XPS 15 (Haswell) Owner's Lounge

Thanks for the link. It's a good quick read, but it fails to mention too many details about important issues. This generation of rMBPs seem to be plagued by display problems related to yellowing and blotchiness and magenta hues etc. I'm typing this from an rmbp that I have to reluctantly return because of these issues. I was hoping for a primer on similar issues to look out for and how pervasive they are on the xps15/m3800. (Coil Whine seems to be an almost universal complaint)

Thank you in either case.

 

I am probably going to do the same. I had my motherboard replaced twice because of the coil-whine to no avail naturally and every time the GPU/CPU cooling took a hit. First system was great running 1058MHz stable sometimes dropping to 1027MHz on GPU core, the second was stable around 950MHz and this third drops to 827MHz even with the fans blasting. Not good. The "dell technician" was, like you mentioned, a contractor that took absolutely no care when taking the system apart. He made few dents on the carbon fiber casing and the way he "tore apart" the system was definitely not gentle.

I'm thinking of taking the leap and repasting myself. Anything I should be particularly careful about? I have the manual but it is not very detailed. Thanks!

 

didn't even think of this! thanks

the upgrade to 8.1 went so well though, gonna just stick with it

 

Similar issues on the XPS 15 that have been discussed here each have their own article in the Common Complaints section, and there's a whole page on the Wiki called "XPS vs rMBP" that compares several aspects of these systems in a shootout-style article. If you're looking for more than that, it would be helpful to be more specific about what you want. Coil whine is still pretty prevalent, though the Dell liaison in the Dell Communities thread on the topic says that redesigned motherboards to address the issue should be available for affected customers to obtain in the late June or early July timeframe. No word yet on when we can be certain that newly ordered systems would include the new boards. There have also been unusually frequent reports of debris and/or dead pixels on QHD+ panels. It's not as bad as coil whine, and some of these cases are only discovered by people who go off explicitly looking for them by putting up white backgrounds as opposed to noticing them during regular usage.

As for comparing the two systems, most/all of this may be in the aforementioned Wiki article, but from what I remember, the rMBP's touchpad is almost universally better liked (though the XPS's has been improving with newer driver releases) and some people prefer the rMBP display's color accuracy -- when it's behaving properly, which seems not to be the case for yours. The rMBP also has faster storage on paper, but most people won't notice that in real-world usage. And it's also more expensive. The XPS on the other hand has several serviceable/upgradeable components (WiFi, memory, HDD, battery), whereas none of those are really serviceable on the rMBP except maybe the battery, but there's so much adhesive holding it to the chassis and it's so tough to get to that even that's hard to claim. The XPS also includes on-site service, USB PowerShare, and more USB ports overall. It boggles my mind that Apple makes a 15" laptop with only 2 USB ports....

But few if any people here who have compared the two have said that there's anything that's so different between the two that the other is blown completely out of the running. At the end of the day the far larger choice for most people is whether they want to run Mac OS or Windows, and that determines which of these systems they choose, because running Boot Camp has several drawbacks of its own, so I would argue that the rMBP is not a great machine if you'll need to run Windows on hardware full-time. If you truly have no preference between Mac OS and Windows, then you've got a fairly tough decision to make, I guess.

 

I still have to try M3800 wifi drivers or ones downloaded direct from Intel. Just not very hopeful because the sleep problems with the previous lappy (also a Dell) could never be fixed. The reason i don't want to upgrade is that my Win7 license is Ultimate, but Win8 is an ordinary Core that came with the laptop. Upgrading to Pro would cost $99 more which i can ill afford at the moment.

Win7x64 works perfectly except for this wifi sleep issue and NFC, which is not a big loss.

(As a matter of fact, every Dell laptop i've had since 2002 have had various sleep problems, this is since XP! Then Vista, Win7. Yet i keep buying Dell because the Dell OEM Windows licenses install without problems thanks to Dell SLIC BIOS, or whatever that's called. I still have an unfinished game of Bioshock on a Vista boot hdd somewhere...)

 

Thanks for taking the effort to summarize all these details for me. I did look through the wiki page and eventually, from personal experience with the rMBP and reading about the XPS 15/M3800 here's my takeaway:

rMBP Pros:

- Excellent keyboard / Touchpad
- OSX being a *BSD
- Excellent battery life
- Excellent build
- Overall just a smooth complete, *almost perfect package.

Cons:

- The biggest con is the stupid stupid stupid magsafe power adapter and it's location. It's located on the left side of the computer, so unless it's resting 'on' your lap, it is going to get knocked off. And it gets knocked off with the slightest hint of force, so yeah. Terrible terrible design choice. I can't wrap my head around how anyone can do that.
- Really terrible quality control on the display, considering that's a huge feature.
- OSX is really clunky for most things and weird (Enter key is for rename and opening a file is Cmd + O).
- OSX is SLOW. I did not really try to disable all the animations, but everything felt slow. Coming back to my E6510 i5 with windows 7 feels snappier. (And when I go to Lubuntu from Windows 7, that feels much snappier!)
- My E6510 has 4 USB ports. The rMBP has 2 (as you mentioned). It's a little ridiculous to buy thunderbolt adapters (if they exist) for everything.


There are many more cons, but despite that, it doesn't seem like any other laptop comes close to the rmbp overall experience. The screen was an absolute dealbreaker.

My specific concerns regarding the XPS15 were:

1. Are the screen issues similar or random (as in dust, or a specific color tint etc.)?
2. Are the screen issues shared between the FHD screen and the quadHD?
3. Is the coil whine issue persistent across all variations of battery/screen/ssd combinations?
4. Are there any established throttling instances?
5. Is the overall build quality really good (that's where I thought comparison to the macbook pro would be a good ballpark)?
6. Are there any other miscellaneous issues like Wifi dropping, overheating, BSODs etc?

If I go for it, I will be dual booting it with Linux, so will have to look into that too.

 

Guys - I had a chance to check out this laptop at a local store. It looks to me like the heat exhausts underneath the unit. This has me concerned. I often sit my laptop down on the bed. Wouldn't doing this basically block the heat from escaping? Likewise when sitting this laptop on my lap, as I would often do, wouldn't that heat be pretty uncomfortable? I don't understand this design. Would using the laptop in this way be an issue, or am I missing something?

Also n a related note - the laptop was not doing much but it had a fair amount of warmth over the keyboard and was a little uncomfortable. I am thinking I may be better off with a ZenBook UX301LA. Its not going to be quite as powerful and only has a 13.3" screen, but its screen is very close to that in the hign end XPS 15 and if it doesn't have coil whine issues and no heat issues I am thinking this could be a good alternative. Or would you expect there to be a huge difference in performance by the Dell?

 

There seems to be an exhaust outlet even besides the hinge, try to spot it with the lid open. I would say you can use it on your bed for normal usage but for gaming you'll have to free up the bottom vents

 

What you see on the bottom are the intakes not exhausts. The exhausts are in the hinge "above" the keyboard. That being said, the laptop does get hot if you have it on the lap. You will block the intake so it will run hot and the fans might get louder. But it also depends on the pasting job on your particular unit. My first was great - the next two that I had exchanged are both worse and worse (the exchange was in order to fix the coil whine.

As far as the ZenBook you are comparing apples to oranges - these two are in absolutley different leagues. It's like comparing top of the line rMBP 15" with MacBook Air. One is 15" workstation with dedicated GPU, the other an ultrabook. If you don't need dedicated GPU there are plenty other choices from Samsung, Asus, Lenovo etc. If you want something slim with dedicated GPU you can get XPS 15, rMBP or wait for Asus NX500

 

Hi, so ive read quite an amount of the posts.
I do have the xps 15, and it has the coil whine, wich gets more annoying by the minute... i might have good hearing to high frequencys, wich should be a good thing, whats how ever, when it comes to the xps its rather punishing.

My question: Has anything Dell did, fixed the Problem? New device? New parts? Beacause all im reading is 'they canged this-or-that, but thats it, most ppl dont even write if the problem still occures... I'm about to call dell on tuesday, and im sure not in the mood for 10+ replacements, that wont fix the problem to beginn with... so its either the outlook on a proper fix or a refund...

 

Anybody seen the X3
It seems really good and beats the xps 15 hands down on graphics weight and it seems to be priced at around 2000 Euro. I am in 2 minds to return mine and wait for the X3 specially the 13.9 inch one.
What really impressed me what the Matte screen though I think it might not be touchscreen but that shouldnt be too much of a deal breaker.

 

Despite all the non-official news from Dell that they're working on a fix, customers have NEVER seen any real progress so far

Sometimes people put their hope on the new BIOS or new 4712HQ, but all turn out to change nothing.

Maybe you can make yourself deaf to solve the problem?

 

Using ANY laptop on a bed or similar heat-soaking surface isn't a good idea. Even if the laptop in question doesn't have ventilation components there, the underside of many laptops can get warm because things like memory, storage, and the motherboard itself can become very warm, and blankets are designed to trap heat where it is. That's of course why people use them to keep warm, but it's bad for a laptop. This laptop is known to throttle significantly if used on such a surface, so yes that could pose a particular problem here. Whether the underside vents are intake or exhaust, you don't want to block them. You'll either be trapping hot exhaust where it is or preventing cool air from entering.

If you must use laptops on your bed, then I would recommend getting one of those laptop trays designed explicitly for such usage. They're solid hard plastic on top and either a cushion-type surface on the bottom that conforms to whatever you decide to place it on.

 

1. Display issues seem random, but they just seem to happen more frequently than you'd expect. One person on here has had issues with 3 successive displays he's seen in the course of service/exchanges.
2. Not sure about FHD vs QHD+ because very few people in this thread have ordered the FHD version. If I had to guess, it would be because that also drops you to a dual core processor, and with those specs I imagine there are some other competitors in the market.
3. Yes.
4. Sort of. It's known that this laptop will throttle if you use it on a bed, and some people have found that even using it at an angle (e.g. on an inclined laptop stand) poses a problem. I keep my laptop on a glass desk and even keep the lid shut and I've never encountered any throttling even during multi-hour gaming sessions. Of the people who experience throttling even when using it flat on a desk, it seems some of those cases are due to poor application of thermal grease at the factory (since some enterprising owners have replaced it and seen their problems go away, and one owner got a replacement thermal cooling assembly that resolved his issue) and other throttling only seem to occur during synthetic tests that max out both the CPU and GPU simultaneously, which is not a common condition even for games. And fwiw, the rMBP also throttles under those conditions AND starts draining its battery to use it as an auxiliary power source even while it's plugged into AC, since its tiny power brick doesn't supply enough power to sustain that kind of load.
5. The overall build quality is outstanding. The problem seems to be the QC. But if you get a great panel and don't have throttling (or any of the other issues that only one or two people have mentioned), this is a truly outstanding machine in look and feel.
6. No other commonplace issues that aren't in the Common Complaints section since that was created by a contributor in this thread based on the contents of this thread. There are however only a handful of people running Linux on this system in this thread or even the M3800 thread, so there's less of a knowledge base there.

 

I have the modell with the 500GB HDD (no SSD); does anyone else has problems with a clicking sound from the hard drive Area...
The source is located a little lower that the sound from the coil whine, so im not sure, just suspecting that this is the place of the Hard drive.

It's is not a loud noise but every 2-5 sek, it rattles a bit and then it clicks, somtimes i hear nothing for a minute or so but then sometimes i hear a click every 2-3 sek. wich can be very annoying... ive head a couple of HDD hard drives in my life, non made a comparable sound...

is that normal, or again an occuring issue with my device?

 

No pricing information (and no release date if it's not available yet), no warranty or service policy of any kind on the site, and the "About Us" page is some random poem rather than any information about the company itself. Googling "Aorus" turned up very little in the way of articles talking about the company until I finally found that it's apparently a sub-brand of Gigabyte. Not all that confidence-inspiring, and lots of unknowns about the system itself because the X3 doesn't exist yet. Personally if I were going to wait for a laptop at this point and were ok with not having on-site service, I'd be keeping a closer eye on the NX500 or GX500.

 

Thanks.

Keeping this in mind, I think I should just hold out for the next generation of this notebook. (Or the rMBP for that matter). I have my trusty old E6510 (and a T3500) to keep chugging along for a few more months.

I'm not a latest and greatest notebook adopter and the purchase will be for a minimum of 3-5 years, so I want a solid notebook that'll hold up.

Thanks for the help jphughan, I'll keep an eye out for new releases. Wonder when Dell plans to update this one?

 

The laptop was launched at Computex. Check the youtube link that I posted about the Matte screen. It is a Gigabyte brand but have a look at the video.
Added the link again here

 

My dad has a Latitude E6510 and really likes it. That was the last model before the Latitude line took a styling nosedive from which it's finally starting to recover with the new Latitude 7000s. I'm not the type to actively seek out the latest and greatest either, though I'm not averse to dealing with the issues that being on the cutting edge often entails. I bought this laptop to last me another 3-5 years after having had my Precision M6300 for 6 years (!!!), and I don't regret it. Keep in mind that there's no such thing as a perfect laptop. The previous XPS 15 apparently had WiFi issues that were never solved, and chances are the next-gen will have some pain points of its own -- just as Apple laptops often do as well. Personally I'm completely happy with mine. I'll likely get the coil whine fix when it becomes available, but honestly even if I were told it would never be fixed, I wouldn't think twice about keeping this machine. As for release timeframe for the next-gen model, the current one was released in October, so my purely speculative guess would be either right before this holiday season or right before next year's graduation season, i.e. late October to early May.

 

anyone found a use for the nfc chip yet?

 

I absolutely agree with your analysis of the styling. I actually mailed Dell mentioning this! Not just styling either, the rubberized palm rest feels so disgusting and catches so much dust.

I'm still unable to decide what I want to do. The rMBP is just so good overall. And the keyboard and trackpad (along with the display) are the most important factors. It seems going with any laptop is going to have compromises. I can't think of a single notebook that checks all boxes, regardless of the price. All said and done, I'm still unable to decide if I should get one and live with the issues or wait until the next generation - whenever that will be!

 

Apparently at the moment it's limited to exchanging links with Android smartphones. I think you can also program NFC tags if you have a use for them. I know someone uses such tags to set up his phone in certain modes for certain locations. So for example a tag in his car would set up his phone for Bluetooth calls and audio streaming and disable WiFi (or enable a hotspot if needed) and his bedside tag would put his phone into Do Not Disturb and stuff.

The problem is that there aren't really standards for exchanging rich data types between platforms yet, mostly because few popular non-Android devices have had NFC until recently. I'm sure that will change, but yeah I'm leaving my NFC radio off for now.

 

To pair your NFC enabled Bluetooth headphones/headset? Get one if you don't have one, it's liberating to be free of wires.

 

I would but I have 2 pairs of bose headphones so they will do for now

 

Its disappointing to hear that there is still no definitive word about the coil whine issue. I just started looking into this laptop a couple weeks ago, and I see people have been trying to get something done about this since JANUARY. Wow. I feel like I can hardly wait for a fix so I can buy one, so I can't even imagine how those who own one and have been waiting months must feel. At this point without word about a fix I have decided to wait for the Asus Zenbook NX500 or GX500.

 

I've been exchanging files via NFC from my Windows Phone since it launched.

 

Well since you didn't answer my original question of what resolution is displayed in Windows for that display, I'm not sure what to suggest next....

Should've known Microsoft would have made that possible. I think you're the first person to test it with Windows Phone. Good to know!

 

Does anyone besides me have issues with the charger jack & port?

When I use my XPS-15 as a laptop (VS Desktop) my charger jack consistently works itself loose, and I find myself constantly having to push it back in.

The only fault I have with this computer is the poor design of the charging jack & port; Dell really needs to improve this design.

 

Nope, it should be fairly secure. If the AC adapter is falling out, the DC In port needs to be replaced. Usually happens from excessive force being applied. Such as a cable being pulled or something. There's metal tabs in there that can get worn or damaged.


Sent from my SM-N900T using Tapatalk

 

Hmm, ok. Not sure what to tell you then. Maybe look around for support forums mentioning that specific display? Can you test another 1080p display with your system?

And on a side note, for the quote mechanism to work properly when you reply to someone else's post, you need to retain the bracketed "/QUOTE" at the end of that person's post.

 

yea i knowww sorry abt that i was in a hurry....actually this external display works fine with the old 1600 by 900 and 720p laptops i have at home...but 2 months back i bought an hp envy 17 which was full hd and i remember i had the exact same problem on that laptop tooo and i wasnt able to properlyy connect it the external display...then for some reasons i had to return that laptop and buy this xps 15 and this one doesnt connect properly tooo,,,,i bought another hd mi cable tooo for 50 dollars but still of no use.....so this external dipslay was unbale to connect to a full hd laptop too for some reason....maybe its due to windows 8.1 coz both have windows 8.1 and my older laptops have windows 7....cud it be due to windows 8.1??? this is a view sonic 27 inch non glare full hd lcd of 2009 model....its 5 years old sooo is there a possibility that this display doesnt support windows 8.1 or something like that

 

Is not the display the one that has to support Windows. It's Windows (and its drivers) the one that has to support the display.

Have you tried other OSs?

 

Only 8 GB of RAM, plus no touch screen.. I will pass. Plus am not a gamer..

 

Is this likely to be some sort of hardware replacement, mailing in the laptop and getting a board/chip replaced? I'm assuming it will be free for all owners of affected machines.

 

Has anyone had this problem?

I was using my XPS15 to fully format a 2TB External Hard Drive and I had my power options set to High Performance to prevent sleep. The screen display was at half.

About 2 to 3 hours in, I woke up the display and when I was trying to close the task manager. My screen went black and when I pressed a key or click the mouse, my screen would display the desktop and then go away. So if I keeping clicking things, it would display the desktop for about a second.

Should I try to get a replacement?

The other thing is I am looking for the Intel 8 Series Chipset driver from Intel. I can't seem to find it on their site, could those who have reinstalled their systems help provide a link?

Note: I didn't reinstall my Operating System yet. So this problem only happened about 2 weeks after I received it. It only happened once so far.

 

The fix will be a redesigned motherboard, apparently. No word yet on whether that will also include the new CPU. But if you have an on-site service contract, Dell will send a tech to you to perform the service. No need to mail it away.

Not really sure what happened there, but I'd just use the chipset driver on Dell's site, fyi. I only went to the vendor sites for the NVIDIA GPU and Intel WiFi....

 

Suddenly, the output-specifying dialog that pops up when I insert a 3.5mm plug (headphone or external speaker) into the audio port has stopped popping up. It could be a hardware issue - the connection has never been particularly secure - but I want to try software troubleshooting first. Is the Dell Realtek audio driver responsible for the popup dialog? It is a component of MaxxAudio, no? I have updated the Realtek audio drivers beyond the Dell ones, and MaxxAudio has ceased to function; but the popup dialog has always continued to work, until today. The box in the Dell Audio control panel app, Advanced, to enable the audio popup is checked. Today I have installed the June Windows updates and updated Firefox, which I don't imagine have anything to do with the problem; but full disclosure. Thanks, all.

 

Post removed - problem reported at great length spontaneously resolved itself immediately after I posted the message.

 

i just tried the earlier windows 7 and windows xp on my old lalptops at house....

 

today i also had a weird problem which never happened to me ever before on any other laptop in recent 10 years...the laptop started commanding itself on its own..there were space key presses and enter key presses and mouse pointer was moving off and on on its own...when i played a movie or a video it stops and plays itself after every 10 to 15 secs probably which clearly shows the space key was getting pressed on its own without any external input which paused the video and then played it repeatedly...i was not able to do anything with precision on the laptop because things started clicking on its own wheere ever i pointer the mouse...i removed the external wiredd mouse but it happend with the track pad too even though slightly less...then i started scanning my laptop for malware with kaspersky ...nothing found there too....after an hour the problem resolved itself....i googled the net and it appears that this happens 90 percent of the cases on delll laptops inspiron and xps's....many people had posted this problem and mostly i saw people using a dell laptop.....did it happen to any one of u?what was it and will it start again soon?

 

coincidence? I think not.

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk

 

That's the power of ths forum. You only need to post the question and it will be fixed.

Now I have this problem with coil whine...

Separately, you can set whether the pop-up appears (or not) by going to the "Dell Audio" program, clicking "Advanced" and then "Jack Information".

 

Hi to everyone,
i just talked to dell(dell, germany) about the coil whine. It was very disappointing. They are currently investigating the problem, no possible fix in sight yet, no promise that it'll ever get fixed. I pretty sure im going to sent it back, but they also offerd me (after a little sweet talk) to sent me a new one, same spec's) so its important for me to know if there are ppl who do not have the coil whine?

Please note that my question goes out to younger ppl (since they are more likley to hear high-frequencys)... lets say 27 and younger, with good hearing... anyone who has no problems with it at all?

 

The vast majority of people here report some amount of coil whine. The only difference seems to be how loud it is and how aggravating it is to the owner. The latest official word in the Dell Communities forum is that a fix should be available for existing customers to request in the late June to early July timeframe. I would monitor that thread for official updates; the link is in the XPS 15 Wiki in the coil whine article.

Given that Dell has already acknowledged the issue and is working on a fix, if coil whine bothers you that much I can't say I recommend rolling the dice and getting a replacement system before then. But the rep you spoke with was wrong about there being no possible fix in sight.

 

Weird. I had a similar problem yesterday for the first time since I bought the laptop in December. I was typing something in MS Word, and suddenly, it started putting new lines (similar to what happens when you press enter key) repeatedly. Once I killed the Word process, everything was back to normal. Didn't happen after that.

 

Has anyone had problems with the wireless adapter? Mine will randomly go wonk. Clicking the network icon in the lower right will show that I am still connected to the network but it is "Limited". While it says I am still connected, I check my network on other computers/router and it shows the XPS is now longer connect. I also cannot disconnect or connect to another network. The only fix is to disable and re-enable the adapter a couple times before I can connect again.

 

Go into your advanced Power Options and play with the Wireless Adapter Power Saving options. Someone earlier mentioned that WiFi would periodically do this when connected to his iPhone hotspot if the setting was on anything other than Maximum Performance. I've noticed that same behavior with my own iPhone when using it as a hotspot (on multiple systems with multiple Intel WiFi cards....) but haven't used it since I read that tip, so I can't confirm whether that fixed my issue.

 

Anyone have a good equalizer configuration for Maxx Audio?

I am using external 2.1 speakers. Was trying to find best equalizer settings to get the best sound.

Thanks.