XPS 15 (Haswell) Owner's Lounge

The scaling works great, no fuzzy text or anything like that. Takes about 2s to launch VS. Just tried opening a 150 files solution, took about 5 seconds. I haven't had the time to do a lot, but I'll let you know if I get to code this weekend.

 

I've resorted to 1920X1080 until the scaling issues get resolved. I do allot of screenshot work using Snagit while writing documentation. The scaling in Snagit is miserable.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note 3 using Tapatalk Pro

 

I set the scaling to Extra Large while at full resolution. Some apps are great. Chrome is acceptable. But I just installed spiderOak (backup) and the text is maybe 5pt font.

Is there an optimal solution for scaling? Or do I have this wrong?

 

The solution is for all software to be written to handle beyond 1920X1080.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note 3 using Tapatalk Pro

 

They have the same vertical resolution (in pixels), but the vertical size of the screen (in inches / cm) is smaller in the Dell.

 

After calling Dell on Monday to get a replacement screen for my XPS 15 due to a few clumps of dead pixels found on arrival, a tech came out today (Wednesday) for the repair, which is a pretty quick turn around time. The new screen is in place, and the tech was very friendly. I can find no defects as of yet with the new screen, and the system still seems to be working as expected. So far the process has been really great for me, and I can only say great things about how Dell handles their XPS customers who buy their service plans. I've called into Dell numerous times before, but it seems lately they're really trying to push good service.

 

You need to use diskpart command line tool in Windows 8.

c>diskpart


list disk
select disk 1 #example, be careful not to wipe anything else
clean
assign #optional
exit


you should have full use of your drive now

 

So, just now my touchscreen stop working. Guessing a reboot is in order.

 

50mbps down 26mbps up (ISP limited) w Asus ac66u
So I'm pretty impressed so far but about all I've done is unbox it set up my Internet and write this
Now what should I do?
I'm installing the suggested windows updates which include a Nvidia update
Any other fun things I should b doing? Recommended desktop apps?

 

Happened to me 3 times already. Does anyone know where I can find the touch screen driver on Dell's website? I can't seem to find it.

 

Yeah I notice the noise too now... this is the first time I've used the laptop with the battery at 100% and the charger plugged in. I noticed that it only happens with the screen brightness at or near 100%. Actually I think that the brightness modulates the loudness of the buzzing a little. Granted, this laptop is so dead silent otherwise that maybe all laptops make that noise and I just never noticed. I dunno. I still don't like it. Not for a $2000 machine.

Yeah, the scaling support is a bummer IMO. I've actually been running the machine in 1920x1080 mode with 100% scaling because then at least all of the GUIs behave the same and all of the test is of similar sharpness. I'm not sold on these QHD/Retina displays until they can allow us to run what ever resolution we want with little to no aliasing.

 

I think the biggest problem with the track pad is that it's not sensitive to touch near the bottom and left of the pad... pretty much the whole bottom and bottom left side do not register a touch until a few mm away from the edge. The top, top right and entire right seem to register immediately.

Dell advertises 11 hours for the 91 Whr battery. Anything less than 8-9 hours is unacceptable IMO for web browsing.

 

That's what I did too. IMO it's the only way to get good usability across all apps without a random dialog box popping up that is almost too small to read.

 

Guys is anyone having trouble getting the screen to go to maximum brightness on battery? I am sometimes finding that even though I am increasing brightness using the Fn keys to max it isn't as bright as it is on battery?

Amazing how quiet this laptop is when it is charging and/or on battery and isn't making that noise.

 

I will give them props on that too. I called about the service tag being incorrect on support.dell.com. Others including myself have noticed that our service tags come up as an older model of Dell XPS 15 and show the wrong drivers and BIOS updates. Once I finally got patched over to XPS support, they were great! They are even going to call me back and let me know how they are progressing with the issue.

Dell has to realize, with these XPS 15s they are directly competing with Apple Retina MBPs... While I'm not about to go buy an Apple - I'm also not going to spend Apple amounts of money on a laptop unless it meets all of my expectations. I'm still on the fence with this thing - mainly related to the weird noise coming from the USB ports and because of the sub-par trackpad (unregistered gestures and taps near the bottom and bottom left of the pad surface).

 

Ok.. I got the calibration to work properly this time.

If you want to use it, you must do the following:
1. Go into mobility settings and turn off vivid mode.
2. Download the attached zip'd ICM file and unzip it to C:\Windows\System32\spool\drivers\color
3. Go into Color Management (Start, type Color Management) and add the profile. Set it as the default profile. In 7 you had to change the system defaults as well, but I haven't seen a need to do that so far in 8/8.1.

If you leave vivid mode on, it will corrupt this profile and everything will look very red. I don't know why that happens, but don't do it.
This calibration was done for 180 cd/m, which is approximately 60% brightness on the dell. It looks good at all levels regardless.

This was done with a spyder 3 pro, so I didn't have as much at my disposal adjustment wise as I would with a 4 or an iRite. Oh well. It looks good for what it is.

 

I had that too. It's the adaptive brightness. You have to go into the power profile settings and then "advanced". Once you're in there go down to display and change "adaptive brightness to "no" for On Battery.

 

As to scaling I agree but I have run quite a few updates in the last 24 hours and programs have started to implement scaling changes. For example my accounting software no detects DPI and scales perfectly. Actually larger than it was at 1080p

 

It seems that more and more people notice that noise. Hope DELL can fix it....

 

I'd like to report back on this issue... Dell has resolved this and now support.dell.com correctly reports my service tag as an XPS 15 9530 with all of the correct drivers.

 

Cool. Looks like they fixed them all. Mine is reporting the right hardware now as well (I did not call them).

 

Just to chip in, I've had the laptop for a few days now, and I haven't noticed any noise at all. Even when the system is using the CPUs at 100%, the fans barely kick on when properly located on a wooden table. I'm just not getting any buzzing. Maybe my system just wasn't affected. I do hear a slightly high pitched noise when putting my ear close to the machine, but it just sounds like most electronics do, TVs and the like, but it's very faint and I can't hear it from a normal distance. I also use Linux, if this matters...

 

May I know what Linux version you have? Was it difficult to install, is everything working?

I do not have this laptop, but am considering either this or the M3800.

 

How easy is it to update all drivers? Can it be done through dell web site?

 

Dell made it pretty easy. You can go there - view all the drivers - select what you want to download - download the batch and install from the webpage. Pretty slick except driver updates require system reboots and then you loose you page. But it's all on the disk for you.

 

Has anyone tried RAID-0 configuration with two SSD drives?
Do you know if RAID-0 is supported in the BIOS?
If not, does software-based RAID make any sense?

 

I checked off 27 downloads, it then asked where I wanted to save them? they were all .exe files, so I need to save them to my computer then run each individually? sorry...im new and not very good at this...

 

I think there is also an option to download one giant *.cab file for inclusion into a OS image.

 

Each time you run a exe it extracts the files into dell/drivers directory, then executes the setup which installs the drivers. Check device manager afterwards to make sure none of your devices show as unknown. I did this after installing prof. Version of win. I dual boot to umbuntu, where only issue I've found is cursor lost when closing lid. So I hit power button, go into suspend mode then I can close the lid.

 

Ultimately. Yes. But this is easier than it used to be (for me at least)

 

So nobody is able to locate the multi touch driver on Dell's website!?

 

Hi, I'm not sure about number 12. Which option should I select?

 

I don't have the XPS 15 yet since it isn't available for my country yet, but i plan to run Linux on it. Could you share your experience with running Linux on this laptop? What works/doesn't work, what about the QHD resolution?

 

This "coil whine" can't be heard (for me) unless my ear is right at the "area". Doesn't sound too unusual to me, not sure why it might or might not qualify for a replacement part. If you guys know what's causing it though that would be swell. I'm at <30% brightness, plugged, full charge. Didn't check to see if it goes away under different conditions.

As for the laptop it's got bigger problems. Occasionally mouse doesn't work, touch screen doesn't work (pauses mid use, comes back later), crashes mid boot (and shows Dell logo twice), battery sucks.

 

has anyone found a non-Dell leather case for it yet?

 

I have the exact issue at the exact place. Are we the only people? Did you call tech support about this? What did they say?

 

I am looking at these from Amazon, both under $100 USD
Amazon.com: McKleinUSA HUBBARD 88435 Black Double Compartments Laptop Case: Computers & Accessories


Amazon.com: McKleinUSA ELSTON 86485 Black Leather Double Compartment Laptop Case: Electronics

 

Did anybody manage to make Photoshop CC work on that a high resolution? It simply doesn't scale, everything is as tiny as if I had 3200x1800 with only 100% zoom...

 

Whichever one lets you tell it do a system restore from the image you created. ;^)

Seriously, I don't have a machine handy right now to walk through and give better instructions (I'm at work, slacking off).

You could probably do a quick google search to find a "how to use windows 8 system image restore" on a bunch of pages though.

 

Unless the 9530's BIOS is hugely upgraded from the L521X in this respect, there's no support there for configuring a RAID volume.

There's no on-board hardware raid support so you're talking about configuring an OS-level software RAID volume.

The dirty little secret of RAID0 is that it actually makes your data less secure and safe, in trade for performance, keep that in mind.

Do you do a lot of video work, is that why you are interested? I'd only expect a significant difference on bulk transfer rates to/from system memory.

So, whether it's worth trying at all really depends on your usage. For a general use machine I'd advise against it because of the increased possibility for data loss. There are use cases where I'd see that it could make sense.

Here's a link to a good discussion about RAID and SSDs, look to the 1st reply in particular and the referenced PDF document.

Does RAID 0 (striping) with two SSD hard disk make any sense? - Super User

Addendum:

It may make a lot more sense for you to just have the correct SSDs. Different SSDs have different performance profiles, usually the larger the SSD in capacity the faster it performs, but things vary for a lot of reason. The reason most SSD performance scales like that is that the devices are actually using a form of RAID internally, based upon memory components. The more memory components they have to use the more concurrency then MAY utilize.

You may find for example that it is more cost/time effective to have a single 512 Gb SSD than two 256 Gb SSDs in RAID0. You may not, but you may.

Personally, I would only use RAID0 for a data volume. I would not trust it with the OS/App installs. Ideally a 3-drive system would be perfect, to me. a fast SSD for OS and Apps, and two devices in RAID0 for data. I've used similar configurations before (albeit SCSI HDD based) and it worked very well.

 

So the M3800 is listed as IGZO. Is ours the same screen?

 

I would never use RAID 0 for data, ever. You lose 1 drive, you lose them all. RAID 1, 5 or 10 for data, or use something like a drobo or synology with a hybrid RAID setup.

My desktop runs RAID 0 for the OS and application drives using dual Corsair 256gb Force GS drives. My data drive is a standard rotational 4TB Hitachi.

In my experience with Sandforce and Marvell controlled SSDs, it would always be a bad idea to use them in RAID 0 for anything you care about. If it's disposable, such as the OS or installed programs, you're fine. I'm not trying to indicate that RAID 0 is unstable with SSDs by any means, however, Sandforce and Marvell controllers for SSDs often have firmware level updates to fix issues or dramatically alter performance. These updates can almost never be applied in RAID mode which means you have to switch the controller configuration back to AHCI before upgrading them and back to RAID when you're done. However, the problem with firmware updates is they tend to arbitrarily wipe the drive.

 

It is an IGZO screen, probably the exact same part. The major differences between the M3800 and the XPS 15 appear to be the video card (GT750M vs Quadro) and 10 point multitouch on the XPS vs 5 on the M3800.

 

and the price and discount!!!

 

Yikes I didnt expect anyone else to have the problem. I phoned them last night and they said theyd have someone replace the screen as soon as they become available. However mine also has a cluster of dead pixels which causes the same effect around them as well as the lid making a nasty crunch sound when opened. Theyve offered to collect and replace the laptop instead, service is pretty impressive.

 

Were you able to find drivers for the touchscreen ? My laptop arrived today -the touchscreen worked a couple of times but for some reason its no longer working.

For others that do have the touch screen working... what devices do you have listed in the "Mice and other pointing devices" in Device manage ?

 

Hi -does anyone have the following item that shows up with a warning sign in side the Device Manager...

"Unknown USB Device (Device Descriptor Request Failed)" under the Universal Serial Bus controllers.

 

Order a m3800 I don't why the original price for m3800 (more than £2000 before discout) is more expensive than new XPS 15 (about £1700)?

 

Usually Precision comes with 3 years of NBD warranty.

Inviato dal mio GT-I9100 con Tapatalk 2

 

Nope. Nobody provided a link to the driver and I still can't find it on Dell's website unfortunately.

Let me know if you have any better luck.