Dell XPS 13 2015 Skylake Infinity Display Owners Thread

How long have john lewis been selling Dell. Do you know? I notice they don't have the £1150 model I bought. i7/8gb/qhd/256gb.

 

Well it's hard to tell because I'm only at 82% left so it's not a full discharge, however to me it seems it's much better! I use it for 2 hours and I watched some YouTube videos, bluetooth music, etc. So I'll get around 10 hours with a mix usage, mainly web. Before the update it would have been around 7 or 8 hours, so definitely a big improvement!
But I'll give more precise results in a few days. However you can be pretty confident according to reviews.

 

Can any 1080p users confirm the spec of the matte panel? Brightness and srgb%?

 

A matter of weeks - I checked a few weeks ago after reading an article saying John Lewis would be stocking Dells soon and they didn't have them. I forgot to check again when I ordered my XPS 13 last week from Dell, which is a shame because John Lewis are doing next day delivery and my XPS 13 isn't due until next week.

 

If you can get the model you want, I'd cancel or return and buy from JL, warranty and all. I didn't know either but turns out they don't have the model i bought, I've emailed them to ask if they are getting it in.

 

Well, they should always technically remove all old thermal paste and reapply any time the heat-sink is removed. I know back in my IT days a lot of times techs wouldn't bother to do that, and never had any complaints. Less of an issue if it's still new/fresh. But a couple degrees difference could be noticeable to a more discerning user.

I've got my XPS 13/i5/QDH arriving this Friday. And I too am curious about lap temps with light usage. One thing I did like about SP3/4 is that even if it gets hot, you won't know or care unless you happen to be holding it. But that fan noise...

 

Appreciate your input. I posted 2 pics and in the second you can see the paste left on the heatsink. He put it on before I realised. He might not think it matters but probably doesn't understand that some of the laptops are actually meant to run cooler than others. I'd only had the laptop for 3 weeks. He said it was fine but who knows. 1-2Deg? Don't know if that would solve my problem. Strangely I didnt notice the heat issues at first. I'm in contact with someone else with the same SKU so ill get some temp readings off him first. I'm sure you know but make sure you update to the BIOS 1.1.7 for that significant additional battery life (supposedly). Fan hardly ever fires up, only under large load.

Edit: here's second pic with heatsink http://imgur.com/z5REV45

 

Ahh yeah, I see what you mean. Personally, I'd have them replace the heatsink again. They usually come pre-pasted or with thermal grease and chem pad to clean things up and do it right. After having repaired thousands of PC's in the past, I get a little picky about that kinda stuff.

Also, those are just part numbers your blocking; only thing specific to you is the service tag / serial number on the bottom of the case.

And yeah, I've done plenty of reading. Was glad to hear about the battery life improvements with the new BIOS. Updates are always step 1! Then play.

Sent from my Venue 10 7040 using Tapatalk

 

Can anyone here give me details about the temps they are getting on the CPU using Hardware Monitor. I'm sure my laptop is running abit too warm and after speaking to someone our temperatures of the cpu couldn't be more different. His is persistently 41-43C at idle. Mine seems to be at 52-54 at roughly idle with it sometimes falling into the mid 40s but more commonly the former. When streaming twitch he saw a rise to 45, I see a rise to 60C to even 70 and 80 when at full screen/high. Its not yet scientific but if anybody could post some numbers they are getting from hwmon it could help. I actually don't mind the temps as much when streaming video I wouldn't have complained, its just the discomfort on my lap when I'm not actually doing anything and nothing is open. For me this has to be a LAPtop. There is a huge difference for me between 50 and 40. BIOS 1.1.7 installed.

 

Just streamed (SD) for about 15 minutes and did some light browsing for 20 minutes. Current 41°C, max 58°C.
Streaming FHD video from my home server (CPU utilization around 45%) gets the temperature up to around 65°C.

 

Mine si fhd i5/8gb/256 and yes your temp are high i think qhd run warmer then fhd. You should delete all the Dell bloatwares.
Do you have qhd screen?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

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dell bios update is now available on there website

 

QHD i7 skylake 16gb 256GB SSD. That is 35 after doing some stuff right, like when you are browsing notebookreview thats the temps it holds? I'm not worried about momentary jumps in temp just FYI. averages please.

 

Does anyone know of an adapter for the thunderbolt port that will covert to display port for 4k @ 60hz?. It would have been nice if they would have put an HDMI 2.0 port instead of 1.4 on this. Thanks.

 

Is the new BIOS update only for the XPS13 or would it also work for the XPS15?

 

Is there any reported problems with the Xps13 screen (FHD) ghosting in games? Few people with the Xps15 are reporting bad ghosting.

 

laptopbro: The new BIOS update is surely only for the XPS 13, I wouldnt try it on XPS 15, I am sure the native one is coming soon.

battery life: first impressions from new BIOS on my FHD i5 model - I am really able to get as low as 2 W on my FHD model in average when idle (keyboard backlight off, wifi on, min. brightness, only edge running)! When I was light browsing for 2 hours (firefox, many tabs opened, K backlight off, min. bright) I was averaging under 4 Wh. That is incredible achievement! That means the device can theoretically handle over 20 hours idle and 12 hours very light web browsing before you are forced to plug in with less than 10% of battery. Of course there has to be no background thrash or CPU hogs running (Mc Affee, Chrome etc.). We will see how it goes in real life but it looks promising. If you have trouble with battery life try to use MS Edge and check task manager for running processes that drain CPU before suspecting faulty battery. I think the CPU usage when idle should not be over 10% (usually 3-8%).

 

for all people who do not know yet: a new firmware update offers to turn off the adaptive brightness feature now. however it only works in qhd 9343 models, only dell knows why there is no workaround for the skylake version. in addition to all this mess, there is no solution for all the fhd-books and no further plans.

 

Sigh... I just received my XPS 13 and already I've noticed it has a loose trackpad. On the plus side, no coil whine so far.

 

What do you mean by loose track pad?

 

There's a slight rattle and faint clicking noise when tapped. From what I've seen online, it's a common problem with the previous model of XPS 13, too.

PS: Here's a video someone made of the problem:

 

I actually dont mind the adaptive brightness at the moment because I havent noticed its effects very much so far. I cannot compare it to any other good screen at the moment, it just seems the blacks are so deep, that some dark tones are not as visible as it should be. I am not sure if I made it clear But will see when I get a chance to connect my 23" IPS screen (waiting for the USB 3.1 - HDMI connector).

 

The loose trackpad should be easily repairable by the Dell technician. The coil whine is not so easy to get rid of.

 

That's what I'm thinking, too.

Interestingly, the problem seems to have gotten better in the short time since I made my post. I don't know if it was the heat from installing updates, or if I simply got accustomed to it, but it does seem better. Not as solid as my Thinkpad, but hardly noticeable.

The XPS 13 is so awesome otherwise, I'm going to hold onto it for a few days and see if the trackpad's really an issue. If it is, I'll see if Dell would be willing send someone out to service it. One thing's for sure, I'm not sending a brand new laptop in for warranty service!

PS: One thing's absolutely clear: Chrome scrolling improves noticeably when you turn off pinch-to-zoom.

 

How did you measure this? Im using battery bar, and even with a fresh install, no programs opened, and idling at desktop there is no way it goes below 5/6 w. (brightness set to the lowest)

 

You can use HWiNFO and look at the charge rate. The graph below shows a power draw of 2.2-3 W on my FHD XPS at lowest brightness, airplane mode and no keyboard backlight.

 

Hi. Please what utilities report power usage, working temperature and battery usage? Thanks.

 

Interesting. Keep us posted.

 

Battery bar and HWinfo64 (and its "sensors" table).
The latter can tell you current, average, minimum and maximum usage in given time (and much else). That way you can what is the avg, max, min discharge rate, temperature and see if it is normal or not.

robsel: do you have qhd? if you have fhd it definitely has to go way below 5w idling, with lowest power settings... check your task manager - what is draining cpu? any background apps? windows updates? what is your average cpu usage (5%, 10%)? latest bios installed?

 

So I just picked this up from the MS store. I have a very stupid question. Is there a plastic sheet on the screen? I can't find an edge but it looks like there is since there are light scratches on it.

This is the QHD model by the way.

 

hey all,

typing to ya'll from my xps 13 qhd.
i want to make sure i'm current on all my drivers, etc. so, if i've been following this all correctly, i need to grab:

|the recently released bios.
|the intel video driver
anything else worthwhile?

also, am i right in thinking that the bottom half of the track is supposed to be looser?
the top half doesn't depress into a clicking sound. so sometimes when i'm tapping my finger around the trackpad, if its toward the bottom half, when i tap to click, it'll depress and make that sound as if i'm actually pressing down because the bottom half is looser. it's not a huge deal to me either way, i just want to know if this is to be expected.

also, i noticed f5 alone doesn't refresh. i have to use the fn key to use it.
does anyone know how to remap this?

 

I posted a thread on reddit with 2 pieces of evidence that model is coming. There are yield issues so the bigger chips with 540 aren't as widely available right now. Likely to improve early next year.

screenshot of manual listing HD 540

http://imgur.com/Ph9lk6q

In addition to a listing on Dell Australia site for partners the 6560u is clearly listed

http://www.dell.com/au/partner/p/xps-13-9350-laptop/pd

 

There is one very important thing for you to download... and that is the executable file that will modify the display panel's firmware and turn off the "Dynamic Backlight Control" feature encoded. This is independent from any operating system installed on the hard drive nor any BIOS of the laptop's motherboard.

Simply put, the actual display panel, which is made by Sharp "has a mind of its own" so much so that even the BIOS nor any Intel Graphics driver has any control over it. Somebody provided a link somewhere in this thread where you can get the file.

 

Here's the link.
https://github.com/advancingu/XPS13Linux/issues/2

Anyway, hope Dell will release the same thing for FHD screen as well

 

Thanks. It is not looking good for the FHD panel as the guy who has been leading the DBC clamour recently said that there is physically no way to flash the 1080p panel at a Dell facility. It seems it would take Sharp to step in to remove that annoying feature it put on its panel. What I think should happen is for all XPS 13 1080p owners to unite, pressure Dell with returns to force it to coordinate with Sharp about the matter.

 

well this is brutal.

first day with my qhd/xps 13.
we (customer service and i) believe the hard drive is faulty; it crapped out on me.
when i restarted the laptop, the dell logo flashed on the screen, went to black, flashed on the screen, went to black and ultimately went to dell supportassist and detailed an error pertaining to the hard drive.

called customer service. ran diagnostic. suggested i dismount and reattach the ssd. issue persisted.

they're sending me a new ssd in the next 1-2 days.
here's hoping it fixes things.

 

is it harmful to turn off c-states in BIOS in order to get rid off coil whine?

 

It's not harmful, just that you will get a lot lesser battery life as the processor cannot get into c-states mode to use lesser power

 

Anyone with the FHD comment on the screen and if the auto brightness is a real issue/problem?

 

Personally I haven't noticed it. Nor in my previous 9343 neither in my current 9350. Maybe I'm not curious enough.

 

It has been answered many times.. Usually people don't like it but it's not a big issue.

My opinion : sure this feature ain't great at all, however I don't see it very often and it's not much of a deal to me. This laptop has so many pros that I can forget this small flaw. It doesn't bother me, sometimes I see it but it doesn't mean it ruins my user experience. So yes it's good to speak about it, but it's not a deal breaker!

 

I was prepared for the worst and have been pleasantly surprised. It's very subtle -- much less obvious than it was on my old X1 Carbon. If I didn't know about it, I might never even notice. I personally don't think it's a problem unless you need to calibrate your display for professional reasons like photo editing. Otherwise, the FHD screen is simply stunning.

 

Hey I received my xps 13 i7/16gb yesterday, and am about to return it back. The issue is as soon as I set up my laptop, I started seeing that The screen was freezing up and The touchpad keeps locking up. Tried multiple reboots, even restored The laptop back to factory settings. But The issue persists. What do you guys think? Do I ship this back to DELL? Any thoughts would be appreciated.

 

Clean install instead of restore I guess. If it doesn't work, after updating bios, windows and video drivers, yes you should send it back or ask for repair.

 

Issue resolved. Did this according to the suggestion here.
http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3519/t/19659608

 

Link is broken, can you check it please? Thanks.

 

Thanks fixed.

 

Just got my new xps 9350 today (fhd version). What's the best way to do a clean install if I don't have a purchased version of Windows 10 (other than the oem copy already on the computer?)