XPS 15 9560 owners thread.

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with latest drivers from geForce experience the problem is gone. thanks for pointing me to the right direction.
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was rejoicing too early. the problem persists, just not quite every time...

 

Leaving the club all. Just picked up my Asus G14 today. It's $250 off.... I'm hoping to get around ~$500 for my 9560 with the i5 and 500GB ssd...what you guys think? fair? It's in excellent condition. FHD screen. 56wh batt.

 

Let us know. Good luck!

 

Going to an Asus, he's going to need it.

 

There is a new BIOS for the XPS 15 9560 on November 20, 2020. It is version 1.21.0.

 

My battery has recently gotten really bad. My laptop barely lasts 3 hrs on a charge when it used to last 7-8 when new. My laptop is about 2.5 years old and I expected more out of the battery.

Does anyone have a good source on purchasing a new OEM battery? I have the 97whr battery

 

Hi guys, last saturday while using my xps 15 9560 all of the sudden my killer 1535 wifi card died.

Thought was something wrong with windows and drivers, so i've restored the previous backup. Re-installed killer drivers. Nothing.
Restored the bios settings to factory, also downgraded from 1.21 to 1.20 but nothing, card still dead.
Removed the cmos battery and nothing.

On sunday i'v switched on the laptop and the card was working :| so i rebooted to the bios to check if all the settings were ok, once back in windows card was dead again ( and even in the bios didn't get recognized).

So I ended up replacing the killer with an intel 9260 and works fine.

Did something similar happened to any of you? is it normal for a wifi card to die like that?

thanks

 

Hi! last summer I replaced my 97Whr battery with a refurbished one directly from Dell. Just call them and order a new battery. Price is around 50£

 

Noticed a new utility showed up on the drivers & downloads. It's called 'Intel Processor Power Management Utility'. link - https://www.dell.com/support/home/e...j&oscode=wt64a&productcode=xps-15-9560-laptop

Any idea what this is exactly? Did a few searches but didn't yield anything definitive.

 

I always use Dell power management software to limit battery charge up to 85%. That should help to keep the battery in good condition.

 

same here, you can also do it thru bios

 

Where do you get the motherboard so cheaply?

You can see some good thermal mods here to reduce temperatures.

For example, The 7th generation CPUs can undervolt decently so that reduces temps a bit. You have to use an older BIOS that permits undervolting (undervolting was probably disabled late 2019).

There are other mods on the forum. . .

 

On the 'bay! There's one more in the UK right now, sealed new, same price!

Looking at the issue from a thermals POV, I've had all my previous high end dell laptops die from ****ty solder fracturing, so this is probably not any different. It would make sense too, a gradual decay to utter death. Maybe the extended warranty isn't such a bad deal!
M1710, m6600, 5520, all the fastest on the planet at the time, bar none. I seriously do beat the living **** out of them. it's quite surprising how long they last.

Will search thethread for thermal solutions. I have a quantity of fujipoly hanging around as it is!

GB

 

Some ideas beyond undervolting.

Just lifting the back of the laptop with an eraser say 1cm improves air intake and thermals a lot.

Install Dell Command | Power Manager (select cool and fans will run faster).

You may want to run the CPU at a lower speed (lower temps) if you are doing GPU intensive tasks. Enable SpeedShift in BIOS as that is the best CPU control (you can set the CPU power consumption via EPP and I have a thread dedicated to SpeedShift here). EPP=0 max performance, EPP=255 max energy savings, EPP~79 allows max clocks but that EPP will vary a bit by system. Some people see better performance with SpeedShift enabled and Speed STEP disabled.

On some XPS models, (high temperature) electrical tape to seal the out-take side of the fan to the radiator improves thermals. Clean the radiators with canned air. Clean the fans with a q-tip (canned air can overspeed the fans and ruin them).

The grille on the casebottom might restrict air intake so cutting away a few of the metal bars might help thermals. That could expose the internals to physical damage etc. but offer health and safety "issues".

VRM cooling is poor on these. If you can use an external fan "chill mat", you might be able to heatsink the mosfets to the casebottom. If you don't have a good chill mat, the mosfet heat will saturate the casebottom quickly and thermal advantage disappears (also the keyboard gets uncomfortably hot).

 

for those who use throttlestop, do you set igpu unslice in fivr? if so what values do they usually copy (ie, igpu, system agent, cpu core, etc undervolt value).

 

It's generally not recommended to do anything to the iGPU as it's really sensitive to changes. Once time I tried to undervolt it, just -50mV and my system entered an endless BSOD boot loop. Had to reinstall Windows from scratch as a result.

 

I got the dell xps 15 9550. I also downloaded the power manager. Where can you change it to charge up to 85%? I read people said doing it to 80% or 90% is the best to make your battery last longer?


Also is there proof... that doing this makes battery last longer than having it plugged it fully charged 100%? I use my laptop charged and connected to external monitors almost always.

 

my usb c/thundebolt connector is acting up lately. i connect a 512gb ssd to it and it will sometimes lose connectivity to the drive, i tried it with a different drive (hdd) and the problem persists. i have ran the standard hardware tests thru bios and thru the dell website and there are no errors detected. my questions are:
1. do the hardware tests detect errors in the usb ports? i persume they do but would want some confirmation.
2. if this is indeed a software issue (seems like it) what drivers should i try to reinstall or what other things can i try to fix it?

 

Lappy now back up and running!
(motherboard for Precision 5520 with Xeon E3-1505m v5/M1200 had died. Direct equivalent to XPS 15 9560. Replacement part DP/N: 3YC22 )

Happy bunny, except fot the kosher replacement power jack it *didn't* like, and stopped recognising the 130W PSU (which I also replaced).
Troubleshooting and isolation down to the actual original DC power jack being required, weirdly, for the BIOS to recognise the PSU.
BIOS updates, and roll-backs, same thing, not recognised. Original jack back in, no problemo!
Checked on the TB15 I've been running trouble-free since day 1 back in late 2016, and confirmed it wasn't the DC power converters.

A couple of MS update bugs with W10-64 for Workstations, so they've been ignored until next patch Tuesday.

All Nvidia drivers updated, couple of quick stress tests and cooling is good.
Idle temp for i7-7700HQ around 43Celsius, stress with Furmark CPU burn 86Celsius stable and no throttling, nice smooth response graphs.

A friend got the XPS15 9550 as a recommendation, and with it the GTX960m GPU version. I noticed the FPS on Furmark GPU burn is way better from something basically identical as hardware goes. The Quadro M1200 on 1920x1080 (2k) dynamic background gets 23-25 FPS, 4k dynamic background gets 8FPS, and the GTX960m upwards of 40FPS on 2k from memory. If someone wants to chip in with their results?

I came to the conclusion it was most likely the lead-free solder(sodder if you're from the usa) that had fatigued from heat/mechanical stress. This happened with every XPS or Precision model I've had since 2007, necessitating either temporary reflow in a calibrated domestic oven, or motherboard replacement.
Having faffed around in the past with the M1710, M6600 and reflowing temporarily, I wasn't going to explore that rabbit hole, and instead the mobo was going to get dropped in.
Sourced the refurb on e*ay, go see recent sales at 250GBP. It's labelled as new but there were tape marks on some metal, so it was a refurb for sure.

It makes sense now. All of the symptoms are clearly indicative of heat-related microfractures attributable to poor solder quality.

Where possible I'm now offloading my content creation and image editing to a desktop Optiplex 3020 that's been pimped with a Xeon 1241 v3 and GTX 1650 Super, 2 SSD's 3 HDD's and 16GB ram.

You cannot drive them hard for a long time, Dell just doesn't seem to get the solder quality or cooling nailed. Even the Precision M6600 I had before this, just couldn't take the heat.

Anyway...

If anyone in the UK reading this has use for a dead Precision 5520/XPS15 9560 mobo with a Xeon 1505v5/M1200 then DM me. You may have some luck if you want to attempt a reflow. You can pay postage if you want it. It's that or off to the local e-waste skip.

GB

 

Awesome recovery for GBP250.

There is a shop in Germany that fixes the XPS; they might have good use for the spares on your board. Maybe you ping them. Their name and contact info were very recently posted in the XPS forum here.

 

My usb-c has stopped working. whenever I hook up a drive or even a usb-c card reader, windows makes that disk mounting sound then seconds later makes that disk dismounting sound. Im quite certain its not a hardware issue because my motherboard was just changed and this issue was present in my old motherboard and in my new one. I also did a fresh install of Windows 10 2h20 and the issue still persists. All my other usb ports and hdmi, card reader are working normally, its just my usb-c/thunderbolt port. I tried unintalling and reinstalling the thunderbolt driver(from Dell) too, and still no go. Ive disabled thunderbolt authentication in bios (although Im just using usb c devices, and that shouldnt really matter).

Kinda stumped on what else totry, any help would be appreciated.

 

Try some older drivers.

 

any suggestion what drivers I should try? serial i/o?

 

Maybe start with Intel Thunderbolt drivers at the Dell site (use your service tag number to help narrow down the number of drivers available).

There may be both a Controller Driver & a Firmware Update.

 

This is the latest Thunderbolt Driver from Dell: https://dl.dell.com/FOLDER06691280M...roller-Driver_TBT76_WIN64_1.41.1030.0_A10.EXE

 

Thanks guys. I reinstalled/repaired most of the pertinent drivers. My usb-c card reader is now working flawlessy. Im leaning towards my mini usb-usb c and sata 3 to usb-c cables are the one causing issues. That caught me off guard as I didnt expect both cables to fail at the same time, but looking back, there were indeed signs that they were both failing. Ill try to find replacement cables this week.

 

High performance cables are difficult to make and are delicate. So failure out of the box or after some time becomes increasingly prevalent.

 

indeed, plus my cables are the generic variant and around 5 years old, so in a way kinda to be a expected.

 

Currently, I have one external 4K@60 connected to my 9560 using the HDMI out. If I want to add another 4K, can I get one of these

https://www.amazon.com/Anker-Alumin.../B07THJGZ9Z/ref=psdc_3015395011_t1_B075RTTFDJ

and will I be ok, or do I have to get something like

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075RTTFDJ?tag=plugabltechno-20

Thanks

Jay

 

Did you actually manage to get this going?

Loads of reports of USB-C failing after updating Windows 10 to 2004 back in June 2020. Haven't seen anyone manage to fix it yet.

General advice is reboot with the device attached. See if that works.

 

Yes, I did in a way. First I bought a new enclosure as I think my old one was really failing. Second, I turned on 'pre load thunderbolt modules' in the bios. I dont remember enabling this setting, but since my motherboard is new, I am unsure of what my previous setting was.
That seems to have done the trick, at least for my ssd and my hdd in usb-c. But now, it cant seem to read my usb-c card reader. Like you mentioned, I attach my drive before powering up, cause I noticed before that it would sometimes not detect when connected when already on. I havent done testing on the 'new' setup yet.
My hypothesis is the same, there seems to be some undocumented bug with usb-c and Windows still; or maybe upgrade sneaked in a faulty driver and even if you install Dell's driver, maybe there are some registry entries that were not reset. One things for sure though, its not a hardware issue.

 

Looks like you cant extend the warranty on XPS 15 9560 after Jan 20th which is 3yr with the laptop. Its a solid laptop, love to extend the warranty and give it to my kid when he goes to college which is next year. - Jay

 

Hi is there any way to see a history of dell updates? Mine did an update this morning and now the mouse and keyboard randomly stop working. They are wireless through the same dongle. trackpad and onboard keyboard are fine. I have to restart to get them back working.

It was a dell update rather than a windows one. I've checked windows update and there hasn't been one for a few days. The dell update screen shows it last updated at 9:30 this morning.

 

Screen flicker then no adjustment available. Hardware fault. Cable failing.

I've had the flickering screen, and it's certainly mechanical. When the hinges moved it flickered. DImming wht F11 F12 keys worked, but then failed.

It's now on full brigtness, icons showing dimming up and down come up on-screen, but no actual dimming.

I tried rolling back drivers, reinstallation, cleaning with 99% IPA, reseating the push-connector inside on the mobo, nothing.

I've determined it's the cable that's worn out, mostly likely around the hinges.

Has anyone replaced the LVDS/screen cable? It's a 4k touch infinity-edge. Looks to be glued but I haven't tried to separate.

Cable is available it would appear, for £18, but the whole screen itself is £270.

Thoughts?

TIA

GB

 

First try:

- The connector at the motherboard is super delicate. You can try removing the connector and reseating a few times (you need to use a JIS screwdriver not regular phillips to remove the silver metal cover plate). Use a magnifying glass to see if any pins are broken or bent. You can not touch any of the gold pins (bending and contamination). I had to reseat cable several times in 2016 before a wonky screen started working.

- Also, the cable is really bent sharply and crushed around the power and hinge area; maybe you can try to reroute carefully or modify housing to reduce bends and/or put some tape on it to prevent extreme bending? It needs some slack I think for the screen opening/closing. Check carefully that your hinge is not broken and shorting or straining the cable. You might even be able to flex the cable with the laptop operating and find the area of the cable that is suspect and reinforce that (be super careful as it will be easy to hurt yourself and/or your computer. Maybe do that with laptop unplugged. I had to fix a broken hinge with glue (epoxy).

Next, we see some hints on difficulty of replacing cable. Unfortunately our laptop engineer @GoNz0 said it is more involved

I don't recall anyone here changing the cable. The following video might help get you close. However, there is a comment that he broke the screen cover in this video so I'm not sure how that bottom cover comes off. Maybe check the PDF manual at dell.com.

 

After updating to 2h20 build , my temps went and are unstable , the new NVidia driver too raised my temps 5-8 degrees and the most annoying thing of all is my fans are never off at 37c (quite option-Dell command ) even after reverting to 200 . the device was running fine pre update . (the most important thing is to get the fans to turn off back again )

CPU Core : -126.0
CPU Cache : -126.0
Intel GPU : -96.7
Speedshift enabled via bios (ver : 1.18.0)

 

A few days after updating my 9550 fans stopped whirlling. Not sure why the update caused such heat but it stopped eventually. In the meantime:

-Adjust your speedshift EPP higher (try 79 or so to access full turbo speeds, where 255 is "lowest" performance)

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/dell-xps-speed-shift.796891/

-Set Windows power options to Balanced

- Install Dell Command | Power Manager. Set thermal management to "quiet". This is easy adjustment of fan speed.

 

I just picked up a used 9560 off eBay when the hinges on my 9550 finally gave out. I'm having the same issue where unless I plug an adapter or flash drive into the USB-C port at boot up, the driver will connect and then disconnect. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling the appropriate drivers and updating and rolling back, but the issue remains. The USB-A ports are a little touchy as well. It is fortunate that the SDXC card reader still works.

Since the line is already four years old I doubt Dell will fess up and provide a fix, but if any of you gurus come up with another idea, I would appreciate hearing it.

 

I'm having what I think is a chrome issue impact my connection. symptoms are YouTube defaults to 420p anything above that starts dropping fames 1080p@60 drops like a third of the frames.
If i try to use google maps it only opens in light canvas mode so no webgl or globe/3g which is normal thrown if there are connection issues or the computer accesing it isn't powerful enough.

Download speeds are fine I use usenet and can pull 12mbs

I can run youtube and google fine in Edge which as it uses chromium I thought might have the same issue.

I have chrome synced, so have all the same extensions running on my desktop and there isn't an issue on it.

Issues started maybe 2 months ago

I did a full windows wipe reset and started installation from scratch and there is till an issue on my XPS. Don't really know what else to try.

 

Chrome is a bit wonky but my Google buddy said we expect too much from a free product produced by an advertising company.

Can you update to latest GPU drivers directly at the websites of nvidia and intel?