Dell XPS 13 9360 Kaby Lake Owner's Thread

Didn't see an owner's thread started for the new Kaby Lake powered Dell XPS 13 9360.

This thread is for general, technical, and all things Kaby Lake XPS 13 9360.

I picked up a i5, 8gb, 128gb 1080p model tonight and absolutely loving it so far.. The fan is ultra quiet (when it activates around 85c or so) and it actually runs pretty cold under stress on stock paste..

Then, I repasted it with Coollaboratories Liquid Ultra (yes.. I liquid metal'ed my machine).

Here are my before and after results using Throttle Stop's built in 1024M "TS Bench":

Stock paste and stock voltage:


Repaste with CLU and stock voltage:


About a solid 10c drop after fans kick on.. Although peak temp ceiling will be similar since fans will not turn on until the upper 80s or so. But it's worth mentioning that getting to peak temperatures are increased since it can passively cool better after the repaste.

 

That took some balls!

I was going to suggest running a few benchmarks (Prime95, ROG RealBench...) but that will be for others to try before & after.

You might take a look at the SpeedShift thread; I think you can use ThrottleStop or some of the tips to enable SpeedShift in the Kaby Lake. I have been told SpeedShift has not been enabled by Dell (although Intel and Micro$oft have both enabled the function)...

EDIT - The SpeedShift thread is here - glad you found it useful reading:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/dell-xps-15-9550-skylake-speed-shift.796891/

 

Do you mean SpeedStep? It's enabled on my unit and it downclocks to 600mhz (not often though).. Seems to idle around 900mhz a lot (much like my 6700K or 6700HQ experiences).

It's hard to get before and after temps because the fan is off until about 85-90c.. But the repaste does allow the machine to operate fanless for LONGER.. So then you have to measure the temps after the fan does turn on.. I added the pictures above to my original post.

 

And now i'm working on undervolting.. This doesn't undervolt as well as all my other machines in the past.. Seems like -60 to maybe -80 is stable so far on both core and cache.

 

I found the thread and enabled Speed Shift in Throttlestop.. Thanks man! It seems to keep the idle more controlled now.. The CPU is no longer jumping all over the place.. This should help keep temperatures down a bit.

 

Undervolting -80/-80 didn't seem to help as much as I expected.. It did seem to lower peak temps before fan comes on by about 3c.. but after the fan turns on the temps are roughly still 71-72c under the Throttlestop 1024m test.

Prime95 eventually throttles the cpu down to 2.8ghz and temps remain in the low 80s.

 

I haven't been on a page one of an owner's thread yet - this seems like a good place to start.

My XPS 13 Kaby came in on Monday. I got the touchscreen with i5 and the 256GB storage. I think this is the best laptop bargain out there.

I've been pleased so far, though the trackpad has been wonky the first few days. I had the same experience with my Skylake - it got better over time as the trackpad becomes slicker (and less starchy feeling) with finger oils and whatnot. For now, a dab of lotion on my fingertips seems to do the trick.

 

Diversion, a lot of people have speculated that Kaby Lake chips generally will not have much room for undervolting. Time will tell.

Forum user EASON put a nice undervolting primer together that will be a good place to start for people interested in trying to improve performance of their laptops.

http://www.ultrabookreview.com/10167-laptop-undervolting-overcloking/

ThrottleStop is free and easy to use. There is a guide and very active forum here

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/the-throttlestop-guide.531329/

 

Yep.. I've had my hands on undervolting the new Kaby m5, Kaby i7-7500U, and now this Kaby i5-7200U and all don't undervolt as much as Skylake... But that's okay and it makes sense why they don't undervolt as well.. It's likely because they are tightly tuned CPUs and binned specifically for their clockspeeds. I am so far seemingly 100% stable with all benchmarks so far at -80/-80 and even -50 on the iGPU.

So far, a repaste isn't mandatory but expect great results.. Add in the undervolt and expect far better idle temps and less jumpy temperatures in average usage.

We have to realize that Kaby is achieving more clockspeed at the same voltage over Skylake therefore undervolting a lot isn't going to happen. I'll take the extra clockspeed over Skylake any day of the week! The i5-7200U beats the previous i7-6500U so that's a nice perk.. And i'd likely recommend the i5 Kaby over getting the i7.. The i7-7500U I played with was in the newest HP Spectre x360 and it ran entirely too hot.. It throttled without undervolt.

 

I am actually thinking about returning my non-touchbar Macbook Pro 13" 2016 for the 1080p XPS 13 Kabylake model. My main fear was quality issues - but otherwise, it would probably be more useful for me (Windows Developer). I know I can run Parallels on the MacBook but meh. I only ended up with the MacBook as I had a Apple Iphone/Apple Watch, but realistically, i would have probably been better off with the XPS 13.

I'd end up saving around £400 doing so.

 

I actually considered the same but have my 2015 MBP 13 still and absolutely love my XPS.. Battery life is pretty amazing even when running a VM in the background it still manages about 6 hours of life.

 

My XPS 13 is showing on the bottom right notification area:

"Dell Update
1 update is ready to install
- Dell XPS 13 9360 System BIOS"

My BIOS version is 1.0.7 which is already the latest according to the Dell website. I've tried selecting "Install Now" and let it get through its stuff, but the popup keeps coming back after reboot. Is anyone else getting this?
Thanks.

 

That happened to me, it took 3 restarts before it went away.

Does anyone have image retention problems on their XPS 13? (Where you can faintly see some images on the screen if they've been displayed for too long) I've had this laptop (QHD) for 4 days and noticed it last night. I can see the image of the windows taskbar faintly whenever I press Ctrl + alt + delete and it's been there pretty much all day.

Here's a good tool for testing if you have it: https://marco.org/rmbp-irtest.html

 

Installed my new Samsung PM951 512gb SSD today.. a lot of controversy over whether using RAID or AHCI mode has gone on for the previous Skylake model but I went for the easy and switched to AHCI mode so that the Windows boot image would detect and see my SSD. I appear to be achieving normal PM951 512gb speeds and this thing gets into Windows before you even see the spinning circle on boot up! Crazy insane fast. NVMe really transforms this machine. Although, Dell ships a NVMe already if you opted for the 256gb or higher models.

 

I got my XPS 13 Kaby Lake with FHD Display a few days ago. It is a great machine but I am having trouble with the display:

1.) CABC cannot be deactivated on the FHD model. You can literally see the brightness adaption when there is for instance some dark animation banner on a bright website, when opening applications, and also during watching movies.
2.) The screen flickers. This is a very subtile effect which is e.g. visible on large gray areas.

 

Yeah, the adaptive cannot be disabled unfortunately - Dell issued a fix for the QHD model though but not for the 1080p which is baffling to me. Although I rarely notice it in practice, only see it every once in a while when i'm in a more dimly lit room. To be fair, I had major adaptive issues on previous Lenovo Yogas than this unit.. It's far improved and I suspect is there to help battery life.

I haven't noticed any gray flickering or screen flickering in general.. I am pretty certain the 1080p IGZO Sharp panel used on these are PWM-free so that can't be it..

 

There have been a ton of 9360 on the dell factory outlet site...

Odd given how new the laptop is

 

I received my XPS13 Kaby Lake laptop today and in setting it up I notice that bottom of the trackpad is a bit loose, it has a little give when pressing the left and right sides of the trackpad before the actual click. If I just lightly touch the pad it depresses a little and I feel it when I'm scrolling up, like it's not completely stiff. I'm wondering if you folks are finding the same thing and if it is normal or a quality control issue? thanks

 

Nope - mine's completely stiff and solid.. Haven't really noticed any oddities or build issues on mine.

 

I've noticed that when the XPS 13 sleeps.. the M2 I guess still runs warm in my bag.. Until it hits the default 1 hour or so Hibernation where it wakes up briefly to hibernate.. then it goes completely cold. I suppose this is the reason why people notice standby drain on the previous two models.

 

I returned my FHD model and went for the QHD model for testing due to the CABC problems. I have turned off CABC on the QHD model which makes the screen a lot brighter. Here are my impressions between the two models:

- Hearable coil winning with the QHD whereas the FHD model made almost no noise.
- The fan on the QHD runs a lot more often than on the FHD model.
- The QHD screen with disabled CACD is much better than the FHD in terms of brightness. It is also lit more equally. No flickering visible at all.
- The QHD screen is a mirror, a bit worse then the Macbook Pro 15 screen.

I will probably keep the QHD model although I originally wanted a FHD mate display.

 

I'm disappointed with the way my XPS 13 Kaby Lake arrived. It came with scratches on the lid and the lower part of the trackpad is loose, it bounces up and down. Now I'm going to have to decide if I want a replacement or a refund. I do like the size and the display is beautiful. The fan came on a couple of times but the noise is not annoying at least so far. Not sure what coil noise sounds like.
Thinking if I should get another or maybe try the new HP Spectre x360.

 

I had the new Spectre and it's nicely designed.. But it runs hot and the fan is super loud and high pitched and won't stop until the temps are in the 30s so that means about 2 minutes of constant high pitched noise.. It only has an ON mode and off mode (the fan).

 

From my experience coil noise comes in two flavors: one is a very high pitch almost chirping noise, the other is much lower pitch and sounds more like scratching. Both are also quite common (e.g. with many SSDs) but the high pitch flavor was very loud on the XPS 13 QHD. I had the notebook running some hours and the noise is now much reduced.

 

I'd send it back and get a replacement. If you don't know what coil noise sounds like, you likely don't have it.

 

I have seen posts on a deals site that say Dell is releasing a new motherboard for the XPS 13 in January that will fix the coil whine. Does anyone have info from Dell to confirm this? If true, I wonder if it will be in the 9360 or a new model.

 

I just bought the QHD model and updated bios and all drivers, where is the setting to disable CABS?

 

As far as I remember these rumours existed for the older and/or 15' versions as well and it didn't really happend/solve everyone's problem.

 

I meant where on the Dell to I disable CABC, so more power options show up.

 

Hahahaha!

Those rumours about a silent XPS board have been around for the past few years.

 

I noticed the same thing when my Kaby arrived last week. Reading your post, I tried to wiggle the trackpad and discovered that it seems to have settled in and feels completely stable now. Could it just needed a few days' use to settle into place?

 

Is there anyway to add more power plans to the new dell xps 9360, other than dell or balanced mode. I would love to be able to add performance mode.

 

I just got my Kaby XPS 13 in. Picked it up off the Dell outlet. i7 16gm 512gb.... works great and the outlet deal was awesome. I am surprised I can even play Skyrim on it. When ever Samsung drops the new 2tb PCIE SSD I am going to put that in.

 

congrats on your new laptop!! it would be really cool to add the 2TB ssd in

 

Dell has published a lot of driver updates for the 9360 recently (including a BIOS update). It might be worth a check at support.dell.com with your Service Tag to make sure you're up-to-date.

 

Thank you so much for the link. I just went and updated over 10 drivers from there.

 

For those interested in running thunderbolt devices on your brand new 9360, beware users are reporting 50% crippled speeds. Dell MIGHT be able to fix via software update...

https://egpu.io/forums/pc-setup/xps-15-9550-not-able-to-reach-40gbps-over-tb3/paged/1/

 

I'm getting weird issues with chrome with my unit and was wondering if anyone knows how to fix it. Using the default resolution with the 250% will make some pages flicker when slowing scrolling and Netflix streaming does not work 95% of the time getting me the error message M7361-1253 . I know if searched it will state it as a connection issue but every other devices I own can stream it just fine.


As for the odd flickers, here is a subreddit page that triggers it all the time when scrolling past its banner. https://www.reddit.com/r/instant_regret/
I'm hoping it is software related and not a faulty egpu. Is there any tests I can do to see if this is the case?


other than that, I really like the feel of the laptop.

 

Dont count on it..Dell dont fix hardware issues such as this. It still works with multi-link display via Dell TB dock.

It seems like a limitation of the motherboard Dell use.
XPS9350 and 9360 probably just a CPU drop in update.
Either you live with it or buy the next year Canon Lake version and hope TB3 works full speed.

 

If anyone cares the new XPS 13 plays Skyrim quite well.

 

I thought the TB3 was full speed as people were getting external TB 3.0 GPU enclosures to work on the previous Skylake model?

 

Hey everyone...

Been looking to get a new ultrabook for a while as my main laptop is a 17" ASUS ROG behemoth so needed something more portable for everyday browsing and general use (so no gaming or anything intensive).

Been researching potential devices for a while and finally decided to pay up and get the Dell XPS 13 which has received great reviews. I picked up the Kaby Lake i5/8gb ram/256gb SSD (FHD) version yesterday and whilst I am more than impressed with the quality of the ultrabook, unfortunately I am extremely disappointed with the boot time of the machine.

From pressing the power button it takes anywhere between 6-10 seconds for the Dell sign to show up and then a further 13-25 seconds before the Windows login screen comes up (that also then takes another 5-10 seconds before it allows me to log in). I have been searching online and it seems that this is a somewhat common occurrence but this is quite unacceptable to me given this is a premium device with a PCIe SSD which cost £1,000.

Is anybody facing a similar issue and if so any workarounds?

Would welcome your thoughts...

Thanks

 

Mine does the same thing and it's extremely annoying that it has that delay.. Unfortunately it's the BIOS causing it and there is no workaround (yet).. I checked every setting and tried multiple things in the BIOS to no avail.. the original Broadwell XPS 13 doesn't do this but the Skylake one and now the Kaby seem to have this super long delay to boot.

 

Thanks for the response and unfortunately looks like it is a widespread issue, very strange that none of the big reviewers mentioned this in any of the reviews available online (I must have watched a dozen different reviews lol).

Also was reading through this thread after I posted and I thought you had manged to sort this issue out by installing the 512gb SSD, did that not help either?

Obviously not the end of the world but just an annoyance given that you would expect flawless performance at this price point, lets hope they fix the issue with a BIOS update in the not too distant future.

 

It's all pre-hardware so no hardware would help speed up the time it takes for the logo to show up.. I was referring to how much faster that once the logo shows up and getting into Windows after replacing the m2.

I would recommend you just sleep the machine (close lid when not using machine) and let it resume when you open the lid back up. If you disable Connected Standby through the registry, it seems to fix the standy/sleep battery drain (i'm still testing) but so far so good. The issue with the drain while the unit sleeps is that it keeps the wifi card and m2 powered on in a low power state but it does keep the unit warm even after hours and hours of sleep, it's basically like the machine is still turned on.

 

Got you, I think I will start going with your suggestion of just sleeping the machine.

Can you please tell me how I would access the registry to disable connected standby?

Thanks

 

This is the guide I used: http://windowsitpro.com/windows-client/disabling-windows-connected-standby

 

Great - many thanks!

 

Nando4 confirmed 9350 thunderbolt to be wired as x2 3.0, unfortunately.

Not sure if Dell upgraded the 9360 to full-speed thunderbolt but I would not assume....

 

I've been pretty happy with my XPS 13 but for one issue that's annoying me...wondering if anyone else has had this or noticed it. This is also after doing a clean Win10 install, I didn't notice if it did this before the clean install.

Basically the GPU core clock speed gets stuck at 300Mhz after the laptop sleeps and resumes even if it's plugged in the entire time. Unplugging the power and plugging it back in instantly allows the GPU speed to increase or throttle down according to load. Running on a max performance power plan doesn't seem to matter. I kind of wonder if it's because Dell seems to have locked down the power and performance settings in the Intel HD Control Panel and I can't change some performance settings there but I'm not sure. Seems weird. I have the latest drivers etc from Dell's site