XPS 15 (Haswell) Owner's Lounge

Hi "Everyone"

For whatever it is worth, I just received my Brand New Full specifications yesterday and I could not be any more Pleased with my purchase.

There is Absolutely No Coil Whine, WiFi is Fantastic, No Blown, Dead or Stuck Pixels and the Display is just Gorgeous.

I never use any trackpad on any laptop so I cannot comment on it as I immediately Disable them.

I hope this helps someone as you GREAT Individuals have Definitely Helped me.

Thanks for "Everything" & Best Regards,

 

What happened I guess I forgot XPS 9530 Sorry :-/

 

Thanks for the update.

1) Which country do you live in? I ask because there may be some differences between countries as to the timing of when new units are shipped with a fix for the coil whine.

2) Do you know whether your new XPS 15 is fitted with the revised motherboard that was designed to fix the coli whine?

 

Hello everyone!
Finally my top-tier XPS 15 received to from USA to Ukraine and it has no coil whine, no dead pixels and wifi works perfect!
Sometimes touchpad don't recognize gestures like two finger scrolling. I notice, that sometimes keyboard refuses to work after using touchpad. How this can be fixed?
Also I don't find option in touchpad software to emulate middle button click so I use "TwoFingerScroll" app, that can emulate this gesture. Maybe somebody know how emulate this gesture without third party software?
Touchpad on screen works perfect with no mistakes.
Sometimes laptop disconnects from bluetooth mouse logitech v470. This mouse works good with other devices.
My laptop comes with Samsung SSD PM851. What differences has this ssd compared to PM841? Do somebody install new firmware on this ssd? Installation looks for me risky and i afraid to broke ssd.
Thanks for help

 

Hi ukpc,

I am in the US and I am very sorry yet I have absolutely no idea about any revised motherboard.

All I know is, this unit is Great with absolutely No noise whatsoever be it on battery or AC yet you also need to know that I do not play any computer games and my main use is the standard Interne, email through MS Outlook and MS Word documents and I just could not be more pleased with my purchase especially with its absolute gorgeous display.

Kind Regards,

 

I ordered my XPS 15 about a week ago and should get it within the next 2 weeks or so - I'm hoping the "coil whine" issue is minimal in mine.

But just to clarify: this type of high-pitched whine is something that's present in a lot of laptops. I have a 2012 15" rMBP here and it, too, occasionally has coil whine, usually in connection with transferring data via the USB ethernet adapter. Sounds like hard drive noise but isn't (as it has an SSD). I had the same noise on my previous Macbook Air. This doesn't make things better, of course - but it's something that happens a lot and I just wish manufacturers would finally fix that issue once and for all.

The rMBP also has its fans constantly running (albeit very quietly when it's idling) and gets very loud very quickly as soon as you throw something even slightly more demanding at it. I know, it's a first-gen model, but still - it's far from being the perfect laptop.

 

Hey guys, when my XPS15 wakes from sleep, it remains black for a few (5?) seconds. I know there was a thread about the screen never turning on, but has anyone else seen this delay? Seems odd to me it would take longer to wake up than to power on from cold.

 

Update your bios to the latest version. I had this exact issue for forever and the bios update fixed it completely. No idea why it needed a BIOS update to be responsive but hey I'm not Dell making these computers.

 

Why do you use a global value. W8 is able to set different DPI's per display:
Windows 8.1 DPI Scaling EnhancementsBlogging Windows
"*Update: There have been some questions about when per-display DPI scaling is used (different DPI scaling values per display) and I wanted to add a note here to clarify. On Windows 8.1 when you have the “Let me choose one scaling level for all my displays” check box checked (not checked by default) one uniform DPI scaling value is used for all displays. If you don’t have this checkbox checked (the default behavior), Windows 8.1 will determine the best DPI scaling value for each display and use separate DPI scaling values for each display when needed. See the screenshots in this article for more information."

 

Because the per-display setting doesn't perform independent DPI scaling; it uses GPU zooming to adjust the non-primary displays, which makes them blurry, especially if the QHD+ display is non-primary because it's now taking content natively rendered at maybe 100% and zooming it in to 200%. If you read back before the post you quoted, you'd find that discussion as well as a link to a page on the XPS 15 Wiki about this. FYI, the MBP uses the same strategy with the same non-ideal results.

A single scale factor (which the MBP doesn't offer at all) means elements might have very different sizes on different displays and not an absolutely ideal size on any display, but everything will at least be sharp.

 

I have owned windows laptops/pcs my entire life, but the problems with this XPS is driving me insane. After two defective units, I am debating the sanity of me bothering to try a third one. I have spent the past two weeks fiddling around with these defective units with the desperate hope that they would magically work (the first had a defective sound card and the second had an unbearable coil whine/chattering that sounded something like the static when you call an invalid phone number). I actually made the mistake of trying to call Dell, only to speak to complete MORONS. Simply trying to tell the tech service guy what computer I had was a nightmare. ("I have the DELL XPS 15" "You have the Access 15?" "NO, THE DELL XPS 15!! Do you even work for Dell?!") Finally I got transferred to the XPS tech ("I have the coil whine/chattering issue, which I'm sure you've heard of." "Uh...the what issue? Do not know. What you described is probably the fan running.") What the heck, Dell? Me and my family have been buying their products for 20 years now and I am about ready to jump ship.

I'm desperately trying to cling to Windows OS which I love, but the lack of high-end ultrabooks (i7, 512GB solidstate at least) besides this defective XPS is very clear.

I've sworn up and down I would never buy a Mac in my lifetime, but right now.... I am this close to driving to the Apple store and just buying a d@mn rMPB.

 

anyone know the difference between the 9530 and the XPS 15-8949sLV? Microsoft Store in Canada seems to be carrying only the XPS 15-8949sLV? There's no info on the internet about the XPS 15-8949sLV.

 

I have ordered 2 xps 9530, the latter one at July and both have coil whine. I just wonder maybe I'm sensitive in listening while those who report not hearing coil whine is just insensitive to noise.

So can I ask whether you hear HDD spinning sound when you operate the laptop?

 

Hey guys. So i shut off my xps at 100% charge. When I power it up it is at 95%. Is that normal?

 

To add my own data point to your inquiry: I'm actually quite sensitive to persistent background noises, particularly things like electronic hums. But I don't hear any kind of whine from my XPS, and I do hear the HDD a little when it's really working (which it doesn't much because it's not the system drive). I definitely hear the HDDs in my other laptops, as well as all the fans when they run.

I don't for a second discount the experience of those owners who've had noise problems in their XPS....the number of complaints is evidence that it's clearly an issue. But I guess I was just very lucky on my first try- my XPS really is the quietest laptop I've ever owned.

 

Hi,

If I may, are 2 defective units you are referencing New, Certified Refurbished, Scratch and Dent, bought through DELL or eBay, etc?

The reason why I kindly ask this is because, I have read a lot of the sad and shameful complaints by DELL XPS customers in this very grateful venue and it is just Hard for me to believe that I am basically the only customer that got a unit with absolutely none of these sad, disgraceful and ongoing issues. :-/

1. Giving DELL The Service Tag "Should" eliminate any questions of what unit a customer has :-/

2. I find it very hard to believe the DELL Outlet or eBay Sellers that a "Certified Refurbished" unit is one that a customer ordered New and then changed their mind :-/
Let's try a customer ordered it, something wasn't working so they returned it then DELL's Certified "BREAKNITICIANS" got their useless hands on it, so-called repaired the issue and either sent it over to their Outlet Store or sold it to an eBay Seller so they can make some unfortunate individual the very un-proud owner of a "Certified KLUNKER" and that is Exactly Why I will Never Buy Anything From Anyone's Outlet Store Any Longer!

The majority of Customers do not have anything better to do then to pay thousands of Dollar$ on something only to try it out and then Return it, as They truly wanted it to work and work out yet the "Defective Lack of Good Quality Control item" unfortunately did not want to COMPLY!

Remember, someone else is very likely to get your purchased 2 units either through the DELL Outlet Store or eBay :-/

Buy New if you can and cut your chances of getting someone else's returned issue & frustrating headache Hopefully GREATLY!

Kind Regards,


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Hello everyone, I'm expecting to receive my xps15 this week. I've read that color reproduction on this laptop as it comes from the factory is very bad. Does anyone know where to find a calibrated color profile for this laptop? I need to have the best possible color reproduction, but I don't have any calibration tools.

thanks a lot!

 

Hey guys, on my XPS 15 I found a weird defect. When I'm using it on my lap, and have my palms resting on either side of the trackpad, clicking the trackpad will cause it to stick, until I lift up my palms. Has anyone else found this?

 

i did
it was a refurb, full factory warranty, $1200 ! dell now makes transferring ownership on ebay sales very easy. no coil whine here, either...i did put in a 1tb msata and added the big battery, so that added to the cost

i have bought several dells (laptops/desktops) off ebay without issues

be sure to get the serial ahead of time and look it up on the dell site
make sure the seller is friendly and has been selling for awhile

there's a huge market over there so take your time and find the deal you want..i also recommend using a good snipe tool to win the deal you want

 

I pulled the trigger and got the fully loaded one refurbished for $1600, and yes they transferred the warranty and everything and no coil whine! So I don't know why more people don't do this! Love the laptop! The screen makes droll.

P.s some credit cards will extend your warranty by a year if you purchase it with your credit card

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There's one posted somewhere in this thread, but most people find it makes their displays worse -- which is normal when you try to use a calibration file from one unit on another one, even when the display model is identical. It seems to me that someone who "needs" the best possible color reproduction would be able and willing to invest ~$80 on a colorimeter. If not, then just turn splendid mode off and know that you'll still have better uncalibrated color reproduction than many laptop or desktop displays out there.

 

I just bought the top of the line model from the Microsoft Store since it was tax free weekend here got it for $1899. Great notebook, however I am having some major issues with the graphics card throttling. I ran Firestrike and am only getting 1300ish Graphics scores, everyone else seems to be getting 2000 graphics scores in Firestrike. I also see others getting 2700 gpu score in 3dmark11, I am getting 1700...slower then my iris pro only MacBook retina (1900)...I have uploaded the latest NVidia drivers 3.40 and updated the bios to A06. Any other suggestions as why I am getting such low graphics scores? Thanks in advance for any help!

 

did you get one with the 4702 processor or the newer 4712?

sorry, this is for icedteaftw

 

Anyone have this issue with their Dell XPS 15 4737sLV?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gxs4mf7tXFo

 

Is your space bar broken? You should call Dell support and get it fixed.

 

The right side of it is broken. And yes, a technician will be here today to fix it.

But, I think my laptop also has coil whine issues and I don't think the technician will know how to fix that.

I can hear electrical noises bumping something in my laptop when I put my ear close to it.

 

Also does any1 know if Dell will be willing to fix this crack in my laptop?

imgur: the simple image sharer

 

Yeah you're right, Even having the same display model isn't a guarantee that a downloaded profile will work. I bought a spyder4pro.

 

Well, following today's post from Terry B in the coil whine thread running on the Dell Communities forum, I decided to take the plunge and request a replacement motherboard, and Terry B over there checked my dispatch number and confirmed that I will be getting the revised board. The coil whine doesn't bother me much per se, but if there's a free fix I may as well get it, and I'm also wondering if a new board will fix my occasional audio corruption issue I posted about here a long time ago; I've already tried several driver versions. I also requested a replacement touchpad since mine discolored within a few hours of use (cleaning it didn't really help), and I've read here that more recently manufactured systems have touchpads with a different feel and hopefully improved discoloration resistance. MBP touchpads never seem to discolor even after several years of use, so I can't imagine why this is so difficult.

Now I just need to cross my fingers and hope I get a competent repair tech. Worst case I'll just ask the tech to leave the board with me to do on my own. The appointment hasn't been scheduled yet but should happen in the next 2-3 business days, so I'll report back on coil whine, touchpad feel, and whether or not I get the new CPU no later than early next week.

 

Can't wait to hear from you, thanks in advance.

 

Hello from Dubai.
Thought i'd share my experience with the laptop.
Bought my xps15 about 6 weeks ago from a local retailer. the first out of the box problem was the wireless. It wasn't just dropping, the hardware would "disappear' randomly. so after a couple of hours working the wireless would cutoff and then no more wireless hardware listed anywhere until until hard reboot. even then it sometimes would still not show up.
Took it to customer service, who sent it to local dell. so dell called me a couple of weeks later saying they need to replace the wireless card, take out the display (i guess to replace the antenna) and then reformat.
so i pushed for a new unit which i received shortly after that.

The new unit is working fine, there is faint sound that comes out of the left side close to where i plug the power, which goes away when on battery. that seems to be the coil whine everyone is talking about. it's not very loud, but it does get annoying when working in a silent environment. I'm using the laptop for work and i cant send it another time for the coil whine and wait weeks for a guy to tell me he can't hear anything or the sound is normal so that's that.
also the bios was rev02 which i updated to the latest rev06 cpu is the 4702 version so the unit must be from an older batch received from the U.S.

 

By any chance how did you request a new motherboard? Dell reps act like im crazy when i bring that up via chat.

 

I talked to a rep on the phone who (predictably) had no idea what I was talking about even after putting me on hold to check with other people. She said she could set up a motherboard replacement, but couldn't guarantee that it would be any different from the unit I already had because she didn't see a newer part number to specify. I told her that was fine because I'd already read Terry B's post over in the Dell Communities thread where he said that affected customers should just get a Case # assigned and then PM him with their Case # and Service Tag, which he could then use to ensure that a refresh board was dispatched to fulfill the request -- assuming of course that the refresh boards are available in the customer's geographical market. If not, I'm not sure whether the dispatch would get put on hold or fulfilled with an old board, but since I'm in the US, I got a reply back from Terry B an hour later confirming that I would be getting a new board.

So bottom line: Just get the support rep to set you up for a motherboard swap even if they have no idea about this refresh, then PM Terry B.

 

Got a new top tier 9530 yesterday and while I haven't really put it through it's paces yet I can say that it has no coil whine or any other defects. Got it from the MS store if that makes any difference in terms of build date.....now I just need to go back through this thread's 9 billion posts to see how I can tweak things haha.

 

OK Here is my evaluation of the Top Tier XPS 15 9530 i7 4712, which I have now for around one week, coming from a Late 2013 MackBook Pro 15 Retina and randomly following this Super Venue and Thread.

1. I Thankfully have absolutely no coil whine on battery or AC.

2. This display is just Gorgeous with absolutely no light bleed, as I did have on the Mac yet it is so unbelievably bright that if I go past 30% brightness I have to wear sunglasses

3. Not one issue whatsoever with the AC WiFi card or connection as I just fly on the Internet and never drop connection.

4. I see absolutely no unevenness in the backlighting of the keyboard and I actually prefer it over the very High Rated and Acclaimed MacBook Pro and the only Negative for me is I wish there was a setting to keep the backlighting on continuously yet I have played around with the Control Panel options and "I" just do not see anything to do it.

5. I am very satisfied with the audio sound in it and I definitely do not to bring the volume anywhere close to MacBook Pro as well.

So in conclusion, I am just truly perplexed and scratching my head why unfortunately so many Forum customers are having so many issues with such a Great High End unit and sincerely Hope that "Every Unfortunate Forum customer" gets their issues resolved so they can Enjoy their New Computer purchase.

Best Regards,
SDeP58





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Is Terry B on this forum?

 

No, only the Dell Communities forum.

 

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Reply was a Mistake.


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So ran into a problem, I'm unable to connect to NVidia to do an update. I did some googling and found that there is a fix but I don't have the proper XML file in the programdata folder. Anybody else run into this problem?

 

New board is installed and I now have zero coil whine under conditions that reliably caused it on my previous board. Still have the 4702 CPU too, which I was expecting. The new touchpad feels somewhat different (a little bit more rubbery), and time will tell whether it's an improvement with respect to discoloration. And I still have the audio corruption issue when testing the clip where I discovered it, so I guess that one is a driver issue that hasn't been fixed yet.

The Dell tech who performed the service was absolutely stellar, which was a refreshing change since my previous experiences over recent years have ranged from ok to downright horrendous. This guy was more careful with my system than I probably would have been myself. So for everyone else affected, I'd recommend following the advice of Terry B over on the Dell Communities thread, namely calling Dell to get a Case # for a replacement motherboard (even if the support reps are unaware of a revised board, which was true of the tech I spoke with) and then PMing Terry B here, who will make sure you're getting a new board.

 

Update: I just noticed that the new motherboard does not have a Windows Product Key embedded into the BIOS. I've only had a motherboard replacement on one other model that had embedded keys, and in that case the tech had a Product Key card included with the new motherboard that he gave me. I never checked those systems to see whether the replacement motherboards also had that key embedded into the BIOS. Anyway, for some reason that card wasn't sent with this replacement motherboard, which I didn't consider an issue since I assumed I'd be able to pull it out of the BIOS. Apparently not. Fwiw, my Windows installation is still activated (though I did install the 8.1 Pro Pack), but I did want to have a Product Key in case I did a clean install in the future.

I called Dell and they told me that the only way to get a replacement key would be to get another motherboard, which I wasn't thrilled about since I didn't want to risk a bad repair tech after having gotten so lucky with a great one -- nor did I really want to have a tech appointment just to take the Product Key card and refuse installation of the new motherboard (assuming that key would even activate when used with a different board). Since I had actually saved the key from my original board, I booted into the Windows 8.1 installer to test it, and that key was accepted. Of course that doesn't mean that it will actually activate if I ever do a clean install again, but in that case I'll either deal with phone activation, get a replacement motherboard/key from Dell at that time, or use an MSDN key from my account. Obviously that last option isn't technically a proper use of an MSDN key, but since I do own an appropriate license for Windows 8.1 as part of this system, I feel that would be reasonable.

But for anybody else who's gotten a motherboard replacement on this system, can you check yours to see if you have a key embedded? It just involves downloading a small utility, instructions here: How To Retrieve Windows 8 OEM Product Key From BIOS | Next of Windows. And did you get a paper Product Key card?

 

Sounds great, is there any other advantage with the new motherboard?

So basically create a ticket at dell support hotline (even if they have no idea what it is about), then PM TerryB the tickernumber and he will take care of everything?

 

I can confirm what jphughan written. I also got a new motherboard and some time after when I replaced the hdd with the my sandisk ssd and tried to do a new win8.1 pro install from the USB memory that came with the system, the installer asked for product key, which never happened before with the original motherboard even if I've done several installations.

I called Dell tech support and explained my situation and need for a product key, but the guy there was somehow retarded and insisted on that the only way to solve my problem was a new mb replacement and the technician that would do the swap would write down the new product key that comes with the motherboard.

I then contacted the other tech guy who had earlier worked on my system after my 'wifi-issue' , and explained to him my situation. He immediately replied back and asked if I would like to have win home or win pro product key, I said win 8.1 pro and he emailed the key after 5-10 minutes.

The key worked with my win 8.1 pro usb right away, with no issues whatsoever.

I can also tell you Dells little 'secret' about getting rid of the coil whine. In the BIOS they have set the battery charge mode to 'adaptive'. What adaptive does is that the battery will never charge to 100 %, the battery level will reach and stay at 99 % all the time while on AC. Changing the battery charge mode in the bios to 'custom' or to 'standard' brings the coil whine back.

It is so at least for me, I have the precision m3800. The situation may be different for you who have the xps modell.

Regards.

 

No other advantages that I can see, but then I haven't been looking for them either. What sorts of advantages might you expect from a motherboard swap? One other testament to my tech's awesomeness was that he hates Dell's thermal compound, so just out of personal pride in his job, for motherboard replacement jobs (including mine) he makes sure he has a tube of Arctic Silver! He used that on mine and I was happy to see that he knew exactly how to do the job properly. Haven't bothered to look at temperatures though.

My XPS shipped in Adaptive mode even though it came with the very first A00 BIOS, so this wasn't a change to the default settings in new BIOS revisions. It also exhibited coil whine while in Adaptive mode when the battery wasn't charging. Keeping the battery at 99% does not eliminate coil whine because even when I switched mine to custom to limit charging to 80%, I still had coil whine when I reached that point. Not anymore on the new board.

And Adaptive mode doesn't just set the maximum charge to 99%. If it sees you constantly running on AC, it will let the battery self-discharge for a while rather than keeping it charged all the time. Please make sure your information is accurate before posting here, especially if you're going to post both here and in the M3800 thread.

 

As I wrote before, I have the precision M3800 and the adaptive mode does eliminate the coil whine. There occurs some weird noise for a moment in the beginning when you first power up the system but then it disappears. I worked several hours today in win8.1 pro (and ubuntu 14.04, wrote some latex documents in emacs) and according to windows the battery charge was at 99% all the time.
Even now when I click the battery indicator it says '99% available (plugged in, charging) '.

 

so one can assume safely that the new models in MS store and amazon got that new motherboard , right !?

 

No one has even been able to confirm that new systems ordered directly from Dell will have the new motherboards, unfortunately. However, Terry B did say that availability of the revised motherboards to existing customers was delayed partly because they were being prioritized for new orders, so I would consider it likely that new orders would have the new board. But when you're ordering from a third-party retailers it's more murky because you can't know how long they've had their stock sitting in their inventory, and even if you did, we don't know exactly when Dell put the new board was put into production.

All that said, more recent posts from new owners suggest that coil whine seems to be disappearing. Back when this thread was "only" a few hundred pages long, pretty much every new owner reported coil whine on their systems. Now those reports have dropped off, and we're seeing affirmative reports of people getting problem-free systems. Obviously none of this is a guarantee, but worst case you can always arrange for that motherboard replacement by working with Terry B, it seems.

Then your system is an exception to the rule, just like Pirx who somehow ordered two M3800s very early on and does have coil whine with either one -- at least not that he can hear. But switching to Adaptive is not a guaranteed fix to this issue on the XPS 15 or M3800 (otherwise this would have been much less of an issue in the first place), nor was that a change that Dell made in an updated BIOS, at least not on the XPS. Obviously it's great that you have an easy solution to your coil whine, but that has not been the case for others on either system.

 

Last week I bought two XPS systems from Microsoft and both were defective (one had defective sound card and other had coil whine). After the second defective one I honestly gave up on the XPS completely and chose a different manufacturer completely. But I think you could take your chances on the XPS since MS has a really good price right now and a 30 day free return policy.

 

I call bullshieet on adaptive mode as all 3 of my laptops shipped with that, it is the default setting afaik.

My laptops not got a constant whine but more a crackle of electrical noise when my heads near the charging socket., is that how you would describe yours as well (any of you) as I am about to request a mobo swap as I think I jumped the gun on laptop#3 and wound up with an of the shelf old version.