XPS 15 9560 owners thread.

A quick hello, from mostly having been over on the Latitude/Precision forum... just ordered an outlet 9560; the GPU difference was too big, and the price hike on the 5520 too much, so going over to the consumer side for this generation. I've had an M3800 and for a while had an M5510 from work, so I've got a fair sense of the line (no real ergonomic change from the M5510 to the XPS 9560, right?) and know to keep an eye on the thermals.

This thread has been very helpful, and will continue to keep an eye on nit.

 

I have XPS 15 9560 16GB RAM, 4K and no serious latency issues. I use W10 Creators Update + all DELL drivers, no DELL extra software but ColorPrimer. I don't do any work that would require real time response. Looks like CPU load has nothing to do with latency. See the video:

 

Thats great besides the fact that you use a program to measure DPC that isn't compatible with Windows 10 what I know

 

Yes but from what I understand the results show higher latency than it really is.

 

If you need you can try Windows Performance Analyzer.

 

Please try with a compatible program like LatencyMon.

Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk

 

Latency for my XPS was terrible out of the box. I play digital piano live so this is the metric I most care about.

After a lot of Windows tweaking, I got low latency on my XPS 6300HQ. See snapshot below for representative stats. You should be able to exceed this with your new laptop.

There are a few XPS latency threads with suggestions to reduce latency such as

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/latency-issues-with-xps-15-9560.801763/

This thread highlights some resources, steps (and missteps) to get low latency for music on the XPS

http://forum.pianoworld.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/2601603/1.html

 

I jumped on an FHD XPS15 during the Memorial Day sale they had going on as they gave me a 15% off coupon plus the $250 off the price from the sale. Got it yesterday, but the ghosting issue was atrocious and my eyes are so use to 4k from my desktop and Asus Zenbook Pro. Submitted a return for it, decided to try the 4k version out. Dell wouldn't budge on letting me reuse the 15% discount, so I'm kind of bummed about it. They're offering me an XPS15 touch with the i7, 1050, 16gb RAM, 512gb ssd, fingerprint reader, with 3 years support/warranty for $2200 USD. My FHD was $1581 with the warranty. Seems kind of a big jump in price for the 4k screen, not sure if it's worth it and it seems that 2200 is the best I can get because I haggled for about 2 hours with them. Any other tactics to use to get a better deal?

 

Have you tried using WPA to analyze things like this? Always thought that WPA is a bit hard to get control over, and is easier to analyze a specific problem rather than the whole windows. But could be wrong here, not a tool I would call myself experienced with.

 

I did and it will give you a lot of information but you need to learn how to use Windows Performance Recorder and how to read Analyzer results. Not intuitive or easy but definitely worth to try. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/test/wpt/windows-performance-recorder.

 

How did you get hard pagefault resolution time to 0us??? I can't get below say 700us

If you run LatencyMon for say 20 minutes do you get consistent results?

 

To be honest I haven't done anything to avoid latency issues. I reinstalled Windows and it's just fine. I had audio issues caused by high latency on my other laptop and was just curious about latency on XPS so I run few tests but everything looks and sounds good.

 

LatencyMon running for 20min.

 

Thing is, unless you are really interested in benchmarks etc, this doesn't do all to much unless you can find solutions for it. I mean, if I analyze and come to the conclusion its the keyboard driver causing this, what next, its not like I can just disable the keyboard. Might come of as being irritated with you which is of course not the case, my irritation is with Dell for once again f-cking up things like drivers etc

I just cant get the XPS15 to feel "premium" to me

 

So what did you do during those 20 minutes? Mine also looks fine until I try to do something like going to speedtest and running a speedtest. Then all hell breaks loose and DPC goes through the root.

 

I don't think you should be running any other processes with LatencyMon. This is noted in the FAQ

http://www.resplendence.com/latencymon_faq

 

Actually, what the FAQ say is that you shouldnt run any audio processes. This i believe is because when doing real time audio you really need L O W DPC and its a different ball game all together. If you are mastering Taylor Swifts new record you could probably live without having wifi enabled at the same time, but for a consumer laptop...if the problems are caused by network traffic and you have no network traffic...

My XPS is no where near to support realtime audio as it barely can support non real time browsing

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Have you tried a different wireless card?

 

I was watching House of Cards. The thing is... XPS+Windows is not a RTC setup. We can forget about that, If you get a laptop and latency issue it's because network driver, graphics, or ACPI. If it's network, you may get a new card, if it's ACPI...

 

Yes, replaced the Killer NIC as soon as I could with an Intel 8265.

 

Well, not asking of it to be a RTC, just that it should have at least acceptable levels. That said, my main problem is that the whole laptop feels sluggish, not just any specifics to audio. Might be other factors at play here than DTC.

Edit:
Trying to use a Dell TB16 probably doesn't help either, although the TB16 seems to be better than the TB15 fiasco but then so would a brick

 

Do you mean Windows is not as responsive as expetred or lack of CPU speed?

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The former as the CPU rarely seem be working at 100% (nor throttling what I have seen), which it really shouldn't either considering what I use this laptop for

 

So why are you blaming dell drivers? Maybe I don't think you can blame dell until you know for certain that other laptops with the intel 8265 don't have the latency issue when also using wireless.

 

You realize that the Killer drivers are known to be crap, right? So if I hadnt switched the NIC it would have been even worse...and guess who provides the Killer driver

AFAIK the Intel 8265 is as good as it gets and I do want my wifi

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I realize they say killer drivers are crap, that wasn't the point. Besides Killer makes Killer drivers, Dell doesn't make the drivers. They just "QA" them and release them. You can download intel drivers directly from Intel.

I realize you want wifi, that wasn't the point, the point was maybe they have issues with latency too.

 

You pair should get a room!

 

Only if you're joining.

 

I am not being in the middle of the spit roast again.


In other news despite quidco saying they will not pay out on Dell purchases if you use a voucher code I just got £107.69 quidco confirmed despite using stacking codes on my purchase a couple of months ago.

 

Hey everyone, I am going to get a new XPS 9560 4K 512GB 16GB from Microcenter in New York today. Has anyone here got this laptop from MC? Any issues so far? Like screen flickering, latency issues, Chrome freeze, etc?

 

So, thought I'd report back given I've had my XPS 9560 for a few months now (since ~Feb). Overall, after a few tweaks, repaste, undervolt, swap out faulty LCD with replacement unit ( ) and general tuning, it's running like a champ. I've not had any throttling yet although intensive tasks/games push temps into the low-mid 80s but never more.

The only issue I've had in the past 1-2 weeks is Windows related (go figure). For some inexplicable reason, when I search for an app using the start bar, and hit enter, or click the returned app, it won't do anything. It seems to affect some apps but not others. I've tried all the usual guides out there, re-built the index and so on and it's still borked.

It's not so much of a pain that I'm going to reformat as I can start the app by navigating to the icon on start itself. It's just annoying when it's quicker to type the app name and hit enter - but it doesn't do anything!

Otherwise, very happy with my purchase

 

I got mine on Amazon. $1828 with the same configuration. It is the Microsoft signature edition so there is no bloatware.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01N1Q0M4O/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

Well, to some extent I agree with you here, but just look at the handling of drivers for the Intel HD graphics. I think we can all agree that the drivers provided by Dell has been anything but the best available. Sure, you can download drivers from manufacturers directly but why should you have to? And for non power users, they don't have a clue.

Just look at the mess called Dell Driver Updater (or something like that), in the rare case it actually finds anything, it usually makes things worse, like the RealTek update a few months ago that killed many users audio all together. Or try to search for drivers using Dells System Detect utility, no matter what drivers you actually have installed, you always get the same list of drivers to download. I mean come on, how hard can it be? Then just look at how Lenovo handles the same thing on their support site, at least for the models I've tried.

Edit:
Perhaps I should add that many of my opinions about Dell is based on many years of problems, not just the current XPS15. So maybe the XPS15 get some flak from me here that is really more intended at Dell in general.

Edit 2:
The fact that I just dropped Dellienwares 330W charger on my big toe when the cable unplugged itself doesn't help either

 

I was just about to write the same thing. Gonzo is most likely the one in history that has returned most Dell laptops

 

So you are happy with your 11th XPS15 then?

 

Happier now I got the quidco money!

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I'm chatting with a dell rep to see if they'll give me the same price. Minus the 3 year warranty I'm paying like $60 more.

 

They knocked $150 off without even blinking, thanks for the ammunition Mark! I also complained about not being able to remove McAfee and being charged $43 for it, so they voided that too.

So the laptop with 3 year warranty/accident is $2007 total. I can live with that.

 

How come that even if I uninstall the Dell Intel HD driver and install the generic Intel one, when trying to update, the Intel Driver Utility will always say that it cant install because of custom drivers being installed? Considering the fact that the Intel Driver Updater can't even see that the installed drivers are the latest ones, perhaps one should not expect to much

 

run DDU to wipe the drivers or manually install them, been mentioned several times already.

 

And after that Intel Driver Updater will happily install the new drivers automatically? Have no problems installing the drivers, just have to do it manually each time.

 

Just noted that the latest Samsung Magician (5.1) now seems to have brought back a lot of options that went missing in 5.0, including data security. Has anyone tried them out to see if we can finally get OPAL support on the XPS15?

 

For me is shows hardware encryption not supported and the other 2 disabled, and yes the drivers now install automatically for me

 

For me the TGC Opal is enabled, other boxes the same. But haven't really looked more into this. From my fighting the SecureDoc a few months back, I got the impression that experimenting with SecureBoot, LegacyMode etc could have affect this but haven't had time to try anything more with latest Samsung Magician. But at least there is an improvement compared to the previous Samsung Magician (post 4.X) which kind of had zero options.

Please note that I am running the Samsung Drivers, have a memory of you using Microsofts drivers with your Samsung but could remember wrong.

 

Yeah you're wrong I use Samsung, if not if will not show any details in magician iirc.
FYI mine also showed opal until I ran the test to see what was supported?

I do wonder now they brought back the options if a new firmware will be out soon for the 950/960 series.

 

Well, at least you have prefered the MS driver in the past if I am not misstaken but never mind. Yes, the OPAL support requires different software it seems.

One interesting thing, the magician mentions the possibility of putting a BIOS password for the drive, when we have discussed this before, we came to the conclusion that only SATA drives supported this.

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Actually I was one of the 1st to realise the Samsung driver gave it more stability.

I never went down the opal path as I just want bitlocker hardware support back

 

Yes, real BitLocker hardware support would of course be the best, but that seems far away

Personally I could probably live with having to enter a OPAL password upon cold boot, as I would normal only cold boot a few times a week if even that. Have some sensitive data on my discs but not that sensitive enough that I believe that someone would target me for an attack, ie knowing the ins and outs of defeating a cool boot encryption password.

 

Thought I'd cross-post here to see if anyone has any suggestions or has resolved this (from here). Essentially I reinstalled windows using Gonzo's ISO (thanks buddy!) however now experiencing a whole world of pain with power throttling which I didn't experience once on the factory dell install. While I know it was full of bloat, it ran like a champ, however now it's far worse.

Imagine this is down to settings/drivers but I'm struggling to narrow down what it is. My current theory is that I ran from the "dell" power plan and am now on "balanced". I'm trying to find a comparison of the two to see if I can create a new plan to mimic the "Dell" one to see if that rectifies the issue.

Any thoughts?

 

Anyone else noticed severe slow down after installing the Windows Creators Update? There are MANY hits on that if you Google on it. Perhaps MS is the real villain here and not Dell (at least not this time).