XPS 15 (Haswell) Owner's Lounge

I have a ton of those messages (as well as a ton of USB devices connected) as well as some warnings about services requesting that the system not go to sleep automatically, though I have automatic sleep disabled anyway and my system sleeps fine when I actually tell it to. My HTML report identifies the USB devices that won't enter selective suspend, though, and I don't see that information in your post.

 

Thanks jp!

You're right, I get these errors even without any usb device connected. I have attached the complete report from powercfg. If anyone has any ideas of what might be causing this, I would be very happy to hear about them


EDIT: These are the errors in question:

USB Suspend:USB Device not Entering Selective Suspend
This device did not enter the USB Selective Suspend state. Processor
power management may be prevented when this USB device is not in the
Selective Suspend state. Note that this issue will not prevent the
system from sleeping.
Device Name USB Root Hub
Host Controller ID PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_8C2D
Host Controller Location PCI bus 0, device 26, function 0
Device ID USB\VID_8086&PID_8C2D
Port Path

USB Suspend:USB Device not Entering Selective Suspend
This device did not enter the USB Selective Suspend state. Processor
power management may be prevented when this USB device is not in the
Selective Suspend state. Note that this issue will not prevent the
system from sleeping.
Device Name Generic USB Hub
Host Controller ID PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_8C2D
Host Controller Location PCI bus 0, device 26, function 0
Device ID USB\VID_8087&PID_8008
Port Path 1

USB Suspend:USB Device not Entering Selective Suspend
This device did not enter the USB Selective Suspend state. Processor
power management may be prevented when this USB device is not in the
Selective Suspend state. Note that this issue will not prevent the
system from sleeping.
Device Name USB Input Device
Host Controller ID PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_8C2D
Host Controller Location PCI bus 0, device 26, function 0
Device ID USB\VID_06CB&PID_0AC3
Port Path 1,2

 

The USB hub devices (which are probably the USB 3.0 ports and the USB 2.0 port) not entering selective sleep is probably because if they did that, all of the USB devices attached to those ports would become unavailable. As for the input device, that appears to be something incorporated into the Intel chipset based on the Vendor and Device IDs. But just because a device won't enter selective suspend doesn't mean there's a problem. The fact that you've allowed Windows to put those into selective suspend doesn't mean they actually support it.

 

replacement arrived this morning, the trackpad on this is as smooth as glass, the original one was textured so that is 100% better as the old one seemed to invite bits to stick to it. It is still unresponsive in the far bottom left and right corners.

the coil crackle & whine is now reduced 90% to the point it is nearly unnoticeable. The cpu is not the refresh one that is starting to be advertised.

The glass screen cover seems to be ok but it has a bit of fluff trapped yet again so I am pissed about that & will contact dell again, as far as i'm concerned they can replace the bloody lot again as I do not see why I should have a tech taking my laptop to bits (meaning I have to take a day off as well). We will see what Dell say about that.

The thermal paste was its usual overkill so I have already redone that and ran finalwires combined cpu/gpu test without it throttling after several minutes.

Initial power up had a odd ticking noise but that stopped after a few minutes so I assume something was stuck in the fan that has since fell out.

Shocking build quality still, I wish they made something of the XPS's spec that isn't a macbook as I would go for that instead now.

A plus for Dell, all updates including BIOS we applied out of the box so nothing was needed from me bar nvidia and intel video updates.

 

Sorry to hear about the replacement display, but fyi you don't have to take a day off for a Dell service visit. You can have them come to your workplace as long as you have somewhere a tech can sit and work on your system. The tech just calls you when he's en route, you make sure he can get into your building when he arrives, you hand him the laptop, then you go back to your work while he does his work.

 

I am an onsite engineer so that is impossible to arrange.

I will ask if they are prepared to supply the screen for me to fit, after all I am a factory trained Toshiba engineer.

If only Toshiba made this spec laptop

 

Love my xps 15. Since I like the look of Windows 7 I installed StartIsBack on 8.1 as well as Aero Glass for 8.1 from glass8.berlios.de. My desktop looks slick now on my qhd screen!

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

 

How do you guys clean the touchpad / palm rest area? I was going to use some rubbing alcohol but I am afraid it will corrode the rubber.

 

So I've been lurking for a while now and my XPS 15 should arrive on Tuesday, can't wait

Also, found a new review for those looking! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1bqAF_8SwQ

 

glass cleaner works well.

 

I was thinking in buying the xps 15, it really fits with what I am searching for, and I don't really want to go for a MBP but I would like to know if you guys would recommend this laptop with the best specs (qhd display 16GB of RAM and 512 SSD), and if it is worth waiting for the new processor. Right now Dell offers 10% discount on any inspiron and xps + 100€ on the xps.
Does anyone have the slightest idea when it will hit Europe? and the question, Is the coil whine so annoying to wait for them?
Thanks!!

 

xps 15 with k1100m?
Dell Factory Outlet: System Specification

 

I believe that is a mislabel and is actually a Precision M3800 which is the workstation variant of the XPS15 9530. Note that it's an i5, has only 8GBs of RAM is an FHD screen.

 

Here is a great deal if you need a 2nd ac adapter on the cheap. Rakuten has the adapter from the old dell 7.4mm ac adapter plugs to the newer 4.5mm plug for only $6.59 Power Charger Cable Converter Adapter For Dell Vostro 5460 V5460 HP Pavilion M4 Pavilion 15-e029TX DELL XPS12/13 Ultrabook Laptop Notebook PC - Black - Rakuten.com Shopping . Also many of us got a promo email restoring 500 rakuten points into the account until May 6th so that is $5 right there. So if you have this, this adapter is only $1.59. Then if you have an old Dell AC adapter laying around you can use it as a second ac adapter, perhaps for in the office. Also the older Dell AC adapters sell for next to nothing on Ebay and have the same voltage. Unfortunately, the plug converter adapter was always a poor value at around $10 on ebay so I did not buy it until today's Rakuten deal.

 

So I got my mid tier 15 about a month and a half ago, my wife got one 2 weeks ago and no issues with hers. Mine had a track pad issue that was sorted out quickly. No whine at all on either unit, very minimal backlight bleeding, no sleep issues, nothing. I've been extremely impressed with my unit and the wifes. My work like mine enough that they placed an order for 20 units for the office people. I'm going to go through them and see if they have any whine or other issues. They should be here this week.

 

Looking at buying one of these with the hi-res screen off a mate, but it has the larger battery and 512Gb mSata.

Anyone know if I could buy the smaller battery and put my SSD in there as the others have? Would I need any special mounting bracket or anything?

 

there are many hear who would swap batteries with you and probably add the 1TB drive in due to scarcity of the battery! I would post in the for sale thread.

 

Cheers... having just bought an EVO 1Tb SSD, I'd like to be able to add it (as I have with my present previous generation XPS15). May just do that.

 

I would love to by the 1TB mSATA drive and keep mine with the bigger battery $500 for 1TB mSATA isn't crazy

 

You need the SATA mounting bracket and cable to attach to the motherboard -- but if you swap your battery with someone who has the smaller battery, they should be happy to provide those parts to you since they won't need them anymore when they install your larger battery. If you buy from Dell Spare Parts, the bracket and cable are a single part number. The battery is as well, but thus far nobody has been successful getting Dell Spare Parts to sell them either battery size.

 

I bought the top-spec because I wanted QHD (despite some issues with software today that will undoubtedly be fixed in time), I wanted significant SSD capacity without having to resort to a separate 2.5" disk (thereby losing the battery) and wanted the 16GB of RAM to run multiple VMs. I'm very happy with all of those elements, so I definitely think it was worth the cost, but of course that's completely subjective.

I wouldn't hold out for the new processor if you can get a good deal now. It's not faster by any meaningful amount and there's no guarantee it will affect coil whine.

 

I have had mine for about 2 weeks and I bought mine and sold my Lenovo Helix for the graphics card and x4 CPU

Mine was refurbished and I cannot hear coil whine.

The battery life isn't great, I have the top tier with the big battery and I am getting 5 1/2 regularly with decent use.

But it run Sony Vegas Pro and Battlefield 4 great!

BF4 needs to be on 1080p and I have to change the resolution of the display in windows before launching the game, otherwise it doesn't scale 1080p correctly.


Keyboard is okay, not Lenovo good but okay.

Trackpad is best Windows one I have use, but still not as good as apples

display is perfect (IMO)

it is nice and thin as well as light and even fits into my bag designed to carry 13" notebooks

I wish the SD card would sit flush, but that is minor

Build quality is good, CF and Magnesium make it feel high quality.....

I am sold on mine...... until there is something with similar power that is thinner and better battery life this will be my preferred notebook.

and Windows 8 keeps getting better, I really like the newest update 8.1 update 1

 

Another question: which is the best setting in the bios for charging? Something like "charge from 80%, stop at 95%", one of the default ones, or others?

 

Well lithium batteries allow charge at any level without memory effect, however they don't like small charge cycles. In addition deep discharges add a lot of wear on them, you should try no to empty them completely, they should also not be stored a long time at full charge.

In conclusion if you keep your battery between 10% and 90% it will maximize its capacity over time.

But not being extreme and if you don't want to lose 20% capacity it will only make a small difference if you charge it to 100% that said what makes a big difference is that the battery should absolutely not begin a charge between 95% and 100% because as it will never stays at 100% it will cause trickle charging and add useless cycles on the battery.

Normally Dell parameters are charge from 0 to 100% but not charge if the battery is not at least at 95%. You can decrease that if you unplug your laptop often for a few minutes otherwise it's good.

 

I just noticed something regarding the coil whine.

I use linux (kubuntu 14.04 now), and have no noticeable coil whine. I don't have to do very much in windows, but the other day I needed to so some analysis with excel, and thus installed a vmware virtual machine. I then noticed that while using the virtual machine that there was a bit of coil while. It wasn't too loud, but noticeable enough to be slightly annoying.

It's been a few days, and I still notice this effect. When I turn off the virtual machine, no coil whine. When I turn it on, the coil whine is back.

I suspect that perhaps vmware (or maybe windows?) uses some feature of the cpu that linux doens't? When running benchmarks on linux that use all the 4 cores of the laptop, I still don't get any coil whine.

Anyone else experience this?

 

If the coil noise comes from the CPU is generally linked with deep sleep states, it might be an hypothesis that Linux does a different power management than windows, however I doubt that VMware gets a so low level access to the hardware.

 

I don't use my laptop on battery power much, so I set it to wait until 50% to start charging again (would have gone for 40, but 50 was as low as the BIOS allowed) and stop charging at 80%. I've learned quite a bit about lithium ion batteries recently, and that strategy (along with discharging the battery down to 40% every month or so) should significantly improve the battery's long-term ability to hold a charge. I'm glad the setting is there (and actually works as of BIOS A03) because without that option, constantly running on AC power would keep the battery topped up at 100% constantly, which is one of the very WORST things to do for battery longevity.

 

Discharging and charging the battery will add wear, discharging it to 40% will add wear as well. The only point to discharge the battery COMPLETELY, not to 40%, is to improve the accuracy of the % displayed (it will take into account an eventual reduction or increase in total capacity). While NiMH and NiCd batteries needs a periodic full discharge to avoid an eventual but unlikely memory effect, lithium battery do not need it.

If you want the maximum longevity you should keep it at its storage voltage which is 3.8v per cell (above 50%, more like 60-70% charged).

As for going to 80% max is correct for longevity if you can afford the capacity reduction.

 

I think dell will replace the battery for $150, which is similar to apple's replacement policy. We all hope that we can just buy them at some point.... since the work isn't nearly as hard as on a unibody MBP....I am not sure treating your battery with white gloves will get you that much more in battery longevity..... that it will add up to the $150 it costs to replace the battery...if that makes sense.....

 

Of course not, this was just an answer to the previous post. I will not even keep the laptop long enough to see the battery capacity decrease.

 

Hi,

Is it possible to remove one single key from the keyboard without breaking anything or having to dismantle the whole laptop? Something must have got under my 'R' key and seems to stick every now and again.

Thanks

 

Yes I dropped my laptop the other day and 5 keys popped off and I was able to put them back on again


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Today I had a visit by a Dell support guy to exchange my display, which has a full row green hot pixels in vertical (full brightness in green 1px line about 1/3 from the left side).
Actually here in Germany these people are nt from Dell but sub-contractor companies)

They send the guy out with a wrong panel!
He was frustrated as me of curse. Tomorrow another technician is coming. hopefully with a the right and fully functional panel.

Regarding the coils whine again:
- as reported before by me the person at the official dell hotline knew the problem of the coil whine. (And was saying that Dell would be in fight with intel about this (can we believe this statement and hope for a call-back and exchange of thousands of laptops??!? - no)
- the technician from today did not knew the problems. .... and he just was sorry for me. from his experiences since years, he does not believe, that Dell will ever exchange the problematic boards.

I spend so much money on this model, because I wanted to use this machine for >4 years. - Now needing this machine because I'm writing my thesis and need my custom linux here (many scientific programs) . I have my doubts that I can live with the noise for years. The whine is horrible! Especially for the way I use my laptops as "mobile PC": Just working, no games or noisy things. And I'm not willing to kill my battery with 3 times / day charging just because of this problems. I have to use it on AC-power!
Now. the broken screen remind me that warranty time is ticking....

A question to all people from Germany around here.... Did anybody had success to get Dell to exchange the MB because of the coil whine?
If so, I would be happy for any message. I feel more and more tricked by Dell at such premium product which is meant for working.... this noise is definitely killing the purpose of that laptop.

If nothing will happen, I consider to never choose a Dell product again. And Dell: Do you think young people at universities are not communicating to a vast amount of students about faulty design of electric circuits?
In my lectures I use my XPS is always an example about new semiconductors (the IGZO Display ) but also for electro-restrictive noise when one has bad layouts and parts.

 

Received my XPS today, plugged in and started. Found the coil noise by putting my ear on the power plug area but it wasn't that loud, I mean it can be heard but does not make more noise than the mechanical hard drive normal rotation when idle. Then I thought "ok but maybe the battery is just charging yet and then it will be a nightmare. So I went through every welcome screen to see if the battery was charging and... it was fully charged.

So I think I was lucky there. The coil noise is present, is noticeable in a very quiet environment at a distance but it's just like a computer noise, difficult to separate from the HDD idle rotation. It is probably more noticeable with an SSD though.

I like the screen so far but I am under the impression that like 0.5-1 cm left and right are darker when displaying a blank page, especially the left hand side down, is it normal?

Thanks

 

Yes, mine is like that too. What I've found is that, while unplugging the AC adapter makes the largest reduction in coil whine (as others have found), putting the brightness on maximum also reduces the coil whine noise (though not completely). i.e. the coil whine is the loudest when the AC adapter is plugged in and brightness is at around 50%.

 

Like yours you mean the screen or the coil noise? Yes unplugging the AC makes it totally silent, changing the brightness/keyboard backlight seems to affect it as well but as it's not very loud it's difficult to judge the difference without putting your ear on it.

 

Hi, my experience is completely different. I use Ubuntu GNOME 14.04 with Cinnamon, and I get high-pitched coil whine every time I put the CPU to work heavily. Also, I get low-pitched noise/whine and severe lag when the iGPU is in use: while scrolling in some websites in Firefox (such as feedly), and big documents in LibreOffice, and when rendering something in 3D (for example, just opening https://www.shadertoy.com or some of the pages inside of it).

 

Ok guys I got two questions before I pull the trigger and order XPS 15. First is the that "Coil whine" noise heard more often in the mid tier or the top tier as from the reviews I got the impressions that the XPS with SSD got less "Coil whine" noise than the XPS with HDD.
The second question is why the Mid tier XPS 15 is sold by $1730 when it is sold at nearly $2000

 

"Like yours": coil noise. I don't see any noticeable difference in screen brightness on the left and right.

 

Ok thanks, it seems that EU and US versions have different displays ( Review Dell XPS 15 (9530, Late 2013) Notebook - NotebookCheck.net Reviews), I have an EU version myself. Can someone else give me his advice? I mean its not really shocking, I do not even know if you would ask a replacement, I have seen some tablets with IPS displays that had the same thing. Here you can see an exemple on the left (it's not as bad on the XPS, just to describe the problem)

 

So mine came in today. Refurb from the Dell outlet so I was glad to see it's pretty much perfect cosmetically.

Can't really hear any noticeable coil whine either which was a relief as I've got fairly good hearing.

I do however have a bit of a dodgy trackpad, where if I'm resting my wrists on the palm rest and click, the button gets stuck like it's being held down. Has anyone else experienced this? Is it an easy fix?
It's also pretty alarmingly hot considering all I've got running on it at the moment is Sublime 2 and about 15 tabs in Chrome (nowhere near my usual number).

Should I be concerned?

 

guys i have never in my life joined any discussing site...i was a guy who used to just google every problem and just read the forums answer...but first time i had to register to a site just because i am buying this laptop too its gona arrive in a week max...i bought the hp envy 17t j100 a week back but had to return it due to its antiglare screen.....dark scenes in movies are tooooo dark on matt finish antiglare screens...and it was just tooo badd....i really dnt understand wht people do with dark content on antiglare screens..soo after returning it i had to buy something different money wasnt a problem soo i spent more to get this one but my model is XPS15-8947SLV......do you guys have any idea wht is the difference between this one and the dell xps 15 9530 one?i know mine is coming from UK......so does the american version is called dell xps 15 9530 and the euro or UK version called xps 15-8947SLV.......PLUS I M REALLY WORRIED abt the coil whine now.....i can get the mac book pro retina top tier for the same price here as the dell xps 15 but i dnt wana learn a new opt system....please help me

 

It's the same system, don't worry about it.

The Microsoft Store lists it as the Dell XPS15-8947SLV as well. It's the same system, they just call it differently in their inventory for some reason. The box will have 9530 on it.

In regards to the coil whine, I was really worried about it too, that's why I purchased it from the Microsoft Store, they have a 30 day return policy with no restock fees unlike Dell which charges 15% restock unless they determine it's a defect (Dell Canada officially does NOT recognize the coil whine as a defect so I would've been screwed). Anyways, I initially had coil whine but after about 3 days of use it disappeared, it's gone 95% of the time. Occasionally it will flare up for a few minutes but goes away again. This is YMMV though, some people have horrible coil whine while others don't.

 

@ Caucasian_Fury
Thanks alot for the reply..in my case i already called the retailer who are delivering me this laptop and told them abt this problem...that online retailer got lil worried too coz he never heard of this problem...i asked them that when they receive this laptop to open the laptop and check it properly before delivering me this system further...i actually already returned that hp envy 17t j100 for using like a week....and they gladly took it back....now i dnt want that i receive this laptop and send it back again coz this time i dnt think they willl take it back for just a coil whine.soo i aksed them to check and then send me.....is it possible that that rep checks it for liike 15 mins and feels there is no coil whine and when i receive this laptop later the coil whine appearss....in shortt wht i mean is is the coil whine there from the very first start or in some cases it takes hours or days of usage first for the coil whine to appear?

 

my coil whine on laptop #2 is getting louder as the days go by. Nothing like the 1st but you can hear it if the rooms silent. I swapped the battery from the 1st laptop as i had 0% wear level compared to 2% on the new one. I will swap it back and try again to see if that helps but taking the battery off made no change so I have no hope in that changing things.

I am still going to hold the credit card chargeback in reserve if Dell do not play ball.

Then again, I have 2 laptops sat here at the moment so the ball is firmly in my court.

 

@ GoNz0
What i mean in my case is that is it possible that it there is no coil whine in the start and after hours of usage or days the coil whine starts to appear...because if this can be the case too then i m screwed coz the rep person sending it to me will check it and send it to mee....and if i find the coil whine after days of usage then it will be harder to replace my notebook...

 

I just installed an SSD in my mid tier, a samsung evo 250 that I had in another computer, using the msata as additional data space it makes me about 280gb in total. The computer is now so fast, it's incredible. Of course the coil noise is more apparent now but still lower than expected (I hear it in total silence not otherwise, especially if I am not at 100% brightness).

I will see how it evolves, the screen darker borders bug me more, the problem is that it's noticeable, especially in low light environment but not that much, I don't even know if I could ask a replacement.

 

lower left corner has a somewhat lower brightness on mine as well (EU mid-tier).

 

Ok, sorry for the late reply. I played Skyrim on an aluminum cooling pad thing made for using the laptop on your lap, it has fans in it so I am not sure if that made a difference. I played for over an hour on my lap in bed at an angle. After that I played batman arkham origins for over an hour as well. While the laptop did get quite hot (especially during batman) it had great FPS with no crashes.

One thing that did happen is when i played Fallout New Vegas I was getting a low memory error even though when I checked the game was barely using 3GB or something like that and I have 16GB. After doing a bit of digging I found that the joint intel/nvidia was the cause, apparently the drivers aren't where they need to be yet or something like that. Running the game in windows 7 compatibility mode seemed to lessen but not eliminate the problem.

 

XPS 15 9530 - Noise problem? - Laptop General Hardware Forum - Laptop - Dell Community

Dell are now working on a redesigned board to address the noise!