[WARNING] Dell XPS 13 9350 BIOS 1.19 Upgrade won't Boot with Samsung 950 Pro anymore

(SEE MESSAGE SENT TO DELL REGARDING THIS ISSUE WITH MY XPS 15 9550)

Hello,

Question: Where can I find a newer BIOS than 1.0.5 but older than 1.19? I can't find any downloads.

http://downloads.dell.com/published/pages/xps-13-9350-laptop.html#Drivers

Hi,

I have a Dell XPS 13 9350 as well and ran into the SAME problem. It drove me absolutely nuts and I had to put in my old drive and downgrade the bios to 1.0.5

There IS a solution however!!!!

I found that after I reverted back to 1.0.5 I was able to get the 950 pro to work again. This time I downloaded Samsung's drivers for the 950 pro off of samsung's website:

http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/minisite/SSD/global/html/support/downloads.html

After I installed the samsung driver for the evo 950 I was able to successfully update to the latest bios without any problems.

One thing I will say that I do not like about the evo 950 is that it significantly reduces battery life on the xps 13. I'd say I went from maybe about 8 hours of battery on the stock drive to 4-5 hours on the evo.

I am a casual computer user. The new drive reads and writes at 1800 mb/ second which is crazy fast but honestly I notice no difference in speed with the things I use the laptop for. I got it for the cool factor but I am at a crossroads now because I think the reduced battery life is significant enough to be a deal breaker.

could you guys tell me how u did manage to downgrade the bios?

when i try it, it tells me thats a not supported bios downgrade...im on version 1.2.3 and also cant get the 950to run...

i love spending 300€ to get problems

You need to make sure that bios downgrade is allowed in the bios. Also I've tried downgrading from 1.2.3 straight to 1.05 but it didn't work. However, I've found that you can downgrade sequentially from 1.2.3 to 1.19 to 1.17 to 1.0.5 and that will work. Don't worry if it gives you strange error messages while flashing bios...just let it do it's thing...It's a pain but that's what I've come up with so far.

Before you install windows, go into bios and switch from Intel Rapid Restore to AHCI. IRRT does not seem to play well with the Samsung 950 Pro. Once you install windows, remember to download the Samsung NVME driver and that should do it!

McDuddley - is your system still working, and have you updated to BIOS 1.3X?  (Can't remember exact vsn.)  And what BIOS/UEFI boot mode do you have selected?  (RAID or AHCI?)  I started this all with RAID but was getting your same problems plus others (Samsung Magician would garble my SSD 950's name, plus wouldn't "recognize" it to update.  I solved this separately, but am hesitant to upgrade back to current BIOS and curious to hear your (or others') configurations that are working.  I currently have:

Dell XPS 13 9350
BIOS vsn 1.0.5
BIOS->System Configuration->Boot (?)-> AHCI
Samsung 950 512GB, running firmware 1B0QBXX7

Thanks, -Ken

Well, I clean-installed Windows 10 on my 950 Pro when the BIOS was 1.05 and the SATA setting was RAID. I can't install the 950 Pro driver under Windows 10 because of error "Samsung nvm express device is not connected", but Windows 10 was otherwise working fine, and bitlocker is running.

I had tried upgrading from 1.0.5 to 1.1.9 and 1.3.3, but was never able to boot under those BIOS, and had to switch from RAID to AHCI mode to have my USB key recognised so I could downgrade back to 1.0.5 (and then switch back to RAID).

I recently opted into the Windows 10 Fast Ring for updates, and the update process forces BIOS 1.4.4 plus some drivers on me, and the XPS 13 9350 becomes unbootable until I downgrade from 1.4.4 to 1.1.9 and then to 1.0.5 (1.3.3 can be skipped). But then, when I boot, my wifi is disabled, my Windows key doesn't work and device manager shows the BIOS as being problematic. Restarting Windows triggers the automatic firmware upgrade to 1.4.4 and I'm stuck, because the cycle starts again...

If I try booting under AHCI in 1.4.4, Windows asks for by bitlocker key, but then reports a problem with the bootable device.

So, it seems my only option is to revert to 1.0.5, so that I can boot and back up all of my documents to a USB, and then reinstall Windows 10 while the BIOS setting is set to AHCI.

I can't prove it, but my advice would be to install Windows 10 on a 950 Pro with the BIOS setting for SATA set to AHCI, as there doesn't seem to be a way of upgrading/migrating an installation made under 1.0.5 if the setting is RAID. And Windows Update doesn't seem to allow me to stay on 1.0.5

I'll try to post back here once I've completed the reinstall.