XPS 15 (Haswell) Owner's Lounge

Ugh, thanks for the heads-up. Might try just the same. It's funny, I actually wish I had my first MB now. Compared to the current one, it was blissfully silent. Just a little constant buzzing when powered up and plugged in. Now it's barely usable when powered up - even moving the cursor sends it into a high-pitch, irregular whine.

 

Hmm, the XPS 15 I received in early November has a trackpad with what I would describe as a smooth, slippery, quiet surface -- even smoother than the rMBP's trackpad, which I thought was pretty smooth to begin with -- and it showed some discoloration within the first few hours of me using it. How high-friction and noisy was your previous trackpad? Was it like the trackpad in some ThinkPad machines that actually has large, visible bumps?

 

Uff.
Still at work, so I can not open my laptop. But from the photo it looks, as this is an encapsulated part?!
Or can you see, that it is somewhere open?

Encapsulated would mean that epoxy gluing would not change anything!? I googled around for some electronic parts which could be similar and that one in out XPS. See the photo.
If it is capsulated we would know the manufacture, order 10 of these coils. Followed up by a lot of risky soldering (personally I would not dare to do this on my own).


I hope that it is open and the coil is visible somewhere. If so, I will try with glue. If it is encapsulated I will take a look. If I can clamp the part somehow mechanically to the backplate. Maybe cover it with wax or glew some heavy metal plate on it's top cover?
Really want to get rid of this damn coil whine!

 

Did you design that by yourself? ... Yes thats how it should look like inside.

This guy was successful with epoxy and encapsulated coil. Interesting hereby is that those coils look nearly the same like ours:

http://overlordforum.com/topic/410-epoxy-fix-to-reduce-coil-whine/

 

The graphic's is a screenshot from a datesheet of the follwoing company: yosonic technology co. LTD.
PDF: http://www.yosonic.com.tw/userdir/41_c.pdf

The example you showed from the other forum seem to use round parts of such a coil or choke. I saw googleing around, that these are often open, so with direct visible coil inside. Therefore I still have my doubts if on your device epoxy would help if it is still vibrating inside the part casing?
If one would glew it with epoxy, there would be almost no chance to exchange that nasty Choke coil on the board. I still have my doubts concerning warranty and temperature.

But when you did your investigations:
Did some mechanical pressure or putting our finger tip as damper on the part somehow reduced the coil whining sound?

 

Suddenly pressing and touching has no impact on the noise. It could be that covering will reduce the noise. A better solution would be to open the coil housing for the filling procedure. The best would be to order some replacement-part.

I myself would risk to re-solder another one. This parts are quiet big and the soldering pads are accessible so i think the risk is low. However i need a replacement coil.

 

Good that I asked. I really considered to give it a try in the evening, but with your information I see that it has no use.
First we need really need the manufactured of this part (the inductivity is given, with that first number, but there are also tolerances which should be considered if exchange)!

The second question is, if it would be possible to get a hole inside the casing without destroying it!?
(Since we do not know the inner layout this is too risky (I already thought of "burning/drilling" me a hole with a hot needle through the top of the case).)

hmmm,,,, maybe I first try to cut me some metal weight (grinding a coin rectangular) and glue it on top for the first try. I can remove that, if this weight doesn't affect the loudness.

We have to wait until someone can tell us where to get exactly that electronic part. Or wait for a crazy guy who is so p*** off and angry that he simply drills a whole into the casing!

 

Hmm, i saw your foto and there is a black connector for the fan, while my mid tier model (with fullhd/4702) has a blue connector.
If you check out this picture, i don't thing there is a number on the part you are describing (the 2R2). And i don't have any coil whine. I got my laptop 2 weeks ago, did they change something to the assembly line or is it something with qhd/fhd screens?

 

I think you coil is at the place I circled. What is written on that component?

 

So back home I also opened the XPS. I also have mid-tier but QHD+ display (and also replaced the hdd with an sdd like zoomsday)
The part number of the coil in my QHD+ mid-tier is "2R2 338 P15". I tried to push and clamp that unit. There is even with hard pushing no change in the noise.

I carefully located the noise in different loading situations: 90% of the noise is coming from described part. Just stressing all(!) cores also some higher frequencies whining came from the coils near to the hinges. E.g. if one would look from top: under the F5-F10 buttons.
That is interesting and fit to my observations that there are two location under the keyboard the sound comes from.

By the way - and this is very important the R2R coil get's really really hot! I'm surprised that it does not need a heat spreader because one can nearly burn his finger (at least it is not pleased any more to touch). So I suggest that any covering with glue would kill that part.

So guys: I suggest we need spare parts (10 parts R2R coils that one is working), calm hands and an soldering iron, if we want to fix that noise.

 

For the people who have been experiencing odd battery drain issues that seem to happen overnight, check out this post that was just made over on the M3800 thread:

Given that this user's battery "drop" happened in a window of a few seconds, maybe everyone else who's seen this issue is just seeing incorrect battery readings and not an actual drop in charge?

 

The first laptop's trackpad felt closer to the palmrest material than a glass trackpad. Not as coarse but definitely not slippery. The new laptop's trackpad does discolor but it doesn't do so as easily. They are completely different in feel so if people are reading reviews and opinions about the trackpad, keep in mind they vary.

 

I am still having issues where occassionally, closing the lid (which is set to sleep the laptop in my power settings) causes the computer to be frozen upon reopening the lid. It still allows me to login, but all the windows I previously had open are unresponsive and nothing responds to mouse clicks, though the mouse can move around still. Signing out and signing back in solves the problem. Anyone have any ideas?

 

It's great what you are doing! It's crazy how much progress users can make, while Dell remains in the dark. I really hope your findings get to Dell and they can actually do something about it. Because there is no way I'm doing any tinkering with my brand new laptop on my own.

 

how about trying to add a heat spreader ? maybe that will help in heat dissipation and less coil noise. nothing wring with giving it a try

 

This is really interesting now! In a series they will always use little bit different parts. Interesting in this pic is that the the coil right of the "bad" coil is soldered crooked. This means it has been soldered by hand ... A high-res pic of the three coils in the regulator would be really helpful!! It looks as if there is some QR-Code on the "bad" coil?

Quoted by GNUDell:
By the way - and this is very important the R2R coil get's really really hot! I'm surprised that it does not need a heat spreader because one can nearly burn his finger (at least it is not pleased any more to touch). So I suggest that any covering with glue would kill that part.

My 2R2 Coil was not hot. However i did not stress the notebook. But putting a heatsink on that coil will not help at all, as my coil was making noises even when absolutely cold. OR ... the coil is getting hot when then battery is loaded!! According to the following datasheet on of this coils is getting up to 60°C if under 2.5A load.
Actually the XPS 9530 is loading the Battery with 2.5 A

http://www.signaltransformer.com/sites/all/pdf/smd/P175_SCIHP1338.pdf

This would eventually explain the noise behaviour. When the coil is hot it is making no noise. If it cools down (with no load) it begins to squeeze.

As already written, the best way to find a fix is to identify the coil part as best as we can, order some replacement coils, look inside one of them and find a fix with epoxy and/or resoldering. Even if the coil gets hot, some epoxy will not destroy this part. The cooling effect on the coil will be almost not affected by epoxy. It is just a coil. What is the exact size of the bad coil? If you can please post a high-res pic of your coil (or the three coils in the regulator). This will help resolving this problem a lot!

http://www.signaltransformer.com/sites/all/pdf/smd/P173_SCIHP0735.pdf
http://www.signaltransformer.com/sites/all/pdf/smd/P172_SCIHP0730.pdf
http://www.signaltransformer.com/sites/all/pdf/smd/P175_SCIHP1338.pdf
http://www.sumida.com/en/products/docs/whatsnew/CDEIR12D45ME.pdf
http://media.digikey.com/pdf/Data Sheets/Susumu PDFs/PCMB_Series.pdf <- looks very promising

Ok, according to this datasheets it seems to me that "338" is a size factor, related to 13Heigh,13Width and 3.8Heigh in mm.
And the manufacturer is advertising the "5. Composite construction providing extremely low buzz noise."

 

As requested first the image of the coil causing 90-95% of the noise. And then the others near the display hinges (under F5-F10 keys).

PICs: noisy coil; the other coils of a mid-tier QHD+


Who knows an expert, who could get us besides the inductivity the other specifications of the coils (tolerances, frequency behavior)?
Another point: I agree that finding, that a heat spreader will not affect the noise. I started with an colled down laptop: Also noise when booting up. Same as when estimated 70-80 °C under load.

 

You can get every detail about the inductor that a designer of a circuit needs to know from its datasheet.

 

The datasheet of one of the power regulators at the processor side
http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/slps287d/slps287d.pdf

good overview:
https://www.fer.unizg.hr/_download/repository/TI_Power_Management.pdf
Slowly it becomes clear how DELL made this design

Some more high.res pics of the "bad" coil part would be very helpfull!

 

... meanwhile I contacted an electronic workshop and an old school friend (electronics study). Nevertheless both had no Idea, how to find out the other specifications which may be needed (frequency behavior, max. ampere, ramping), they both stock at the point as they saw the soldering:
It is a so called SMD soldering techniques which is used. Both where the opinion, that without the right SMD equipment one could not exchange that. Such an equipment would be just available in big companies with PCB manufacturing.

Since yesterday first I was very optimistic, that exchanging would be an easy fix. But now I loose hope. 1700 EUR for a notebook I can not work concentrated with. If I could, I would NOW by me a MB. I'm out with dell. Maybe forever.

Damn it - lucky the people who just have this to make noise (skype, surfing, playing) - but working....

 

I hear you mate. Let's not drop this matter. As noted, I'm moving to a foreign country now, so I'm "suspending" my fight with Dell for a while, but I certainly do not intend to drop the matter, even if i somehow get used to / start ignorin the coil whine. It's just unacceptable for this price. This is the first Dell laptop I've bought and I'm afraid - the last. What's worse - this means probably the last PC laptop....

 

BTW. Does anybody know if there is a chance Spanish Dell Customer Service has any English speakers? My Spanish is really bad, so I wonder if I'm going to have to get an interpreter to do any complaining there

 

Just got my replacement and I am happy to say I won the lottery, no dead pixels, no noisy fan, starts fine and best of all no coil whine what so ever!
I have pretty well concluded that Dell has no QC department as the little flapper tag on the back doesn't seat right(noticed before taking out of packaging) and there was dirt under the plastic film encasing the laptop but I hardly care about that.

.

 

Anthony:
Gratulations to the quiet notebook ... would you like to make a high-res pic of the "bad" coil??
This would really help us


Even if the coil is a smd part, really, do not be afraid! First of all we need to find a way of fixing this
issue and this means gathering information
Maybe this type of coil is easy to open so we can fill it with epoxy ... keep cool

 

Yes hope never dies, but who would dare to open that coil to find out how it looks inside?! With one opened part we would know if it is possible to drill a hole inside and fill it up with epoxy or low-viscosity super-glew. - All without soldering.
Just one person, who has a motherboard replacement and could convince dell technician that he can pic up that board or that part of the board could do this. .... Or if we can manage it to order exact the same part and grind it up (I could do that + microscopy there at the university... if I would have such a coil)
But these are the last 2 options which remain.

 

Another thing: Are here some people from Germany who had a replacement?
If so,
(1) how does Dell Germany react on a request of MB replacement because of the coil?
(2) If they react: Do they send a new notebook (risky, because my screen if fine), or send out an technican to replace?
(3) And do they refuse warranty if I already replaced the hdd with and sdd?

 

I'd be surprised if they didn't have any. Some companies force phone support employees to use the official language(s), for audit policies et al, but I expect Dell to be more practical and international.

 

I think if the noise is due to this inductor's physical vibration, it's probably because the inductor, as a wire that carries current, is getting a force by the alternating magnetic field.

However, I can think of two different sources that this force come from.
1. If there's a magnetic material nearby, the alternating current in the coil will have a alternating force on that magnetic material. According to Newton's third law, the coil will receive an opposite alternating force from that material.

2. The inductor as a solenoid have several turns and each turn is receiving forces from the rest part of the inductor.

If we know which factor dominates, we might have a more specific solution.

 

I suggest that it is an vibration inside the part, because I tried to clamp and damp the part and surrounding parts. Nothing changed the sound. Therefore I suggest the coil inside moves a lot of.

But I had another idea which came up: People check the old electronic waste you have!
(Unfortunately I recently sort out all my old graphicscards and motherboards which had been lying around in the cellar.)
Maybe we find similar coils which have such a housing. One could open it by grinding and collect some details about the inner structure. I suggest, that all encapsulated coils have similar build geometry.
If we know, if the housing is polymer and where the coil is sitting inside such housings one could drill small hole inside (hot needle) and safely fill it with glue (syringe + needle).

 

Hi Dragontas, Zoomsday and GNUDell, first of all excuses me for my bad english.
Very interesting what you found out about the coilwhine. I Have a XPS 15 top tier (512gb ssd) since January. I have the coil whine when my XPS is fully charged. Also have it sometimes when my battery is discharging and i use it with VMware. The sound is very annoying and i contacted Dell for the "in home service" to replace my motherboard.
They also came for my screen and trackpad because i had hair behind the touchpanel and the trackpad was not correctly assembled.

Before the mechanic of Dell came by i took some pictures of the electronic part that produces the sound.

TEXT: 2R2 338 P15

Photo's:
View attachment 111039
View attachment 111041

unfortunately i had no time to write down de numbers of the three other components because the mechanic called me and said that he would be here in 5 minutes. So i had to close the laptop quickly, LOL.

So after he left i removed the bottom to make new pictures:



Text on component near the battery: 2R2 350 348
Near the Heatsink: R22 404 450 (All of them)

And guess what.... i still got the coil whine. It's not loud but i can hear it while i'm typing this message.

When i start the laptop the Dell logo doesn't appear anymore at the BIOS screen, i only get text en during the windows startup only the "ring" is visible. (Already updatet to A03)

Any tips to get back the Dell logo?
I hope my photo will help with fixing the coil whine problems.

 

Maybe try to reflash the A03 bios could fix that!?

 

Nope...Even I had a motherboard change when it was in A02. Reflashing A02 and A03 didn't bring back the Dell logo.

 

Make sure the new motherboard is in UEFI mode and has Legacy Option ROMs disabled. If they're enabled (or the BIOS is entirely in Legacy mode), you get a different boot process that apparently doesn't show the Dell logo. Typically you'd see the Windows logo instead while booting. I'm surprised you're seeing only a ring....

 

After some hassles with customer service, I received my 2nd replacement XPS 9530 today. Dell was kind enough to extend my 90-day NBD warranty to a full year as compensation, I appreciate that.

But, like the previous replacement, the screen has a nasty yellow tint... Calibration goes a long way to fix that, but games tend to disregard/override the calibration settings. I might have to contact Dell *again*...

There's also still the really bad ghosting, or something resembling it. I've mentioned it a couple of times in this thread, but it didn't get any replies from other owners. I still find it hard to believe no one else would notice this, and I had hope it's just a defect. But I suppose it's 'normal', then?

It's not a dealbreaker, I still really like the laptop. I'm just a little disappointed.

 

I've received my XPS15 (mid-tier) today. The display is really great and overall I'm pretty happy with the build quality. Coming from a Sony VAIO FW5, I'm familiar with coil whine...though I must admit that I only really noticed the coil whine on my VAIO after I've read about it in this thread.
Unfortunately, my XPS15 has coil whine. I thought I wouldn't bother, as I had no problem with the whine on my VAIO even in absolute silence. The coil whine of the XPS, however, is horrifying. I can even hear it while listening to music at low volume. Hopefully, somebody here can work out a way to fix this problem. Maybe even Dell comes up with a solution. I'm asking myself how such a poor "design" can pass QC at Dell...

 

Guys I had a question for you all.

Is there a way I can switch between on board GPU and dedicated GPU when I am plugged in compared to on battery?

For example, I would like it to use the nVidia card all the time when I am plugged in and switch to the intel graphics when on battery.

 

Have the same problem after replacing my motherboard. But actually I think this is a feature and not a problem! The fewer times I read "Dell" on the laptop the better. No one wants to watch the logo of a ridiculous company when booting his laptop.

 

someone at dell told me that the following list of issues will not lead to them replacing the entire laptop.

dust under screen + imperfection in the glass of the screen.
coil whine
heat issues
faulty trackpad


as this would require a new screen, motherboard, heatsink and trackpad all that would remain of the original laptops the base and keyboard, ram and SSD.

I told him I would start a chargeback via my credit card company and have now been told this has been escalated to his manager and can they have a 2 hour slot to contact me.

I only just got back into the UK so I wonder if they will offer to replace it when I call the freephone number they have now provided next week.

 

No, it doesn't work that way. The NVIDIA GPU is a render-only device, not a display device, which means that when the NVIDIA GPU is engaged, it does all of the render work but still uses the Intel GPU to get the rendered display data out to the actual displays; the Intel GPU acts as a passthrough in that situation, so it's always running in some capacity. The GPU drivers decide when the NVIDIA GPU should engage. In the NVIDIA Control Panel, you can force individual applications to run on one GPU or the other if you find that auto-detect isn't making the right call, and it looks like you can set a global preferred GPU to force the NVIDIA GPU to run in all apps or none (though there's a note that the driver can override that setting to maintain compatibility), but you can't customize that setting based on whether you're on battery or AC. You can also right-click an application shortcut and choose "Run on graphics processor" to force that app to run on one GPU or the other just for that instance. But you shouldn't have to worry about any of that, because if the drivers are doing their job, the NVIDIA GPU will kick in whenever it would actually make a meaningful difference. And for the other times, forcing the NVIDIA GPU on full-time even when you're on AC will likely increase your thermals and cause the fans to run when they wouldn't otherwise, giving you a noisier system without any benefit because the Intel GPU could've handled that workload on its own.

 

I just took the plunge and came back from the Microsoft Store at Yorkdale with a brand new top tier XPS 15. Again, this time both my wife and I played with the display model for awhile and held our ears up to it at varying locations and could not detect any coil whine or electrical noises, but this time the store was much more packed and noisier so it may have been missed.

I was able to get a 10% teacher's discount so got $230 knocked off the $2299 price tag, also the other reason I purchased it from the Microsoft Store besides no waiting is they have a 30 day return period with no restock fee (unlike Dell which charges 15% unless thy declare the unit is defective). I told the rep that I've read about a lot of issues with the XPS 15 online and he assured me that if there are issues I can take it back to the store within 30 days and get an exchange or full refund, although I'm hoping I won't have to utilize it.

Anyways I've spent the past 5 to 6 months researching and looking for a replacement of my mid-2009 MBP 13 and really the XPS 15 is the only system with the specs I need. The only other choice was a top of the line MPBr 15 but the premium was a bit much and Mac OS X was no longer a suitable option for me as I've found it too constraining and closed off, plus it's gone really stale. Also my experience with Windows 7 at work has convinced me that MS has finally gotten enough of their act together, IMO Win7/8 is considerably superior to Mac OSX Mavericks.

I'm going to crack open the XPS 15 shortly and give it a thorough inspection and run down. Crossing all my fingers and toes that there aren't any significant problems. It took me a really long time to arrive at this decision and I was still very hesitant while paying for it. I'd wish there was an option to get an MPBr 15 with a touch screen and running native Win8.1.

Update 1: Yep, so I definitely have the high-pitched coil whine I guess the store had enough ambient noise to cover it. Good news so far is that it's not awful, I can only seem to hear it if I'm within 30 cm of the laptop and only if I look for it. If I put my face right up to the system then it's noticeably and fairly annoying. However as soon as the fan kicks in the fan covers it almost completely and I can't hear it unless I place my ear right in the area of the power socket. So besides that, so far so good. Thoroughly checked the screen and no dead pixels or hairs underneath the screen.

 

Is also barely noticable when fully charged and plugged in? Mine is vitually unbearable then. I basically go through a routine of charing it up, unplugging, waiting till battery depletes, then plugging back in...Riiidiculous. Funnily enough, the first motherboard I had was nearly silent in comparison to this.

 

Yes, I've read about your problems and your many mobo swaps. Sorry to hear. My earlier reported experience was with the laptop plugged in and fully charged.

I have completed all Windows and Dell driver updates and have been using it for a few hours now doing a variety of different tasks, such as browsing, Netflix, running Civ 5 and Lightroom and it seems like the driver updates have actually reduced the level of coil whine for me. It's not eliminated by any means but it's almost gone in general. The levels do vary but in the past few hours of usage, the coil whine is so low about 90% of the time that it's not audible at all unless I hold my ear right up to the power cord area. Occasionally it'll flare up when I start an app or something, but even then it's only just noticeable and it returns to non-audible levels within a few minutes. If the fan is running, I'm not able to hear it at all regardless. So I may have lucked out in the QC department.

The only issues I've encountered thus far are Windows-related, have had the touchscreen lose touch functionality twice so far which necessitated a restart. Also, still trying to get used to the keyboard and touchpad surface... not sure how much I like the texture, definitely takes some getting used to after having used the silky-smooth fibreglass touchpad on the MBP for so long.

Anyways, I'll keep my ear on this and continue to monitor the coil whine levels. If it stays this low, I'll try to open her up and take some photos of the coil that was isolated in previous posts to be the cause of the problem and see if I have different components in my system. It seems a lot of the complaints, on this forum at least, about the coil whine stems from European systems, not sure if there's a link there at all. My system is not recently manufactured by any means, I'd wager it's been sitting in the Microsoft Store's storage room for at least a month or more.

 

Regarding touchscreen - did you try updating the touchscreen firmware? Should solve the issue.

What really irritates me is that Dell seems to completely ignore us. Some damage control departments keep sending out the "working on it, will keep you updated" signals, but it's clear that no one intends to do anything about it.

 

No I haven't updated it yet, thanks for the suggestion, I'll give it a shot.

Your frustration is absolutely understandable, I've been following this thread for months and the fact that Dell has not addressed the coil whine in the half year this laptop has been out is ridiculous, but that seems to be the trend for most laptop manufacturers nowadays. My initial choice of purchase was a Sony Vaio Duo 13, but all the recent Vaios have broken WiFi and the Duo 13's been out 9-10 months and the WiFi issue still hasn't been resolved, and likely never will now that Sony is offloading it's Vaio division. Anyways, I wouldn't have bought the XPS15 if I had to buy it through Dell due to their restock fee, and it's been pointed out on the M3800 forum that Dell Canada's official position on the XPS15/M3800 coil whine is that there is no coil whine.

Sigh. Anyways I hope things work out for you folks and that Dell does figure out a solution or at least address it properly (free upgrade to the next XPS15?). This laptop is pretty sweet to use otherwise.

 

Hi everyone, I'm a student looking to buy an XPS 15. I've found some great deals on manufacturer-refurbished machines online but they only offer the model with the Hard Drive and 61Wh battery, not the 91Wh and mSATA SSD. Is it possible to upgrade the 61Wh battery to the 91Wh battery by taking out the hard drive? From the pictures here it looks like you will have enough room if you take out the hard drive. XPS 15 Touch 9530 Sata or mSata - Laptop General Hardware Forum - Laptop - Dell Community

 

Please spend some time reading the XPS 15 Wiki. It contains answers to lots of pre-sales questions that have been asked and answered in this thread many times (like this question), plus you get a sense of what issues people have noticed and to what extent they've been solved. The short answer to your question is that yes, technically you can install the newer battery and an mSATA SSD by removing the spinning hard drive and the caddy, but thus far nobody has gotten Dell Spare Parts to actually SELL them the larger battery -- and many have tried. Same goes for the smaller battery in fact, for people who wanted to use a 2.5" spinning drive.

 

Coil whine has started again on my replacement unit, funny didn't do it for the first week! should I get a refund?

 

Just realised the hinge on my XPS15 is wonky, it's causing the lid to shut strangely too, there's a gap down one side.

 

It's up to you, really. If I had the option of a refund, I would probably go for it, at this point, and get a Mac, even though I use a Windows app for my work (would have to emulate Windows). I seriously doubt Dell is going to do anything serious about this. At best offer a replacement for the new XPS, when it comes up. Or you can try getting more and more replacements...

Mind you, Apple isn't any better in their policy. The crapfest about retention in MBP screens resulted in no solution whatsoever. Only replacements (my brother went through 6 models to get the "correct one"). And to this date people are complaining about this issue. I think we should show the producers that we will not allow this treatment, but I don't know how. Luddism anyone?

 

MSI GS60 Ghost Pro 3K.