New xps 13 - electrical mb noise, cpu whine and high-pitched noise from screen

I recently received a new xps 13 dev edition with i7/1080p/256gb ssd

1. It has an unbearably loud squealing screen when set to anything lower than 100% brightness.
2. There is a constant electrical whirring noise emanating from the motherboard (or, somewhere under the keyboard).
3. The noise worsens when there is more activity on screen (scrolling web page, moving caret). It almost sounds like there's a hdd in there rather than an ssd.

What are my refund options? I desperately need the laptop for work. Will they do a clean swap? I've bought dell before, but I've never had to return anything.

On a side note, the machine is very nice, but the cursor does jump around by itself sometimes when I'm typing. It's almost as if someone is clicking the touchpad. At first I thought it was me, but then i played a youtube clip fullscreen and, every so often, it would bring up the controls as if clicked!

 

No cause for alarm, at least for the noise. It's a very common issue with Intel processors at the moment. It's called coil whine. It's also not uncommon to see it show up in LCD panels too, both on the laptop and on the desktop. The fact that you've got both a whiny processor and a whiny panel is just really really bad luck. Not much you can do except send it back. I'm not sure how Dell handles is now, but in the past they'd send me a new laptop if I had problems with a new one out-of-box, and I was allowed to keep using the older one until the replacement came in. So no biggie. I guess.

There is a workaround for the processor whine floating around that involves disabling C3 state, but I wouldn't worry about it until you get your replacement. Could be you'll get a really quiet one. My XPS 12 makes no noise, for example.

The trackpad on the other hand is totally Dell's fault, pretty annoying, but you can tweak it to be sorta-kinda okay. Install TouchFreeze and set it to load up at system startup for starters. EDIT: Crap, just realized that you have the dev edition, so not Windows... I really can't help you there.

 

So I decided to get the motheboard replaced instead of waiting for a full replacement. Unfortunately, this only resolved the cpu whine issue. A new lcd panel is coming on monday. I hope it's as good as this one is (apart from the noise, which seems to be due to the connector).

Apart from these issues, the machine is a joy to use. The phantom clicking seems to have been resolved as well. Perhaps the opening up and re-jigging of all the components and tightening it up somehow made it less sensitive. Hopefully by Monday, all my isssue will be resolved. Oh, actually I do have one complaint. The wifi is extremely weak. I've resorted to using an external adapter for the especially troublesome APs. Oh well, not that big a deal as mostly I'm using my local router.

 

Depressingly, twice an engineer has come around to replace the lcd, and now twice the replacement lcd has not worked. Either it's the wrong part, or the panels were defective (i presume the former). Anyway, third time might be the charm. Another engineer is coming around tomorrow. My boss is starting to raise his eyebrows... *sigh*

 

Dell sent me a replacement laptop. It has the exact same issue. How are people not noticing this fault? I've since found another person on the Ubuntu forums complaining about the same issue. I can't fault Dell customer care as they've done all they can, but it's still frustrating. I'm keeping the laptop and buying better headphones...

 

So this is an issue with all XPS 13?
I just got a replacement because of the same issue (LCD whining when at reduced brightness) and am debating whether I should try a third time.

 

Its normal.

I had 3, as I considered it a fault.

All were the same, and after a while you stop hearing it.

 

I also have the noise. Decided to just stick with it and deal.

 

I think older people cant hear it anyway, and your brain tuned it out after a while.

 

I have noticed it with my new XPS 13 and it is definitely annoying, but I noticed the same behavior in my old latitude after adding an SSD, so I'm not surprised. I'm assuming other ultra books have similar electric and high pitched noises as they're not running ARM processors as noiseless tablets do.