goes on in places like this.

The laptop works flawlessly, and I love it. FWIW.

 

Thanks for the detailed pics and your thoughts on the whole assembly...

 

Wow I see the QC is more piss poor than ever, have you phoned them and asked for some money back?
That shield not being lined up is inexcusable as it could short out.
The tape over the vents is normal (I know) it has been the same since the early 9550's
Interesting to see they were planning to shield near the vents, not the case on the 9550 > http://i.imgur.com/xG3lSS8.jpg
I wonder if it was an attempt to cool that fialed as you say in the picture or again trying to shield but noise not heat?

Pic with "This conductive foam is touching the plastic film..." I get the feeling the board design changed but the bottom cover didn't probably surpless to requirement now but left on anyway.

Screw not put in sounds about right. Nice to see they still do not give a toss about the premium range, this is why like yourself I take the damn things apart and check everything it right including cleaning the chinese fingerprints off!

I will link my thread to this as I don't need to post pictures now, thanks



Did you do the monitor diagnostics to check for bad pixels?

 

I know they will keep doing things like this if we take care of the issues ourselves, but I don't want to deal with them unless necessary. I will use the 2 years warranty if needed down the road.
Because... these are like timebombs. Even if the machine works fine now, all those defects will surface over time, unfortunately.
One strip will lose the adhesive and touch a component... A solder ball will get unstuck and short something...

No dead pixels at all. I installed a clean windows and it's working really well.

This is what I'm thinking about, to put between the palmrest and the battery, in the fingerprint area:

https://goo.gl/images/ltkyM1

Looks like it could be used to login with a NFC watch or a tag. thoughts?

 

Nah I looked into that with my 9530 as that came with a NFC reader by default, it was a complete and utter waste of time!
It did bugger all apart from let you transfer files from your phone if you had long enough to wait, turned out faster to click photos.google.com as my phone had synced to the cloud before I could finish tapping the tag!
Oh I guess you could sync nfc headsets but I never did.

You could buy rather expensive software to allow the logon but it is no dount not compatible with windows hello.

Maybe look into the 9530 nfc reader as it is very small.

 

dproldan - best post I have seen in a while - thanks for the pics and pro comments!

My 9550 was very clean inside when new and is still much cleaner today than your 9560 is. Maybe some of those 9560 boards were partially populated and waiting in a filty warehouse for components for a few months. Then moved to a "cleaner" barn for final assembly.

GoNz0 noted the pads for shielding around the VRM were a new addition for the 9560. Why do you think Dell added the pads? I think I know why Dell did not use the pads for shielding (VRM mosfets are uncooled and get super hot (they are an achilles heel of the XPS).

That RF shielding near the ram was terribly assembled. Maybe Dell intended to ground it but yours is now not grounded. Does it matter the plastic was not removed from the shielding or is that just indicitative of sloppy assembly?

Your picture of the battery compartment with caption, "This conductive strip is dangerously close to that resistor!" I can imagine contact happening 1. out of the factory or 2. when someone replaces the battery or 3. if the battery jiggles around - begins to deform over time. I think I will disassemble my XPS to make sure that strip is a fair distance from any components...

 

A nice post indeed

> Couldn't Dell order that conductive strip with a cut out hole?
Question is, what's that strip doing there actually? In my 9550 it was bent around the corner, covering 3/4 of the grille, so I had thought it was in fact intended to cover the grille Not that it would matter much: lifting it or blocking completely didn't seem to make much difference in throttling. So they could have as well installed that missing RF shielding. Or even better, done sth about cooling.

 

I don't know much about power supply design, but I think shielding these high frequency switching circuits is always advisable for protection against external RF and to avoid resonances.
Supposedly, these VRMs are mostly using the ground planes to get rid of the heat (page 15 here). In this case the soldering quality has to be specially good. I'll check for solder voids in the coming weeks, I'll have access to an X-rays machine. (I like doing things like this)

I didn't explain very well in the picture. The plastic is supposed to be there, to be black like the rest of that area, but it has been mishandled. The only real problem was that it was not inserted in that holding metal part, as GoNz0 noted, it could have caused a short circuit in the components underneath.

 

I can see Dell tech turning to his supervisor, Naseem, Naseem, you wont believe this, it's that ************ GoNzO again. He has a motherf**ing x-ray saying the solderings **** on top of all the other problems he found!!!

 

I'm glad you guys like this kind of posts and happy to have found this place with so many knowledgeable people.

I didn't check the grille under that tape, if it's metallic, the tape could be used to ground it together with the bottom cover. If the grille is plastic, I can't imagine any use for it.

 

I think it is plastic as that part is the palmrest, the fan outlet has no cover, just the fins from the heatsink from memory. Need to check when it has been taken apart again, I may be swapping the killer to the 1830 card so I will have to swap the antenna assembly from the screen if I do so that part will be exposed.

 

Considering the thermal issues, it would be even more interesting to see close-up thermal images of the VRM area under CPU+GPU load with the bottom cover open, to see what is overheating and what is okay
I understand the VRMs themselves are not supposed to generate excessive amounts of heat?

 

Those are interesting pictures. I just ordered mine today so I am excited to get it sometime next week. I ordered the 512 gb ssd. Does anyone know what brand/model the ssd is? I want to know whether I should replace the ssd with my current, 950 pro.

Thanks

 

The ones that I have seen have been PM961s - faster in some areas than the 950 pro, but slower in others...

 

Thanks for the quick response. So do you think the difference would be negligible?
I have the exact same setup as you for the 9550. Sounds like its probably not worth swapping the ssd that is in the 9560 into the 9550. I guess I'll have to run some tests myself when I get it. I'm just anxious ha

 

If it's the PM961, I would say it's not worth swapping. You could sell your 950 pro and recoup some of the costs to go up to a 9560...

Here was my 1TB PM961 before I decided I didn't need the extra space and sold it:

 

Very similar to the results from my pro 950 test. The 1tb versions are usually faster than the 512 correct?
Regardless I have had my 9550 since November 2015 and am really second guessing my 9560 purchase. My 9550 is the best computer I have ever owned, by far.

 

I'm not sure how different the 1TB drives are vs the 512GB - likely not much different. The 9560 isn't a huge leap in terms of performance, but that's up to you to decide.

 

Gotcha. And yeah not a big bump but I'm sort of just moving money around.
Anyway, thanks for your answers and help, its been very beneficial.

 

WOW

Thank you for sharing.

 

Afraid the SSD lottery is at play, they already have 2 firmwares up for other brands so it could be any of 3 so far

 

I dont understand how they can do that. This means people that ordered the same computer could get drastically different read/write speeds.

 

It would be interesting to see any individual components are real offenders.

In the VRM, the mosfets generate most of the heat. A few guys put thermal pads on the chokes only because they are taller so easier to heatsink to the case bottom with just 2-3mm (?) of thermal pads.

I think the 9550 has 3 mosfets & chokes for the CPU and 3 for the GPU. If the CPU peaks 45 watt and GPU at say 55+ (?) watts, maybe the GPU side of the VRM is more problematic. Not sure.

A few more mosfets & chokes would smooth power and allow the whole VRM to run cooler (the mosfets perform exponentially worse with heat so need to work harder, spiraling into higher and higher temperatures). However, I don't see much space for more components. And there is some added cost.

Just a little fresh air circulation around the VRM could solve the problem. Figuring how to do that is the challenge...

 

Yep.

 

dproldan - I was informed that your XPS passed through Dell's engineering labs:



Edit - start video at 1:54

 

can anybody confirm if we could upgrade 9550 to 9560 motherboard ?

 

I expect so, with heatsink of course. No idea why anyone would want to as replacement boards are expensive to the point the laptops usually a write off if it needs a new board out of warranty.

 

i have a 9550 laptop which screen flickers all the time and i think this could be the mother board, i am not 100% if 9560 mb will fit in, can anyone confirm ?

 

Browse the forum for the thread about screen flicker, it will be on the 1st few pages. Read through it. It will answer your question.

 

Guis... that battery looks to be the same FF as the one in the 9550, it even has the same naming scheme, M2X4, but with 97Wh instead of 84Wh....

MAXIMUM WANT

My 9550 has an 84Wh but its already down to 62Wh and definitely needs a replacement as soon as possible.

 

Hi, do you suggest to move the conductive strip away from resistor ?

 

Close is fine, best to leave it alone.

 

Just make sure it will not touch the resistor. Mine was not fully pressed in its place.

 

thanks, i will keep a eye on it !