XPS 15 9570 Owners Thread

I think that specifically might not be a bug but by design. I can see, that the CPU cant sleep or has to hold a lower c state, because of the ThunderBolt interface. It is very high bandwidth and time critical, so the CPU mostly is set to not allowed to sleep. Or do you mean, that it is stuck, after you unplug your ThunderBolt device? Or drain during sleep?

 

It is stuck unable to go below C3 after being unplugged and even shut down or restarted. In order to fix it, I need to go to BIOS or plug a Type-C device of some sort into the TB3 port.

 

Even with bios 1.5.0? Did you disable modern standby? Or is this on all laptops of yours, do you still own the XPS 9570?

 

@abujafar

Actually there is a tool for that since years with a driver, which can overwrite the EC

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...ol-fans-on-dell-laptops-under-windows.805317/

https://github.com/marcharding/DellFanControl

I never tested it so far, because some people claimed it doesnt work with the 9570, others said it works fine. It is also never made as a good user experience so far. You have to install a non-signed driver to make it work, and Windows 10 just allows that, if you turn off driver signature check or enable testsigning mode, which I find a bit "risky". I also dont trust precompiled exe that much and the author doesnt offer one himself on his github, so I would have to install Visual Studio to compile it.

Maybe someone wants to test around it, or I will do it one day myself.

The "basic" is there, it would be actually nice, if someone would build up on it and bring out a good tool, which has a trusted signed driver (not sure if that is even possible), or maybe would work without installing a kernel driver.

It is kinda stupid, and typical, that the fans in the XPS just allow 3 fan profiles, 2500 is just way too much for the lowest state, and 500 or 1000 RPM would do the trick too.

--

Intel's latest gpu driver 6326 btw had this changelog entry:

- Screen may flicker at low brightness levels in certain panels when DPST is enabled

Maybe this solves the flicker issues some of you had here with DPST enabled.

 

@Eason So what is you take on the Thinkpad X1E vs the XPS15 9570 then? I thought you had given up on the X1E due to delivery problems and gotten the P1 instead but see now there is a review on your site of it. I have found out that the 9570 is kind of like CounterStrike GO, easy to get frustrated by but trying to get rid of it has turned out to be harder than I imagined

 

turns out it is 1.2.2 with higher temp limit. Maybe during weekend i will make some benchmarks to compare this two to measure real difference.

 

OK. I will give that a shot

 

I like the P1/X1E a lot more than the XPS 15. It's much more stable, especially in sleep, and the deck material + keyboard feels much better. The remaining niggle is the keyboard detection issue, which will mean typos if you are a fast (80WPM+ or so) typist.

 

I don't have the XPS 15 9570 anymore, but it happens with my ThinkPad P1. I haven't disabled modern standby in regedit yet, but i will try it now.

 

A few of the damn annoying things about the XPS15 is it has great battery life for any notebook, nevermind one of it's size and power. It's also quite small for a 15.6" laptop. marginally, the smallest. Has quite decent screens, even on the base model.

Those things had me looking at the XPS15 for a long, long time. The input interfaces (KB+"mouse") eventually sunk it for me. I wish I could have struck the XPS15 off of my list earlier, but it's almost perfect in size and longevity.

 

I'm curious - what input issues?
TouchPad is great and while the keyboard isn't as good as a ThinkPad's (no other keyboard is), it isn't bad in any way. The only niggle for me is the small navigation keys.

 

The input issues were simply my personal preference. The XPS15 KB only had two things I didn't like, low travel and a lack of pgup and pgdn keys. I get a lot of mileage out of the pgup and pgdn keys. I noticed the XPS13 9370 added the pgup and pgdn keys in the same position as the Latitude (and the Thinkpad, caught my attention very late in the selection process).

I suppose in that sense, I also didn't like the XPS15's navigation keys.

At the time, I could have gone either way on the missing trackpoint. Most of my experience was with the mushy Latitude's tracking stick, and I would not have missed it too much (cramped seats on the daily train did find some use for it). Since I got my X1C6, I've used the trackpoint exclusively, and have not yet used the touchpad.

I do miss the context menu key shortcut on the Dell, since I get a bit of use from that, too. Shift+F10 is just too clunky to replace even fn+ctrl (the context menu shortcut for many Dells).

 

Do you guys actually use the built in keyboard that much? For me as a coder, that and the touch pad is something I would only use like on a airplane or infront of the TV. Everything thing else is in front of a 55" monitor with external keyboard and mouse

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Turned off connected standby, but still getting the C3 bug even without plugging in TB3 now. It seems I need to restart the laptop to get C3-10 package states back, but then the bug comes back.

edit: okay, this is quite odd. I noticed that Throttlestop was able to read my GPU's temperature, even though there was no activity on it per the tray icon. I disabled then reenabled the P2000 in the device manager, and lo and behold my CPU was able to properly go into low power states.

 

I almost exclusively use the laptop's interfaces. Most of my work is done on the go or outside of the cubicle. I barely fit in an airline or metro seat (it's almost comical), so contorting to effectively use a touchpad is somewhat difficult. I used to just bring a mouse for air travel. In recent years, I've learned to deal with the Latitude's mushy tracking stick and save myself the added bulk of a mouse.

That being said, I did have a similar setup with my old Latitude. For a couple of months, I used an E series port replicator, two monitors, KB, and mouse. Then I moved offices again, Latitude broke it's back, and I've moved onto my current Thinkpad X1C6.

 

I've been using a Logitech Master 2S mouse with its many buttons and useful gestures for every situation expect in a tight place like in an airplane.
Right now I'm thinking of getting some compact keyboard for home use mostly because of the small navigation keys on the XPS. I miss the Pg up and down keys, and the arrow keys are getting me more and more.
I'm using TouchPad when there's no space for a mouse, and it's actually quite good and easy to use. I've customized the 3 and 4 finger gestures for all 4 directions and the taps in Windows settings, and it works great! I couldn't live without those gestures (both in a mouse and TouchPad), makes the whole work flow much faster.

 

Was that about something other than the XPS15 which AFAIK does not have a P2000?

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Sorry, this is for my P1, but it was also an issue I experienced with my XPS 15.

 

So, whats your opinion of the P1/X1E vs the XPS15 then after a few weeks? Ie more pros and cons of each device and which you would prefer and why. If you have already posted that I must have missed it

Perhaps I should add a link as well:
https://www.ultrabookreview.com/23223-lenovo-x1-extreme-review/

I really does not like the fingerprint magnet aspect of these soft touch materials, in this regard, I would go with a MBP any day in the week. The XPS at least only has it on the inside.

 

Here's something for geeky lazy Sunday reading...

Dell XPS 15 9570 (i9-8950HK, 4K UHD, GTX 1050 Ti Max-Q) Laptop Review

They said Intel XTU was crashing for them so they couldn't undervolt it and measure the undervolted performance. Pity.

The interesting thing is that their i7 review unit had a LG 4K display which had 495 nits of max brightness. This i9 unit has Sharp 4K display, which has "only" 450 nits of max brightness. So it looks like it depends on luck what display you get, just like the SSD...

 

Well Intel XTU seems to be rather buggy.

Free ThrottleStop from @unclewebb undervolts fine and is very stable. It also has a lot of other features.

 

Ok I had time today to try out the PCH thermal pad mod (3x1.5mm), and I took the opportunity to also pad the voltage regulators (3x1.5mm), the wifi card (1x1.5mm), the top RAM side (1x1.5mm), and the SSD (2x1.5mm), everything with pads by Arctic with a 6W/mK:



After this and now am using the laptop for mild Internet usage, the fans havent got on anymore a single time. PCH temp is now stable at around 38°C where it was getting around 45-50°C before easily while surfing the web and watching a video.

SSDs temps also got down to around 33-36°C, where they spiked even to 60-65°C before easily while browsing or opening a file.

 

that top left is wireless card and mostly not need to be cooled

 

@ Mobius 1 Thats what I said in my post. I am sure the Wifi card becomes warm too when you transfer at 866mbit for a while.

 

Been using the i9 XPS 15 with the Logi Master 2S and Craft keyboard combo and love it. Works great with the Rain design Mbar pro plus stand.

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I have a few questions about these problems with sound - latency. Well - I guess that using remote(bluetooth) headphones and external soundcard is the way to easily fix any problems for now? I am planning to buy XPS 15 this year. I am aware of problems with few topics and I am trying to investigate if they are going to touch my daily basis usage. I am not planning to use internal notebook speakers at all. Mostly bluetooth headphones if I am on the run and I have external soundcard at my desk.

 

If you just intend to listen to music, you shouldn't have a problem. However, if you are planning to compose music and work with realtime audio, you need to be able to set your audio buffers to low numbers (at least 128, I would argue), and this will cause cracks and pops regardless if you use the internal or any external audio interface. As it is now, The ACPI.sys driver (caused by Dell's programming) is demanding CPU time to an extend that realtime audio is not really possible. Some prominent voices from the dell top - Frank Azor: https://twitter.com/AzorFrank/status/1054193282723573760 and Gabriel Jaquir: https://twitter.com/gabrieljaquier/status/1062443739422056448 - suggests that the problem is being worked on. Whether or not this will lead to a fix of the issue is uncertain though. Personally, I am skeptic yet hopeful.

 

Hi all.
Sorry if this subject has been addressed multiple times.
I'm gathering some advice before (probably) getting a brand new 9570.

My current laptop is a 2012 XPS 15 L502x.
It's been a great laptop which I upgraded along the years (RAM, SSD).
Now it's getting a bit sluggish with its 2nd gen i7, and it looks like a truck compared to modern laptops.
I can't complain about it though, 6 years is a long time.

But there's one thing I can't stand about it : it sounds like a truck as well. Or like a vacuum cleaner.
For as long as I can remember, I had troubles with the fans noise.
I repasted the CPU twice. I played with SpeedFan a while back (it stopped working since Windows 8).
I even managed to prevent the fans from kicking in some times. But it has always been a problem and a struggle.

As I'm almost ready to buy an XPS 9570 (FHD), I have to know.
I read a lot of threads and reviews, everything looks fine to me except the fan noise.
How does it feel like in real life?
Will it be silent with 30 chrome tabs open? With a video playing?
I known I'll hear it when I'm performing heavy tasks like photo editing or even compiling, I can live with that, but how bad will it be?
I'm not asking anything impossible, I just don't want to hear it when I'm doing casual tasks in my living room.
I'm even ready to get the i5 version if it makes a difference.

Thanks a lot for your feedbacks.
I'll probably keep this new laptop for the next 5 years, I don't want to regret my choice...

 

So, should I stop holding my breath waiting for the promised DPC fix then?

 

I am also quite sensitive to noise, which is also in part OCD as I want to KNOW why and what is causing it. I find the XPS15 to be quite ok in that regard, videos etc is no problem at all but heavy CPU work, gaming etc and off you go. But I have the 4K i9 version also, would imagine a FHD i7 would get some benefits just out of that. Also note that I have, for different reasons, not yet gotten around to either repaste or downclock the current one which should also indicate that the fan problem is not worst ever. I'm a software developer BTW and never game (on this at least).

 

Thanks! It makes me a bit more confident.
Regardless, I don't think I have many other options in this market segment (Lenovo X1 extreme maybe).

 

Just so there is no confusion here, if you expect at really quiet laptop, this isn't it. But it's not that bad either. For something really quiet, you need something like a ThinkPad P52 bit then you have to live with some added weight and size. Actually, unless you don't need max CPU power all the time (few do), just selecting something else than max performance in Windows goes a long way.

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First, I'd suggest to go for more powerful version rather than i5 if the reason is just the fan noise. Right now it sounds you're totally fed up of the fan noise and ready to go in the opposite extreme because of it, but that could leave you wanting to sacrifice more power for little bit more fan noise in the future. The truth is somewhere in the middle...

I have XPS i7 4k and hardly ever hear the fan noise. I undervolted it like everyone but didn't repaste, which means it could get even cooler if I want. And even when the fan is running at some normal workload I can hardly hear it.
When I bought the laptop I was actually surprised it had such a quiet fan. I expected a louder one considering it's a thin and compact laptop with 6 core CPU, and I've read a lot of complaining about bad thermals in previous XPS models.
And even when the fans are running at full power it's still nothing crazy loud. In fact, my old Yoga 2 Pro (4th gen ULV i5) thin and light ultrabook had a more audible fan.
And on top of that you have different profiles in Dell power manager, and the quiet fan mode is one of them. I haven't tried it, but it should make the laptop even quieter than it is in the normal mode.
So, I think you'll be just fine...

 

Hi all, a quick update.

The dell support folks I am in contact with told me that a new firmware is on the way and it will contain changes to the power management that *might* fix the stuck-in-C2/sleepdrain.

 

Let's hope we don't see a tweet from Mr Azor promising those fixes then

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I am actually more skeptical than hopeful, any of the sleep/power management issues, the latency problems and the dGPU throttle points (especially the LOW throttle point) will be solved/reverted. And I kinda feel like I am beta testing for Dell, with every new bios update. There is also a rather high chance, Dell secretly does something again with a new bios, and then denies a downgrade, where it is too late after you found out later.

I see so many people complain on Reddit and on the Dell forum, about the 9570 running too hot (mostly all their own fault), and they all "scream" for a reverse of the (personally havent seen any) """silent fan""" updates in the 1.4.1 and 1.5.0 versions. I totally would hate it, if Dell listens to these people, and make the fan curve even more annoying with a new bios update, or throttles the laptop even more.

 

I also have an i7 4k xps 9570 and no issues with fan noise, almost never even kick on and mine is all stock, not undervolted or repasted or anything. I have been looking/shopping last couple days and had 20 tabs open last night and nothing. running a little warm but still not warm enough to get the fans on

 

I am also afraid of this. Sometimes I wonder if the reduction to 75c was due to user complaints. I am terrified that they do something to reduce the CPU heat output (e.g. lowering the TDP) .

 

I just bought Dell XPS 9570 from a retailers black Friday sale. It was the i7/16gb/512ssd model with the 4K screen. Got it with -500€ from the normal sell price ( in Finland everything is more expensive than in Germany for example). So I paid 1800euros for it.

Still not sure if the 4K screen is a good choice considering windows and it's little lackluster scaling.

 

Price of living in an incredible country! Well worth it as far as my friends and I are concerned.

 

Haven't had scaling issues in ages - it was an issue maybe a year+ ago but it's come a long way.

 

Good to know, I do use Ultrawide screen at home and have had some issues, but its mostly 3rd party apps and how they have been done I guess.

Atleast i have 50 days to return it for full price if I (for some reason) don't like it.

 

I think it was the last Spring Windows update that introduced additional scaling options. You can just right click on any app shortcut and in its properties in Compatibility tab change High DPI settings for that app. There are options to apply the DPI settings when you sign into Windows or when you open the app, and also to override the automatic Windows scaling with 3 different scaling methods (application, system and enhanced system).
I've been using several monitors with different DPI, and indeed, the Windows scaling is much better now than a year ago, even for a setup with several monitors with different DPI, let alone for a single high DPI monitor. I think the new October/November Windows update should bring additional high DPI scaling improvements as well.

 

oho wo, thanks for this. I didn't know about those settings at all!

 

Does anyone else have random Intel display driver crashes, shown as LiveKernelEvent 141 / igfx stopped responding and has successfully recovered? I thought it was related to undervolting, but resetting it doesnt solve the issue. I had it randomly maybe once every 2-5 days, browsing the web. I can easily reproduce it though, by opening Chrome + Edge in foreground and then also open a 1080p stream in VLC and click very fast min/max back and forth, toggle the VLC window into fullscreen and window mode by fast double clicking into the video. Then maybe after the 10th double click the display driver will crash and restore. It just happens with DX11 acceleration but not DX9 and DXVA it seems, which is really weird. While browsing it mostly happens with Edge more often, if you switch tabs really fast or min/max the window also very fast.

 

All,

I'm thinking about getting the XPS 15 9570 i7/4K/32GB/1TB SSD w/1050Ti for $2000 after tax. Either that or a MacBook Pro 15" w/ i7/32GB/512GB SSD w/ Vega 20 for $3150. That's ALOT more for the MacBook for pretty much equivalent power under the hood.. and with the XPS 15 4K screen being superior to the MacBook 15"'s in many ways. They both also have TB3 ports with full 40GBPS speeds. MacBook 15" may have the edge in having more TB3 ports and maybe faster SSD read/write speeds, plus Mac OS. XPS 15 has an edge in display quality and resolution, price, upgradeability (can swap out the SSD, WIFI card, and replace the battery down the line). Also, there are more ports and a card reader on the XPS 15 than on the MacBook 15". The 1050Ti and Vega20 are about tied. MacBook wins in consistent level of performance on battery or on AC power, whereas the XPS 15 will perform optimally when plugged in but at lower rates than the MacBook 15 when on battery. I don't think simply changing the performance profile under Windows would change this.. right? Lastly, the 9570 uses previous generation cooling design, whereas the 9575 introduces the new cooling design. It must be heftier because the 9575 seems to feel heftier than the 9570.

On the XPS 15, I'm drawn to lower price, the 4K 100% Adobe RGB display, touch is a small bonus, like the 32GB RAM and 1TB HDD, and like that if I undervolt it I should get even better performance. BUT, I'm hesitant because so many people report problems, quirks with the 9570 with 4K display. For example:

1. High DPC latency issue. Still unresolved, as far as I can tell. Seems like some Dell engineers are aware and investigating but now ETA for fix.
2. S3 issue on Windows. Apparently fixed or semi-fixed on Linux.
3. Animation lag, most of which seem to be fixed with newer builds of Windows.
4. Reports of some screens going bad (bottom half) after X months of use.
5. Some keyboard keys not registering/skipping.
6. Problematic WIFI card which may be causing problems with other features.

I'm concerned about all of the above and they'd definitely would impact my user experience.

Does it look like DELL will resolve the above issues sooner rather than later, or at all?

I'd be getting it from Costco and it comes with 2 years warranty, plus using Costco Visa gets you double the warranty I believe. That'd be 4 years. If not, then 3 years.


Also, one other question: I saw and confirmed the Dell 2-n1 15" 9575 4K display looks amazing (like the one on the 9570), but I also was able to see that YouTube has 4K HDR option and it is selectable by the 9575. I've searched and only found 1 reference to the 4K display on the XPS 15 being HDR capable. Everywhere else I see no mention. I think in terms of nits, the panel in 9570 and 9575 are about equal at roughly 400-450ish nits. I believe both 1050Ti and the AMD card in the 9575 both support HDR. Yet, it seems that some posts in other forums seem to indicate that the 9570 4K display doesn't support HDR. Yes, I know the nits of either don't meet the requirements for HDR, but it appears to work on the 9575 on YouTube content, so I'm wondering why it wouldn't work on the 9570.

Can someone confirm if 4K HDR is an option on YouTube using 9570 with UHD display built in?


Thanks!

 

I have owned 9550 and 9560 which are same platform and identical to the 9570 in many ways.

1. The 9550 DPC latency issue was a real problem for well over 1 year. I'm not convinced Dell even knows how DPC was sorted so wouldn't assume that the 9570 will ever be sorted. DPC latency is very good for my virtual instrument use which I can run at 44.1 with a buffer of 64. Regardless, there are better laptops for DPC latency and pro music producers at gearslutz.com generally avoid the XPS.

2. Sleep and c-states are wonky on the 9550, 9560, and 9570. A few systems have overheated in backpacks reportedly. I would not assume this will be completely sorted ever.

 

I was looking through some Thunderbolt3 docks and correct me if I am wrong here:

TB3 docks nromally only support PD2.0 spec so the max charge from a TB3 dock is 60W. WhatI have understood is that the XPS 9570 wont be able to charge with 60W if you do something with it at the same time?

Seems that Dell has its own TB3 docks that support something called Dell ExpressCharge which seems to be 130W charging (only works on Dell laptops).

So if I want to use a TB3 dock and make the laptop charge when connected to it, I would need to buy the Dell dock, no other dock will be able to provide enough watts to charge the XPS?

 

We have different USB-C and Thunderbolt docks and Monitors here in the office, if these Devices supply i.e. 65W, everything works basically. The XPS Notebooks do charge, a bit slower maybe. But if there is more than office work, like gaming (nVidia graphics), you'll see limited performance.

 

What's important isn't if it is doing something but if it consumes more power than the charger can provide. These are obviously related. I've been using the 240W TB16 for perhaps 2 years and the charging actually works great.

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