XPS 15 (Haswell) Owner's Lounge

Hey guys,

Do you have any issues with the keyboard? Not sure if its just me but sometimes when I am typing, some keys don't register.. But when I try the key a couple of times again it works just fine... I do notice though that if you hit the corners of the keys that it won't always register.. Anyone notice this?

-Tony

 

Last week, Dell Technicians swapped my motherboard (affected by coil whine), the display (pressure points) and the fans (grinding noises).
Unfortunately, things just got worse. Accidently got a FHD display instead of the QHD+ and the noise of the coils got even worse. Now I got those horrible screeching noises when scrolling on websites while the power cord is plugged in

 

It looks like there is a firmware update on the way for Samsung SSD 840. Don't know if its applicable to our model though.

Read more here.

 

Well I Hate to be the bearer of Confusing News, yet I have been using Firefox for quite some time now and when I ran through your requested 2 Tests, which yielded me No issues, Firefox was in fact installed on my machine.

Regards,
SD

 

Once again I am very Sorry yet I have never had any issues with the keyboard not registering keys and I am really starting to Truly scratch my head and say, What the H____ is going on with All these Unbelievable issues for "Everyone" :-/

 

Hi all, just got a refurbished xps and I am having few problems. From what I read, the laptop is supposed to be cool at idle right? I used to have aspire s7 392 which ran very cool with chrome and videos playing . But I can't even keep my xps in my lap because of the heat generated from the laptop even at idle. I have factory resetted the laptop and checked for cpu usage in the task manager which is normal at 1-5 %.

I also heard that fan doesn't start at all when idle but mine starts just after running the laptop for less than 5 mins from a cold state. I ran dell diagnostics by pressing the F12 key and it passed all the test. However again, even at idle the cpu fan is at 2700 rpm. Also the area between the two fans seems to be the hottest part for me.

The laptop has a years warranty and I was just wondering if its normal or I should give support a call. Can you please share your experience with this? Thanks.

Safal

 

Dell service in Ireland is the worst there is. Almost one month ago I was told they had the fixed boards were in stock, so I requested by Next Business Day service. Since then, I've had a series of issues, from the engineers agreeing on coming home tomorrow and not coming nor receiving any call in days until I call to see what's happening (this has happened multiple times), to breaking the fan in the replacement and then coming the week later to fix it but forgetting to bring the fan. And the wait still goes on... So much for Next Business Day.

 

I can't comment on how warm it is while the fans are off since I always use it on my desk, but it should definitely be nearly silent while idling. Maybe the fan is running very slowly in that setup, but if so I can't hear it while sitting about 18 inches away. Did you update the BIOS?

Also, fyi using a laptop in your lap isn't a great idea ever. A long time ago manufacturers were sued for laptops getting too hot to use in a person's lap, which is what led the industry now to formaly call these systems "notebooks". Lap use is also very bad ergonomically and can prevent your system's cooling from working properly because people's clothes can act as thermal insulators, block vents, and remove the underside air gap normally created by the rubber feet down there. At the very least you should consider a portable desk surface, which is basically a plastic or wood topside for the notebook with a beanbag underside to allow it to rest comfortably on your legs. That would solve all of the issues I just mentioned except the poor ergonomics.

 

hmm.. I just called them today and since I was having multiple issues in my system(distorted speakers, hair under the screen, over heating, coil whine), they asked me to send the laptop to them for diagnostic and repair. They said it might take about 7-10 working days so I said fine to it. Hopefully I will have a fixed laptop.

 

How exactly are your speakers distorted? I'm trying to nail down the reason for my problem, maybe your's the same?

 

I have a wooden block to keep the laptop when I am using it a bed or something. Even the wooden block gets hot because of the laptops heat. My point with lap is that if I weren't using it with block, it would burn me. When I was using the laptop at night, it fan was running at half the speed making it very audible and I wasn't even using anything in the laptop. I restarted multiple times, even factory restored it to see if there was any apps hogging the CPU but no, it was making noise what so ever. I think its the problem with the cooling system.

Everything, driver and firmware, in the system is up to date from Dell. The BIOS is latest, A06.

 

When I go over 70% volume, the sound starts getting distorted. Its something like the spring/coil in the speaker are damaged. Drivers are up to date. Can somewhat be controlled by playing with Dell's MaxAudio setting (If you turn low maxbass, treble, stereo to low), volume threshold can go near to 90%.

 

MaxxAudio attempts to compensate for the tinny output of ultrabook-size speakers by (among other things) overinflating the bass, so yes things will get distorted at high volume. You can't have amazing sound reproduction at high volume and house it in a thin chassis. I turn MaxxAudio enhancements completely off because the "enhancements" also apply to devices attached to the headphone jack, like external speakers, where the results are terrible. And even using the built-in speakers, I feel that the improvements don't outweigh the noticeable issues that they create.

 

BLUE SCREEN

When I first got my XPS15 top tier - right out of the box, I received a BSOD when going through the setup - right at the point where you select the color of your background in Win8.1.
The BSOD screen said it was due to memory_management.

I hoped this would be an isolated incident, so I continued to set up the pc.
I then went into the My Dell app and ran the checkup.
It failed on the Memory Advanced Pattern Test - and it suggested a reboot and try it again - and after that it passed.
Since then I have had other issues (later to only find out that McAfee was the culprit) - where I actually used Dell Restore to restore the laptop to factory image.
Interestingly enough - it gave me a BSOD (one out of the 3 times) - again with Memory_management as the issue.

In any event fast forward to Sunday Oct 5th, where I was using the windows 8.1 app - flipboard - I got another BSOD.
Same thing - Memory_management.

When I looked at the system event logs, they pointed to the issue being the Intel Graphics driver - igdkmd64.sys causing the crash.

I ran (all) the diagnostic tests (within My Dell app, and even the one that you can run before you boot into windows) - and it passed all of them.

Since this particular BSOD happened two times (from a clean image with nothing else installed) - I started to wonder if perhaps the Intel drivers were corrupted (on the actual image). If this BSOD happens to the pc when it is fresh out of the box, then it has to either be the software (already) on the pc, or a hardware RAM issue.

So, what I did was UN-install the Intel driver from Add/Remove programs.
It did so, and then rebooted.
What I found was that upon rebooting - Windows RE-installed the Intel Graphics driver - (and Intel Display audio driver) - but the NEWER VERSIONS of them !!.
I then tried UN-installing them again - this time via the device manager (and yes, checking the box to uninstall the software).
Same thing - Windows installed the newest versions of those drivers.

The issue with this was that when I went into the Intel HD Graphics Control panel - in the Power options - the "On Battery" selections were not there - only the "Plugged In" section was present.

Obviously, the DELL version of the Intel Drivers must be slightly different to have the On Battery feature in it.

So, I downloaded the Dell Intel Drivers from their support website and installed them.
The install routine noticed that I was installing older versions of the Graphics and audio drivers - asking me if I wanted to over-write the new ones with the old ones. Yes, I over-wrote using the old ones.

I did this on the off-chance that perhaps there was some corruption of the Intel drivers that were on the image on my laptop.
This would explain the BSOD issue that occurred even fresh out of the box - and when restored from factory image.

My hope is that by RE-installing the drivers from the Dell site - I would fix any possible corrupt drivers by over-writing them with fresh ones.

I will cross my fingers on this and hope that no more BSODs present themselves to me.
If I get another BSOD related to Memory_management with reference to the Intel driver again - then I will call Dell support for troubleshooting.
I hope all this happens (before Oct 16th) - which is the last day of my 30 day return period - so something (definitive) better happen before that date !!!

Just as an fyi - the original DELL drivers were:
Dell Intel Graphics ver 10.18.10.3574 A02
Dell Intel Display audio 6.16.00.3137

The drivers that WINDOWS installed were:
Intel Graphics ver 10.18.10.3907 (8/5/2014)
Intel Display audio ver 6.3.9600.16384


Since re-installing the Dell version of the drivers - I checked my system notifications and now see that there have been a few APP Crashes related to the Intel software - like igfxCUIService.exe, igfxTray.exe. Everything (seems) to be working, so I don't know if those specific app-crashes are actually affecting anything - who knows.

If anyone has any other troubleshooting ideas or thoughts on what is causing the BSODs in my case - I'd like to hear them.

Bottom line, I need this laptop to be reliable - and I cannot accept getting (random) BSODs when I am simply trying to use it to get work done, etc.

 

Hey guys,

I'm so close to buying this laptop, the process of looking for alternatives and weighing pros/cons are getting tiresome, especially since the XPS 15 has just the kind of specs I'm looking for.

However (here we go again) I'm annoyed by the obviously common issue with coil whine that's discussed everywhere.
It's October now, so the new and "improved" motherboards should be installed in all the newly shipped laptops, right? I'm about to order from Dell's Swedish online store, but I'm hesitant since I haven't been able to find any solid information on the state of the recent updates to the XPS's hardware.

If there's anyone here with the latest revision of the 9530 that could fill me in on the details regarding coil whine - I'd be so grateful!

By the way, don't get me wrong, I've researched this for hours! I've read several positive reports, but googling the subject will obviously generate mostly negative reviews (duh). Most often it's also unclear wether those who experience coil whine purchased the laptop in late September/October or earlier.

 

Buy it, you won't regret. It's a fantastic piece of hardware, with or without the coil whine. By now there may be newer systems in other brands (MSI?), but the laptop is great. And if you don't like it, you can always exchange or return it within the return period (at no cost if you return it for a fault).

Can't comment if the coil whine is fixed or not in the latest revisions, but it is apparently a matter of luck; some recent buyers are still reporting coil whine, not sure if they are isolated cases or not.

Of course, happy customers don't usually write reviews, so you will find mostly negative reviews in Google.

 

Hello, just received my system exchange to address the coil whine issue and it has been great so far, the laptop is nice and quiet. What a relief

However I have an issue that I need some help with. I did a clean Windows 8.1 install using a USB flash drive, UEFI & Secure Boot. During the install process, for whatever reason, I repeatedly encountered a problem where Windows would not install if I had the BIOS set to AHCI mode, it would only install in Smart Response mode. If I tried AHCI, the SSD (The 1TB magnetic drive was replaced by a Samsung 840 EVO 1TB) would peg at 100% and stay there, creating an unusable system. So, not wanting to waste too much time, I reverted to the installation method that seemed to work best i.e. Smart Response.

Now that I am up and running, I was wondering:

• Does it make sense to try to get AHCI mode working i.e. is there a significant performance hit to keep the SSD running in Smart Response mode?
• If I need to convert to AHCI mode, what are the steps to do so?

Any help or suggestions would be much appreciated.

 

I received a unit from the outlet - it's got the 4702 and it (thankfully) has no coil whine.

I've been trying to max-out the 7260 Wifi Speeds and i found that the speed seems to be artificially capped at about 30MB/s - my Windows 7 task manager shows the connection speed hovering between 560-580Mb, but transfers only hit 50% of that.

On further inspection via HWINFO, it appears the 7260 is connected via mPCIe via PCI-to-USB internally, and the internal USB hub being used is the 2.0 bus! This basically explains the cap at 30MB/s (USB 2.0 will only so about 32MB/s)

Note that this was done using a cisco EA6500 3x3 router.

Just FYI.

 

That's odd, I did a clean install with the setup you attempted and had no issues at all. This shouldn't matter, but is your Evo on the latest firmware?

Anyway, Smart Response makes absolutely zero difference for a 2.5" drive. The only reason you'd need to switch to AHCI is if you wanted to install an mSATA SSD and wanted to use it as an independent SSD rather than a Smart Response cache unit. Other than that, your system will behave exactly the same in either mode.

 

What in HWINFO is indicating that to you? I believe that the M.2 spec requires that a USB 3.0 connection be available, not 2.0, and that could even explain why this system has only 3 external USB 3.0 ports (a 4-port USB hub is a common chip to implement on a motherboard). But I also seem to remember reading somewhere that the 7260 uses PCIe for WiFi and USB for Bluetooth -- and in fact when I run HWINFO, I see the 7260 listed under both PCI Express Root Port and USB 3.0 xHCI Controller. Drilling into those, the PCIe listing shows the network adapter, and the USB 3.0 hub shows the Bluetooth adapter, though the latter negotiates at USB 1.1 speeds, probably because 12 Mbps is all Bluetooth needs.

It wouldn't make sense for a motherboard to have PCIe over USB like you're suggesting. That's pointless additional circuitry that adds cost and complexity while reducing performance; the CPU natively supports far more PCIe lanes than a typical laptop requires, so there would be no need for that PCIe abstraction. But even if it were implemented and the WiFi adapter ultimately had to cross over USB 2.0, Windows wouldn't be able to show 560 Mbps. As for why your real-world speeds are lower, I believe that's because the Windows counter looks at raw data, i.e. including all header/trailer data in the Ethernet frames and IP packets, as well as ALL data (including data that the application decided needed to be re-sent), whereas the other counters you're looking at probably only count payload data and probably wouldn't count packets that had to be re-sent. Still, I admit it's odd that you're seeing a 50% gap between the two counters; it should be more like 15%. Do you live in a WiFi-dense area or perhaps have walls and/or a fair distance between your laptop and your router?

And on a side note, since you're running Win7, did you install the USB 3.0 drivers?

 

I'm new to this forum site.

I just recently received a Dell XPS 15 9530 due to a system exchange from my Dell XPS 15 L202x.

These are the specs of the 9530:
Catalog Number: 29 DNCWX1602B

Module Description Show Details
XPS 9530 XPS 15
Operating System Windows 8.1 (64Bit) English
Memory 16GB DDR3L 1600MHz (8GBx2)
Keyboard English Keyboard
Video Card NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 750M 2GB GDDR5
Wireless Driver Software for Intel® Dual Band Wireless-AC 7260 + Bluetooth 4.0
Hard Drive 1TB 5400 rpm SATA Hard Drive + 32GB mSATA Solid State Drive
Sound High Definition Audio with Waves MaxxAudio® Pro
Wireless Intel® Dual Band Wireless-AC 7260 + Bluetooth 4.0
Primary Battery 61 WHr, 6-Cell Battery (integrated)
Processor 4th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-4712HQ Processor (6M, up to 3.3GHz)
LCD 15.6 inch LED Backlit Touch Display with Truelife and QHD+ resolution (3200 x 1800)

I love the specs but the only draw backs are the: speakers, its somewhat slow even for a new laptop, and the battery life is not reliable or long lasting.

I've heard many issues with this unit(coil whine, motherboard issues, etc.), I would like to first ask what should I do to prep my 9530 to work at is best performance and battery lasting settings. I am still cover by Dell Technical support but as I read on the forum, they're not acknowledging the issues at the moment. On my "My Dell" app it list as the 9530, Late 2013, is there a early 2014 that works better? Please let me know how I can make this laptop worth the system exchange.

 

Speakers are good for an ultrabook, but probably not comparable to what you have. That's just one of the tradeoffs of having a slim chassis. If audio is important to you, you'll either need to stick with thicker systems or get external speakers. You can play with the MaxxAudio settings and try turning it off entirely, but otherwise that's just how these speakers are.

What is leading you to judge this system "somewhat slow even for a new laptop"? If you're talking about CPU and memory, I don't see how you could construe those as slow. Besides, your performance bottleneck is that 1TB spinning hard drive, even with the mSATA cache. Replace both of those with an SSD and you'll have a smoking fast system. If that's not an option, you can try tweaking Intel Smart Response to make better use of that cache module by following articles on the XPS 15 Wiki: http://xps-15.wikia.com/wiki/Allocate_the_full_mSATA_cache_capacity_to_Smart_Response and http://xps-15.wikia.com/wiki/Increasing_caching_(aka_Intel_Smart_Response)_performance. If you're referring to gaming, this system is mid-range or so in that regard, but again, this is designed primarily to be slim and light, not be a serious gaming system. The XPS brand has changed its meaning over the years, and I believe your previous XPS was made before Dell acquired Alienware, so it was designed as a gaming rig, whereas now Dell's gaming systems are in the Alienware line and the XPS line has become more of a "premium materials and design with very good [but not hardcore gaming] levels of performance" proposition. But I've been reading this thread since Post #1 and nobody here has complained of slow non-gaming performance.

Battery life is ok -- not great, but ok. Again, this is a tradeoff. This system offers much higher performance than similar laptops in its weight and thickness class, so something had to give. Getting better battery life would have required either lower performance or a thicker chassis to house a larger battery -- but then people would be complaining that the system was too slow or too thick. One way you can get better battery life is by getting the 9-cell battery and using an mSATA SSD, giving up your 2.5" drive bay in the process. That's a 50% boost right there. As for battery life reliability, that's probably because this system attracts a wide range of users with a wide range of usage habits. On the one hand, some people want it just for its gorgeous display and chassis and won't tap into much of its performance capabilities, so they'll have better battery life. Others might buy it fully intending to max out its CPU and GPU with some gaming or other intensive work because this system has the chops to handle that kind of workload, so they'll see much worse battery life.

As for what to do to prep a 9530 for its best performance and best battery settings, you can't have both at the same time; that should be obvious. But if you take a look at the XPS 15 Wiki you'll find some recommendations around performance/battery tweaks as well as lots of other information you may find useful.

There is not a newer generation of the XPS 15 at the moment. Dell wouldn't launch one in Late 2013 and a new generation in Early 2014, so I'm not sure why you would've expected that or why you'd think it might exist and not be listed on Dell's site. There's also no reliable information as to when the next-gen XPS 15 will be released. Plenty of people are speculating that it will happen soon because it's been almost a year and the holidays are approaching, but there's nothing to confirm that, and given that Intel is apparently having issues getting their Broadwell chips out, it's possible that even if a replacement WAS planned to launch soon, it might be delayed anyway. At the end of the day, there will always be something newer coming out later, so you have to pull the trigger at some point. Plus you're getting a FREE upgrade to a system that's overall FAR better than what you have, so even if you end up getting this system shortly before it's replaced, you're still far better off with no money out of pocket -- so I'm confused as to how you feel the need to make it "worth" the system exchange. Would you seriously rather go back to what you had?

 

jphugan, thanks. Odd indeed as the EVO firmware is up to date; I tried it nine ways to Sunday and it just would not work. Rather than bang my head against the proverbial stone, I chose the Smart Response route. Good to know that Smart Response won't inhibit performance.

 

First, I would like to say sorry for coming off like that in my first post.

Thank you for an informative reply. I understand that there is going to tradeoffs, like battery life and speakers. And believe me, I am more than happy that I am getting a new computer because of the system exchange.

I plan to order a Samsung 500GB mSATA SSD and the 9-cell battery(if I can find it), to make it faster system and give a bump in the battery life.

I will go over to the XPS 15 wiki and look up some steps to prepare my system(update drivers, etc.).

Thank you for the help.

 

No worries. The 9-cell battery can be tough to get, but if you call Dell Spare Parts they should be able to help you out. As for the SSD swap, make sure to change the SATA mode in your BIOS to AHCI rather than Smart Response beforehand, and if you'll be cloning your existing installation rather than doing a clean install, disable Smart Response in Windows (under Intel Rapid Storage > Acceleration) before making the BIOS change or performing the clone. Good luck and enjoy your system!

 

Sorry for two somewhat stupid questions;

1. If I buy the 1TB + 32GB SSD version and swap out one or both of the drives to SSD's - would this result in the same performance (read/write speeds?) as the 512GB version of the XPS? Or is the 512GB SSD connected via another standard?

2. It's probably hard, but could anyone give a rough approximate of difference in battery life between the two models? I've been using my old Dell Inspirion 1545 for many years now and it eats up batteries like there's no tomorrow. I can't even run it on battery anymore... With that said, I'd probably be satisfied with a battery life of 3-4 hours (give or take) when doing simple tasks like web browsing, listening to music and doing some work in Photoshop.

 

The 512GB SSD is connected via mSATA, which is 6 Gbps just like the regular SATA connection. The performance you experience will depend on the particular SSD you choose, not the connector; the M.2 slot is potentially faster, but you can't use that for an SSD unless you're ok giving up built-in WiFi, and even then I don't think the system will fit M.2 cards of sufficient height for an SSD. The Dell 512GB unit is either the Samsung SM841, PM851, or some Lite-On unit; which one you get seems to depend on when you ordered and a bit of luck of the draw. Dell tends to keep multiple suppliers lined up for parts whenever possible to avoid a shortage at one supplier causing Dell to have to stop production on all systems that use that part. But if you install a 2.5" SSD, make sure to remove the 32GB mSATA cache. That cache is pretty slow by SSD standards, so if you use it as a cache in front of a fast SSD, you can actually end up slowing that SSD down.

Battery life as you say is subjective, but people with light workloads seem to be getting 3-4 hours out of the 6-cell battery. People with intense workloads might only see half that. But the difference in battery life is easy. Since one is 61 WHr and the other is 91 WHr, the latter will give you 50% more battery life than the former -- or looking at it the other way around, the smaller battery will last 2/3 as long as the larger one.

 

did you try removing the msata and installing to the 1tb 2.5" drive to get round this ?

Got a msata 1tb in this so no 2nd drive to mess things up.

 

Thanks jphughan!

Oh, all these choices... As you probably know, the cost of an 'XPS with a mechanical drive' plus a Samsung EVO 512GB is a few bucks cheaper than if one were to just go for the XPS 512GB. So with the former alternative; 1.5 TB of storage, somewhat cheaper, but worse battery life. The latter one; longer battery life and no need to risk breaking anything by swapping harddrives. But I suppose it's possible to swap the 512GB SSD for one with more capacity on that model too.

Can someone just tell me which one to go for? Haha.

 

No did not try that; would have been my next step but it was getting late! Pretty much left it the way it seemed to work and am OK with the outcome.

 

Keep in mind that in addition to reducing the size of the battery installed in your system, the mechanical drive will also reduce battery life simply by spinning. I remember when I switched to an SSD I saw a noticeable improvement in battery life on an old Precision M6300. Granted that was coming from a 7200 RPM drive, whereas I believe the 1TB unit is 5400 RPM, but the same concept applies. I'd personally go with the 512GB version if the cost difference is negligible since I'd rather have the larger battery than more internal storage. Few people need more than 512GB of internal storage, but as you say you can always upgrade to a larger mSATA SSD if needed, and in the meantime you get the larger battery (which is expensive to buy later), everything is covered by warranty, you don't need a Torx screwdriver to open up your system, don't have to deal with cloning/clean installing to migrate to your SSD, etc. And frankly if you've never tried an SSD before, there's a good chance that once you do, you won't want to bother with that 1TB drive because it will seem impossibly slow to you -- unless maybe you have a huge photo/music/video collection where transfer speeds aren't much of a concern but capacity is a major factor. Lastly, keep in mind that if you need more storage, another alternative would be to buy a slim USB 3.0 drive or even a high capacity SD card rather than a replacement SSD.

 

UPDATE to BSOD issue:
I got another BSOD tonight - so my idea of uninstalling/reinstalling the Intel HD graphics driver made no difference.
Tonight it barfed on a different file.

So, since my last full system restore from factory image, my BSODs have been:
BSOD screen: MEMORY_MANAGEMENT (all BSODs had this on the blue screen)

Within the Blue Screen Troubleshooter (My Dell app), my BSODs have been caused (apparently) by:
OCT 4 aswsp.sys
OCT 5 igdkmd64,sys
OCT 8 dxgmms1.sys

Like I posted previously - this laptop gave me a BSOD fresh out of the box - when going through the windows setup, and another time after doing a factory restore - once again when going through the windows setup.
I think this must be hardware-related.

In any event, I opened up the chassis tonight and re-seated both RAM modules - to make sure they were at least making good contact/connection. If the RAM itself is faulty - then I wonder why it passed the (many) different diagnostics I ran - whereby it (always) passed. If the RAM is faulty, I don't have time in my 30 day return-window to get it addressed anyway.
If re-seating the RAM in their slots does not work - I give up.
One more BSOD and it goes back into the box - back to Dell.
I love almost every other aspect of this beautiful machine but my patience is all but worn out.
I did not spend this kind of money to have to put up with so much hassle just to have a nice laptop.

 

512gb as it has a big battery, that and you can soon slap a 1tb msata evo in it.

 

Indeed I’m also suffering from BSOD from time to time with my top-tier laptop when waking it up from sleep it just hangs at the lockscreen (does not load completely) and then crashes with BSOD printing 'DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION'. After investigating in the MyDell App the BSOD seems to be caused also by “igdkmd64.sys”. I have installed latest Dell driver for the HD 4600 card, but after checking Intels official Driver page I take into consideration to go with the official driver instead of OEM to give it a try.

 

No Truer words were written! :thumbsup:

 

What A Absolute Super Great Detailed & Thorough response and it is Definitely Great individuals, like you, that make this Venue and Forum what it Definitely is and will Hopefully Always Be! :thumbsup:

 

If you do not mind, I know that there can be many variables yet what exactly is the scenario that unfortunately puts your unit into the BSOD, as I would like to Truly Help you out and see if mine will somehow do the same thing and then see if you most definitely received a very understandable defective unit?

 

Thanks but the BSODS happened right out of the box with nothing done to it. This happened twice. The next time the BSODS happened I was either just clicking a webpage or using flipboard or doing nothing at all. Very random events. The fact that these bsods (all under the heading of memory management) happen when simply going through the pc setup fresh from the start tells me there must be some hardware issue as no other conflicting programs are at play at that point. This is madness.

 

You are very welcome as I just want you to either get your issues resolved with your present unit or get one that does not have any, as I have been very pleased with mine and I very Thankfully do not experience "Any" of the ongoing issues that other members seem to be Unbelievably having.

Please let me know if I can Help you out in any way as I will do whatever I possibly can.

Good Luck & Best Regards,
SD

 

Sounds like a hardware memory issue to me - a memory issue that, for some strange reason, is not being picked up by Dell's diagnostics. I very rarely get a blue screen.

Separately, I would just like to reiterate other comments - it is an excellent machine. Even with the coil whine, I have no regrets.

 

I got that BSoD (though with a different file implicated when I analyzed the dump file with WinDbg) and it turned out to be caused by Hamachi, an awesome zero-config VPN app. I uninstalled it and the problems disappeared, though it seems they've released a newer version that claims to solve the issue.

 

Hi all,

Been messing around with my brand new XPS 15 (9530) & Windows 8.1.
Can I do a factory reset?
Tapping F8 on startup did not work.

Thanks!

 

I think we heard about the XPS 15 refresh last year around October. Since there hasn't been news yet, is it safe to say that a refresh won't come until Broadwell?

 

From my absolute lack of information, that seems very plausible...

 

I just posted about this a few pages back:

The Windows reset/refresh is designed to be available even from the Startup Repair interface if needed, so the OS doesn't actually need to be bootable to access it.

 

I can't imagine Dell releasing a refresh with the same generation of CPU. And in fact now that Broadwell has been delayed so long, Skylake will be just around the corner when it finally launches, and considering that Skylake is a much larger improvement over Broadwell than Broadwell is over Haswell, there may not be a refresh until Skylake. But then of course there will probably be new GPUs waiting in the wings.... So even system manufacturers have to deal with the "There will always be something better later, so you have to launch sometime" quandary.

 

The Dell Backup and Recovery on the Main Charms page is where you "should" find the original Factory Image to restore the computer back to its original state and configuration.

Regards,
SD

 

Best Start Menu for Windows 8.1, that you guys have used on your XPS 9530.

 

If you spend some time customizing the Start screen, I don't think you'll miss the Start menu. The tiles are basically enhanced versions of Pinned Items, you can click the arrow for All Apps (same as All Programs), and if you simply start typing on the Start screen, you automatically bring up the Search dialog box, from which you can launch applications and open files. Anything from the Win7 Start menu can be pinned to the Win8 Start screen from what I can tell. The one thing you don't get is your most frequently used apps like you do on Win7, but considering the amount of display area the Start screen can occupy, you can just pin those manually.

 

Imho, without classic shell win8.1 is useless, but with classic shell one forgets windows 7 very quickly....