Dell XPS 13 2015 Broadwell Infinity Display Owners Thread

No longer issue. Had to mess around with Dell audio software settings. This one is on me.

The below post is non valid. Make sure you don't disable Dell audio on startup!


Headset Issue:

Ok. So when I plug in the earphone, the sound still comes out from the speakers.

I disabled and re-enabled the audio drivers and it worked, until I put it to sleep. So everytime it goes to sleep, the same issue. This is with clean Win 8.1 install.

Pretty sure it's a software thing, since when it works, the 3.5mm jack sounds just fine.

I will just have to call up Dell and ask what's going on.

 

Make sure your using the newest audio drivers, dated Jan 29th!

 

This one is on me! I had to work with the Dell audio software settings and make sure computer realize that what I plugged in was an earphone.

Yes, very unnecessary... But good audio! Both headphone and speakers!

 

I've noticed that Chrome starts using so many resources that my touchpad keeps cutting out for a minute or two, even with just a few tabs open. I recall this happened a few times on my Samsung ATIV 9 Plus, but not as frequently as it seems to be happening now (I have the i7, 8GB 9343). I think I improved it somewhat on the Samsung by increasing the process priority for the touchpad, but I can't find where to do that on my XPS.

Has anyone else come across this? What browsers are you guys using?

Good extension/addon support is pretty important, I used Firefox for a short time last year and there wasn't a good HoverZoom alternative.

 

I recieved my dell xps13 yesterday, i7 version, noticed a small gap in the mating surfaces of the case, removed the aluminum bottom of the laptop to find battery screws loose and the sd card reader unplugged... i cleaned it all up and its perfect now, but not very impressed with that from a build standpoint.

 

I got my XPS 13 2015 yesterday. After 60 min use I must say I am very disappointed.

My spec; i7-5500U, QHD+(3200 x 1800) infinity touch display, 8 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD, DW 1560 Wireless.


1. Fan Noise is the worst I have ever had on any laptop. CPU temps at 50 % load is 80 C ++. Fan spins up and down every 5-10 sec under load and the fan noise itself sound metallic. Really really bad.

2. Battery life is supposed to be 10+ hrs with my spec. According to Windows I have 4,2 hrs at 100 % battery. Not even 50 % of what Dell claims.


Anyone else that got these issues?

 

i7/8GB/256GB version

My XPS13 is quite silent. The fan goes on once in a while, if I have a bunch of things running, but nothing much, but maybe it's because of the current low ambient temperature.

Regarding the battery life, I can get to the 10+ hrs if I leave it on standby, but that's worth nothing. Web browsing and some youtube playing, I get it to ~5/6 hrs on minimum screen brightness.


The biggest issue for me is the touchpad: it jumps if you slightly touch it with another finger and worst of all, scrolling on Firefox/Chrome is just awful. The second issue, it has a bad support for Linux. These are the reasons why I'm thinking about returning it. Otherwise, I love it: it seems to have a good build quality, the screen is just fantastic and it's super stylish. Not to mention the specs. I'm currently 50/50 on returning it. My "idea" is to return it and buy it again when they launch the Ubuntu version, because when they do, Linux will have at least a good support and I hope an even better one for Windows, including the touchpad fix.

 

These are exactly my issues with mine....I have the i5 QHD+ display & my two issues so far are the battery and fan. When the display is on, the battery drains faster than anything i've ever seen!! And as soon as you do something even remotely intensive, like opening up chrome, the fan comes on full blast and never lets up!!! I'm hoping they address these 2 things...because it is a beautiful machine otherwise, the screen is gorgeous and responsive, good keyboard...the touchpad has its pros and cons...I find clicking something very specific could sometimes be fine, but other times be very cumbersome...

Oh, and the WiFi seems to be slower than on my older laptop....I have a 75MB download speed from Fios & while my old laptop routinely would hit 80+, this fails to get above 50...I find that pretty strange that my 7 year old laptop has faster wifi speeds than 1 day old dell xps13...anyone else have slow WiFi problems?

Those are just my takeaways....

 

I captured the noise with the camera on my mobile phone. Take a look at this a judge for yourself.

 

How do you know what battery life is if you've only had it 60 minutes?

My fan was loud the first couple days. After all the updates and whatnot, it settled down. Now it's mostly silent.

Be smart with your power profiles. I use BatteryBarPro and it switches power profiles when I plugin or plug out. Plugged in, I'm using High Performance. Unplugged, I use Power Saver. And I stopped using Chrome, only using IE now. So far, unplugged I'm around 7-8 hours or so at around 40% brightness. I'm pretty happy with that.

 

Well I've had mine a few days now, I have no build quality issues, no undue fan noise including under load. The Intel WiFi has been strong and consistent, no issues with the track pad, not as smooth as my MacBook but thats a software issue anyway. As for Chrome, it is one of the most intensive and power hungry programs you can install I'm not surprised that the XPS both heats up and drains the battery, it's due to bad programming. Try the native IE, far better than it used to be, Chrome is just becoming a resource hog imo. As for the battery life I won't start measuring it for a couple of weeks it needs proper conditioning and use first. So far for me I'm finding it an excellent laptop with barely any downsides.

 

What updates did you do to cause your fans to settle down? I'm getting pretty bored of constantly hearing my fans loudly whirring away as soon as I turn the laptop on :/

Edit: Think I misread what you said.

 

I'm pretty much in the same boat as you. The touchpad is my biggest issue right now, but at least I know its something fixable through driver updates. Fan is mostly quiet besides a few weird quirks that I'm sure dell will work out at some point through updates. Computer is really stylish and very snappy. I'm leaning towards keeping it at this point and hoping Dell/Microsoft work out the touchpad considering I was able to get the i7 version for $1395. The equivalent ativ book 9 with broadwell would prob cost me an extra $200. I am however getting a replacement computer since the one I currently have has 2 dead pixels in the top right quadrant. Other than that, this computer has no issues that can't be addressed with driver/firmware updates.

 

That's loud as hell. Mine isn't nearly that loud, even when doing multiple strenuous tasks like editing and rendering videos, photos, downloading stuff, and browsing the internet all at once.

 

I can't thank you enough for the BatteryBarPro info. I frequently plug my laptop in and out and was really wishing there was a way that the computer would automatically switch between my custom high performance and power saver profiles. Doing it myself only takes a few seconds, but in the days of automated everything, it's noticeable.

 

I'm saying that the fans were loud at first, while the system downloaded and installed all the updates. I'm a big user of OneDrive and for the first couple days it was syncing, which is a serious resource hog. Then I installed all my apps... Office, Visio, Photoshop, Acrobat, etc. That took time. Like I said, I stopped using Chrome. Without ever opening it, there were 4 processes running in the background. Trackpad works tons better in IE anyways.

It's easy enough to see what's chewing on your CPU in Resource Monitor.

 

How is video and photo editing on this laptop? Is video rendering good and fast? When editing the video does it have lag or takes a while to load?

 

Do any one encounter the quote and double quote issue in XPS 13 which is described in below link? I have tried to follow the instruction in Win8.1 but in vain. Grateful if someone have an advice.

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/t/19465001

 

I don't have this problem and you should probably start a new thread for this. But if I had to guess, it's related to the software's language. I've seen something like this before and it was happening on some software I got from a torrent. It was software with a different default language. Once I changed the language it worked.

 

Hi guys,

yesterday I got the QHD, I7-5500U, 256 GB. Overnight I ran all the windows updates and have a little problem here. The touchpad is less sensitive now ie. I have to travel more times with my finger to get from one edge of the screen to the other. The strange thing is that before I log in to windows the touchpad works like yesterday but whenever I log in it is as described.

Ideas anyone? And is it normal that I have 2 mouse devices (PS/2 and HID) in device manager?

Thank you for any input.

 

I haven't seen the issue with the tracking changing after Windows updates but I think it's normal to have the two mice in device manager as I do on mine.

John

 

My fans were also really loud while installing windows updates. After all updates finished. I shut down and went to bed. When I boot up the next morning, I don't hear any fans when browsing the internet.

 

By the way, Lisa Gade from mobiletechreview is definitely reading these posts, she addressed some of your concerns in her latest video. I think someone claimed the touchpads were different on the QHD+ and 1080P model, which she said is false
Along with the fan thing, she said it's almost always silent.

 

Hey guys,
Steve Schardein from Notebookcheck here. Just wanted to let you guys know that I read these forums frequently also. I can't make any promises as my week is ridiculously busy, but if you have any specific questions about my review I will try and answer them for you.
Have a great Saturday!

 

Maybe you can get an official word from Dell about the adaptive display. That's the only thing that bothers me about this laptop.

 

You mean to say you guys are experiencing brightness fluctuations or something? In my experience when DAD/DBC is not configurable (sometimes in the BIOS) on affected machines, it's actually the Intel Graphics driver power savings which are to blame. You can adjust them by going into the Intel display control panel, choosing Power, changing the label in the upper left from Plugged In to On Battery, and then disabling Intel Graphics Power Savings.

I didn't experience anything on our review unit and that feature is disabled. Hope this helps.

 

Dear othersteve,

The option is not available in the Intel graphics driver menu -- that's the whole issue.

The issue is outlined here (including screenshots): http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/t/19615395

Thanks for taking interest in the issue.

 

p.s. did someone try the suggestion by balong48 @ http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/p/19615395/20725291#20725291 I don't have my XPS 13 (yet)... so I cannot try it...

For convenience, I quote the passage of the external link...

 

I'm leaning towards sending my unit back due to the fan noise and heat as I'm finding it uncomfortable to use when on a lap even though I'm in a cold room. It was particularly bad out of the box but I gave it time to get its various software updates after which it did improve but it still revs the fan up often even when the system is largely idling, it's a very intrusive noise which reminds me of a loud optical drive.

The screen (I have the QHD+) and trackpad seem to work well in the Touch interface but not so well in the desktop interface, there's a lot of ugly scaling and the performance from the touchpad seems unpredictable - I find scrolling in a desktop browser difficult and inconsistent. I just don't understand why thin-ness is so important that it means sacrificing just about everything (available ports, accessible parts, removable battery, keyboard, fans, heat) to make it slightly thinner.

John

 

You guys are right, the option is missing from the Intel CP on this review unit as well.

@ kristof1234: That option is sadly absent as well.

 

I've tried that. There is no "Dell Extended Battery Life Options".

 

I would assume this is implemented for battery saving purposes and hope they update the bios soon to atleast allow us to disable it.

 

That's kinda the point for buying this laptop. Ultra portability. There's no way to have that and still get 3 USB ports, full size HDMI/DisplayPort, and replaceable guts. That's why RAM is soldered on these days, to reduce space. Removable battery? Same thing.

If I were you, I'd look at the Lenovo T440s. World class keyboard, swappable batteries, plenty of full size ports, and up to 12GB RAM. It just weights 3.5 lbs.

 

No, it's plenty fast! No lag whatsoever. My editing program starts in a flash. Given, I usually only edit with it plugged in and a power plan set to high-performance. It actually renders faster and has better responsiveness than my 2 year old Windows 7 HP desktop, which I find hilarious. It looks fantastic, too. However, on a 13 inch screen, video editing will be cramped..at least in Sony Vegas, it is. I am constantly re-positioning the windows to fit whatever editing need that presents itself. However, photo editing is much less cramped compared to video editing. That's just something I have to deal with if I want a portable laptop like this, though.

Remember, this is a high-end laptop. If it wasn't lightning fast, I'd send it back.

 

So with the notebookcheck review piece (i5, QHD+), there was no noise while idling and battery in idle about 15 hours, web surfing test 9,5 hours! I dont understand how someone could have a piece that have fans always on and someone else's is quiet with the same tasks.
Regarding to the battery - probably the automated test @NTBCHK proves that if you dont use the touchpad the battery runtime could be much much higher. Anyone wants to try to do a web surfing test comparison with touchpad and wired external mouse?

othersteve: could you please check the usual power consumption? It seems like in the low idle your unit was discharging by a rate of just around 3W which is outstanding considering the QHD+ screen. To be able to achieve the 9,5 hours it can not use much more than 5W in average which would be really great. Is that really possible with that set up in real use?

 

No, that's not true at all - being thin doesn't make at any more portable even though it means sacrificing everything pretty much. The thin-ness doesn't make it any lighter nor reduce the foot print, I would much rather take a slightly deeper machine and get all those features back but obviously it works well for manufacturers if you can't replace or upgrade components. I have a very old Sony TX which is one of the original ultraportables and also one of the first with an LED screen, it's a tiny very light machine yet has a removable battery (7800Mah standard, 13000Mah extended), upgradeable memory, Ethernet and VGA ports, great keyboard and even an optical drive.

An odd recommendation, aside from being a much larger device it has the worst touchpad I have ever come across on any PC, it's the only one I have to use a mouse with because even the trackpoint isn't usable as its buttons are part of the touchpad. Unfortunately the X240 shares the same touchpad and most of the same flaws as well with all the status lights being removed.

I am giving serious thought to the older X230, it's the same footprint and weight as the XPS 13 but it packs in a decent range of ports, most of its parts are upgradeable and it runs silent most of the time with an SSD. No decent display options, no keyboard backlighting and only Ivybridge are an issue though and while the trackpad buttons are a waste of time at least the trackpoint buttons work fine.

 

With the power plan set to "high performance", Google Chrome running with ~10 open tabs & ~20-30% CPU utilization, the fan never shuts down. CPU temperature is around ~70C.

Unless you run the system in "power saver" mode, crank the screen brightness down and keep just a browser/few programs open, you won't get your <50C temperatures and noiseless operation.

 

I guess part of the problem is how do you define idle, when I say my PC is idling it's when I'm not using it and I'm not running any applications however there is still software running in the background which can need the processor and cause the fan to spin up. My XPS 13 is sitting silent while it's idling at the moment but last night it was quite noisy as there looked to be some background updates and installs going on. The problem for me isn't so much the fan coming on, it's the fact it's very noticeable - it seems to be on or off rather than being able to spin up quietly for background tasks like other machines can it just fires up quite audibly every time time it's required. I'm finding in normal use the fan is intrusive and given the underside of the laptop feels quite warm it's not that the fan behaviour is being overly cautious.

I have the i7 with the QHD+ screen and 9.5 hours doesn't seem completely unreachable, I had the XPS 13 streaming video for most of yesterday evening and it still reckons it's got a couple of hours left.

John

 

I would venture that such behavior will subside notably after all available Windows Updates are applied. Have you done all of them yet after receiving the machine? It is invariably the first step I perform on any customer's new PC after receiving it.

As for Chrome -- yes, it can be heavy on the CPU at times. I find that it is equally often the fault of particular extensions running within the browser. Have you checked Chrome's built-in Task Manager option to separate which tabs/extensions/plugins might be to blame for this?

 

To all, a quick update on the Display Power Savings situation.

I have done some quick troubleshooting on my end and have discovered that Intel's driver settings at least do not appear to be responsible for this. Either that, or Dell's XPS 13 is using a special version of the driver with the settings hard-coded to work with it.

This registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4d36e968-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}\0000\PowerDpstAggressivenessLevel

Is what I have found to be responsible for storing the user's choice for power savings aggressiveness.

When DPST is at its highest setting, the contents of this Key will read 6. However, on the XPS 13, it is set to 0.

This means the problem must lie someplace else. It may well be a BIOS or firmware-level setting that we are wanting to control. I would suggest the next step for troubleshooting would be to investigate whether this problem also exists in other operating systems (i.e. Ubuntu, Linux, whatever). If so, it is something external to Windows that would need to be changed. I would check this but I simply do not have time at the moment.

I hope this helps.

 

Dear othersteve,

It has been reported in this thread that the problem also occurs on Win 7 and Ubuntu.

Thanks for your support.

 

Oh, I read through the Dell thread that was linked and assumed that the information was all contained therein.
In that case I suppose it's determined that we'll need to wait for correspondence from Dell for a fix.

 

Yes, it's the first step I do with my own machines as well - I was planning sending it straight back it was so noisy at that point but now it's just occasionally spinning up. It's just quite noticeable when it does fire up and there's quite often things going on in the background which will trigger it.

I thought I'd try running the QHD+ at 1600x900 since that's exactly a quarter of the resolution and switch the scaling to smallest. It's not as pin sharp as I'd expect given it's an exact multiple of the full resolution but it definitely looks far better without the odd scaling, I'm increasingly thinking it's better to send this one back and wait for the 1080p option and see if dell have sorted out some of the issues. I make my mind up then see the lovely infinity screen again and change my mind.

Edit - Touchpad seems much better with Vivaldi when scaling is set to smallest, much smoother and doesn't seem to get stuck showing large white squares while it loads

John

 

This is totally different compared to mine. My fan almost never comes on, and it certainly doesn't come on at 20-30% CPU utilization. Absolutely not, I am dead positive. Not to mention I have it set to full brightness and a high-performance power plan. This thing is dead silent 90% of the time, and if yours isn't the same way, there must be a problem with it. The only time the fan comes on for my computer is when I'm rendering an HD video, recording a video, installing a program, watching a YouTube video, browsing the internet, and running a virus scan, all at the same time.

 

The fan definitely comes on with mine (i7/QHD+) when the cpu is running at 20-30 percent, I just kicked off a virus scan which is sitting at around 24 percent and the fan took about five seconds of that before it spun up. I'm not in a particularly warm room either, I haven't been doing much else with the machine aside from light browsing.

John

 

Linustechtips just reviewed this

 

Same issue with the fan. The fan should not be running for the task I'm doing. I'm not doing cpu intensive task. mostly just digging through settings at the moment and lightly browsing.

 

Do all people with fan complaints have a i7/QHD+ configuration?

 

I wouldn't think it's a processor issue as the i5 and i7 are very similar however the screen resolution may make a difference.

John

 

Agreed. I have i7/QHD+. Mind you, I'm also powering an external 4K monitor.