XPS 15 9560 owners thread.

As for reviews online: I used to be a freelancer for several computer magazines back in the glory days of computer magazines. While quality varied, the editors were usually quite professional, and a good writer appreciated their improvements. There was a level of quality simply because there were a LOT of writers and only a handful of magazines, and so they could choose the most knowledgeable and best writers, and demand some depth and quality. I knew several writers that were dumped because they tried to take shortcuts on reviews. A good review takes a lot of time and effort to truly be in depth and not just a shallow regurgitation of product specs.

My personal opinion: Once the proliferation of web sites occurred, and the magazines pretty much went under, writing quality really dropped. Anyone could write and post a review. Professional editors ended up leaving the writing gig. A really experienced writer like my friend Loyd Case basically became the exception. The other thing I found to be rampant was these relatively amateur writers copying from other published reviews. I remember once an early review having a blatant error and then about 4 other reviews quickly coming out with the same blatant (and easy to avoid error,) in one case even using the same misspelling.

That said, there are a few good sites, as have been referenced here; I tend to bookmark those and ignore the rest. And a forum like this provides far more info that you will get from 99.9% of review sites.

Sorry for the tangent!

 

Shoutout to laptop mag!

 

What version bios, nvidia and Intel graphics drivers are you running, and what version of windows?

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Yes but there's only the iGPU, NVidia isn't.

 

One of your drivers is probably interrupting the CPU constantly, eating up its resources, thus, the DPC error and the poor performance. Reinstall your WiFi adapter and audio drivers. Otherwise, go with a BIOS reset and clean installation.

 

Hello everyone, I bought the new dell xps 15 9560 earlier this year with a 4k screen. The left side of my screen is a little weak and seems to be falling out of place. It seems like they didn't glue it on properly opposed to the right side which is firm. Even when you try and push the screen inward it just doesn't stay there. I contacted dell and they aren't willing to help me out. I'm not a laptop expert but is there any way I can just open it up and glue it myself? If not I'll just argue with dell because this is ridiculous. I paid over $2000 for this laptop.

 

If you pad with credit card, you'll be fine as you can dispute the charge. If there is really an issue with the screen like you mentioned as bad as it is; I'd immediately request an RMA from where you purchased it.

 

You need to be a bit more specific, are you trying to say the gorilla glass is not fully stuck down, if so they can only replace the entire screen assembly as it is a bonded part that cannot be serviced.

 

Well its been over 30 days, yes it is the gorilla glass. Any suggestions?

 

Nothing you can do without making a mess, you would have to remove the entire panel without breaking it, normally this is done with heat but you could kill the LCD doing that, after that you would have to use the correct grade 3M tape to stick it back down once you manage to get the old stuff off. I would never attempt this if it was in warranty as they will show up with a refurbished panel. Just make sure it is 100% perfect condition and working order including running dead pixel tests (with the laptop fully off hold D while you tap the power button to go into the screen diagnostics before the tech can run off. Any issue no matter how small reject the repair.

 

Thank you for the help. Damn, now I don't know what to do.

 

What would be the best solution to fixing throttling. I've seen mini heatsinks with thermal pads on top of the vrms like this.

http://i.imgur.com/dHQsrYO.jpg and http://i.imgur.com/mmfwqW9.jpg

Should i do use these mini heat sinks with a repaste and undervolt for the best performance or just stack thermal pads like they do in this guide. http://www.ultrabookreview.com/14875-fix-throttling-xps-15/

thanks so much!

 

Best thing to do would be to seek out the thermals thread that will be in the 1st few pages of this forum section as it has been gone over plenty of times.

 

It appears that the mini heatsinks work better, but they are just one part of the solution.

One more thing you can try to save some HW hassle is the GPU undervolt trick via the voltage curve in msi afterburner.

 

New BIOS v 1.3.4
1. Fixed a potential security issue with Bootguard code integrity chaining enforcement".
2. Fixed a potential security issue with the Support Assist PreBoot feature
3. Updated processor microcode (HT problem fixed?!)
4. Update Computrace 957
5. Update PD firmwar

 

I see they updated the intel HD driver to 4664, coincidentally it is the one I am using form Intel's site ass it worked well.

 

I'm on 4678 since a 2-3 weeks and I haven't got any problem!

 

Yeah the older I get the less I feel the need to update a working driver
I see the microcode stepping is the same as the windows driver so it may have the fix, either way once in windows it doesn't matter what the BIOS microcode is as windows uses it's own version.

 

I'm looking to get the 15" i7, 16gb ram, 512 ssd, FHD version of this laptop. This would be to replace a relatively ancient mid-2010 13" MBP and one of the draws is the discrete graphics card. However, I'm reading quite a bit about throttling and just curious how concerned I should be about that.

Now to be honest I'm not talking about doing any type of extreme gaming on the device as I have a desktop for that. This would be for playing games on a limited basis like Skyrim, HOTS, WoW, and potentially Overwatch. Likely some old school emulation mixed in there as well. I don't mind if there are limitations, obviously it's going to be better than what I'm using today, just trying to better understand what those limitations might be.

Thanks.

 

Coming from the same MBP and making the switch to that exact xps model only 1 week ago I confidently say you won't be disappointed.

I'm not a huge gamer but have played the division, gta v, and borderlands daily since purchase. All on high or ultra high settings, with no performance mods nor undervolting or anything.

It's never missed a beat and is extremely quicker than the mac, even though the mac has 1x SSD and 1x HDD for performance purposes.

Bottom line is, go get it. I've even found windows 10 to be really pleasant to use (Coming from an ex mac fanboy)

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I just reset Windows on my Dell XPS 15, 4k, for the 3rd time, and now the performance is still oddly. Now, videos are skipping and choppy (even offline), and the cursor is constantly freezing.

I am (still) getting incredibly low frame rates on older games at lower resolutions, and still getting the blue screen of death at the most random times.

How is it possible that when I had the FHD model of this computer I did not have any issues, but as soon as I get the 4K, all these issues arise... Did I just get a dud of a computer?

And call me crazy, I started hearing this weird noise coming from beneath the keyboard? It's faint, but it sounds like a buzzing? I don't know...

I am thinking about processing a return on the 4K and actually spending the money on a new MacBook Pro.

I mean after looking at the Dell 4K screen, all other screens look like crap just because of how gorgeous it is, but I need a laptop that will last me for 4 years, and even though I did purchase accidental and premium tech support, I do not have time to call Dell ALL the time.

 

2 words should lead you on the path to fix this.

"Video Drivers"

A bit more involved than you would hope for, you need to remove both video drivers with DDU and one way or the other stop windows replacing your driver with it's own as the problem will return.

It's been covered on here before so you shouldn't have much trouble searching for it.

 

What does DDU stand for?

 

Display driver uninstaller:
http://www.guru3d.com/files-tags/download-ddu.html

 

So I assume I uninstall all video drivers with this DDU and go into Device Manager and uninstall the Geforce 1050 device?

 

I am the only one who can't install the new bios update 1.3.4 ? I get the message that the bios payload wasnt found ...

 

DDU does everything, after it has done both drivers (you will have to do it again after it forces the 1st restart to get rid of both.

You could always download it and read the readme though

 

Just you so far.

 

Good deal, thanks for the feedback. Went ahead and pulled the trigger so should be able to participate in this thread as an official owner beginning next week.

With that said, this MBP had a good 7 year run, just can't rationalize updating to another Mac at this point.

 

Can someone tell me why I paid premium (over $200) for tech support when I am just transferred to some guy in India who I have a severe language barrier with?

Does anyone know if anyone who actually works for Dell speaks proper English / live in the Americas?

 

Afraid I also hate this, the most legible I have ever spoken with was the resolutions team when I kicked off that 3 machines that arrive faulty isn't my problem when they tried to push me into a refund.

Premium normally means they answer the phone a bit quicker but it's still the same bunch of people.

 

Really??? That's so ridiculous.

Is there any catch to their accidental warranty that I haven not been told about? Because to be honest, $250 CAD for 4 years of Accidental seems really misleading because AppleCare is over $300 for one year less and accidental is not covered.

I mean, I got the Dell XPS 15 4k/512/16GB on a TGIF sale, which I paid $1923USD and that included accidental and premium support for 4 years.

 

Read the small print. Never had it so I have no need to read it

 

Is there a way to set a button or a widget of some sort to quickly switch between power mode and battery saving mode, and then choose exactly what happens?
Basically I want to be able to turn the Nvidia card off when running on battery power..

Any ideas?

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Does anyone know how much space there is left between the battery and the back-casing? I was wondering if it would be technically possible to buy the SATA cable and connect it to a SATA/M.2 adapter and stick a small SSD in the space between the battery and case.

 

None.

 

I raise your none ot 1 maybe 2 mm tops

The bit where you would have a 2.5" drive has a pad attached to the chassis iirc so I assume it has that gap along the length, but no you wouldn't get anything else in this laptop.

Just save up for a bigger NVMe drive or convert it to the smaller battery and shove a sata drive in.

 

Mind these batteries are developing a swelling tendency, pushing the trackpad up out of the case.

No problem to install one with the smaller battery though, 7mm drive fits, supposedly also 9.5mm without the rubber brackets.

 

Word is the new BIOS update improves TDP recovery rate from 0.125W/~15s to 2W/5s. Can anyone with athrottlign unit confirm?

 

I reset my Dell XPS for the 5th time, and used DDU to uninstall graphics drivers and uninstalled display driver from Device Manager, and performance is still slow on laptop and computer crashes.

I asked Dell (within 14 days of the invoice date, and only 7 days of me having it in hand) to return it, and they suddenly decided to process a replacement unit.

This is so ridiculous.

 

Argue with Dell, asking to be transferred to a manager. They are sometimes stubborn, but at the end, they usually make things right (even if it takes quite a bit of time).

There is a major bug in Kaby Lake and Skylake CPUs. See: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/hyperthreading-kaby-lake-skylake-skylake-x,news-56085.html I am surprised how soon Dell released an update for the bug.

 

It still took them 3 months, they knew about it and decided against it until no doubt it got published. Ironically it takes about 5 minutes to update a BIOS microcode.

 

Greetings fellows!
I was about to buy this laptop for my work until i saw the famous VRM heat issue thread.
Should i worry for this since i'm not gaming?
I will mostly use it for coding and casual stuff.
Thanks.

 

Question is if Dell knew or just Intel, as none of the motherboard manufacturers pushed an update before the publication.

No! Not at all. Most of the time, I am coding in Unity or running machine learning libraries (computational intensive) and never had any issues. The throttling effects graphics performance and happens during gaming. During other tasks, even if you use a GPU for some light GP-GPU computing, you won't notice anything.

 

Microsoft released the update in April for Windows. Dell knew.

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Dell really didn't have to do anything though. Windows users were covered and linux users could download the driver from intel. No other laptop/computer manufacturers put anything out until people started freaking out over nothing last week.

 

I know but most people don't listen

 

I used DDU , then installed the latest Nvidia and Intel GFX but now I cant do screen mirroringto my Samsung TV. Coincidence?
The laptop sees the TV and the TV sees the laptop. TV says connected but nothing comes up on the screen and the laptop just times out "connecting".

EDIT: hmm must have been a coincidence, its the killer wireless drivers. Did a roll back and it started working again despite them not being updated for a while.

 

Has anyone tried an eGPU setup over TB3? I'm thinking of getting a GTX 1080 Ti with a Akitio Node and pump back into the internal display. My 1050 internal is at +256Mhz Core but still leaves room to be desired... I want native 4K when I'm at home... But love the portability and build quality on the road.

 

I have a mantiz venus w/ 1070. Running into some bandwidth issues with Prey I think, as I'm getting roughly the same FPS on medium/high/very high (under 60 in many areas) and medium is actually faster on the internal card.