XPS 15 9560 owners thread.

The new audio drivers supposedly solve the popping issues when a new sounds plays.

Edit:

Nope, misread, it's the audio-popup when you change audio devices that is gone.

 

Not sure what's changed as I just did the latest driver updates and windows has a habit of doing it's own thing, I also put BIOS 1.4 on.
Now the lowest I have gone is 10x multiplier and that took a while with SST set to 100%, it is sitting closer to 16x on 40% dipping to 11x (my default)
If I pull the charger is hits 8x for a couple of seconds.

Somethings changed driver wise?

 

Wonder what this is all about, I'll give it a shot

 

You can simply set same scale level for both displays.
Go to: Display settings and then set option Scale and layout to the same % for every connected display => no more scale

 

Hello, I recently bought an XPS 15 9560 ( 4k display, i5) and I have found a problem that is very annoying. It seems to make crackling/popping noise on the speakers while watching a movie/video. Has anyone experienced this?

 

Welcome to the world of Dell XPS crappy audio experience. Lots of info on it on the 9550 owners thread.

 

Ok I got a crucial question about the UHD XPS 15 (9560). On notebookcheck's review they conclude that the UHD panel has PWM around 960HZ on all brightness levels. Is this true can anyone confirm this? I hate what PWM does to the naturalness of motion.

P.S. Any word yet on Speed Shift Bios update?

 

Yeah we all have kit to read the screen PWM
And you should have read Dell are not implementing speedshift so follow the guide on page 1.

 

Got UHD panel (scaling 200%) and Dell U3011 (100%). When I drag the window to U3011, it gets downscaled - mostly. A few programs don't downscale properly: Adobe Acrobat, MSIE.

Dig into scaling settings. I recall there are certain "advanced" options hidden somewhere. Once I've had odd scaling issues which I think got fixed when upgrading to the Win10 Anniversary update (which is practically a Windows reinstall).

 

Tends to be a per application option now, right click and properties the app in question, go to compatibility. You should see an option "Override high DPI scaling behaviour" and try both the system options.

 

Acrobat doesn't seem to respond to this.

MSIE doesn't even have this compatibility setting. It does scale though, just doesn't resize the window.

 

The XPS seems to have some trouble with sample rate conversion on youtube even with an external DAC and third part audio drivers. Make sure your audio drivers are up to date. A few weeks ago that problem disappeared on my system but I have no idea how.

I did resolve the issue manually months ago by trying combos of 44,100 or 48,000 with either 16bit or 24bit.

 

I thought a camera with a high enough shutter value (1/4000 to 1/8000) should be able to reveal this. There are multiple sites with conflicting reports for both questions, sorry if they seem repeated but they have not been answered concretely. Thank you for your responds non the less.

 

A bit OT, but ease my mental suffering here...

I just clicked what turned out to be a suspicious link from a Skype contact. It started with google.comxxxx but redirected to a page that said something like 'click here for ways to make free money' blah blah. So obviously I knew right away I never should have clicked the original link, and of course, I closed the page right away rather than follow any links within the page. I have an updated Kaspersky and MBAM and ran full system scans that show nothing. How afraid should I be? Are there any other actions I should take? I'm sorry this is a bit unrelated to my XPS 15 but it is on my XPS and I've grown a lot of trust in the posters in this thread.

 

You did what was needed, I did freak out at something similar a couple of weeks back when I clicked the damned advert posing as the download link, this is why I do a daily incremental backup with macrium, within 10 minutes it did it's delta restore over the network and all was good.

 

Any i5 7300HQ user with Bios 1.3.6?

My SST is enable after update to Bios 1.4.0, its seen multiple swing around x9~11.
On Bios 1.3.6, IINM during idle, it would stable x8

My primary concern is higher FID lead higher VID lead lower battery life.

Spoiler

SST ON
SST_Disable_Trial
SST OFF
SST_Move

 

The new BIOS seems to be holding the idle clocks significantly higher, my I7 sits around 11 instead of 8x, I can force it to 8 by setting max clock so I am stumped. I think we need to start spamming Dell forums.

 

Do we able downgrade the Bios? Best if anyone there yet to update anything...

 

So long as downgrade is enabled in the bios you can.

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

 

https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/sb...-home-victory-and-fulfilled-by-amazon-2782235

A half decent travel hub is on offer.

 

I updated all my drivers from the Dell website. Still cannot figure out this problem with the speakers. I might just return this laptop.. everything else is good.

 

Mine is behaving the exact same way. I swear the first one I had from Costco idled at 8x. Now like you said. Only time it will hit 8x is right when you pull the charger cord out.

 

Updated to 1.4.0?

 

1.3.4 and 1.4.0 Same behavior on my machine.

 

Hey quick question...

I'm pretty electronicale Well i like to think am. Can I make a buck 7s 2p liion power bank via USB type C and have it charge my laptop? It'd be that 19.5-20v usb c output on the voltage pins and should easily handle upto 100w...with proper wiring and a good bms...I think it'd work. Basically I can make my own usb c laptop power bank for charging my laptop for under $60...

 

Well, starting with the batteries, you need to use some pretty extreme cautions as they can be quite dangerous. Meaning you could burn down your house or suffer serious burns.

There are plenty of pirate batteries which don't come close to their stated capacity (some maybe more than 75% below claimed capacity!) and may be dangerous or used. Some genuine new Panasonic or Samsung are probably not a bad place to start. Getting a reliable source may be a challenge so the random ebay or amazon seller is not the place to go.

The power bank needs to be safely packaged. A puncture or short circuit can be dangerous. You need good circuitry to ensure you are not overcharging or overdraining the batteries. Also the charging scheme should be optimized changing throughout each charge cycle, maybe for each cell.

If you screw up any of those factors, you can cause fire, cause injury, never come close to "theoretical" max battery life, significantly reduce the charging cycles your batteries can handle...

Get yourself a good quality name brand power bank that has been well reviewed.

 

Oh I got that covered. I built myself a whopping 91cell 18650 ebike battery. Easily gets 20+miles of range at 30mph riding. It's pretty massive.
The bms will protect it with over charging, discharging etc. I use soldering technique with solder wick as my power connectors which work great between batteries. I'm thinking of some type of hard plastic/metal case for it. I want it slim so I can fit it in a backpack also. My only concern is the ability for the buck converter to properly manage the electricity demand...no voltage spikes..etc. It's also hard to believe that a regular usb c cable can deliver 60w...lol

 

Not so easy. USB-C Power Delivery involves digital voltage and current negotiation between the charger and the laptop. Hence compatibility issues if the two can't agree on the pair, and some chargers happen to fail to charge even if they are able to supply the needed power and voltage.

USB-C PD standard is up to 100W @20V, but Dell docks feed even a bit more than that.

Regular round-plug non-USB Dell chargers need to identify themselves via the central pin, and the laptop won't draw much power from an unidentified charger (mind there are Dell chargers with different power ratings - 45W, 60W, 90W, 130W, 180W...). Hence, I'm not aware of any 3rd-party power bank that would work, just the Dell Power Companion 18000mAh. 3rd-party 100W USB-C PD compatible powerbanks might start appearing these days though.

 

Mine does the same thing now too. But I've had the 1.3.4 bios a while and it wasn't like this before. I have throttlestop installed and while the multiplier doesn't go down to 8, the idle wattage is just 0.4 - 0.7 watts which is good.

Sent from my ZTE A2017U using Tapatalk

 

The wattage reported by any program is a very imprecise estimate so don't get fixated with that.

Also, the creator of ThrottleStop argues that to reduce power consumption you should not focus on MHz. But rather you should try to optimize your system so c-states at idle with no programs running:

1. reduce C0% to <0.5%
2. maximixe high core C State Percentage to say 99% at C7 (whatever the highest C-State ThrottleStop shows on your computer which might be C8 or C9)

See below for some tips; there are more in that dedicated thread

 

Has anyone figured out a way to reduce the backlight below Windows standard 0% setting? I find the backlight at 0% to still be too bright at night. Some 9550 users have commented that different BIOS versions have altered the minimum backlight brightness (likely to prevent noticeable PWM at lower values). I should mention I'm only looking for a way to reduce power to the backlight, not alter the black or white level via software controlled brightness settings. I have BIOS 1.3.4.

 

This laptop came with the minimum already set to the level of the 9550 after the ******** fix they applied (removing the lower 20%) so unless you're handy with BIOS editing and EFI shell you are out of luck on this one.

 

Oh this would be perfect if we could somehow managed to do this. Cant we just use 9550 old bios and downgrade since they are almost the same laptops.

 

Erm, nope.

 

Hi guys, reposting this as I did not get an answer on it:
Has anybody found a way to control the fans with the XPS 9560? Prior to this laptop I had an Asus and was using this https://github.com/hirschmann/nbfc/releases, it was really amazing as I could setup threshold and fan % myself and it would start automatically with windows. Anything similar for the XPS?

also

Startup time up to the windows login screen is quite long, I compared it with my previous Asus (i7 4th gen, ssd, ddr3) and dhe dell is around at least 3 times slower. Any idea on this?

 

No idea about fan control. But second question was already answered in this thread. This is due to BIOS initialization related to DDR4 memory (don't know exactly why ...)

 

Memory training and I didn't bother to reply before as it has been asked but no you can't do a great deal with the fans, speedfan can mess about with them but the BIOS will take over, I have no answer how to use speedfan but I expect they have a support forum somewhere.

 

The Dell Dynamic Power Policy = Intel Dynamic Platform and thermal framework?
Dont find any setup file on 9560 i5...

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Dell-...-policies-across-its-XPS-lineup.247462.0.html

 

Hi guys sorry if i come across as ignorabt but there are alot of pages to go through and im debating whether to return my macbookpro 2017 for the dell xps 9560

Some people say its the best some say avoid it....

I will be buying the 4k version and have questions


1) what are the problems?
2) screen have backlght bleed?
3)overheating issues?
4) driver issues?

Btw what is the sound quality like?

Thanks in advance

 

Dell Dynamic Power Policy = what thresholds they set into Intel DPTF
The message of the article is "We Throttle" in a bit longer and more sophisticated but rather useless general way with no practical clues.

 

Does Dell Precision 5510 ( https://www.notebookcheck.net/Dell-Precision-5510-Workstation-Review.156441.0.html) and Dell XPS 15 9560 ( https://www.notebookcheck.net/Dell-XPS-15-9560-i7-7700HQ-UHD-Laptop-Review.200648.0.html) have the same 4k screen model or are they different? In terms of ghosting, is precisions screen any better? How can i measure ghosting level please? I would like to compare it with others who have 9560.

 

Hello guys,

I have my XPS 15 9560 (i5, Full HD Version with 32GB SSD (which i changed to a Samsung 960 Evo 250 GB) + 1TB HDD model) and loving it so far.

Before I clean installed windows i went into dxdiag on the original OS from dell and i had two graphics, a tab for IntelHD Graphics and one for Nvidia ones. Then I installed a bootable windows 10 64 bit (1703 creators edition?) image and clean installed it.

Everything went fine and I installed all drivers and everything seemed to work, but later I realised i had very low fps in games and I saw that games used the Intel Graphics and not NVIDIA GTX 1050 Graphics. Although I have NVIDIA drivers installed (tried many versions, atm. im on NVIDIA driver for notebooks 378.49) I can't open NVIDIA control center, I get the error message that no Display is plugged into NVIDIA graphics.

In device manager the NVIDIA GTX 1050 has a yellow triangle and when going to properties it says famous error code 43. I clean installed many other versions but no luck, everytime it shows triangle and error in device manager. But I am sure it's a software error as the card worked with original dell firmware.


Could anybody help me or give a few tips? I literally reinstalled and tested various driver versions in various orders, clean installed windows more than 3 times already, always the same error.

Installation of NVIDIA driver works, but I dont see "NVIDIA CONTROL CENTER" when I right-click my desktop, when I try to open the nvidia control center in the control settings it tells me the error with "no display plugged into nvndia graphics".

Please, I really need some suggestions, I'm running out of ideas.

Thanks so much in advance, i hope you can rescue me!

 

Same screen on the 9550, 9560 and both precisions. Maybe a more cherry picked on the precisions due to the crappy QC us XPS owners have.

Use DDU https://www.wagnardsoft.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=874
Wipe out both nvidia and intel as you may as well clean up them both. After the 2nd reboot install Intel and Nvidia, I suggest Intel ending 4771 and always the latest nvidia.

windows will install an older Intel driver via windows update but you can roll back (can cause issues) or install group policy for windows 10 (google how to do it) if you have home or use group policy to prevent that device ID being updated (also google it)

 

I had a similar thought and looked into this extensively above six months ago. Long story short, its quite a bit more complicated than charging pretty much any other device. And in the end, any custom solution I could come up with ended up being significantly more expensive than off the shelf items, even considering the added features a custom make would have.
As others have mentioned, you need to follow the USB power delivery protocol for the laptop to negotiate and then accept any power. The only conceivable way to do this is buying a USB PD chip, from which I found Ti and Cypress to provide the best options. (you could potentially create your own microprocessor to handle the USB PD protocol, but this would take a huge amount of coding and validation to make work, essentially impossible for even a highly skilled DIYer)
After getting the chip, you'd have to design your own PCB to add in the necessary crystals, capacitors, resistors, etc. These chips also only open or close transistors as per the USB PD negotiation process, so you'd also have to make a custom power conversion element on the chip or a separate one (as you seem to have done before). I ended up going as far as drawing up a custom PCB in Eagle CAD, for a full design with a TI LM5175 buck boost chip and a Ti TPS25741 USB PD controller that would accept any voltage battery or DC transformer from 5V to 40V and convert it to 5V, 9V, or 20V depending on the sink and PD negotiation for a full design USB PD solution. I almost sent it for printing but ultimately I put my costs at around $300 to $400 which was unjustifiable for my use case and considering how close off the shelf items would come.
The closest thing for your idea above would be to get what they call an evaluation board from Ti or Cypress (if you can satisfy their requirements, I.E. being in the field or a related one where you can justify yourself as a future customer). These boards are fully functional with the USB PD controllers and all needed components, and just require a DC in which you could provide via a buck boost or similar. These boards however often sell in the $100 to $200 range alone.
Hope this helps and would be happy to discuss further if you're interested, but honestly its a painful process. I only went as far as I did for the fun of the design phase, and would just recommend a commercially available unit. I could suggest a few I've come across if needed

 

I want to thank you for your wealth of info Gonzo. I just received the 9560 yesterday and your posts are all across the board with a wealth of info, tips and tweaks to improve this beautiful beast of an XPS. Thank you very much for all your time and effort here helping others like me.

 

So I've repasted, undervolted, and CPU wise all is well. But as soon as I play PUBG or run Unigine Valley, GPU power limit throttling kicks in.

I've held a 2k RPM blow dryer with cool air against the entire VRM section and it has no effect, but when I point it to the GPU VRAM (below the QR code sticker), power throttling stops and GPU runs full speed at 1.7GHz. GPU temp then slowly climbs up to 67C, on max volt (1.075 iirc).

I checked the thermal pads and they seem to make contact just fine; my IR gun measures 60C and up on that VRAM chip when power limit throttling kicks in.

Has anyone else seen this? I am finding almost no posts concerning overheating VRAM causing the GPU to downclock (to <1GHZ, killing FPS). Any suggestions?

 

Power limit is the CPU capped at 45w, nothing to worry about as the chip is doing it.

 

That makes no sense. If I cool the VRAM, the GPU does not power limit throttle. How's that nothing to worry about? GPU clock goes <1GHz when playing a PUBG game for 5 mins

Edit: to clarify, the CPU will run all 4 cores at 3.4ghz with the undervolt (-150mv on cpu, -100 on igpu/system agent). But even if I force the CPU at 1.5ghz or lower (power scheme), the *GPU* will power limit throttle. Its voltage is then dropped to 0.750v or lower, and its clock anywhere between 585mhz and ~1GHz.

It doesn't matter if I cool the entire VRM to <45c with the blow dryer, the GPU will stay that way. But as soon as I cool the VRAM, the GPU will happily run at 1.7GHz (and 1.075v) constantly. When it does this, GPU temps are around 68c. If some of the VRM temps increase, it doesn't care - it will stay at 1.7ghz just fine.

So I can understand that the VRAM gets too hot and that causes it to draw too much power, but how to counteract this? It seems now as if the GPU never runs at >1Ghz and frequently goes down to 600mhz.

And obviously by GPU i mean the GTX1050, not the iGPU.

 

Just a little off topic post for you guys. I picked up a MSI GS63VR laptop because I was considering replacing my 9560 with it and here are my initial thoughts:

Pros of the GS63VR
Awesome keyboard- I like my 9560 keyboard but it's not near as nice to type on as the steel series
A number pad!
GTX 1060
It looks cool, although it's a little flashy
Ability to control fans

Cons when compared to the 9560
The 6700HQ runs much hotter than my 7300HQ even with hyper threading turned off and it undervolted (not a totally fair compairison since I did repaste the XPS with liquid metal) - 68C on the XPS after 15 mins of prime95 vs 82C on the GS63VR with a -160mv undervolt and HT turned off
The CPU fan is way more annoying than on the XPS
No ability to charge it with USB-C - wtf MSI
Battery life - no real run through yet, just basic use it seems to be a couple hours behind the XPS
Have to take out the motherboard to change the M.2 SSD or ram
It's bigger than the XPS and not as portable - I could deal with it for the 1060 though

Overall I'm leaning on sending the MSI back - if anything for the annoying fan noise as most of that I could totally deal with. I still have to actually run some games on it and see what the 1060 can do.

 

Just a short question to double check, as I'm still new to tinkering/DIY hardware, whether it'd be okay to jump on this deal:

https://slickdeals.net/f/10527824-1...ee-shipping?src=SiteSearchV2_SearchBarV2Algo1

This Samsung PM961 PCI-Express 3.0 M.2 SSD would work with our XPS 15s, as a replacement (or in case you downgrade the battery as an addition), right?