Dell xps 15 9550 help needed

[Niels_1987]

Hey!

I bought a Dell XPS 15 9550 and have some difficulties.
The specs of my system are as follows:

Intel skylake 6300HQ @2.3GHZ
20GB RAM (16GB GSKILL DDR4 2133MHZ 1.2V + 4GB (don't recall the brand) but also DDR4 2133MHZ 1.2V)
Samsung 950 pro 256 GB
1TB WD10SPCX internal hard drive
2TB Seagate Expansion external hard drive
Nvidia GeForce 960M (disabled due to improper functioning together with the on board skylake graphics chip)

After upgrading to the Samsung 950 pro I did a fresh install of Windows 10. Changed the hard drive settings in the BIOS from RAID (factory settings was the western digital HD paired with a 32GB flash drivr) to AHCI to install the SSD. However, after that
I experience the following problems:
1) boot up is way longer than I think it should be: +/- 20 seconds
2) mouse freezes randomly even when under non-intensive workload. After this Windows 10 crashes with blue screen stating CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED. Windows then tries to do a memory dump and restart but the progress remains on 0%. I have to power off by holding the power button and restart manually.
3) I bought the external hard drive because I do some lightroom work and transfer rate should be pretty good (around 120MB/s). I barely reach 30MB/s on average. Drive is formatted as advised for photos with allocation unit size of 64kb instead of the default 4kb.

I tried running memory tests, malware check, reinstall but nothing gives an error.

Any thoughts on this?

Thanks very much in advance.

Greetings Niels

 

[Anonymous09]

Are you sure you installed the ssd correctly? It fit snuggled in the m.2 port? Did you test the ssd afterwards with any software? How did you reinstall windows initially? Otherwise, I would just reinstall windows for safe measures because that is most likely the problem. If that doesn't do it, then it most definitely is the ssd and you'll probably have to return it. It's not unheard of for SSDs to be defective or doa, but it certainly is rare for them to be half working like you're describing.

 

[Niels_1987]

Are you sure you installed the ssd correctly? It fit snuggled in the m.2 port? Did you test the ssd afterwards with any software? How did you reinstall windows initially? Otherwise, I would just reinstall windows for safe measures because that is most likely the problem. If that doesn't do it, then it most definitely is the ssd and you'll probably have to return it. It's not unheard of for SSDs to be defective or doa, but it certainly is rare for them to be half working like you're describing.

 

[Niels_1987]

Hey Anonymous09. Thanks for your reply. I'm pretty sure the m.2 is installed correctly as Windows is running from that drive. The problem might be in the fact that I messed up with installing Windows though. First it was installed on the western digital drive or the flash card that was installed In RAID with it and it took me quite some time and tries to find a way to reinstall windows to the SSD as my external drive did not show up in the UEFI menu to boot from it. In the end I used a SDHC card to do the install (after I found out you can bypass a Windows glitch(?) that says a driver is missing by sticking the SDHC card not in the SDHC sleeve of my laptop but in dean external card reader connected through USB to my laptop). In the end I ended up with Windows on my 1TB internal drive and on the SSD, removed the one on my internal drive and formatted it, and then did a complete reinstall of Windows on the SSD because I experienced problems as described. But even after the 2nd Reinstall I experience the problems. How can I totally start over and try again? What is the best way of doing this? Thanks in advance. Greetings Niels

 

[Anonymous09]

If you completely wiped both the hdd and ssd, and are still experiencing problems, then it might be a problem with the installation media. Did you use the same SD card to install? Try creating another installation disc, through what I hoped you used the first time, the ms media creation tool. Whether you do it on an SD card or usb shouldn't matter, but try another drive other than the SD card. And just like last time, make sure you clear out any partitions on both drives during the installation through the custom install option. Thats pretty much starting over for installing windows, past that it might be a hardware problem. Did you experience any of these problems on the original install, or did you not use it long enough to notice?

 

[Niels_1987]

If you completely wiped both the hdd and ssd, and are still experiencing problems, then it might be a problem with the installation media. Did you use the same SD card to install? Try creating another installation disc, through what I hoped you used the first time, the ms media creation tool. Whether you do it on an SD card or usb shouldn't matter, but try another drive other than the SD card. And just like last time, make sure you clear out any partitions on both drives during the installation through the custom install option. Thats pretty much starting over for installing windows, past that it might be a hardware problem. Did you experience any of these problems on the original install, or did you not use it long enough to notice?

 

[Niels_1987]

Ok then I'm going to try installing Windows again. It is just weird that it does not recognise the external HDD as installation media right? As the machine does not have a DVD drive the only option left for me was a SDHC card. First card did not work at all, second card I managed to do the Instal with. I have a 3rd one I can try. Or is there a way to make the external HDD work because I would prefer using that one...

Yes, I used the media creation tool in all instances. Even used both the normal way and by extracting the ISO to the disk. One thing which might have gone wrong: can you really clear all the partitions on both drives? I remember a recovery image partition on the internal hard drive which I could not delete. Can this cause problems?
I did experience some problems before but those were related to the graphics card not functioning well together with the Intel graphics chip on the skylake processor. This is a known issue and was resolved by disabling the geforce card. Hope a driver update will be created to fix this so I can enable it again.
Thanks again and I'll try to do the fix later tonight. I'll give an update on my progress.

Greetings Niels

 

[Niels_1987]

Downloading the new ISO file now and then reinstalling Windows.

As to my 3rd problem described: it seems like it has to do with the HDD. Here is a pic of my system performance when copying a large file to the disk:

http://postimg.org/image/q1uau91i1/

I tried different USB ports and the result is the same so that's not the issue. When I can i'll try to format the disk again and now choose for an AUS of the default setting. Maybe that changes it but otherwise it must be the HDD I guess.

 

[Anonymous09]

Ok then I'm going to try installing Windows again. It is just weird that it does not recognise the external HDD as installation media right? As the machine does not have a DVD drive the only option left for me was a SDHC card. First card did not work at all, second card I managed to do the Instal with. I have a 3rd one I can try. Or is there a way to make the external HDD work because I would prefer using that one...

Yes, I used the media creation tool in all instances. Even used both the normal way and by extracting the ISO to the disk. One thing which might have gone wrong: can you really clear all the partitions on both drives? I remember a recovery image partition on the internal hard drive which I could not delete. Can this cause problems?
I did experience some problems before but those were related to the graphics card not functioning well together with the Intel graphics chip on the skylake processor. This is a known issue and was resolved by disabling the geforce card. Hope a driver update will be created to fix this so I can enable it again.
Thanks again and I'll try to do the fix later tonight. I'll give an update on my progress.

Greetings Niels

To tackle the first question, yes you can completely wipe a drive of all partitions, however, it cannot be done through disk management. You will need to venture into diskpart in order to completely clean a drive. As for the partition you mention, impossible to say as I do not know what was it's contents. It could have, but probably not. Secondly, the external hdd if connected via usb should function just like a regular usb drive in this instance. How did you try to make it a bootable drive last time? Lastly, what task manager is showing is normal if that is the activity it is currently working through.

 

[Niels_1987]

Ok then I'm going to try installing Windows again. It is just weird that it does not recognise the external HDD as installation media right? As the machine does not have a DVD drive the only option left for me was a SDHC card. First card did not work at all, second card I managed to do the Instal with. I have a 3rd one I can try. Or is there a way to make the external HDD work because I would prefer using that one...

Yes, I used the media creation tool in all instances. Even used both the normal way and by extracting the ISO to the disk. One thing which might have gone wrong: can you really clear all the partitions on both drives? I remember a recovery image partition on the internal hard drive which I could not delete. Can this cause problems?
I did experience some problems before but those were related to the graphics card not functioning well together with the Intel graphics chip on the skylake processor. This is a known issue and was resolved by disabling the geforce card. Hope a driver update will be created to fix this so I can enable it again.
Thanks again and I'll try to do the fix later tonight. I'll give an update on my progress.

Greetings Niels

To tackle the first question, yes you can completely wipe a drive of all partitions, however, it cannot be done through disk management. You will need to venture into diskpart in order to completely clean a drive. As for the partition you mention, impossible to say as I do not know what was it's contents. It could have, but probably not. Secondly, the external hdd if connected via usb should function just like a regular usb drive in this instance. How did you try to make it a bootable drive last time? Lastly, what task manager is showing is normal if that is the activity it is currently working through.

Thanks again for your reply Anonymous09! Really appreciate your help.

To make it a bootable device, I extracted the ISO file I got through the Windows media tool to the drive. As Windows media tool does not recognize the through USB connected external HDD either as a USB flash drive, the only option I have is to work with the ISO (or to use a SDSC card as USB flash and then copying the files to my HDD). Any way I do it, after rebooting I cannot find my external HDD as bootable device....I'm going to try the 3rd SDSC card now....

Regarding the HDD speed: what is not very clear in the pic I posted is that the transfer speed drops to 0 mb/s as soon as my hard drive occupation rate reaches 100%. That's not normal I guess?

Thanks for your advice on the partitions. I;m going to work on that.

Greetings Niels

 

[Vic 40]

Something different,why did you add the 4gb ram to the laptop? Different ram doens't always work well together and i can't see how 4gb is going to add something so i would take it out.If it did work before the reinstall are you probably fine.

Are there options in the bios rearding the m.2/pcie slot,maybe look at those too.Saw a thread here where someone had issues,turned out to be a setting in the bios that needed to be enabled/disabled,can't remember which setting or to enable or disable.He worked that out with the manufacturer of the ssd via their support.

You can't instal from a normal usb stick? Or do you just have none.

 

[Anonymous09]

Something different,why did you add the 4gb ram to the laptop? Different ram doens't always work well together and i can't see how 4gb is going to add something so i would take it out.If it did work before the reinstall are you probably fine.

Are there options in the bios rearding the m.2/pcie slot,maybe look at those too.Saw a thread here where someone had issues,turned out to be a setting in the bios that needed to be enabled/disabled,can't remember which setting or to enable or disable.He worked that out with the manufacturer of the ssd via their support.

You can't instal from a normal usb stick? Or do you just have none.

It's possible that that stick might be the problem, but I doubt it. For sanity sake and to cover all bases, you could try booting without it in there. But if the system is stable for prolonged periods of use, and it only has intermittent bugs and crashes, then it's probably not the ram.

Yeah and niels, it might be a good idea to just try a flash drive, just to cover all bases at this point. But first try the second reinstall and see how that goes.

 

[Niels_1987]

Thanks for your answers again guys. I did a clean install of Windows and although I got a new error blue screen this morning (don't remember the name of the failure but different from the critical_system_died I had before), after installing all the updates its running stable now for the last couple of hours so I have good hopes the updates resolved that issue. Thanks Vic 40 for your suggestion on the memory. I've thought about that also but my memory is running really steady so I don't think either that's a problem. If I keep experiencing problems though that's the next thing I'm going to try.

I've also been busy with Diskpart to remove any partitions on my drives. Here is an image how my volumes look like: http://postimg.org/image/dkxm2t4sf/
I'm unable to remove any more partitions but I guess there is no need to either?

 

[Niels_1987]

I'm totally happy now except for the working of my external HDD. If I copy big sets of data to it it seems to have huge troubles with this resulting in horrible transfer rates. Hereby a pic of my system performance when moving big sets of data:

http://postimg.org/image/vhn09xf49/

Is the behavior that when disk occupation reaches 100%, transfer speed drops to 0.0MB/s normal?

 

[Niels_1987]

Hmm i'm just reading a bit more about this and find earlier comparable problems that in the end appeared to be the RAM. I'll swap out the 4GB stick later today and see if the problem persists.

 

[Niels_1987]

Ok bad news. Laptop just crashed twice in rapid succession with the same Windows error again: CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED. After the 1st crash I removed the extra 4GB memory chip so I do not think that is causing the problem as it crashed without it too. What I think is strange, is that Windows is not even able to complete it's thing it wants to do when I have the blue screen; it stays at 0%. Is this anything we can work from? Thanks

 

[Anonymous09]

What were you doing just before it happened each time? Also, have you tried to boot in safe mode yet?

 

[Niels_1987]

What were you doing just before it happened each time? Also, have you tried to boot in safe mode yet?

One time I was doing some Lightroom work, the other time browsing on the internet. No, I have not tried safe mode yet. Yesterday I've read on the internet though that it might have to do with the driver software of the Samsung 950 pro. Therefore, I've downloaded the Samsung driver now instead of the Intel one and so far it runs sweet. Let's not be happy too early though cause last time I thought we had found the solution as well .... I'll try this for some time and report back.

 

[Anonymous09]

Alright, cross your fingers this time.

 

[Balrog49]

> Changed the hard drive settings in the BIOS from RAID (factory settings was the western digital HD paired with a 32GB flash drive) to AHCI to install the SSD.

Use RAID 1 only on identical drives. Mirroring (Raid 1) lets you keep going if a drive fails. If you have Windows running on an SSD, you won't get much benefit from striping or any other RAID level and the performance hit from Raid 1 is negligible. If you want to mirror your system drive (SSD) remove the DVD drive and replace it with an identical SSD. You can get caddys for that specific purpose.

Your 9550 was designed to run Windows on a hard drive with a 32GB SSD for file caching only. It's fine to replace the hard drive with an SSD but it may be a mistake to muck around with the 32GB SSD. The system was designed for that architecture.

 

[Anonymous09]

The ssd should work fine in that m.2 slot, provided the proper storage drivers are installed afterwards. The original config used the 32gb ssd in the m.2 slot as a cache drive as you said, with the 1tb hdd as the boot drive. This is done using intels rst, in other words a completely software implemented solution. Therefore, there would be no problem taking both drives out and putting the 950 in, theoretically. Of course the right bios settings have to be enabled, as well as the correct drivers.

I know this an old post, and Im sorry for being late to the party, I mustve missed the notification in april on the latest responses. Either way, I take it as good news that you havent checked in, niels, in a while since that probably means you havent had any issues so far.

 

[Balrog49]

The ssd should work fine in that m.2 slot, provided the proper storage drivers are installed afterwards. The original config used the 32gb ssd in the m.2 slot as a cache drive as you said, with the 1tb hdd as the boot drive. This is done using intels rst, in other words a completely software implemented solution. Therefore, there would be no problem taking both drives out amd putting the 950 in, theoretically. Of course the right bios settings have to be enabled, as well as the correct drivers.

I know this an old post, and Im sorry for being late to the party, I mustve missed the notification in april on the latest responses. Either way, I take it as good news that you havent checked in, niels, in a while since that probably means you havent had any issues so far.

It's an old post but I'm still following it. I'm not sure that an M.2 SSD will work in the mSATA slot in older 9550s, regardless of the SATA mode. I'm sure it will void the warranty if you're system is still covered.

The simplest and most cost-effective way to upgrade an older 9550 running in Intel Smart Response mode is to replace the 500GB hard disk drive with a 500GB or 1TB SSD and switch to AHCI mode.

First, set Windows to start in safe mode. Then image the hard disk drive onto the new SSD using a SATA-to-USB enclosure or one of those external USB-to-anything adapters. When you shut down the hard drive and reboot with the new SSD installed, change the SATA setting in the BIOS to AHCI mode. Starting in safe mode allows Windows to install the drivers it needs. Then you can turn safe mode off.

Newer models of the 9550 have Windows running on an mSATA (or M.2 SSD?) with a 2.5" hard disk drive for storage. I think the newest ones have Windows running on an M.2 SSD and a 2.5" SSD in place of the hard drive. You can run Windows from either drive of course.

I haven't tried it but I'm pretty sure you can't use Raid 1 with two different drives. I tried to use Windows Storage Spaces to mirror two identical Seagate 4TB USB drives but it doesn't work and I can't find a clue as to the reason why. It's like going back to the bad old "syntax error" days.

 

[Anonymous09]

Yeah raid 1 in this case is always going to be a bad idea, but I see no reason why the 950 wouldn't work in his laptop, specifically his. It is the most current model, so it isn't an older one, and therefore has an m.2 port. But you are right, if it was an older xps 15 you definitely couldn't use an m.2 drive in an msata port, as they are physically different connectors. Also, it would probably be easier to just fresh install instead of going through the hassle of booting into safe mode just to save that image of windows.

 

[Balrog49]

The last time I checked, the 9550 had two different drive slots: 2.5" SATA and mSATA. Thus you can't use Raid 1 or Windows Storage Spaces.

If the mSATA slot is now an M.2 slot, the 950 SSD should work fine as the system drive but only in AHCI mode. The 2.5" SATA slot can then be used for storage.

1. Run msconfig, click the Boot tab, check the 'Safe boot' box.

2. Reboot and press F2 while the system is coming up to enter the BIOS interface.

3. In the BIOS, change Intel Smart Response mode to AHCI mode and reboot.

4. Run msconfig again and disable safe mode.

5. Shut down, install the 950 in the M.2 slot, and reboot.

6. Run Disk Management to make sure the 950 is formatted and assigned a drive letter.

7. Image the current system drive onto the 950*. It's easy to do but takes a while to finish.

8. Reboot and press F2 while the system is coming up to enter the BIOS interface.

9. Select the m950 drive as the boot device.

10. Back up the new and old system drives.

11. Wipe the old system drive or replace it with another drive.

* I recommend imaging over installing Windows 10 because there's a non-zero probability that Windows 10 won't activate. The COA product key on the bottom should work but doesn't always. There are workarounds but they're beyond the scope of this post. You may have to call Microsoft to activate Windows 10 remotely.

 

[Anonymous09]

The last time I checked, the 9550 had two different drive slots: 2.5" SATA and mSATA. Thus you can't use Raid 1 or Windows Storage Spaces.

If the mSATA slot is now an M.2 slot, the 950 SSD should work fine as the system drive but only in AHCI mode. The 2.5" SATA slot can then be used for storage.

1. Run msconfig, click the Boot tab, check the 'Safe boot' box.

2. Reboot and press F2 while the system is coming up to enter the BIOS interface.

3. In the BIOS, change Intel Smart Response mode to AHCI mode and reboot.

4. Run msconfig again and disable safe mode.

5. Shut down, install the 950 in the M.2 slot, and reboot.

6. Run Disk Management to make sure the 950 is formatted and assigned a drive letter.

7. Image the current system drive onto the 950*. It's easy to do but takes a while to finish.

8. Reboot and press F2 while the system is coming up to enter the BIOS interface.

9. Select the m950 drive as the boot device.

10. Back up the new and old system drives.

11. Wipe the old system drive or replace it with another drive.

* I recommend imaging over installing Windows 10 because there's a non-zero probability that Windows 10 won't activate. The COA product key on the bottom should work but doesn't always. There are workarounds but they're beyond the scope of this post. You may have to call Microsoft to activate Windows 10 remotely.

Your info on the windows activation scheme seems to be a little out of date, there havent been product keys printed on coa stickers since 4 years ago. He can reinstall without a problem, his activation is completely dependent on the hardware(the motherboard), within that machine. If you're paranoid, and are running the latest build of w10, you can even tie the windows activation to a ms account, which would mean your license would survive a completely new unactivated build. But it would remove the license in the old hardware. Of course, all of what I just said requires an internet connection, but I don't think that is a problem here.