XPS 15 (Haswell) Owner's Lounge

So the dilemma here now .. the Dell touchpad driver actually does a better job on palm ignoring. I think that is why there is decreased sensitivity with it, they must of seen where the gestures got triggered more often with the regular driver, and disabled the sensitivity some around the edges. Haven't had it trigger once while typing this, and the Synaptics.. even turned all the way up, would trigger 3-4 times for me on the win 8 menu swipe in from the right. Windows 8 on my desktop has been fine.. but now I am starting to think that I hate it on a laptop.

Maybe because I don't have my start8 and such installed.

Going to see if I can get the Touchpad driver configured with the Dell to be acceptable. So far kinda disappointed with just some of the usability of it, and the palm rest and touchpad make me wonder about it's longevity.

 

The only problem with the Fn+End key combination is selecting from the current position to the end of the document. This is done with a CTRL+SHIFT+END on a normal keyboard. With the Fn key, it seems many software (Eclipse is one of them) interpret this as something else and move to a different file. This is very annoying but I guess I will get used to it. Other than that, they keyboard and trackpad are GREAT!

 

In every app I've ever used, the command to jump to the end of a document is just Ctrl+End, no Shift required. Maybe that would resolve your issue? Testing with Shift now, that seems to jump to the end of the document and highlight everything along the way....

 

That's exactly what I want to do: highlight everything to the end. It doesn't work with some software, such as Eclipse.

 

Ah ok, sorry I misread your original post. Hmm, I haven't heard of the Fn key being misinterpreted by an application; I actually thought the Fn key was never actually exposed directly to the OS and only used by the keyboard itself to modify the scan codes it sent. One possibility though is that Ctrl+Shift+Fn+End might exceed the rollover maximum on certain keyboards, in which case that number of keys could cause either key dropout (i.e. one or more keys not getting registered) or key ghosting (a completely different key's scan code gets transmitted), the latter of which could explain the behavior you're seeing. If I'm right though, that wouldn't necessarily affect the keyboard in the XPS 15; it would just depend on how its key rollover worked.

Or are you seeing this behavior on an XPS 15? If so, I guess the next best option would be to press Shift+End first to highlight the whole line, and then while still holding Shift, hold Page Down until you get to the bottom.

 

First of all what's the version of your BIOS A0 or A1?

May I ask what are you playing?

Maybe you haven't run HWinfo from begin, because GPU starts to throttling after only 2 minutes can you confirm?

Moreover there is practically no load on CPU, so the situation could be much worse in case of heavy load on the CPU, because CPU and GPU share cooling system.

I have attached a version of your file in a format more readable

View attachment XPS15.zip

 

Ran FurMark and Prime95 .. definite throttling.. here are the results for about 15minutes or so.. also after 10 minutes I picked up off table and sat in my lap, throttled even more with a bit lower airflow. View attachment stressxps15.zip

 

BIOS is A1. I was running MSI Kombustor to run the test and that's probably why CPU load was minimal. I will try to run it with F1 later.

 

Do you guys consider this an ultrabook or does it feel heavy / bulky ?

I already have a Lenovo W520 and I wanted something more portable but I'm thinking this might be too similar.

 

okay so I got a dell tech to suggest we reinstall the mail app to see if I would then get my audio and toast notifications, and sure enough, it worked. I shoulda thought of that myself...when in doubt, uninstall and reinstall

but on to my still aggravating problem, my galaxy s4 still wont talk to my comp, not through BT, not through USB. went to best buy where I bought the phone 2 months ago, went to the comp section, took out my phone and usb cord, and connected to an asus w 8.1, asus immediately recognized phone...then I whipped out the xps, with salesman right next to me, tried to plug s4 into my xps, and it laughed at me...nothing

dell tech tonight (3rd night in a row calling) said he was escalating to next level of tech support, and he promised answers.

so I wait...

 

I switched out my daily w530 for the XPS. Its much nicer to tote around than the W, lighter and half the thickness.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note 3 using Tapatalk Pro

 

There was a post by a Dell employee on Dell techcenter about Linux support on the XPS15/m3800 and the SD card reader was mentioned. There will probably be a solution soon. Dell did a good job pushing all of their modifications for the XPS13 sputnik project upstream.
Ubuntu on the Precision M3800 - Dell TechCenter - TechCenter - Dell Community

From the Dell article:
"Lastly, the SD card reader on both the M3800 and the XPS 15 does not function properly under Linux, including with the 3.12 kernel. After discussing the bug with my friend Chris Ball, who also maintains the SD/MMC/SDIO subsystem of the Linux kernel, Chris agreed to volunteer time debugging the Linux driver for this card reader. I'd like to thank both Chris for his help and the Precision team for loaning a laptop to Chris. With any luck, I will follow up on this blog post once the SD reader issue is resolved."

 

Their ETA has no bearing on what is real. My ETA was Dec 2, shipped last Friday.

 

Yep. Originally ordered on 8 nov. Original eta 4 December. Just shipped this afternoon to Seattle from Cali. Should actually be here tomorrow.

Finally! I'll get to whine about my touchpad/touchscreen/battery life like everyone else! Woot!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

Yeah I noticed that about the Synaptics drivers too. They were much more sensitive to my palm swiping from the side no mater how I set the palm check slider (which I think is called Smart Sense in their driver). The other weird thing (compared to the Dell driver) is that when swiping from the side (accidental palm or actual one finger swipe) the time to lift your finger or palm before it registered a "tap" was much shorter. Therefore a swipe would almost always result in going to the start screen because that is the charm that is highlighted by default. Unless of course you reacted quick enough and lifted your palm/finger. I saw some settings in the registry that seemed to control this behavior but I couldn't easily figure them out. For now one finger side swipe gestures are disabled on my touchpad.

Did you also notice that three finger swipe up/down no longer brings up the settings/search screen?

 

Same deal here. I think it's the oil from your skin. Dumb. Why not use a hydrophobic material there. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Again, the trackpad on my old Dell Studio XPS 16 did not have that problem. It was make of some sort of acrylic and oil, dirt, and dust wiped clean off.

 

I haven't tried it in Eclipse... matteroffact I should install VS on this too to see how well it works. That said, to do a full doc highlight from current cursor position down Ctrl+Shift+Fn+Right Arrow has worked for me in other apps. You have to make sure that you hit ctrl and shift before you hit Fn though.

Edit: OK, so I just tried this in Eclipse and it works. Just hit Ctrl + Shift + Fn + Right Arrow in that order and it should work.

 

Thanks, any opinion on heat ?

Want something that's still tolerable when I have a VM going.

 

It runs cooler than my XPS 14. I am running a Windows VM right now and I have it sitting on my lap comfortably. I am sure if I tried I could make it run hot, but in normal usage I don't think you have anything to worry about. I used to have an xps studio 14 with pretty much the same specs as your m1530 and it could almost get too hot to touch.

 

Heat: I was gaming on COD Ghosts with mixed low/mid/high settings and 2xxx by 1xxx resolution (the second highest 16:9 scale down that Windows automatically allows), for 1 to 3 hours. On 10-15C weather, the CPU went up to 93C maximum, palmrests remained quite comfortable (barely even warm) and keys were not hot either. Then I moved back to 25C-35C weather, CPU max still stays at 93C, overall the feel is slightly warmer but quite impressive still. This is sweltering, feels like 35-40C heat, so I am extremely impressed by the heat aspect. The parts of the keyboard or laptop you should be touching don't get very hot, the parts (like the metal below the screen) you don't need to touch also aren't that hot considering the internal temperature. For reference idle would be around 55C but it can easily jump to 60Cs and 70Cs even just using the web browser. The fans are very powerful, they just don't really come in until you hit mid 70Cs, and can bring it back down to near idle temps.

I thought the touchpad colour was already slightly different to the rest of the palmrest (not as dark as the keys, but darker than the overall keyboard). So to me it doesn't look like discolouration. The soft palmrest will be easily discoloured though.

Problems: The laptop seems sluggish (SSD) in opening folders, dragging files, Chrome browsing etc when coming up from hibernate, plus the touchpad (and any external mouse) doesn't register clicks or takes a long time to do so. From cold boot it may occasionally 'crash' and have to restart before even reaching the Windows screen. One time on startup the resolution didn't start at 3200x1800 by default, even though I had kept that resolution before shut down. Touchscreen turns off, as people know. Battery is really bad.

Mixed results on Wifi, not sure how to test because one time i was at an airport lounge and it disconnected a few times but I wouldn't know if it was me, and at home my router used to drop downloads (and sometimes the connection) on my old laptop so it's not necessarily reliable.

 

I have had my XPS15 for 2 weeks now and I just discovered I have a dead pixel (the bright kind). I swear it wasnt there before. Do they just pop up, or is it something that is always there and I didn't notice.

I'm really peeved now as I really liked my laptop and have it set up for everything I do. I don't want to have to return it or get a new one. I also dont want the screen replaced (everytime I've have a Dell repairmen "replace" something, they have NEVER installed it properly). Should I just toughen up and just get them to build me a replacement?

Many thanks,
BNESLSC

 

I'm hoping to save up and buy an XPS 15 and am slowly reading through the thread. I have a couple of questions:

Is it laptop available in red rather than silver? I'm much prefer this. I can't seem to see an option for it but is it possible they might add one later?

Can one of the new 2TB 2.5" hard drives be used in it? I gather they're 9.5mm tall, I'm not sure if that fits or not. Ideally I'd probably get one of these plus a 1TB Msata.

Thanks in advance for any responses!

 

Not sure if you're serious or joking. This isn't Inspiron, Studio, or Studio XPS. No colours.

 

I received my XPS Wednesday. Only got to try it out for the first time last night and noticed something a little worrisome. When picking up the laptop and flipping it over I noticed sound as though something is loose inside. The sound is coming from the front right side of the base. Where I believe the harddrive would be. I have the high-end configuration of the laptop.

Anyone else experience this?

 

I have the 120Gb version of that SSD in my L521X, put it in a year ago Sept and it's been flawless. I have my data files on the HDD, OS and Apps on the mSATA. W8.1 boot is rather snappy (reliably sub-5s according to Task Manager).

 

Colors haven't been available for quite a while and I don't think were ever available on the XPS line. The 2.5" drive in here appears to be a 5mm unit, even slimmer than the "thin" 7mm and the regular 9.5mm drive, so I doubt any drive could get 2TB into sufficiently few platters to keep thickness that low. And right now there's no 1TB mSATA drive I'm aware of.

EDIT: The 5mm note pertains to the Inspiron 14 7000 I was researching around the same time and I got the two confused. The XPS/M3800 is either 7mm or 9.5mm (not sure which), bit definitely more than 5. Sorry about that!

 

We had colors back in the XPS M1730/M1530 days.
Oh yea, we also had 10lb laptops back then....

 

So I think the Touchpad may be a deal breaker for me. Too finicky, swipes from left and right.. super annoying... also right clicking, it thinks my fingers are one (guess I am holding them too close) have to purposefully spread them to get a right click. Don't remember having to do that with the rMBP.

I also seem to hate windows 8. I have it on my desktop at home, and it has never bothered me that much on that, but for some reason on the laptop the suckiness seems to be magnified, unless I use the touch screen. Also the fact that the dpi scaling causes some games to break.. eh..

To everyone who is lucky enough to have a rMBP and the XPS 15, if you had to pick just one, which would it be so far?

 

I was looking at port replicator/dock options that support the XPS 15 and wondered if anyone had any experience or suggestions on what works and what to avoid. The feedback on the Dell website makes me think there's nothing there worth getting but I'd like to get some more data points. Thanks.

 

As of right now, the Mac.

I have a feeling that the Dell's issues will be sorted out, it'll just take time.
What issues do you have with win 8 on the laptop vs the desktop? I run win 8 on all of my machines including my rMBP in a VM, and I really have no issues with it whatsoever.

 

I don't think it is mainly Win 8 doings, it's the bad drivers on the hardware of the touchpad that I think most of my complaints arise from after thinking about it. All centered around the touchpad. The swipe in from the right going to the Start Menu, and my in ability to right click reliably cause my usage patterns some issues. I don't really want to set the screen res to 1600x900, I want to leave it native with dpi 150-200%, but when I do that, some programs completely hide the mouse cursor.

I tried Diablo 3 @ 1600x900 with the dpi scaling on, and mouse cursor disappeared, I could still see stuff get highlighted. This is all probably based around the poor state of HiDPI software, but that matters.

My wife just looked at me yesterday (after using it for the first few hours) and said "All you've done is complain about this and that on it, I haven't heard one good thing." All I could really say was "Look at that Screen though!"

 

I'd like to know this as well.

 

Guess I feel as though, most of this stuff on the usability side should of already been solved on a machine that I pay 2k for. I think I may be buying my first Macbook.. now decisions between the 15" dGPU retina or the 13" retina....

 

I totally understand that sentiment and it's one Dell needs to learn.
The issue Dell has here is that they're not delivering an Apple like experience for Apple like money. Their hardware is good, but Apple is putting a level of refinement into this that Dell just isn't. If I were Michael Dell, I'd take the XPS line and spin it into a whole new company that was dedicated to delivering an experience to rival apple. None of these things would be acceptable, no touchpad quirks, no coil hum. They built a good machine, there's no doubt about that, but the MBP they're competing with is better because it's more refined and more powerful (sacrificing battery life but oh well). Yes, it's more expensive, but in this case, I feel like you get what you pay for.

I personally see no point in the 13" MBP unless you need a machine to use for 12+ hours and you don't play games.

As far as gaming goes on the Dell, I haven't had any issues, but I play most games at 1920x1080 in a window with my scaling set to 125%.

 

The Dell D3000 dock is probably your best bet. Most of the negativity around it has been focused on people who were shocked that a docking station that connects over USB 3.0 doesn't charge the laptop. I guess you could argue that it should be called a port replicator instead, but the D3000 has a lot more connectivity than any port replicator I've ever seen; the only feature it lacks compared to a "real" docking station is power. Just order an extra power adapter if you intend to dock (if you don't have one already) and accept that you'll be connecting two cables rather than one. If you're a heavy gamer, then DisplayLink even over USB 3.0 might be a bit laggy for you, in which case you'd just have to connect your displays to your laptop's built-in ports rather than the dock. Depending on how much other hardware you'll be connecting to this machine, at that point the dock may not be as much of a convenience, but that's about as good as it'll get with no built-in true dock connector.

 

Exactly. I really like the size of the 13", I still have a really good desktop i7 (had thought about replacing it with the laptop, but I just don't think it will work), but yeah, the 15 is much more powerful.

I feel as though it would get fixed as well, but for some reason, I sit here and think, the usability should of been caught in the testing.. did no one try the trackpad? Why is it already discolored?


Pros for the Dell are - replaceable Ram, SSD, and battery, so if something went wrong with it in 2-3 years, I could fix it, which I couldn't do on the rMBP. I just don't want to be frustrated with the Dell until it gets there.

Maybe I just skip another year of laptops.. try and make do with the 5 year old one I have lol.

 

I've been getting by just fine with my 6-year-old Precision M6300 -- which amazes me every time I think about it because I'm an IT guy who also enjoys tech as a hobby, so I never thought I'd keep a laptop beyond 3 years or 4 tops. but I bought the top end Quadro 3600M aftermarket a while back, and then installed an SSD back in 2010, which gave it a whole new lease on life. Downsides are there's no dock that will power dual displays digitally (only one DVI and one VGA), no USB 3.0, and no SATA 6Gbps so the fastest SSDs today would be bottlenecked by the bus, but I only bought the XPS 15 because I'll be giving this laptop to my parents to replace the one they have that's dying. Otherwise I'd probably keep on using this for quite a while. It can go to 8GB of RAM, at which point the only issue is the Core 2 Duo CPU, but nothing I do on a regular basis is hugely CPU-intensive, so that's never been an issue for me.

Sorry you're disappointed though. Mine should be arriving any minute now, so I'm crossing my fingers that I'll enjoy it! I won't be using the touchpad or the display too much though since it'll be shut and essentially docked at my desk most of the time, so hopefully I'll dodge most of the pain points that others have mentioned.

 

Yeah I had maxed out Ram on mine to 8gbs already, and had put an SSD in it, until my wife started using it as hers, cause we gave hers to someone who didn't have a computer. The problem has been that it is an old core 2 duo as well, and the VM's I have at work wont run on that processor because it doesn't have some of the Intel virtualization stuff turned on. Also it is 1366x768 crappy tn panel (the devil!!) but it does have Nvidia in it. Hurts me to use the screen.

Had to slap the old 5400 rpm hdd into it instead of the 120gb ssd, because she was filling it up. Noticed that even 512gb ones have gotten really cheap lately.

Wishlist : 1920x1200 screen (guess I could live with 1080), 8gb-16gb ram around 4lbs, and 512 ssd (could replace it, if they are easy to replace and not cost prohibitive), also 7+ hours of normal web browsing battery life.

It is suprisingly hard to find all that in the same computer, even though they are getting closer. I always find stuff close, then there is a problem with it i.e. wifi, crappy touchpad or something lol, or they price themselves so high that I feel like I should be getting more hardware (Looking at you Apple!!). Or the Screen is terribad.

The rMBP 85 watt adapter and lack of repairability are the two things that I rate against it besides the price. Maybe I should start my own laptop fab up.

 

BTW, sale on the new xps 15 mid tier with $100 off: Laptop, Desktop, & Electronic Deals | Dell Canada

 

thanks - appreciate the feedback. I saw at least one post claiming that the wired Ethernet port on the D3000 wasn't functional which would really limit the value of it - any feedback on this specifically? I did see all the posts on the power/ charging or lack of. I don't see that as a deal breaker though - as you said it's more of a port replicator than a dock.

 

I did see that note about the LAN connection, but that strikes me as a possible driver issue, or more likely since it's not massively reported I'm thinking it was just a quirk on some random machine (or a few random machines). I don't have a D3000 myself yet; I just mentioned it because I too was looking into docking options and came across it, and it's what I'd buy if I decided that connecting and disconnecting 6 cables got too irritating (power, two displays, display USB hub, USB 3.0 HDD, speakers). But since at least until now I haven't really used my laptop away from my desk very often, I'm not sure a dock would be worth the $170, especially since I might have to keep the hard drive directly attached if the docking station's USB 3.0 chipset doesn't support UASP, in which case I'd only be going from 6 cables down to 3 (or more if I have issues with display lag and/or buy a 4K external display in the future).

 

Can I ask you what's your BIOS version?

Your system seems much better than varok's XPS15
Yes, there is throttling, but not so heavy as expected after seeing the results of varok.

Your CPU hits 97°C but stay on 2.2GHz, even if there is some point where clock goes to 0GHz (means no operations) it seems that Dell has leave free the CPU to act with Intel throttling.

Your GPU instead hits 81°C (only one point has touched 82°C) it's throttling is very gradual: it starts from 1058MHz then goes to 1019MHz ---> 979MHz ---> 953MHz ---> 901MHz ---> 888MHz ---> 836MHz ---> 796MHz ---> 770MHz ---> 757MHz ---> 731MHz ---> 705MHz ---> 405MHz ---> 405MHz with memory clock 400MHz (until this point was 1259MHz).
Instead varok's XPS switches immediately from 1058MHz to 135MHz, and it's running only MSI Kombustor, so no load on CPU.

Maybe it's better that varok repeats the same test of dlang so Prime95+Furmark, because if BIOS is the same means that there is some issue on varok's XPS such as poor installation of cooling system.

I have attached your file in a more readable form
View attachment XPS15B.zip

 

I had just updated to A01, also had the new Nvidia Graphics drivers from NVIDIA and not from Dell. Yeah I noticed that the CPU seemed to do fine, the GPU did throttle a lot. May try just the FurMark and see with lesser CPU load how long the GPU can stand up.

Let Me know if there are any other tests/benchmarks you want.

 

I was seeing the exact same behavior on mine with the A01 BIOS. I also saw the 1058MHz to 135MHz switch at the beginning, but then it ramped up to full speed and slowly clocked down to 400 MHz once the temp hit 80 C. It never went above 80 C and when it was below, the clock would bounce around 600-700 MHz.

 

May you try only MSI Kombustor?
So it seems that varok has a unit with some issue, because both have the same BIOS version.
I really don't understand why varok's XPS starts to throttling GPU at 74°C, while your system can hit 81°C.

 

I think we need to make sure the testing variables are the same.

1. Laptop placed on a hard surface such as a table
2. Updated to A01 BIOS
3. Updated graphics drivers
4. running prime95 and furmark at the same time
5. Logging using HWInfo and started logging right after prime95 and furmark are started.
6. run for 20 minutes without doing anything else on the laptop.

That should help keep things controlled for the most part. Anything else I missed?

 

Exactly.
1) Ok
2) But if there is someone with BIOS A0 could be useful to know the difference between A0 and A1.
3) Yes, maybe it's even better to indicate which version you are using, but even in this case could be useful to know if there is some difference in thermal policy between driver supplied by Dell and Driver from Nvidia.
4) Ok
5) Ok
6) 15 minutes should be enough.

 

I played F1 2013 for over an hour last night, turned down some of the graphic settings, used a lower rez and used active cooling pad and didn't get any throttling.

And just a few minutes ago, I ran Kombustor again for 20 mins and didn't get any throttling. I guess the key is to get your temps as low as possible. If I keep it below 71C, I think I'll be fine. I've attached my last log.

 

I'm glad I'm not the only one having discoloration with the trackpad already. It said on the website that it was glass integrated. I'm not quite sure how and I wonder if it's replaceable. Might now seem like a big thing but it's causing my OCD to act up.

 

1. I did run on a table for mine most of the time, I only placed in lap after the 10minute mark to see how the airflow there would be affected, and to see if it would burn.. left for only like 30seconds, then moved back to the table. Noticed that is when temp jumped to like 82.
3. Pretty sure I was running Version: 331.82 WHQL -- will double check when I get home.
4. I used the default 1080p burn in test for 15 minutes in furmark, and prime 95 with all 8 threads running.
5. I launched the programs, started logging on HWInfo, then clicked run on the tests.
6. Yeah I basically just used the 15 minute default furmark test, ran prime95 a bit before it.

Any one have a link to MSI Kombustor? Several different versions around.