Dell XPS 13 2015 Broadwell Infinity Display Owners Thread

I am getting brutally slow 4k read speeds in as ssd benchmark (12.8mb/s). Is anyone else experiencing this?

win 10 TP.

It takes about an hour for a new TP build to install...that cant be write?

 

CRIKEY!!!

The fact remains, though, I've upgraded the BIOS three times whilst fully encrypted with Bitlocker and haven't had any issues.

Both those articles are generic, though, they aren't specific to any particular device. They're also full of lots of vague language like:

I can safely conclude from experience that our XPS's aren't affected.

Actually, just noticed that the Microsoft article is for Windows Vista:

 

Maybe you didn't activate TPM?

Windows 8 BitLocker issue resolution–recovery key needed after BIOS update - http://blogs.technet.com/b/bobh/arc...d-after-bios-update.aspx#sthash.S9H5ZO2U.dpuf

Windows 7: Bitlocker and BIOS Firmware Upgrade - Locked out! - http://www.sevenforums.com/system-security/341890-bitlocker-bios-firmware-upgrade-locked-out.html

 

Has anyone managed to successfully install the following driver?

Intel(R) Management Engine Components Installer View details
Chipset_Driver_YVGN8_WN_10.0.30.1060_A01.EXE | Update Package for Microsoft® Windows® (107 MB)

I've tried installing over existing driver as well as remove, then install but inspecting in the device manager still shows older version (10.0.30.1054)

 

Same with
Dell Touchpad Firmware Update 9343_Firmware_T792T_WN32_18.1.48_A00.EXE
Still shows the older Microsoft" 6.x driver version

 

So i just received mine today. Wow its one beautiful machine. I will say, the trackpad was so disappointing right out of the box and the fan noise was a huge issue. I upgraded the BIOS and the new trackpad drivers and this thing is so fantastic. Very impressed!

One question I did have. Does anyone know how to adjust the screen scrolling? I want to switch it to natural, just like the touchpad.

Thanks!

 

That's because it's a touchpad *firmware* update. This applies to memory inside the touchpad and doesn't change your Windows drivers.

 

Hi, Im experiencing quite high levels of sound distortion at quite low level volumes. Mostly on podcast and youtube playback. Are the speakers just bad or is this an issue that can be fixed?

Any help would be much appreciated.

 

Would help if you were more specific with how to test for the issue you are experiencing, i.e. a youtube video/soundcloud audio and exactly what volume level.

 

Ok, Stephen Fry's voice becomes fuzzy at Vol.44 with YouTube vol. up full.

 

No issues on my machine. Sound normally is very good for a laptop and can easily fill a small room.

You might have a faulty speaker(s) and recommend you get it looked at by a dell tech and have it fixed/replaced.

 

So anyone have any ideas on the screen scrolling? I still can't find it

 

@submachine : You got me thinking. I went to Computer Management, and looked at the following:



All seems fine, it says that "C:" is BitLocker encrypted. So I checked the BitLocker page in Control Panel, same again. Then I clicked the "TPM Administrator" link in the bottom-left, and saw something very interesting: The TPM status was showing as:

"Ready for use, with reduced functionality"

What the heck does that mean? Did some googling and found the following page: http://www.surfaceforums.net/threads/new-user-tpm-setup.10355/
TL,DR: The TPM module needs to be prepared first, and only then will it show as "Ready for use".

So I did the following:

1. Turned BitLocker off and decrypted the whole hard disk.
2. Clicked "Prepare the TPM".
3. Selected the "Clear the TPM" option.
4. Windows rebooted into a very basic screen, asking to press F12 to confirm wiping the TPM.
5. Booted back into Windows, it says Windows will remember the (randomly generated) TPM password but do I want to back it up to removable media, and now shows as "Ready for use". The "Prepare the TPM..." option is now greyed out:



6. Turned BitLocker back on, re-encrypted the whole hard drive (it only took about 35 minutes).

Will this now mean that I can't flash BIOS updates without disabling BitLocker? Who knows for sure, but I'm not taking any chances now!
Thanks for pointing out the articles, I would never had known and looked into it otherwise.
Apologies to all for the long-winded post, but hopefully this will be helpful to somebody.

 

I don't think you can change the touchscreen scrolling direction. It's already set up as natural.

 

Does the XPS 13's touchpad have any way to do a middle click?

 

Looks like Dell definitely gimps the production speed on replacement units vs new orders. My replacement unit has been a "Work in progress" for longer than the entire time, from payment to delivery, of the first unit.

 

I recently ordered the XPS 13 9343 with QHD 3200x1800 Infinity Touch display, Intel Core i5-5200U processor, 8GB DDR3L RAM, and Samsung PM851 256GB SSD.

Pros:
- Great form factor, 13" screen in the body of an 11" laptop
- Build quality seems solid, the aluminium case is bullet proof and soft-touch carbon fibre body feels premium
- The QHD Infinity screen is beautiful, 4K videos look amazing, touch works well, negligible amount of light bleed on the bottom vertical edges (only noticeable on dark backgrounds viewed from an angle)
- I'm no touch typist but the keyboard feel is great considering the small amount of key travel
- Trackpad worked well even before the recent firmware was released, two-finger scrolling, tap-to-click, pinch-zoom, etc all work smoothly
- Wifi using the Dell Wireless 1560 adaptor is fast, regularly achieving close to 300 Mps downloading and uploading when connected to my Netgear R6300v2 Router
- Bluetooth on the Dell Wireless 1560 adaptor works seamlessly, my Logitech Ultrathin Touch Mouse T630 connects quickly with no drop-outs
- Recent BIOS updates A02/A03 have fixed the loud fan noises when starting certain apps or when the laptop is plugged in
- Core i5 and Intel 5500 Graphics has enough power to play some modern games on low settings (Titanfall is playable at 1080p on low settings)

Cons:
- Battery life is nowhere near the 10-11 hours advertised by Dell (I have been seeing 6-7 hours in light use even with Windows indexing turned off)
- Adaptive screen contrast cannot be disabled from Windows 8.1 or BIOS (although I do not really notice this during daily use)
- Trackpad buttons are a bit loud (tap-to-click and drag work well enough not to have to use the buttons anyway)
- Samsung PM851 256GB SSD connects using SATA interface rather than IDE (not as fast as SDDs in new Macbook Pro)
- Many applications do not scale properly on Windows 8.1, such as EA Origin and corporate remote access applications

In summary, the XPS 13 9343 is a great laptop, but the average battery life, adaptive screen contrast issues, and Windows 8.1 scaling issues prevent this from being a perfect laptop.
Perhaps Windows 10 may improve the scaling issues and battery life, but for now I think FHD Touch version of the XPS 13 9343 would be a better compromise of screen resolution and battery life.

Tip: For those in Hong Kong, it was $340 cheaper to order from Dell US (including US taxes) than from Dell Hong Kong (even though there is no sales tax in HK)!

 

How much extra speed do you get from the XP941 SSD and what is the extra cost?

 

you can only find it through the right charms bar -> settings -> change pc settings -> pc and devices -> mouse and touchpad -> invert scrolling.
translated from german so spelling might differ on your side
edit: do you really mean the scrolling on the screen? you cant change that

 

Apologies, the SSD that shipped with my Dell XPS 13 9343 was in fact a Samsung PM851 256GB, not a XP941 256GB.

Apparently the Samsung PM851 256GB M.2 form factor runs on SATA 3.0 with peak read/write performance of 540MB/S / 365MB/s, although I have not tested this myself.

 

Maybe, but I suspect instead that Dell is experiencing unexpectedly high demand for the device. They've hit a run and it's pretty clear they aren't keeping up yet with the demand for product. Microsoft's online store has been sold out now forever, and I've seen B&H Photo run dry at least once. Actually, make that twice -- they are sold out of the model I just bought.

So I think it's demand. Dell is probably not gimping you; they just cannot build these things fast enough.

 

I've been getting closer to six hours too. Sometimes the battery meter will claim I have nine hours to go, but those nine hours count down in faster than real time.

Another con, a subtle one, is that the trackpad is skewed to the right with respect to the home row keys. The base of my thumb hits it a lot while I'm typing, sending my cursor to various random locations. I am thinking about putting down a small piece of Gorilla Tape to mask off that upper right corner of the trackpad and prevent the problem. Dell should have properly centered the trackpad under the primary typing keys.

Agree with all your pros. This is a just a gem of a machine. Am really glad I took the plunge and bought one. This will be just the ticket for use on airline tray tables and similarly cramped quarters. Am liking the small size too. Now I'll need to replace my computer bag with something a lot smaller and lighter, so there's another win in the making.

 

I'd have expected demand to have peaked much closer to release, when I originally bought the thing. Demand for consumer devices is almost always highest right at release, and then tapers off fairly rapidly.

And I don't think this device is all that popular. Only the tech-aficionado's (about 0.001% of the entire market) seem to know this device even exists. So while I agree it's pretty damn popular with these people, that doesn't really constitute much demand.

 

In Last few weeks it was on sales all over the world.
it's the cheaper Ultra Book options in Europe that sell with full HD IPS matte or QHD (with nearly 95% sRGB and ~74% Adobe RGB gamma), 5th gen i5, 8GB, 256 SSD ....
every day there's a new review that tell us how this thing simply rocks!
I've bought a i7, QHD, 256GB version with a 17% Offs coupons on March 30th with supposed shipping date on April 7th, on my order confirmation it's supposed to arrive on April 27th.
Now the shipping date is currently projected at 24th April.
I see a long queue maybe also due a shortage of some parts but with all worlds production set in China..a world-wide surge on orders will sure have a huge impact on delivery date...

 

I am running win 10 technical preview and chrome canary, many of the scaling issues are resolved. The tradeoff, is the battery (qhd i5 256/8) is SIGNIFICANTLY diminished. On processor light tasks, I get at BEST 6 hours. I am already seeing an alarming amount of wear leveling as well. Although, I am sure a calibration will reduce some of that.

 

It's the most hyped product in years from the one of the largest laptop producers on the planet. And this thread already has 77 pages.

That is the biggest flaw on an otherwise perfect machine. I found a solution called "Touchpad Blocker", but supposedly there is a way to edit the registry to change the size of the active touchpad area.

 

I ordered my i7 256GB last Monday and have a delivery date of 23rd of April...I hate waiting, especially as Dell had a deceiving "6th of April" note on the listing (this ended up being an estimated dispatch date, but I doubt that as I am still in pre-production). I got it with the £120 discount + VIP discount (think I got the whole thing for £900).

Any tips for when it arrives? I see a BIOS update will be required...

 

How much battery life did you get on the XPS 13 in Windows 8.1? Or did you upgrade to the the technical preview right away?

That's quite disappointing to hear, but I'll hold out hope that the battery life will at least be on par with 8.1 for the final release.

 

I'm curious, how much effort was it to get Windows tech preview running on the XPS? Also, what sort of percentage success are you having getting 3rd party apps to run on 10?

 

I still stand by my point; I would call anyone who posts in the Notebook Review Forums to be a tech-aficionado. I didn't see any hype outside of the tech world (it isn't even on display in any shops in most places) and I asked around a bit and everyone I asked hadn't heard of it.

Anyway this is getting off topic. It would be nice if it had arrived within the 30 days so I could get a refund. If this second unit isn't flawless I'd likely just return it and spend my money elsewhere. Since this replacement has been in progress for 3 weeks, I'm now over my return period. Maybe I could argue that they diddled around on it...

 

Update BIOS, Touchpad firmware, Sound drivers as a minimum.

Anything on the DELL Drivers page for you laptop, suggest installing any drivers that end in Axx other than initial drivers released (A00)

 

I am actually (relatively) happy from my touchpad.

(1) Did anybody do a firmware update and did it make the situation worse?
(2) Did someone else have a "good touchpad" from the start, and did it became after after upgrade "an excellent touchpad"

Since everything seems to be ok now, I don't want to take big risks. I also assume that firmware update cannot be undone.

 

So the rubber seal of my coffee flask failed just now and spilled about 250ml all over my pack (the flask was inside its own relatively secure bag; bag in a bag, and the bag was inside a separate partition in the actual pack.) This soaked through the laptop compartment ruining notebooks and going through the sleeve of my XPS. Coffee got into the left side of the laptop (laptop was stored vertically and I assumed the worse.)

After wiping down the screen and the left part with wet wipes (the red one) I let it stand for 45 minutes on its left side. Having no screwdrivers on hand I decided to fudge it and power it on. It booted normally with the left side of the screen showing no sign of damage. I decided to test the left speaker and opened Pearl Jam's Alive (because I wanted my laptop to be such) on YouTube. When it played the left speaker had no output. I was about to call Dell when sound came from the left speaker. I now remembered that the intro started on the right speakers only.

Smells faintly of coffee still though.

 

You never know. Maybe the keyboard is not for me or something (battery for example) is just not what I expected. It is a lot of money to buy without testing.
I have done my research but you cannot be sure until you try it for yourself.

 

@GoneTomorrow, three weeks is really too long. That's disappointing.

Apple sets the gold standard in my mind. Their turn-around time is stunning, and you'd think they were shipping via Einstein Express.

 

Windows 10 still has lots of developer and debugging code running inside that will dramatically effect battery life and perforce and should not be taken as any measure of what it will be like once all this code and CPU load is removed in the public release. You cannot compare the public version of Windows 8.1 to the preview of Windows 10 for any measure of performance or battery stats. I saw the same with the early previews of Windows 8 yet once it went public with debug code removed the improvements were substantial.

 

My touchpad was good from the start, maybe a very slight delay for 2 finger scrolling to start but otherwise great. Never noticed much change after the firmware update.

 

Question about temperatures. I ran TFT2 for 15 minutes (lol@work) but I didn't really hear the fan (can't put my machine next to my ears now for obvious reasons.)

According to HWM core temps reached 80c max (current ambient is 13c) and is now hovering at 40-43c.

Is this normal or is my fan borked because of the recent spillage?

 

Hi,

I received my XPS 13 (i5, Full HD) some days ago. I updated the bios ( it was on version A00, i taked the version A03 from here : http://www.dell.com/support/home/fr/fr/frdhs1/product-support/product/xps-13-9343-laptop/diagnose ) and... it is bricked. When i start it, nothing on the screen , some noise and it power off..

However, the install seems good, i started the exe from Windows, it has restarted, i had a green message when he finished to flash the bios, and then...he tried to reboot and nothing. I think that it is good for comming back to dell, but if any of you have an idea..

I made a video of it here :

 

Did you try pressing the power button more than 10 sec?

 

I have just tried, no effects..

 

Anyone had issues losing sound in windows 8.1?

It's happened on a few occasions when waking from hibernation/sleep where there is no longer any sound output - restart fixes the problem.

Today I experienced losing sound where a windows store app (radio) would take sole control of the sound output and I lose any sound from desktop applications. Tried killing all apps using sound via Task Manager as well as Task Switcher, but nothing could fix it without a restart.

 

How to do a complete backup of SSD just out the box to restore it at the factory config if you want to do a custom installation of Win 8.1 that wipe the SSD ?
How much space is request ?

 

Your machine should come with DELL Backup and Recovery Software. You need about 32GB according to the recovery media requirements.

 

It happened to me before. On a regular basis actually. What I did was remove the Realtek I2S Audio software and the Realtek High Definition Audio driver. Then I re-installed the Audio driver from Dell's website and run Windows Update. The Windows Update gave me the Realtek Audio Codec and I installed that. Ever since that I am no longer losing sound. Except when I boot on my 2nd OS on a separate partition of my hard drive which is Windows 7 Ultimate. I always have no sound when I'm on Windows 7.

 

To be perfectly candid... I only had two discharge cycles on 8.1. Under normal working conditions: browsing, data entry, streaming music and some video...I got about 9.5 hours on %40 brightness.

No effort at all...however the upgrade is painfully slow. To the point that I was wondering whether my SSD was borked. Then I realized it is because it is creating sector by sector images for rollback upon each upgrade.

I have yet to run into 3rd party software that doesn't run. Some of the stuff run frequently: Filemaker Pro, compeat (inventory management and financial software), evernote desktop have not demonstrated any issues or performance degradation.

Oh, I completely agree. I was not "complaining", simply stating experience so others had some a priori knowledge of the tradeoffs for running the tech preview. I experienced the same for both Windows 7 and 8...for which I ran pre-release builds of as well. The tech preview is riddled with bugs and minor annoyances...but nothing I would call a show-stopper. Personally, I already enjoy it more than 8.1 (which I like just fine). Debug code, driver optimizations and resource managment will all help improve battery life as it approaches release. I am just putting a hurt on my battery until then.

You can do a complete Disk Image of all partitions using Macrium Reflect Free Edition. Robust and really easy to use. It utilizes xml to store routines, which I also like.

 

No issue with losing sound, my issue is random sounds (music, often for a fraction of a second) which may occur once or twice per day. Completely bizarre and seems to happen irregardless of network connectivity or the apps I have running. I now always have Task Manager and Volume Mixer visible when the laptop is idle in the hope that it will identify the app/service which is generating the sound. Talk about looking for a needle in a haystack! This has persisted over driver updates so it isn't clear whether this is a software or a hardware problem (though it would be a very odd hardware problem!).

I spoke to Dell about this a few days ago but they just wanted to start rolling back updates I had done using system restore which seemed pointless since the issue started occurring from the very beginning. I am thinking of trying Windows 10 tech preview so figured I would see if it still occurred with a clean OS.

Question regarding the radio app taking over audio. I don't think I have that installed currently - is that one that you installed yourself? How did you determine that it had taken over control of audio?

 

Hi all, waiting for mine FHD that should be delivered today. Does the PC come with a system restore hidden partition?

 

yes it does

 

Windows 8.1 System Image though I don't know why you'd want to keep a backup of the stock installation. Making a fresh installation will allow you to reclaim your entire drive. Just write your recovery to a thumb drive. Then make weekly system image backups (or whenever you're about to do something major.)