Issues with the Dell XPS 15 9670

kmdodrill

EDIT: 9570*

Hi there!

I have Solus on my desktop computer and I'm loving it. I recently picked up a Dell XPS 15 9670. The first thing I did was install Solus.

I partitioned my drives, went through the installer...no issues until the very end. It just froze, the fans sped up, and some kind of weird digital noise sounds were coming from inside the laptop. I hard reset it and booted into the new Solus installation.

I then updated all my packages. Reboot, then boom - display flickering and nothing. I figured hmm maybe I should reinstall just to be safe...I reinstall, it freezes, I hard reset and boot back into my new Solus. After doing some research, I found this and decided to update all the packages except for the kernel. I then tried installing the lts package and booting from there (pressing space when booting)...but no dice there either (blinking cursor on load). If anyone knows any other information about this I would greatly appreciate it. However, it is not something so outstanding and I imagine a fix for it (like the patch linked in the arch linux wiki link) will come in fairly soon.

Things seem to work fine until I try to reboot (or shutdown, even from the terminal) - it freezes just like in the installer and I have to hard reset. Is there anything I can do to fix this?

Also, throughout this I have not messed with any Nvidia drivers. I decided to stay safe with basic intel graphics for now.
Please let me know if you need any more info.

Thank you so much for all the work you do on Solus!

Justin

I've asked the team to take a look at this.

kmdodrill

Justin Awesome, thank you!

Girtablulu

aaah Dell XPS they just won't work smoothly with solus...

kyrios

Girtablulu Mine works very well on Solus (*)

(*) Okay it "burned" once but apart from that it is working great 🔥

JoshStrobl

Seems like a reasonable patch to add. That Intel work isn't otherwise slated until 5.1.x / 5.2. Maybe @DataDrake can get it added for the next kernel update?

kmdodrill

JoshStrobl Thank you so much! This is great news! 😀

Do you happen to have any ideas about the shutdown / reboot issues I'm having?

kmdodrill

Okay, I solved it. I first added the kernel params acpi_rev_override=1 and module_blacklist=nouveau. (and then of course clr-boot-manager update).

And then I followed this guide:

Now, the bbswitch thing does not work for me since I can't upgrade the kernel to the latest version and the lts version will not boot for me. I'm happy where I'm at for now.

JoshStrobl Will I get a notification here by some kind of follow-up post or by the PR addressing this issue when / if that kernel update goes live?

alecbcs

kmdodrill I have a XPS 9560 and I needed to add the same two kernel boot parameters to my system as well. I also found that turning off the discrete graphics card through bbswitch helped improve the stability of my system.

kmdodrill

alecbcs

Hi, I was wondering (since you have the same hardware as me) - are you getting any kind of weird buzzing when you use your 9560? I am using powertop and TLP (just the default configs) and for some reason my computer buzzes and clicks almost as if there's some kind of digital interference somewhere. Not sure what could be causing it. Also it makes the same noise whenever I move the mouse through the touchpad. Ever heard something like that?

CorvusRuber

kmdodrill

It's a known and fastidious hardware issue

alecbcs

kmdodrill I haven't experienced any continuous buzzing with my 9560, but I have experienced the occasional buzzing when moving the mouse. (I believe this is from the CPU increasing the clock speed as it redraws frames on the integrated card.) I found that it helped a fair bit when I disabled Intel Speed Step in the BIOS. However, Dell XPS machines are notorious for coil wine which is what it sounds like your experiencing. If you disable TLP does that change anything?

kmdodrill

CorvusRuber Thank you for this! That's unfortunate. I may look in to returning this one and trying to find something else.

alecbcs I'll try the intel speed step thing. Again, unfortunate about the coil whine 🙁
Disabling TLP didn't do anything for me for the noises. I guess if the speed step thing does not work I'll either return this laptop or deal with it. 🎧️

alecbcs

kmdodrill If the laptop is under warranty I'd definitely recommend replacing it if you can. (Also if the coil wine is that bothersome.)

SOLUSfiddler

Hey guys,
just use Lenovo Thinkpads and you're fine.
Even used ones, older models are just great, you can get them at a third down to a fifth of their original price.
Best: T series and, if you want mightier machinery, the W series.
(That I wrote as I keep reading about problems with DELL computers...)

SOLUSfiddler

kmdodrill

SOLUSfiddler I appreciate the help. I actually researched a lot about this laptop and many others, but I never saw anything about the coil whine, which is shocking to me. I picked this up for $1400 USD (512GB NVMe, 8750H, 1050ti and 16GB RAM), which is a great deal for the parts. I couldn't find a better deal anywhere, so I chose this one.

alecbcs I've actually gone through an entire thing with Dell already...my first laptop had a red splotch on the display so I had to get that one returned. They shipped me like 40 laptops on accident, so I had to have someone come and pick them up. Then they accidentally refunded me for the replacement and now they want me to authorize them so they can charge me again. It has been a nightmare.

Justin

SOLUSfiddler Not helpful in the slightest. Suggesting another brand doesn't solve their current issue.

Fatih19

SOLUSfiddler As much as I agree to this, this is not helping my dude.

kyrios

Not saying this for this topic in particular, but I find it a little disappointing that when something doesn't work instead of looking for a solution/trying to get the issue fixed, people just recommend to use something else. I read a similar post yesterday where someone said he got a problem with vlc and he "fixed" it by installing gnome-mpv.

Of course it's convenient but it doesn't help improving things. In this particular case it's a hardware problem and the after sales support is perhaps not very good but returning a machine and trying with another one is the very first thing to do. The coil whine issue is a known problem on the Dell's XPS series, a thing to try is to upgrade the BIOS to the latest version and to google for "dell xps coil whine fix". Personally I am very happy with the dell after sales support, I had horrible experiences with the asus one, but I guess this depends on the countries and on the subcontractors they are working with. At certain moments, I have a slight coil whine with my dell xps 9560, but nothing really annoying. Overall the machine quality is very good. IBM/Lenovo Thinkpads are also known to be linux very good and friendly machines. Ideally the best is to look for info before ordering the computer but most people don't really thing about it and only start looking for info when they face issues.

Fatih19

kyrios If people keep using this approach, slowly but surely you would need to do stuff in a particular way with a particular tool for everything. And losing their freedom.