XPS 15 9560 owners thread.

Yes i know but i want to know if other people got the same thing with the 4k model. Because i had the FHD model and replaced the screen with a 4k screen. So i am not used to have this and on the full hd i never noticed this, but i think its because 4k has 4 times more pixels to process then full hd.

Because when i set the 4k screen to 1080p there i no lagg. Its just smooth from the start i drag it.

 

Yes.. exactly
4 times more memory and calculations + 4 times more data to transfer

 

I got 8GB RAM would increase it to 16GB also increase performance of my intel hd 630 graphicscard? Or is this only because the cpu needs to step up. Because when the cpu is in higher cpu state its smooth. So then upgrading RAM wont give me a improvement?

 

RAM upgrade wont give you any performance increase ....
It worth to upgrade only in case when your PC usually starving available RAM. Think its not your case (but who knows what apps you're running ... )
But if you ran single channel - I would recommend buy another RAM stick to benefit from dual channel mode (its kind of RAID-0 of RAM) - may give you from 1% to 50% extra performance depending on task

 

I got the XPS 9560 FHD i7, 8GB, 256NVMe SSD. This has 2x 4gb RAM modules. So this wil be operating in dualchannel ?

Only replaced the FHD for a 4K screen. Actually Dell replaced it, my old FHD had backlightbleed and they replaced it with a 4K without even knowing it. They dont see the diffrence between a glossy 4k screen and a matt FHD.

 

Thx for checking, so I guess I might go for another keyboard exchange afterall... :-/

 

yes. 2x4GB will operate in dualchannel mode.

 

Hi,

I got my laptop yesterday. What sort of boot up times are normal? My wife's 9530 boots up a lot quicker approx 12 secs, my 9560 takes approx 23 seconds to get into windows. Is that normal? I have a i7-7700, 32gb ram, 1tb toshiba ssd.

It takes around 6-7 seconds for the dell logo to appear and then another 7 seconds for the spinning circle. Once that appears windows itself boots very quickly.

 

You have to disable it through powershell (cmd prompt) first. Windows+x, a [Windows Powershell (Admin)], then type "powercfg -h off" Afterwards type "powercfg /a" to verify that hibernation (and hence hybrid sleep and fast start) is disabled. Then go into setting and power options to tick those options off too.

I'm sure GonZ0 and other engineers here could explain exactly why "hybrid sleep" and "fast start" messes things up, but in anycase, as far as I can tell, these were implemented to make PCs as snappy as Macs in terms of waking up from sleep, but are really unnecessary, especially for SSDs. I, for one, am coming from a Macbook Pro (with Windows installed) and don't feel wake is slow on the 9560 with Windows 10, even though I've disabled "hybrid sleep/fast start."

So, at least for me, disabling "hibernation" (and thereby automatically disabling "hybrid sleep" and "fast start") solved occasional problems with sleep/reboots. Hope it works for you too.

 

Go to BIOS and check if there are fast boot enabled (there are an option to skip devices initialization and perform quicker boot)

 

Tried that, already on minimal check setting in bios and fastboot is enabled in the windows power options settings. Is my laptop behaving abnormally or does everyone's with a similar configuration take the same sort of time?

 

My XPS 15 arrived today, literally one week (on the hour) from ordering. It is the UHD/1TB/32GBs one.

First impression out of the box: the UHD is amazing. It is really glossy, but really amazing.

Out of the box it has 9.9% battery wear, I will probably have to run a calibration later in the week.

There is some coil whine, when I put my head against the keyboard, but otherwise it is good. The keyboard feels good. The fingerprint sensor is a tiny bit scratched on the corner *grrr*, but otherwise works wonders.

I got the PC300 SK Hynix nVME drive, instead of the usual subjects: Samsung, LiteOn, and Toshiba. I will run a speed test later.

 

Afraid the ddr4 boards have a lot more to do and have to do memory training during the self test adding to the post time. 7 to 10 seconds is average to post, after that with the nvme add you should be in Windows in seconds. When fast boot works for me I don't see a spinning circle for more than a second if at all.

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I noticed today that the scale function in Windows 10 has an effect to the slow animations in Windows, if you set it on 4k and to 100% zoom everything works very smooth. But when u zoom in till 200% u noticed a bit of lag in the animations and scrolling in chrome compared to 100%. Wich settings are u guys using for scaling?

 

So I had a battery wear of 10% out of the box like others. Fully discharged battery including letting the last 5% die from within the bios. Turned it back and charging and now the wear is at 13%! lol I give up.


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Are you testing reboot or just cold boot after shutdown ?
There are different reboot tehniques implemented in windows.
Fast boot doesn't work when you REboot your PC.
But working well when just cold boot after shutdown.

 

Thanks so much. It does seem to have worked on the latest sleep.

Similar to the other poster, however, I am experiencing relatively slow boots. The Dell logo takes a few seconds just to appear, then it can stand there alone for a few seconds, then the spinning circles for a little more. Maybe up to 20 seconds. Given that Gonz0 said he sees the circles for barely a second, I wonder if there is something I should be changing for a quicker boot? I have tried to disable unneeded things from startup and not sure what else to do. Since I followed your powershell steps, I obviously don't have 'fast boot' enabled but even when I did I think my startup times were slow. Thoughts?

 

Glad to hear you received it in time before you fly out

In relation to battery wear, from what I've read online Dell state that brand new batteries on their models from new can apparently range anywhere between 0-10% wear out of the box - but the figures we see reported are not truly accurate.

My new one I received yesterday already states it's at 2% wear, and full charge capacity is 95851wHr. My old 9550 I had for a short period last year which had the 84wHr battery only charged to 79wHr from new & out of the box.

If you want to get the best out of it, carry out a couple of charge & drain cycles followed by a calibration. This is what I'm doing with mine to get the best result out of it.

Mine has some coil whine as well and sadly we'll just have to get used to it, but personally it's never bothered me at all.

Please post up your speed results with your Hynix drive as well, it'll be interesting to see how these compare against the other brands that are supplied.

Liam.

 

I just timed myself, and in a cold boot (boot after shutdown), with fastboot set to minimum in bios, the Dell logo comes up on the 6-7 second mark, and from there the circle spins about twice, and I'm on the Windows lockscreen around the 20-21 second mark.

But again, I rarely shut-down and start-up. Most of the time, my 9560 goes to sleep either because it was idle or because I closed the lid, and then in wake up, in 3-4 seconds the lockscreen comes up. (More so, since hibernation/hybrid sleep/fast start is disabled. And I no longer have the weird reboot issues either.)

That's my experience. But on the whys about this and the hows for faster boots, I have no idea. I can only hope GoNz0 or others would know or could explain. I'm just a end-user, reading up on this forum and googling things, to get a handle of what works for me.

 

Thanks!

I downloaded Dell Power Manager Lite, which rated my battery's health as excellent. I also found this thread: http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/t/20006374, thus, I assume it is an "issue" with all XPS 15.

Thanks for the advice. I will not rush into a calibration, at least not yet. I will do some cycles as I will be using the laptop next few days.

I noticed that the coil whine only occurs when the charger is plugged in. This is inline with this posts here: http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/t/19659832 & http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/t/20004108. My charger is has the serial: CN-09TXK7-DES00-743-132P-A00 DP/N 09TX7. I will ask Dell for a new charger.

Speed tests will have to wait another day or two. I am still busy downloading GBs of documents, photos, and applications.

Also, unlike at my colleague's XPS, I got Precision touchpad on and it is a joy to use. Best touchpad experience I had since my Apple days.

 

Ugh, hate to update this negatively, but I let my computer go to sleep automatically from being idle. Many hours later I clicked the power button only to have a restart occur despite having the computer set to sleep after 25 min of idle time. What gives? If I want to undo what I did in Powershell, how do I do that? Is sleep mode somehow 'better' than hibernation?

Also, do people generally prefer Balanced or Dell Active power plan?

 

Called Dell for the coil whine, told them that I need a new power supply. They will instead give me money to go and buy one. I really don't understand their logic...

 

Thanks for the heads up regarding the fact that the coil whine is down to the charger itself and also the new charger part number, I will monitor mine over the next few days but I can really only notice it when my head is on the keyboard so I may not bother contacting Dell unless in the event it gets louder or somewhat worse.

The only thing I've ran into with mine is the niggly issues with Chrome & YouTube where it stutters but this is down to the fact it was running on Intel's HD 4574 driver, even after updating it to the latest one from Intel's website (4627) it runs absolutely smoothly but Windows still decides to automatically downgrade it back down to 4574 again after a few minutes. Eventually as also mentioned elsewhere - I attempted to manually update the driver myself (device manager > right click Intel 630 > update driver software > browse computer > let me pick > have disk > .INF file from the new Graphics driver folder). After a restart and after another half an hour of browsing YouTube with the new driver again, Windows didn't attempt to automatically downgrade it again so hopefully that's sorted it.

Liam.

 

I've read about this online with other owners as well regarding other parts, it could well depend on the stock levels per region so perhaps where you are based they do not have any in stock that they can ship to you within a specified time frame. How much did they say they will reimburse you for?

Liam.

 

I was wondering i got 8 GB DDR4 RAM right now and my Intel Graphics 630 card is using the memory u see in this picture: http://oi65.tinypic.com/2j5fd0.jpg

Would upgrading the RAM increase the memory for my intel hd graphics card? is there anyone here with a 9560 and 16/32GB DDR4 and can check if there values are the same as mine?

 

I didn't notice any such issues. It might worth looking if you have any stuttering due to DPC latency (use LatencyMon). The Killer WiFi card was found the be the culprit for it when I had an MSI GS43VR. It is definitely much better on this model than the MSI, but I still noticed a slight delay when there is a sudden notification.

Considering the voice and how many times I had to repeat myself, the guy just wanted to take a break. I think, he got confused when I asked for a power supply, as he sounded as if I asked for a power socket or a power extension or something. They will offer me £120 back, to get a power supply and the scratches.


Also, here is the benchmark from the PC300 I promised:


It isn't as good as the Samsung one, but definitely not too bad.

 

Just measured mine boot time - 18sec from pressing power button until welcome screen. And yes, approximately 7 sec before DELL logo, ~ 7 sec on DELL logo (IMO it was way faster before I did fresh windows install and BIOS update)

 

Whats your bootup time like? I find it really frustrating waiting for the dell logo to appear and then the spinning circle to appear, on average 14 seconds before windows starts booting.

 

I also suspected that the Killer wireless card could be to blame as well given the reputation with their terrible software, that's something I forgot to do last night - update the drivers to the latest ones from the Killer website.

Blimey that's quite a nice discount to be able to achieve on a laptop like this considering, I'll bear that in mind

That's a nice result from your benchmark there too - the results are very similar to what I get from my LITEON SSD, therefore it's safe to say that these Hynix drives are still acceptable. From what I read online the other night as well, apparently Dell only supplied the Samsung drives in the 9560's during the first initial batches at the start of the year and since around late January time they have not been able to acquire anymore stock from the supplier - hence why with 9560's manufactured since around Feb time only come with either the Toshiba, LITEON & Hynix drives. A Dell support member confirmed on the same post that was quoted elsewhere that they are supposed to get more stock of the Samsung drives again late this month.

Liam.

 

20 days after last contact with dell, they emailed me today to ask for pictures of the defective screens I had. I replied:

"Good day!

We regret to inform you that the photos of defects have got Delayed due to unforeseen circumstances.

Currently I am working with our photo planning team to make arrangment of pictures on priority. I am constantly working on getting these photos, and appreciate your continued support.
Thank you."

If you've been there, you'll understand.

 

I didn't measure it, I will once I finish installing all my software. I do see the spinning circle, but for like one spin. Coming back from sleep is instant.

In my MSI, I found it better to uninstall the drivers completely and let Windows use their default ones. It is another thing to try. One observation I made is that sometimes the WiFi card looses the signal and I have to manually reconnect, when the machine is coming back from sleep.

Calling them and asking for something back is trivial; you don't even need a descent reason. I am not encouraging it, but I am not denying that it is possible.

Hmm, my suspicions are correct then. Yes, but even if they get stock, it will remain a lottery at best. To be fair, I doubt you will see any difference in the real world. I would mostly worry about reliability, instead of performance. My Google search shows that most SK Hy users are actually XPS owners.

Based on this: https://www.reddit.com/r/Dell/comments/5vq5al/xps_15_9560_samsung_vs_toshiba_ssd/ they are having issues with the Toshiba FW. I wonder if I change from RAID to ACHI, if I will get any performance boosts as the Toshiba owners get. Also, it appears that some people asked Dell and they got a new drive for free.

 

Undoing is simply the reverse: windows+x, a, "powercfg -h on". Use "power cfg /a" to verify the options are enabled. Then reselect the relevant options in settings, power options.

Sounds like your xps when back to hybrid sleep or hibernation, but why I can't tell ...

GoNz0 recommends balanced. (I tweak my own)

 

It's interesting that you mention this - as with the manufacturer refurbished unit I had last week before I sent it back (which came with the said PM961 drive), out of the box by default it was set to AHCI which I thought was strange as apparently Dell ship out every 9560 as RAID regardless of the spec by default. Anyway, when it was set default to AHCI I was able to achieve it's full potential read / write speeds of 3200MB/s & 1600MB/s. However when doing various things to get rid of the continuous BSOD error I had with it - one was to switch it over to RAID, and after doing this I noticed that the read / write test revealed lower results - this time being 2800MB/s & 1400MB/s.

So in this instance, it proved for me that AHCI was in fact faster. I'm contemplating doing this with my brand new 9560 which as explained is set by default as RAID, just to see if I can achieve faster SSD speeds with the drive when operating in AHCI. Though to be fair my LITEON SSD is currently performing at near the specification speeds anyway.

Liam.

 

Ace.

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After owning the XPS 9560 for a few months, the palm rest is peeling at the edges. Never had this issue with my 9550 or 9350.

Anyone else have the same problem? Do you think Dell will send someone to replace it? I have on-site warranty and am thinking of selling the laptop.

http://imgur.com/a/X0JhS

 

They should as it is poor workmanship. It will be a 2nd hand palm rest though.

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Hi Bernard,

It seems like the rubbery coating is peeling. I have never seen this happen and find the coating is quite durable. Looks like your coating was defective, the surface was not properly prepared, or the coating was not properly cured. For these reasons, I think you have a good claim.

FYI, the peeling exposes the carbon fibre/fibreglass impregneted epoxy. That likely will weaken the structure over time. Also, the fibres will be very irritating when they start rubbing against your wrist.

PS - why did you sell the 9550 and why are you considering dumping the 9560?

 

Im stil not happy with the 4K screen they replaced.



When i got 2 desktops and have 1/3 apps open on each and im scrolling between them its not smooth its a bit laggy. Like in the sample i made. With my old FHD screen i dindt had this problem. Do i guys have the same with the 4k screen?

 

Gonz0 (or any expert ), what BIOS version do you recommend the average user have? You had issues with the latest Dell page BIOS driver. Do you still have problems and would you suggest it be avoided?

I am still having my sleep issues where it seems to end in an eventual force restart if I come back after many hours and thinking the BIOS driver could be related.

Also, how do I undo the hibernate powershell disabling I did since that didn't solve the issue? Am I correct that hibernating is better than sleeping for longer times away?

 

I read earlier today that someone posted how to undo it??

And the latest BIOS is fine so long as you have a warranty in place in case it doesn't boot after.

 

doh! really sorry i missed that post. i don't know what happened.

a bit of a scary warning for loading the new BIOS driver. is updating BIOS a genuine risk of hardware failure?

 

No one has been left with a bricked laptop, just some of use had to either hold the fn key during startup or force a BIOS reset b holding the power button for >25 seconds

It has been covered enough in it's own thread so read that and make your mind up

 

Feeling that my XPS15 despite 32 GB and a 2 TB 960 Pro SSD is quite sluggish and not perform they way it should. Before starting to tear things apart and start to analyze more in detail, just checking in if there are some obvious well know problem that I should look into first? Something I especially note is that typing in Windows 10 is really sluggish and also scrolling in different browsers.

(Again, haven't had time to do any own analyzing yet, just checking to see about obvious problems)

 

Mine PC is fast like hell ... wont say it laggy when I scroll something ...
But I use EDGE ...
Everything is smooth. (BTW: have you tried enable SST and adjust timeframe to reasonably low value?)

 

Microsoft Edge works perfect when scrolling, but the 4 finger switch between 2 desktops when i have 3 4 applications (like on the video i made) open is not super smooth. Without applications open its smooth.

And i got SST on with the bios modification. What do u mean bij timeframe?

 

The 32tb is the weak point and has no place in that laptop with a samsung pro installed. I'm guessing you can't enable the 32gb as a cache drive so what is it doing in there?
If it is a 2.5" then I think the 9560 only runs a sata3 interface not NVMe so the speeds will be crippled at 500 mb/s instead of 3000mb/s?

 

It's called RAM

 

Do you guys recommend turning off automatic disk defrag on an SSD 9560? Does it matter very much either way?

 

Hmm, this is interesting and one would expect Dell to reset the BIOS of a refurb. unit... I will definitely switch mine to AHCI at some point and retest it. I am downloading the last 30-40GBs to the machine, probably, I will do it tomorrow.

Does anyone have any recommendations for sleeves? I am thinking of getting the Dell one for £35, it is expensive, but it looks nice. Also, if I may go off topic, of a good backpack with space for the XPS 15 and a board game or two.

 

Never ever run defrag on an SSD. SSDs can only handle a finite number of writes.

Windows should pick up that it is an SSD and run Trim instead. If you right click on your drive, go to Tools and then Optimise, a window will appear. You should be able to see C:\ classified as "Solid state drive". If so, Windows run Trim and not defrag. If you click on "Change Settings" you can change how often it does so. I recommend running Trim every now and then (I got it on weekly), instead of turning it off completely.