XPS 12 Owners Lounge

Wow, thanks so much for this information--I had no idea! To be honest, I'm really not seeing a lot of slowing issues but maybe that's b/c I'm not doing gaming or anything major on the laptop?

Please keep me posted on this issue. In the meantime, does it make sense to reboot more often? I've just been letting the computer go into sleep mode (which has its own issues, as it's still taking 20-30 seconds to reconnect to the internet wirelessly post-sleep) when I'm not using it, but it starts up so quickly, I'm wondering if it would make more sense to shut down.

 

If you scroll back through my posts (LINK HERE) you can see a couple photos of the burn-in I was experiencing... it was pretty bad by the time I got Dell to do a replacement screen. I am suspicious that my new screen will deteriorate over time also

 

One thing I want to know is: what is the "Dell Update" utility? It seems that about 2/3 of the times I've turned on my XPS 12, I get an error message telling me that "Dell Update has stopped working". But I'm not sure which startup process is attached to it (the names are confusing), so I want to know what it does so I know whether it's worth keeping on my laptop.

 

I bought the Ivy Bridge version of the XPS 12 a couple of months ago and the only thing that's really a problem is the WiFi, its absolutely abysmal and after reading up and trying various different methods to get it working reliably I've decided the only way forward it to replace it.

So I've ordered the 7260 AC card and I figure I should just be able to switch out the useless 6235 for the card used in the Haswell version.

It should arrive in the next few days and for £20 (~$31) I figure it's worth a shot to get solid future-proof WiFi.

Any thoughts on why this wouldn't work? If not i'll keep you updated on the installation.

 

Where did you get access to 8.1 RTM? My university's dreamspark account does not yet have it and the one I downloaded from a torrent did not activate using my OEM key.

Thanks in advance.

 

I tried two ac cards in two different XPS12s (Ivy). Neither laptop had working Bluetooth. Didn't even show up in device manager. WiFi worked the same in the ivy as it does in the haswell. Reinstalled the 6235, not problem with BT.

 

Do you have Dell a program called My Dell installed on your system? It could be that program that is loading up the Dell Utility. Although I find the My Dell utility very useful:
http://i.imgur.com/nB2by77.jpg

It can be found in the Uninstall Programs called "My Dell"

Also you could try a program called Autoruns which lists everything that loads up on your Laptop:
Download Autoruns 11.70 - FileHippo.com

Just find the programs you do not want to load under the "Logon" tab and untick them.

 

Well, I finally gave up on the touchpad. While I enjoyed the rest of my XPS 12, the touchpad is beyond horrible, and completely ruins the experience. I just returned it earlier today. I hope Dell can fix it, but it seems a long shot right now, since it's the second generation now, and we are still having a ton of issues...

 

Having inspected the XPS 12 (Ivy Bridge) and XPS 12 (Haswell) the Wireless Card slot is completely different and in fact in a different position in both models. In fact, I do not think the 7260 AC will fit in the Ivy Bridge motherboard configuration.

Here is the 7260AC card:
http://i.imgur.com/W2UQGCF.jpg

Here is a comparison between the 72060AC and 6235 card:
http://i.imgur.com/XSK7pas.jpg

 

I have recently purchased an XPS 12. Overall I am very happy with it, but would like to partition the C drive in to the usual OS and Data splits. I noticed there are several comments already on the number of partitions already present by default for smart start etc...., can I do a simple split and create in Disk Management as one would normally?

Since I've only got a 256GB SSD to play with, has any one removed all the Intel Rapid start stuff and what were the performance differences involved?

Many thanks for any input!

 

I've already had the SSD replaced in mine. The replacement was a clean drive; no partitions on it all. Dell was nice enough to send a DVD disk with it, but come to find out that disk was not a system image, it was just Win 8. They did send out a bootable USB drive (8GB) the next day, but that one was also just Win 8. I went ahead and loaded Win 8 myself, and installed all the drivers off the Dell and Intel web-sites. Personally, I don't see any differences between having the rapid start stuff and not. I'd rather have the extra space!

 

Thanks for the photos, I've ordered the half mini pcie version of the card here: 7260 PCIe half mini

This looks to be the same size as the current 6235 and is dual wifi and bluetooth as is the 6235.

Deerchaser, Which cards did you try?

 

How are people re-partitioning their C drives? I tried using Disk Manager and it would only let me shrink my C drive by a small amount, or am I going about this wrong?

Do I need to start from scratch and re-install Windows and re-partition then?

Cheers guys.

 

Half mini, As you can see the new style wont fit.

 

Anyone have a problem with their XPS 12 sometimes it does not get past the dell logo on post? On cold boots I find it does this just about every time! Amongst other issues such as bluetooth driver failing and needing a restart.

I have updated all the drivers to the latest (not from dell site, actually went to manufacturer site and got the latest from intel and such). Still having these problems. My co-worker has same ultrabook however his is the 3rd gen processor (mine is haswell, 4th gen) and his has recently been beeping and not posting. After a few on/off's it will turn on.

This laptop seems to be very flawed. Hope dell figures something out, it is the whole package unfortunately if the package does not work well it's pretty much an expensive paper weight.

 

I've had mine for almost a month now, and I'm not experiencing most of the problems being mentioned in recent pages. I have zero noticeable burn-in, for example -- and I think it would be noticeable, since my Firefox bar is sitting there without change for a good ten hours every day. Wi-fi comes on in just a few seconds after sleep, and works fine generally. Touch-screen has never been non-responsive (although I also don't use it much). Boots just fine in 8-ish seconds, and can be online immediately. So, anyone experiencing those problems: it's definitely not common to every unit.

I've had, four overall problems with the unit, all mild enough to be not be dealbreakers:

1) A bit of input lag comes and goes on the touchpad. It's really only noticeable with two-finger scrolling, but there it's quite evident -- I have to scroll somewhat carefully or the cursor will fly to the top or bottom before the scroll registers. This is mostly evident in Firefox, and might be a Firefox problem. What's funny is that it comes and goes -- sometimes scrolling is perfect and crisp. If a background process is causing this, I haven't figured out which one yet.

2) The fan is loud and often comes on at very low load. I sometimes leave the task monitor up to try to catch what's causing it, and it seems to be... nothing. Nothing downloading or installing (not even a ninja W8 or app update), 3% processor load, not plugged in, fan will still occasionally come on. I figure either the BIOS is very triggerhappy with the fan, or the temp sensor is broken. Since others have complained about this, I suspect the former.

3) I do have a memory leak of some kind. I reboot daily, so it's no big deal, but I'm often past 50% of 8GB RAM while the task monitor shows essentially no RAM usage. That might be the leak others are reporting in the touchpad driver (which isn't Dell's fault, as laptop owners from other manufacturers are reporting the same), or it might be the "usual" memory leaks that have been dogging Firefox for years. Makes me happy I didn't get the 4GB RAM configuration, though.

4) Three times now, my screen has started to act up, flickering black in bands across the screen (like, the bottom third flickering on and off). It has the twitchy quality of a loose connection, but all three times a reboot has solved the problem. So, I'm hopeful it's just a driver issue.

I believe those are the extent of my issues. They're minor, and aside from having to be a bit over-precise with trackpad scrolling (which is annoying), they don't bother me meaningfully. Anyone else experience anything similar?

As an aside, I'm loving, loving the quality of the screen. It's crisp and vibrant, and so bright. Usually, when I see battery benchmarks run at 50% brightness, I think, "Pfft, that means nothing -- who would use it like that?" But, with this machine I almost never have the brightness above 50%, and at night when the room is dim (but still lit, just no sunlight) I put it down at the lowest setting. It's just a very nice screen, and it's spoiled me quite badly. I don't think I'll ever be able to work with lower res again.

 

I can't seem to get an answer to this--is it best to just reboot daily? I had stopped doing this but will go back to doing so if it makes more sense with the memory leak issues.

 

Rebooting doesn't hurt the machine in any way, and takes ten seconds. There's no reason not to do it. There are also RAM-cleaning programs out there that you could run every now and then, but frankly it seems easier to me to just reboot. The leak with the touchpad drivers seems to be reasonably well-attested, so we can expect an update at some point to fix it.

I removed "Rapid Start" because I'd rather have 8GB of drive space than an improved sleep mode, so it's natural for me to turn off the machine at night anyway -- I'd do it even without the leak.

 

What does Rapid Start really do, anyway? Doesn't seem to be helping me...

 

It's named deceptively. Rapid Start turns low-power sleep state into no-power hibernation, dumping everything in RAM to the SSD so that the laptop can basically turn off and not use power while still having everything exactly as you left it when you turn it back on. It's called "Rapid Start" because it comes back to full function more quickly than the "regular" hibernate built into Windows, and faster by a few seconds than a regular boot-up.

That's kinda neat, I suppose. However, the machine already boots up plenty fast for my tastes, and regular sleep mode drains so little power that I don't really care about going from little to nothing. So, since hibernate (either Rapid Start or the regular Windows function) locks up 8GB of SSD space, I prefer to keep that space and lose the option to hibernate. If I had a 500GB SSD (or maybe one of the new monster 1TB Samsungs, which are shockingly inexpensive to my mind and kind of worth looking into), then I probably wouldn't care either way.

But, yeah, Rapid Start just saves battery power in sleep mode. That's it.

 

I may have fixed my posting issue. I went into the bios and disabled intel rapid start and intel smart connect. Seems to be much faster to boot and shut down now.

 

Thanks for the explanation; I may delete it too, now.

 

Uninstall and disable it from bios as well!

 

Is this easy to do? I don't feel competent to screw with the BIOS...

 

It's really easy to disable in BIOS -- it's just a clearly-marked on/off switch. Google it and you'll easily see how it's done. While you're in there, you might want to switch the F-keys so that they do their secondary function without holding down the Fn button.

Don't forget that simply turning Rapid Start off does not recover the SSD space. Do do that, you need to remove the SSD partitions set aside for it. The one that's exactly the size of your RAM (8GB, unless you have the base configuration with 4), and another tiny one that's something like 40 or 50MB (which is used as a buffer for the large partition). Delete those and expand the main partition (the big one) into that space, and you just gave yourself 8GB more of SSD space.

BUT...

When Rapid Start is disabled, the default W8 hibernate function turns back on. That also locks out 8GB of SSD space (it just comes from the main partition instead of a separate one). So, now you need to disable regular hibernation. There's a registry command for that -- I forget what it is offhand, but if you Google "disable hibernate" you'll find it easily. Do that, and the "hibernate" option will disappear from your shutdown options, and you'll have 8GB more to play with (the same 8 as above, not another 8).

That all sounds complicated, but it's totally not. Google the steps or read backwards in this thread for the instructions. It's dead easy.

(While we're on the topic, if you haven't already done it yet, you should make a "recovery" USB drive. W8 has a utility for that -- easily Googled, again. That'll allow you to remove the recovery partition on the SSD, which gives you another 11GB or so of drive space. It's smart to do that regardless of space issues, since it's a bit dangerous to have your recovery media on the same drive that presumably got damaged if you need the recovery media.)

 

I feel like the odd one out here in that I left Rapid Start on, to activate after 30min of sleep

If I need the 8GB, I'll disable it. But I've still got 159GB free, so I might as well avail of it while I can lol.

 

So Rapid Start aids both the sleep and start-up times?

Anyone know how to stop the keyboard backlit always coming on by default. I kinda wished it remembered the last setting...

 

Do you have a Haswell version? i3 / i5 / i7?

 

To be more specific:

In the Rapid Start settings, there is a "timer" slider that can be set anywhere between 0 and 120 minutes. If you set it to 30 minutes, then Rapid Start will kick in when the machine has been asleep for 30 minutes. It puts the machine into a state that's somewhere between "sleep" and "hibernate". It's called "Rapid Start" because it wakes up from this state faster than it would wake up from hibernation.

However, Rapid Start (as far as I know) has absolutely no effect any other time. Your computer will sleep and wake up like normal before the time you set in the Rapid Start settings, and it'll start up from shutdown like normal.

If there's a way, I don't think it's in the BIOS.

Damn, I wish I could turn that thing off by default.

 

The backlight options are in the "mobility center." Right-click from the bottom left corner and choose it from the list. If you actually click the little picture of a keyboard, it takes you to the advanced options.

*edit* I'm assuming that setting it to "off" and turning off the ambient light sensor would give it no reason to light up on start-up. Or, did you try that and it didn't work because it just reverted to the previous settings on reboot? *editedit* Just checked, and for me it remembers the changes for the next boot. I've now got the backlight on medium, which I like much better.

Haswell i7 (and there is no i3 XPS 12). But none of those processors, even an older IB model, should need the fan at 3% processor load at room temperature. It's random enough to make me wonder if there's a background (non-cpu-taxing) process going on that I can't find, but this has also been noted by other users and several reviews, so I'm inclined to blame twitchy BIOS.

 

I would like to post a little story regarding my experience with Dell Support regarding the touchpad memory leak.

I rang Dell Support with regards to the Touchpad Non Paged memory leak. They insisted it was a motherboard issue, and were adamant that it was a motherboard issue and said they cannot do anything until the motherboard is replaced. I asked the Support Technician to relay to the people in charge of developing the drivers to re-issue some new drivers without the issue. He said he cannot as it is a motherboard issue.

So a Technician was dispatched to replace the motherboard. He called him self an "engineer" which I found interesting. I showed him the Non Paged memory leak but he changed the motherboard anyway. After changing the motherboard I showed him that the Non Paged memory leak still happened. He then said it is a Windows 8 issue and I needed to re-install Windows 8 from scratch. I explained to him that I had already done this, he said I need to do it again and it will solve the problem. I then spoke to Dell Support on the phone and explained the issue again, and the Dell Support person said they cannot do anything until I re-install the Windows 8 operating system from scratch and that I needed to allow the onsite Technician to re-install everything from scratch.

So hesitantly I allowed the onsite Technician to re-install everything. After he was done, I showed him again that the problem still persists. Then he said that this is normal and that the Non Paged Memory leak should be increasing. Even though I told him it increases to 6GB in total over 10 hours, he said it was normal. I do not understand why this person calls himself an engineer, as the term "engineer" for me means you hold some type of qualification or knowledge to consider yourself an engineer. He was simply an unintelligent person who was trying to solve the problem by trial and error and did not appreciate the problem.

It has been a month since I informed Dell of this issue, and nearly two weeks since I informed Dell-TerryB the problem. Posting on Dell's FB page about this is totally useless as they refer to you install a "Cypress" driver when the XPS 12 Haswell has the Synaptics Touchpad. I have given up on Dell solving this problem.

I contacted Dell and requested a full refund. I am not purchasing or using the XPS 12 ever again. I will be going down to the local store and purchasing an Sony Vaio Pro 11 tomorrow.

So those who are hoping this problem will be solved, don't hold your breath. Dell already has your money. That's all they care about.

 

That's an incredible story, I'm really sorry for the incompetent support you experienced.

But now that whole memory leak issue got even stranger. It's neither the motherboard (including CPU and RAM) nor Windows or the default drivers.
I'm using the Haswell i7 256GB 8GB model and I never had any memory leaks. I don't reboot my notebook either, I just put it into sleep mode (Intel Rapid Start disabled).

Which model do you and the other users seeing the leak have?

 

I'm using the Haswell i7/8GB/256GB model as well, and I'm seeing the memory leak too, though it seems to be noticeably slower than has been suggested in this thread. According to a PM I recieved from moshnz, he too has this model. As far as I know, the only thing we have in common is that they're both targeted toward New Zealand. But that can't be the reason if others in this thread have experienced something like this.

EDIT: I notice you have Intel Rapid Start disabled. That's another difference between your machine and mine (not sure about moshnz though).

 

So you're having the same model... How could I test if my device has the same momory leak issues as yours? Just watch the stats in the Task-Manager while using the touchpad?
Let's look into possible configuration differences:
- uninstalled software from Dell (I've only left "Dell Digital Delivery", "Dell Touchpad", "Dell Audio" and "Quickset64" installed)
- different touchpad driver versions (16.5.0.42)
- I'm using TwoFingerScroll and disabled all of the gesture features of the touchpad
- Power Plan usage (I'm using "Dell")
- disabled Rapid Start

 

Take a picture of your memory details under task manager like this picture posted here:
http://i.imgur.com/gkU9mE8.jpg

If your non paged memory size is bigger than 1GB then there is a problem.

 

I turned off Rapid Start in the Manager program and then I disabled it in the BIOS but whenever I boot the computer I get a pop up saying Your system does not appear to have Intel Rapid Start Tecnology enabled. How to I stop that popping up?

EDIT: OK I can answer my own question in case anyone else has this issue. I found an entry for Rapid Start in the Scheduled Tasks section of the Start up items which I disabled and the pop up has gone away.

 

While looking at the BIOS, I saw an item for Battery Charge Configuration. The default seems to be Standard. What setting are other people using? Is Adaptive better? I use it plugged it at least 50% of the time. Should I use the AC setting?

 

Okay, so I took a picture of the Task-Manager ( click!) and I've got 1.8GB of non paged memory. I will watch it, but I don't think it does increase over time.
However, the screenshot you linked to shows a total memory usage of 7.1GB, which is insane! Even after subtracting the 2.7GB non paged memory there's still 4.4GB used memory left, which is a lot.

I'm curious, what lead us to believe it's the touchpad's fault in the first place?

 

I have the memory leakage problem that others have mentioned although mine does not seem to be as bad as some. While looking for something else in the Windows Store, I just noticed an app Winspresso for Dell. I don't really understand about memory and leakage but might this help?

 

Okay, I've watched my nonpaged memory and after a reboot I get 1MB of new nonpaged memory after roughly 5 seconds of mouse movement. That doesn't seem like a whole lot, but it adds up over time and eventually reaches the limits of the physically available memory.
From a programmer's point of view that driver is a disaster and should have never reached shipping status.

The untouched driver from the Synaptics homepage unfortunately doesn't recognize the touchpad of the XPS 12, so that's not an alternative either.

 

Dell's handling of this with you has clearly been terrible and inept, but...

It's already been posted earlier in this thread that the problem is happening with laptops from other manufacturers with the same trackpad. This is a problem with the drivers that Synaptics is giving Dell, not with anything Dell manufactures or designs. Yes, Dell's name is on the driver, but only because they like to throw their own UI on top of the existing driver.

Now, there is a more current Synaptics driver that Dell hasn't passed along yet, but even that's pretty old, so it's unlikely to solve the problem. Most likely, Synaptics is working on a new driver now, and until Dell gets it there's nothing Dell can do. Dell actually has a good history of releasing improved trackpad drivers -- the Ivy Bridge XPS 12 got a series of improved drivers, and the XPS 13's trackpad improved dramatically when new drivers addressed serious early problems. In fact, even the existence of the Synaptics pad on the Haswell XPS 12 is Dell making a direct move to improve the trackpad on the machine.

None of that excuses the truly terrible tech and "engineering" support you received, but right now there's no evidence that the memory leak itself is Dell's fault at all.

 

I just did a quick test of the Winspresso product. It will not immediately release any unpaged memory, but I did notice it drop after putting the computer to sleep. From what I'm seeing on the interwebz, this could be a problem with Win 8 and the Synaptics driver(s). Now, if you get a Dell tech on the phone tell you that they want to replace the MB, I'd say it's worth a shot; not because this is going to fix the memory leak, but because you might get a better MB with an i7 4650u and Intel HD 5000 instead of what you originally got. That happened to me. I know about the leak and a Bluetooth mouse helps keep that nonpaged memory in check. I don't think I'm ready to switch laptops just because of a memory leak that I can work around...

 

What does Winspresso for Dell do that restarting the computer doesn't?

And who would I be getting in contact with if I want to take advantage of this whole i7-4650u thing?

 

If you go back for the last several pages, you'd notice that many folks are complaining of a memory leak that is linked to the Synaptic touchpad on the new Haswell XPS 12s. Someone suggested that Winspresso might help with this; my tests have shown that it doesn't so far, so a reboot is still the only answer when you're non-paged memory gets too high. Someone else mentioned that when they called tech support about the memory leak issue, Dell replaced the MB. With my recent experience with a bad SSD, they replaced my i7 4500u / Intel HD 4400 MB with an i7 4650u / Intel HD 5000 MB. This tells me that they do not have a good supply of the i7 4500u MBs in the U.S. to honor their next business day service on the XPS 12, so if they want to suggest an MB replacement, it might be worth a shot to get an upgrade even though we all know that the MB replacement will NOT fix the touchpad driver memory leak.

 

I was looking at a i5 3317 processor equipped dell xps12 in a shop and I was unable to pen links or do any actions by double taing the track pad...the shop assistant had no idea about the system. Is this just a settings issue?

I'm looing at getting an i5 3337 equiped model from the uk outlet site.

 

Worked great, thanks for the tip

 

"Tap to click" is a standard trackpad setting that can be turned on or off. The machine you were using presumably had it set to off. It's a standard trackpad, and has all the usual options.

But, if you buy an XPS 12 with an "Ivy Bridge" 3317 processor, you're getting last year's model. The trackpad on that model is rather poor in general, and the battery life is significantly worse. The new version has been out for months, so don't buy the old one unless it's really heavily discounted.

*edit*

Sweet, happy to help. MS really needs to push the "right-click in the bottom corner" menu. Pretty much every important setting is easily accessible, including a lot of the things that people complain about missing the start button for. I had W8 for a month before I noticed it was there, and now I use it all the time.

 

I bought 2 such systems recently from the UK outlet (although with 3337 processors if that makes any difference). I knew the Haswell was coming and would offer better battery life, but for the price I paid, £600 each I am very very impressed. I can get ~5hours web surfing. Not great but ok for me. Both of the models I received were new, however both have had or have problems. First one wifi couldn't connect. Turns out the antenna wasn't connected to the wifi card! I have to say I dreaded the worst for getting it all sorted but it was done v. quickly and an engineer came out to sort it (apparently I have next business day warranty, which I wasn't aware of).

2nd one has a faulty USB port, which I am trying to get sorted now. So check everything properly as I didn't 100% and assumed Dell were doing some QA on their stuff LOL. Or maybe I was just unlucky. Anyways, I am still very happy, and for £600 I doubt you could do better for this spec and build quality.

 

So how are people partitioning the SSDs on their XPS 12s? I tried it through disk management and it will only let me shrink the default partition by 100GB or so (not enough). I may try GParted but am worried it will mess things up and ask me for a Windows 8 install disk (which I don't have, I only have a recovery USB).

Cheers guys.

 

I'm quoting my own post from a week ago here, because I'm now noticing burn-in. I changed my desktop background to something with a more muted colour palette, and now I see the shadows of the Firefox bar at the top, plain as day. Makes me think it's been there all along, but I never noticed it before.

It's not a dealbreaker for me, so I'll wait and see if it gets worse. But, yeah,it's one more thing... I still really like this laptop a lot, but a lot of these little problems really shouldn't be happening.