XPS 14 UltraBook Owners Lounge

You can on the L421X too - right click the program and select the option the same way

BTW new mainboard in my L421X but after the battery had drained completely this PM it booted up on external power as normal - weirs ! The Engineer was also lost to why it had done it but replaced the mainboard anyhow!

 

I think Optimus treats those settings (integrated vs. discrete) as more a "user-suggestion" than a firm requirement. Lots of examples of people setting a particular app to "use:->discrete" but finding that the NVIDIA card isn't utilized.

-Matt

 

Currently I have an XPS 15z with a i7-2640M, but I find it too big and heavy to lug around.
Also it doesn't have a kensington lock slot for god's sake!

I am thinking of getting the Inspiron 14z ultrabook with the i7-3517U.
Wanting to run Visual Studio and use it as a development PC.
Is this a suitable laptop?

 

Spec-wise, yes. But you definitely need higher res than 1366x768 or it will drive you insane using the VS IDE. Opt for a machine with 900p.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Wondering if you meant to say "XPS 14 Ultrabook"...since this isn't the owner's thread for the Inspiron 14z...? Though CC's note about the 1366x768 display on the 14z is spot on.

-Matt

 

From a processor standpoint the 3517u is about 10% faster than the 2640m so you should have no problem with the number crunching whether you go with the Inspiron 14z or the XPS 14 (they both use the 3517u).

I can't speak to the current generation of Inspiron 14z but I had one of the Sandy Bridge units last winter that I sent back. Why? the worst trackpad I've ever used on a laptop and a very springy keyboard.

I ended up buying an XPS 15z which, other than the infamous trim peeling off, was a fantastic laptop. The warranty just expired so I decided it was time to upgrade. I also looked at the new Inspiron 14z but went with the XPS because I'd noticed such a difference in the build quality when moving from an Inspiron to an XPS.

I recently bought an XPS 14 and it's probably my favorite laptop out of the 15 or so I've owned. Here's why:

It's built as well as a Macbook which is no small compliment. It's solid (zero flex in the screen or body and no spring to the keyboard frame) and it has a good keyboard (better than the 15z as far as I'm concerned)

It has a great screen. A lot of people complain about the viewing angle which baffles me: when I use a computer I sit down. I do not bob my head up and down and I don't use it on a ship. Yes the vertical angle is narrow but it's really not that much worse than my Thinkpad 510 I use at work. The Gorilla Glass is a bit shiny in direct sunlight but the screen is very, very bright. The 1600x900 if you're doing Visual Studio is not a luxury - it's a necessity IMHO.

It has a phenomenal battery life - I get a consistent 5 hours with the screen cranked bright and the backlight keyboard on. It's heavy for an 'ultrabook' but, having pulled the bottom to install an SSD, it's got a hell of a good sized battery under the hood which accounts for a lot of the weight.

If you're programming, it's a great little rig - smaller than a 15z, much better built and faster. As I noted in a previous post, slap an SSD in it - it allows you to really take advantage of what the system is capable of.

The only reason I'd compromise with the Inspiron 14z is price. You'll pay about $500 more for the XPS 14 which some might consider too hefty of a premium for the build quality and higher resolution.

 

Thanks. As a prospective owner I found your comments very helpful!

-Matt

 

Some very strange results after making these changes, and like you, jury still out on whether they have done much. Thanks for suggesting them. Upon making the changes (both of them), initially, in my earlier reported location 2, it instantly went to 15-20mbps on the standard internet test(s). I thought, woohoo, but was spent for the day (had just rolled in monday night from a long weekend out of town) and just wasn't going to spend significant time on it.

So, last night I did some testing. Still very unstable, still problems evening connecting from location 4. I _might_ be seeing a 10-15% performance increase at locations 1 thru 3, but doesn't seem to be anything to write home about. Still gonna play w/ it and see what I can come up with.

Still have not contacted Dell. I loathe that options, I already know how it's gonna go. First they'll blame my network, suggest some stupid things, and ultimately it'll take hours over numerous days to ever get someone w/ any sense on the phone. They need to have a IVR phone quiz and if you pass it, you immediately get routed to a level 2 or 3 support person.

Anyway...more to come...

 

When I bought my XPS 14, my WiFi connection was very good like my other computers. But yesterday I changed my hard drive to a SSD and I had to re install my OS. After installing all the drivers my WiFi connection was so weak though. You really can't do anything with such a connection. Do you have any idea what I did wrong?

Chris

 

That's interesting...

I don't know that I really know how good/bad the wifi was stock. I almost immediately put my Samsung 830 ssd in there. I can't imagine how that would be possible or could cause something to be amiss w/ the wifi, but given your experience, I'm questioning that know. I still have the stock drive in it's out of the box state. Might have to pop it in there and see what happens. I've been meaning to open the case up to check the antenna connections on the wifi card anyway. If they are connected correctly and i rule that out, the drive swap might be in order just to see.

 

I think it has nothing to do with the SSD. The Samsung is just awesome. The new installed OS and the drivers (possibly even the order of those) are probably the problem.

 

Yes, that's what I meant, the installation of the new system on the Samsung. I didn't image my original drive, I installed Win7 clean from my MSDN subscription then all the drivers from the Dell support site. So the install process, order, etc are suspect and that didn't occur to me. If I put my stock spinning HD back in, and it's fine, the next step would be to image that from the spinner to the Samsung, swap them again, and see what happens.

 

If you install an image from a spindle drive on a solid state, don't forget to change the partition alignment after installation of the image.

 

Thanks for that reminder. If memory serves, I checked the alignment initially on the factory drive and it was aligned already so that I can image it straight over. But I'll definitely check that out. At least I _think_ if the original drive is already 'aligned' an image restore to another drive will also be aligned...so correct me if I'm wrong on that.

Which actually give me another idea. Might just image my SSD first and then image the orig drive onto the SSD w/o opening the notebook. That would be a super quick test w/o taking anything apart. I've got an external dongle somewhere here w/ a SATA port on it.

 

Yes most older mechanical drives will have I think 512 byte sectors. Alot of the new, high capacity drives will already be 4k aligned which is what SSDs should be aligned as, as well.

If your mechanical drive was already 4k aligned when you imaged it, the SSD you install the image on will still be 4k aligned.

 

Let me know your results.

 

I just installed the latest wifi driver from dell (15.3.something) and it seems to have significantly improved wifi performance. I only had problems when I was in the furthest room in the house (speed was one half to one quarter my old laptop) but now its significantly better or atleast comparable.

Other problem I cannot install bios A09 update because it says I have Intel anti-theft installed and that I need to "unenroll". How do I even do that since I don't see a program labelled "Intel anti-theft".

Another recommendatioon from dell forums is to go to power settings and set network card for maximum performance as well as disable computer's ability to shut off card to save power.

 

I changed my power options to Power saver (+ Wireless Adapter Settings: Maximum Performance) and my WiFi connection is now considerably better than before. I did a lot of things so far but this is the only thing that improved my performance so much. Give it a try and tell me if it works for you.


Chris

 

JT Overath or anyone who can help!

I am a newbie on this site. I've done basic upgrades to laptops in the past. I will be installing the 830 SSD on my XPS 14 soon (XPS is only a couple of days old)

Hope you will be able to provide some help. What steps before installing/after installing do I need to do, to ensure W7 works with all the drivers and Dell Software? I have backed-up via Dell Datasafe. I am great at using my hands to turn screwdrivers and swing a hammer, but am not the best at things like updating the bios, etc.

1. After installing the ssd, what do I need to do, to install W7 to ensure it runs well, and as the original Dell Experience?
2. How do I disable the mSata ssd caching and re-format? I don't really need it for much, but wouldn't mind the extra HD space.
3. Any issues or error messages after installing the SSD and Dell Datasafe?
4. Any ideas on using Norton Ghost with the 830 ssd vs re-install via Dell Datasafe?

I know this is asking for a lot and I appreciate your help. There are a few sites with the basic information on installing a ssd, but am looking for information specific to this laptop.

Dell XPS 14. L421X. Service Pack 1 Build 7601. i7-3517u, 8gb RAM, Bios A04,

 

Well I continue to have issues with wireless speed. Further away, the worse it is. Was finally told by Dell that there is a problem with the wireless card and they expect to have a solution shortly. Not what you want to hear.

 

I haven't tried the reimaging yet, but wanted to post back some other findings and driver updates that I'm playing with now. I did some searching and tweaking Friday night thru today. On Friday night, I ran across the following two links in a thread on Dell Community forums.

Drivers and Downloads | Dell [United States]

Wireless Networking — What are the recommended settings for 802.11n connectivity?

Both of these were recommendations made by Dell tech support. I guess they are too out of it on maintaining the site to have posted the update to the 15.3.0.16 (also mentioned by someone above) drivers to the 6235 wireless card on the XPS 14 driver/download pages.

Anyway, these have made a remarkable improvement, but not without continued range and reception issues. But these have corrected my speed issues in many cases.

But, I can say w/ complete confidence that there is something wrong w/ this case design, or mine anyway (could very well be a bad/loose antenna wire). When I sit in my mentioned Location 2 (same floor, opposite end of my house) which is 40 feet from the router, 4 walls in between...I started noticing VERY odd behavior. Sometimes is was killer strong (20+ Mbps tests) and others just horrible (<5 Mbps). I finally figured it out. When it was good, I was sitting in a chair that caused the glass part of the screen to face the router, when it's bad, I'm sitting in a chair that the XPS logo side of the screen to face the router. I can test once and get 20, rotate 180 degrees and get 3. Definitely a design flaw if you ask me.

But, there are still some places in my house where I get nothing, while the other 2 laptops are fine and blazing fast. Again, those are my V131 (intel 1030 card w/ integrated BT) and my E6510 (intel 6300 card w/ separate Dell BT).

So, while the drivers and those router settings have fixed a good many of my issues around speed...everything is still very tempermental when it comes to where I'm sitting and the reception.

I'm not really sure that re-imaging of my stock OS onto the SSD at this point is going to do me any good. I may still try it and report back when time permits, but it'll be later in the week or next weekend.

Still pretty fed up w/ this. It's very much looking like a poor Dell design at this point. Again, unless I've got something loose or defective inside my unit.

Would be interested in anyone else trying a similar test with the 15.3.0.16 drivers with some distance and then do the 180 deg rotation test against any of the common internet speed test tools.

 

I understand that you paid good money for this laptop and Dell should fix it. That's how I would feel if I were having wifi problems.

The wifi card is very easy to swap out, though there aren't very many alternatives for the Intel dual-band wifi + bluetooth 4.0 card they use in the XPS 14.

 

I'll have a unit in my hands by the end of the week -- remind me and I'll run whatever tests you like!

-Matt

 

I was told that the dell engineers "are working hard on a solution" and if they cannot find a fix, I will return the laptop. I have a 4 year old HP that works better as far as reception. They also said something along the lines that this current version of the wifi card with the A02 BIOS was no longer included in production line as of 9/14.

 

It was a dealbreaker for me. I spent weeks on the fence and then decided that it's probably better for me to repair my old M1330 and wait until next year for a Dell with a higher resolution screen and possibly touch functionality.

Or the XPS 14 at a cheaper price. I personally see it that a screen that seems to have had numerous criticisms, isn't worth the price you pay.

 

finally got off my butt tonight and called Dell. fortunately they didn't have me go thru a bunch of needless work. after i described all the things i've done, network changes, router settings, wifi drivers+settings, they felt i had done all that 1st level tech support could do.

they confirmed that the XPS 15 ultrabook has an issue w/ 3 different wireless cards that have been included in that model and that the current 'fix' until the engineers figure it out was to provide folks w/ a USB dongle for wifi. not an optimal solution, but it is what it is. At this point, they could not confirm (due to the late hour) w/ the next level support folks at the main Dell tech support facility whether this also applied to the XPS 14. They were going to confirm that one way or the other and get back with me after 3pm. Personally, I'm not going to do a dongle, and if I did, I'd just pick up my own 'nano' version until they get this worked out (if they can). But my response to that option was that I probably would not be willing/able to continue using the XPS 14 under that option and would prefer to chat about some other solution (return, replacement) if this is in fact a design flaw. but i agreed to wait and see what they find out and we'll cross the next bridge after 3pm tomorrow.

just wanted to share my findings. i'm still sick that i didn't catch this earlier by turning off one of my 2 routers 3 months ago...but I just didn't use the wifi enough out and about to the point that i would have noticed this, or wherever i DID use it was close enough to an access point that the problem masked itself until now. anyway, more to come...

 

Anyone with WiFi issues try a Bigfoot 1202 card yet?

 

Hi. Congrats on your purchase.


If you want to use the SSD as a normal drive and reinstall windows you have to follow the next steps:

- Go into the BIOS and switch to SATA mode.
- Boot from your W7 Installation media
- Format all the drives that you see there
- Create partitions as you see fit (if any)
- Start the installation

I haven't used DataSafe so I can't help you there.

Good luck.


EDIT: New video drivers (both Intel and Nvidia) on the website today. The links are there but when downloading an error appears. Hope they fix them soon.

 

Hmmm. That's interesting. I might be willing to give it a try, actually thought about putting the Intel 1030 from the V131 into the XPS at some point just to see. But when Dell indicated that 3 different cards have issues in the XPS 15 ultrabook, it kinda screamed of a design flaw...which I think I have pretty much confirmed to my own satisfaction w/ my 180deg rotation test.

But still and interesting idea, to try something else...and that Bigfoot looks like an option.

 

hylton...thx for your following up.

I've continued to pursue the wifi issues too. Quality of service is still very poor, but when it is working ok it works well. However, far too frustrating and often when it doesn't work and it should.

I've upgraded the wifi to the 15.3 drivers and saw no impact at all over a 24 hour period. Same spotty performance. I'm going to pull the wifi card out of my old M1330 and see if that performs better.

I've also still been very frustrated by the touchpad. It's useless for me and I've had to resort to a stand alone mouse. I loaded the 16.2.12.3 Synaptics drivers. They work much better, but the soft right mouse button doesn't work so still no solution. Re-installed the Dell drivers so I can do really basic stuff in a pinch.

All in all, this is the worst laptop I've ever spent money on. Even worse, I don't see another out there I really want. My M1330 is now completely dead and disabled, so I've simply got to live with this pile of poo and try to make the best of it.

If I ever get this machine into a happy, usable state all around, I'll post on what I did to get there.

-NP

 

Expecting mine later this week -- I'll try and post my experiences, to help us understand which issues are sporadic vs. systemic. In the meantime...

...barring any major announcements from Dell and others around Win 8 release (end of October), my fall-back plan (if the XPS 14 is a dud) is to pick up the Samsung NP700Z5C ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/sam...s-7-lovers-heres-np700z5c-ivy-bridge-128.html). It's for sure not a sibling of the XPS 14, but could pass for a distant cousin. I recommend it not only after owning one for several weeks but also because any complaints on the user forum are minor compared to those here. Its notable shortcomings are: (1) mediocre display (yes, even less fabulous than the Dell), and about 1/2lb heavier. Otherwise you get an excellent build, 15" 1600x900 dislplay, about 5 hours battery life, quad-core i7, NVIDIA 640m, and a gorgeous backlit keyboard for about $1050 (Amazon).

-Matt

 

Thanks for your help as well. Seems we are all collectively getting to the bottom of things, but I think the bottom (as you said) is filled w/ poo. I'm pretty unhappy also. I may ask Dell to send me a Bigfoot card, seems the Alienware uses these now (upgrade option), so they have them somewhere if they'll do it. I'm willing to install it and test it, the reviews I've read today seem to indicated that they do well w/ barriers, and I think the barrier in this case is the aluminum.

Did you happen to try the 180deg rotation thing...i.e. my speed/connection in some places is literally 2-3Mbps w/ the XPS side facing the router and >20Mbps with the Gorilla Glass facing the router.

On the touchpad, I'm the opposite there. Mine is working great, completely smooth. I don't use the softkey feature, using hard right/left clickers. But the smoothness is better than any touchpad I've ever owned. I do still have issues not having my palm hit the touchpad when I'm typing. There is probably a setting for that, to turn it off when typing, but I haven't looked yet. Too focused on this wifi issue.

In the end, if they can't address this to my satisfaction, I'm going to ask to swap for a Latitude 6430 or just return it all-together. They may balk at that, but offering me a USB stick is unaccetable as a solution, particularly long term. I don't consider that a legitimate 'warranty' solution. It's broken, fix it or take it back.

UPDATE: Dell tech support just got back in touch w/ me from my call last night. Basically they were unable to confirm (last night) whether this was an XPS 14 issue similar to the known issue (known to tech support) with the XPS 15. She had to check w/ Texas higher level engineering tech support of some kind. Anyway, still no resolution, but my case has been moved to the folks in Texas now and I'm suppose to get a call w/in 2 business days. So, stay tuned!

 

Well I tried the 15.3 wifi update and kept having wireless take forever to connect when waking up computer. However, went back to 15.2 version and a new graphics HD driver released today. I was told by Dell to try this out and when I did it somehow has addressed wireless speed issue! Its not better than my 5 year old HP but now its atleast comparable. Although it still has less bars, I havent had issues with dropped connection. I asked them how a graphics driver was supposed to fix a wireless issues and they said there were some compatibility problems that needed to be fixed. I'm not particularly happy with dell tech support so far and I have 3 more days before I can no longer return to best buy. I have never returned a laptop before and still not sure I want to keep this one.

Anyway, try the new graphics driver and tell me if it changes things for you?

 

Well I spoke too soon. 5 minutes after posting this, even though I am in exact same location, am down to 2 bars from 4 and wireless speed is down 75%!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I found another mini-PCIe dual-band N wifi + bluetooth 4.0 card that you guys might be interested in trying to see if it fixes any of the wifi issues.

It's an AzureWave AW-NB111H. A friend of mine purchased an Asus motherboard and it came with one.

 

So, finally spent some time w/ the top level Dell Tech Support on the phone and email. I somehow made it thru first level tech support and was immediately bumped to the final 'engineering' level support. But it's taken me 2 days to actually talk to one of these folks. There are 2 levels in between from what I understand. That tells me that _something_ is going on w/ these units, otherwise they'd have just run me thru the usual 'elevate' ringer thru tech support.

What they said... They are in fact working on a solution, as far as what they told me. Sounds similar to what others have heard or been told. But they did not disclose what that fix would be, what the problem actually IS, or even confirm that this was in fact a 'known problem' w/ the new XPS ultrabooks. But, they pretty much admitted this was a problem (same problem) as w/ the XPS 15. The XPS 15 owners forum here seems to indicated that _maybe_ there is new hardware already out on the XPS 15 now that doesn't exhibit this problem. I dunno if that is valid or not, I only know what I'm getting from Dell and what the results of my testing on my unit tell me.

Anyway. For now, the temporary solution they offered is (as others have mentioned) a USB adapter from Dell. I'm probably just going to pick up my own as an interim solution and see how this goes. I'm also going to give some thought to what I want to do over the weekend. I'm suppose to touch base w/ them again on Monday. They said a refund was not an option, but I don't know that I accept that answer. Offering a usb dongle as a temporary solution with no estimate of a fix is not really adhering to the 'spirit' of a warranty if you ask me.

I will say that once you are at this level of support, it is far and away better than what you get on the first call. They are responsive, knowledgeable, and understanding. Very interested in resolving the matter and making sure the customer is happy (to the best of their ability I suppose). No scripts involved.

Will keep everyone posted as new events transpire...

 

What RAM upgrades have you guys done so far? I'd like to stick with a reputable maker. Crucial has an 8GB module for 37.99. But this wouldn't install over the Dell factory installed 4GB module(s) would it?

thanks

EDIT - nevermind it looks like 8GB max for the XPS.

 

well after spending far too much time trying to get a brand new expensive laptop fixed by Dell, I returned it to best buy and got full price refunded including shipping. Now thats customer service. I think its ridiculous that Dell does not replace what is admittedly a defective product no questions asked. They offered me a number of temporary fixes but no computer replacement. I will never get the time I wasted on this thing back. Whats unfortunate is that I actually liked the computer.....I will never again buy a Dell.

 

Potential resolution at this point. So I had not been to the driver site in about a week while waiting to actually speak w/ the final layer of tech support. Just too busy this week w/ other stuff. Anyway, today I was reading some stuff in the XPS 15 owners thread and someone, a little earlier in the week mentioned something about a tech saying there was a conflict w/ video and wireless drivers and that a new video driver was out or coming out. I went and checked, and sure enough, on BOTH the 14 and 15 driver sites, there is a new 'urgent' video driver released on the 25th/26th of September (this month). So I pulled it down and installed it. Bam, perfect wireless connection, stable, etc. So I am running the WIRELESS driver on the XPS 15 downloads (Intel 6235) and the VIDEO driver (Intel) from the XPS 14 downloads. I am not sure why the XPS 14 site doesn't have the newer 15.3.0.16 drivers for the 6235 wifi card, but anyway, they ARE on the XPS 15 side of the shop.

I can't say whether the older wireless drivers for the XPS 14 (the ones on the downloads) will work just as well, I'm leaving well enough alone at this point. I'm also not going to jump the gun and close my case yet.

I have been in all 4 of my previously mentioned test locations in my home this evening, and in all of them, I've got 4-5 bars signal strength, windows is always reporting > 100mbps as the connection speed to the router (typically 150+ accept the furthest location 4). My internet speed tests are fast no matter where I'm at now. Getting 5-10Mbps even in the furthest and most obstructed (from the router) location in my house. I'm able to stream 1080p trailers from youtube in every location...that includes 50+ feet from my router, 2 floors away, 4 walls.

While I'm still a bit leary to claim victory, I might be good to go now.

Interested if others try this what your results are.

 

I tried 15.3 driver first and it caused laptop to fail to connect when waking up. The dell tech actually removed it from my laptop and replaced with 15.2. I then tried new video driver and hey presto looked like problem solved except 10 minutes later connection speed dropped 75%. At that point I was on day 30 of my return window for best buy and decided I had had enough

 

This is great to hear about the WiFi issue. I just ordered a XPS14 off the outlet, I7, Nvidia, 500GB HD, after all discounts and taxes, total came out to $961. Not bad for a fully loaded XPS, will put my own SSD in it. I got irritated with customer service when the screwed up my account (long story), they knocked off another $65. So right under $900 for this bad boy!

FYI, Dell has 25% off on any Outlet laptop over $1000. I found this page the other day:

Dell Outlet (DellOutlet) on Twitter

 

So they seem to have pulled back the Nvidia Driver from the site although the link to downloading the old version doesn't work either (file not found).

The Intel one seems to be missing as well, it has a 09/25 date though.

I reported this problem a week ago but no change so far.

Right now I'm using Beta drivers on Windows 8 because the ones previously available weren't working (3D apps crashed, etc).

Anyway, I hope someone from Dell looks into it soon. It gives the company a pretty bad image.

 

I spent much of the weekend stress testing my setup, which was Windows 7 Pro (clean install by me) with the afore mentioned driver combo. I also rolled back to the 5.1.1 drivers and also had no issues w/ wireless. So the culprit seems to be the video drivers conflicting w/ the wireless. I did a ton of surfing and downloading and other than maybe one point in my worst location (4) it disconnected but came back up pretty soon. I attribute that to interference, environment. All in all, I have to say this combo is/was very stable.

The 'was' comment is because I've clean installed again, after imaging just to be safe. I clean installed Windows 8 Pro mid-day yesterday and so far, pretty good. Seems to have a bit of a range issue, but not terrible, just not quite as good as Windows 7. But I'm running a different combo. Video drivers from Intel (Dell Support) will not install at all. Under Windows 8, wireless worked out of the box. It was a 4.x.x.x driver from Dec 2011 that it installed by default. But upgrading to 5.1.1.0 and 5.3.0.16 both seemed to work fine under Windows 8. I have a bit less bandwidth and range, but not enough for me to be all that concerned.

On another note, under Windows 8, I've got a couple of things in device manager not working. I think it's the accelerometer and maybe the USB3 controller. But neither of those are of much concern for me. I'm hopeful a future driver release or the addition of Windows 8 to the Dell Support site will address that.

I did my Windows 8 install after changing the BIOS setting to boot to UEFI instead of the Legacy BIOS. Wow! Windows 8 starts cold in well under 10 seconds, out of sleep is instant. Working to get all my software installed today. Planning to stick w/ this due to the performance in spite of Windows 8 being difficult to navigate until I get comfortable w/ it.

Just wanted to post back more of my trials and tribulations. Hope this helps other folks w/ their problems. Shoot if you have questions.

 

Hi, I've been trying to download the new video driver from Dell since it was released on the 25th but it keeps saying file not found. Do you have a link for the intel driver you downloaded?

Also on EUFI BIOS, did you select IRST or AHCI? I used AHCI for Win7 but installed it before the BIOS update added EUFI support and I can't be bothered to rebuild, maybe when 8 is finally released...

Thanks.

 

Video driver, I just dl'ed from the US support site at:

Drivers and Downloads | Dell [United States]

I don't recall a setting after choosing UEFI as the boot option to then pick IRST or AHCI. I'll go back and look and post back, but I don't think there is anything there.

Windows 8 is officially out, MSDN anyway. Has it not been released in the UK yet? I seem to recall you are in the UK?

EDIT: Yea, on the boot screen in the BIOS, nothing there. Once you pick UEFI over Legacy, there is an option to put some pre-load stuff in there, but I didn't do anything w/ that. The only place there is any other reference to IRST is back on the other page where you turn on/off all the other intel stuff, smart connect, etc. But that's totally grayed out (probably b/c of the Samsung drive is my only guess). Anyway, all I did was flip the boot to UEFI, make a FAT32 USB stick, copy my WIN 8 iso contents to it...plug it in...15 minutes later up and running. Just put a few of the Dell drivers on (many would not even install). I am only left w/ one PCI simple comm device and an unknown device that are not working. I know one is the accelerometer (from my Win 7 clean install) and the other I suspect is the USB3 controller b/c that driver would not install either.

 

Greetings. Can someone clarify if the updated video driver(s) are providing much-improved wireless connectivity? If so, what specific video driver did you install from the Dell driver website, the Intel IvyBridge HD Graphics or nVIDIA?

Thanks for the feedback. I am a potential buyer and currently evaluating all Ultrabook options across all manufacturers.

Cheers.

 

I cannot speak to the Nvidia situation. My XPS 14 just has the integrated Intel video.

But regarding an XPS 14 with the Intel video...YES. The new Intel video drivers (version 8.15.10.2778) correct the wireless issues on the XPS 14. This includes running with either the 5.1.1.0 or 5.3.0.16 wireless drivers. Dell has not put the 5.3.0.16 drivers on the XPS 14 site (or hadn't as of this weekend), I pulled them from the XPS 15 support site. Both versions of the wireless drivers perform similarly from what I can tell w/ the 8.15.10.2778 video drivers. But I felt the combo of 5.3.0.16 wireless and 5.10.2778 video were best. That's under Windows 7 64-bit.

If you are running or intend on upgrading to Windows 8, the video drivers from Dell's support site would not install. I didn't spend much time on it though as the base install of Windows 8 seems fine video wise. I used the stock video drivers (still Intel, but were part of the Windows 8 install) along w/ the 5.3.0.16 wireless drivers on Windows 8 and it works perfectly.

Hope that helps.

 

The new video drivers did not help with my xps although I did have the nvdia card. Wireless reception would have great reception one minute and have 75% less speed the next minute.

 

If I try to download the Video driver from either Dell UK or Dell USA, I get the following message:

"Sorry, the requested file could not be downloaded."

This is in Chrome, Firefox or IE so it's not my browser. In fact this happened with the BIOS update too, I couldn't download it for at least a week after it was first published. Still can't get to the video driver!

As for Windows 8... I bought my XPS 14 with Windows 7 and an upgrade offer for £15 once Win8 is available. I registered on the MS site and it says they'll email me when it's released. That was a month ago. No email, so I registered again tonight - same message, an email when released...!

 

Micmac, same behavior as me w/ Intel until the video drivers. I guess maybe they are still working on the issue for folks w/ the Nvidia. Dunno. Hopefully they'll get all this straightened out soon. I was about ready to put my foot thru mine!

Cowboy, if its the Intel video you need I might be able to upload the file that I have from Dell...if you want it. Should be able to drop it up on SkyDrive. PM me if you are interested and I'll PM you the link back. It'll be later tonight before I can get it uploaded.