XPS 15 (Haswell) Owner's Lounge

Yeah, you have to use a program to dig up your product key. I used KeyFinder at KeyFinder | Magical Jelly Bean.
Also the product key on the computer will only work with a Dell Windows .iso so I can't use the various iso's I already have.
I've got a Windows 8.1 Pro license if it comes down to it, but I'd rather not use that if I don't have to.

 

Just got my XPS 15 this morning. Turned it on, I disliked Win8 within 2 mins. Took out the screws and replaced the 5400RPM HDD with my SSHD and the 32GB msata for a 64GB msata. The bottom case is very easy to take out just to pry it out from the heatsink area. it is easier to just pry out from the port area.


This is inside the case. Msata is located beneath the orange cable


First thing I noticed was the decolourization of the heatsink. Looks like it had been used for a very long time.


Changing the HDD to SSHD


Switch the Msata

 

Does anyone know actually why the xps 15 has a 10 point touch and the m3800 only has 5?! Lingo completely wrong there I know!!!

 

Why not just make a recovery disk and use that?

 

That's the same hurdle i am, so what i read is that you have to look up one key for the installation, and then use the dell oem key for activation.

 

I'm seeing an issue with my Wi-fi speed too. Testing with speedtest.net and testmy.net Tested between Dell Latitude E6420 and new XPS 15. E6420 getting around 25 Mbps which is around the normal speed of my cable connection. Pretty much same speed I got when testing with other devices like my Nexus 5. XPS 15 is only getting 11 Mbps using either websites. Test done with IE, Mozilla, and Chrome. Good new is that so far there is no noise that I can detect. Build quality is seems excellent. I possibly might return this laptop.

 

Because that'll carry with it all the drivers, Dell apps, and pos McAfee that I don't want.

 

If you uninstall the extra software Dell installed, then create the recovery image, will it be clean or contain them anyway?

 

Please post your results on getting that disc.

 

Did Dell charge you for the Windows 8.1 USB drive?

 

I too called dell to get a physical copy of the disc. btw did anyone register their product on the dell website yet? I registered mine and came out as a XPS 15 (L501x). weird.

 

I sure will.

They didn't send it, because it would have the factory image on it, which I don't want. You can make your own USB drive with a factory image using the Dell Backup software that comes on the machine.

No I want a clean install where I know that nothing has touched it that I don't know about. I prefer to do it that way, have done so with every Dell I've owned.

 

Mine briefly showed XPS 9530 but then changed to L501x as I was looking around at the options.

 

They fixed the listing since this morning.. and actually this afternoon too.

 

Well this is interesting....

Edit: Something is causing this while I'm trying to copy my huge SteamApps folder from my portable hdd. Going to try smaller chunks of data. At least the blue screen has the good grace to look sad in Windows 8.

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Ordered from Costco.. Now how do I cancel this Dell order.. saved 200 bucks plus got a 3 year warranty to boot with Accidental Damage. Also 90 day return policy from Costco.

 

I also just put in an order with Costco, and I hot a 6 dollar pumpkin pie when I went to the store to become a member lol. Will be interesting to see if the estimated 2 week delivery time holds.

 

Do they have it on display?

 

For those with the top tier model (with 512 GB mSATA SSD):
How much space is left for your use (after the OS and SSD "over-provisioning" space are used up) ?

 

For anyone who has both a 15 inch retina and the xps 15, how do the speakers compare?
They're pretty great for a laptop on the retina from what I can remember.

 

I tested 5Ghz 802.11AC a few minutes ago and had the same 10 megabit issue. The connection speed was very unstable as well. I went to intel's site and downloaded the drivers directly from them and installed it. 65 megabit download, 25 up, no speed stability issues.

Going to take some pictures of the display vs the MBP now.

 

Yeah I am sure its not going to. Not unless they get jumped to the front of the line, I went in and upgraded my membership to premium for the 2% cash back. Cost me a prorated 30 bucks to upgrade, but make back 40 on this purchase alone. 1.50 hot dogs and cheap gas pay for the normal membership!!

"The preliminary ship date is not intended to provide you with an actual ship date. "

Now I have to call the return specialists tomorrow to try and cancel my Dell order.. wonder what kind of discount they will offer me to not cancel, may end up better off sticking with the Dell heh. If they throw in a 3 year warranty +ADH and match the price and keep my December 4th date. I had a trip on the 5th that I was trying to get it for.

 

Got a call back from Dell. They're sending me a USB stick with something on it. The guy said it should just be a Windows 8 image but it also might be the factory image. Don't think they really know. No charge, so I guess we'll see when it gets here what exactly is on it.

 

They both sound good at reasonable volumes. The dell is capable of playing much louder, however, at high volume it doesn't sound as good. This is of course, unadjusted as far as the equalizer goes, but at high volumes it does not have the bass presence of the macbook pro and that makes things sound a bit hollow.
This could most likely be compensated for at all volumes with an equalizer.

For those who still don't know what I'm trying to say, the macbook has a more uniform sound at all volumes. At high volumes, the XPS has too much treble and not enough bass.

 

Here's a side by side, uncalibrated. You'll notice that the colors on the dell are much more vivid (a bit over the top,really).
I'm trying to get a good calibration, but I think my spyder may be shot.

 

That's interesting, because comparing my XPS to my rMBP I thought the mac had more vivid colors. But I had my mac booted into Windows so maybe that's the difference.

 

Well, I just got calibration done right. Had to reinstall the spyder software.

Calibrated on the left, uncalibrated on the right.

 

Which driver are you using? I updates to 16.5.3.6 and now I'm getting around 17-18 Mbps but my other laptop is getting 28 Mbps with multiple back to back testing. Also seems to be disconnecting quickly off and on.

 

That's exactly the driver I'm using.
I'm not having any issues anymore.Currently connected at 866.7Mbps and holding. The lowest it drops to is 780 but then it usually bounces right back up.

Currently, my laptop is sitting about 3 feet from my DGL-5500. I haven't noticed any disconnects since I updated the driver, but I don't always get max throughput.It seems to be very much a signal quality thing and this Wi-Fi card seems very fickle when it comes to what makes it happy on the 5Ghz band. 2.4 is much more stable.

 

Something isn't right with the calibration, still. After I rebooted, it comes back up much more red. I'm wondering if the spyder software for win 8.1 is corrupting the profile.

I've pulled the attachment until I can figure out what is up.
Meanwhile, 60% brightness seems to be ideal anyway.

 

can anyone list out the step-by-step instruction on how to transfer the OS to a new msata? including the recovery partition. thanks

 

I believe you need a T5 torx screwdriver.

 

So, I just tested the connection speed at work and I'm getting compatible wireless speeds with my older laptop now. My the new Dell doesn't like the Cisco E1000 I have a home.

 

Got it yesterday.
I got some software issues.
First of all I don't like Windows 8.1. I am not confortable with it

I installed Starcraft 2 and set the defaut resolution to 1600*900 ingame.
I dont see my mouse cursor. It is there, i can click but I can't see it.
Any idea how to solve this ?

 

XPS 15 vs MBPr side-by-side (german): comparing reflection
Apple MacBook Pro 15 Retina Late 2013 vs Dell XPS 15 9530 Haswell - YouTube

Regarding the reflection they look pretty much the same in the video (that was he is saying as well).

 

Check the Mobility settings, the L521X came with an abnormally vivid default monitor mode that was easily turned off there. Good to start with doing that before calibrating if you ask me.

 

This is from memory so YMMV but ... using only native Windows tools ... note that this requires the SSD be as-large-as the existing HDD, because the partition sizing is preserved across the copy.

If you are moving to a smaller-sized device you will need to find other software to do the move, software which can resize the partitions as it goes.

You may be able to get around this limitation by defragging and then using the Disc Utility to reduce the size of the partition on your HDD. I have not tried it so I am unsure.

Personally, when I moved to a larger mSATA for a boot device I did clean OS install.

If this is stuff you're not comfortably doing now and then it's easy to end up with a "bricked" machine. My sequence below keeps the original HDD safely un-altered until the new OS is happy in place so that reversion is simpy changing the BIOS HDD interface mode back to "Intel" mode, restoring the HDD as the boot-first option, and reconnecting the HDD.

1. deactivate and uninstall all Intel Rapid <whatever> drivers, this decouples the HDD form the SSD caching and is required
2. Reboot the system, verify that all is ok
3. Create a backup IMAGE of the system using the Windows Recovery tools (typically to a USB HDD), also allow it to create a recovery disc (one you can boot from in the optical drive)
4. With the recovery disc in the optical drive, reboot the machine. Tap the F12 key to get the boot menu and select the optical device, verify that you can get in to the repair/restore functionality (but don't bother doing so yet).
5. Shut down the machine
6. Remove the bottom of the case and swap out your mSATA SSD drives, button it back up. The Users Manual Dell has posted has info to guide you on this part.
7. If you want to be REALLY PARANOID you could at this time disconnect and remove the HDD from the system to guarantee no changes on it or restoration errors.
8. With the recovery disc in the optical drive, boot up the machine, tap the F2 key to get into the BIOS settings
9. Find and change the drive mode from Intel to AHCI (note:this will now prevent the HDD image from booting, to allow the HDD to boot you'll need to change the setting back)
10. Verify that the boot-order setup is such that the mSATA comes before the HDD
11. save/exit settings, tap f12 key to get the boot selection menu, and boot from the optical drive
12. Go in to the repair/restore functionality and use the recovery tools to restore your system image from the backup onto the new mSATA. If you have your HDD still in and active be VERY CAREFUL to pick the mSATA.
13. Once the restore completes successfully shut down the system, disconnect the USB drive, and boot up from the mSATA.

There may or may not be idiosyncracies to deal with. Windows gets it's fingers into things in weird ways if you ask me.

You will probably want to do the follow-on work with the Disk Utility to make sure your partitions are using the whole drive.

How to move windows 7 to a new or larger hard drive using Backup and Restore

14. Once you have resolved all idiosyncracies and such, shut the machine back down, pop the case off, and reconnect the HDD
15. Button-up, boot up, and then go in to the Disk Utility to delete all partitions off the HDD (even the 'system' ones) and then create a new one for data storage.

 

Still (im)patiently waiting for mine. But when I get it, I want to do a fresh install on a new 240GB mSATA. I have a Windows 8 install disk (from when I upgraded from win7). Can I use that disk and the key from my new XPS? Or, for some reason that won't work. Btw, I bought the external DVD drive.

 

I'm pretty sure Microsoft locks a specific install to one machine, you may need a new product key.

 

Thanks for that. You're absolutely right. The color in there was set to vivid.
That has to be turned off.

I'll re-run the calibration tonight and see what I get. I'll also do the side by side with that disabled.. Lots to do tonight.

 

The Dell XPS 15 (L521x) display suffered from visible gridlines when viewing from a close distance. Does the QHD+ version of the new XPS 15 suffer from the same issues or has this been corrected with the new higher resolution screen?

 

No grid lines here.

 

Mine has a similar issue. It seems like there is a dead zone near the left edge and bottom edge of the touch pad. Is anyone else thinking of sending theirs back over this? Personally I haven't found a touch pad as good the one in my Studio XPS 16 in over 3 years of looking.

 

With the SSD+ HDD config, I managed to get a replacement 256gb mSATA running Windows 8.1 core edition activated with the Dell OEM key, but I'm having trouble freeing up all the space on the 1TB HDD. Windows disk utility woudn't let me delete all of the old system partitions so I ran the W8.1 install USB and nuked all the partitions on the HDD. But then the computer wouldn't boot at all off the mSATA. I ran startup repair off USB, which restored all the HDD partitions, but allowed me to boot the mSATA again. So I'm stuck with a 2-system boot manager at startup, a bunch of useless system partitions on the HDD, and a Windows 8.1 system I can't fully delete. I don't understand secureboot/UEFI, and why I can't just wipe the HDD and boot off mSATA. Any ideas?

 

What is the battery life on the mid-model (6-Cell 61WHr Battery) ? I don't really care about the 512GB SSD (Infact I prefer the 1 TB HDD) on the top model but is it worth the extra 200$ just to get the 91Whr battery?

Can I get the 91WHr battery separately from somewhere and replace it myself later?

 

At a complete guess, a very wild-a$$-guess, i'd ask if there were space on the mSATA for the two low level partitions. It's my understanding you need both a UEFI and a Windows boot partition on there, in addition to the actual Windows system partition.

But, I don't know for sure.

If you can do a clean install on the mSATA again (PITA, yes), then physically removing the HDD, destroying any existing partitions on the mSATA, and doing that may get you were you want to be.

Then, after, you can re-connect the HDD for larger storage.

FWIW: This is what I did on my L521X when I went to have the OS on mSATA.

 

One Question for the QHD-Users:

I plan to get the XPS15 and it will be plugged to an external Monitor 70% of the time.

Does the resolution get blurry when set to 1920x1080 with 100%dpi?

This is what i will do, when plugged to the external Monitors, cause Win7 cant handle different Dpi sizes for different Monitors (i have to use win7 for program compatibility).
I have a maxed out Macbook Retina here and it looks like sh** when set to 1920x1200 (and it is really yellowish, which makes things worse). I hope this is no Problem with a Dell QHD Display.


Thanks in advance

 

Cant do that if you have a normal HD in the laptop. The larger battery can be bigger because it extends out into the empty area left when a HD is removed. The only way to use the 91WHr is to be running on mSATA drives only.

 

You need to reinstall windows probably. You need to partition your hard drive using gpart, not master boot record (mbr) since you have a UEFI mobo. Note that UEFI only reads FAT so if you have Windows 8 on a USB drive make sure it's on a FAT32 formatted drive.


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