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137951

November 27th, 2015 10:00

Dell XPS 15 (9550) subtle screen flickering at 0% brightness

I received my XPS 15 recently and have noticed that the display flickers slightly when set to 0% brightness. No flicker is visible at higher brightness values or while gaming (unless my eyes are deceiving me).

I am wondering if I have a defective unit or if this is just a driver/settings issue.

Anyone else experiencing this issue? or have a solution?

December 11th, 2015 00:00

Yup. Same issue here with my 9550. No solution yet.

Do you also hear a noise/static type sound coming from under the laptop when its quite enough to hear?

5 Practitioner

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274.2K Posts

December 12th, 2015 13:00

I got my xps 15 yesterday and noticed the same issue as you described. Mine is a nontouch, 1080 HD, 256GB, 8GM, i7 laptop...

Very annoying issue, I saw a post with the same issue, the laptop was replaced with a new screen later, but it didn't solve it...

www.reddit.com/.../flickering_on_new_xps_15_1080p_screen_any

Thinking about returning it....

2 Posts

December 14th, 2015 10:00

I've sent mine back for a replacement, which hasn't arrived yet. Fingers crossed that it doesn't have the same issue, although it's likely that it will.

1 Message

January 25th, 2016 15:00

I just got mine a few days ago and I am also noticing the same issue. I believe it has to do with PWM, see:

www.reddit.com/r/Dell/comments/3w6b9d/flickering_on_new_xps_15_1080p_screen_any

and

www.notebookcheck.net/Dell-XPS-15-2016-9550-InfinityEdge-Notebook-Review.156354.0.html

Just another poor quality choice by Dell for this laptop (display response times are bad also).

According to notebookcheck, keeping it at >10% should reduce the flicker so that it is not detectable.

I've also have other small problems and now this, I'll probably just return mine.


-Mike

6 Posts

April 1st, 2016 12:00

I have the same, can also slightly notice it one step up from minimum brightness.....

12 Posts

August 2nd, 2016 14:00

Have the same problem with mine on all levels of brightness, for an £1800 laptop these things are garbage, I have so many issues with mine. Should have bought the Macbook instead, at least they're reliable

6 Posts

August 3rd, 2016 10:00

But I see that have just released a BIOS update to stop this. I have to say I really enjoy this laptop even with the issues I've had, Dell has been very willing to fix them and help.

62 Posts

August 5th, 2016 08:00

It occurs on my XPS 15 9550 with touch display even with the latest drivers on all levels of brightness.

The issue is reduced with older drivers for the Intel HD Graphics 530 graphics card, however, flickering still also occurs in BIOS.

This seems to be a weird mixture of drivers and HW issues.

communities.intel.com/.../104349

12 Posts

August 5th, 2016 09:00

The latest A10 BIOS makes this issue even worse unfortunately, I had to roll mine back to the previous A06 version to be able to use the laptop at all. If its set to 52% brightness it occurs about half as regularly as on any other setting. Oddly I havent noticed it at all when booting in Linux and the fan issues are greatly reduced too, this could be a combination of things by the look of it.

OK, BIOS A10 is definitely the issue here. Just a quick note as I've seen a few people do it, DONT click on the updates message you get after rolling back to BIOS A06, one of the updates will reinstall A10 and you'll be back to square one again with flickering issues. 

Update for the video driver seems OK.

Have run A06 for over a week now with the screen permanently on, no flickering issues at all :)

12 Posts

August 5th, 2016 10:00

Running BIOS A06, Fresh install of W10, reinstalled all the drivers one by one, no flickering for 6 hours now

August 10th, 2016 14:00

I've had my XPS 15 for over 6 months with no issue but the latest BIOS update that has just been installed on my machine today has caused the screen to start flickering. GOOD WORK, DELL.

12 Posts

August 15th, 2016 14:00

I'm noticing the same problem but with 50% of brightness or less, beyond 75% i can't notice the flickering.

12 Posts

August 15th, 2016 15:00

I think I resolved the issue. In my case the option was occurring when the laptop was on battery (not connected to the AC) and the flickering was noticeable below 50%.

Please, follow theses steps and check if the issue persists:

  1. Update video card drivers
  2. Go to the control panel. (WINKEY + X, select Control Panel)
  3. Switch view to Small or Large Icons.
  4. Open Intel HD Graphics
  5. Select Power
  6. Select On Battery to your left
  7. Disable the Panel Self-Refresh option
  8. Disable the Extended Battery Life for Gaming option
  9. Verify if the issue still present.

13 Posts

August 16th, 2016 11:00

I'm getting the same issue on my XPS15 Infinite i7 4k. It's visible on all brightness levels but the maximum one. I excluded a driver as a cause of this issue by restarting my laptop to BIOS, and the issue is still there.

Unfortunately I prefer to work at night, so that this issue affects my comfort a lot.

Is somebody from a Dell team that can assure this issue is under investigation and some BIOS update will be released?

Update: As was advised above I degraded my BIOS to A06, and apparently it works so far. Looking forward to a new BIOS where fix for this will be released.

12 Posts

August 16th, 2016 13:00

Sorry to said but the issue persists so discard the instructions above.

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