XPS 15 9570 Owners Thread

Almost a year on from its release and the Dell XPS 15 9570 is still suffering from countless issues
Notebookcheck.net | April 2, 2019

Dell may have just fixed the device's DPC-related latency issues, but the popular 15.6-inch laptop is still plagued by other problems that the company has failed, or refuses, to fix. (See above.... New models is on it's way)

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Latest Dell XPS 15 9575 BIOS updates result in unresponsive input devices when logging in to Linux Notebookcheck.net | May 2, 2019

The latest BIOS updates (version 1.4.0 and above) to the Dell XPS 15 9575 2-in-1 have become a cause for concern as they seem to render the keyboard and touchpad unresponsive whenever a user tries to login to the Linux desktop environment. Those who have filed this bug have confirmed that this is indeed a BIOS issue as the problem was resolved upon downgrading to the older 1.2.0 BIOS version.

 

I really wish Dell would fix these issues. The biggest problem is that there isn't a perfect laptop out there. I've tried a lot and everything has some sort of issue in my eyes...

 

I just love all the Reddit comments of the people saying "I have no issues" "never had any issues" "best laptop" (-: Ignorance is bliss.

 

And that is very well true. Most users would never know that excessive battery drain during sleep is a bad thing, or that their GPU is throttling, or the fan kicking on when opening task manager isn't normal...

 

I mean it's too late. New models knocking on the door. The laptop should have worked several months ago. This models is now + one year old. Normally will most flaws be fixed after one, two or three bios updates, but this has gone from worse to even more worse. See... Newer bios updates introduce new flaws and even remove features. The opposite of progress.

 

Yep exactly. The problem is, the same or similar thing can be said for the alternatives...

 

My washing machine always spit out flames of its back. Thought it was normal and an intrgated heating function, until someone told me to maybe replace it.

 

Firmware haven't been Dell's strong side as long I can remember. It's amazing how they is able to screw up things. Not sure, but I don't think they have own inhouse firmware engineers which working tight with the hardware department. Probably because they don't produce own Motherboard as Msi, Gigabyte etc...

 

Dell has not fixed the DPC issue. They improved it, for sure, but it is still not a recommendable machine for people working with real time audio.

 

Where did they say the things you are quoting them for?

My numbers are the same as yours, yes. Pretty sure no optimization will change it. Tried countless already. And 600ns is not good enough; I can't bring my audio buffer down low enough to have an acceptable latency when working with audio in real time without getting clicks, even in very simple sessions with light weight instruments. I miss my thinkpad.

 

@annabel_shanderin They said it in the super truper secret Twitter chat group I was invited into with almost everyone else who was complaining on Twitter about DPC latency over the couple of months, you wasnt? ^^ Yes, like I said, 600ns is kinda already close to critical, they mostly tried to shove it down just enough to make it look "nice". I actually also had a laptop once, where everything was just around 80ns or something like that, but that was under Windows 7 with ACPI off.

You can ask https://twitter.com/maknelly90 to be invited into the chat group if you want and ask there and complain too that the bios doesnt do anything for you^^

Actually, just look for example at this https://pcsupport.lenovo.com/ca/en/...laptops/thinkpad-p72-type-20mb-20mc/downloads how they keep almost everything uptodate, and then compare it with Dell. It took them like 1 year to """update""" the Realtek driver. The Intel drivers are also already that old, they mostly never update the VGA drivers. Their lazy "driver update department" isnt even doing anything which takes much time, they could release an update every month or so, if they wanted.

Wonder who made the awesome decision to outsource the bios department... let me guess. First name starts with F?

 

I also was not invited to this secret DPC Twitter chat.

 

Or the surname whitch start with A

 

I agree with both your statements and this is basically what I was referring to when I said that at "idle" there is less garbage running.

 

Can we create a super secret group to obtain the reintroduction of S3 sleep?

 

@annabel_shanderin
Forgot one Major trick to drop DPC Latency. Completely uninstall all nVidia drivers. That of course means you can't run the 1050. You need to use DDU to fully uninstall. And find a way to prevent Dell from reinstalling.

@maffle The results on my 9550 are similar. The Highest reported DPC routine execution time on my system is typically about 450us, never really lower. The pro audio guys at www.gearslutz.com need to select computers with better latency performance.

BTW - You might want to run the LatencyMon software for 5 or 10 minutes. I close all programs and make sure laptop has been on for a few minutes so startup tasks are completed.

 

Yeah. Dell was out with firmware updates for their Precision model as well. What's better than a downgrading specs similar they did with Nvida graphics for the XPS line
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...0-owners-thread.820539/page-223#post-10905017

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...0-owners-thread.820539/page-223#post-10905030

 

@ pressing Well, all those tipps you spoke about including to disable the Nvidia GPU, would just mean, next to ACPI.sys there are no DPC spikes of other drivers (wifi, dGPU, ect). They wont reduce the abnormal ACPI.sys DPC, which just Dell can fix with a proper programmed BIOS/EC.

You can have S3 right now under Windows 10 by setting CsEnabled to 0 in registry. It will just be bugged after waking up ^^ So even if Dell will give back the redundant Bios option to force S3, this bugged C0% activity still needs to be adressed, which they wont mostly (at first) or ever.

I have a very bad feeling, that the instant the 9580 is out, any "driver" and bios support for the 9570 will drop. I saw the same for the 9560 happening. The driver update site for it literally went dead the day the 9570 came out.

 

I think that too...

 

Those tweaks can help some of the people, some of the time. But that depends on drivers and software running on an individuals computer.

However, at this point, Windows 10, Intel 8th gen drivers, nVidia 1050 drivers etc. are somewhat baked so those tweaks just don't have the impact they had say when Windoze 10 & the 9550 were just released; this is also the experience of several people at gearslutz.com trying to optimize for pro audio.

Agreed, Dell needs to step up their game, with harmonized boards and drivers @ release.

The XPS platform was a hurried release for Skylake so the 9550, 9560, 9570 are crippled by underdeveloped architecture. I assumed Dell would completely revamp the XPS motherboard after 2 or 3 generations. However, since Intel's development is stuck, it seems the 9580 and maybe the 9590 will be essentially similar. That's 4 or 5 generations of XPS. I can understand Dell's reluctance to invest heavily in this old CPU but the competition has caught up and moved forward.

I think Dell's support for the 9550 has been pretty good. The drivers available at vendor sites (e.g. Intel, Realtek, nVidia etc) are frequently much newer so I usually just find them, which I can understand is irritating and painful for a lot of people.

Outside the DPC latency and terribly wonky headphone jack, I have few complaints on the 9550 (it was awful when released). ​

 

I flashed the new BIOS but the value are different for Lantency Mon and Dpclat.
For dpclat I have 1200 while latencymon 600-700
Which is correct???

 

"Both". I get the same results with each tool.

 

Dpclat is not compatible with anything later than windows 7. It will show wrong values.

"The program supports Windows 7, Windows 7 x64, Windows Vista, Windows Vista x64, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 x64, Windows XP, Windows XP x64, Windows 2000."

 

Thanks, now I understand the different results ;-)

 

Dell strikes again...

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Dell-...ous-SupportAssist-security-flaw.420034.0.html

 

I never install crapware.
When my Laptops arrive:
1) Format c:
2) Windows/Linux Clean Installation
3) Install essential Drivers/Software

 

@idark77 I thought the same. No sane person would want to install the Dell crap software, especially not the """SupportAssist""" aka remote control trojan crashing ressource sink bloatware. Best is though, if you open a ticket and the Dell Customer Support is blackmailing you into installing it. "You need to have it installed, otherwise I cant help you".

 

The only Dell software I have installed is Dell Update, and even then I'm not sure if it's worth it.

 

When I had to call support to get them to replace my CPU fan because it was rattling, I had to argue with them that they did need to connect through Support Assist to "update drivers" to see if that would solve my rattling fan.

 

So, should one upgrade to latest BIOS if already having been upgraded to 1.8.1 by Windows Update? Don't really care for dDGPU performance as I never use that anyway.

 

@improwise yes, I would do it. There is no reason not to update if you are on 1.8.1.
Also, you can downgrade up to 1.4.1.

 

I have a dell xps 15 9550 bought back in late 2016 so i had it for over 2.5 years.


i5-6300hq processor
8gb ram
250gb samsung ssd
56whr battery
A 32gb ssd that came a long with it. I found out because of this, i could only use a 56whr battery and cant get a 84whr battery.


I use this laptop to play online poker because it requires a quad core processor. I use a program along with it that is very intensive and uses lot of power.. it uses SQL so i assume some of you would know how much power that uses?


I like this laptop a lot because its fast and everything is great. I can play poker on it with not much lag if any. My big issue is the laptop battery. When using it at full tilt... meaning when playing poker and using program with it... even with my chrome tabs closed... and no music on and brightness at minimum like 25% and battery power mode at the lowest... i get max 1h30m. Its more like 1h15m. I did a battery test on it and it seems to show i get 1h13m at a full charge.


I got a dell powerbank 7015L that i use with it. The reason is because where im located, we sometimes have power outages. Usually its when there is heavy rain or when its very hot. It could be minutes or an hour or few hours. We had it happen from day till night as well. Thus when this happens, im screwed because i need electricity on it because when im playing, i usually am playing for at least 8 hours straight. Thus if a power outage happens say late in the day... not big issue because i have my laptop battery which gives me 1h15m and the powerbank... gives me 2h30m or so... i still get 3h45m backup. I typically use my laptop on battery when power outage... then once it gets to 10%, plug my powerbank and continue to play. It takes like 1h45m to charge before powerbank runs out. Then i get max 70% battery on my laptop so say it gives me 50m on it. I want to get at least 8 hours of backup battery.


I know i could get more powerbanks which are the dell powerbank 7015L 18000mah or the powerbank 7015m 12000mah. But is that pretty much my only option? I read about UPS but ppl say don't buy that because they are not meant for your computer to be used while charging it. Do you agree on this?


The thing is I even if i get a new laptop, i want something exactly like the xps 15 9550. But only reason would be to give me more battery power. I read the xps 15 9560, 9570 and 9580 has a 96whr battery correct? So if i get one of these laptops, my battery would probably get say 2h30m max at full tilt right? Thus if i want a laptop with more battery, buying a new xps 15 laptop would be a waste of money right since my computer works fine? Its still very fast and i like it. It works great still.


If i were to get a new laptop, it would not be for another 5 months or so. But if i were to get one, do i get the 9560, 9570 or 9580? I want it obviously new. On dell it shows them selling the 9570. So basically i can't buy a 9560 new right? Also does the 9560, 9570 and 9580 all work like the 9550?


Would you agree buying a new xps is completely a waste of money if all you want is a stronger battery on your laptop since buying a few powerbanks would the battery issue when power outages? The thing is it happens a few times every 6 months.


Also does anyone know if my dell powerbank PW7015L which works with my xps 15 9550 is compatible with the 9560, 9570 and 9580? What about the powerbank PW7015M which is only 12000mah?

 

I started to read your post and had to scroll up to check if I'm in the right thread...
But here it is - for a few years I lived in a place which had lots of power outages and I installed a UPS with a small truck battery, and had an electrician connect it to all the power sockets. Problem solved, even for long power outages. I could plug in anything (not the big stuff like a fridge, etc.).
Electricity is electricity, UPS converts battery power to regular 220/110 volts, so you can use it for any electrical appliance in your house, provided the wattage isn't higher than what the UPS can give. The bigger the UPS wattage, the bigger appliances you can use. The bigger the battery, the longer the power will last. If the UPS supports it, you can connect two batteries to it. I had two connected to my 1300 watt UPS.

XPS 9570 can manage 7-9 hours on a normal to light use, but no laptop can last even half that time on full tilt, if that is what you need.

I'd suggest not to bother with those small battery packs, but just get a UPS system which has a MUCH larger battery than those small batteries meant for phones or a single laptop charge... And then you can watch your TV or make your coffee with it, not just charge your laptop.

 

Thanks for the response. Well do most ppl not use their laptop on full tilt? So basically when a laptop is used at full tilt, at best you can get is 3 hours at the max right? What is considered full tilt to you? If someone web browses and has 20 chrome tabs up. Is that full tilt? But if they are only using a few tabs only when refreshing etc?

What does someone do on computer where its considered full tilt?

How much VA and Watt should the UPS have? Also the other thing is when you had this issue, were you outside though? Or were you inside a house or apartment? I cannot do what you suggest if im in an apartment right? Someone mentioned car battery and inverter but then mentioned if its inside apartment and you can't put it outside, you cannot do it.

Well the ups online i find that are highest seem to be 1500VA/900W. So those are not good enough then? Those seem to be the highest i could find online through amazon.

Well the thing is i don't get that much power outages like you. What to you is considered lot of power outages? Is it like at least 2-3 times a month? I would say on average, if you count it even going out say 10 minutes, it might average to 1.5 times a month. Sometimes we might not have power outage for 2 months. But when we have one, it could be for hours. The thing is if im not on the computer doing my thing, then it isn't that big of a deal. But i play online poker so i can't have this happen if you know what i mean. Now if power goes out an hour, no big deal. But you don't know how long it would last. It could be a few hours. It could be from day till night but thats more rare.

Thus there is a chance that there is no power outage for 3 months straight. But because of what i do, it gets uncomfortable when it starts raining hard because most of the time a power outage happens, its because of heavy rain etc.

 

Rules and regulations depend on a country, and I suppose also on the building/apartment owner. You'll have to check that, at least for the car battery. But you don't need that because a regular UPS should be OK anywhere.

That UPS has a MAX power output of 900W, which is much more than enough, but the battery capacity in those UPS is often miserable. You need to check the capacity of the battery that's in the UPS. I was living in a 3rd world country in an area with everyday long power outages, so it's not a comparable situation. I got a UPS without a battery that's designed to work with external regular car battery, which has much more capacity than what you can find in a regular small computer UPS.

Browsing with 20 tabs and nothing else is more like a light to moderate usage, at least in my opinion. When using the laptop on battery for browsing it consumes around 10W on average. Heavy stuff is if you're gaming or rendering a video or using some heavy duty computing programs, that can draw 50-80W.
XPS 15 9570 with 4K display should last 7-8 hours when browsing, at medium screen brightness, which is more than enough indoors. Full HD model lasts quite a bit longer, probably around 10-11 hours.

If your power outages are rare and mostly short and you need the power only for the laptop, AND your usage is mostly browsing, then maybe you'd be better off to invest in a new laptop with a good battery life.
XPS 15 9580 is just around the corner, and should probably also have a long battery life, especially for a model with full HD screen. And there are some other ultra portable laptops with 8th or 9th gen ULV CPUs with even longer battery life, which should still be faster than your 9550.

 

@splus


What country were you in at the time where you had everyday power outages?


Well if im using my laptop at full tilt, that means no laptop would probably last even 3 hours right? Maybe 3 hours would be the absolute max but its more like 2h30m max if using it at full tilt?


I wouldn't say power outages where im located are rare. But if say in 6 months, you get say 2 times a month but each one could be 30 minutes... i still count that. But that isn't that big of a deal unless its like a few hours at least. Thus if there was a power outage once a month and its an hour on average each time, my laptop battery and my dell powerbank is good enough. But when it goes out for more than 3 hours... that is when im going to be concerned. Again, these power outages that last say 3 plus hours does not happen that much. I would say on average in a 6 month span, it would happen say at least 2 times but not more than say 5 times.


Well my usage is mainly playing online poker. So when power outage happens, unless it comes back within a few hours, im kinda screwed.


So based on this, buying a new dell xps laptop is a waste of money right? Because at best that laptop battery with a new dell xps by itself probably gives me 2.5 hours at max using it at full tilt? More like 2 hours or so? And my laptop on battery goes only 1h15m. And because i like my laptop because it is fast and good?


I do not want an HD screen. I know those uses even more battery. I like my matte screen. The only thing i would like to change about my xps 15 9550 is if i could get longer battery by itself? I only have the 56whr battery because i cannot put in a 84 or 97whr battery because laptop came with a 2nd ssd in it. But even with that battery, not really going to add much battery to it right?


Thus my solution is basically is just get more powerbanks? Either that or get a regular UPS?

Do you know how long something like this would last my laptop if i were using it on full tilt and plug it to a UPS with 10% battery? Surely it charges it to 100% and i probably could still use it for a bit before it goes out?

https://www.amazon.com.mx/dp/B000OFXKFI/ref=twister_B00TUXM6PA?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1


This equals to about 200 USD for the 1350VA/810W. The 1500VA/900W comes to around 230USD. But is that 30 dollar price different worth an extra 150VA and 90W more? Like it would give it an extra 15 minutes maybe?

 

@Drew1, you seriously need to limit the amount of cross posting you do. You basically ask the same questions in multiple threads and add in a few different things. I'm so confused when I come across your posts that it feels like deja vu. It may also be the reason you don't get answers, no one is sure if you've been answered in another post.

We've beaten this horse to death in regards to your power. It's been suggested multiple times that maybe you need to look into something bigger than power companions. Perhaps you need a generator, or solar panels and a battery backup system. People have tried to help you in many many many different threads but here we are again...

*on edit*
I also don't understand why your laptop is running full tilt when playing online poker. Are you playing multiple games? Do you have something running in the background that is running stats on hands?

 

Hey guys, I am just right now having this conversation with Frank Azor on Twitter:

‏ @AzorFrank: "I just shared that the new XPS 15 is coming in June."
‏ @Martin_Schroe: "You might want to fix the throttling with the XPS 9570 first."
‏ @AzorFrank: "Throttling is by design on XPS 15 hence why it is not a gaming system."
‏ @Martin_Schroe: "Yes, but as mentioned on http://notebookreview.com : GPU now unnecessarily throttles >74 degrees, rather than 78, fans spin up unnecessarily since bios 1.8, VRMs throttle because Dell does not attach them to the backplate, which users had to do manually. This is NOT a proper design."

Maybe you want to add your five cents. To make your voice heard directly with him, you can add something here (never give up hope):
https://twitter.com/Martin_Schroe/status/1126110590555033600

 

I love the term "by design." I'm an engineer, I know it's NOT by design but out of necessity. I hate when people think their users are idiots...

 

There's this as well:
Dell confirms that fixing S3 sleep is next on the agenda for the XPS 15 9570

Hopefully they deliver on their word after making a U turn and publicly acknowledging it this time, and finally fix the S3 sleep!

Edit:
Some more detail: https://twitter.com/AzorFrank/status/1125209321778962434
Just as I thought, FA mentioned that "they have been required to implement the modern standby by external forces". No one else but Microsoft there...

 

@splus In his tweets, it doesn't explicitly say that they will reenable S3. It says that they are working on the sleep problems.
We'll see.
Anyway, "throttle by design" does not bode well for the upcoming 8-core chips.

 

Discussion continued:

‏ @Martin_Schroe: "Yes, but as mentioned on http://notebookreview.com : GPU now unnecessarily throttles >74 degrees, rather than 78, fans spin up unnecessarily since bios 1.8, VRMs throttle because Dell does not attach them to the backplate, which users had to do manually. This is NOT a proper design."

‏ @AzorFrank: "Thank you for your opinion but we determine what is and what is not proper design for our products and nobody else does. If one of our products is not operating as designed our @DellCares team and I are here to help fix the issue and we are happy to help you"

‏ @Martin_Schroe: "Thanks @AzorFrank! Yet to make the i9 and 1050 ti "work as designed" under load (e.g not crash), most need to undervolt CPU & GPU and even reduce CPU to 2.2 GHz in games. I had 3 XPS 9570, noted crashes occured in each. Also noted by reputable test sites: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Dell-...GTX-1050-Ti-Max-Q-Laptop-Review.355641.0.html"

Feel free to contribute, @AzorFrank seems to listen:
https://twitter.com/Martin_Schroe/status/1126172593369899008

 

Yeah, the NotebookCheck article mentioned they will re-enable S3, but from the tweets I also understood they will just try to make the modern standby work properly. Well, if they manage to make it work properly then I don't mind.
Modern standby is faster than S3, but the problem is it drains too much battery and then hibernates after 5% of battery drain, which is often just 2-3 hours. Which makes the whole modern standby completely pointless - I might just as well use hibernate then...

PS. While I'm at the hibernation and boot in general - Windows boots really fast, but it takes AGES for this laptop to start booting Windows, Dell logo is displayed for some 15 sec when I press power button. Is that BIOS? Is there any way to make that faster??

 

Yes, but... Windows 10 S0 is unfortunately broken by design, and Dell can't fix it. They can't do more than make sure none of the "factory" drivers is an "offender" preventing Windows from staying in the lowest-power DRIPS state. But that doesn't rule out 3rd-party misbehaving apps or Windows kernel from deciding that some highly important task must be done while in your backpack. Windows sleep time is too precious for Microsoft to let you decide what can run while sleeping and what can't.

 

I tried relevant BIOS settings but couldn't make my 9550 display post text while booting regularly to see what exactly is taking time. Try booting in Safe mode. I recall it used to boot faster initially, so it may depend on some settings.

 

And Dell continue screw up firmware. This time for XPS 15 6560 models


Some Dell XPS 15 9560 laptops are experiencing a severe BIOS related HDMI problem
Oh dear. While much has been made of Dell fixing the issues affecting the XPS 15 9570, it appears that the company has broken an important feature for its predecessor, the XPS 15 9560. There have been multiple reports of BIOS 1.14.2 breaking HDMI out for some machines, rendering their HDMI ports unusable.

 

Does your XPS 15 9570 get hot and drain its battery while asleep? Dell has a workaround, but you may not like it Notebookcheck.net | May 10, 2019

Dell may well be working on a fix for S3 sleep with the XPS 15 9570, but the device still has numerous outstanding issues too. One such problem is high battery drain and overheating when asleep, and Dell now has a rather counter-intuitive workaround.

Dell is now suggesting a (halfbaked) workaround for high battery drain and overheating before it finds a permanent solution, which subverts using Modern Standby altogether: Research modern standby and turn it off, that should solve. Lovely

 

There is another solution:
Sell it and buy other!

 

Modern standby is terrible, I'm ok with turning it off...