Dell XPS 15 (Skylake) 9550 Owner's Lounge

You should read more than one thread in this forum.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...w-may-impact-cpu-performance-up-to-30.812447/

 

If it's not one thing it's now another. Now my start menu isn't opening at all. I thought it was due to the Rapid Storage Drivers I installed, but it when I installed them the windows bar still didn't work. Nothing online seems to work. Anyone run into a similar issue before?

 

The 1.6.1 BIOS is back at Dell support. No comment on fixed or whatever.

Dell client statement not updated...
https://www.dell.com/support/articl...intel-me-txe-advisory-intel-sa-00086-?lang=en

 

I updated to 1.6.1 several weeks ago and fans ran a lot.

Rolled back to 1.5.1 but failed 2x. System showed 1.5.1 and seemed to work fine (with fans running a lot).

Just updated to 1.6.1 on new file. No issues noted.

EDIT - fans just as irritating when surfing internet (didn't run in December when surfing internet)

 

I see no reason to update at this time. There is no real threat out there, and the improvements - if at all - are totally unclear in 1.61. Geez, this might just be the often enough seen stupid error of some moron editing the download pages with outdated crap entries!

 

The re-released 1.6.1 BIOS has the same checksum as the original release. (Having previously been 'stiffed' by Dell re-releasing a BIOS/driver/patch with the same version but which was actually different, I now check this routinely.)

FWIW I've been running the original 1.6.1 BIOS since some when mid-January; I upgraded just before it was withdrawn! Decided not to downgrade and it's been very stable if a little warmer, but I think that's to be expected.

 

Are you positive? I just read news that Intel released microcode updates for several Skylake-based platforms to OEMs a few days ago, and they expect to follow up with more platforms.
https://newsroom.intel.com/news/security-issue-update-progress-continues-firmware-updates/
Notice the 9560 1.7 BIOS isn't back yet.

 

Absolutely!

Code:

[phil@Centos74 XPS 15 9550]$ ll XPS_9550*
-rwxr-----. 1 any  user    9623128 Feb 25  2016 XPS_9550_1.1.19.exe
-rwxr-----. 1 any  user    9655112 Apr 12  2016 XPS_9550_1.2.0.exe
-rwxr-----. 1 any  user    9563000 Jul  5  2016 XPS_9550_1.2.10.exe
-rwxr-----. 1 any  user    9662216 Aug 23  2016 XPS_9550_1.2.13.exe
-rwxr-----. 1 any  user    9662048 Sep  9  2016 XPS_9550_1.2.14.exe
-rwxr-----. 1 any  user    9663616 Dec  1  2016 XPS_9550_1.2.16.exe
-rwxr-----. 1 any  user    9678880 Dec 20  2016 XPS_9550_1.2.18.exe
-rwxr-----. 1 any  user    9679384 Jan 23  2017 XPS_9550_1.2.19.exe
-rwxr-----. 1 any  user    9686968 Apr  1  2017 XPS_9550_1.2.21.exe
-rwxr-----. 1 any  user    9714520 May 13  2017 XPS_9550_1.2.25.exe
-rwxr-----. 1 any  user    9769416 Aug  2  2017 XPS_9550_1.2.29.exe
-rwxr-----. 1 any  user    9769400 Aug 29 06:10 XPS_9550_1.3.0.exe
-rwxr-----. 1 any  user    9772856 Nov 12 07:03 XPS_9550_1.4.0.exe
-rwxr-----. 1 any  user    9775176 Nov 14 20:09 XPS_9550_1.5.1.exe
-rwxr-----. 1 any  user   10133088 Feb  9 13:39 XPS_9550_1.6.1-2.exe
-rwxr-----. 1 any  user   10133088 Dec 23 19:32 XPS_9550_1.6.1.exe
[phil@Centos74 XPS 15 9550]$ sha256sum XPS_9550*
453eabcf180451f26ef6942995a45b8b877cb52d6ea929c0564cb14aef89229b  XPS_9550_1.1.19.exe
a9732c23ded11ad3670a52005895fbc7f9d75ade9e7091245a283137135b8920  XPS_9550_1.2.0.exe
87f31773d769ef9465bdf20e3a433c7dd3bbfcf44fcdfa277a030bcb549b8a00  XPS_9550_1.2.10.exe
fd466f9e31e5059b3efdd5293a97d302d14407033bd4d5b72ad839daf91db70b  XPS_9550_1.2.13.exe
3d3258d0286cdb6f6bc428d8cc4e14cfec8fd6e093bd46cd17535588ad6a741f  XPS_9550_1.2.14.exe
0e569185c4912129d9ff446d7c54e8f74bac953bf8dd8ac650edc58b2d9c0013  XPS_9550_1.2.16.exe
87523fd9c70c3076a25f6ae0e1e695aa8c851fba8b6563cf6695e945ed2ee5a9  XPS_9550_1.2.18.exe
37aac2a6a2f195795d5a27682a04ada764ea41eb3b38874544242ce39047cd79  XPS_9550_1.2.19.exe
b46430489b52c6e98732102166d58590d042c64e3284725f953eaad8b1de103d  XPS_9550_1.2.21.exe
5070372bdca8d4d4b59119ede4e8a02477435602c08d1ac17682fad74b747fb6  XPS_9550_1.2.25.exe
871c9cc7aa5df3f3cda154407836374b6d46085a721794c27d0e047e6ba71568  XPS_9550_1.2.29.exe
ed3623fc29c21720eab0d06e8e154b75eae0364bbd032a5f82de9ba2ffd3abc2  XPS_9550_1.3.0.exe
8c14b35615325580b3c209386080bb4c7a6eaf9b44bbf1ff8960b038459d276b  XPS_9550_1.4.0.exe
a9616e4c570f1ab504097f33163f0a83fee1b88231ab8cfc98d02ff258739cec  XPS_9550_1.5.1.exe
7d5704ee720d771cbf99dea87f3cf73faa1bfb695259f5967274d0683fa49a36  XPS_9550_1.6.1-2.exe
7d5704ee720d771cbf99dea87f3cf73faa1bfb695259f5967274d0683fa49a36  XPS_9550_1.6.1.exe
[phil@Centos74 XPS 15 9550]$

Had to download the current 1.6.1 again to re-run checksums but no doubt they're the same.

 

I was also surprised that no new microcode was included but according to https://newsroom.intel.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2018/02/microcode-update-guidance.pdf released yesterday, 0xC2 is still the advised MCU ref. for Skylake H/S.

In fact they're now saying "Lines with "***" were previously recommended to discontinue use. Subsequent testing by Intel has determined that these were unaffected by the stability issues and have been re-released without modification."

So presumably all Dell had to do was make the original 1.6.1 available again, which they've done.

 

Makes sense, in some crooked way.