XPS 15 9560 owners thread.

So you have not upgraded past 4590 then? According to Intels Updater, the latest version is 4627.

 

No 4590 is more stable, I tried the new one and the problems came back.

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I've been looking for one too. Unfortunately, no company currently seems to make one for the palmrest.

I inquired with Dbrand who have skins for the top and bottom and touchpad, but they replied they don't do one for the palmrest. I've been lobbying stickerboys to make one, but they have not been able to acquire a 9560 to make skins ...

Let us know when you find one.

 

In my case, after updating to 4627, I also originally experienced a few flashes, but after a clean install (I wiped the ssd partition) and manual update to 4590 then 4627, I haven't experienced them anymore ... yet.

 

Which driver do you recommend installing to address this? Is it complicated like the 4590 driver or can you just load and run it? I should also add that when I put headphones in, the sound comes through the headphones so that makes it seem pretty clear it isn't hardware related.

 

Latest driver and no tricks to it. Just your standard run the installer, this forces it to uninstall and reboot then installs again.

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The only audio driver on the dell driver page is the realtek. I already tried uninstalling and reinstalling that. So I wanted to try to reload the Intel Display Audio (device manager shows version 10.22.1.97) but it isn't listed on Dell's download page OR intel's. What gives?

 

I've found an issue with Bluetooth massively draining battery. I thought it was the creators update at first.
with 53% battery I was getting 1hr 42mins left.

Strange thing is that I haven't had a single screen flicker since installing the creators update.

I eventually diagnosed the Bluetooth as causing the battery drain and disabled it. Once disabled now I'm up to 4hrs 52+

BUT, the screen flicker almost immediately returned, as did some lag while typing on this website...........brilliant, not!

My guess is that the Bluetooth was causing the cpu to stay at higher frequency, this in turn stopped the gfx from going into a low power mode ( which was possibly causing flicker)

 

For battery life purposes, is disabling the touch screen via the device manager sufficient or should it be done in the BIOS?

 

Tally ho!

Our Australian friend WesternGentsUnited says turning off "Shared" feature in nVidia GeForce Experience can significantly improve gaming FPS on the XPS 9560. Apparently it was enabled by default. Check out the video and give it a try...

 

Touch functionality doesn't affect battery life (at least its impact miserably low). According mine experience: properly configured power-plan and software can give you 7-9 hours HD video playback on 25% brightness.

 

I have read many people say that while disabling touch shouldn't have an impact on battery, many people have experienced a significant boost from doing so which is why I'd like to know if they did it though the device manager or the bios.

Also curious the best way to use the laptop for battery health purposes. Should I keep it plugged in most of the time or running on battery? I usually use it next to the power source but often just keep it on battery for convenience and unsure if that is a less ideal approach to battery health.

 

Batteries have a finite number of recharges they can go through. The more you run the battery down and then recharge it, the more longevity you will lose.

 

It is a lot more complicated than that with Lithium Ion batteries. They live much longer when kept at an ideal capacity of about 60-70%. They degrade much faster below 20% and above 80% charge. You will see some laptops that offer extended battery life by limiting the maximum charge.

So, if you want to maximize your battery life, don't leave it plugged in all the time and don't run it down to the low battery warning.

Some batteries even self discharge when sitting for a while to protect themselves (DJI Drone batteries do this.)

https://www.apple.com/batteries/maximizing-performance/

" Store it half-charged when you store it long term.
If you want to store your device long term, two key factors will affect the overall health of your battery: the environmental temperature and the percentage of charge on the battery when it’s powered down for storage. Therefore, we recommend the following:

• Do not fully charge or fully discharge your device’s battery — charge it to around 50%. If you store a device when its battery is fully discharged, the battery could fall into a deep discharge state, which renders it incapable of holding a charge. Conversely, if you store it fully charged for an extended period of time, the battery may lose some capacity, leading to shorter battery life.
• Power down the device to avoid additional battery use.
• Place your device in a cool, moisture-free environment that’s less than 90° F (32° C).
• If you plan to store your device for longer than six months, charge it to 50% every six months.

Depending on how long you store your device, it may be in a low-battery state when you remove it from long-term storage. After it’s removed from storage, it may require 20 minutes of charging with the original adapter before you can use it."

More info from Battery University.

http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries

 

Interesting and confusing at the same time. Is there an easy and user friendly approach to battery health? I'm not stressed about getting the absolute best possible battery life but I do want to use it in a reasonable way that will combine the least possible hassle for me and the best possible performance of the battery and I'm not exactly sure what that means for this?

Also, what do you say about the many people claiming disabling touch screen has increased battery life? Again, should it be done in the BIOS or device manager or no difference?


Totally unrelated, but every time I plug in headphones I get an annoying popup asking me which device I plugged in. How do you disable that so it just recognizes it's headphones and stops prompting me every time?

 

When I disabled the fastcharge(express charge) and put it on standard charge or AC use and the thermal management setting to cool. It still keeps spinning the fans this is normal? there I no way to tweak so they turn off like on battery.

They still keep on till 80%

 

If you're on battery frequently, just stop worrying, and replace it when the time comes.
If you're almost always plugged in, Dell has an option in BIOS to charge it to 90% and stop until it drops to 80%, which I think is a reasonable compromise.
Whenever you feel like not using the laptop for a couple of months, discharge the battery to about 50% before you shutdown

 

Right hand (GPU?) fan in my 9560 has started making grinding noises under load as if something was caught in it, and I can feel the right hand side of the laptop vibrating slightly even when the fans are running at their lowest speed. Not great.

An engineer is coming to replace the fan tomorrow.

During the support call, I was asked to upgrade the BIOS (which seemed redundant, but I can understand why ask people to do it), and that seemed to go fine. I've read the reports of bricking, but decided bricking my laptop whilst on the phone to support and following their directions was probably the best time to do it.

 

Thanks a lot. If it just results in me replacing the battery once over the next four years I can live with that. I assume the warranty on the battery is just 1 year.

Any comment on if and how (device manager or BIOS) to disable the touch screen for better battery?
Also with the irritating pop up I get every time I plug in headphones?

 

Is anyone else using the Dell TB16 dock? I have 2 and the fan noise is driving me crazy, seem to go up and down all the time with a very high pitch noise. Also noticed that during boot, BIOS complain about they power supplied only being 60W although I have the 240W (or maybe 230W) version which I believe should be able to supply more power via the TB3 port to XPSes and some other Dell machines.

 

All good points, but it doesn't change the fact that they have a finite number of recharges. The bios can be configured to how much to charge the laptop and it will help. Thankfully dell sets a charge limit and doesn't start charging again until it's below 90% or so. BMS systems are much better today at preventing over/unnecessary charging.

 

No

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I'm using the TB16 dock. I don't hear any fan noise. I don't have any messages about the power supply. It appears to charge/power the xps 15 fine.

I would plug it into a different circuit in your house to verify the problem is with the dock.

 

Same here, TB16 works fine, charging 9560 fine. No boot warnings, no fan noise.

 

I use bios. Doubt there is much gain in battery life, but I keep the touchscreen and the webcam disabled via bios, as I don't need them.

To avoid that pop-up, disable the Waves Maxxaudio and Realtek HD Audio manager from the startup programs (Windows+x, t, startup tab). Those applications aren't necessary for audio playback, so you can safely disable them.

 

4590 or 4627 for the intel graphics driver to update to right now?

 

Except that if you read the battery university reference you realize it is more important to cycle the battery than to leave the laptop plugged in all the time at 90-100% charge.

http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries

Charge level (V/cell)

Discharge cycles

Available stored energy

Table 4: Discharge cycles and capacity as a function of charge voltage limit. Every 0.10V drop below 4.20V/cell doubles the cycle but holds less capacity. Raising the voltage above 4.20V/cell would shorten the life.

Guideline: Every 70mV drop in charge voltage lowers the usable capacity by about 10%.

Note: Partial charging negates the benefit of Li-ion in terms of high specific energy.


[4.30] [150–250] [110–115%]
4.25 200–350 105–110%
4.20 300–500 100%
4.15 400–700 90–95%
4.10 600–1,000 85–90%
4.05 850–1,500 80–85%
4.00 1,200–2,000 70–75%
3.90 2,400–4,000 60–65%
3.80 See note 35–40%
3.70 See note 30% and less

 

Just a heads up. Windows Creater's edition sets the Intel graphics driver back to the buggy .4574 version. You want the newer .4627 version on Intel's website.

 

Thanks. I updated to 4627. It still shows 630 and not 620 in the device manager but says version 4627?

Also still hoping to get some comment on these two short questions:
Also, what do you say about the many people claiming disabling touch screen has increased battery life? Again, should it be done in the BIOS or device manager or no difference?


Totally unrelated, but every time I plug in headphones I get an annoying popup asking me which device I plugged in. How do you disable that so it just recognizes it's headphones and stops prompting me every time?

 

Intel Kaby Lake HQ processors have HD 630 graphics, not 620. Kaby Lake U processors have HD 620 graphics. It is another advantage of the HQ chipset besides twice the cores.

 

I know its not the most reliable benchmark but I get a strange slowdown in SSD performance when I force the video processor to the nVidia 1050 vs. the Intel HD630 on userbenchmark.com.

http://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/3440545

http://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/3440506

 

Basically, this is the problem: https://www.reddit.com/r/Dell/comments/5ifpls/xps_13_maxxaudio_pro/

Anyone know a solution? It's a bit irritating.

 

Gonzo, i saw you mention lightroom a while back. Do you have any issues with that software on your xps? When I import the photos, the photos are extremely underexposed, and then when i edit them on the software to get it the way i like, when I export them into jpgs, they come out very washed out, completely different from what they look like in lightroom itself. Any suggestions?

 

I skimmed the article and I don't see where it says unplugging and discharging is better than leaving it plugged in. I did read this:

"The question is asked, “Should I disconnect my laptop from the power grid when not in use?” Under normal circumstances this should not be necessary because charging stops when the Li-ion battery is full. A topping charge is only applied when the battery voltage drops to a certain level. Most users do not remove the AC power, and this practice is safe."

II just based my response from information from a battery management engineer who designs BMS systems for hybrid cars, cellphones, laptops, and RF transmitters. I didn't really pick his brain as much as I should have but he mentioned with a properly designed BMS system it can be left plugged in without issue and that it's the heat/deep discharges that hurts endurance.

I did sell my 9550 and after 14 months of use I had the same exact battery wear estimate as when I received it and I use it every day and leave it plugged in unless I need to be mobile.

 

Ah, referring to what I wrote two posts ago... I just found out that the Creator Update ruined everything.. I just system restored to before the update and everything is better now... Wondering how I can update without it changing everything in lightroom.

May have to manually re-install the display drivers I currently have once it's updated. I heard the updates alters those?

 

Does anyone experienced similar problems with Creator Update ??

 

My fans turn on at a higher speed but only if the room is getting hot. During normal use the fan is running but don't hear a high pitched noise unless I put my ear to the dock.

I also had the same power error message and it was fixed after I updated this bios to newest version.


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Hi guys, I'm new here but have been following the forums for a long time, recently I bought an 9560 model, everything seems fine except for slight purple tint on the right and yellow on the left side of screen. Is Dell gonna cover this? I read somewhere that its just the state of the panel and changing a new panel is hit or miss, since I am not in the US, I wonder calling for replacement would be too much of a hassle.

Although I can live with the panel, I read about the throttling problems, my unit behaved exactly the same way of what people describing of throttling but there is one thing I want to ask is that when running load for a while (in game or stress test) when the GPU temperature got to over 70, the GPU clock dropped to a certain clock speed (normally 700- 900Mhz) and remained there. I reckon it should return to the designated speed after a while when the GPU dropped to under 70 but it didnt. Is this normal? or its just becasue my machine temperature is too high so it cannot running at full load. Attached is my screen shot when running Unigine Valley. This issue happens in games also and the FPS drop got me very frustrated. thanks in advance. Cheers!

 

Aside from the question about the audio jack I am still hoping someone can weigh in on ( https://www.reddit.com/r/Dell/comments/5ifpls/xps_13_maxxaudio_pro/), I have read of a few people complaining about the inability to encrypt on Win 10 Home. Does software such as ESET offer great encryption or are services like that flawed?

I'd also like to hear what you guys think the best and more comprehensive security suite is out there right now for the XPS. The security forum here is lifeless so I'd really like to hear what you guys think is best in keeping a very secure XPS 15. I don't mind paying. Right now, it looks to me like the best options are ESET, Kaspersky, or Bitdefender but I'm open ears. I'm also unsure which specific product is best as each company offers a range. Should I assume the most expensive option is always the most secure?

 

I think it's a little bit off-topic on this thread but I will answer:

Kaspersky and Bitdefender are good choices if you want the best protection. ESET is not so good lately.
But in last years I have found a new candidate for the best AV - Emsisoft. I'm using it for 2 years and it's unbelievable light, not intrusive and so far it has found every single virus/malware I have stumbled upon. Check the 30 day test period - https://www.emsisoft.com/

 

I just removed Maxxaudio, and let windows manage it.

@ encryption some nvme drives encrypt themselves, I only looked into the the Samsung PM961 because that is what I got in my XPS, unfortunately it only supports hardware encryption on the 00007 model, I got 00001 which does not support encryption (at least on the spec sheets), you could run a software solution, but you'll loose a lot of performance.

@Security, good habits, regular updates, and windows defender are enough in my experience.

 

I had to tilt the TB16 so that the fan exhaust is not pointing towards me, seemed to have lessened the impact of the sound (but also decreased the airflow). Have to say the physical design of the TB16 leaves a lot to be desired, very short TB3 cable with stupid placement etc. And what about the powerbutton, does it actually do anything?

 

I was about to pull the trigger on another Clevo, but then due to a change of circumstances,
I bought an XPS 15 yesterday afternoon.

I got the maxed out model (i7, UHD, 32gb RAM, 1TB) with the fingerprint sensor and three years warranty (both NBD and accidental damage) for ~£1900. More than I was planning to spend, but not terribly off. It should still play DOTA2 and run Unity, which is what I mainly care about for work (and pleasure).

Is there anything I should check/test out of the box? I will probably format it and install Windows 10 Education (Pro essentially).

Also, the website was advertising 5-7 days, but the estimated delivery date is on the 2/5/17. Is this more of a "maxed" date but I should probably get it earlier? The system is currently in production.

 

...and just received a call from Dell informing me that the repair won't happen today, it'll be tomorrow instead. I'd be pissed if I'd had to have taken the day off only to be told it was pointless, but I suppose at least they had the decency of telling me rather than leaving me waiting all day.

 

I ordered one about two weeks ago directly from Dell and was given a 7 day delivery window starting about 3 days after I ordered. One the second day I got a message that my order was built. I received the laptop about 8 days after I ordered so it fell inside the delivery window. The delivery estimate when I ordered was correct although I did not receive a shipping notification until 2 days before it arrived.

 

Seems he forgot I already said that

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Sounds like the issue I had when I installed the creators update. I fixed it by cleaning both drivers with DDU then installing Intel 4590 and the latest nvidia. Photoshop threw monitor profile errors until I did that then the exposure issues stopped after the driver clean.

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I like Kaspersky, I use the full suite they offer, why not try the free trial?

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Have tried BitDefender several times based on glowing reviews, each time it ended in a fiasco. To be honest, based on the last 25 years, the problems I've hade with Anti Virus software are many times more than that caused by malware. But for anyone who likes to browse *****slapmyass.com and click on every lottery price won that might be risky


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Between HD 620 to HD 630 is about a 25% increase in benchmarks, but closer to a 10% difference in games. Having said that, the discrete graphics from the GTX 1050 is the much more important factor.