Dell XPS 15 (9550) w/ Intel 530 / NVIDIA 960M - Intel Causing Screen Flickering

FWIW, on my system (4K screen), disabling Hyper-V DID seem to fix the flicker (without the BIOS update, but with the latest Windows 10 update). 

I'm pretty certain now the flickering has to do with power management. On battery my screen freaks out and flickers uncontrollably frequently and even sometimes shuts off the screen completely until I close the lid and reopen. When charging it rarely occurs. 

I have tried all of the options.  From starting it up unplugged to plugged in to plugging it in after startup and unplugging it after startup.  I can say for sure that when you think you found the fix it is temporary and will fail.  I thought it was my wifi.  Started it with wifi disabled and thought i found the issue.  I was wrong.  It did it less but sure enough it still flickered.  So many times i thought i figured it out and it was me just tricking myself into thinking everything was ok cause it worked better for a few minutes or did not freak out as much.  This comouter is ***.  

I'm having this same issue intel core i5/8gb ram/ 256gb ssd/ 84WHr battery/NVidia 960m/ 4k screen purchased at microsoftstore.com

I first started to notice that it only happened when I was watching youtube videos or any video playback. when I would try to scroll down while the vide was still playing it would lag then flicker sometimes multiple times. Windows would giving me a message that the intel drivers had recovered as well. it happened every single time I did this without fail.

after I noticed it was the drivers I went to the dell website and downloaded the drivers for the intel graphics and it seemed to have worked. I could now scroll down during videos and it was fine. however the flickering started again, not when watching videos but just randomly. I tried to find out what was causing it but I have no idea at this point, nothing is 100% re-creatable as before. I've ran games and no flickering so I think its something to do with the intel graphics.

I'm not sure if I would return the laptop or wait to see if somehow the problem gets fixed on its own. I'm really bummed out because I had to save my money for a long time to get this laptop.

Since you stated you upgraded to 10 pro try disabling hyper-v.  However all my experiences with 4 different exchanges show me personally that dell is not concerned about its customers or quality control.  I like to think long term.  Not sure this computer if they fix the issues will last

The Visual Studio 2013 installer can enable hyper-v depending on what portions of the SDKs you are installing (this link describes it being used for the Windows Phone Emulator).

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/jj863509(v=vs.105).aspx

...just search for "windows features" and go into the "Turn Windows features on or off" and see if Hyper-v is checked. Uninstalling it may solve your problem, but would prevent your from emulators/VMs in it.

The problem with hyper-v is likely related to the Intel HD 530 graphics driver as a similar issue was reported against the MS Surface Book with Intel HD 520 graphics. Hopefully Intel releases an update soon.

I just purchased the Dell XPS 9550 4k core i7 6700u 1tb 16gb from Best Buy 1 day ago. I installed all my development software (visual studio enterprise, mssql server, sharepoint 2013), then i noticed the flickering as well. Now I am worried.  Debating just wiping the drive and starting over. 

The first thing I did when I received this system was upgrade to win10 pro and update all drivers. Any other ideas to fix this?

Or take it back?

Michael

I want to does the BIOS update released? And this can solve the problem?

I just realized that when it flickers and windows shows the message it says "drivers for windows 8 not responding" could this be the reason why?

Disabling Speedstep, C State and TurboBoost didn´t fix the problem, flicker continues.

XPS 9343, W10 home.

Hi all,

Colin is currently out of the office and so I've been asked to look into this thread in his absence.

In discussion with our technical escalation teams, I've been requested to gather service tags of systems that users believe are affected by this issue. If you can send me a private message with the following information, it would be greatly appreciated:

• Your system's service tag.
• Also, please confirm if you live in Europe, Middle East or Africa.

Thank you all in advance.

I had just posted this on the NotebookReview forum, but thought I might add it here as well to inform more people:

Some news related to the Intel graphics flickering/crashing... I'm not seeing a new driver on Dell's site yet, but if you go into the device manager, go into the Intel HD Graphics 530 display adapter and "Update Driver...", it automatically finds a new driver(or it did for me).  Driver Version: 20.19.15.4312.

I'm afraid there's something that we're not being told about the quality control on these laptops.  I bought a 9550 Signature Edition from microsoftstore.com.  Immediately I had issues with screen flickering.  I also had some other unusual behavior.  For example, opening up certain folder (like Downloads) would take 15-30 seconds regardless of what was in the folder.  I chalked it all up to Windows 10 bugs.  I updated the BIOS to 1.007 with no improvement.  I updated the Intel and NVIDIA drivers with some slight initial improvement.  Eventually I had to give up.  The flickering was almost constant and sometimes the screen would just stay black forcing me to shut down and restart.

I called Microsoft, they gave me a return authorization and sent me a new one.  The new one had the same software image, the same BIOS, etc.  I experienced zero problems with flickering on the new laptop.  All of the issues with File Explorer were gone too.  I updated all of the drivers and it still didn't give me a problem.  I've been using it non-stop for over a week with no issues.  

I strongly believe that the issue is hardware related, not driver related.  Maybe modifying the drivers can eventually fix it, but for me, a simple replacement fixed it all.

Hi all, Colin is currently out of the office and so I've been asked to look into this thread in his absence. In discussion with our technical escalation teams, I've been requested to gather service tags of systems that users believe are affected by this issue. If you can send me a private message with the following information, it would be greatly appreciated: Your system's service tag. Also, please confirm if you live in Europe, Middle East or Africa. Thank you all in advance.

On the back of John's request; If you are experiencing the issue with the flicker or the graphics crash on the 9550 please send the info he requested above to myself instead of John, so that we can collate the affected systems.

Thanks