XPS 15 (Haswell) Owner's Lounge

It seems to be compatible with systems using <100W power supplies.

 

True, and therefore it's certainly possible it would work with older systems, but I'm betting that without a BIOS update to those systems enabling support for this, they'd throw the aforementioned unrecognized AC adapter warning and possibly throttle as a result. Or it could end up working just fine and this could simply be a case of an incomplete compatibility list given that a list of every Dell system that uses a sub-100W power supply and has the appropriate AC connector would be enormous. But if you buy one to test with a suitable older system, let us know how it goes!

 

Hi jphughan, I have a top-tier 9530, and have found your posts very informative. How does the smart response work with the a07 bios? I read previously that you recommended disabling this feature, but read later posts mentioning that the intel srt worked well with new bios. Also, is there a xps 15 tips and tricks page on this site?

 

Glad I've been able to help!

If you have a top-tier XPS 15, i.e. with the 512GB SSD, then Smart Response wouldn't even apply to you. Smart Response is the Intel's caching feature that uses the 32GB mSATA cache to increase the performance of a spinning hard drive. Are you maybe referring to Smart Connect, or Rapid Start? I haven't used either of those since shortly after getting the system because Smart Connect has such limited application support (and I don't really need my email fetched while my system is sleeping anyway....) and Rapid Start is basically all drawbacks when used with an SSD primary hard drive unless your require both hibernation support and Smart Connect, in which case using Rapid Start is your only option.

The Tips and Tricks page would be the XPS 15 Wiki here: http://xps-15.wikia.com/wiki/XPS_15_Wiki. The How-To and Common Complaints sections are probably your best technical resources there. Enjoy!

 

Yes, sorry, i was referring to Rapid Start. I'm going to disable it and see how that goes. Thanks

 

I disabled smart connect and rapid start. My laptop actually wakes from sleep a little faster, not sure about an initial startup. Also, I changed by battery options to custom (50, 90) but once it reaches 90 it gets stuck there. Not sure why.

 

I'm confused. You configured your laptop to stop charging at 90%, and you're not sure why it gets stuck when it reaches 90%?

 

It stays at 90% and doesn't go back down at all.

 

When the battery reaches its configured maximum charge level, the system starts using AC power only to run, at which point the battery will only drain due to self-discharge, the kind of depletion that would occur if you just had the battery stored on a shelf somewhere. Self-discharge can take a long time, especially on high-quality batteries. As I mentioned a while ago, I haven't monitored it carefully, but in my 80/50 configuration it seems that my battery takes at least a couple of weeks to self-discharge down to 50%.

 

That explains it, I had something else in my mind. I thought it ran on the battery until it dropped to 50 then switched to AC to hit 90 again. Perhaps this article confused me
http://www.wired.com/2013/09/laptop-battery/

 

No, all of those extra discharge cycles from running off the battery even while connected to AC would be even worse for battery longevity than keeping it topped up at 100% all the time. It's good to let the battery discharge occasionally (self-discharge or drain), but in the scenario you were picturing you'd be constantly either draining or charging the battery, never giving it a chance to rest at all. That Wired article was written before laptops supported being connected to AC while leaving the battery completely idle.

 

The article says "The ideal would be that the laptop would only charge 80 percent". That's exactly what the custom options enable you to do (by setting the max at 80%). The one snag is that Dell no longer includes the feature to "push a button before you travel to charge it to 100 percent" (also from the article), which would be handy when you've got your battery set up 80/50 (but you can always press F12 when booting and change the battery settings back to 100%).

 

Towards the bottom it mentions "Buchmann admits that putting the 40 to 80 percent battery-status workflow into practice is easier said than done. Keeping an eye on your computer’s battery level while trying to work can be a pain" and "A quick DIY solution is to measure how long it takes to go from 80 percent to 40 percent then set a timer. Do the same thing as it charges from 40 percent to 80 percent." Both insinuate manually unplugging. Jphughan did mention that the feature came after the article. Could just be a poorly written article too.

 

That makes sense. Also, I changed the rapid start in bios, where can I go to reclaim the partition that was used rapid start, and if I ever switch it back, will it automatically set the partition up again?

 

You can see it under Computer Management > Disk Management. Make sure not to confuse the Rapid Start partition with others that will be there (Windows Recovery, EFI System, MSR Reserved, possibly Dell Image Restore, etc). If you identify the right one, you may be able to delete it in there, otherwise you'd have to use diskpart to select it and enter "delete partition override". Once it's gone, you should be able to extend your OS partition to fill the space you just freed up assuming the Rapid Start partition was directly to the right of the OS partition. If not, you can't extend into the free space until you delete whatever partition is in the way.

The BIOS option will actually stay disabled and grayed out until you properly recreate that Rapid Start partition, instructions for which are here: http://download.intel.com/support/m...pid_start_technology_user_guide_for_uefi1.pdf.

 

Thanks for the info. So far it's a pretty good laptop. I'm a bit meticulous, so I have noticed small design flaws, such as the lid being flushed on the left side but has a slight gap on the right. Almost as if the base or the lid is slightly warped.

I haven't heard any troublesome noises either. Very rarely it will sound like a mosquito trapped inside but it is really faint. However, this unit came from Microsoft with a pretty good discount, so I'm lucky.

On a side note, I did have issues initially with a few random restarts, but this was while running the older bios. During that dilemma I came across a ton of errors and warnings in the event viewer, is this more so a Windows 8.1 issue? My old Sony running windows 7 had very few. Half of them are related to trueColor.

 

In the end the engineer has come today bringing a XPS 13 motherboard by mistake. How can they send by mistake a motherboard for an XPS 13 to fix an XPS 15? Well, I'll have another visit tomorrow...

 

Believe it or not, this is a result of how you close the lid due to the hinge being so high tension in order to support touch. I've noticed this too. Try closing the lid by pushing forward on the *bottom* left and right edges closer to the hinge or the center of the back, rather than the top of the lid (which, of course, is the more natural thing to do).

 

I installed sandboxie recently and ever since whenever I drop the display resolution, I get black boxing around the screen. Even after I uninstalled sandboxie, this problem persists. Anyone know about this software and any solution to my problem? Thanks!

 

If I'm not mistaken, I believe this setting is called "Maintain Display Scaling" in the Intel Graphics Control Panel (accessible via the Start screen or right-click on desktop).

 

Life saver!!! Still, once I use sandboxie the problem arises again and I have to change this setting again. But thats not a big deal anyway....Thanks!!

 

If we use a Displayport to HDMI cable, will it still be able to deliver 4K at 60HZ? (assuming the 4k monitor has HDMI available at 60hz). Thanks.

 

No. Unless you use a DisplayPort to an HDMI 2.0 cable converter but I don't think these exist yet.

 

Wasn't me lol I noticed it when I first inspected it. Though I got it from Microsoft and I'm sure they have to handle it to make it a "Signature Edition"= no bloatware.

Anyone have a custom battery option and can explain how long it takes for the battery to self-discharge? In 5 days, the battery hasn't even dropped one percent.

 

Also, I turned on my computer this morning to find no network connections. In PC settings, the wifi toggle was missing, only bluetooth and nfc were visible. I also noticed in services that Intel Proset/zero config was disabled, but not sure if this was the culprit or not. Restarted twice and is working again. Anyone have similar experiences?

 

Alright to make a long story short I'm dealing with a near nightmare situation with Dell and their anything but professional repair depo. When I get called by one of their managers I will most likely be offered several options

1. Another repair attempt (Not about to do that again as I have sent it in twice and and has come back to me in worse condition then when I sent it both times)

2. System replacement (not sure if I want another one as it will most likely still have coil whine and hard drive ticking)

3. Refund (doubt they will do this)

If I elect to take option two I am going to insist they extend my warranty as it has been in and out of repairs for 2 months but that still leaves me with a probably defective "new" unit.

Or

Should I ask to receive another laptop from Dell of equal or lesser value? If so which one?

 

I purchased mine from Microsoft and added their Complete care, hopefully their service is better. AND hopefully this laptop has no issues. My old sony vaio was a champ.

Do you have the top-tier?

 

I have the mid-tier with the 32gb SSD that is supposed to have the OS installed onto it

 

Ah OK, I was hoping you had the top-tier because they updated the res on the screen and maybe also fixed the coil whine.

 

As far as I know the res is the same between the mid-tier and the top-tier

 

not anymore, the top has ultrasharp, it's slightly better

 

So, new motherboard, the power on and blue screens are fixed, but as expected, there is some coil whine. Bye bye to the 100% silent motherboard.

At least it's not the strongest noise amongst the motherboards I've had in the last year, so I'll probably keep this one, at least for the time being.

They haven't fixed the coil whine, but from my personal experience I'd say Dell may be getting better...

 

By the way is there an easy way to replace one key? Like in the old keyboards where you could just pop keys.

I had a keyboard replacement some time ago (caps lock led stopped working) and the new keyboard has the space key bended (I only realised about a week later and now I can't unsee it).

 

I don't know about prospects for a warranty extension. In previous cases I've worked with that involved warranty service handled by providing a brand new system (sometimes a newer model than the original unit in cases of claims very late in the warranty period), I didn't get a new warranty with the new system. The idea is that the warranty coverage you've already used has been what's covering the service that you're getting now and would cover you getting a new system if that's what happens, so it's not as if that portion of the warranty is now worthless just because you got a new system. Of course it sounds like you've had a rough experience, so they may be able to do something for you there, but it wouldn't be a given.

The 32GB SSD isn't an OS drive; it's configured as a caching module for the entire 1TB spinning disk using Intel Smart Response, managed in the Rapid Storage application.

That was true until very recently. Dell just launched a full 4K (3840x2160) display on the XPS 15 and Precision M3800, which has supplanted the QHD+ display at the top of the range.

 

Not that I know of. The only keyboards I'm aware of that support replacing individual keys are mechanical keyboards. The scissor switch keyboards found on most desktop keyboards and all laptop keyboards don't lend themselves to key replacement.

 

-Yes my 9530 now is actually a system exchange I already got back in the summer for a completely defective unit of the older XPS 15 L521x and obviously then I did not ask for a warranty extension. However, seeing as though my computer has been in and out of repair (mostly in repair) for the last 2 months I believe I have basis for asking for a new or extended warranty of the new system if that it was I elect to do. I should be receiving a call within the day and I'll be having a nice discussion with my my handler

-That is strange because when I first bought the laptop the OS was installed upon the SSD i.e. when I went to check- say via Intel rapid storage app- it would say that my system drive was the 32gb SSD. When I sent it in for repair the first time I got it back and it was the exact opposite. What good is this ssd to me then if the OS is not installed upon it. My boot times since getting it back have been around the 2-3 minute mark now as opposed to the 20 seconds it used to take

-Interesting, so I'm assuming that if I get a system exchange this is the one I'll be getting? Too bad the graphics card is the same... gonna take a lot to power that display with such an old video card...

 

so few days ago my fan noise has increased.i m not sure even if it is fan noise because it comes from the right side of the laptop not the left side if i put my ear towards the keyboard.if it was fan noise it shud be from both sides right.its like a motor running but veryy silently...still i can hear it...i dnt know wht it is...can anyone help.

 

Hi guys,

Have you ever encountered this problem: when the NVIDIA GPU is loaded (playing games, hardware decoding using LAV, etc.), the wifi speed drops to nearly zero, even my IMs will fall offline. And when I quit the program that loads the GPU, the wifi speed recovers automatically.

Is there any solutions?

 

I'm not sure what you saw on your original system, but unless you did a clean install and changed everything around, the 32GB cache is managed by Intel Smart Response. As for what good it is, as I said above, it's configured as a cache for the entire spinning drive -- by default only a read cache, but it can also be used as a write cache. So the Rapid Storage driver will watch what areas of your spinning disk are accessed frequently and copy those data blocks to the SSD for faster access. And if you enable it to work as a write cache, files you copy to your drive will actually be written to the SSD, delivering faster write times, and then committed back to the spinning disk during an idle period.

Of course a good chunk of the cache will probably store OS-related data blocks because that's what gets accessed often, but the 32GB SSD by default isn't managed as an independent disk with its own drive letter so that the full OS is installed directly onto it and everything else resides on the spinning disk. You actually probably don't want your OS volume limited to 32GB anyway. Take a look at this XPS 15 Wiki article to find out more about how you can further optimize the use of that cache. This first article shows how to eliminate Rapid Start in favor of getting more storage for caching, and at the end of the article is a link to a second article showing how to enable write caching as well: http://xps-15.wikia.com/wiki/Allocate_the_full_mSATA_cache_capacity_to_Smart_Response.

Other than the aforementioned 4K display, there isn't a newer XPS 15, so yes an exchange would be for another system like you have now. There also isn't really an equivalent system in Dell's lineup. There are systems that are similar in some regards, but all of them involve tradeoffs over the XPS 15, e.g. GPU, display size, weight, etc.

 

Interesting then my problem is with something else. I appreciate you clarifying this for me and I will cross it off the list of things I'm going to chew the depo out for. I do still find it strange that before my repairs that the SSD was signaled as the OS device though.... weird. Thanks anyway =P!

I knew that I just did not know if the system exchange would be for my model with the updated 4k display or they would send me the 3200*1800 resolution display model. The XPS is a great balance for me despite the problems I have with it -and possible a gpu upgrade short from perfect- but I wouldn't mind trading it in for something that might be a little bulkier but is more powerful and does not have some of this quality control issues.

 

I doubt you'd get the 4K display while the QHD+ machine is still available, particularly since it seems the 4K display only comes with the spec that also includes the 512GB SSD and larger battery. Anyway, if you want similar performance with a GPU upgrade at the cost of some weight, the closest system to fit that description is the Precision M4800, but I wouldn't hold out hopes of getting that system in exchange for an XPS 15. I guess it never hurts to ask though. Good luck!

 

Just got off the phone with Dell and they offered me one of two things
1.) on-site technician who is going to come with pretty much everything on this laptop
2.) replacement with a refurbished laptop...

Seeing as though the refurbished laptop with probably have the exact same issue I opted to go with the first option. Hopefully by holding Dell's terrible technician's hands through the repair process they can correct this problem...

 

On the topic of SSD's.... anyone consider the Dell prices extraordinarily exorbitant? I mean, considering you can buy a top rated Samsung EVO from Amazon for about $120 (250gb) and $250 (500gb), the $700+ prices Dell charges seems absolutely ludicrous. I had a boss scoff and hold off on purchasing a laptop from Dell exactly for this reason. I don't really understand why Dell does this. It's almost a deal killer in some ways. I myself ordered a lower spec machine and added my own Samsung Evo for this reason.

 

Not sure why they do this, maybe cause they assume people are stupid, but getting the mid-tier and adding your own large SSD- that I am probably going to end up doing- is much easier. If the lowest tier 9530 had the same GPU in it then I would have just gotten that one and upgraded the storage myself

 

Sound Distortion

I'm hearing a sound distortion when I play a video on youtube or when a play a video through videolan, I can feel it even through headphones, so it should not be a problem with speakers of the XPS, has someone else this kind of problem?
The issue is started a few days ago...

 

It's kind of like Apple's markup on memory. Still, off the top of my head, you do get a few things by ordering straight from Dell rather than going aftermarket, although of course whether these are worth the additional cost depends on a few factors and will vary from person to person:

- SSDs ordered from Dell inherit the system's warranty, maintaining a single point of contact for support, whereas aftermarket SSD warranties would have to be handled with the vendor whose warranty lengths will vary and who will definitely NOT provide on-site service. For many people who use this system as their primary (or sole) workstation, the savings of going aftermarket could very quickly be wiped out and then some by the cost of longer work downtime from dealing with a third-party warranty and their likely much longer replacement timeframe compared to next-day on-site service through Dell by paying extra to upgrade through them. I do IT consulting for my dad's company, where he wants me to ensure that none of his employees is ever still using a system after its warranty expires because again, the cost of a new laptop is nothing compared to what several days of one of his employees' downtime would cost.

- If you go aftermarket, you have to have the technical knowledge (and be willing to take the time) to do a clean install of your system or at least do an image clone.

- If you're ordering in bulk on behalf of a company, the cost of somebody spending time swapping aftermarket components into the system may not be worth the savings, particularly when considering the loss of on-site warranty coverage for the entire system.

- On some other systems (not this one), storage/memory is soldered onto the motherboard, so you can't upgrade aftermarket anyway.

Of course going aftermarket has its perks too, like more choices, more frequent firmware updates, (in the case of Samsung drives) access to other features like RAPID mode and the additional information shown in the Magician app, etc, so like I said, what makes the most sense will vary from person to person.

 

I reported that a while ago. It's extremely rare and in my case happens only somewhat reliably with certain audio samples (i.e. it almost never happens in general usage), but I haven't found a fix. I've tried different driver versions from both Dell and Realtek with no permanent change in behavior. It's irritating to me on principle, but admittedly not a real problem in my general usage.

 

I received a replacement machine for my ~1yr old mid-tier today. It was a refurbished unit (refurbished by GENCO according to the sticker), and honestly feels brand new. It does NOT have the 4k display, but DOES have the 4712HQ CPU (whereas the machine it replaced had the 4702HQ). Markings on the motherboard seem to be the same as my previous replacement motherboard that was pretty quiet...this one seems silent so far (in regards to coil whine). The RAM is a different manufacturer but same specs (Elpida instead of the original Hynix). It also has a Samsung SSD (instead of Crucial) and a slightly newer (same model) HDD - but that is to be expected. Unlike the old mobo - this one does not have the part number clearly marked on a sticker, so that is a bit odd....
All things considered, right now I'm feeling slightly victorious after the last few months of back and forth with Dell (and numerous terrible technicians)...I will definitely be putting it through its paces before sending my old one back though...

 

I am keeping my fingers crossed for you. I know what you have been through lol and I do hope the unit you received performs and last as long as a 2k+ laptop should.

If my technician cannot fix the problem then my easiest option is to opt for what you have chosen and it's reassuring to hear that the laptop feels brand new. When I sent mine into the depo I am pretty sure they put in the new HDD but it is clicking randomly and is very annoying so that needs to be replaced for me again.

Did you ever have issues where you CPU would lock at .76ghz and not budge with the old processor or even the new one. I have always had the 4712HQ CPU and for some reason it decided to just lock at .76Ghz. I had posted a while back about it but no respones. I think I had deduced that it is related to the external power source. Right now it happens when I plug in with brick so what I am thinking is that either the charger or something internally related to the charger plug is not correctly reading the brick as it tells me to plug in a dell certified 130 watt power source. So I think it is scaling performance to match the "inadequate" power source.

 

Until now it never happened, maybe it was some windows update or another kind of update, but it's very irritating, happens approximately every 3 minutes and involves any sound source, maybe tomorrow I could try a factory restore.