Dell XPS 13 2015 Skylake Infinity Display Owners Thread

Henry- I had the same issues with constantly accidentally zooming. Finally just disabled pinch to zoom in Win 10 settings> Mouse and Touchpad. I rarely used it. But I'm constantly 2-finger scrolling. So, much happier now.

 

Thanks for the reply. That issue sounds infuriating, because 2 fingers together is the standard everywhere. Have you been able to run any benchmarks and check peak temps with HWmon? I'm a bit concerned about heat and throttling, since I would get this laptop to use with an eGPU once they're out.

Good workaround, actually. With a touchscreen, the finger zoom on the screen is much better than the font-size zoom with the trackpad.

 

I also had a lot of accidental zooming in chrome. Ctrl+0 is quite handy. I turned off pinch zooming though, and haven't looked back.

I experienced the screen flickering issue again today. Bizzare.

 

I thought about that but found it irritating to remove functionality that I use pretty regularly. Using the screen is obviously the full back on occasion but not when I am using an external monitor.

I actually bit the bullet last night and installed the synaptic drivers. I found that even in Firefox, there was a delay in recognition when doing slow/fine scrolling, presumably because palm recognition wasn't well working as intended.

The synaptic drivers don't match the precision integration when they are working at its best (hope for the future) but they are consistent and therefore much better to just 'use' the latop. Still unsure if I will keep it as it's unknown how long it will take to sort out these bug's although I have confidence they will.

Henry

 

I won't worry about the temp. Mine is very quiet and temp is never uncomfortable. I haven't pushed the system to its limits but have played a few old games. I was most impressed with playing unreal tournament 3 with graphics setting on max 1080p and with the machine unplugged the fans didn't even come on and it was very smooth.

Once you take a thermal focal point out of the laptop chassis, with the eGPU, I would be surprised if you had any major problems with CPU throttling.

Henry

 

Thanks again for the info. The Stealth just doesn't seem future-proofed at all with it's CPU/iGPU, battery life, and 8gb of ram. I'm thinking better to spend more on the XPS with Iris. Who knows what might come out in 2 months from now, though!

Edit: also, you might return it? Would you be interested in a trade for a QHD razer blade?

 

I'm experiencing several blank screens daily on my XPS 9350 with a clean install of Windows 10. Usually, when I'm on a random webpage (albeit thats what I usually am doing on my computer), the screen just suddenly goes black. About half the time, I am able to press the power button to put the computer to sleep, and it returns to normal once it wakes up from sleep. The other half, the power button doesn't activate sleep, so I have to completely restart the computer. I've got the latest non-beta intel drivers, and tried a registry setting that was recommended, but I'm still getting these blank screens. This is really frustrating. Does anyone have any other suggestions?

 

Do you ever use Chrome? If so, have you noticed some pages will scroll slowly and sluggishly at first, then scroll more quickly and fluidly when you switch to a different tab and back? This is my only issue with the Synaptics drivers right now. Wish I could figure out what's going on...

 

Hey there,

i got a major issue with my xps 13:

i ordered one with Win 10 Home, but i want to do a clean install with Win 10 Pro. Everytime he installs Win 10 Home due to the UEFI key - is there a way to disable reading of the OEM Key?

thx

 

Yes, do a upgrade from within settings instead, when it's done do a reset and that will be as clean as you can get.

 

For the ones that bought the 1TB model.
Can you please give me any information about the SSD.
Which model is it and whats the performance?

 

I had similar problem with the latest intel drivers where the screen randomly goes black in edge browser for a second and then come back, Tried to roll back to dell's latest drivers (20.19.15.4331) and it fixed it.
maybe try that first..

 

Easy fix...you need to add a ei.cfg file to the source folder. Check here for the details:
http://www.askvg.com/fix-cant-select-windows-10-pro-edition-during-clean-installation/

 

Thanks for the suggestion... but that didn't fix it. Unfortunately, my blank screens don't flash in and out- it just goes out and stays out. :/

 

Hey wondering if anyone can help me out. I was having problems with my Bluetooth after I upgraded to the Intel 8260 even though the WiFi is working much better. I finally managed to get it working by uninstalling the Broadcom WiFi software from add or remove programs. I noticed however that when I have my Bluetooth enabled from device manager my WiFi gets incredibly slow (I'm talking Broadcom 1820A levels), as soon as I disable the bluetooth adapter in device manager my WiFi goes back to regular speeds. Not sure what the problem is but any help would be appreciated.

 

Uninstall both drivers and reinstall them again..I don't have that issue with the 8260.

 

I see BB is advertising a 13" xps with 4k display today for 1999. Not on dell's site so i wonder if it's a BB exclusive. The 1999 version on dell's site is qhd.

 

I don't know why I did not try the following earlier but this is what I have discovered....

My XPS is sitting next to a 5 year old Dell E4200. Both machines are downloading a large file (from Youtube) using Firefox - FF displays the download speed by clicking on all downloads.

Both machines started downloading at 1.8Mb/sec. The E4200 continued downloading at 1.8Mb/sec but the XPS dropped rapidly and stabilised at 134Kb/sec - quite unacceptable. The wireless card fitted is a Dell 1820A.

If Dell cannot fix it the XPS is being returned.

 

Try disabling 'Bluetooth Collaboration' in the network adapters properties.

 

I have just fitted an external USB wireless adapter to both laptops and downloaded the same file again. With the E4200, the download speed has increased to 3.3 Mb/sec while with the XPS13 it is still 134Kb/sec. Perhaps it is not just the Dell 1820A after all!

 

Perhaps it is NOT the adapter after all...

This morning, I fired up both laptops (XPS 13 and E4200). I download a different large file on the XPS and the speed stabilised at 2.5MB/sec! I downloaded the same file on the E4200; the speed on the E4200 started at 1.7MB/sec then dropped to 400 KB/sec. Switched off both laptops and started again. This time I started downloading using the E4200 and then the XPS. The E4200 stabilised at 1.7MB/sec; the XPS started at 2.4 MB/sec then dropped to 150 KB/sec.

 

Sleep issue?

Now i can NOT put it to sleep on battery because the XPS restarts. I can Sleep plugged in, and I can hibernate on battery and plugged in. Anyone know about it? How to fix? I don't remember changing anything, and it used to sleep OK on battery. Thanks

 

Possibly the router is prioritizing traffic, in this case by first come first severed, or even a bug within the router firmware. Try on a different network.

 

Not that I noticed but I wouldn't call them ideal. I have actually reverted back to the precision drivers after testing another XPS 13 which had much better touchpad scrolling on the aforementioned precision drivers. Their settings, and by extension my new ones, was to have a much slower pointer speed and reduce lines to 3. Not my ideal setup but the jerkiness is much reduced. I didn't think pointer speed would have an effect on this and therefore didn't adjust previously.

 

Hey there,

what are your cpu temperatures so far when in idle and under load? Mine just passed away after a bad chip..

 

Should i opt for the iris graphics or the HD520? i've heard the iris has a negative impact on the battery and it is actually slower than the 520? i don't really need a better CPU than the 6500u, but they are the same price atm..

 

Iris should be better than the 520. The i7 is indeed higher clocked though, so some increased power consumption is to be expected.

 

I'm inclined to agree with the conclusion here that the tradeoff for somewhat faster GPU performance isn't worth it:

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Dell-XPS-13-9350-i7-6560U-QHD-Ultrabook-Review.159487.0.html

The cool & quiet running and long battery is what makes the XPS 13 attractive to me, I'm still amazed by how I barely notice the FHD is even running when it's on my lap. If I needed better graphics, I wouldn't go with the 13 anyway.

 

My apologies if this has already been asked/answered previously, but does anyone know if the 128GB SSD in the 9350 (which appears to be SATA) is upgradeable to larger/faster PCIe/NVMe drive like the Samsung 950 Pro? Thinking since the 128 GB version is upgradable by Dell to PCIe 256 GB, then should be possible to do yourself with the 128 GB version?

 

Are there other reviews? I have an offer pending for 6560U version, and I can't believe (rather don't want to believe) that it is as bad as the review makes it seem. Could it be some software issues causing the "not as expected" benchmarks?

 

Wow, I thought improvement would have been much better. That's a little disappointing.

 

I got the IRIS version bei Friday, yesterday the mainboard broke and i´m about to get a new one.

Fans were running constantly at 3600 RPM, temperatures were somewhere between 55-75.. in idle. Battery runtime was at 3-4 hours.

I acutally can verify the numbers from notebookcheck but keep in mind that my unit was defectiv.

I´m going to get a new one, based on my experiences and the review i´m thinking about getting the intel HD version..

Maybe it´s just a driver or bios issue like a few months ago with the sleep mode of the ssd.

 

Yes it has been done. Google it - reddit and ifixit for instance have discussions. I installed an EVO 500G and it works quite well. Based on perceptual speed comparisons of two XPS machines with the stock 128 and EVO 850 I do not see a speed difference tho the benchmarks are significantly faster with the EVO....so the 950 does benchmark even faster, but I wouldn't expect to see much difference...I do not game....
YMMV

 

May I ask which tool you used to get the fan speed reading?

 

Ok thanks for the info - fair point regarding the real world performance vs. benchmarks. One question though, isn't the 850 EVO another SATA drive, not PCIe/NVMe?

 

I think the most balanced combination is the i5 with QHD with 256 GB.

 

For the temperatures i used Aida64 and HWinfo.

 

And fan speed? I can't see that with either of those tools, but I think I may be looking in the wrong place.

 

Very interesting! How slow did you set your pointer speed? Do you have the Enhance Pointer Precision box checked or not?

 

I just realized that my dell XPS 13 Skylake had a corrupt windows installation when it was shipped to me, and it is the case for several others (reddit).

I installed a clean version of windows 10 and did NOT install intel rapid storage drivers : no more BAD_POOL_HEADER or IRQL_DRIVER_LESS_OR_EQUAL BSODs ! Finally i got rid of them !!

 

Yes it is, so may get read benchmarks on the order of 500MB/s vs 1000MB/s PCIe depending on file size. Very fast and faster..

 

I agree, and I doubt you'd notice any difference in real usage terms from one drive to the other.

 

In Aida64 you should find the fan speeds in computer->sensors.

Btw. i returned the IRIS XPS 13 and bought one with the HD Graphics from Amazon.

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/Dell/comments/47g46m/lets_investigate_the_xps_1315_coil_whine_hardware/

 

Strange, no fan showing for me only temp, power, voltage sensors.

 

Mmh try it when you stress the system. If you hear the fan spinning up and it doesn't show up in aida64 maybe you're using a old aida

 

I'm in the exact same camp and I'd like to see another review to decide if I should order the FHD non-iris vs the QHD-iris that I currently have on backorder.
The loss in battery life and heat generated make the iris version simply not worth it to me for this kind of laptop. I thought it was +- a free gain for 3d stuff that I'd be happy to have, but the price is too high for having such issues (losing 1h of battery life would be totally fine.. its 3H+ lost though and thermal issues).

 

Just received the 9350 a couple of days ago. Added a 512gb SSD and ran the Aida64 stability test while plugged in. I put the laptop on performance mode and temps hit around 70-75 average with fans hitting 3600 RPM for 30 minutes. (At idle the laptop on cool mode, runs at 40-45). Thankfully no coil whine...this thing runs like a dream. Its completely silent, I could hear a very minor yet audible fan hum when placing my ear up to the side of it. But sitting normally infront of the machine I couldn't hear anything. The machine was warm at the bottom, but not hot. I did not thermal throttle, yet typing this post out while running the stability test produced lagged key inputs.

The trackpad has no issues and id say its great to use although I'm using a wireless mouse. When using the trackpad, I've also disabled the pinch function, and added the script to triple tap for mouse scroll (page 75-85ish). The screen also has limited and minor bleed, which is another thing I am thankful for as the Asus UX305CA I had previously had much more.

I have also had no issues with the wireless card as of yet, although I purchased the 8260 anyways.

Upon receiving the device I also had an issue in which windows would not load. I had to enter bios to change the load to UEFI from legacy.

All in all, a pleasure of a device to use. I have the FHD and I wouldn't go QHD for fear of further battery drain. @ 1080p this thing is beautiful and my brightness is set around half...I have yet to use it outdoors, but at half brightness indoors its been more than adequate. I also did not go with the QHD because I wouldn't want to drain the battery further as my main reason for this machine is reliable portability; hence why I also opted to go with the sata ssd, not the pcie nvme to reduce heat and keep the battery drain to a minimum.

Edit: Previous posts have also asked which monitor do you have and is there adaptive screen brightness. I have an SHP1449, and I haven't noticed any adaptive screen brightness. Either its that good, or I haven't recognized what it is yet after ~10h use.

 

Pointer speed is now about the mid-way point on the sliding scale with the precision pointer box also ticked. I also have the the delay set to medium. Amusingly all very similar to how it was setup out of the box. Slower pointer speed than what I want but works much better. Also not too dissimilar to the pointer speed on my Mac air. It still has the occasional hiccup though but hopeful that a software update will improve it further.

 

I've got the iris version (6560U) which also has 512gb disk and 16gb ram for almost maxed out power draw. I am not seeing any of the heat issues mentioned, and the corresponding fan noise. 95% of the time the machine is dead silent with the fan off, this is with the multiple tabs open and working large spreadsheets and occasional PS editing. Apart from the odd instance the only time it heats up and the fans come on is when I play games and that is to be expected. As a comparison I am finding the fan noise to much quieter compared the Mac air with similar usage.

In terms of battery. I was also very disappointed initially with only 3-4 hours of use for the first day or two. I noticed, in my hunt to improve trackpad, that when using edge, instead of chrome, battery improved dramatically. I subsequently installed chrome 64 bit, as opposed to 32 bit, and disabled flash. It is now much better in chrome but still not as good as edge. I cannot wait until Inbox is available on edge as will almost certainly move over with the improved battery and trackpad performance.

Currently hitting 5-6 hours of battery with medium usage as described above. Gaming would push to 3 hours or less dependant on graphic requirements and if just doing basic browsing and media consumption would be confident to go to 7-8 hours.

I cant state if this is better or worse than the xps 13 QHD with 6500U but I am satisfied. I have access to one with the FHD and the battery is much better on that but as expected.