XPS15 9550 Sudden performance issues (GPU)

Hey guys,

I own the xps15 9550 i7 wiht 16 GB and 500GB SSD (GTX 960m). Since a few weaks now I have massive performance issues and I have no idea where it could possibly come from.

Because I ran through some Windows 10 reinstallations recently, I could only test "Heroes of the Storm" and its fps drops to 15-20 (no matter what settings, happens on High and Low the same way).
- Nvidia latest driver
- NVidia Settings: maximum Performance
- Intel Speed Step On/Off
- High performance for Windows power settings
- game is using the NVIDIA GPU

The few Windows 10 reinstallations happened because the Dell factory settings wouldn't want to install the anniversary update for some reason (Even after a full restore to factory settings and letting windows 10 update before using the notebook).

Now I used windows media creation tool to copy the "latest" windows10 version (including anniversary update) on my usb stick to make a clean install of windows 10 without all the Dell stuff.

Now I got all important Windows updates without any problems. Newest Dell bios version. Latest drivers from Dells website and all the other important stuff.

Still I got exactly the same performance issues for this game, I also tested the latest NVidia driver from the Dell website. My GPU temps are around 60°C after 20 minutes of playing, so its not overheating.

Iam pretty sure the GPU somehow doesn't work as it should. As if it throttles down or is working in a "forced" battery saving mode. But if this was the case, I don't know which tools I could use to measure this problem AND I don't know why it happened so suddenly.


Did I miss something? Any ideas?


I will still check if I have performance issues with other games as well, they are still downloading.

 

Use DDU and install the Nvidia driver from Dell's site. Also, use GPU-Z to see the performance cap reason.

 

I installed GPU-Z like you told me and the GPU worked fine, so I thought it could be the cpu that is throtteling or something, and after installing CPU-Z I recognized the clock speed is constanlty on around 800 MHz (8x multiplier)

Don't know why I didn't checked before cause Iam pretty experienced with throttleing due to my asus years. But its the first time I had these problems with my Dell laptop.

Funny thing is that I even disabled Intel speed step in Bios but it won't Top the 800 MHz core speed for any reason.

GPU heavy games like Overwatch or Division working much better.

 

That's VRM throttling - the VRMs on the 9550 tend to overheat. Check the XPS 9550 thread for advice on that.

 

Well, it feels more like a bug.

my VRM temp doesnt top 70°C since I usually try to avoid high temps generally (cap fps via nvidiainspector). I used Throttlestop to gain control of the clockspeed again.

Man I used that throttlestop like 10 years with all my old asus notebooks but somehow I totally forgot to check the damn cpu throtteling.

I think this thread can be closed.

 

One thing you can try - limit the CPU to 99% max power state thus disabling turbo boost - that will set it to 2.6GHz and thus lower active power draw from 35W to 20-25W - if it is indeed the VRMs - that should alleviate the issue.

 

Yes this is propably worht a try. I mean the i7 isn't the bottleneck in my system so if I cap fps to spare my GPU anyways, the i7 could be easily capped as well without any disadvantages.

I just need to figure out the optimum. Even capping the i7 CPU on 2GHZ is enough for most games. Like I stated before, I didn't even noticed huge fps drops playing DIvision when the CPU was on constant 800MHz. Maybe GPU would have been overheated after a while (Cause of threaded optimization) but the 10 minutes I tested it worked fine.

 

Have you tried fresh install of latest Nvidia drivers? Either from Dell or Nvidia? Or older drivers?

I have been having lots of issues with the latest 5 or more releases from Nvidia. Battery drain issues, applications not working with GPU, game performance issues.... Then the latest 378.78 had major pausing issues, every 20-30s mouse pointer and all video paused for a second. I eventually had to disable the 960m since I needed the computer for work more than gaming right now. When I need it again I was going to try remove/reinstall.