XPS 15 9570 Owners Thread

There's a reddit thread (I think by @maffle ) with some more info about this:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Dell/comments/givczm/xps_15_9570_bios_1162_out_mostly_breaks_undervolt/

I found an advice there to turn off the option for encapsulated UEFI updates in the BIOS, under BIOS Security. That prevents Windows update from installing the BIOS update on its own.
Also, there's Dell Update app, which can install the BIOS update. I'm not sure whether it does it on its own or just notifies you about the new BIOS update and you have to click to install it. I remember I had to explicitly click to install it.
However, I think Dell Update recently installed some updates on its own, so I'm not sure whether it would install the new BIOS on its own or not.
If you don't want to risk it then just uninstall Dell Update. However, I find it useful sometimes to install some new updates...

 

Hi everyone, how do you test for stabiity when undervolting? I ened a reliable program considering that the XPS 15 is a laptop and not a PC.

 

Can you provide me a list or examples of Ryzen laptops with 4K bezelless screen? I would kindly take a look at and maybe sell my 9570 as well....
I'm tempted to buy the new XPS 17 but also tempted to move to AMD chips so looking for alternatives

Btw. Your input here is very much appreciated and big thanks for that!

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@moodz If a 4k display is a must have for you, I would maybe better look for a good 120/144Hz IPS 1080p panel for several reasons (ghosting, response time, better performance especially gaming), I have to disappoint you. There arent many models with a 4k option so far, but I am sure, they will come, it may take a while.

The Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 has a 4k option, which is also one of the best Ryzen4000 laptops so far you can buy right now at this point, it is very expensive though with the 4k option, around $2000-$2200. It would come with 4900HS, 16GB DDR4 3200MHz RAM (for Intel you also just get around 2666 mostly), 1TB SSD and a RTX2060. Asus also has a time limited (I think for several months) deal with AMD to exclusively offer the 4900HS. The integrated Vega GPU is btw around 5-7 times faster than the potatoe Intel UHD630, and is already good for mild gaming under 1080p.



Lenovo is also bringing mostly in every product line Ryzen4000 laptops. There was a "killer deal" already happening over the past weeks, it is over now I think, where you could get a Ideapad 5 with amazing config (4600U, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, IPS small bezel panel, fingerprint sensor, wifi6, keyboard backlight, usbc charger, 70w battery, aluminum chassis) for around 500Euro, where it now costs around 700Euro with same config.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/15772/new-lenovo-thinkpad-range-with-ryzen-4000-4000-pro-mobile

https://www.zdnet.com/article/lenov...4-e15-laptops-with-amd-ryzen-4000-processors/

Also the 14" model is now available too which looks great:

https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/ideapad/ideapad-500-series/IdeaPad-5-14ARE05/p/81YM0000US

Only "down side" for most people is (I dont care honestly for TB3), they wont come with ThunderBolt 3, if thats important to you, you have to wait for the next generations coming mostly next year (maybe? with TB3 or "USB4").

 

I use my laptop for office work and photo editing. I need very good colour reproduction. I would not like to move back to regular screens. 4k itself is not a must.

And thanks for these recommendations, I will look these machines up!

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Youre right about the color accuracy is a problem, if you need it. I have no information if the 4k display of the Asus has 100% AdobeRGB. I would wait for some of the Lenovo models to be honest, I am sure they will give you a 4k option too.

 

@maffle

Have you noticed a performance regression with the news bios?

TS bench 1024-12Threds. I was getting around 99 sec. Now I get way more.

EDIT. I still have undervolt using the factory reset trick.

 

How much would a 9570 go for today in case i decode to sell and go for this years model

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@abujafar I just did a TS benchmark with 1024-12 and got this result:



My undervolt settings are with current bios:



I never did a TS benchmark before, so 99 seconds is normal I guess? I have spectrec and meltdown mitigations set to off. 0xCA is also a new microcode which was included in the new 1.16.2 bios.

Sadly it will fall now every day I guess, I would do it fast.

 

Of course but do we have even a rough estimate on what price i should advertise. Also what the launching price of this years 15" model

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@therock003 launch price of the new 15" XPS is a total joke. 2100Euro for the 1080p model with 16GB, 512GB, i7... seriously? Maybe youd get 800-900Eur for your used 9570 if youre lucky.

 

I just bought this laptop 2 weeks ago with 4k,16,512, i7 setup and 2,5 years NBD ProSupport for ~1200€ , and I think it was a pretty good value for it. So far, I downloaded the latest drivers with dell support assist (Bios version 1.15 luckily) , and I haven`t seen any issue which was mentioned in here earlier. It seems to me that the Dell XPS line need 1-1,5 year software optimization in order to have good functionality. Sound is perfect, no distortion or popping sounds, fantastic 4k display with very good battery life. No high idle consumption, no problem with undervolting, ThrottleStop works perfectly and no high consumption, after sleep/wake. I installed the Dell PremierColor app, where I can easily edit the color setup to sRGB and Rec709 which is perfect for Lightroom/Photoshop and Premiere Pro. Speed is very good, I can easily setup which apps should use the GTX 1050 Ti. I experienced some throttling while gaming, but I will do the repasting stuff and hopefully with that upgrade, I wont have this problem too. For me, it still crazy how good is this laptop. It would be different if I had that much problem as users who bought it at the release but buying it after 1 year was a very good choice.

I heard about the new bios which turns off the possibility of undervolting and I`m also lack of factory reset option in bios settings, so I wont upgrade it unless throttling is handled some other way.

I saw that in the US at Dell Refurb you can get a 7590 for around 1500 dollars this setup with 1650, but in Europe I think this is more expensive and also in a lot of country where dell refurb. is not available. So for the 4k setup I would say in europe 1100-1200€ is good price and for the FHD, I agree 800-900€ is ok.

I tought about getting the 7590 but in my country the upgrade would cost more then 300€ , and I only saw OLED version, which I dont want. On the other hand gaming would be better with the GTX 1650, but for me gaming is 2nd prio.
The new Dell 9500 will be a great device, but the lack of USB-A and HDMI connections is totaly ridiculous (worst copy from apple) and also the new price is so high that it is no option for me.
Other laptops like HP elitebook and Acer are not my taste, also throttling is worse. Lenovo design is old fashioned for me, also I dont like the touchpad area. MSI has some competition for the Dell XPS but from battery life,energy consumption and display perspective Dell is better. Razer is the real competition against Dell, but in my country Razer is much more expensive, and as I heard the support is totally bad. So for work/content creation/ gaming where I need good aftersale support, Dell is donimating. If they could just copy the cooling system from Razer and keep the external connections from 9570, that would be the dream device. Until then, for me the Dell 9570 is the best option.

 

I checked before upgrading that I had the restore factory defaults option available in my BIOS, and since it was actually available, I went ahead and upgraded to 1.16.2 via LVFS, and as expected it broke undervolting, both from Windows and Linux, but the reset factory defaults did the trick. Its such a shame that this is the way "fixing" vulnerabilities is going. Its the same as if you execute someone with coronavirus just to say that "no one died of coronavirus yet". Killing undervolt to "fix" plundervolt is the same. Shame on Dell and Intel for this.

 

Just wanted to add, that CsEnabled is removed from latest Windows 10 2004. Adding the dword to Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power doesnt do anything anymore. MS seems to have finally forced once and for all modern standby onto us without any way to revert back to S3! This is just purely disgusting. Windows 10 doesnt have a working standby mode now anymore, just hibernate. This is insane.

 

I think this kind of absolves Dell of their S3 sins - it was Microsoft's push all along to eliminate the S3.
At least with the last few findings and BIOS updates the laptop should sleep better when on battery. It still doesn't really sleep when plugged in. Sometimes it does, but just for some time, and anything can wake it up... It sucks because I'd like it to sleep properly when it's plugged in as well.

 

At least S3 sleep has always worked correctly in Linux, however modern-standby is set by default as the sleep mode.

 

@splus Yes, it doenst work when plugged in and wakes up all the time, fans spinning randomly on/off when plugged in and lid closed. Input supression is ignored when plugged in and lid closed. I own this laptop, I want to decide what it does and when. I want it to sleep 100% when lid is closed, regardless if on battery or plugged in.

 

@maffle how did you update? mine says


The Windows 10 May 2020 Update is on its way. We’re offering this update to compatible devices, but your device isn’t quite ready for it. Once your device is ready, you’ll see the update available on this page. There’s nothing you need to do at this time.

 

Go to microsoft site and download & install manually

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This laptop has a hard time driving 3 x 4k monitors. I find the animations a little choppy and it can easily choke up the integrated gpu. Everything in the laptop gets slow when I'm doing CAD works while sharing under microsoft teams. Never had an issue with my amd desktop.
Moving on to the asus g14 and hoping for a much better experience

 

@abujafar Just download the Windows 10 media creation tool in your language from https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10 (the second one not first), run and you can click update. It will roll back as usual without asking to an old Intel iGPU driver, make sure to update afterwards to latest one from Intel. The "old" adjustable brightness bug is back again, and it just auto adjusts brightness when you switch from battery to AC and vice versa, and you have to open Intel tool and toggle on/off again. I just love it. I noticed the bug is finally fixed in 2004 it seems that when you right click on an EXE, that it triggers the dGPU.

Also download latest Nvidia preview driver ( https://developer.nvidia.com/search/site/NVidia 450.99 ) from their dev site, and you can enable this under 2004 (both Intel and Nvidia GPU driver need to be updated for this to show up under graphics settings and support WDDM 2.7):



Be aware that right now it seems, there is no way anymore to revert back to S3, you will be stuck with modern standby on 2004. CsEnabled option was removed from registry, and has no effect anymore. Thank you Microsoft. How incompetent can you actually be? How does it even be, that there is still no GUI for modern standby in Windows 10, that you MAYBE can configure it somehow? Hey lets force everyone our never worked modern standby, and we wont give them any option to configure it, when it should wake up, what is allowed to wake up, how it behaves.

@erikjoya This laptop gets already slow without any monitors connected, just a few Chrome windows open. The UHD630 isnt made for 4k.

 

So, I stupidly updated to the latest BIOS. Dell and Windows update were both annoying the F out of me and tricked me into updating.

Does that mean my undervolt with throttlestop is null?

 

I was just tired of Dell and also Microsoft, both forcing you into Modern Standby, which never worked, doesnt work, and will not ever work reliable, compared to 100% working and reliable S3 (suspend to RAM) sleep.

Dell removed, for NO REASON, the bios option on most of their laptops, to force S3 sleep. That was already a disgusting and incompetent move, however, the worst was yet to come: Up from Windows 10 2004, MS also removed the CsEnabled option from registry. You CANT revert back to S3 now anymore, and are stuck with bad modern standby, which is a ticking time bomb, can melt your laptop to death or drain your battery in 1-2 hours randomly. Or has just bad drain in general, compared to S3.

This guide is for 64bit laptops only. Also just for a normal Windows environment with no other boot manager being used other than the normal Windows boot manager. If you already have a dual boot environment, you have to replace your boot manager with reFind being used in this tutorial.

The following procedure should work on all 64bit laptops, and for people, who have the desire to get S3 sleep back on their laptop. Especially after Windows 10 2004, where MS removed the CsEnabled option from registry, and there is no way anymore, to get S3 sleep back on devices, which force a modern standby sleep, and have no manual option in bios, to force S3 sleep.

Credits for the patched reFind driver, which disables modern standby at boot time via editing the ACPI table go to: https://github.com/datasone

The patch is not permanent, and is being applied for every boot, when reFind loads, so it is easy to revert back to modern standy, by just reverting back to the normal Windows boot manager or by removing the AcpiPatcher.efi in the refind\drivers_x64 directory.

Doing the following is at your own risk. Be aware, if you use Windows Bitlocker, you may have to disable Bitlocker before you mount the EFI partition. It is straightforward and should work normally, if you do it correctly though. I tested this on my own Dell XPS 15 9570 with bios 1.16.2 and Windows 10 2004.

How to install reFind boot manager:

1. Disable "secure boot" in your bios
2. Download https://www.dropbox.com/s/p8mp4us0kgwtqfg/refind_fix.zip?dl=1
3. Decompress refind_fix.zip to a folder for example C:\temp
4. Open a cmd.exe command prompt as administrator
5. Execute: mountvol S: /S (if you already use a drive S: use a different letter not in use)
6. Execute: cd C:\temp (where you have the zip extracted so it contains the "refind" folder)
7. Execute: xcopy /E refind S:\EFI\refind\
8. Execute: cd S:\EFI\refind
9. Execute: bcdedit /set "{bootmgr}" path \EFI\refind\refind_x64.efi
10. (optional) Execute: bcdedit /set "{bootmgr}" description "rEFInd boot manager"
    

How to revert back to Windows boot manager:

1. Open cmd.exe as administrator
2. Execute: mountvol S: /S
3. Execute: cd S:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\
4. Execute: bcdedit /set "{bootmgr}" path \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi
5. (optional) Execute: bcdedit /set "{bootmgr}" description "Windows boot manager"
6. (optional) Enable "secure boot" in your bios

If all worked fine, and booting into Windows 10 again via reFind, doing a "powercfg /a" should tell you, that S3 is now back enabled.

 

If i leave the pc unnatended even for a little while (downloading, moving files on my hard drive) it blacks out. I have high performance profile enabled and every sleep timer set ro off. No screensaver not turning off monitor hard drive and going to sleep on batterry and when plugged in. Whats the matter

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New 9570 bios out, reads like a script from a horror movie. @Papusan

I totally wont update. Undervolt could be gone too after that forever.

Several owners of 9500 already reporting after updating to latest bios from few days ago, that their laptop wont boot anymore: https://www.reddit.com/r/Dell/comments/icxayv/brand_new_xps_15_9500_wont_turn_on_after_bios/

 

Yeah, seems the only thing this update is gonna do is cripple the performance once more, and try to remove undervolting again.

 

Without undervolt my alienware will be roaring at 90C+. I'd rather have undervolt than superior security. I have disabled SGX which on most laptops are set to Enabled/SW Controlled.

 

From the Reddit thread it looks like the BIOS update for XPS 9500 also contains Update for Intel Management Engine firmware and Embedded Controller Engine firmware. BIOS downgrade didn't help to boot their laptops, but the BIOS downgrade doesn't downgrade those 2 updates. So, it looks like those 2 things are to blame for the bad update of the XPS 9500.

However, our BIOS update doesn't contain any of those updates, at least in the list of BIOS update?
Not saying those listed "fixes" are good though...

 

I am not so sure, if Dell was just lazy for the changelog of the 9500 bios, and "ME update" is just the same as one of the above Intel CVEs, which has to be, because those mostly are fixed through ME update. Or at the time of 9500 bios release (when the changelog was written), there was still an NDA of the CVE.

 

I'm just saying because that change is listed in the BIOS update changelog for the XPS 9500, but not for the 9570. But yes, can't be sure...

 

What are the best settings for Throttlestop as my Dell has got slower lately?

 

Hi everyone,

I am still on Bios 1.2. But it seems that I have sometimes problems with the not recognized Keys.
I know that some of the newer bios versions are not good (fans go on more often, throttlestop undervolting not working and so on).
What is the latest suggested good version of bios?

Thanks

 

These versions should be safe from Plundervolt patch. 1.16.2 from 13 May 2020 and forward should be avoided.

1.15.0 14 Jan 2020
1.14.0 03 Dec 2019
1.13.0 11 Sep 2019

 

Are there any tricks reverting to an old BIOS and is it worth it just so undervolting works?

 

Did you upgraded? to what version? what are your impressions?

I'm also still on a Bios 1.2 and considering bios update - now I don't care about lowered gpu temperature because I have noticed very annoying bugs like missing a key while typing or poor quality audio.

Some time ago I asked @maffle similar question - http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/xps-15-9570-owners-thread.817008/page-292#post-10989300 - there is short summary of cons and pros

@ Papusan despite disabled undervolting do you have any more arguments why to avoid version 1.16.2 and up ?

 

Missing random key or the same key?
The audio is poor quality but I had a good improvement using the software fxsound. Try it

 

thanks fot the tip about fxsound. I'm bit skeptical but nevertheless I will try if this fixes crackling and popping of my XPS.

Random key at a random type during fast long typing - i think its not related with hadrware keyboard problem.

 

Alt! I have misunderstood your problem with the audio. The popping and crackling is something else.
When I bought this notebook (more than 2 years ago) I had this problem but it disappeared when I installed the driver from the realtek site and not from Dell.
I also had the problem with the keyboard. It was due to the energy settings of the intel gpu driver. I know what you are thinking: what does it has to do with the keyboard....well, it has always worked for me. Unfortunately I don't remember exactly the setting you have to change and now the Intel gpu driver has completely changed. Look for something related with energy saving and unflagged it.
I hope you can understand my english because it is not my native language

 

I'm using "Realtek-ALC3266-Audio-Driver_93M93_WIN_6.0.1.8454_A03_01.EXE" from Dell site. When using drivers from Realtek site there is a problem with some Intel missing driver. If i try to install newer drivers from system does not recognize sound card at all I don't know if this is related also with bios.

Good to know that keyboard is connected with this Intel crappy gpu software. I have disabled battery saving features. It also disabled annoying automatic screen dimming. I will check if this helps.

Speaking about Dell problems I still haven't resoled issue with freezing wired usb mouse or external keyboard only while heavy using usb pendrive/hdd (e.g. wile copying large files to or from). Without any usb hub connected. Never had this kind of issue with other laptop.

 

I haven't upgraded yet. I am still not sure which version I should upgrade to. I am a little worried about the fan behavior that changed at some point.

 

The last bios version that has the s3 sleep mode should be the 1.3 (no fan problem with standby)
I think that if you upgrade over this version you will not be able to turn back

 

Do you remember what Realtek driver version did you used?

Wow! you where right about Intel gpu software causing lags "Panel Self-Refresh" - https://www.dell.com/community/XPS/XPS-13-9370-mouse-cursor-lagging-and-stuttering/m-p/6027400#M8415

But I think my case is similar to this as I'm using Dell usb c docking station - https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...ouse-and/d16b8fb4-4b46-4571-9e6c-a37d7493824d

 

I really don't remember which driver was. I made a lot of attempts to solve the problem (I uninstalled maxxaudio and so on).
I cannot exclude you could fix the problem with a bios upgrade...

 

Hey guys, I am working with a client on his XPS 9570 that started having random freezing issues out of the blue a couple of weeks ago and also started seeing PL throttling for no apparent reason... He thinks Windows pushed an update/ UEFI capsule BIOS update on him. So he currently is on BIOS v1.17.1 and had to use the "reset to default" trick to regain his ability to undervolt. We have determined that disabling his C states at the BIOS level stabilizes his machine. The freezing is super random, occurs more frequently at idle / low loads, and more frequently when using his regular power brick and NOT connected to his TB16 dock. He regularly docks his machine, leaves it on 24/7 (no sleep) as it lives the desktop life these days. He also regularly drives 3 monitors with it and uses a USB-C to ethernet adapter (plugged into his dock IIRC). He also swapped out the "Killer" NIC for an Intel NIC.

Unfortunately we suspect the newest BIOS update may have taken its toll in more ways than we can know. FWIW we have clean installed Win10 and he has a brand new Dell factory 100Whr battery and brand new Samsung 970 EVO 512GB NVMe drive installed. We made sure to set BIOS to AHCI mode prior to the clean install of Windows. He is currently on the 2H02 build after clean installing. We have tested with both Microsoft default NVMe driver and Samsung NVMe driver. The only thing that has worked thus far is disabling C states in BIOS which is not a real solution as it effectively kneecaps his machine.

We are considering rolling back his BIOS version 1 version at a time using this method here:


In the event things go south, has anybody in this owners group had any success hard flashing using an SPI programmer, or is that even possible at this point IF it came to it?

Does anybody know any way to fix this dumpster fire of a machine?

 

@Maleko48 why do you assume you cant just normally roll back to 1.16.2 ? did you try? https://dl.dell.com/FOLDER06224897M/1/XPS_9570_1.16.2.exe

Also what undervolting setting does he use, maybe it's too aggressive. You know you can use seperate values for cache and core right. So I would suggest using for example cache -80mV and core -160mV, which works really well. going higher on cache is critical. I assume youre using TS and not Intel crap tools.

 

You can always downgrade to as low as bios v 1.3.0 using dell software page.

I have done spi bios flashing and it worked without a problem but it was NOT dell machine. If you have done backup you can always reflash chis to previous version.

 

But if you once tried 1.17 can you downgrade to 1.16 and use undervolting again?

 

I am on 1.16.2 and wont upgrade anymore higher. We didnt know so far if you still could undervolt with 1.17 because no one tried on here and posted. But from his post, he said you can, so thats the answer to your question: "So he currently is on BIOS v1.17.1 and had to use the "reset to default" trick to regain his ability to undervolt."

So if that's true, you may still can undervolt with 1.17.1.

 

Well to answer your responses, his machine was stable for ~2 yrs w/ -0.125V undervolt applied to CPU Core and CPU Cache and -0.0400V applied to iGPU Unslice (using only ThrottleStop). He started having PL throttling issues a couple weeks back which prompted him to repaste, but that didn't solve his PL problems. His CPU/GPU temps are fine when he gets hit with the PL throttling. Additionally, the freezing happens even without any undervolt at all applied, so we have concluded it is not the UV. While it will go a lot longer when plugged into his TB16 dock with its own PSU, it does still in fact freeze on the dock as well. Disabling C states so far is the only permanent fix we have come across. It managed to last an entire night idling in Windows Safe Mode, and even seemed relatively stable when booted into Ubuntu Live session on thumb drive. It seems like it is either something Windows 10 / driver related, or something BIOS / low level related ultimately.

EDIT:

When clean booted with nothing plugged in nor attached etc, he is lucky if it makes it 5-30 mins without freezing. Occasionally it will make it 1 to several hours, but that is rare. It is strange that it is more stable when docked... none of this makes any sense.

Additionally, after his clean install, on a fresh boot, not engaging the dGPU we cannot seem to get his machine to enter C states deeper than C3, even after setting his NVMe Adaptive Link state to "Lowest" in his Windows Power Plan settings.

Further, it should be noted that when his OS freezes, his mouse usually still works and can be moved, but his system clock stops, nothing updates, and he cant do anything. He can still scroll existing/open windows though, just the info is frozen / not updated. If the freeze occurs over night, by the time he gets to his machine to use it, the OS/mouse is completely frozen.

/EDIT

After googling a bit, it seems the 9570 is plagued with random freezing issues since its birth. A dell thread is where I saw the mention about disabling C states being the fix, and some sort of C state / P state conflict when switching was my original theory when I first took on this case.

We shall attempt official BIOS rollbacks next and see how far we can make it, but I am not holding my breath tbh. At this point I feel bad for the guy getting kneecapped by Dell/Intel/Microsoft.

MORE INFO:

On his old Windows installation his BIOS were set to RAID and he had a 256GB Samsung NVMe main SSD. The freezing occurred the same on that setup as well, except he never got anything as far as errors logged in Event Viewer, no BSOD, no nothing.

Last night after completing the clean AHCI Windows install, updating all drivers, installing Samsung NVMe driver, etc when the crash occurred he actually got some kind of error output:







/MORE INFO

 

@Maleko48 Honestly what you say and how you say it, you throw around lots of stuff and write really confusing, and hectic... try to concentrate a bit.

1. if you use TB / dock it is normal c states wont go lower than c2-c3

2. what do you mean with under Linux it " seemed relatively stable "... did it freeze or not under Linux

3. also what you describe doesnt make any sense, so it does not freeze it seems at all, just the dwm maybe is crashing. show screencap of windows reliability report, any crashes there

4. why do you mention NVMe Adaptive Link state, normally you cant edit it when you use modern standby, do you have deactivated modern standby? then freezes might occur under specific constellations. Why did you mess around with that setting?

5. disabling c states is not an option, I never had any freezes with my 9570 ever

6. so it seems the freezes and then the crash are related of the SSD failing / disconnecting, that makes more sense.

Maybe it is just a hardware issue and the entire failure picture, of you saying it works stable with another dock instead of power chord maybe suggests instability in power, so this would also make sense it being more stable with deactivated c states. Maybe some of the power regulators stopped working on the mainboard delivering voltage to CPU and also SSD.