22 Posts
3
34948
Dell XPS 15 9560 Incredibly slow with every program with fresh install AND shuts down intermittantly
So I have had this computer for about a year. When I first bought it, I didn't really notice anything wrong, but about 2 months after I did, luckily, I was travelling when I first used it and after those 2 months, I was back on my desktop.
Now I am on my laptop again as I am travelling and it's painfully evident that there is something wrong with these computers.
I called Dell support and spend half my day reinstalling the OS and drivers to no available. All the tests read that there were no hardware issues and I have tried every solution I could find - nothing works.
Main Issue
Slow. Stupid slow. Unbearably slow. When I try to use any two programs at once. It's sluggish, laggy and feels like my computer is having a brain fart.
The main issues are when using Chrome (this seemed to kickstart it). But it comes back just as hard if I try to run any game like SC2, EVE Online, etc even on LOW settings (in terms of EVE). EVE's recommended specs are well below this computer and even when I run it in 1080p on the lowest settings possible, it's still laggy as **bleep**. (I should be able to run it on modestly high graphics even on 4k - it's a 1050 GTX Ti for crying out loud)
In addition, all of my web developing apps like PHP Storm, FileZilla, etc all take a hit. I can't switch efficiently between browser, command line, IDE and FTP because it delays for 2 - 3 seconds. It's immensely irritating.
Browsers
Firefox seems to have the best performance on this machine, but it's still laggy and stuttering. If there is ONE program trying to do something, FORGET IT, any other app I try to use (even browsing going from tab to tab) is SLOW because the computer is working on doing whatever it is on the other app (These are NOT 3D software apps - this laptop should be able to murder all of these apps at the same time with no issue).
Videos
Watching Twitch or Youtube from any browser also often gets stuttering in the sound and/or video. As someone who likes to have music videos or twitch on in the background while I work, this is more important to me than usual I guess. But again, this is NOT A BAD COMPUTER. This is the most expensive laptop I have owned and it is easily the worst performing one. Feeling utterly ripped off.
Insanity Setting In
It's driving me INSANE and I need help. Dell support has been unsurprisingly useless. This is my first and last Dell, I think. So utterly disappointed with the lack of useful support provided and by the fact that it seems I've paid over 2 grand for a web browser machine that does it worse than my phone.
If anyone has ANY ideas, I welcome them all. I'm at my wits end. As an owner of a very high end PC, I expect this laptop to at least be able to run my 4-6 web apps (including a browser) with NO issues.
I appreciate and any all help provided...
LennardK
3 Posts
0
April 24th, 2020 06:00
Hey,
I had the exact same problem. I found a tip to reconnect battery pack =
"The only thing which helped me: I took the laptop apart and disconnected the battery (Li-Ion accumulator) of the notebook wait a minute and connect again, and voila - it performs again!"
Worked like a charm.
Good luck!
bennymcl
22 Posts
0
May 28th, 2018 10:00
bump... anyone?!
bennymcl
22 Posts
3
May 31st, 2018 04:00
Hi Alan
Thanks for the reply.
Yes, I have updated the A04 driver (or rolled back, rather) and it has prevented the shutdown. That no longer seems to be an issue. I also rolled back the other driver that was mentioned on one of the posts. I can't recall exactly what it was, and I am not sure if it improved anything.
The issue I now have is what you read about performance. But I am really concerned that your support agents all either don't know certain things or suggest different things. For one, two of the agents I am talking to recommend changing the HDD / SSD which is, to be honest, stupid to me. I never mentioned any problems with the harddrive doing anything and I never mentioned it having slow access to the information. The programs themselves are slow and lagging. The fact they even recommended changing the harddrive worries me about the competency of Dell support as a whole...
I would tend to agree with you that, should it be hardware related, it would be the processor. However, the fact that a driver rollback sped it up and fixed the shutdown issue, also leads me to believe that there could be further drivers that you guys at Dell, are not considering. The fact that so many people have this issue along with me, is indicative of a software issue. Unless all of our hardware's are breaking in the exact same way? Which means we were sold faulty machines (with a faulty part inside).
With the specs this PC has, I should be able to have several programs open like a browser, and other less intensive apps along with EVE Online (running on high graphics). The whole purpose of me buying this expensive thing was to have as close to desktop experience as I could while travelling. I don't expect it to destroy games and still run 20 programs like my desktop does, but it should easily be able to do half of what my gaming PC can... at the moment, it can't even do a quarter of it and it's up my time to try and deal with support / find solutions on my own to try.
As for the logistics of replacing any hardware pieces, that will be difficult as the whole point of this laptop is to use while I'm travelling and I live in South Korea... so while I am travelling, I need it and cannot send it somewhere for a week... I could send it when I'm in Korea, but I'm not paying for that shipping to NA if that's where it has to go.
Apologies if I sound short, but when I spend this much money on a premium product, I expect it to work or, at the very least, have the company provide competent support.
I have private messaged you my info.
Dell-Alan D
3 Apprentice
3 Apprentice
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1.2K Posts
0
May 31st, 2018 04:00
Hi Benny,
Thanks for reaching out to us. I have been reading your various posts across the multiple threads that you have been responding to.
As I understand the two main issues that you have are a general slowness to the machine and spontaneous shutdowns. Both of these issues could be hardware related or they could be software / driver / configuration related.
First off, the spontaneous shutdown issue - from what I can gather when the system is under load the system shuts down from excessive heat. The system will automatically shut down once it reaches a certain temperature threshold in order to protect the system from overheating. This can be a result of failing cooling system, a fan not spinning correctly, or our latest thermal framework driver which has set the threshold too low resulting in the system shutting down after a short period.
As others on the thread have suggested, revision A04 has a more robust thermal framework allowing the system to be cooled more effectively - do you still have shutdown problems after running the A04 revision thermal framework driver?
For the sluggish performance, this could be a combination of hardware and software. You have mentioned that the ePSA diagnostics pass and another agent had you reinstall the OS and the drivers. If you are still having problems after this point that could suggest that the drive is failing, however it's not at the point where the diagnostics recognise it as a failure. Slow performance could also be symptomatic of a processor fault.
Whilst processor faults are incredibly rare, it's not something to rule out. I would recommend running Intel's processor diagnostics on the system to see if it picks up anything - you will want to run the 64 bit version of that on your system.
Should the hardware not return any errors, the drive may not be configured correctly. Without knowing your spec I can't yet tell if you have a Toshiba drive in the system. Can you private message me your tag so I can check your spec and then advise further on my last point.
Alan
samos1111
489 Posts
0
May 31st, 2018 06:00
The XPS is sluggish on purpose when on battery, for lower consumption. This may be modified in the power profile.
Antivirus programs may also choke the performance a lot.
The other common cause of sluggishness is overheating, often due to bad thermal paste between the heatsink and the CPU/GPU. You can monitor CPU and GPU temperatures and clock frequencies and fan speed using HWinfo64. Run a program that loads up the CPU heavily, for instance Prime95, for a couple of minutes. If you see the temperatures quickly rise near 100 degC and then the clock throttle down, you need a repaste. Similarly for the GPU, you can use Unigine Heaven test.
Dell-Alan D
3 Apprentice
3 Apprentice
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1.2K Posts
0
May 31st, 2018 06:00
Hi Benny,
Please try the steps in the following article and let me know if it changes the performance of the system - http://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/19/sln307332/xps-9560-and-precision-5520-how-to-optimize-the-performance-of-toshiba-ssds?lang=en
One additional question that hasn't been touched on from the case notes, are you running the system on ac power and have the system on maximum performance when this is occurring?
Alan
bennymcl
22 Posts
0
May 31st, 2018 08:00
I will have a look at your solution and yes. Always on max performance (from what the computer is telling me) and always on AC
Edit: Actually no.. since the OS re-installation, it has been running on balanced. There is ONLY balanced as an option. Why would the low power and max power disappear after an OS re-installation?
Edit Edit: I ran the game and it seemed to be okay for 15 mins or so on high (after changing to max power settings). However, when I closed the game, the computer got sluggish again (more than before)
bennymcl
22 Posts
1
May 31st, 2018 10:00
Additionally, I have decided to test with other games I used to run, but now have gone sluggish AND lag the system even after I close.
I was playing Total War: Warhammer on medium settings... medium. It's the next one up from lowest. And I was getting terrible FPS (below 30) when I used to be able to play it smoothly on high settings. Not only that, but the entire computer was lagging for 5-7 minutes after I closed out the game entirely and there were NO other apps running....
What am I supposed to do? (already tried your harddrive thing, it was already set to the settings in the guide)
EDIT: Even 10 minutes after I shut it down, sites like youtube are still stuttering and lagging... browser is the only thing I have open.......
samos1111
489 Posts
0
May 31st, 2018 15:00
> Edit: Actually no.. since the OS re-installation, it has been running on balanced. There is ONLY balanced as an option. Why would the low power and max power disappear after an OS re-installation?
Blame M$ for this one not Dell ;) You can recreate them I believe.
What to do? Have a look what's going on using HWinfo64 - open Sensors, plot some graphs of clocks and temperatures, check throttling flags and anything in red. Leave it running when you run programs and games, then see what happened.
Anonymous
5 Practitioner
5 Practitioner
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274.2K Posts
0
May 31st, 2018 16:00
Hello,
Could you check, in the task manager, the process that takes a lot of memory and cpu? This gives the track or search for the culprit.
Dell-Alan D
3 Apprentice
3 Apprentice
•
1.2K Posts
1
June 1st, 2018 05:00
Hi @bennymcl,
Thanks for trying the drive optimisation. As it hasn't resolved the issue then we need to determine what is causing the performance throttling, is it heat related or is it something else. As @Anonymous and @samos1111 have suggested, you could try running those applications to see if the cpu temperature is spiking and the system is being throttled to prevent it from shutting down and then check task manager to see what is using all the resources.
For the performance profiles, I would suggest installing Command | Power Manager from here and setting the system to maximum performance and then testing again.
Ultimately, I suspect a service call may be required to fix this but we need to rule out the above as you have already reinstalled the OS and drivers on the system.
Alan
bennymcl
22 Posts
1
June 1st, 2018 11:00
@AnonymousYes, I have been checking it and it goes up when I am playing or have a lot of apps open, but it's not maxed. Even after I have shut down everything (after TW Warhammer) and it's being laggy, the CPU, GPU and RAM is all low use like it should be..
@samos1111well I know when I run the Intel Extreme Tuning Utility, everything passes, but then when it's finished... I get the SAME lag that I got when I closed the games.. CPU 9%, RAM 35 .... So lost
During the tests, it was maxing around 90-92 degrees. very rarely hit 97 a couple times I think
@Dell-Alan DJust to summarize. EVE now works OK ... it's not 1050 levels good though, I'm afraid. And, whenever I close down a test or app or game that uses heavy resources, it lags the computer right after for like 10 minutes or more.
bennymcl
22 Posts
0
June 3rd, 2018 14:00
@Dell-Alan DIt's incredibly frustrating... what should I do? Seriously even when I run a game and RESTART the computer, it's still slow for a long period of time after. This is insane. Please help.
TorTor
12 Posts
0
June 3rd, 2018 16:00
Totally!!!
TorTor
12 Posts
0
June 3rd, 2018 16:00
How I do know your pain. I see that others have posted, but I just wanted to quickly weigh in.
Your issues totally mirror mine. I had better and more immediate "success" with Dell in that they didn't even bother to go through all of the riggamarole (sp) in terms of testing this and that; they knew immediately that this was a "mechanical" issue (thanks probably to your and other's complaints). I was instructed to box up the thing, send it to TX (they would send a pre-paid label) and they would have it repaired within 10-12 days.
I took a while because I obviously needed to get all of files off of here in a somewhat organized manner but took a second thought to the matter and decided I should contact the place of purchase to ensure that I was following all warranty requirements. I was connected to Dell and the guy almost sounded panicked that I hadn't already shipped it - there was a box to ship (which I'd specifically asked about and the guy had said, "no") waiting outside for me to do so and he emphasized that I needed to get it out to them immediately. This following his randomly evading my questions about exchanging this only 6-month-old (first noticed probs at around 2 months) thing for a new one. Something has had me nervous - or heightened my awareness - because something just feels out of whack about this whole thing.
I need my computer to do my work from home. I think an exchange is not out-of-bounds - as you said, for a $2000 computer!!! This was not my first choice - I'd wanted the Precision with an SSD (which this also has but sure doesn't act like it does!) for graphic design - I'm no pro by any means, but I do know what I need from a system for it to be able to handle "me".
I've been feeling this entire time - and this (among sure-to-be others) has decided that I need a refund or a totally different model, of which I cannot currently afford the disparity in price.
Point being: For any of you who are experiencing this issue or are thinking of purchasing for anything other than gaming (for which I cannot attest, but it certainly can't handle much more than that and that's supposedly the original purpose for this thing), the folks at Dell are clearly aware that there is an issue with this model and have not done anything about placing these machines into the hands of people who are willing to spend $2000 on, as the original poster said, an expensive browser.
Good luck - I was set on a Dell, even after my last one couldn't handle the Windows updates, but I'm totally rethinking this company.