XPS 15 (Haswell) Owner's Lounge

thank you so much, I will try.

but sleep mode can fix ? my laptop still cant go to auto sleep, please help!!!!!

 

Curious. There seem to be issues with hardware consistency. Perhaps that is due to this still being the start-up for full production, but it is a little troubling nonetheless. It would seem that if you buy an XPS 15 9530 it may provide solid light gaming experiences or it may throttle itself into dysfunction. It may have a display with a delta-e approaching 1 or it might be a more common delta-e in between 5 and 8. It may produce an audible and irregular whine or it may be whisper quiet.

Sigh. Here's hoping the 'average' machine ends up closer to the strong performer than to the weak performer.

 

Not really sure what to tell you, otherwise I'd have posted already. If I were in your position I'd just wipe the system and reinstall from scratch, not even using the factory image, but I realize not everyone is comfortable doing that. But if you are, once you get all the drivers loaded (sleep often won't work until at least certain drivers are in), make sure sleep works. Then just in case the insomnia is due to an app you install, test sleep after installing any uncommon apps so that if the insomnia returns, you'll know what caused it.

If you can't do that, my best advice would be to comb through the Processes and Services tabs of Task Manager looking for anything that's unnecessary, and stopping/closing them to see whether that allows your system to sleep. But that may take just as long as a clean install.

 

Hello everyone,

I was thinking of getting the m3800 but I've been hearing many Dell shipping issues as well as other off-putting reviews.

I wanted to know from anyone here how the battery life is on this machine (Light surfing/idle info streaming in [Stock quotes for example]/gaming use). Does lowering the resolution to 1080p affect battery life at all? I usually only need dimmest settings with the most power saving features so I imagine I should get good battery life. The battery life is very important to me as I am away from an outlet for hours at a time.

Also, how is the glare on the screen? On several youtube videos it looks pretty bad but it might be only on video or something. Is there a good anti-glare screen cover that anyone could recommend for viewing the QHD screen with? I've searched online but I don't think many are even out yet. Is it a good idea to place an anti-glare cover on it? Will it affect the resolution or crispness of the screen compared to without it? Thanks very much!

 

Try the hack that I provided earlier in this thread (too many pages for me to find) try searching synaptics hack within the thread. You'll find it runs a LOT better and opens up a ton of features that the stock drivers won't give you.

 

I've posted about glare at least 4 times here. If you search "jphughan glare airport" you should find one of those posts. Running the QHD+ panel at a lower resolution will have a minimal impact on battery life at best if the GPU has to work less hard to push those pixels, but I don't think it will be meaningful. The 1080p PANEL might be different. On the one hand, it's fewer pixels and I believe less complex backlighting due to the lower density, but IGZO technology in QHD consumes less power than normal, so it might be a wash.

For battery life, it's all over the map, but NotebookCheck just did a review simulating light Web usage and got over 8 hours on the larger battery. But it's equally clear from this thread that even moderate-intensity tasks that push the CPU or engage the NVIDIA GPU can drop that battery run time significantly.

 

I remember reading your post about the airport actually. I'd like to know if anyone has any recommendations for well-known screen protectors that provide anti-glare features? I found this one but have no experience using it:
Dell - 15.6" XPS 15 L521X Laptop - Anti Glare Film | Photodon.com Screen Protectors

I used to have a Macbook 13 and the glare was annoying at times so just in case a heads up on a good brand would be helpful.

 

To all the guys gaming, I played mmo's for 8 hrs streight with no throttling issues, also when I drop to 1600x900 then run bf4 I also get no issues after a couple of hours play, all I am doing is using a ty old coolermaster cooling pad. I have some of the issues you are all having, but I thing the laptop is awsome.

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk

 

Would that work with the touch screen?

 

So the synaptics hack fixes the touchscreen issues?

Also, can you explain the benefit of your Dolby hack?

thank you!

 

That's the real question. There are films that can relay capacitive signals (e.g. iPhone screen protectors), but if you intend to use the touchscreen that's definitely something you'll have to watch for, because I assume that most of them WON'T be compatible simply because very few laptops have touchscreens.

The Synaptics drivers make the touchPAD a bit less irritating, especially after you disable gestures you don't need, particularly the Edge Swipe gesture (which you can and should also do on the Dell drivers if you continue to use those). The touchscreen issue is resolved by disabling sleep for the touchscreen device in Device Manager if you have the touchscreen issue at all. I haven't noticed it myself, but then again I don't use the touchscreen with any regularity.

 

http://www.photodon.com/p/MXT-6220-01.html
According of the specs it does.
"MXT: 55% Anti-Glare
Medium Image Quality
Med-Matte Finish
Fingerprint Resistant
Touch Screen Compatible"

 

Seems using a magazine to prop the back up while gaming was a bad idea as I was getting throttling every few minutes on moderate settings. Simply resting it flat I got no throttling and could subsequently use higher settings, although the frame rate was a little less smooth but that's just a limitation of the GPU.

I guess it was carefully designed with the foot bar blocking off the rear exhaust and the gap being an optimum amount to suck air up. Whilst the earlier poster was talking about it blowing downwards, which isn't true, perhaps my experience bears some similarity with using a cooling pad as it seems to like to work how it was designed to...

 

I'd be willing to bet that most if not all other cases of extreme throttling have explanations like this. There may be a few caused by an improperly assembled cooling assembly, but by and large I couldn't imagine Dell would release an enthusiast/gaming machine that only maintained a reasonable frame rate for 10 minutes as some claimed a while back.

 

Sorry, I didn't quite get this part, which seems to be the key of your explanation why it is apparently working better on a flat surface than lifted (which doesn't make a lot of sense to me).

Would you mind to explain further what were these two positions, and why you think using the magazine was a bad idea?

 

Unfortunately Dell is used to do this thing, the previous XPS15 L521X could have thermal shutdown just connecting an external display (external display switch on Nvidia card in L521x) also L521x is born quad core but it has ended its life with only dual core version, that means they wrong the design and we are speaking of a machine that had the same price range of actual XPS15 9530.
Moreover XPS studio 1645 is known for its throttling.

 

Anyone help? While playing Dota 2 (through optimized settings which Nvidia GeForce Experience recommends mind you) the game really starts lagging - CPU jumps up to 100% usage, even on settings I previously was able to use last month when I bought the laptop.

Does anyone know if this is a computer issue, dota 2 issue, or something else is going on? When I drop the settings to a stupidly low 900p WITH a lot of things turned off (water texture, shadow, etc), then the game becomes playable again, though while looking like crud. At the moment I don't have another game to test out and I don't have the bandwidth to try and download another game to check.

Any ideas?

 

For those that criticized Dell for posting deceptive delivery dates on new orders, it might be worth noting that the current ship date posted on the Dell.com website for the XPS 15 is 16 January 2014, which matches what I saw for all orders placed on 07 December 2014 as well. It would seem that Dell expects shipment of the IGZO screens on the 15th or 16th, eh? This will almost certainly cost them some sales, so I give them credit for disclosure up-front, even if it took them a while to get around to it. Sometimes honesty hurts, and that decision to give up a lot of sales of a high-margin item could not have been a simple one.

 

IMO there is no such thing as 'more demanding games' the GPU is always going to run at nearly its full capacity in any scenario to provide as many FPS as possible (I'm sure they're set by design to cap so they're not 100% balls out and have a safety factor as with any engineered device). I've had my XPS top config for about a month now and haven't experienced any throttling that I'm aware of. The only game I've played on it is Team Fortress 2 and prob about 50 hours so far. I let Nvidia setup the 'Optimized Settings' and have played with that. TF2 utilizes all four cores of the CPU and while the fans run fairly loud (not as loud as my previous XPS Studio 16) and the laptop gets fairly hot (I wouldn't classify it as crazy hot) there has been no throttling I've observed. The only thing that concerns me is that I can literally feel some heat emanating from the central portion of the keyboard after gaming for awhile (may be partially from the exhaust that directs upwards against the screen). The fan design of this unit (aka a Macbook Pro ripoff) is 99% better than any other thin laptops I've seen and I've never understood why laptop designers never utilized this config before. Heat rises people so why try to push it sideways or down?

To say things less nicely than what Hephooey said you're an idiot if you're running any laptop on a bed, blanket and blocking/restricting the intake. That would be the equivalent of duct taping 6mm poly over the front grill of your car. I've taken apart at least 10 laptops in my day that were 'overheating' or dead and the fans were chock full of dust bunnies, lint, hair etc. You're definitely going to shorten the lifespan of any laptop if you're doing that. Using a cooling pad is always a good idea for a laptop running demanding applications but personally since I've gotten my new XPS I've been using it on a 8.5X11" hard cover book

Overall experience with my new unit has been excellent. Updated bios to A01, installed Intel wireless drivers and Synaptics drivers and its been all good. Only thing that was bugging me was the touchscreen intermittently not working but followed the recent advice in this thread (i.e. device manager --> HID --> USB input device --> uncheck so computer can't turnoff screen) I have no current issues with my XPS. Best overall PC laptop I've ever seen or used. Yes Dell claimed 11 hours battery life and I didn't believe that for a second when I ordered it. I've got a couple power plans configured and depending on 'power saving' or 'high performance' I'm getting 5 to 8 hours of battery life which is excellent for a machine of this caliber

I don't doubt that Dell is building these units in several locations and are having some quality control issues (typical for any new or revamped product line) but I'd bet my they're not nearly as rampant as some users on this forum are trying to claim them to be. I have one friend that says 'never buy the first one of anything' and unfortunately the bad luck some of you are experiencing is the price of being on the cutting edge of new tech

 

It says touch screen compatible there under the features. So I'm thinking they made it capacitive for it. Not bad, I think. Just wondering if someone had any other brands that they've tried and enjoy.

 

I spent 2 weeks trying to make it auto sleep

the only solution FOR ME was to go to windows (NOT DELL) wipe everything - you will still get all the dell bloat back but it slept after that.

 

I haven't had Dell or Win8 yet but:

Why not downloading windows 8 (without any bloatware), install it with dell key/activation ?

Thats how I always did it with windows 7.

 

Sounds odd, but imagine a vacuum cleaner, ever noticed that it sucks harder when you put a smaller/thinner attachment on it? I think the fans accelerate the air through the machine better when it's just on its own feet as you effectively have a narrower 'opening' so more of a mini vacuum is created. When it's flat I can feel a stronger cool current from the sides and the air coming out of the back is hotter than when the back is raised. When I used the magazine I placed it very carefully so that it didn't cover the grill underneath and the foot bar was still separating the exhaust. My experience tells me though that with it flat the current through the machine is stronger and more heat is being drawn out.

jphughan, some of the throttling others have reported may be due to similar issues but it's also a fine line balancing the settings as the 750M can only do so much. Games run at 3200x1800 when you first play them so require configuration to avoid throttling. For a few minutes it did render max resolution on NFS Most Wanted and it looked ace, although the frame rate was a bit laggy.

My overall experience with the laptop is good, once I learnt to ignore the Windows Metro carp which requires far too much effort just to close a program and feels very heath robinson compared to say Android apps. However, I am actually getting a new machine from Dell, when they become available again, because I have a spot on my screen and I reported the various whines/crackling noises. For three issues he thought it simpler to send a new machine. If the new one has a good screen I will keep it regardless of the electrical noises but it would be nice if they stopped... It's somewhat frustrating though as I want to get on and fully personalise the laptop. Whilst I could swap the SSDs out I'd rather have a fresh life one, especially as one time I came back to find my laptop cooking itself to death in a neoprene cover when it had woken from sleep. Pretty sure it was down to Rapid Start which I had turned on before I found out it's a waste of time in my eyes.

 

I totally disagree and I really think they are doing exactly the opposite. In my eyes, they tried and they are still trying to maximize the sells.

Supporting points:
- On Dell.it the date is the 10th of Jan.
- Even though it was the 16th, seems that after you completed the check out the date changes to somewhere around the 30th. This is deception.
- My date has been pushed back to the 24th of Jan, ordered the 3rd of Dec with the guarantee from the rep that I would have received it before Christmas.

I would have been much "happier" if they had put since the beginning realistic extimations. In this way I only feel cheated. And do not tell me that they could not expect this situation. They claim to be one of the leaders in the IT world, and they underestimate the sales of a top machine during the Christmas period? Or they are not able to "forsee" a possible shortage of components, and they still try to sell it during festivites with discounts too?

Apologies for the rant, but this is the way I feel at the moment. The worst thing is that I have spent the last 6 months looking for the perfect computer for me, and therefore I cannot really say "Well, screw yourself. I won't buy this laptop anymore", because I do not see any alternative...

 

I think some people might be confusing the estimated date of shipment with the estimated date of delivery. The product page lists the former, while the order confirmation and status page (for example) show the latter.

 

True that, and I apologize for the misunderstunding.

In my defence, I can say that when I ordered the date on the website and the date in my status were coincident - the actual date, I do not remember if the description was different or not.

All in all, that does not change much in my argument.

 

Guys, I was using my laptop just now, and the metal (or aliminium) bit on the edge of the body (where you rest your arm on) is actually shocking my left arm through the metal. As soon as I unplugged it, the shocking or whatever it was went away.

Has this happened to anyone? I was playing a game of dota fine and nothing happened but then suddenly it starting tingling my skin (I thought it was being sharp or something), but that's really bad...

 

Check out this article on the built in PowerCfg utility to see if it helps:

PowerCfg - The hidden energy and battery tool for Windows you're not using - Scott Hanselman

 

Yer I also fine my arm hair gets punches on the bit too

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk

 

Admin please delete this post

 

Apologies for bringing up such an old post but I definitely need some help with my XPS 15, I've been scouring the internet the last few days trying to find info regarding my problem and it seems I'm not the only one. :/
I bought this with professional photo editing in mind and I am shocked at how overly saturated the colors are on this laptop compared to my desktop IPS monitor that I usually use for editing/proofing/printing photos.
If I can't get a solution to this issue and be able to trust what my screen is showing me I might as well throw this thing away.
Did you have this problem as well? After calibration have you tried printing any of your photos for color accuracy sake?
I really want to love this computer but so far I am very disappointed (especially since Dell specifically advertises this machine for accuracy and photo editing/graphic design use) :/
Thanks in advance!

 

Sounds like you haven't disabled "splendid mode". Open Windows Mobility Center, switch it to generic color, and recalibrate if you calibrated beforehand.

And apparently 60% brightness (seventh tick, since the bottom setting is considered 0%) is ideal for accuracy and contrast.

 

JP! You have just saved my sanity and restored my faith in this device. THANK YOU! I know this has been a problem for many people, I will spread the word!
Out of curiosity where did you get the information regarding the brightness?

 

Hi, I just wanted to do a quick review of the top tier model that I've had since last Wednesday.

Firstly, the screen: the QHD+ is brilliant. At native resolution (3200 x 1800), everything is incredibly sharp, even more so because my previous laptop only had 1366x768. Colours are vivid and look great. The touch feature is great, I often use it when scrolling webpages or reading pdfs (which I do a lot). The limitations of the screen are its viewing angle. At off-centre angles, the colour distorts. I'd give it probably only a 60 degree angle of good viewing without too much distortion in colours. The other problem is application support for high DPI scaling. Adobe is the worst offender - the products just do not scale and make them unusable unless the actually resolution is lowered to full HD, which is blurred because it is a non native resolution. Adobe also doesnt seem to be making much effort to get this scaling issue fixed for windows users, which really ticks me off. The other problem occurs when using external displays. I use two externals at 1920 x 1080 resolution. The problem is that if I just plug them into the computer, the 200% scaling required for the QHD+ screen is also applied on those screens, making everything huge. To drop to 100% scaling requires one to log out, then log back in again. This also means that the QHD+ is effectively useless because everything on it becomes too small. What one needs is different DPI scaling on the laptop screen to the scaling on the external monitors, which doesnt seem to be an option. This will presumable become less of an issue as higher res external monitors become more affordable and I can start to use those instead - but for the moment, I've blown my budget on the laptop.

Secondly, the touchpad. I havent had any problems with discolouration or strange performance with it. It works fine except the right click button sometimes doesnt work properly, or because it is connected to the left click button, the right click button will sometimes act as a left click button. This is not a deal breaker for me, however is exceptionally annoying when one considers how easily it Dell could have improved the design.

Thirdly, performance: the computer is fast. It renders video very quickly, helped undoubtedly by the GPU, and does every other task as quickly as I could hope for. It is also basically silent - no fan whir, no weird motherboard issue that others have mentioned. The only time it makes significant noise is when I run the CPU and GPU stress tests - Prime95 and FurMark or am rendering video. CPU temp during Prime95 went no higher than 75 celsius and GPU temp during FurMark went no higher than 85 celsius.

Fourth, battery life obviously isnt what Dell advertises it too be. However I havent run the battery flat yet even while watching videos and doing some graphics intensive coding with Matlab. I just plug it whenever I get the chance - and for me battery life wasnt a huge consideration when purchasing as I will always be able to plug the laptop in while using it.

Fifth, build quality seems fantastic. No pressure points on the screen, the metal top is sleek, the bottom doesnt get too hot, the screen doesnt accumulate finger marks, and everything fits together well.

Other notes: I like the keyboard - the keys carry a good distance, the backlighting is useful (my last laptop didnt have any), and Im glad they didnt try to cram a number pad in! It works well the way it is, and absolutely no complaints about the keyboard. Wifi drops out sometimes which is annoying, might have to try to update the driver - however it may just be my router. Sometimes the computer hangs while booting - this is really annoying and I have to force a shut down by holding the power button, then boot it up again. I havent used NFC yet because I have an iPhone (dont judge me, Im switching to HTC soon!) but fingers crossed there are no issues there. Windows 8.1 is s***, I've installed Start8 to get the start button back, and never use Metro. I was using DisplayFusion for my multi-monitor set up however its unnessecary and causes problems with the wallpaper. eWallet doesnt scale properly either, nor does the tray Dropbox viewer. I'm looking forward to Windows 8.2 which hopefully will see a return of the start button, and the release of updates for the applications that dont yet support high DPI scaling - Adobe in particular. A big problem for me at the moment is trying to use the PsychToolbox for Matlab (Im a visual neuroscience student). The PsychToolbox runs in matlab to ensure accurate timing and colour presentation (with gamma correction) of stimuli. However running the screentest for the toolbox yields errors that I cannot for the life of me fix. Hopefully someone at the uni will be able to help however its a pain at the moment because I am eager to see how the toolbox runs on a QHD+ display.

Hopefully nothing drastic changes, I'm really enjoying the laptop! I highly recommend it. I think some people are understandably finicky about the small details (it is an very expensive laptop after all), however I see no major dramas at this stage. My concerns are mainly around application support for high DPI, which will come in time and is obviously not unique to Dell computers. If you need a screen with wide viewing angle, look elsewhere. This has a shockingly small angle - it doesnt bother me because I am always directly in front.

Any questions, just let me know!

 

Today my XPS 15 is shipped, but few days ago, Dell sent me a mail to warn me that delivery date was changed from 20 December to 20 January, so What does this mean?
Dell was joking...

Inviato dal mio GT-I9100 con Tapatalk 2

 

In my experience with Dell, they always tend to be very conservative with their dates as to not deliver late. I have never received a Dell product at their estimate. Every time they shipped and delivered it ahead of schedule.

 

Mine was a few days late last month.

 

I actually wanted to change the resolution to FHD to not have any trobules with scaling (+ 2nd screen is also 1920x1080). But u mention blur.... so the screen will look like crap if I change the resolution to FHD ?!

 

Same here.. few days ago the told me I had to wait 1 more month.. today I see "shipped". I also got the invoice today. However, there hasn't been a transaction on my credit card.

 

Brightness info came from two people who did a professional calibration on it. But it worked out because that's about as bright as I'd want to use the panel anyway; 100% is crazy bright.

Glad I could help. It's unfortunate that Dell would enable that by default (even on the Precision!) and put it in Mobility Center rather than graphics driver properties where people are more likely to look for color mode changes, but I guess there's a market for that type of color reproduction -- the same market that buys TVs at retail stores based on which one has the most vivid colors, not the most accurate. Splendid mode sure did make that flower on the default wallpaper pop though; I turned it off and thought it looked washed out by comparison until I played with it more and realized how ridiculous it made other stuff look. Glad you're happy though!

 

The per-display DPI scaling is available in Windows 8.1. Right-click Screen Resolution, choose "Make text and other items larger or smaller" and then UNcheck "Let me choose one scaling level for all my displays". Then you simply pick a general size you want things to be, and Windows will scale items differently based on each display's pixel density so that each display renders a given item at approximately the same physical size. The best results are achieved when your built-in panel is set to primary since that shrinks elements on your external panels, whereas using the external panel as primary causes everything to be zoomed in on the built-in panel, which is uglier. I agree it's still not TRULY independent scaling in that you don't get individual sliders for each display and you're always forced to optimize for the display you set as primary (not always ideal), but that's where we are now -- and at any rate if you're currently working with specifying a scaling factor as it sounds, this should give you a better experience than what you're doing now.

Agreed on the right-click being finicky. This is my first full-time laptop with integrated rather than dedicated buttons, so that's taking me some time to get used to. I find I have to really click down in the corner for right-click to work, not just along the lower edge in the right half of the touchpad. I'm sure I'll get used to it.

 

Sorry in advance for this basic question, but does anyone have any suggestions for the power plan settings? I would like the cpu to overclock as needed for intensive tasks, but then to underclock when not needed, and I would like this to be independent of the AC plug. the high performance setting is almost what I need but it limits the cpu to around 0.77 GHz when unplugged and then, when plugged in, keeps the cpu overclocked when not needed (even after setting the minimum state to 5%), and it also limits the screen brightness. I have tried to create a custom setting but cannot find the options to configure it just how I want it. Has anyone else worked this out? thanks

Edit: the limited screen brightness comes from the adaptive ambient sensor turned on, so that's ok. but I still cannot figure out how to effectively underclock (<1GHz) the cpu when not under load. another strange thing I noticed, in the high performance setting it runs full clock when plugged in, but when I unplug, it drops to ~0.77GHz and it slowly climbs back up to around 3GHz. Now how to get it to stay around that 0.77GHz mark when not being used? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

I don't think the level of granularity you want is available. However, I will tell you that Intel's dynamic clocking works on at LEAST a millisecond basis, if not faster these days (even the ancient P4M chips used millisecond-level clocking in the days of SpeedStep; there was a big ad campaign that it dropped its clock speed between your keystrokes), so it's entirely possible that whatever you're using to monitor clock speeds simply isn't refreshing often enough to catch the periods that the CPU is underclocking itself -- though increasing the polling rate might CAUSE the CPU to run faster. It's like the observer effect in quantum mechanics.

But other than setting processor state and cooling policy, I don't believe there's a way to manage the CPU. Frankly this seems a lot to me like manual management of the page file: sounds like a good idea, but the data typically shows that the system does a better job of it than you do if you leave it to its own devices. Why are you so worried about how high the CPU clocks itself on AC power anyway? I can't imagine that would register on your electricity bill....

 

Thanks JP, very helpful as usual. Not so much concerned with the high cpu clock on AC power as on battery. Although, a 0.5 GHz mean clock rate with no load would be nice, regardless of the plug...

 

Anyone notice the price difference in the XPS 15 on the Dell site? One is $2,449.99 the other $100 cheaper at $2,349.99.......Exact same computer? What's the deal with that? The more expensive one is at $61/month on credit but the cheaper one is @ $71/month on credit. Wut?????

Expensive XPS 15: XPS Laptops, Tablets & Ultrabooks for Business | Dell

Cheaper one by $100 and exact same specs: XPS 15 Touch Screen Laptop Details | Dell

Am I missing something here? They both have the 512 SSD

 

Take a look at those alleged "exact same specs" a bit more closely. The version ordered from the Business store comes with 8.1 Pro, not Core. It also comes with ProSupport rather than regular On-Site Service, which at least USED TO guarantee you immediate access to North America-based support reps, in addition to some other benefits that may be important to businesses supporting lots of Dell systems. However, reading the Help Me Choose for ProSupport now, I see that mention of North American reps has been removed; whether that's a website error (wouldn't be the first) or an actual policy change I'm not sure.

And wow, looks like they raised the prices $50 overall too compared to launch.

I bought the Home store version because my employee discount didn't work on the Business store and then just ordered the Win8.1 Pro Pack for $95 from Newegg to get Pro.

What DOES strike me as odd is that the Business store shows a SKU for $2049 and one for $2130.98, both appearing identical. You don't see the difference until you add it to your cart AND click Detail View, where you learn that the more expensive SKU comes with a 1TB EXTERNAL hard drive (in addition to the one included in the system) with a random $9 off deal. Strange....

 

I think if you have the shipped email and invoice is there not a tracking number?

 

HELP!

I love the XPS15, but my biggest gripe is starting to drive me insane. Basically the trackpad is all good, but I REALLY need to click on the right side of the trackpad for the right click to work. Even if I click about 1cm from the line that separates the left from right click, the laptop will still consider that as a left click. This is HUGELY impacting my productivity and I really want it to be more normal. I have uninstalled the Dell drivers and installed the Synaptics drivers (version 16.3.15.1), but it doesn't seem to help. I have tried to reconfigure the Synaptics settings and there isn't an option.

This is compounded by the placement of the trackpad which is centered, not slightly to the left. If you guys could help out I would be SO grateful.

It's also a bit frustrating, why did Dell have to go reinvent the wheel?

 

Are you saying you can't right-click at all, or the right-click zone is just very narrow? If it's the former, then there's definitely a way to enable right-click; I just don't have my system at the moment to post a screenshot or exact instructions. If you're annoyed that the zone is too narrow, unfortunately I've noticed that myself on both sets of drivers, and the only workarounds I've found have been either mapping two-finger click as a right-click (works fairly well as long as you click in the lower half of the touchpad) or just retraining yourself.

I agree it's not ideal, but it's not a dealbreaker for me either because I'm almost always using an external mouse with me anyway even when I'm traveling because even using a perfect touchpad will drastically reduce your productivity.

 

My XPS 9530 is about one week old now. Overall.... wow what a great unit. I have had the "whining" noise too the first 3 days the laptop was in use. Ok, this is an annoying sound and I don't know if I could live with it. But... it's gone after 3 days. Don't know if this had any effect but I updated the BIOS to A01(was A00). No troubles with games like FarCry 3. I am a very happy customer now. Quite, top class machine!