Dell XPS15 9550 Bluetooth adapter

Hi,

As soon as I was connecting a bluetooth device, my Wifi would drop dramatically. Also, it was like if the blutooth was lagging. Impossible to use a blutooth mouse what so ever. It was lagging terribly. No bluetooth speaker possible either as the sound was chopped. I updated all drivers, firware, etc. Contacted Dell support and I nothing fixed it. It was OK for 10 minutes then starting again.

Finally, I returned the laptop but If it was not for this issue, I really liked it!

A.

Unfortunately no one else has commented here, so maybe you just got a lemon. Except for that one glitch with my BT keyboard and one other occasional issue between it and the video driver, my Bluetooth keyboard has been working fine. I have it about three feet away from the laptop. It does sound like your problem was a driver conflict of some sort but you said all your drivers were updated so maybe it was just a bad box. Maybe we can get someone else to chime in who is using a Bluetooth mouse on a 9550.

JohnD

Nope I can confirm the issue Tie-Wrap mentioned and this issue is widely reported by many people which is an issue due to the Dell Wireless 1830 wifi card it uses.

I gave up after having tried updating drivers, reinstalling, disabling bluetooth collaboration (which fixes the choppy bluetooth mouse issue)

But nevertheless the card exhibited one issue or another and as far as I can tell there was a power draw issue shared between the bluetooth and wifi.

Example:

When wifi is at maximum power (downloading big files) the bluetooth mouse introduced the mouse stutter, as soon as doiwnload finished the smooth mouse (with disabled bluetooth collaboration) returned back to normal.

After getting so frustrated because I was struggling with only one usb port available to use as the other was occupied by a nano mouse. I was determined to use a bluetooth mouse so I can free up the other port.

In the end the only solution I could see recommended by many sites, including reviews from amazon specifically talking about buying the intel 8260 card to resolve the bluetooth issue for the Dell XPS 15 9550. I went ahead and bought the INTEL 8260.

This straight away resolved the issue of stuttering mouse, although it introduced another problem. Every time I rebooted the machine the bluetooth stopped working reporting with error code 43.

I believe it was becuase of a conflict of the installed dell wifi driver. So I have uninstalled it and so far so good. But will need to test it out more.

The reason I was reluctunt to return this unit was because I must have been the lucky one to get this unit with not many faults expect this one thing.

Dell XPS 15 9550 FHD 512GB 84whr

1. No screen (PWM) flicker even at 0% brightness

2. I got a much better SDD. Toshiba XG3 SSD (2600MB read/1500 Write) instead of Samsung SM951

3. Battery literally lasts for ages, I remember using the QHD version which I returned I needed to plug it in for recharge after 3-4 hours. This machine so far is lasting me approx 10-11 hours of usage. Freaking awesome.

4. Absolutely love the Matte Screen, no more reflections, no more adjusting my lifestyle to fit around the laptop as I can literally use it where ever I want. Tested on a sunny day outside and wow, I wish I had got a matte laptop before.

5. Fan rarely comes on. I would say I maybe hear the fan 10% of the times I use it. Normally on my bed but still goes off after a few seconds.

6. No coil whine noises

7. No headphone socket issues

I did not want to risk sending this unit back and end up with other big issues, so hoping I can get the bluetooth working properly now.

Hi Soultrnoic,

I think you got te good one! Me it was almost the same, no other issues except for the bluetooth. I saw some posts concerning people who changed the bluetooth adapter but I tought it was not acceptable for a brand new machine... Maybe I should have done so ;)

It still makes me nervous to go ahead with a new one!

Regards

Soultrnoic,

 I agree with most of the good things you mention. I got my 9550 FHD last December.

1. I normally have the brightness set at 100% and noticed no flickering if I turn it down to 0%.

2. Mine has the Samsung SSD which works ok but there is no way to access its health data.

3. Battery life is normally exceptional. I have a USB astronomical video camera that I tried with it and that really ran the battery down in a hurry. The camera has a cooling fan that is normally running which I think was the cause.

4. The matte screen is wonderful and is one of the reasons I got this laptop. I do some solar photography with it, and that screen does a good job of keeping reflections down if I use it outside.

5. The fan normally comes on when I have the laptop connected to an external monitor via the HDMI plug. The fan runs at about 2500rpm at that time. I don't really notice it since I usually have enough ambient noise around to drown out anything. But if I put my ear up to the laptop, I can hear some noise, but not enough to be bothersome.. If I do not have the laptop connected to a monitor, the fan normally stays mostly off.

6 & 7. I don't know about coil whine noise and I don't use headphones so I don't know if I have any issues with those.

As I mentioned the only Bluetooth device I have is a keyboard. I use a USB trackball for a mouse and wish I could find a decent Bluetooth one, but there are none available. It might opt for another Logitech wireless one which is not Bluetooth. Dell seemingly just posted some driver updates for the wireless and Bluetooth cards but they have the same version numbers as the previous drivers so I don't know what is going on there.

The 9550 is a wonderful system if they can get the BIOS and drivers straightened out.

JohnD

Hi,

I just read that Dell will launch in October a revamped line of XPS with,,, a new Wireless adapter. I guess I'll just wait!

Thanks for all your comments.

Tie-wrap if its the same article I read which mentions they will be upgrading the wifi card to a "New Killer 1535 Wireless-AC" be mindful. This card has problems of it's own, extrememly slow driver updates for issues and there are tonnes of threads over the net that are having problems with that card too.

That was my first choice when deciding a replacement card, soon as I read some of the issues and slow updates they were having I threw it out the window and got the less problematic, regular updated one. I just want a laptop to work.

As far as I remember I have been eyeing up Dell XPS 15's for the past few generations and almost every single generation I bought had problems. And every single one I returned after having tried 2-3 replacements each. Whilst Dell's design innovation team are good at designing their product, the team that handles buying hardware and the team that does technical testing is utter rubbish. It's like playing russian roulette hoping for a win.

The last generation was the worst. The coil whine killed me. I'm sensitive to noise and whilst other family members could barely hear it, for it was like finger nails screeching down through a blackboard. Most problems go unsolved, they never did fix the coil whine on the last model and I gave up trying.

On this generation I tried the 4k version, whilst the screen clarity, colors was amazing, that became a pointless point when all I can see was the reflection of my face all the time. I'm not going to spend all day, every day to make sure I'm sitting at the right spot at the right time so I can use the laptop without my face or my surroundings on it.

This specific unit has been the closest perfect one so far so not risking returning, or any further delays and disappointments

johnptd

1. I use the laptop (40% of the time at 0% brightness / 50% of the time at 25% brightness / 10% at 50% brightness). So having used it at 0% for so long, touch wood no screen flicker and i'm hoping that it doesn't suddenly appear.

2. I'm not sure how many people got the toshiba one, but so far it's been extremely snappy.

3. I've never achieved this long runtime on any laptop I've owned before. I literally charge it once a day and sometimes not even that when I've used it less. So I'm chuffed on that point for my usage.

4. Oh yes! I officially hope there will be more options for matte screens in the future. I love it hands down.

5. I haven't run very heavy usage yet so time will tell. My usage is mainly browsing (approx 15-20 tabs open), youtube videos, movies, music player, downloads, charging my phone, html/css/php/mysql coding, very little gaming etc

6&7 headphone sockets work and no coil whine I'm happy.

So far so good, no major bluetooth issues, I need to give it more time.

I'm still yet to test the thunderport 3 port speed/watts and find a way of disabling dell/windows 10 updates from screwing up the way I have it

Any ideas how I can backup the machine so I can revert to this current exact setting if an update screws things up?