XPS 15 9560 owners thread.

Here is the video of my problem: https://www.sugarsync.com/pf/D3273147_08741206_7112643

 

NBR member Eason just published a good summary on external GPU price-performance (specifically concentrating on the Razer Core).

This is relevant for anyone considering any TB3 accessories . . .

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Razer-Core-External-GPU-and-Razer-Blade-Laptop-Review.213526.0.html

 

I just noticed that my my XPS is pretty slow when working on battery. I used high performance power plan. And when i put in the ac the cpu goes to 3.56ghz and is fast. When i work on battery it drops to 0.80 and doenst get much higher when im working. Same in balanced powerplan. In balanced on AC the cpu is at 0.80ghz but speeds up till 3.56ghz on battery it doenst get higher then 1.60 1.80ghz?

 

Guys - just a heads up for anyone still looking to purchase the 9560 directly from Dell,

As well as the 12% discount - the following student discount can also be applied at the checkout on top of the 12% one to save even more. See the followin

Go back into the power setting and reset the power profiles for balanced, Dell & high performance - something may of been altered which therefore is limiting the CPU speed when ran on the battery.

Liam.

 

Already reset al the power profiles.

 

????

someones tired.

 

Thanks. I'm not that obsessed with getting every last inch out of my battery but when I am getting 3.5 hours from light use and others are reporting 7 that feels pretty dramatic.

As for your suggestion regarding a thunderbolt based charger. Can you elaborate? Why would I want to do this? It goes in the thunderbolt 3 port on the right side of the computer? What are the benefits and drawbacks? I'm not very familiar with thunderbolt in general so, as always, pardon my ignorance.

 

Ignore me mate - it was in response to the Student Discount that is doing the rounds but I noticed that it was already posted on here a little while back. For some reason the forum always drafts replies and doesn't discard them

Liam.

 

Hey guys,

Can you do battery swaps with the 9560? I have a 97Kw that I would love to swap for the smaller one? I'm in the UK

Stelly

 

The Thunderbolt 3 port is actually on the left side of the laptop. This is notable because, in their infinite wisdom, Dell has designed the TB16 dock to have the cable also on the left side and it's a pretty short cable so this is not very convenient.

The reason to charge from the Thunderbolt 3 port is so that if you have a dock, you only need to plug in a single cable. It's useless for most people because the docks are kind of expensive and overkill without other hardware, but if your use case is that you come to your office and would like to connect the laptop to power, ethernet, multiple external displays and some USB devices all at once, then this is a pretty good solution.

 

I guess touchpads too, as I got a spare one that Dell shipped to me back in my AW days.

What about batteries and displays?

 

Ah this...
Only yesterday I updated the audio driver (to the latest one from Dell support site) and my battery estimate reduced significantly (from around 14 hours which is actually what I get with this 1080p 97whr model to like 4 hours ). Luckily for me, I had the old driver and just put it back. Viola! Battery immediately went back to "normal".

Sent from my ONEPLUS A3000 using Tapatalk

 

IT WAS THE AUDIO DRIVER?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Can someone tell me exactly what audio driver they would recommend I download for the 9560? Right now I have the latest from the Dell website.

 

In balanced power plan i noticed when im on battery the cpu is not scalling up to 3.82 ghz boostmode when watching or browsing a the internet. But only scalling till 1.4 1.8ghz wich makes the system feels a bit less responsive. Also when moving things on the screen they are a bit laggy not that much but u can notice the diffrent. In balances mode with ac attach there is no problem. Its scalling very fast and the system feels good.

In high performance mode on battery it goes all the way to 3.81 ghz and goes down when idle and is very responsive. This is normal right? Because i had the FHD XPS wich feels beter on balanced mode on battery. Is the 4K panel the reason for this ? Because it needs to process 4 times more pixels?

 

The default audio driver works fine. I once noticed that MaxxAudio was using 100% of the CPU, I couldn't figure out why. This is what can I guess can cause battery level to fall dramatically. But I uninstalled and reinstalled the drivers, and couldn't replicate the issue again.

 

By "default" do you mean this one? http://www.dell.com/support/home/us...&productCode=xps-15-9560-laptop&categoryId=AU

Version
Version 6.0.1.8037, A03
Category
Audio

For what it's worth, I've checked my task manager numerous times and my wavesmaxxaudio is never at the top of my consumption list with Chrome tabs open.

Also, is there a way to roll back all drivers and windows stuff to day 1 WITHOUT having to reinstall Windows altogether? I have a lot of personalized stuff that takes ages to set up and I'd prefer to avoid having to do that all over again but it seems like trying to revert back to day one could be good. Would system restore do this and would you think it'd be a good idea?

 

Do you actually give these things any time to settle after updating or do you rush into decisions?
the same as using your laptop when testing battery life, do you sit using it wondering why it only last 4 hours or sit back for a bit and let it idle?

As for your battery issues can you create a new thread so it can be picked apart a little better?

Someone else has a low battery clock as well, things to try. Create a new power profile or default the one you use, reset the BIOS, if that fails hold the power button when it is off for 25 + seconds until the battery light does something then it will do a BIOS recovery.

 

The one from windows update is now the same but like I said above, time to open a new thread about your issues.

 

I'm not sure what you mean by give these things time to settle and rushing into decisions? I haven't loaded a new driver yet, I am simply trying to see if that is the specific Realtek driver people would recommend I revert back to or if they wouldn't even recommend it at all. I am getting 3:30 from light browser usage and nothing else. That's atrocious given others reported battery life so I'm not sure what you mean by sit back and let it be idle. It's been a week with consistently terrible battery life. I followed the calibration advice which did lower my battery wear level slightly but clearly something else major is going on and that audio drive post was a shocking wake up call that it could be something I'd never consider.

The one from windows update is now the same as which Realtek driver? The one on Dell's page from April 20th or Version 6.0.1.8037, A03 from January?

I took your advice and started a new thread but did want to directly reply to your posts. Thanks a lot for your help and suggestion.


I just wanted to add my latest update to the thread to see if this makes it an open and shut case on what the issue is:


EDIT 2: I have been filtering my task manager checks by memory usage rather than CPU usage. When I switch it to CPU usage, BY FAR, the number one hog of the CPU is listed as "Service Host: Local Service" and when I expand that, it says "Windows Audio" which is fluctuating around 15% usage of CPU. Does this mean I've found the issue? If so, what to do?

 

Apply the latest patch for anniversary update 1066 to fix that issue.

 

Thanks. I am on the Creators update right now. Does this still apply? I have run and loaded all updates via Windows update so I'm not sure if this has already been loaded but reading the Microsoft site for 1066 seem to imply that I already have this. Based on the other guy who posted the latest Realtek driver as his issue, isn't that more likely?

After some googling, it seemed like a good idea to just go to the device manager and uninstall and remove the Realtek driver. So I did it. Restarted, and the driver was just automatically reinstalled and the exact problem continues with Windows Audio using 17% of the CPU.

 

What is the best and safe way to enable speedshift?

 

Personally the bios mod. So very easy. It's all in the 1st post

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

 

To my pleasant surprise the new 9560 directly from Dell arrived at my place of work for just after 08:00AM this morning.

Had a quick go on it earlier on and first impressions of the overall build quality / QC is excellent - no blemishes or build concerns as far as I can see at all. I'll have to do a pixel check on it tonight but I did notice that this one comes with the LITE-ON SSD. I was hoping for it to come with the Samsung PM961 like my last refurbished one but beggars can't be chooses I suppose, plus this LITE-ON SSD brings in results of 2500MB / 1500MB speeds so it's not a real massive difference in comparison (3200MB / 1700MB on the PM961 I had), and to be honest like others say normal day to day usage and real world differences will never be noticed.

The returned refurbished unit was delivered back to the Dell Outlet seller on eBay this morning as well and has already refunded me, he messaged me to report that the BSOD in question appeared within 5 minutes of him powering on the laptop. Now it's just the waiting game to see when PayPal will release the refund as it's sitting as "pending"

Liam.

 

Use throttleStop

 

Good to hear, that bloody pending will go on until it shows the funds have initially left your back account plus a few day for good measure.

 

If i want to revert the changes i made with the eufi shell is that possible? So disable it like i was before.

And is it a nice improvement to do this ?

 

Yes you change the flag back to 0
You can turn it on and off in windows with the reg files to show the options.

 

The funds left my account a few days ago, though apparently in some cases it will also be set to "pending" if an eBay seller hasn't got enough funds in their PayPal account at the time of the refund and PayPal have to wait for the funds to withdraw from their bank account first I absolutely despise PayPal when it's like this, in this day in age why can't all bank transfers of any kind be like BACS!

Liam.

 

Oke, do i also need to set a EPP value in throttlestop if i peform the bios mod? Because i read this on a other thread.

 

If you want to use throttlestop then go to that thread, if you want to use the bios hack then just enable the profiles to show up in the power options instead. Plenty of info in the throttlestop thread.

 

Yea, this is the one I'm using right now and this is the one that gives me reasonable battery life

Sent from my ONEPLUS A3000 using Tapatalk

 

Rather than offer to send an engineer they sent an email with a reinstallation guide WTF?
I sent a rather frustrated email saying I would be doing a credit card chargeback, instead of trying to diffuse the situation by offering to send an engineer they offered a full refund instead...

 

As mentioned above, the XPS SpeedShift thread should be a good start:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/dell-xps-speed-shift.796891/

It will take 2 minutes to enable SpeedShift via ThrottleStop if you just want to do some quick testing with different EPP values. If you like it, consider the BIOS adjustment. Also just a few minutes.

Or you can just try the BIOS adjustment.

Uncle Webb, the creator of ThrottleStop, likes SpeedStep EPP as a quick way to move from high-performancec to long-battery life...

 

I came from a XPS FHD but replaced it with a 4K screen but i still cant get used that it feels not as fast as on 1080p. For example if i set my 4K screen to 1080p, open microsoft edge and minimize/maximize the windows its super fast no lagg in the animation, if i use the 4K setting with 200% zoom, when edge is minimized and i open it its a bit laggy, not that much but you noticed a diffrence. Is this normal with 4K? or do i have a hardware problem?

 

This might help:

1. Set windows power options to "high performance".

2. Then activate SpeedShift with EPP=0.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/dell-xps-speed-shift.796891/

 

3, don't complain that the fan is always running

 

I had the exact same problem and it drove me insane. It didn't impede the work I was doing, but it irritated me.

Have you updated to the 4590 video driver? That solved my issue.

NOTE: I did eventually wipe and reinstall the OS but the driver solved it initially.

 

I will do a clean install now and perform the bios mod as u said.

Edit: seems like the dell power manager is not doing a good thing. Now on a clean install without dell power manager and windows balanced the cpu boost to 3.x even for some normal tasks. And its much more responsive. Wil also do the bios mod now.

1. Bios mod
2. Add the powerplans

Thats al?

 

@GoNz0

Just did the Bios mod and the settings in WIndows.

What are the best speedshift settings for a balanced powerplan? Do I need to use balanced or High performance plan with speedshift. ht tp://imgur.com/a/T5RyR

 

Yeah that is all.
Mine is on balanced,
In the advanced power options under processor power management > Processor energy performance pref policy I have it set to 40% plugged in to get it to full turbo, battery is 50%
The rest as is.

 

Oke, thanks for ur help.

 

What's the latest opinion from you experts on the most recent BIOS driver on the Dell page. Should us commoners load it or is it still accompanied by too many headaches? I read awhile back that Gonz0 among others were having issues with the newest BIOS version but wondering where that stands now. When I close my lid (set to sleep), I often run into issues getting out of the sleep mode and sometimes have to hard restart or it just restarts automatically. The last time, the little light in front of the mouse pad was flashing white and then orange.

I'm not sure if that is BIOS related but did see some mention of the two being connected and curious if you think I should update to the latest BIOS, something else, or do nothing.

 

Just tried it out, and I don't think I can be of much help.

For the 0 or 9 key in the video, only if I press the left or right corner of the keys with the very tip of my fingernails, then about half the time it would not be recognized. But if I press the corner with the tip of my fingers (and I probably have thicker fingers than the average guy), it registers without problem. So, I can see how a really light press might fail to register, even if it's not a defective keyboard.

But in the case of the much smaller down arrow key, no matter how I press, it never fails to be recognized, so yours could be defective.

There was some talk in this forum that Dell has more than one supplier for the keyboards, and that the FHD version have visually and ergonomically slightly different (more mushy) keyboards, but it was never verified.

 

Audio has never given me any problems, sound-wise or battery-wise, so I never bothered to check until now, but my audio driver is merely version 6.0.1.7989 (15 Nov 2016), rather than the latest Dell driver, 6.0.1.8059, A04 (20 Apr 2017). Googling around, looks like mine is a generic driver, while the A01, A03, A04, etc denote drivers for specific Dell models (A01 for All-in-Ones, A03 for Inspirions, etc)

As I mentioned before, I got that driver via a windows update after clean install, and windows update is not updating it any further, and it's causing me no problems, so I'm just sticking with it ...

 

I would guess it's cause of hybrid sleep, which allows fast start, but utilizes hiberation, which is unneccessary, if your C: is a SSD. Below is any easy guide, but just disable hibernation and hybrid sleep via windows powershell "powercfg" command and then settings/power options and you should not have such problems.

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/how-to/windows/how-turn-on-or-off-fast-startup-in-windows-10-3633021/

 

And just a short thank you to all who suggested battery calibration here!

Because I almost am never in a situation where I have no access to a power cable, I hadn't bothered. But checking and seeing that my battery also had a wear level of 9.2% (Simplo) less than a month since I purchased, I tried calibration (Windows discharge, BIOS discharge, then plug-in, turn-on, full-charge). Wear is nowmagically reduced to 3.9%, so FCC is at 93,195 mWh. Never sure if this makes an actual difference, but feels better nonetheless. Thanks!

 

Thanks. I'm not entirely sure what to do though. I have fast star enabled in the power options. I also had hibernation enabled so I tried to deselect it and closed my lid only to have an improper sleep occur again where it seems my computer reboots. I don't really understand what 'hybrid sleep' means and don't see an option referencing it. Is it the same thing as fast boot? Am I supposed to disable fast boot because a have an SSD?

 

Is there anyone with a 9560 4k model who can test this for me?

1. Put the XPS 9560 4K on balanced powerplan.(no changes to orginal one from Windows) and use it on battery dont plug in de AC adapter.
2. Open from taskbar the file explorer.
3. Open beside file explorer the taskmanager where u can see the cpu status how much Ghz it uses.
4. Wait until the Ghz are droppes til 0.8 / 0.9 Ghz.
5. Then drag the file explorer from the corner. So you make it larger and smaller and repeat that.
6. I get a little bit of lag until the processor speeds up then its gone. Is this normal on the 4k model?

Like on this video:
But he has it al the time and has very bad lagg. I noticed a little diffrence until the cpu speeds up.

With the AC plugged in i got no lagg it feels smooth directy. Also in high performance powerplan.

I havent had this issue in 1080p mode.

 

This is because all power saving features enabled. PC a bit lazy to increase frequency but also requires some time to wake other PC components (e.g. switch PCIe lanes to full operational mode, increase GPU freq) - all of that requires some time - lag ...
Make decision what you want more: better battery life or immediate response to any action ... Personally I think even 100ms lag - its reasonable price for better battery life. Disabling powersaving features you might reduce battery life by 50% or even 70%.... Wana pay that to save 100ms ?