Arch Linux

Arvids

Member

Registered: 2016-02-01

Posts: 4

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 (Early 2017)

Anyone else have the problem that sometimes, when resuming from suspend the computer is in a complete frozen state?(the screen looks exactly like before the suspend was issued and no keyboard command has any effect) I have had this happened both in xorg and tty.

ferkulat

Member

Registered: 2005-12-03

Posts: 7

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 (Early 2017)

Setup:
TB16 Dock with two monitors 2560x1440
4K internal display
use wifi only, because USB LAN is buggy.
kernel: 4.9.31
touch screen disabled in BIOS
gnome desktop with xorg ( not wayland)

Config
No drivers installed from nvidia.
No bumblebee
No bbswitch

#/etc/modprobe.d/modprobe.conf
blacklist nouveau

impact of black listed nouveau on power consumption
Powertop shows (backlight at lowest level) without powertop --auto-tune

System baseline power is estimated at 15.8 W

Power est.    Usage     Device name
  8.69 W      0.1%        Display backlight
  3.20 W    100.0%        Audio codec hwC0D0: Realtek
  1.71 W     14.5%        DRAM
  1.04 W     14.5%        CPU core
  424 mW      0.1 pkts/s  Network interface: wlp2s0 (ath10k_pci)
  310 mW     21.9 ops/s   GPU core
  230 mW     14.5%        CPU misc
  141 mW    100.0%        Radio device: ath10k_pci
 61.8 mW     21.9 ops/s   GPU misc
    0 mW    100.0%        USB device: USB 10/100/1000 LAN (Realtek)

As you can see "GPU misc" uses almost nothing without special tweaking, but just blacklisted nouveau driver.
suspend/ resume
On kernels later than linux 4.9.31 lts and linux 4.10+ resume ends up in restart of the machine.
So I stick with linux 4.9.31 and try linux 4.1X from time to time.

External monitors
The external monitor setup is working with xf86-video-intel only.
The other described methods in the wiki seem not work for external monitors via TB16 Dock.

TB16 Dock
Sound not working ( forgot to enable it before throwing windows from the disc?)
USB Lan buggy (not used)
powertop --auto-tune with connected Dock messes things up. Running this command only with disconnected dock.

lah

Member

Registered: 2014-08-26

Posts: 28

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 (Early 2017)

I'm posting here because I'm fighting with a dell 5520 and UEFI boot
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 5#p1753805

As said here :
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dell_XPS_15_9560
Most of 9560 things also applies to the Precision 5520.

For those who installed arch from preinstalled ubuntu distro and after deleted ubuntu distro. Did grub loading work?
Could you post

efibootmgr -v

result ?

Thanks

Last edited by lah (2017-12-08 15:04:10)

lah

Member

Registered: 2014-08-26

Posts: 28

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 (Early 2017)

I solved my problem...
Originally, when booting ubuntu, before grub screen I got "booting into insecure mode". So I thought UEFI was configured in insecure mode. I did not check that as described here :
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/De … _9560#UEFI

After changing UEFI entries (either with grub-install or directly calling efibootmgr) to have arch grub loading arch grub was not loading and I got a dell UEFI memory check and EFI boot entries modified.
I think UEFI FW detected it was loading an unsecure system... It couldn't load arch bootloader and loaded some recovery tools.

After checking UEFI options,  I discovered secure mode was enabled. It could load ubuntu preinstalled system showing "booting into insecure mode" but it couldn't load any arch system.
I disabled it and now I can get grub loading arch, there is no "booting into insecure mode" message.

I cannot explain how UEFI configured in secure mode could load ubuntu preinstalled system in an insecure mode (as displayed in log)...

Arvids

Member

Registered: 2016-02-01

Posts: 4

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 (Early 2017)

Anyone else have the problem that sometimes, when resuming from suspend the computer is in a complete frozen state?(the screen looks exactly like before the suspend was issued and no keyboard command has any effect) I have had this happened both in xorg and tty.

After switching to the Intel 8265 wifi-card my issues with the laptop being unresponsive after wake-up from either sleep or hibernation as well as issues with kernel panics during boot have not been seen in over a week. Since I have kept the laptop up to date each day it could also be a happy coincidence.

xdever

Member

Registered: 2017-12-31

Posts: 8

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 (Early 2017)

I have a problem that when the machine wakes up from suspend, the turn off, restart, etc menus dissapear from gnome. When I try to shut down the machine with the halt command, it can't turn it off, just writes system is halted, and nothing happens. It's like acpi stops working, I see nothing suspicious in dmesg. My kernel is 4.14.9, grub args are: "acpi_rev_override=1 enable_fbc=1 enable_psr=1 disable_power_well=0". I also tried to add "acpi_osi=! acpi_osi='Windows 2009'" but it changes absolutely nothing.

Other interesting thing is that cat /sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/current_now always displays 1000 when plugged in and fully charged. Why can this be? Can someone check if it is the same for him/her?

Have anyone experienced similar problems?

chenxiaolong

Member

From: /home/chenxiaolong

Registered: 2010-11-03

Posts: 784

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 (Early 2017)

I have a problem that when the machine wakes up from suspend, the turn off, restart, etc menus dissapear from gnome. When I try to shut down the machine with the halt command, it can't turn it off, just writes system is halted, and nothing happens. It's like acpi stops working, I see nothing suspicious in dmesg. My kernel is 4.14.9, grub args are: "acpi_rev_override=1 enable_fbc=1 enable_psr=1 disable_power_well=0". I also tried to add "acpi_osi=! acpi_osi='Windows 2009'" but it changes absolutely nothing.

Other interesting thing is that cat /sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/current_now always displays 1000 when plugged in and fully charged. Why can this be? Can someone check if it is the same for him/her?

Have anyone experienced similar problems?

I do not have a problem with the power options disappearing after waking up from suspend nor the issue where it gets stuck at "System is halted". (Though I have run into that on a different laptop before.) I'm running kernel 4.14.9 and booting with:

acpi_rev_override=5 nvme_core.default_ps_max_latency_us=180000 iwlwifi.power_save=1 modprobe.blacklist=nouveau

As for the battery sysfs value:

[build_linux_x86_64] cat /sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/current_now
1000

xdever

Member

Registered: 2017-12-31

Posts: 8

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 (Early 2017)

I have a problem that when the machine wakes up from suspend, the turn off, restart, etc menus dissapear from gnome. When I try to shut down the machine with the halt command, it can't turn it off, just writes system is halted, and nothing happens. It's like acpi stops working, I see nothing suspicious in dmesg. My kernel is 4.14.9, grub args are: "acpi_rev_override=1 enable_fbc=1 enable_psr=1 disable_power_well=0". I also tried to add "acpi_osi=! acpi_osi='Windows 2009'" but it changes absolutely nothing.

Other interesting thing is that cat /sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/current_now always displays 1000 when plugged in and fully charged. Why can this be? Can someone check if it is the same for him/her?

Have anyone experienced similar problems?

I do not have a problem with the power options disappearing after waking up from suspend nor the issue where it gets stuck at "System is halted". (Though I have run into that on a different laptop before.) I'm running kernel 4.14.9 and booting with:

acpi_rev_override=5 nvme_core.default_ps_max_latency_us=180000 iwlwifi.power_save=1 modprobe.blacklist=nouveau

As for the battery sysfs value:

[build_linux_x86_64] cat /sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/current_now
1000

I tried your parameters but it has absolutely no difference.

Also my USB C display port adapter is not working. Has anyone succeeded with that?

Thanks,
Robert

Last edited by xdever (2018-01-01 14:35:35)

chenxiaolong

Member

From: /home/chenxiaolong

Registered: 2010-11-03

Posts: 784

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 (Early 2017)

I tried your parameters but it has absolutely no difference.

Also my USB C display port adapter is not working. Has anyone succeeded with that?

Thanks,
Robert

Hmm, I'm not really sure then. As far as USB-C DisplayPort goes, that seems to be working for me as well with the Apple multiport adapter I use at work. This is what I see in dmesg when I plug it in: https://hastebin.com/kusavokaze.txt

ivan.masich

Member

Registered: 2016-11-29

Posts: 7

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 (Early 2017)

I also don't see such problems, I'm using kernel 4.14.10-1-ARCH, suspend/'wake up from suspend' works fine.

xdever

Member

Registered: 2017-12-31

Posts: 8

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 (Early 2017)

I tried your parameters but it has absolutely no difference.

Also my USB C display port adapter is not working. Has anyone succeeded with that?

Thanks,
Robert

Hmm, I'm not really sure then. As far as USB-C DisplayPort goes, that seems to be working for me as well with the Apple multiport adapter I use at work. This is what I see in dmesg when I plug it in: https://hastebin.com/kusavokaze.txt

Mine looks almost identical, but my screen is not showing up anywhere. My dmesg: https://hastebin.com/raw/miwomabeta.

Regarding to the suspend problem I noticed when I log out to GDM, the buttons there still exists, and they actually work. So this may be a gnome related bug rather than XPS specific. Nevertheless, if anyone has any idea, I would be happy to try it out.

xdever

Member

Registered: 2017-12-31

Posts: 8

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 (Early 2017)

I also see 4 new devices in lspci:

06:00.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation DSL6340 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Alpine Ridge 2C 2015]
07:00.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation DSL6340 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Alpine Ridge 2C 2015]
07:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation DSL6340 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Alpine Ridge 2C 2015]
07:02.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation DSL6340 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Alpine Ridge 2C 2015]

New display is not shown nor in Wayland, nor in X11.

Do I have to run X/Wayland on NVIDIA for this to work?

Do I have to boot with UEFI for this to work (I'm using MBR)? It would be very strange if thats the case, but I just trying to gess what could be the difference.

Last edited by xdever (2018-01-02 23:07:46)

dglastonbury

Member

Registered: 2017-05-26

Posts: 2

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 (Early 2017)

I'm running hedgepigdaniel's custom kernel and nvidia drivers (https://github.com/hedgepigdaniel/linux-9560).  If I switch to the default linux kernel then the screen brightness adjustment keys don't work (screen backlight is on at 100%). Is it possible to fix this? I'm passing the following kernel parameters, if one of those is the culprit:

i915.enable_fbc=1 i915.enable_psr=1 i915.disable_power_well=0 acpi_backlight=vendor acpi_osi=Linux acpi_rev_override scsi_mod.use_blk_mq=1 quiet splash

thanks

chenxiaolong

Member

From: /home/chenxiaolong

Registered: 2010-11-03

Posts: 784

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 (Early 2017)

I'm running hedgepigdaniel's custom kernel and nvidia drivers (https://github.com/hedgepigdaniel/linux-9560).  If I switch to the default linux kernel then the screen brightness adjustment keys don't work (screen backlight is on at 100%). Is it possible to fix this? I'm passing the following kernel parameters, if one of those is the culprit:

i915.enable_fbc=1 i915.enable_psr=1 i915.disable_power_well=0 acpi_backlight=vendor acpi_osi=Linux acpi_rev_override scsi_mod.use_blk_mq=1 quiet splash

thanks

I don't have this problem with the stock kernel. I'm booting with these options and nothing else:

acpi_rev_override=5 nvme_core.default_ps_max_latency_us=180000 iwlwifi.power_save=1 modprobe.blacklist=nouveau

chenxiaolong

Member

From: /home/chenxiaolong

Registered: 2010-11-03

Posts: 784

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 (Early 2017)

I also see 4 new devices in lspci:

06:00.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation DSL6340 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Alpine Ridge 2C 2015]
07:00.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation DSL6340 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Alpine Ridge 2C 2015]
07:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation DSL6340 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Alpine Ridge 2C 2015]
07:02.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation DSL6340 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Alpine Ridge 2C 2015]

New display is not shown nor in Wayland, nor in X11.

Do I have to run X/Wayland on NVIDIA for this to work?

Do I have to boot with UEFI for this to work (I'm using MBR)? It would be very strange if thats the case, but I just trying to gess what could be the difference.

I see the same 4 devices + 1 more (because my adapter has a USB port on it):

06:00.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation DSL6340 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Alpine Ridge 2C 2015]
07:00.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation DSL6340 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Alpine Ridge 2C 2015]
07:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation DSL6340 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Alpine Ridge 2C 2015]
07:02.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation DSL6340 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Alpine Ridge 2C 2015]
3e:00.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation DSL6340 USB 3.1 Controller [Alpine Ridge]

I'm not sure if UEFI vs. MBR could cause an issue. I'm booting with UEFI (secure boot enabled) and using GNOME 3 w/X11. EDIT: Also, my NVIDIA GPU is shut down via bumblebee/bbswitch.

Last edited by chenxiaolong (2018-01-03 01:41:19)

xdever

Member

Registered: 2017-12-31

Posts: 8

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 (Early 2017)

I have no time to investigate the tunderbolt problem further.

But I made a simple tool for undervolting the CPU and GPU. Maybe someone find it useful:

https://github.com/xdever/linux-intel-undervolt-tool

xdever

Member

Registered: 2017-12-31

Posts: 8

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 (Early 2017)

I also see 4 new devices in lspci:

06:00.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation DSL6340 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Alpine Ridge 2C 2015]
07:00.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation DSL6340 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Alpine Ridge 2C 2015]
07:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation DSL6340 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Alpine Ridge 2C 2015]
07:02.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation DSL6340 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Alpine Ridge 2C 2015]

New display is not shown nor in Wayland, nor in X11.

Do I have to run X/Wayland on NVIDIA for this to work?

Do I have to boot with UEFI for this to work (I'm using MBR)? It would be very strange if thats the case, but I just trying to gess what could be the difference.

I see the same 4 devices + 1 more (because my adapter has a USB port on it):

06:00.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation DSL6340 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Alpine Ridge 2C 2015]
07:00.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation DSL6340 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Alpine Ridge 2C 2015]
07:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation DSL6340 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Alpine Ridge 2C 2015]
07:02.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation DSL6340 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Alpine Ridge 2C 2015]
3e:00.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation DSL6340 USB 3.1 Controller [Alpine Ridge]

I'm not sure if UEFI vs. MBR could cause an issue. I'm booting with UEFI (secure boot enabled) and using GNOME 3 w/X11. EDIT: Also, my NVIDIA GPU is shut down via bumblebee/bbswitch.

I found out that if I force thunderbolt to flashing mode (./force_dell_tbt 1) which disables it's power management, then more devices show up. Dmesg: https://hastebin.com/raw/pewokaripo

lspci:
06:00.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation DSL6340 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Alpine Ridge 2C 2015]
07:00.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation DSL6340 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Alpine Ridge 2C 2015]
07:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation DSL6340 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Alpine Ridge 2C 2015]
07:02.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation DSL6340 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Alpine Ridge 2C 2015]
08:00.0 System peripheral: Intel Corporation DSL6340 Thunderbolt 3 NHI [Alpine Ridge 2C 2015]
3e:00.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation DSL6340 USB 3.1 Controller [Alpine Ridge]

But still no output.

When the controller is not in flashing mode and only the first 4 devices are detected, they show up in lspci, but after a few seconds they disappear. If it is in flashing mode, they never disappear.

xdever

Member

Registered: 2017-12-31

Posts: 8

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 (Early 2017)

I also see 4 new devices in lspci:

06:00.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation DSL6340 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Alpine Ridge 2C 2015]
07:00.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation DSL6340 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Alpine Ridge 2C 2015]
07:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation DSL6340 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Alpine Ridge 2C 2015]
07:02.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation DSL6340 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Alpine Ridge 2C 2015]

New display is not shown nor in Wayland, nor in X11.

Do I have to run X/Wayland on NVIDIA for this to work?

Do I have to boot with UEFI for this to work (I'm using MBR)? It would be very strange if thats the case, but I just trying to gess what could be the difference.

I see the same 4 devices + 1 more (because my adapter has a USB port on it):

06:00.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation DSL6340 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Alpine Ridge 2C 2015]
07:00.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation DSL6340 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Alpine Ridge 2C 2015]
07:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation DSL6340 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Alpine Ridge 2C 2015]
07:02.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation DSL6340 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Alpine Ridge 2C 2015]
3e:00.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation DSL6340 USB 3.1 Controller [Alpine Ridge]

I'm not sure if UEFI vs. MBR could cause an issue. I'm booting with UEFI (secure boot enabled) and using GNOME 3 w/X11. EDIT: Also, my NVIDIA GPU is shut down via bumblebee/bbswitch.

I found out that if I force thunderbolt to flashing mode (./force_dell_tbt 1) which disables it's power management, then more devices show up. Dmesg: https://hastebin.com/raw/pewokaripo

lspci:
06:00.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation DSL6340 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Alpine Ridge 2C 2015]
07:00.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation DSL6340 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Alpine Ridge 2C 2015]
07:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation DSL6340 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Alpine Ridge 2C 2015]
07:02.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation DSL6340 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Alpine Ridge 2C 2015]
08:00.0 System peripheral: Intel Corporation DSL6340 Thunderbolt 3 NHI [Alpine Ridge 2C 2015]
3e:00.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation DSL6340 USB 3.1 Controller [Alpine Ridge]

But still no output.

When the controller is not in flashing mode and only the first 4 devices are detected, they show up in lspci, but after a few seconds they disappear. If it is in flashing mode, they never disappear.

I simply can't understand whats happening. I got another adapter, which I tested at the place I got it, and it worked without any problems. I got it home, and with my monitor, it does nothing. I plug the monitor to my old macbook with a homemade passive mini display port to display port adapter, and it works.

The monitor is 2560x1600, but according to the adapters specification, it supports it.

syms

Member

Registered: 2008-12-25

Posts: 296

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 (Early 2017)

Does anyone else have laggy GNOME performance on this laptop 4k screen version? its a bit annoying that animations are not very smooth there

xdever

Member

Registered: 2017-12-31

Posts: 8

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 (Early 2017)

I see the same 4 devices + 1 more (because my adapter has a USB port on it):

06:00.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation DSL6340 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Alpine Ridge 2C 2015]
07:00.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation DSL6340 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Alpine Ridge 2C 2015]
07:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation DSL6340 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Alpine Ridge 2C 2015]
07:02.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation DSL6340 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Alpine Ridge 2C 2015]
3e:00.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation DSL6340 USB 3.1 Controller [Alpine Ridge]

I'm not sure if UEFI vs. MBR could cause an issue. I'm booting with UEFI (secure boot enabled) and using GNOME 3 w/X11. EDIT: Also, my NVIDIA GPU is shut down via bumblebee/bbswitch.

I found out that if I force thunderbolt to flashing mode (./force_dell_tbt 1) which disables it's power management, then more devices show up. Dmesg: https://hastebin.com/raw/pewokaripo

lspci:
06:00.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation DSL6340 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Alpine Ridge 2C 2015]
07:00.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation DSL6340 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Alpine Ridge 2C 2015]
07:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation DSL6340 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Alpine Ridge 2C 2015]
07:02.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation DSL6340 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Alpine Ridge 2C 2015]
08:00.0 System peripheral: Intel Corporation DSL6340 Thunderbolt 3 NHI [Alpine Ridge 2C 2015]
3e:00.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation DSL6340 USB 3.1 Controller [Alpine Ridge]

But still no output.

When the controller is not in flashing mode and only the first 4 devices are detected, they show up in lspci, but after a few seconds they disappear. If it is in flashing mode, they never disappear.

I simply can't understand whats happening. I got another adapter, which I tested at the place I got it, and it worked without any problems. I got it home, and with my monitor, it does nothing. I plug the monitor to my old macbook with a homemade passive mini display port to display port adapter, and it works.

The monitor is 2560x1600, but according to the adapters specification, it supports it.

I finally found out what was the problem. It's not related to the laptop at all. All my USB-C - Display Port adapters have a series resistor between 3.3V and DP_PWR pin. This prevents all active adapters from working (in my case it was DP->Dual link DVI). Remove the resistor and bridge it with a piece of wire and voila! Everything suddenly begins to work: DVI adapter, VGA adapter, etc.

hedgepigdaniel

Member

Registered: 2014-01-07

Posts: 42

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 (Early 2017)

I have no time to investigate the tunderbolt problem further.

But I made a simple tool for undervolting the CPU and GPU. Maybe someone find it useful:

https://github.com/xdever/linux-intel-undervolt-tool

Coool! I turned it into an aur package: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/linu … volt-tool/

wolfhoundjesse

Member

Registered: 2018-02-23

Posts: 3

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 (Early 2017)

I'm just here to say that I love this machine! I have the 5520.

I have this script:

#!/bin/sh

xrandr --output VIRTUAL1 --off --output eDP1 --primary --mode 3840x2160 --pos 1968x2     160 --rotate normal --output DP1 --off --output HDMI2 --off --output DP2-1 --off --o     utput DP2-2 --mode 1920x1080 --pos 3840x0 --rotate normal --scale 2x2 --output DP2-3      --off --output HDMI1 --off --output DP1-3 --off --output DP1-2 --mode 1920x1080 --p     os 0x0 --rotate normal --scale 2x2 --output DP1-1 --off --output DP2 --off & feh --n     o-fehbg --bg-fill ~/Pictures/annapolis.jpg

I know there is some extraneous stuff going on there, but the main point is that when I run my laptop monitor and my two externals (powered with the TB-16) at the same time, I experience some pretty heavy performance issues with VS Code (pretty sure it's upstream issue with Electron that has to do with scaling). I tried modifying the script to just run the two externals, but no such luck.

Next I would open arandr and switch the laptop screen off. That worked perfectly, and the performance issues were gone!

A few weeks ago, however ... that stopped working, and the externals won't stay powered on. If anyone has experienced and resolved this issue, I'm all ears!

ferkulat

Member

Registered: 2005-12-03

Posts: 7

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 (Early 2017)

A few weeks ago, however ... that stopped working, and the externals won't stay powered on. If anyone has experienced and resolved this issue, I'm all ears!

I had to downgrade to:
xorg-server 1.19.5-1
xorg-server-common 1.19.5-1
xorg-server-devel 1.19.5-1
xorg-server-xdmx 1.19.5-1
xorg-server-xephyr 1.19.5-1
xorg-server-xnest 1.19.5-1
xorg-server-xvfb 1.19.5-1
xorg-server-xwayland 1.19.5-1
and also mesa made problems:
I had to stick with
mesa 17.1.8-1

and set all of these packages to ignore by pacman.

About mesa: It was not about the external screens, but messed up my gnome desktop.

Edit 31.march.2020:
The old packages seem to start making trouble.
I updated all of them and it works: External screens connected to the dock work as they should.
Its not necessary anymore to keep the old packages.

Last edited by ferkulat (2020-03-31 05:51:53)

wolfhoundjesse

Member

Registered: 2018-02-23

Posts: 3

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 (Early 2017)

Thanks for the suggestion! I went back even further to no avail. I'm wondering if it could be something with power management.

neverfox

Member

Registered: 2013-09-14

Posts: 1

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 (Early 2017)

Brand new 9650 and new Arch install (dual booting with Windows 10) and I'm not having luck with the discrete graphics configuration, despite trying what seemed to be the most recent best practices from this thread. First, a little background. For the first five days or so, I was busy screwing around with i3 and didn't bother with anything nvidia/bumblebee/bbswitch related. In other words, the NVIDIA card has been running this whole time and I've also spent all of that time on external power. Just yesterday, I decided to install all of the latest nvidia-related packages (pacman -S bumblebee bbswitch primus nividia), enabled the bubblebeed service and added the asci_rev_override=1 switch to my kernel parameters. After rebooting, the card was off and I continued about my work. At some point I went to battery power and when I started X, the screen went haywire after less than a minute and the kernel panicked. I tried several more reboots and the pattern was the same: battery power, start x, chaos...sometimes with a kernel panic and sometimes with just the flickering screen and a hard lock, but happens 100% of the time. At first I thought maybe I'd gone overboard with my X configuration but I reset everything to vanilla and it was still happening. Sure enough, once I disabled the service, removed the packages and kernel flag, no issues (but 21W power consumption is back, of course).

uname -r 4.15.7-1-ARCH
nvidia 390.25-15
bumblebee 3.2.1-16
bbswitch 0.8-115
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="cryptdevice=UUID=<uuid>:cryptroot quiet acpi_rev_override=1"
nouveau blacklisted
no TLP or powertop optimizations

My goal is to conserve power when on battery but also to use the discrete card for CUDA work (neural nets mostly) when I need to explicitly. Is what I've done not the current best practice? It was my understanding that the newer kernels accept the switch without recompile, but if there's something else I should be trying, I would greatly appreciate some guidance. Between the WIKI, this thread, and a few blog posts, there seem to be a lot of iterations and I'm not sure what's outdated practice and what's still worth trying.