Dell XPS 13 Ultrabook Review & Owner's Thread

As was mine. Didn't usually kick in (and then low, for less than 30 seconds) until around 63.

 

Mine is just idling right now, no apps open at all. 2-3% cpu load and the fan is on. This is with the new bios.

Any ideas Dell ?

 

This is what I'm experiencing as well. I just got done with a support call. They went through remote diagnostics and could find nothing wrong. The fan was running the entire time, even after it was finished with the tests and sat idle for 10 minutes. So they are sending out a tech with a new fan assembly.

We'll see...

 

Are the fans running at low RPM while idling?

 

Bill_B,

Could you or someone from Dell explain the partition design on the mSATA drive? There's a good picture of the layout in the picture post at http://forum.notebookreview.com/del...abook-review-owners-thread-5.html#post8345167

I would like to know the thinking behind the layout, what is in each partition, and what you lose if you wipe the drive and do a self installation of Windows 7 or Windows 8.

Thanks,

Thor

 

That appears to be the case with mine.

 

I will ask and post back what I hear.

I'm working on something. Might PM you in a bit.

 

Bill, it is. Mine did eventually shut off after 10 minutes. It's not loud at all, but the bottom on the computer is cool so it's just not needed. Thanks.

 

I will be going to a quieter place to test the fan noise. I have 3 different BIOS revisions I can test. Will let you guys know what A03 possibly has in store once I do some testing.

 

If anyone knows where I can purchase a Dell XPS 13 that has been refurbished (ie.... returned due to noisy fan....) please let me know? Or if anyone has buyer remorse. I just can't afford a $1,000 but would love to have one of these.

 

Too soon. It just started shipping last week. My guess is that you won't start seeing refurbs on the Outlet for 1-2 months.

 

The A02 version of the BIOS is now available from support.dell.com if anyone is still looking for it/doesn't haven't.

A02 BIOS

If even after updating to A02 you notice that fan noise is still louder than normal for a notebook try this test.

Click start, search and search for msconfig. Run msconfig and click the services tab, check "hide all Microsoft" services and then click "disable all". Click the startup tab and click "disable all" then click OK and allow the notebook to restart.

Once the system reboots please test and reply back if the fans are any quieter or not.

After testing please return to msconfig and click "normal startup" then click OK and allow the system to reboot to return the notebook to normal.

 

I am getting the same exact problem after upgrading to A02 bios...fan has been on for the last 10 minutes and cpu temp is hovering around 34/41C.

 

I've now noticed the pattern. On A02 my fan will kick in around 62C+ to cool down the CPU but then stay on about 10 minutes or so after the CPU reaches 45C. Something tells me the fan is staying on too long after it serves its purpose...

 

Are you implying that the machine as shipped from Dell with only Windows native software is working as designed?

I'm sitting here running a Lenovo ThinkPad T420 with a boatload of non-native services and it's whisper quiet. The fan is typically 1800-1900rpm. Granted the chassis, and configuration is different but I am running an i7-2620m, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD, and a second HDD all in the same chassis.

What people should really do is run this test, and a whole series of other tests on the machine fresh from your factory. I'm sure that will be very telling.

 

@Thor

I am happy they are on here actively trying to fix a problem instead of just hiding behind support calls.

Completely new type of system for them. So far my experience with all the ultrabook vendors (and yes I have tried all the major ones) has been that they have had their share of early issues.

 

So this is ssd in our systems?

Samsung PM830 SATA 3 256GB mSATA SSD Review - Ultrabooks To Gain Capacity and SATA 3 Speed - The SSD Review

I wish I would have known performance drops in half from the 256 to 128.... or am I misunderstanding his review? On top of the obvious extra storage, I think I would have went with the 256 for the speed difference too.

 

I ran all day today on and off battery with little to no fan noise on A02. I also enabled passive cooling for when the machine is plugged in (as well as uninstalling McAfee, and disabling some of the junk in the autoruns).

One thing I did notice while testing over the weekend was that the program I was using to monitor the CPU temps (SpeedFan) seemed to cause the fan to run constantly, even though CPU utilization was very low and even when the core and system temps were below 50C. It can't even monitor (much less control) the fan. All I can think is something about the way it was polling the CPU and system temps was making something cranky.

 

Yes, this is the current mSATA that seems to be shipping with the XPS-13 UB. However, do not get scared off from the 128GB. As stated, the speed difference is on the write side and 5MB/s (260MB vs 255MB) is not even measurable in real world use. These little mini-SSD's are very snappy and Dell made a very wise decision incorporating them.

Scott-

 

I see. I misread. Thanks Scott!!

 

So am I but when I looked at the number of services they were asking someone to disable, it didn't seem at all realistic. The assumption should be that most users are going to load their system with some software that adds X amount of overhead.

No offense but I really don't care for "their share of issues" when I am spending my hard earned money. I'm pretty aware of the issues you allude to. I have been slowly but surely scratching machines off my list.

I used to buy Dell. I used to recommend Dell. I am still a stockholder and had high hopes they might finally have a hit. Maybe not. We'll see.

 

Great video review on this page:

http://www.mobiletechreview.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Number=42302

 

Man, I have purchased and recommended so many Dells over the years, it's crazy. Purchases for myself, purchases for family, and helping numerous friends, neighbors and ex-coworkers with their purchases. All Dell.

My current Sony is my first non-Dell since owning a Micron desktop computer. I guess that's why I'm "intrigued" by this Ultrabook and hoping it turns out to be a winner. But I do have my doubts about it, unfortunately.

 

Got to ask, what are people see as far as temps?

Mine seems to idle at 55c and go up to 63-70c under load. That seems a bit high to me.

 

XPS 13 ordered on the 4th, shipped on the 5th, scheduled to deliver on the 6th. Here's wondering what version of the BIOS will be included on this one. My XPS 17 fan sounds like a jet taking off and burns the hand of anyone close to the exhaust. I hope the XPS 13 is better!

 

I would bet that it is still A01, but could be wrong. It should be nothing like that, then again...

 

Alright... I have been doing some testing now that I have the BIOS updated to A02. I also went ahead and loaded a fresh install of Windows 7 64bit (DELL OEM) and tested some more as I progressed to install the core drivers.

My results were enlightening and may explain at least a little of what is going on in regards to the varying fan activity different people are experiencing.

Summary:
In regards to my specific system, it appears that although there does seem to be some thermal monitoring affecting the level of fan activity, I believe there may be some additional fundamental processor activity thresholds that also contribute to the speed [and loudness] produced by the XPS-13 UB fan. A clean install of the O/S with only the chipset and other core drivers were my starting point. No third party software or Dell "extras" were added. Additionally, I purposely did not install the Cypress touchpad drivers due to some resources activity I noticed earlier and was suspicious of. In the end, my suspicions were confirmed to a certain level...

Specifics:
A. It should be noted that the XPS-13 UB air flow is as follows:
The fan intake is on the bottom of the system. This is NOT the fan exhaust as some may have believed. The heated air is pushed through the cooling fins and outward towards the rear of the UB at the base of the LCD display. Due to the shape and hinge location of the display, some air does get pushed downward, which is very similar to other Dell systems that use the same methodology in regards to the display mechanics.

B. The A02 BIOS update is an overall improvement when compared to the original A01 BIOS. Since that was my primary query, there is no need for me to concern myself any longer with BIOS A01.

C. The system fan activity is very predictable once the user fully understands how it reacts to various operating environments. There appears to be THREE stages governing the activity of the fan, which is in direct proportion to the CPU activity (% wise).
These levels are:
CPU - 1~9% / Fan Speed - 0% ~ 20%
CPU - 10~24% >5sec / Fan Speed - 25% ~ 75%
CPU - 25+% >10 sec/ Fan Speed - 100%

Once the fan is active, it stays active as long as the CPU is within the associated activity window. If the CPU drops back down below 10%, the fan will reset itself after approx. 25 seconds. The fan will then either turn OFF if the CPU is at 0% or revert to the next level of speed reduction for up to another 30 seconds before turning off or resampling again.

I was able to produce these findings repeatedly by running the WEI benchmark various times and keeping an eye on each install of the various system utilities.

When I had logged everything desired, I went ahead and loaded the Cypress drivers for the touchpad. This is where things got real interesting. From that point forward, two processes associated with the touchpad would never stay idle and would always keep the processor at least 3% active that equates to 5% once other "normal" processes are accounted for. Even worse, if the touchpad is touched after a few moments of inactivity, 4 out of 5 times, the CPU pops up to 20% for no less than 3 seconds before settling down. The main culprit of this is the Cypress Gesture Engine looking for multiple fingers to record. Likewise, the system memory is also effected by 3-5%, which is notable. Because of these spotty system stresses above 10%, the fan does activate and operate within its 25-75% speed window for the approximate 25 seconds. This ON/OFF cycling could explain what a few people are reporting. In fact, virgin systems with the original Dell O/S image installed with the extra software and utilities could manifest this fan behavior at an even higher rate.

Conclusion:
Again, this is what I found with my specific XPS-13 UB system and your mileage may vary. I hope this feedback helps others understand why their system does what it does. The XPS-13 UB, properly configured with the A02 BIOS, is no louder than many other systems that offer great performance in an uber small package. If the Cypress drivers can be improved to reduce the process bumps, the fundamental experience should be even nicer. Most importantly, a cooler running system equals a longer lasting system. I do not think the XPS-13 UB will ever experience a meltdown. I just feel Dell needs to further refine the cooling characteristics to achieve a more "mainstream" happy medium.

Scott



**** UPDATE - 03/06/2012 ****

Here is some more specific temp and fan activity data over the course of using the system in a normal web browsing environment after running the WEI tests.



A = System idle after launching the Speedfan utiltiy
B = WEI tests
C = (2) browser windows launched to bing.com
D = (1) browser window launched to bing.com
E = (1) browser window launched to yahoo.com
F = (1) browser window launched to bing.com
G = (2) browser windows launched to bing.com
H = (1) browser window launched to ebay.com

I also noted similar data within the Dell system diagnostics outside of the Windows 7 environment.

Processor Temps:
Low: 51c
Average range: 54-68c
High: 72c

Casing Ambient L/H Temps: 19c / 35c

Chipset L/H Temps: 43c / 68c

Fan speeds recorded:
Load - 10-24% = 1321~1586 RPM
Load - 25-49% 3642~4211 RPM <<<--- This range is a little wide and causing the most common noise levels.
Load - 50%+ 4991~5615 RPM

It may be advantagious to create a 1750-2250 RPM range for the 25~49% load temps instead of jumping up into the 3500+ range.

 

Great post Scott. Hopefully that will help Dell Tech's.

Guys I am still having a issue with the screen going dim after a long sleep period. I have the dell management turned off and all the settings whether on battery or a/c are set for full brightness. Also after a sleep, when I wake it up display properties in windows shows full brightness, but the display is dim. I have to dim it a bit, then move it back to full brightness for it to stay bright. Any ideas ?. Anyone else having this issue ?

 

That was a great breakdown of the potential issue areas.

If I could rep you again I would!! Great job

 

If someone decides to verify Scott's findings, please add the fan rpm to the results. I am curious at what rpm people start to get annoyed. For most of the machines I've used over the past few years, the rpm was 3000 or higher. The only exception I recall was the ThinkPad X301 which has higher quality fans.

Nice work Scott!!! Cyprus strikes again.

 

Took the words right out of my mouth. Read with interest, I don't even HAVE the computer any more.

 

Just wondering what people are seeing as sustained idle temps over a long period. Mine stay between 50 and 60 Celsius at idle. Right now CPU is showing 54 and motherboard is at 59, fan running continuously, cpu usage 2%.

 

I have updated my findings HERE.

Scott

 

Thanks for the update. I'm still puzzled why I'm getting continued fan engagement when the CPU usage is under 5% for extended periods.

 

This thread has been very informative, thanks. I bought a XPS 13 to test out for work to see if it's worth rolling out to the rest of the company. First impressions are good, but ya my fan goes absolutely crazy randomly under no load. I think this beast will be incredible on Ivy Bridge. For now it's not bad though and I hope the new BIOS update that Bill was testing fixes the fan and the weird screen brightness issues.

 

I will say this, after having this thing for a week and doing presentations and work on it, I really do like the thing. I love the keyboard and the trackpad is not bad and with the .26 drivers it is responsive. The fan is a little annoying, but to be honest it generally never gets too high as it did right at first. I do hope they continue to work on that with A03 and beyond.

Overall for me it is a keeper and I am happy with it. I tried the Folio, Zen, z835, and even played on the Lenovo. For me this has been my favorite so far of those.

 

I was able to diminish the frequency of the fan turning on unnecessarily by changing the minimum processor state in power management to 0%. I also noticed that the Cypress Trackpad Driver would increase CPU utilization a lot . Originally I was troubleshooting a problem I had with the stock driver crashing when the computer woke from sleep mode. When I uninstalled the Cypress driver and software I noticed that the fan would not turn on as much. I downloaded an older Cypress driver from Dell's website that seemed to fix the problem with the driver crash and as an additional benefit the utilization was much less than the stock driver. I have not yet flashed the BIOS to A01 and it is much better already. I may flash it tonight to see what happens.

 

A03 is looking a lot better. The fan will still get loud when it gets into the high rpm range, but I was pushing it pretty hard when I got it up there at around 77C+ (20 tabs of video, Security Essentials full scan, Solitaire, and HWMonitor running concurrently). Personally, I'm ok with that, but others may not be. My findings with A01 and A02 were in line with everything posted so far. I'll try to nail down an ETA for A03 when I get back into the office tomorrow. (I took the day off for family errands.)

By the way, it handled all those applications like a beast. No lag at all.

 

Question for those that received the T-Mobile HotSpot with your XPS 13, have you received your vouchers yet? I know they say 10 days after it ships, just curious if anyone has received them.

 

That's me doing the Snoopy dance! The Dell service tech left here about 15 minutes ago. The fan performance is like night and day.

For at least some units, the issue is more than just bios settings. According to the tech, the problem is heat dissapation, not due to issues with the fan, but rather the heatsink. He showed me that the heatsinks that are being sent out to the techs are considerably thicker than the ones put in during assembly.

Sure enough. I ran the Passmark64 benchmark several times. Whereas before, the fan would continue to run for 10 minutes after completing a test, it now only runs for 5-10 seconds. Also, the fan no longer kicks on when there's no CPU load.

So... if you're one whose fan seems to run nonstop, put in a service call.


UPDATE: I spoke too soon. I brought the XPS 13 to work with me today and just let it sit idle long enough for the screensaver to kick in and start working. After several minutes the fan kicked in (as I expected; the screensaver I've installed puts a load on the system). I then turned off the screensaver and monitored the temps, waiting for the fan to cycle off... no such luck. 5 minutes later, long after the temps dropped below 50c, the fan was still running.

Putting the computer to sleep and immediately bringing it back shuts off the fan and it doesn't turn on again until another load is placed on the system.

It's as if the BIOS/system doesn't want to let go of the fan for some reason, but putting the computer to sleep "resets" the fan trigger.

I've been able to replicate the pattern now twice this morning.

 

@heavy

Thanks for the info! That is really good to know.

 

That's interesting. Now I wonder if they will fix the issue upstream.

 

I havent heard my fan since A02 (generally used with tv on though).. but if there is a heavier duty heatsink running around out there I kinda want one!

Bill B, any news from cypress yet on some new drivers? Would really love to see all of the multitouch gestures working... 4 finger swipe looked pretty awesome if it can stop me from alt-tab'ing through the 15 or 20 things I work on at a time.

 

Bingo .

 

I will ask.

New Cypress drivers in hand and in test now. Newer than the XPS 15z ones even. I'm not on my work laptop right now, or I'd post the version number.

 

Thanks Bill! If they work ok Im happy to test em too! Finally have PM's working and all.

 

I received my XPS 13 today! So far I've only had maybe 30 minutes to play with it, but so far, I LOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE it. My "review" may be different than some of the views you've seen;

I'm coming back from a tablet. I haven't had a laptop in 1.5 years.

 

@slopokdave

Yeah I am very happy with mine as well. The kinks are minor for me and most of them are gone now. Plus what is great is that Dell is being very active on issues that have arisen and no I do not work for Dell

 

Could anyone recommend a guide on removing the hibernation profile and joining that space? Essentially I want to delete the hibernation, combine it with the main partition, then partition out a separate partition that I can use for windows 8. Any guides or software...

edit: Nevermind, I think I have it with the help of Partition Master.

 

Can you maybe talk about WHY you LOOOOVE it?