XPS 15 9560 owners thread.

I found it even more annoying when they had nine pages of complaints over a new BIOS but didn't recall it ;(

 

is there a way to turn off the light of the screen ?

 

Hi to all.
I have a question. Is normal that, when I launch File Explore, it need time to open a window? Sometime over 1/2 seconds.
And... I have did a clip in AE but when I play it (in Photo as well as in WMP) the video seems to be cutted and I have some artifacts.
My impression is that the laptop has some bad settings or something similar.
Help, suggestions?

 

It is the current versions of the Intel video driver to blame, they apparently have a fix in one of the upcoming releases. Related to optimus based boards hence me wondering why mine did it but the games PC was instant.

 

Hi GoNz0, fast and kind as usual.
Well, do you think that also the freezing when I open a window is because the drivers?

 

Could well be, those intel drivers have had some strange issues over the years, especially the Dell branded ones!

 

So... the only way is to wait?

 

yep

 

I can't remember what bios I'm on but not the latest, maybe 1.6 or 1.7 but my windows 10 keeps wanting to update and it never actually installs... always fails but requires a reboot...so annoying. Anyone else know a fix for this?

 

If you have Windows 10 Pro, you can use the Group Policy Editor to set up Windows Updates so that you are informed when updates are available, but they will not be downloaded or installed until you decide to do so manually. Group Policy Editor, however, is not available with Windows 10 Home.

Also, with any version of Windows 10, you can go to the Microsoft site and download the Windows Show/Hide utility. When you run it, it will give you the opportunity to block any updates that you you don't want to be installed on your computer. There is a download link on this page:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...t-a-windows-update-from-reinstalling-in-windo

 

If you google the kb number of the update chances are it's the one that a huge number of people have had the same problem with, it will be superseded at some stage but tbh probably best to wait on RS4 being released now and clean installing.

 

Thanks for sharing your experience, effectively I haven't thunderbolt devices yet.
I hope it will work as you suggest when necessary.

 

Edit: delete

 

There is a thread about this problem:
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...-problem/93e7004a-62b1-4211-8e37-4c136608865e

 

Hi guys, i need some help.
yesterday i've activated speedshift from efi shell and was ok. after i've decided to downvolt through the efi shell as well and was all fine. at the last try i might have set a wrong value and the laptop doesn't post.
tried to to long press the power button or fn + power but nothing.
I've also tried to recover bios from usb but nothing happens.

front led is blinking 2 amber and 1 white: which means motherboard replacement.

any suggestion?

 

New BIOS 1.9.4 is available.

 

Fixes & Enhancements
Enhancements:
1. Improve startup stability when the RTC battery voltage is low.
2. Improve WiFi switching stability when Dell thunderbolt dock TB16 is disconnected during sleep.
3. Prevent ghost key trigger while pressing multiple keys at the same time.
4. Prevent wake on malfunction in AC mode while battery depleted.
5. Change default setting to Prompt on Warnings and Error​

 

**** me, no soft brick this time, no BIOS reset, WTF?

 

Is there a pool about how many days this one will last before it gets pulled?

 

Anyone with a Samsung EVO/PRO NVMe drive tested this BIOS to see if it enables hardware drive encryption on the boot drive yet?

 

I always check that as I was waiting for the feature to be enabled by Dell. Of course it isn't and most likely never will be. Bios update also reverted my SATA settings from AHCI to Raid so I had to switch that back.

 

I actually noticed that when I looked in the updated Samsung Magician that it contained some new entries for encryption which I dont remember having seen there before. Probably not BIOS related though but still relevant to the discussion. Have not had a change to try them out though.

Edit:
This screen shot has me wondering if Samsung have finally implemented support for BitLocker, not tried it though.

https://imgur.com/a/UFMLP9o

 

Would it make any real sense to upgrade my Toshiba XG4 SSD (256) to Samsung 960 EVO (512) other than bigger drive?
Will the speed be noticeable?

 

That's old news and doesn't work with boot drives.

 

Drive or partition?

 

In 99% of the use cases, no.

 

Drive m8, Samsung have now passed the blame to all motherboard manufacturers after they failed to test the firmware update & driver until everyone went "It doesn't ****ing work"
I now have a drive stuck in secure mode that I can't enable hardware bitlocker on and the only way out is to RMA the drive!

 

Guessing you are refering to this?

https://us.community.samsung.com/t5/Memory-Storage/HOW-TO-MANAGE-ENCRYPTION-OF-960-PRO/td-p/66475

I recall having some success with SecureDoc when I had originally bought the 960 Pro but in the end, I felt that I was not sure of how it would work out in the long run. There were some issues with their boot loader. Have not tried it in a while though and know they have released some upgrades.

 

I did ask for a trial of that but they never got back to me via my business email, I like bitlocker as it suited my needs, no messing about unless something changed but it meant if the laptop got stolen no one would be able to get my data.

Yes that is the thread in question.

I bought the drive to use bitlocker hardware support and Samsung screwed a lot of people over.

 

Did Samsung actually ever promise BitLocker support or was it more that customers expected it from then? I seem to recall that I knew what I got into when i bought my 960 Pro but at the time, no one else offered a 2 TB SSD if I remember correctly.

I actually got SecureDoc working with OPAL encryption on the XPS15 but didn't feel comfortable with their boot loader and also the XPS line, like most consumer laptops, where not something they actually claimed to support

 

They promised a standard at a later date, the exact one I don't remember.

 

Was it trying out the BitDefender stuff in Samsung Magician that screwed up your drive? I recall that SecureDoc had an emergency disc that at least I used to revert OPAL encryption after the boot loader had messed up (ie allowing me to format the drive and disable OPAL, not breaking the encryption of data). Note sure if it can help you with your drive though.

 

If only I could get my hands on it "hint hint " then I could see if I could revert the drive
I have been trying to find an up to date bootable winmagic so I can try and PSID revert the drive but winmagic never got back to me (twice) and the only one you can find online is outdated and doesn't see the drive.

What happened was I enabled secure drive meaning I can no longer secure erase or activate opal security, it is stuck in that mode and Samsung as you saw in that thread won't release the PSID revert tool for it, the only other PSID revert is for mSata based drives that got leaked a few years back.

 

Hi to all. Can I install the last bios (1.9.4) without problems?
And, after, I need to setup again the bios ?

 

installed fine for me but reset for others.
Not that the bios takes more than a few minutes to put back as it was.

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

 

Thanks GoNz0.
And... what is your suggestion??
I need to make some screenshot before?

 

Just take one with your phone for good measure

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

 

@pascaladjaero, thanks for reply.

 

The new BIOS (1.9.4) fixed all my keyboard problems.
Thanks Dell!

 

First of all, the numbers displayed on the battery aren't volts (V), but watt (W). It's a pretty big difference. We express the capacity of a battery either in Ampere's per hour (Ah) or Watt per hour (Wh). Naturally, the 84Wh battery will last a fair bit longer than a 56Wh battery, it's 1.5 times the size. If you don't have an HDD in your laptop, you can exchange the 56Wh in your laptop with an 84Wh battery.

As for differences in terms of CPUs, the whole "quad cores use much more power" is something from the days when quad-cores were first released. Modern quadcores are all extremely efficient when idling. And there is virtually no difference between a 7300HQ and a 7700HQ (or a 6300HQ and a 6700HQ) in terms of idle power consumption. They will differ when pushing a heavier workload. So really, if using the same screens, they will have virtually the same battery life.

Screens is where the big differences lie for the XPS 15 models. Where the FHD screen consumes far less power than a 4K screen, and as such, the 4K screen is not available with the smaller 56Wh battery. Typically, with a 56Wh battery and a FHD screen, you should be getting about 5-6 hours of battery life. An 84Wh with a FHD screen should be pushing 10 hours at least. 84Wh with a 4K screen, you will be looking at 6 hours.

The most likely culprit in your case is probably that you have some rogue program running in the background that is leeching your battery dry. I advise you to download Throttlestop and monitor your 'usage' in that program (displayed on the main window). It isn't necessarily an accurate usage number, but it will show you whether your CPU is idling correctly. Your idle usage should ideally be below 1.5W. Anything above that, and it is very likely that something is keeping your CPU awake. You can verify this by pressing the C# (C8 usually) button in Throttlestop. While idling, your Core C State percentages should be above 85-90%. Your package C states should at the least use the C6 state, ideally the C7 / C8 state. These deeper sleeping states should have fairly large numbers in them while idling. I consider anything below 60 as low (you can combine the numbers for C6/7/8 for this. C7 and C8 are more efficient than C6, but the difference is minor, we are basically talking minutes here).

As for the differences between the 9560 and 9550. They are fairly minor. The 9560 has a larger battery option, 97Wh compared to the 84Wh, which should result in about an hour more battery in all cases. The 7XXXHQ is also a bit more battery efficient than the 6XXXHQ, but generally, the Kaby Lake is just an undervolted Skylake CPU. You can undervolt your Skylake CPU to attain similar efficiency.

 

hahaha - true.

There are lots of versions based on different configuations of: CPU, RAM, SSD-HDD, screen, battery, W10 version, fingerprint sensor, wifi card, etc. Also a few units do not have an nVidia GPU.

 

Well prices have finally gone down. I think I'm gonna ask for a 4k dell replacement screen for my birthday or something. Lol. EBay prices have the same monitor on the 4k model down to around $110 which is pretty darn good for a 4k screen.

 

Hi to all.
I have installed the April update for Windows 10 and, looking inside drivers I have seen that now I have the Intel gpu disabled.
Searching on the http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/xps-15-9560-drivers.805145/
I have found the last relase (15.65.5.4982)
Can I use it without problems?
And... on the same page I have found the last nvme drivers for my Samsung 960 evo.
Is recommended to install it?

 

On 1803 and the latest 6025 drivers. Gotten a few hard freezes and stutters.

 

Had a bit of a mare with 1803 so far, I made a custom ISO and that resulted in an unresponsive desktop with the latest intel and nvidia graphics drivers, mouse would move but I couldn't do anything until I put it into standby and resumed, after trying various drivers and still getting the secondary issue where the mouse would freeze for a second or 2 when closing folders I gave up and scrapped my ISO and installed a vanilla ISO and let it install whatever drivers it wanted. So far apart from the mouse freeze when closing folders that is a windows issue according to intel (big thread on intel's site) I have not been frozen out of my desktop so I am taking an early disk image. If it messes me about again I am restoring my pre 1803 backup until it's fixed.

 

I've personally had a single freeze in 1803 so far. It was during a heavy workload. However, 2 hours of gaming yesterday resulted in no problems whatsoever. So the freeze may have just been some driver crapping out.

Do check all your drivers by the way, I noticed a lot of my drivers rolled back to previous Dell versions. Intel GPU drivers went back from 4901 to 45xx for example.

 

Plodding through it all slowly, I managed to install home by accident as the vanilla install had no ei.cfg so I had to start again ffs.

 

With the last one (23.20.16.4982 - 08/03/2018) seems I haven't problems.
And, about the drivers for the NVme? Any suggestion?


Edit.
Official drivers from intel for Windows April Update.
https://mspoweruser.com/intel-releases-new-graphics-driver-for-windows-10-april-2018-update-pcs/
Here the link
https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/27680/Intel-Graphics-Driver-for-Windows-10

 

Running the new Samsung NVMe v3 driver at the mo

 

Thanks GoNz0 but, sorry, I haven't understood.