XPS 9550 + 4K panel screen flicker thread.

So far the old intel driver seemed to stop the flicker for me also, but unfortunately it caused some stuttering when I had a lot of windows and browser tabs open (which I do a lot of the time) so had to put the new one on again as it was even more annoying!

 

This Morning I installed the proposed Driver Verson 4331 over the existing latest Driver Version. After the installation a Reboot was required. After this Driver "update" I was working approx. 9h without any flickering. The latest Bios Version 1.2.14 is installed.

- During the day I was changing the brightness
- Worked with an HDMI attached, external Monitor attached
- Worked on Battery only Mode
- Worked with Power Adapter plugged.
- Worked with different Browsers (FF, IE, Chrome)

Well, a regular working day without any flickering. First time since month.
@dell, please do your homework and fix the Bios and the Driver.

 

Any luck for you mate?

 

I didn't bother as I can't be arsed to update to that crappy BIOS again.

 

Question for all of you who have the screen flicker fixed -- I wanted to see if the steps in brightness up and down are still changed in the newer BIOS versions. When I updated to newer BIOS versions, I noticed the two lowest brightness steps were exactly the same, with no change in brightness between the two. In earlier BIOS versions this wasn't the case, and every step up or down changed the brightness levels.

 

That was how Dell fixed it. They removed the lower brightness levels!

Sent from my SM-G920F

 

After using the 4331 drivers and 1.2.14 BIOS for a couple of days, I think I still see some flickering, although it seems to happen randomly and at much reduced frequencies, like once an hour or so.

 

I can confirm this too. On my side it happens maybe once in 2-3 hours.

 

That is incorrect -- removing the lowest step in brightness hasn't provided any kind of fix for the flicker. The older BIOS I'm currently running has all the brightness levels, and no flickering whatsoever. The newer BIOS versions I tried removed the first step of brightness, and yet I was getting screen flickering -- on ANY brightness level -- so obviously removing the lower brightness levels did nothing to fix the issue.

And from what people are saying, there are still flickers on the newest version of the BIOS, although the flickers seem to happen less often. That is still completely unacceptable though. The older BIOS version I'm running has no flickering issues at all, EVER, and that's obviously the way it should be.

I refuse to install any of the most recent BIOS versions, as you no longer have the option roll back to a previous version. It sucks that I, as well as other XPS 1550 owners, have to continue to wait for them to provide a definitive fix for this issue, as I'd like to install a newer BIOS version that fixes any thunderbolt issues. Dell really needs to get this situation under control.

 

Read my past posts then you will realise most comments against Dell fixing things are sarcasm

 

And of course you can roll back the BIOS. What do you think we have all been doing?

 

Apologies, but it wasn't exactly obvious (I can't even count the number of times I've seen people write responses just like that and aren't being sarcastic at all). Putting a "#sarcasm" in there or something similar would make sure no one makes any misinterpretations.

 

I was originally on BIOS .12 and the flicker was only noticeable when in the BIOS itself or when in Windows with the brightness set to 75% or below - the flicker would occur every few seconds.

Since downgrading the Intel drivers to 4331, flicker appears to be no longer present - and that's also with now being on the .14 BIOS too.

Liam.

 

So you can roll back from any of the released BIOS versions? I read somewhere that installing the newest versions may present difficulty in rolling back. If that's not true, then I may try the most recently version and see what happens.

 

No issues reported on this forum.

 

According to an moderator in the german dell forum, it is expecteted that dell issues a new BIOS adressing the flickeing issue during November 2016.

Let's keep our fingers crossed.

 

They have been saying the following month for at least 4 months.

 

Not to mention the new bugs that BIOS will introduce...

 

So any day now then..

 

Nah

Sent from my SM-G920F

 

Did anyone tried the new Intel video drivers (15.45.10.4542) with the latest Bios (A13)? It still flickering?

 

So much for the November BIOS


Oops, just checked and there IS a new one put on today, so they're only a little late.

BIOS 1.2.16

Don't know if I dare try it, or even hope!

 

For what it's worth, I've been running 1.2.16 for half an hour or so and no flickering seen...yet.

 

Another useless BIOS update. The flicker is still there and I'm not confident that this flicker is coming from BIOS anymore. Maybe the video drivers are the culprit. Now, from time to time I get a 2-3 black screens in a row for 1-2 seconds.
There are many updates dated Dec 1. One is specially for bluetooth mouses.
I tried also to update the ASMedia USB 3.0 Extended Host Controller driver but is giving me an error saying "Your Host Device is not ready. Firmware Upgrade Failed!!! Please reboot your PC and try again". I rebooted and tried again but I get the same message.
Dell is becoming more and more lame with these useless updates. Very disappointed. This will probably be my first and last Dell product.

 

Boot into diagnostics and sit and watch, flicker is back for me!

 

Really don't understand this mess.
Its's 8 months that DELL releases BIOS to fix problems with his TB dock, 8 months and cannot still get it working correctly!!
Real problems are not fixed, they don't ever bothers to investigate it. Simply ignored.
Who runs this joke of a company ?
Prices are sky high, service is never been more terrible as now.

 

I dunno WTF is going off, I have gone back 1 BIOS more than normal and put 1.15 on to see if that totally fixes it and hope I don't get the NVMe related BSOD I had with the other XPS15 my Daughter owns.

Guess it's time for another rude email.

 

Good thing the 2017 XPS 15 will have a much different screen, chassis and motherboard hehehe!

Are the Dell guys stupid or just don't care?

 

Maybe it's just me, but it sounds like some people are talking about different types of flickering and possibly even confusing or misleading others when trying to help. From what I've gathered, there are two kinds of flickering. It's not always clear which one people are referring to when all they say is that their screen flickers without any other explanation.

The first type is more of a brightness flickering where the screen just dims, mostly when using the low brightness levels. The second type is where the screen goes completely black when flickering, almost as if you were installing or uninstalling display drivers. Perhaps we should start being a little more descriptive so we know what others are actually experiencing with different BIOS or driver versions. How about 'soft flickering' for the brightness type and 'hard flickering' for those that go black?

I have the soft flickering and always thought this is what people were talking about until I recently saw someone post a video of the hard flickering.

 

it is the soft flickering for this thread.

 

I'm still rocking BIOS 01.02.00 lol, I'm not even sure how old this is? I'm not getting any flickering but haven't felt the need update the BIOS. Are there any major improvement since my 01.02.00 BIOS?

 

I'm sorry if this has been brought up before but have you guys tried the 4331 intel drivers? This has fixed the flicker for me.

http://www.dell.com/support/home/us...&productCode=xps-15-9550-laptop&categoryId=VI

 

yes

 

Hi guys, my first post here. First of all, thank you all for your feedback and help on this forum, specially GoNz0 and pressing and a few others I can't remember. I have been following this thread and the owners lounge since the end of last year and all of your feedback helped me switch from Mac to this wonderful laptop!

Having said that, it seems Dell has given up on this laptop.
I'm still holding fast to bios 1.2.0 (like 6 month old bios) because has most of you I also have the brightness flicker.
Dell premier colour app crashes on opening since windows 10 anniversary.
Latest software updates are bugged as hell. Latest Dell foundation services have a memory leak, etc, etc

It is an amazing piece of kit this laptop, but dell has no clue.

Finally can I please ask, I just updated to the latest intel MEI drivers 11.5.1020 and they don't install properly, saying that previous version is installed even when I remove previous version before and rebooted the pc. Is this happening to you guys as well?

 

Same here for the MEI dirver, I tired everything I can think of. Sod it, leave it alone Maybe it needs the new BIOS but who knows.

 

I successfully installed the Intel MEI drivers v11.5.1020 (A01) with 1.2.16 BIOS. The strange thing is that at the end of installation it says that is dated October 21, 2016.

 

Antik,

The Dell 9550 BIOS and drivers have gone through massive revisions this year. Dell worked through a lot of bugs and as you will see on the forums, only a few bugs remain with more recent drivers. It seems the biggest issues are related to screen flicker for some 4k screens although there are still a few smaller items "to be resolved".

Take a read through the posts here and Dell's support page to see if upgrading the BIOS is worth it for your system. I would start with "hardware and software problems" and "owners' lounge" threads below

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...ist-of-hardware-and-software-problems.784691/

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...0-owners-lounge.783377/page-324#post-10400686

 

Yep, flicker still there for me even at high brightness. This is the first what you might call 'high end' laptop I've purchased and, like previous posters, I won't be going for a Dell ever again. Buyers remorse this long after purchase is a new one for me!

 

You can get a full refund due to the flicker still not being fixed.

Todays email

Me

Dell

me

****ing cockwomble

 

Wow, I guess I am just very lucky then as I haven't encountered any of those software/driver or hardware issues on my UHD model running 01.02.00...

 

Friggin flicker still exists in latest bios... Like what gives with this company. So frustrating.

 

At least they are replying to your emails, they stopped replying or answering my support case, or the new one i opened... Asked for escalation 2 month ago, no replies...

 

I've been reading this thread for the last few months since I got my XPS 4k that came with the 1TB HHD + 32GB (cache) M.2. I had got rid of the screen flicker by using the previous graphics driver.

However I then reinstalled the latest graphics driver with the latest BIOS and the flicker was back. So I went back to the older graphics driver and now the flicker is gone again.

I don't seem to have any other problems with it although I'm fairly sure that taking out the HDD and putting the OS onto a M.2 seems to have made the fan noise somewhat quieter.

 

Dear GoNz0,

Just installed latest Bios 1.2.16 + plus latest MEI driver + intel driver 4331 and I can't see any flicker at least at brightness level 75% plugged in to charger. Will continue o check on lower brightness and on battery.

Regarding the latest MEI driver I was puzzled by DellXps2016 post and I checked the logs of the installation. It seems it was the damn VC 2015 given an error. I uninstalled the VC 2015 (both x86 and x64) and reinstalled the latest from from here https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=48145 then the intalation went fine. Only thing not installed was Intel security driver but I dont know what that is.

I hope that helps,

Cheers

 

Problem is below 30% (more like below 20%)

 

I'm sorry but I don't agree at all with you. They fixed nothing but small things. The screen flicker is still here after numerous BIOS iterations, the incompatibility with Logitech mouses went form bad to worse, the Dell Premiere color is useless after Windows update, the update system totally messed up (always finding old updates as new ones - they still propose me to install BIOS 1.2.13 despite the fact that 1.2.16 is available on their site), updates that don't install, etc. Just to name some of very annoying issues that I face every single day. But hey, they issued a new BIOS to fix the Thunderbolt issue like there were thousands of people waiting for it.
They lost me as a customer for sure and I'm thinking of a way to return it if the flicker is not fixed very soon. I'm sick and tired about Dell incompetence.

Now, on top of this issues I don't know what happened but I sow in BIOS settings RAID instead of AHCI and I cannot switch between them. I tried once and is not booting on AHCI.

 

I can reconfirm that the flickering is gone, at least at about 50% brightness, after rollback to the 4331 Intel video driver from Dell site, with BIOS 1.2.14.
With this driver, also the issue of posterization in blacks is fixed, but I had to change gamma from default 1 to 1.3 to make the lowest blacks distinguishable.

 

Stop saying it is fixed unless you have tried at at 20% or less as that is when PWM control kicks in.

 

DellXps2016, just to be clear, are you referring to the brightness flickering most of us in here are talking about? I noticed in one of your previous posts you mentioned that you get "2-3 black screens in a row for 1-2 seconds", which sounds like a different issue.

Also, when you switched to RAID, did you configure Windows to boot into Safe Mode before making the change? This will allow the machine to boot into Windows so that it can detect the change. Note: many users with the NVMe drive experience BSODs when using AHCI.

 

Just tried rolling back the Intel HD driver to version 4331 and the flicker is absolutely still existent with the latest BIOS.