Dell XPS 13 2015 Broadwell Infinity Display Owners Thread

I have narrowed down my Windows 10 issues to the XPS sound card and/or drivers.

With the Realtek audio enabled, anything that uses the sound card will hang, which caused Lync and Skype to fail to launch and also IE to crash any time that a site uses Flash.

Disabling these and just using the USB audio of my headset has fixed all such issues and my XPS now absolutely flies.

Somebody mentioned seeing a new Realtek audio driver appear in Dell Update - I can't find a newer driver through this or by visiting the Dell site. Has anyone seen a Realtek driver newer than 6.3.9600.118, 25/12/2014?

 

Are there any advanced wifi settings, all I can find are the stupid charms PC settings.

 

Thanks so much iBanshe and Spritelite really appreciate it! That's promising at least, as the XPS 12 I bought did it unfortunately.

 

If you own the XPS for only a few weeks, and you think the product was defective out of the box, ask for replacement IMO.

I only had experience with Dell Business and it was very good. I literally had to put the Latitude in the prepaid box and send them back. The turn around was only a couple days and they shipped via overnight.

 

There are 2 tiny holes.

 

I can tell you right away that it won't work.

 

As always, they are in Device Manager:

 

Hello, I think I have some bad news... Please take into account that my screen is probably faulty; cf. http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/xps-13-2015-fhd-too-dim-picture-added.772258/

Notice that I didn't see the flickering my real eyes. It was nonetheless recorded by the camera. Afterwards on the video I can, of course, see it.

I didn't take a picture, but made a movie. I uploaded it to "File Dropper" free hosting site. Others feel free to take a look also: http://www.filedropper.com/20150301185625

 

I trust that your brightness was set to 100% before taking the photo?

What's your camera's frame rate? Refresh rate/frame rate mismatch could be the reason why you don't see any flickering with your "real eyes".

 

Yes, brightness is 100% on all screens on first link.

I don't know my refresh rate (Samsung S5 camera). I assumed that Lee M's eyes are more sensitive and can detect what the camera detects.

It's also possible there is some mechanism of mismatch/interpolation between light emitted from screen and flash. I don't know the physics behind it.

 

Just back from a weekend ski trip so didn't spend any significant time with the laptop. However, we shot some footage on a GoPro at 4K 30fps which looked great (the card reader proved to be a great time saver too).

If you have some favourite 4k reference material feel free to point me to it and I can download it - that way we will be comparing apples to apples. Years back when 1080p was relatively new I used to use a Blu-ray copy of Planet Earth (BBC documentary) when comparing monitors since it was one of the best recordings available at the time.

 

Sorry, I couldn't resist... what color is the dress?

 

On the XPS it is a non-issue, the dress is accurately blue and black

 

Just wanted to let you guys know I ordered this Surface pro 3 sleeve by Snugg from Amazon after looking at the dimensions of the XPS vs the Surface Pro 3. It fits! Its definitely an extremely 'snugg' fit but I'm hoping that it'll loosen up after use. You really have to shove it in there to get the magnetic flap to close, but other than that I haven't noticed any issues with it.

Here's a link to amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Snugg-Surface-Pro-Case-Guarantee/dp/B00M31BPOY/
Here's some pictures: http://imgur.com/a/yNDml

 

No wait it seems okay to me yvda! That's not flickering, that's just what I'd expect to see, since the phone has trouble focusing sometimes. See when you moved the phone closer near the end? That's the best way to test it, like when you move it a few inches from the screen, you notice it looks pretty normal. The only thing is that its only at low brightness that it does it if it had it. Here's a really good example, this person is filming their screen, that's what it would look like

See how at 100% brightness it completely stops? It's because at 100% the LEDs are on full, so they don't go on or off, but as you dim it they flash on and off. So it's really more in the 10-30% brightness range I'm interested to see if it does it, but again what you showed in the video is what I would expect to see. The pwm display is like in that YouTube video.

When I had the Surface Pro 3 someone on one forum had one of those devices that measures refresh rates on the screen, and he could see that as soon as it 50% that's where the Hz or whatever it is dropped but above that it didn't flicker, and when you'd do the camera test it matched up, would be perfect until you hit 50% brightness and then you'd see an effect similar to the video.

Just curious to those that did the camera test, was the display dim like under 30%? That's where I always keep my display since I can't have it too bright. It seems really promising though, thank you so much for the video!

 

Nevermind...

 

Yes there is definitely no screen flickering at all, I know what it is and I tested it don't worry .
Can anybody confirm that IE11 uses a lot more memory than Chrome and Firefox do? Average IE11 takes up 100-120MB RAM for every tab opened, is it normal? If I open more than 20 tabs the laptop starts to stutter a lot to a point it is completely unusable I have to force shutdown the laptop

 

Samsung XP941 PCIe 512gb works - replacing the stock sata drive. I did a system restore from Windows 8 recovery usb drive. Then I had to fix the boot record ( http://www.fixedbyvonnie.com/2013/12/how-to-repair-the-efi-bootloader-in-windows-8/ ) boot into safe mode once, and then reboot normally.

 

dtiddy: Thanks for the great news! How much did you pay for it by the way?

 

Can anyone comment on Virtual Machine performance? Specifically VMware Player or VirtualBox running Server 2008R2 with SQL Server / Analysis Services / IIS / Office / etc etc..

Anyone have experience of running some demanding VM's on the 8GB i5 or i7 models?

Thanks!

 

1. Chrome is basically a memory hog. Google Music streaming is very laggy, I would rather stream it via my Moto X. The gmail is also not fluid via Chrome. Something is definitely wrong with it.

2. I am not able to calculate the actual time on the battery. How do I find out how long I've been on the charge?

 

I do RAW photo processing in OS X Yosemite running inside the latest version of VMware. I also run Windows 7 Home SP1 and Ubuntu 12.04 for other needs. Smooth performance, love it.

 

Does anyone experience issues with the mic? I have the FHD i5 version and in Skype calls the other side always says the sound is low and very choppy. Tried turned up the mic level then there is a lot of feedback. Hope there is a solution before I have to return mine to MS. Thanks!

 

Cool - thanks

 

Use the Skype call test service to find out what it really sounds like, would be a good first step

 

Amazon's going price last Friday thru ramcity. Around $1 per gb

 

Hi guys, can you please check if you have this issue. http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/xps-13-2015-white-screen-issue.772217/

 

Tried using a bluetooth headset in Skype and it's fine so I am suspecting the built-in mic is faulty.

 

Not ^

Where is the mic located? And the mic settings?

 

Would you mind benchmarking the XP941 and sharing your results?

 

coming back to the fan topic i started again about 2 pages back:

so i opened a support ticket because of my rattling fan when the machine is being tilted. they wanted to send a technician but i refused and asked for a replacement instead which they couldnt offer. so ups picked it up yesterday for a refund.
i didnt wanna go through a waiting time of 2 weeks again so i just ordered another identical machine from an online shop here in germany which arrived 2 days later. and guess what: same issue!

i think that they have a full batch of faulty fans because my "replacement" device was just built about 1 week before my initial one was. so ill just stick with it for now and in about a month or so will send my pc in for repair in high hopes that they will replace the fan with a working one.

as far as im concerned only (or mostly) i7 machines are affected as i saw a few youtube videos showing the same rattling fan noises in i7 devices.

 

Didn't know you can run OS X inside of Windows. Is that VMware workstation?

 

Adaptive Brightness is in advanced power settings.

 

Google "yosemite vmware image" and you'll find download links and also instructions on how to create an image yourself.

 

That's good to know. It is not too big of a deal, just annoying really since I know what the 3k IGZO panels really look like. But I have gotten used to it. Overall, I think I am going to keep the laptop. The only issue I really have is that I cannot use Chrome due to the scrolling issues. I am not really sure what to do about that one but it is by far the most frustrating thing to me about this notebook.

 

This setting doesn't do anything. The content-adaptive contrast/brightness is still enable regardless of this setting.
That's the problem.

 

Maybe I just don't notice it then. But I have never had any problems with this.

 

Can I connect my XPS13 FHD screen with a 4K external Dell monitor?

I know there are issues of scaling using two monitors. My goal is to use one monitor and close my laptop.

Is the resolution merely "part of" (1) external monitor, or (2) Intel graphic drivers on my laptop, (3) something else specific to my FHD buy;

Or does the FHD screen I have now, not limit the max resolution on external screen?

In particular, I would like to know if somebody is using an external monitor and is really happy with it? Preferrabily I want something with not too much glare; matte, yet sharp enough

 

anyone got three finger gestures working for the touchpad?

 

Yes. I run Dell's P2715Q @ 3840x2160/60hz.

External monitor's resolution is not limited by your built-in display's resolution.

 

my fan is constantly on....is this normal? it gets really loud like a vacuum when i'm watching a youtube video. My fan also makes a grinding noise when i tilt my laptop slightly.....I'm pretty disappointed with the product. I'm planning to call dell support after work tomorrow. Should i be asking for a exchange or have the tech fix it?

 

exchange!

 

Yes, working fine under Windows 10 TP 9926.

 

Thanks for your reply.

Some guy on youtube said one need strong video card & processor to push all those pixels on external screen. If you connect your laptop to screen, is it quiet?

I have i7/8gbram, FHD.... W.r.t. good graphic cards, I have Intel 5500 (same on FHD as QHD) so I don't think it matters. And since the Intel 5500 can render 4k on laptop-screen, it should also be able to render 4k on external monitor. Right?

Nonetheless, quietness is important criteria.

 

"Quiet" depends on your software setup and what you do. If you're running an optimized player/codec combo to play 60fps 4K content, you won't hear a sound. Open a couple of tabs in Google Chrome that has a few addons installed, and your ultrabook will sound like it's ready for take-off.

 

Cool!! Would you be able to share a 4k video of your own?

I'm also looking at this. How is the quality? Do you regret buying or would you recommend it? Any comments on the sleeve itself, like you feel it protects enough? Is it real leather?

 

What I noticed while having fan noise is that windows defender was running a scheduled scan, disabled that and the fan runs much less now. You'll have to disable it in task scheduler as the new defender doesn't keep it in the settings. Also disabled a few other auto update schedules. Have a look.

A question about the bios. How did you guys found out that you have a new bios update? I'm not getting any notification from dell updater, only seeing the realtek audio one.

 

I created RSS feed on their web site that shows all updates as they appear.

 

You can go on to dell support website and put in your dell number thingy and it will pull all the drivers & bios available to download. I believe there's 1 Bios currently

I have windows defender and mcafee both turned off and my fan is on almost constantly. Never heard my fan turn off before. Is yours like that too?

 

Thought I'd throw in my thoughts for any prospective buyers (or a sympathetic ear):

On paper, the Dell XPS 13 2015 was the perfect machine for me. But no machine is truly perfect. Many issues have been discussed in this forum, such as the adaptive brightness (which doesn't bother me in the slightest), variable trackpad (mostly ok, but could be better, especially compared to my 2007 MacBook), the over-aggressive fan (even with the profile set to "Quiet"), and various software issues which are difficult to assign blame for (Chrome's absurd CPU usage, for instance). In addition I've had the following 'bonus' problems:

1. The laptop shipped with a loose spacebar key which could actually catch sometimes and make pressing it create a worrying clunking sound. Credit to Dell (savour it while it lasts, they don't do much else right in my view) they sent an engineer round the morning after I phoned them about it, who very patiently stripped down the entire machine to replace the whole keyboard unit. The keyboard is fine now. I really like it actually.
2. I can't reliably connect to 5G wifi networks. This is really disappointing, since my aforementioned 8-year-old MacBook can connect to them fine, and there were hardly any 5G networks around when I first got it. Strangely the issue goes away using Ubuntu. FIXED SEE UPDATE
3. Today I've suddenly found myself without working Bluetooth or audio in Windows! It looks like I'll have to get the engineer round again, but that won't be until Monday and having to wait in all morning or afternoon is frankly a waste of my time FIXED SEE UPDATE

I'm seriously considering returning this based on the failure of simple QA in this product. Maybe I've been unlucky, but the sheer number problems is quite impressive. Even now, typing this post, I'm noticing significant lag between keystrokes and the letters appearing on-screen. This is meant to be an i7!

If this really is the best PC laptop on the market, and these issues can't be resolved, then I'll be considering another MacBook. Or maybe giving up on laptops altogether and becoming a lumberjack.

EDIT: After rolling back the Bluetooth driver and reinstalling the audio codec, everything seems to be working now, even, oddly, the 5G wifi. Annoying, but at least it's working now.