From my research on my system the PCIe drives seem to perform better on the SATA controller than the PCIe NVMe controller. An article I found suggested, because the Microsoft NVMe driver was poor, a drive needed it own NVMe driver to increase performance. RAID mode sets the M.2 slot to use the SATA controller.
So first, did you install the 950 Pro as a PCIe configuration with the SATA setting on AHCI? After Windows was working, did you install the Samsung NVMe driver?
As to why it is locking up, I don't know but it could be heat related. Did you use a Heatsink on the 950 Pro? If not that, it might be a driver situation if you did not install the Samsung driver.
If it isn't that, I would watch the Task Manager or Resource Monitor to see if anything is hogging CPU time..
I'm not sure on how hot it gets exactly, but not particularly so, usually the fans aren't even running (well, I can't hear them).
There's a long heatpad (factory) applied on the bottom case that is in contact with the SSD, so you would hope that cooling is properly handled there.
The XPS can come with a Samsung PM961, which is rather close to the 950Pro (I so wish mine came with one of those).
As for your explanation on why Dell chose RAID vs AHCI/NVMe, seeing that they control which SSD they ship in those units, surely them providing the adequate drivers wouldn't be a stretch..
The performance of RAID mode vs AHCI is rather significant (for me at least)
This laptop certainly isn't as nicely cooled as the Gigabyte Aero 14. The bottom case gets rather hot and the fans are loud as.
It's unfortunate that the air intake is located right underneath the laptop, which makes its use as a laptop rather hopeless (as your legs would be blocking the air vents).. but that's another problem.
I'll guess it's throttling the CPU as temperatures rise. The GB system you mention is quite a bit less slim than the Dell system - and it's designed for gaming, which the Dell is not. It's much easier to design an effective cooling system in a system with more physical space. And using any system -- particularly one where the case is a heatsink as it is with the XPS - in your lap is not a good idea.
The Aero is very thin (19mm at its thickest point vs XPS 17mm), (and it's lighter with a similar battery) it uses a very clever rear air intake, though that makes it about 1.5cm deeper than the XPS 15....
Looking at the TaskManager during my compilation, I do not see the CPU being throttled, it's stuck at 3.4GHz 100% the whole time, not once does it go down. So all good there.
The i7-6700HQ in the Aero is running at 100% 3.1GHz during that same time.
The i7-7700HQ CPU is certainly faster, and if I do CPU only tasks (like converting the video from xvid to h264) the dell is noticeably faster.
I ran the factury CPU stress test, the temperature of the CPU during this time never exceeded 58 degres which is quite good (the fans were running full blast)
the cooling pad is attached to the bottom case (it's a long one, almost the length of the M.2 card) and gets in contact with the SSD once the case is closed.
That's how the XPS 15 is designed.
I'll try an older version of the NVMe driver, but having said that, I've been using version 2.1 for the last 5 months on the aero without issues.
> the cooling pad is attached to the bottom case (it's a long one, almost the length of the M.2 card) and gets in contact with the SSD once the case is closed.
> That's how the XPS 15 is designed.
That's okay - AFAIK normal SSDs may come without a cooling pad, but Samsung PROs need one, preferable sth 2mm and squishy, but no need for world-record thermal conductivity.
> I'll try an older version of the NVMe driver, but having said that, I've been using version 2.1 for the last 5 months on the aero without issues.
Is it that old at all? I installed some time last year and had 1.4. Btw, the 2.1 date seems to be 13.12.2016. I've installed the 2.1 in January once when I had an issue, but it seemed to have made things worse, random temporary freezes, not sure though. But I've read similar from other XPS 15 users, no idea about other computers, I guess it would've been pulled if everybody had issues with it.
> Is it that old at all? I installed some time last year and had 1.4. Btw, the 2.1 date seems to be 13.12.2016.
Actually, the first time I tried the 950 on the XPS was by taking it out of the Aero and placing it in the XPS. So it was running the same drivers then... I certainly didn't update any drivers on the Aero in December, so I was probably running an older version..
It looked up there.. It's only once it locked up consistently that I formatted the SSD and started from zero using the latest samsung drivers.
And now of course I can't find the drivers I had downloaded seeing that I formatted the drive :(.
And I can't find it on the gigabyte website anymore.
Saltgrass
4 Operator
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4.3K Posts
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March 21st, 2017 11:00
From my research on my system the PCIe drives seem to perform better on the SATA controller than the PCIe NVMe controller. An article I found suggested, because the Microsoft NVMe driver was poor, a drive needed it own NVMe driver to increase performance. RAID mode sets the M.2 slot to use the SATA controller.
So first, did you install the 950 Pro as a PCIe configuration with the SATA setting on AHCI? After Windows was working, did you install the Samsung NVMe driver?
As to why it is locking up, I don't know but it could be heat related. Did you use a Heatsink on the 950 Pro? If not that, it might be a driver situation if you did not install the Samsung driver.
If it isn't that, I would watch the Task Manager or Resource Monitor to see if anything is hogging CPU time..
jya
9 Posts
0
March 21st, 2017 12:00
Yes, I installed the Samsung NVMe drivers.
I'm not sure on how hot it gets exactly, but not particularly so, usually the fans aren't even running (well, I can't hear them).
There's a long heatpad (factory) applied on the bottom case that is in contact with the SSD, so you would hope that cooling is properly handled there.
The XPS can come with a Samsung PM961, which is rather close to the 950Pro (I so wish mine came with one of those).
As for your explanation on why Dell chose RAID vs AHCI/NVMe, seeing that they control which SSD they ship in those units, surely them providing the adequate drivers wouldn't be a stretch..
The performance of RAID mode vs AHCI is rather significant (for me at least)
jya
9 Posts
0
March 21st, 2017 12:00
"How hot is the system running when the slowdowns occur?"
Any utilities to check, including checking the temperature of the SSD?
When I have the samsung drive in it, the dell diagnostic tells me I don't have a disk installed
ejn63
9 Legend
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87.5K Posts
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March 21st, 2017 12:00
How hot is the system running when the slowdowns occur?
jya
9 Posts
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March 21st, 2017 13:00
This laptop certainly isn't as nicely cooled as the Gigabyte Aero 14. The bottom case gets rather hot and the fans are loud as.
It's unfortunate that the air intake is located right underneath the laptop, which makes its use as a laptop rather hopeless (as your legs would be blocking the air vents).. but that's another problem.
ejn63
9 Legend
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87.5K Posts
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March 21st, 2017 13:00
I'll guess it's throttling the CPU as temperatures rise. The GB system you mention is quite a bit less slim than the Dell system - and it's designed for gaming, which the Dell is not. It's much easier to design an effective cooling system in a system with more physical space. And using any system -- particularly one where the case is a heatsink as it is with the XPS - in your lap is not a good idea.
jya
9 Posts
0
March 21st, 2017 14:00
The Aero is very thin (19mm at its thickest point vs XPS 17mm), (and it's lighter with a similar battery) it uses a very clever rear air intake, though that makes it about 1.5cm deeper than the XPS 15....
Looking at the TaskManager during my compilation, I do not see the CPU being throttled, it's stuck at 3.4GHz 100% the whole time, not once does it go down. So all good there.
The i7-6700HQ in the Aero is running at 100% 3.1GHz during that same time.
The i7-7700HQ CPU is certainly faster, and if I do CPU only tasks (like converting the video from xvid to h264) the dell is noticeably faster.
I ran the factury CPU stress test, the temperature of the CPU during this time never exceeded 58 degres which is quite good (the fans were running full blast)
So I don't think the issue is a heating one.
jya
9 Posts
0
March 22nd, 2017 02:00
"Do you have a cooling pad on the 950Pro? "
the cooling pad is attached to the bottom case (it's a long one, almost the length of the M.2 card) and gets in contact with the SSD once the case is closed.
That's how the XPS 15 is designed.
I'll try an older version of the NVMe driver, but having said that, I've been using version 2.1 for the last 5 months on the aero without issues.
samos1111
1 Rookie
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490 Posts
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March 22nd, 2017 02:00
Do you have a cooling pad on the 950Pro?
Which Samsung NVMe driver version? 2.1 Supposedly causing issues, try looking up 2.0 or 1.4 (not available at Samsung site anymore).
samos1111
1 Rookie
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490 Posts
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March 22nd, 2017 09:00
> the cooling pad is attached to the bottom case (it's a long one, almost the length of the M.2 card) and gets in contact with the SSD once the case is closed.
> That's how the XPS 15 is designed.
That's okay - AFAIK normal SSDs may come without a cooling pad, but Samsung PROs need one, preferable sth 2mm and squishy, but no need for world-record thermal conductivity.
> I'll try an older version of the NVMe driver, but having said that, I've been using version 2.1 for the last 5 months on the aero without issues.
Is it that old at all? I installed some time last year and had 1.4. Btw, the 2.1 date seems to be 13.12.2016. I've installed the 2.1 in January once when I had an issue, but it seemed to have made things worse, random temporary freezes, not sure though. But I've read similar from other XPS 15 users, no idea about other computers, I guess it would've been pulled if everybody had issues with it.
jya
9 Posts
0
March 22nd, 2017 10:00
Oh I did find the one.. Version 1.1 I had.
download.gigabyte.us/.../nb-driver-win10-64bit-samsungnvmexpressdriver-1.1.zip
jya
9 Posts
0
March 22nd, 2017 10:00
> Is it that old at all? I installed some time last year and had 1.4. Btw, the 2.1 date seems to be 13.12.2016.
Actually, the first time I tried the 950 on the XPS was by taking it out of the Aero and placing it in the XPS. So it was running the same drivers then... I certainly didn't update any drivers on the Aero in December, so I was probably running an older version..
It looked up there.. It's only once it locked up consistently that I formatted the SSD and started from zero using the latest samsung drivers.
And now of course I can't find the drivers I had downloaded seeing that I formatted the drive :(.
And I can't find it on the gigabyte website anymore.