Surface Book Performance Base vs Kaby Lake XPS 15

skaif · 25 Feb 2017 at 16:59

Mines here! Came yesterday but haven't had the time to set it up or do a proper unboxing! Not even got it out the protective packaging!

Slightly bigger and heavier than I expected but I am comparing against 13inch laptops I have had in the past so not too much.

Will be doing a fresh install of Win10Pro.

Any recommended apps to take advantage of the screen? (I don't even know if thats a thing but let me know just in case!)

skaif · 26 Feb 2017 at 15:13

Hey guys, those who have the 9560 with the 4k screen, which nvidia drivers are you using? The latest ones do not install on the laptop which is a bit weird. Its picking up a second GPU but not allowing me to install. Have done some research online and they suggest using an older driver which is a bit strange.

EDIT
Ok after updating Windows and then trying to install it appears to have worked. Now I am getting random spikes in the GPU clock speed according to afterburner...Is this normal? Alternates between 139MHz and 608MHz when idling. Nothing else is running?

Also ran into 2 BSODs which seem to be related to GPU drivers
Driver Power State Failure
System Thread Exception Not Handled (nvlddmkm.sys)
Make that 3 BSOD
Also got one about wifi

Not sure whats going on...

EDIT AGAIN
Looks like all has been fixed, nvidia released a hotfix for the drivers and downloading the power management tool seems to have sorted everything as well.
All running smoothly so far!

skaif · 28 Feb 2017 at 11:31

Ok back to square one. Updating the graphics drivers has caused issues and now it crashes and BSODs after every boot. Not sure where the problem is, if its with nvidia drivers or intel drivers but something isnt right. I need to not update to the latest drivers as I am now on my third install of windows!

HammerTime · 28 Feb 2017 at 19:37

Just received mine today. Absolutely thrilled with it. The 4k display really is something else!

HammerTime · 28 Feb 2017 at 20:58

I'm getting a lot of jarring on websites when using Chrome. Anyone else experiencing this?

jakspyder · 1 Mar 2017 at 04:11

skaif said:
Ok back to square one. Updating the graphics drivers has caused issues and now it crashes and BSODs after every boot. Not sure where the problem is, if its with nvidia drivers or intel drivers but something isnt right. I need to not update to the latest drivers as I am now on my third install of windows!

Kind of sounds like it may be a hardware issue, I'd contact Dell. I've had no such issues.

james.miller · 1 Mar 2017 at 05:46

HammerTime said:
Great stuff. I've spoken to Dell and LG and their advice was to use HDMI/HDMI but I support your view that it should be able to support multiple 4k monitors. Reviews of the docking station have been really, really poor, the price just cements it as a non-viable option.

I'm not particularly looking for anything to blow my socks off, just a nice looking, solid ultrawide to work from. I'm probably going to be purchasing purchasing the LG 34UC98 from OcUK.

Think our laptops must've been on the same flight, mine is due for delivery for tomorrow too! Waited long enough!

Docks are a minefield when it comes to display support. For 3440x1440 at 60hz youll need hdmi 2.0 or display port. if you're going the dock route making doubly sure somebody has that dock and a 3440x1440 UW and it works at 60hz and don't go by the manufacturers specs. I know from experience the dell d3100/doesn't support 3440x1440/60 even from its DP output.

skaif · 1 Mar 2017 at 06:25

Ok guys see if this borks your laptop.
Upgrade nvidia drivers to 378.77 hotfix, Intel 630 drivers to 15.45 and then leave the laptop plugged in after a restart.

Mine enters a boot loop where it bsods constantly and the only way to get it out is to unplug it.

Not sure why it's happening but it sure is annoying!

HammerTime · 2 Mar 2017 at 17:19

These issues appear to have arisen back in January. Will they be receiving drivers to fix this? Using Edge over Chrome is manageable but not desirable.

skaif · 2 Mar 2017 at 19:44

So I used this fix to sort the stuttering and lagging issues when using chrome. If you go through and install the 620 drivers all is well.

I still haven't managed to sort the issue with the GPU spiking all over the place as per this picture:

Or my random freezes when plugging in the power.

skaif · 2 Mar 2017 at 20:14

On the phone to dell now for around an hour. I have managed to sort the gpu spiking by disabling it and enabling it in device manager on each boot.

Not ideal but seems to sort it.

Driver Power State Failure seems to be related to memory so seeing if they are going to swap it out.

skaif · 5 Mar 2017 at 13:08

Ok, to update my ongoing XPS battle:

Dell are coming on Tuesday to have a look. I appear to have fixed the BSOD when charging or on power cable by using DDU to uninstall graphics drivers for intel and nvidia and then updating them to the latest ones available.

That still hasn't fixed the random GPU spikes but we shall see what happens.

As a side note, are your laptops sleeping properly? Mine is fine when closing the lid or pressing the power button, but if I leave it unattended for 2 mins (the setting I have chosen when at school to lock and sleep) the laptop locks and screen goes off but it doesnt sleep. Not sure how to force it to sleep this way...

HammerTime · 9 Mar 2017 at 23:49

skaif said:
Ok, to update my ongoing XPS battle:

Dell are coming on Tuesday to have a look. I appear to have fixed the BSOD when charging or on power cable by using DDU to uninstall graphics drivers for intel and nvidia and then updating them to the latest ones available.

That still hasn't fixed the random GPU spikes but we shall see what happens.

As a side note, are your laptops sleeping properly? Mine is fine when closing the lid or pressing the power button, but if I leave it unattended for 2 mins (the setting I have chosen when at school to lock and sleep) the laptop locks and screen goes off but it doesnt sleep. Not sure how to force it to sleep this way...

Any update?

skaif · 10 Mar 2017 at 10:03

Was supposed to come Tuesday, cancelled and came yesterday but in short, looks like I had a bad Motherboard. Technician came out and replaced it. Didn't like his thermal paste job:

So repasted it

Temps are great after a -140 undervolt and GPU is behaving itself. Still need to test whether it crashes on plugging in as I didnt run it long enough last night

skaif · 10 Mar 2017 at 12:03

So a lunchtime update on the first day with the new bits and pieces.
Reading through the engineer report, they changed the motherboard, power jack and gave me a new power brick too!
Some of the things I have noticed thus far:

Battery life is much improved.
Temps are lower
'Seems' to be quicker (probably placebo but when scanning fingerprint to desktop is almost instant)

I would usually be on around 20% battery by now after using it for around 4 hours (8.30 - 12.20) and it would have been running quite hot around 46-50c on the cpu and gpu around 46-48c - this would be just idling. The machine wasn't sleeping properly and would instead just turn the screen off whilst still running.

Now however, cpu temps are averaging around 45c when using it, gpu is rock solid at 41c and no random spikes etc. It sleeps as it should with the timeouts that I have set as well.

Best bit is that I am on 70% and Windows is telling me I still have 5hrs and 34mins to go!

All in all quite happy now. Feel like its finally sorted. Just want to get home and plug it in and properly use it to see if the BSOD's while plugged in have been sorted. Will be testing out its gaming credentials as well

skaif · 12 Mar 2017 at 02:28

Another update after quite a lengthy impromptu gaming session.

Got together with some family and didn't have an hdmi cable for the PS4, ended up firing up the laptop and sorting some pes, fifa, street fighter and rocket league for just over 3 hours and it ran absolutely perfectly, even with it plugged in!

The issues had before and now completely gone.

GPU was rock solid with temps not exceeding 70c (fans were quite loud) and cpu barely twitching.

Although those games aren't the most demanding, it ran them at the highest settings without breaking a sweat and not dipping below 59fps throughout according to afterburner (I didn't even notice the 1 dropped frame) The res wasn't ramped up to 4k, kept them at 1080 although i think PES was something higher.

Throw in some testing with GTAV online and it got a good run out to see just what it's capable of.
Turns out it's quite a capable gaming machine!

HammerTime · 16 Mar 2017 at 22:17

Thanks for the updates. Is Chrome still giving you issues or have you resolved this? I'm still using Edge as Chrome gives me severe slow down.

skaif · 17 Mar 2017 at 14:54

Chrome is completely fine using the fix to the latest drivers and manually updating them from the Intel website. Have been using it flawlessly for a few weeks now.

On the downside my random gpu spikes are back which kinda tells me there might be something more sinister happening. I am on a charge cycle now of calibrating the battery so not sure that has something to do with it.

skaif · 22 Mar 2017 at 08:06

Latest nvidia drivers are out and appear to have made a big difference in stability. Just testing on the battery today and no spikes and temp issues just yet!

jpaul · 22 Mar 2017 at 13:24

For xps users are you typically using the nvidia options to control whether the intel HD or nvidia is used for rendering graphics ?

For an older Dell latitude, also using Optimus, I had specified nvidia for chrome, firefox and mpc-hc,
since inbuilt optimus mechanism did not seem to make the best choices for performance, and probably battery life (although usually plugged in)
I believe Edge maybe forced to used Intel HD, to provide DRM enforcement.