XPS 15 9560 owners thread.

Hi all! New to the forum, and to Dell.

I have the 9560 since two weeks (FHD, 97Wh, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD), and like many other over at reddit, I have the issue that the fan starts (on lowest level) while the battery is charging. I've already asked about this on reddit, but since it seems that many knowledgeable people post here, I'll try here too.

Situation:

• While plugged in and charging, with battery level under 90%.

What happens:

• Area left of keyboard heats up.
• Fan starts spinning on slowest level, even when idle.
• From HWiNFO64: CPU stays somewhat cool (~40) but "PCH Temperature" increases, when it reaches ~45 the fan seems to start.

Things I have tried:

• Made sure that windows power settings are the same between plugged in and battery.
• Switch Dell Command Power Management, Thermal Management to Quiet.
• Tried different settings for Dell Command Power Management, Battery settings, in the hope of slowing down charging for less heat.
• Underclocked CPU (-115 mV) and iGPU (-70 mV) using ThrottleStop.

None of this did change the behavior. It seems to be mainly due to heat production from the charging itself - some part is heating up and transferring heat to the "PCH Temperature" sensor (this is the chipset, right?). So my questions are:

• So this seems common, but how common? If not that common, Dell support should be able to fix it I assume, but if every machine is affected, it would just be wasted effort.
• Could this be related to battery wear level? Mine was at 9.9% from the start, but I've seen many people report this exact number, so this seems more like a misreporting?
• Has anyone had this issue and successfully solved it? Either through support, or some other way?

Many thanks,
Jonas

 

Without reading all your post if you had searched this issue with the 9550 (the same laptop in essence) you would see it is normal and by design that when in fast charging mode <90% the fan will kick in while the laptop is powered up. It doesn't do this when the laptop is off.

Don't take this the wrong way but Dell know bugger all and should you ignore my advice on this being normal they will probably send some untrained dimwit round and change the motherboard, no doubt messing up a perfectly good laptop in the process and you still have the same issue but with refurbished parts in your new laptop

 

Thanks! Yes, I had assumed as much (and read all (?) posts about the 9550) but still was unsure if it was a common flaw, or something that happens on all laptops. Thanks for the confirmation that it is the later, and just part of the way the product behaves.

 

At least the fans only run at idle speed.

 

Jonas -

This is not a defect. The battery heats up during charging. Fans cool the laptop enhancing battery performance, longevity and safety.

The fans are on the other side of the computer so not optimal but most laptops have that same challenge. An ultrabook without a fan will be quieter but system and battery performance both suffer...

 

Yikes, I was about to buy my 960 Pro 512 for my 9550 and now I read this? I assume the solution is to use the previous bios, then?

 

Yes and the rumor mill says they will be fixing it.

 

I'm running a 960 pro 1 tb in my 9560 on latest bios with no issues. Win 10 fresh install Sammy nvme drivers.

 

I bought a 9560 with i7, FHD and 512G SSD, which I am quite satisfied so far.

May I ask, if I want to get a clean windows 10 without reinstall it, what should I do? And what bloatware need to be un-installed?

Do you guys have experience on that?

Edit: The WiFi card of my gig also has trouble connecting to 5G (which is n I guess), symptom is it lag for quite some time before I can use the internet. Any fix for that?

 

Does the 97wh battery fit in the 9550/5510?

 

As I said directly under that picture it fits and works

I wonder if they have stopped production if the 84wh battery hence the 9560 not accepting it as Dell wont be selling it so why have a new model allow it?

Wouldn't surprise me if the final 9550's off the production line had the 97wh fitted and no one knows it!

 

Can 9560 performance be improved?

Some thermal & software tweaks may unlock additional "free" performance from the 9560 in gaming and other CPU-GPU intensive tasks. A few users are posting new ideas and results in the following post & thread.

 

So, what are the best options for connectinga 4K monitor at 60 hz? Only an adapter to the crippled TB3 port?

Sent from my ASUS_A001 using Tapatalk

 

We all know the 9560 has a crippled TB3 port but WHY is it crippled? Also, will this affect something like a fast SSD also or just external stuff?

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1. The marketing text from Intel & Dell is confusing. Basically, Intel offers several TB3 cards. The 9550 & 9560 have the lower powered, lower priced model which has only x2 lanes vs x4 lanes. Less bandwidth. Performance for one external screen is reduced a bit. But for some higher bandwidth tasks (like using external GPU box back to internal screen) the performance is significantly worse.

2. Dell's VP Frank Azor said Dell is also considering "certification" of 9550 & 9560 TB3 ports. It seems that certification will be required for computers to connect to newer TB3 devices, like the graphics boxes with TI83 controllers, although some have reported hacks on other laptops to workaround this.

3. [edit - somewhat related] Dell TB15 recall. At least one reddit user reported Dell is also replacing some 9550 & 9530 motherboards for some that used the TB15.

4. Maybe other techincal issues I have not seen or understand.


http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/i-have-an-xps-15-9550-working-with-a-razer-core-ama.793250/

 

So in order to connect a eGPU to a slim laptop to play some Windows games the best option is a...MacBook Pro. Now how is that for irony

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You still may get much better performance with an external GPU. But the case + GPU are expensive and the performance increase is less than users were calculating.

 

It ate lead based paint back when it was a wee 9530

 

What are the options to install an SSD with self encryption in the 9560? Will it work with a Samsung 960?

Sent from my ASUS_A001 using Tapatalk

 

yes

 

You mean not only that the Samsung 960 will work but also the self encryption?

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The BIOS bug with the 960 was the 9550, another users had the 960 working in the 9560 and the laptop has a TPM chip so the SED side of things will work.

 

Does the PM961 (or is it the SM961) that Dell seem to use support for SEDas well?

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Pretty much. The HDMI 1.4 spec limits output to 4k 30hz. You have to use an adapter to go any higher

Sent from my ONEPLUS A3000 using Tapatalk

 

Hehe, regarding 4K@60Hz it is the HDMI that is crippled

 

Have a look at the specs but I doubt it.

 

My xps 15 should be here either Tuesday or Wednesday!!! Woohhoo


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Well, yes, but the question wasn't really what is crippled but how to get 4K@60hz? And since even the HDMI is crippled, only port left should be crippled TB3

 

Curious if anyone runs their 4K panel in FHD resolution instead and how that works? Is it as sharp as a real FHD? Not all 4K panels work well in FHD even if they (should) have perfect pixel mapping.

The main reason would of course be to avoid any scaling issues. Would guess that the battery life might increase also but that depends on how tings are implemented.

 

Both times I tried this I went straight back as it was still set to 250% scaling so looked stupid
Games look really good in FHD though.

 

The TB3 isn't crippled regarding the DP connections, which are tunneled via TB3 separately from PCIe. It should support two 4K@60Hz displays (though I recall with two connected there isn't enough bandwith left from 40Gbps for 4xPCIe3 even if 4x was supported, and DP gets the priority).

There was also the issue with the crippled TB15, which was crippled because it didn't have a fan to cool it enough if such displays were connected.

 

FHD im 250% scaling should look weird no matter what but it should be tried without scaling (to point out the obvious )

 

So you mean that the TB3 in itself isn't crippled, it is just the PCIe lanes connected to it that are? Must admit it was many years since I was updated with how "bus technologies" work these days.

 

yeah I know but it upsets the layout every time you mess with it

For now I use the magnifier when I get the odd app that doesn't scale.

 

Anyone feels like sharing some experiences on using the XPS 15 in a lap? Noticed the fan intakes are places in such a way that it might be a problem? Also, what about the balance, heard that it wasn't really that well balanced and might wobble?

 

Well improwise, this is just semantics. The 9550 & 9560 TB3 underperformed expectations. However, those tB3 ports appear to meet Intel's carefully worded, and somewhat tricky, marketing text.

Who would prefer x2 to x4?

That egpu.io site in general, and the following link in particular, are the most transparent explinations I have found on a very murky port:

https://egpu.io/forums/pc-setup/xps-15-9550-not-able-to-reach-40gbps-over-tb3/paged/1/

 

There are fan intakes in the bottom so you need a hard laptop desk of reasonable size.

On a lap or bed without a hard laptop desk, the XPS won't be able to cool itself properly and get quite hot as you will block the fan intakes. And I think the lint from your clothes or bedding will clog up the fans/radiators at an accelerated pace. On a bare lap I think it gets dangerously hot for the skin.

My FHD screen is fine from a balance perspective. Not sure if the glass 4k screen is top heavy

 

I use mine for light duty stuff on my lap all the time. I try to keep the vent from being blocked, but I'm always studying/listening to music with it on my lap without issue.

 

I'm guessing that you miss the point here and that the DisplayPort isn't actually connected to the TB3 via the PCIe. But as I said, long time ago since I was up to speed (catchy, eh?) with current bus technologies.

 

hehehe

 

What about the FHD screen, is that as good as a FHD get with good brightness and no or at least very little graininess? Sent back a ThinkPad P50 because it had the worst matte screen I've seen in years.

For those of you that bought the XPS15 for morr professional work, which panel did you go for?

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Can you define "more professional work"?

If you mean photo editing, I would go with a 4k screen

I use mine every day in medical school, and have even done some 3d solid modeling work on my FHD screen (used to work as a mechanical engineer).

 

Almost laughed my ass of when I saw that Dell offers a TB => HDMI 2.0 adapter. Seriously, why not make the built in HDMI 2.0 or just remove it??

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Sorry, meant more work than entertainment but not professional graphics work. On that note, what pros really do that kind of work on a 15" laptop screen anyway?

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Software guy here... I got the 4k also somewhat because it's a touch screen so that when I'm working with others and one of them touches it something will happen... (something other than me asking them to not touch the screen) And it's easier to clean...

Text in programs that work with high dpi looks awesome.. I only use one thing in my typical workflow that isn't and that's dbVisualizer it doesn't look awful just not as great as everything else.. I'm using 175% scaling though


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Just wasted an hour of my life with dell chat. Tried to get them to price match the 9560 against the HP Omen 15" with the exact same specs. Dell said they won't price match an XPS against anything but the HP Spectre, but they won't price match it because the specs aren't the exact same. Spent a ton of time trying to get the idiot to realize that there was no way to price match against it, but he was far too thick headed to grasp such a simple concept. What a waste. I would have had better luck teaching a chimp to build a time travel device...

 

oh man I rolled on the floor. Better luck next time.

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Hi

Can I check whether the DELL XPS 15 9560 supports BIOS boot up, UEFI boot up or both?

Any issue connecting to the Razor Core? Do you need excessive tune up like the 9550 for its connection to the Razor Core?

Lastly, can the DELL Companion 18000mAH external battery bank be used with the XPS 9560?

Thanks

 

Exactly.
Additionally, I guess Intel started pushing TB3 to vendors way before it was actually ready for the production stage. Hence so many issues with the TB15 and other early TB3 products.
And further, I can't get rid of the impression that TB3 is a solution looking for a problem. Okay it's nice if everything can be connected with one wire. However, it also means that they will make you buy a dock if you want to connect more than one (maybe two), because they're not giving you enough plugs. For eGPU, Alienware just made a connector for the PCIe bus (similarly to a free slot in a desktop PC), which is what enthusiasts were doing earlier. There could be a mini DP connector, and they could have made HDMI support 4K@60, and MSI shows that an Ethernet plug is also not totally infeasible in a thin case. 100W power delivery standard easily gets insufficient...

 

I tried chatting again with a different person - same exact result.

ME: "I see, do you mind telling me which laptop can be price matched against the XPS 15?"
Agent (TIP_Marlon M): "the Spectre line of the HP for lenovo the Lenovo Y Series"
ME: "but you just said the spectre doesn't work because the screen sizes are different"
Agent (TIP_Marlon M): "that is right, it must be 15" screen size for the spectre with same specs"
ME: "but because they don't have one then it's something you can't price match against"
Agent (TIP_Marlon M): "I'm afraid that is right,"
ME: "so you don't price match the xps 15 against anything"
ME: "even if it has the exact same specs"
ME: "contrary to what the website says?"
ME: "so maybe your policy should be "we don't price match the xps 15 against anything""
ME: "since I've wasted 40 minutes of my time"
Agent (TIP_Marlon M): "nope, we do price match it to Spectre line of the HP for lenovo the Lenovo Y Series"

I should just slam my head into a wall, it would have been a more productive use of my time...