XPS 12 Owners Lounge

So what's the current consensus on docking and cases/sleeves? I picked up an XPS12 (new i7 model) to replace my wife's ancient Sony Vaio VGN-T350P.

The Vaio had a very form-fitting cover for it, that made it ideal for protected carrying in another bag (like a briefcase). I'm leaning toward the Van Goddy Hydea sleeve/case but haven't seen/read of an actual XPS12 being used in one.

Once I find the right sleeve I'll get a larger briefcase to carry them both. Most of the time it's just back/forth to the office/home where we'll have wiring left permanently set up. So there's no need to carry much of anything besides the laptop. For travel, however, it's handy to be able to continue bringing the sleeve but have more carrying capacity for various other stuff like chargers and some paperwork.

I'd welcome input on both the sleeve and the briefcase to specifically fit the XPS12 well.

The permanent wiring question leads me to docking solutions. The Sony had a build-in docking port, so that was a no-brainer. It's a shame that port has been omitted on more recent ultrabooks. So now I'm faced with having to plug cabling in all the time.

I take it there's no 'single cable' docking solution for the XPS 12?

 

Hi, I was a Microsoft surface pro 2 user for a month or so but couldn't make do with the small screen and I just had to upgrade to a bigger display so I bought myself a shiny new xps 12.

The Microsoft surface is a very finely tuned machine with Microsoft deciding what all gets installed & it is very clean as respect to the factory installations. My xps has a lot of programs that are starting up on system startup & I am not really sure what all to disable. If someone would be kind enough to guide me on this I would really be very thankful. Following is the list of programs in my startup menu on the task manager & also these programs sit in my notification area on the taskbar

1) Intel Rapid start Technology Manager
2) Dell Touchpad
3) Dell update (I have never had success with this program with any of my dell machines that I have owned in the past {I also have a dell venue 8 pro} & it never finds any updated drivers for me...)
4) Dell Audio
5) Intel Smart Connect Technology
6) Intel Rapid Storage Technology

I would be very thankful for any guidance, coming from the surface pro 2 all of this seems unnecessary to me & I want to optimize & get the best out of my system!!
Thanks for your help.

 

Does anyone know if the XPS 12 and the XPS 13 use the same MSATA SSDs?

 

@Furion92 Thanks for info.... my xps came with 8.1 and when im on the dell site for drivers I did not see one for touch pad for the windows 8.1


by the way the other day when I was on tech support they upgraded my bios to A04 since then I have not had any wifi hickups.

 

My current SSD in my XPS12 came out of my XPS13, so yes.

 

Can you (or someone else) walk me through the process from a software point of view (replacing the hardware is the easy part)? I'm planning on undergoing a similar process with the XPS 13.

 

I've been using A03 happily since December. The only issue I had with it is that it created a new (imaginary) wifi device and disabled the old one, so now I'm using "wifi 2" for everything. You can go back to A01 (and upgrade to A02 from there) if you do a system restore. However, Furion says A04 is coming -- seems worth waiting for that.

I did start getting meaningfully worse wifi a week or two ago, and I'm pretty sure it happened after Windows update gave me the new wifi driver. I find that just flicking airplane mode on and off resets the connection when it drops, but it's still annoying. I've been meaning to re-install the older driver, but haven't got around to it yet.

As an aside, I think it's hilarious that Dell would throw away money replacing Ozzy's touchpad when 1) replacing the Touchpad couldn't possibly fix a memory leak, and 2) The problem has been solved since November. Dell is great about replacing parts, but it's terrible about actually fixing problems. My motherboard got replaced twice before people figured out that the flickering-screen issue experienced by some users was caused by a default Intel power-saving setting. Similarly, they were happy to replace my screen to fix the ghosting, even though all evidence was that the new screen would do it too (which of course it did). So much wasted time and energy.

*edit*

BIOS A04 is available on the Dell driver page. I installed it and (as usual) I don't see anything different.

(And for a moment I thought there was a new touchpad driver, too, but it's just the old one with a new release date on it. Why does Dell keep doing that?)

(Oops, and fixed the wrong name.)

 

You mixed some names, Epic Caesura the one with the MB and touchpad replacements was ozzy4654, who also reported about A04 BIOS.

I will update my BIOS in a few hours, so I'll give you an update on my wifi and sleep issues within the next 48 hours.

Driver and BIOS updates really shouldn't make things worse. I don't know who to blame yet, Dell or Intel or Synaptics, etc...

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Okay so the tech came out today to basically build me a new computer lol.

So after the mb, touchpad, and battery was replaced the tech and I started the computer up to test run it. Well apparently my pc had no wireless card... and I was like go figure another issue. Turns out it was just missing a driver, and after I did some updates including bios a04 system is running great.
Also no memory leak, since I was finally able to download the correct driver.
I will know for sure after a few days of testing, besides the whole ghost image on my screen. Hopefully Dell gets a new vendor for the screens soon so we can get them replaced.

 

So... I've updated to A04 and my sleep/resume issues seem to be gone. However, I've had massive troubles with wifi yesterday. Neither the generic Windows driver nor the newest Intel driver could hold a steady connection for more than 5 minutes.
I also noticed that Dell releases beta drivers (16.8), which weren't released by Intel yet.
If I only knew which version numbers I was using in the past... I had a rock stable connection without any issues until I've decided to update all my drivers along with the BIOS... -.-

What I've noticed is that my router shows "WMM power saving" enabled for my laptop. I can't find an option to disable this within the driver settings... Does anyone know how to disable this on the client-side (can't disable it in my router settings)?

 

I updated to A04 and noticed no change in anything, and also rolled back my wifi drivers to the previous one on Dell's site. My occasional wifi issues remain, so it probably wasn't a new driver causing them.

For me, though, the wifi problems seem to be at least partly router (or connection) related. At home, my connection sometimes drops randomly and I have to double-tap the airplane mode button to reconnect. However, in some other locations this doesn't ever happen. So, I'm wondering if it's that certain router settings don't like the XPS 12's wifi.

There is a power-saving wifi setting under the power plan options (through the battery icon).

 

Alright, I think I've got it. My wifi issues weren't directly related to the BIOS update, but my issues with sleep mode were.
The wifi issues came from updating the driver to either 16.6 (from Intel) or 16.8 (from Dell). Both of these driver versions caused the constant drops and limited connectivity.

I went back to 16.5.3.6 and everything's now working as it should

My explanation for this behaviour is the WMM Power Save, which has to be supported by both router and client. My router generally supports it, but the 7260 card doesn't support it with the 16.5.3.6 driver, so it's not enabled. If you connect to a router that doesn't support it at all, you won't have problems with the newest drivers.

So that's my advice for people with wifi dropping issues: install driver 16.5.3.6 or disable WMM Power Save in your router/ap

Let me know if this helps.

 

Ah, interesting. I rolled back to 16.6.2.1 (from Dell), but apparently that isn't far enough back. I'll give 16.5.3.6 a shot. It's not a big problem for me (only happens rarely, and solved in three seconds by flicking airplane mode), but if I can fix it, even better.

Also, it's now February. Dell was supposed to get new ghosting-free display panels in February. Anyone called and pestered them about it yet?

*edit* Okay, now I'm confused. So, when I rolled back my wifi, I went back to Dell's A02 (it's currently at A03). My device manager tells me my wireless driver is currently 16.6.2.1, but my "programs and features" page tells me it's 16.5.3. Well, I'm going to re-download A02 and see what happens.

*editedit* Okay, so after after uninstalling 16.5.3 from my installed programs, and uninstalling 16.6.2.1 in the device manager, I rebooted to find that I was on 16.6.0.8 (in the DM; nothing in my list of programs). I uninstalled it again, rebooted again, and the same thing happened. 16.6.0.8 seems to be the driver that came with 8.1, so it never goes away. And, while 16.5.3 will install and show as a program, it won't actually be the device driver, presumably because the machine already has something newer running by default. So... whatever. I'm just going to run 16.6.08 for awhile and see what it's like.

I actually think it's smart that Windows won't let you completely uninstall the wireless driver, though, since that's the kind of thing that could trap an unaware user in a situation where he couldn't get a new driver after removing the old one.

(I suspect that in 20 years people are going to look back at computers of this era and be boggled that this sort of micro-management was necessary, or even possible.)

 

Microsoft will always install the newest driver from Intel by default. That's 16.6 at the moment.
The driver installer won't touch your driver, if it's a newer version than the one you try to install.

You would need to extract the driver from the installer and select it manually in the device manager.

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So how's everyone holding up with the image retention issue?

Personally, I felt that I shouldn't have to put up with this sort of problem on such an expensive machine (I've had a screen replacement, and both screens suggested that the issue would get worse with time). The only assurances I got were from a single Dell representative over on the Dell forum who said that the engineering team might possibly release a solution in Feb/March which will be supply-constrained. Seeing as I live in New Zealand and nobody really cares about us, I'd rather not leave the issue up to such shaky odds. So I applied for a refund, and with that money I'll be purchasing the i5/8/128 XPS 13 which I'll be upgrading with a 240GB SSD, for a total price that's about NZ$300 cheaper than my i7/8/256 XPS 12 (I bought it at a discounted price), which I think is still a good deal.

It was nice knowing you guys. Though I probably won't stop visiting since the XPS 12 and XPS 13 are very similar anyway. Plus, I still need to know how to perform the SSD switch on a software level.

 

I use the tablet mode too often to give up on it without waiting for a possible solution from Dell. On my screen, the problem seems to have stabilized at a level that's overall unacceptable but liveable for a few more months. I like this laptop enough to give Dell a chance to fix it.

 

I use the Plugable UD-3900 USB 3.0 Universal Docking Station with my XPS 12. It has worked flawlessly since I started it with my XPS 12 in December 2013.

The nature of my work is such that I regularly connect and disconnect my notebook from the docking station. Whenever I return to my home-office desk I simply place the XPS 12 on a small easel-like stand in tablet mode and plug in the the power cord and the single USB 3.0 cable for the docking station.

It just works.

I hope that helps.

 

Ok, so the company I work for decided it was time to reinstall windows 8.1 on all of the machines for some reason, and after that I'm stuck with really buggy cleartype/dpi scaling.
I've run through the ClearType wizard and bundled windows metro/desktop applications like explorer, calculator and so on look fine, but my 3rd party programs like Visual Studio, Chrome have very blurry text and icons.

If I check the properties -> compatibility -> disable display scaling on high DPI settings it works a lot better, but then I sometimes get garbled text when scrolling (lack of antialiasing?), and it's a hassle having to to it for every program I use.

Anyone experienced the same problem and got a solution ?

 

I had the same problems and fixed it by enabling the "Let me choose one scaling level for all my displays" option and selecting either "Medium" or "Larger" , I don't know which one I chose atm. Both should work better than the default setting.
Let me know if this helps

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Thank you so much, it did the trick!
That's kinda a weird and un-intuitive fix, though.

 

have dell fixed the image retention problem on the xps 12, or are people still getting ghost on their screen?

 

There's nothing to "fix" -- the screens have image retention, and that's that. Dell will have to do what Apple did for their Retina 15" and replace the panels individually when a new batch has been produced. Supposedly those will become available right about now (Feb/March), but I don't believe there's any news about it yet.

 

Hi there, I have the same problem as you said. Searched the thread and found this post. I only have this problem with the port that is further from the MiniDisplay Port, or the one that supports charging when the laptop is powered off. Still looking for other people to confirm this issue!

And...I confirm the image retention on my haswell xps 12......
I did not think it was a issue at first...
Now it seems to be one..

 

Go into the advanced power options (through the battery icon) and under the usb setting turn off selective suspend. It's a power-saving mode for the usb ports that can have unexpected side-effects. What you're describing doesn't sound like the usual symptoms of selective suspend, but it's definitely worth trying.

 

Thank you for your advice. I followed your suggestion and is still testing to see if it works since it is not a 100% occurrence issue. Will provide feedback after monitoring.

 

I'm experiencing a bizarre sleep issue since upgrading to the latest BIOS version.

The laptop wakes almost immediately after being put to sleep. I'd say within five seconds. The upshot is that I basically can't get the laptop to sleep anymore.
Any ideas of what could be causing this? I don't want to have to downgrade the BIOS.. I'm not even sure that's possible.

 

This is A04? If so, interesting...I have had the return of my computers desire to "not sleep" that I had some months back. Not sure if it's BIOS related or not. My XPS12 used to last an epic period of time on battery (i.e., like a tablet); but now, it can drain the battery even though I closed the lid in clamshell mode to put it to sleep. I will grab it next day and be told my battery is critically low (despite being 100% the night before).

 

noticed in the following

Windows RT 8.1, Windows 8.1, and Windows Server 2012 R2 update rollup: February 2014

An optional windows update a note about a bug where in Win 8.1 devices wouldn't go to sleep regardless of timer settings. I'll update and see where this goes.

 

Okay new issue..... sometimes when I close my lid and reopen during class all I get a black screen and the system is on I can hear it. also the light on the power switch is on too. only option is to do a cold boot.
Another thing I just noticed is that usb drives are not working right now?!?! other than that system works great... and ideas people????

Finally.... have any of you notice phantom clicks with web browsers, etc... like if u have multiple windows and click another to interact with it, it de-highlights your previous window etc..
I have for long time since my original xps 12...idk its hard to explain...

I will do a restart and see if the usb ports work again.

 

After updating to the Patch i noted earlier, and upgrading to BIOS A04, my computer is back to sleeping normally.

Hope these bugs stay away. I love my Dell XPS 12 on a day in and day out basis, just need to know I can rely on it when it's been sitting overnight!

Also, can we stop talking about image retention? This isn't image retention like an Old Plasma - it only happens when you have a fixed image for a long time, and dissipates quickly once you move to something new. I actually never noticed the "issue" in daily use until I went and looked for it. I agree that it seems odd to have an LCD exhibiting this flaw at this price point, but as others have stated, a LOT of other LCDs have this same problem in notebooks.

All in all, the XPS 12's screen is really bright, clear, and while not UHD, it is enough for a 12.5" screen.

 

I get noticeable image retention after less than a minute. That makes it impossible to use the laptop for PP presentations (well, not impossible, obviously, but it looks terrible), and annoying for reading comic books. Yeah, two totally different uses, but those two uses are the main two reasons I bought this and not an XPS 13. If I use a browser for a while, the address bar hangs around for a good five minutes. Note that Apple changed the source of the screens on their Pro, and replaces the screens on older models even out-of-warranty. That's pretty clearly the correct response to something like this, and quite a contrast with what Dell has done.

And, as far as I can tell, it's not that a "lot" of other LCDs have this problem -- it's that exactly one series of LG screens has this problem. It's just unfortunate that it was a high-end screen, so the handful of machines using it are all expensive. That's still a relatively small number of panels on the market, and there are many nice competing products out there that absolutely don't have this issue. It's hardly common.

I love my XPS 12. I'm still using it even though I had to get another laptop for presentations at work. But this is something Dell should have addressed much sooner.

 

Good point, my use cases don't involve fixed images or text for any long period of time, although I do a lot of web browsing and noticing the address bar (IE in App Mode) is not something that I've really been bothered by. I'm gonna run the PPT test you mentioned to see if I would agree that it's an issue for that use case. Even when I've done image retention tests, the retained image dissipates about 80% within 1 minute and the other 20% (barely visible unless you know where to look) within the next minute. I've not seen something last so long as 5 minutes in any case.

It would be nice if Dell swapped us out for better panels, and I know they can. Are they still shipping with LG panels to date? Is there a forum on Dell.com support site where users are mounting up a campaign to get this done? If so I'll join in as well.

Every other part of the XPS12 is such a great form factor, and I love it.

 

Tested a few PowerPoint/Slide Presentation, left a slide on with pretty stark black text, white background, and a couple other types with various backgrounds/text. I did not notice any bad image retention, in fact I noticed none at all from slide to slide. I left a slide on for 10 minutes, then moved to the next. I could not get any image retention to show up in a noticeable way.

I tried a few comic pages as well, and noticed some retention, but only at the boundary between white/black, or any area of high contrast, mainly at the edges of the screen (not the middle). It did not noticeable distract from actually reading a comic page. In fact, I can't figure out how a complex graphic intensive comic would be obscured by image retention, or how you would see any page to page, but I'm sure you can if you are looking for it. Oh well, I'm not a comic reader anyways.

 

Well, on PP it obviously depends on the nature of the slide, because the same sorts of images and contrasts that cause the retention with other programs will cause it for PP as well. Since I often sit on the same slide for five or ten minutes while I discuss it, it's not hard to cause retention. On the comics, I can see faint ghosting of word bubbles on the next page if I linger meaningfully on a page. The comics case is just a personal annoyance, of course, and a minor one; but, when the ghosting impacts the e-reader function of a laptop specifically designed to also work as an e-reader, that's a little bleh.

That said, I still love the laptop. I'm happy using it as a personal machine, and another for work presentations. But, I'll be a bunch happier if Dell gets those new panels in sometime soon.

 

I certainly agree that it's there, and shouldn't be on a 1500 dollar laptop. If you hear anything about Dell offering replacement panels, please post here. I'll have to try the e-reader to see if there's a big problem there on my screen.

I tried pretty high contrast PP slide examples and left them on screen for 10 minutes before switching. Slides tend to be center centric, and I've noticed the image retention is strongest at the edges of the screen. Maybe that's why I don't see it as easily or is a non-issue with PowerPoint on my XPS12, and it's possible my panel just doesn't have as strong an issue on this front.

 

Hey guys, I've got good news for you.
I just received the information from a Dell rep that the new displays will be available within the next 2 weeks (at least here in Germany).

I'm initiating an exchange and will let you know whether the new display is better than the old one. I really hope that the sharpness and constrast will stay roughly the same :/

 

Interesting! Let us know how it goes. Wonder how we will really be able to tell it's a different brand.

 

Well... The first thing I'll do will be the mbp image retention test. Whether the display will be from a different brand or not is totally irrelevant to me

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I bought an XP 12 with Haswell 4200U today. Been trying to get the ghosting to appear using images and a macbook pro site that has a checkered pattern . No success. Good news I guess Any suggestions on how to get this problem to appear?

Loving the laptop so far after tweaking 8.1 to make it more Win 7 like. I'm hoping that I can get the problem to appear before my 14 day return expires.

 

I can't seem to get the image retention / ghosting issue to happen. Trying a lot of high contrast images (flipping back and forth). Doesnt seem to be an issue...so far.

Also, I stumbled upon the "memory leak" issue from a few months back. That seems to be fixed. Non-paged pool is around 277 for the past 8 hours of use.

More importantly, there seems to be less online chatter about this laptop recently. Bugs being addressed has calmed the mob?

Day 2 on this laptop and I have to say I'm very happy with it. Coming from a Thinkpad T420, I'm surprised how quickly I've adapted to the all the changes in this Dell. Having tested a Thinkpad Yoga in a showroom ,I have to say that this laptop is just as good if not better. Keyboard, screen and overall build robustness is a big surprise.

 

So I just got a Dell XPS 13. The internals should be similar to the XPS 12.

But I can't hold a wifi connection for more than a few minutes, and that connection is unbearably slow (I haven't been able to download Chrome since turning on the computer. Wonder if yall could help out here?

My wireless driver is version 16.8.0.6

 

Hm... it's got the same Intel 7260 AC network card in it like the XPS 12, right?
Have you seen my post a few pages back?

 

Indeed. I suspected that it wasn't a hardware issue because I am able to consistently get a connection when the laptop is turned on, but it always turns off soon.

Incidentally, I've also seen Epic Caesura's post on the matter and I fear I may be screwed here:

Incidentally, you wouldn't happen to know where I might be able to download the appropriate earlier drivers, would you?

EDIT: downgraded to 16.5.3, problem still happnin.

 

In case anyone is interested...

I bought my XPS 12 at Microcenter for $699. It only has 4gb of soldered in RAM, but off for my expected use, that works just fine. There are some open boxes at $629 too.

Comparing everything else in it's category, this was a deal in my book.

 

What CPU in this model?

I just picked up a 4th gen i3 model from the Dell Outlet for $512. I might be interested in paying the extra $100 for an i5..

 

It is the i5 4200U Haswell. Surprisingly fast due to the speedboost. 15 watt TDP too...amazing.

This type of machine is meant for leisure / light duty work...i3 should be enough...no? I have no delusions about doing CAD or serious gaming on this. Mostly netflix and internet.

I looked at the Dell Outlet, but I have a Microcenter nearby and returns are easy.

 

Wait a week. New panels don't do it -- it appears over time. When people get their panels replaced (or buy a refurb unit), a really easy way to tell if you got a new or a refurbished panel is if the image retention is there right away or only starts to show up after a week. I was excited for a few days when I thought my replacement panel fixed the problem, but alas no.

And regarding the price, the i5/4/128 model was $699 at Microsoft stores (and online) for months over Christmas, and several other sellers dropped their price to match, so that's definitely the most anyone should be paying now. Before the memory leak got patched, 4GB of RAM simply wasn't enough, but now it's plenty. I'd have waited for that price if I'd known it was coming, but I'm still pretty happy with my step-up model that cost twice as much.

 

I apologize if this has been addressed already (for some reason, my email alerts about updates to this thread are always spotty!).

I've had a new issue since the most recent BIOS update: frequent blue screens when shutting down accompanied by the error "DPC_Watchdog_Violation." I have updated all of the drivers, but still, for one out of every 2-3 shutdowns, I am getting a blue screen with the same watchdog error message.

Are others having this problem as well? Any ideas on a fix?

 

I can now see the image retention problem on my laptop. It shows in the top and bottom of the screen only at this point, but it is clearly visible.

ARG!!!!

 

Alright, new parts are available now and they're sending me a new display. I should be able to make out the manufacturer. I'll let you know once it arrived.

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