XPS 15 (Haswell) Owner's Lounge

There seems to be a noticeable improvement, last week when I checked the expected shipping date for the mid and top-tier models were March 5, 2014, just checked now and they've both been revised to March 1, 2014. Small improvement I know but an improvement nonetheless.

I'm interested in getting the top-tier model but holding off and awaiting a sale or further discount. Cheapest Canadian price I've found is from Costco at $2199. I'm also waiting to find out more about this coil whine issue which has me concerned as I'm very sensitive to coil whine and often hear it when no one else does, and I find it very very irritating.

 

Hello,

Wanted to ask if anybody running W7 here, Just curious about problems and workarounds one experiences if any - like wifi performance, cooling, battery, drivers, etc..
In short my experiences:
Everything runs OK under w7. Initially my wifi was running half the speed (on N) provided from operator (my old laptop run full speed), I replaced to AC router and full speed was achieved (my old laptop now runs less than half speed...LOL) so it's not the 7260AC card but hybrid N or first generation router instead.
People here often talking about the heat issues but they like quiet laptop right.. and that's what it is, the fan cooling is high efficiency and kicks in when it's pretty warm already so be aware of letting air flow to do the job and all Intel stuff enabled. I'm using Targus Space Saving Lap Chill Mat 17" - fits perfectly so no thinking about bottom.
I don't know much about w8 scaling but I found very helpful to use zoom feature in w7 - more options in it can be found and if in hi mode and need to read a page - using my fingers...awesome machine.
I noticed a lot of processes running in the background, it's 2x more than my old laptop (optimized), it adds up because of the new smart technologies - I found them needed - look to Intel alone how many..
It starts up extremely fast - 3x the speed of my custom desktop.

XPS 15" HASWELL, w7 , SSD+mSSD (upgraded from mid tier)
iPad - Tapatalk

 

I have a set of Logitech USB speakers that I'll likely be using more often than not. It would be great to have an automated toggle that allows the use of audio enhancements only when using the internal speakers. I guess I'll just have to suck it up and switch it off manually, when using external devices.

 

Actually with USB speakers you'd be fine since they have their own DAC and therefore wouldn't use the Realtek chip or its enhancements. The enhancements only apply to the built-in speakers or anything attached to the headphone jack.

 

Has anyone here been on a situation using Samsung Data Migration to clone data from the mid-tier HDD to a 840 EVO 1TB? I didn't have good luck as the software detect the HDD as another 840 EVO 1TB and it eventually couldn't start the clonning job.

EDIT: Never mind. I just forgot to disable INTEL Rapid Start. Data Migration is now working fine.

 

Hi man, is there a way to replace the SSD drive and don't void the warranty?
Thanks

 

I thought the HDD/SSD was user-replaceable, but don't take my word for it.

 

Thanks for pointing that out. It makes perfect sense. I don't know why I didn't think of that, knowing that they function as a free standing external sound device. Guess I was having another "duh!" moment, of which there are many.

 

Just had my display replaced as I had dust underneath it. I also had a pressure point issue which still is present with the new display but talking with the Engineer it looks like it is a cable between the display and the back cover causing this issue.

I am not sure without a change in design that this will be resolved. Dell are sending another replacement tomorrow before proceeding any further.

 

Thank you. To be honest, I usually use Snagit (rather than the snipping tool)...

However, the Fn+Print Screen doesn't do anything either. Absolutely nothing.

 

Weird, I have my function keys set to Function Key mode and it works just fine without pressing the Fn key. Haven't tried it in Multimedia Key mode though.

You don't void your warranty by swapping parts out. You obviously don't get warranty coverage on the new parts you install (unless you bought them from Dell and they're certified on your system) and if you break anything during the install that won't be covered either, but Dell allows users to swap parts and even publishes a manual showing how to do so.

 

Finally placed my order for the top-tier model. Was able to haggle the price down considerably. I held out on Samsung long enough, but they failed to deliver something comparable to the XPS 15. I've been out of a personal computer for nearly a year now, so this is a beyond welcomed purchase. ETA is 3/17 Gotta wait a little longer, but it is what it is.

I hope I don't encounter any major problems upon its arrival!

 

Just making sure, but you know there's no interface, right? It doesn't make a file or anything. It just copies the screen to the buffer - you then need to paste it in to mspaint, or word, or whatever...

 

Couple of questions before I receive this machine... how do I go about in doing a clean install of windows and how do I upgrade to the pro version?

 

I don't understand your question.

You will get Windows Pro if you buy an upgrade.

 

Well, I tried upgrading the OS through Dell and there was no option to do so (called). Do I upgrade from the computer itself? Further, how do I perform a clean install? (First computer without a disk drive)

 

You could easily find an answer on google. About how to do a clean install when you have no ODD drive.

 

For upgrading to Pro, since the system comes with regular, buy the Windows 8.1 Pro Pack ($95 on Newegg), then clean install REGULAR Windows 8.1 and follow these instructions to switch over to Pro: Add features - Microsoft Windows. The switch is nothing like doing an entire OS upgrade; it's just two regular reboots and you're done.

For how to clean install Windows, that's not really a question about the XPS 15, so let's keep this thread on topic. As the above poster mentioned, there are many guides for creating a bootable UEFI-compatible USB installation media, like this one: http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/15458-uefi-bootable-usb-flash-drive-create-windows.html. Then you need to reinstall all of your drivers.

 

Hi guys,

I am thinking to buy the mid tier XPS because I am going to change the drive anyway. The problem is that I can not find and buy the battery of the top tier model. Does dell sell the battery of the top tier separately?

If I am not mistaken the only difference between the mid and top tier XPS15 is the SSD drive and the battery, right?

Thank you.

 

You're correct about the spec difference (with the larger battery obviously meaning you can't install a 2.5" drive like you can with the mid-spec). With respect to buying the larger battery, you'd have to go through Dell Spare Parts (not their regular Sales team since it's not an official accessory), but a few people have already tried and no one has reported success. Everyone is being told that that part isn't yet available through Spare Parts, possibly due to supply shortages or just because Dell hasn't decided to offer it through that channel yet. It LIKELY will become available in the future, but it doesn't seem to be just yet. The part number for the larger battery has been posted a few times in this thread already though, so you could always call them up and ask. It always helps to already have the part number when you call.

 

So I'm guessing no one has the 1080p version???

 

I guess that someone has already posted this info in this thread, if I remember correctly it's the same display of XPS15 L521x, but I'm not so sure.

 

That's a TN panel - I seriously doubt they went that route again when the Inspiron 15 7000 (1080p model) has an IPS panel.

And I searched the thread - didn't turn up anything.

 

Maybe Dell doesn't found a IPS display that fits in chassis of XPS15 9530 or there is already a premium display available (QHD+) so XPS15 doesn't need of another one or with a FHD IPS display the price would be too near to QHD+ model.

 

Can I use the university discount along with the VIP member program discount? And are there any other discounts out there?

 

It seems there is conflicting information floating around. A lot of sites list the 750M as 33W. I'm not sure what you mean by "different version of 750M" ... there is just one version (sometimes clocked at different frequencies).

The power consumption grows linearly with frequency only for the logic that is clock triggered. You'd be naive to compute the power draw of an entire chip with a linear formula on 706 and 941 MHz. The clock tree in a chip feeds only registers, which are only a subset of what draws current. Besides registers, there is a ton of combinational logic (i.e. gates, not clock triggered) which draws current only when switching (CMOS tech), most of the time these are idle and draw v little current (only leakage current).

What you call "dedicated CAD support" in Quadro is nothing more than just less FP64 capability in the Geforce which was intentionally crippled to 1/8=12.5% of the capacity, i.e. some unit blocks were effectively disabled in the chip (chip makers do this, it's called market segmentation). The chip on both is actually the same, but because of the disabled blocks, the max power draw of both would be different even they used the same clock frequency.

In any case, any app which uses FP64 computation will run faster on the Quadro because the Geforce is crippled (drivers have negligible impact in comparison); however, not all CAD apps use FP64 exclusively. They run faster on Geforce whenever FP32 is used.

The Quadro memory is clocked at 2800MHz whereas the Geforce runs at 5000MHz. If the Quadro chip also had a lower power draw as you suggest, then the battery life results from Notebookcheck.net about the M3800 and XP15 don't make any sense. I'm still curious as to what consumed so much current in the M3800 (HDD is much too far from accounting for it).

 

I finally got the mid tier yesterday. When I turned on the machine, althought I knew there's an HDD inside so that it wouldn't be as quiet as the top tier, the loud and frequent noise still surprised me. At first, I thought it was because some heavy activity was going on at this first run, then, slowly I realized that it was the high pitched noise that has been widely reported. My 5 year old laptop does not even have that noise. At first I thought I could live on with that, then I unplugged the ac adapter and the whole world became silent! The sound of hdd operation is almost nothing compared to that. Now, I couldn't resist the idea of replacing motherboard or the whole machine. But it is said that replacing one does not necessarily solve the problem. Also, I dont think editing tje registry file can solve the problem. I'm not sure whether mine is a faulty one or just an average one. Is there someone who had motherboard/whole machine replacement but still had no improvent?

Galaxy Nexus Tapatalk

 

Did you played enough with power settings including many new intel techs.
Unplugging automatically changed power scheme, think about it.


iPad - Tapatalk

 

pretty sure that incorrect. The XPS15 L521x is not a touchscreen..

 

Yes, there are people who have gotten replacement motherboards and even whole replacement systems with no improvements. There are also people who received their system a couple months ago with no issue even though people who are receiving units produced more recently still have the issue. I just posted about this in the Precision M3800 thread this morning: http://forum.notebookreview.com/del...sion-m3800-owners-review-179.html#post9549469

It doesn't change the power scheme (unless you enable the Dell utility that does that); it only changes some of the settings in the EXISTING power scheme, which has parameters for both battery and AC power. But regardless, the issue has to do with the fact that the machine is drawing power from the AC adapter, not the actual preferences. This has already been widely discussed as a hardware issue.

Even though touchscreens and displays are fused together, they're still separate components, so it would be entirely possible for the L521x display to be used on this machine and then have a touchscreen added. I don't know whether that's actually what's been done, but it's not impossible.

 

so far i didnt have any problems with my xps 15 (top spec), but suddenly after having updated to the latest dell drivers & bios the laptop drains battery even when powered off.
before i managed to squeeze about 7-9 hours out of it on battery, now i suddenly got only to about 4 hours and wondered - then checked the windows battery report and yep, almost 40% overnight with the laptop clearly shutdown. second night the same stuff again. and i am in russia right now on a long business trip and i dont think a dell rep will come and check my xps all my battery profiles are well checked and balanced for battery use, i read through those pages here every day.
there's a lot of reporting on that issue with win 8.1, but until 1 week ago i didnt have any problems and suddenly it starts to bug me. weird. and the coil whine is kind of permanent now, before it only started like every 20 minutes or something.

oh two other things... since this battery drain startet the laptop needs almost half a minute to boot up with the screen being black all the time. before it was like 8 seconds or something. and one day after arrival the mousepad suddenly stopped working, not even a cursor appeared until i attached an usb mouse. i reinstalled the touchpad drivers and it works fine now, but happened??

anbody got any advices?

 

Publicly Nvidia does not supply TDP or info about power consumption, so websites have made their speculations, and many websites have simply copied info from each other.
Even the GT740m is equal to GT750m but has simply different frequencies, you are free to call GT750m, but everyone call GT740m, and yes there are different version of GT750m because they have different frequencies and different memory
Many Intel CPUs have only a different frequencies, however Intel has given a different name, because they have something of different in this case the frequency.
The K1100m is the same integrated of the GT750m with different firmware and uses optimized driver to specific application, to disable or to inhibit some particular block Nvidia does not need to do physically within the chip, in the worst case they act on PCB.
Just for example it seems that it's possible to transform a Powercolor AMD R290 into a AMD R290X simply updating its firmware, moreover someone has turned a GeForce GTX 690 Into a Quadro K5000:
Tweaker Turns GeForce GTX 690 Into a Quadro K5000
Obviously sometimes chip makers decrease frequencies or inhibit some part of circuits because there are malfunctions others times simply to market reason.

The test called "surfing via WLAN" does not use Nvidia GPU, also the power consumption of 3.5 Hours is the same that are reporting owners of XPS15 with 61WHr battery and they have a GT750m not a K1100m.

 

This laptop supports USB PowerShare, so if you're leaving USB device plugged into the system overnight, it will supply power to those devices even while it's completely shut down and disconnected from AC power. Could that be it? If you don't want it to do that, you can disable PowerShare in the BIOS, though I don't know why this would have just started with a BIOS update since that feature has been available since launch -- unless of course you've got extra devices connected during your travels that you don't normally.

The only other thing I can think of that might account for everything you've described, since you're traveling, is a low-quality power adapter/converter and/or poor quality electricity in Russia where you are (voltage swings, electrical noise, etc). When I traveled to Italy I used a power adapter that specifically said that it shouldn't be used with electronics (the problem is that ALL of the converters I could find said that) and it killed my laptop's AC adapter after about a week and a half. Fortunately the laptop was fine once I got a new AC adapter, but I could see random touchpad outages and other bizarre electrical issues being caused by that. My laptop and other devices actually did support 240V and 50Hz, but I used the converter because I didn't have a regular plug adapter (never mind multiples for all of the devices I wanted), plus I wanted to use my travel surge protector for some extra insurance, and the surge protector would not have worked when with the wall socket in Italy without a converter.

As for the long boot time, that one is a little stranger. Does that happen when the laptop is running on battery power AND all USB devices are disconnected?

 

Still not yet available in us dell outlet but available in euro dell out. Any one give an estimate when it will be available

 

Does anyone know what this review is talking about? They say the contrast is very bad, but other reviews say it is very good (notebookcheck.net). If you have the laptop, are you seeing light blacks as they say? No other review complained about this. Perhaps a bad unit.

Dell XPS 15 review | Digital Trends Reviews

 

I am loving this new laptop but some concerns regarding the power cord connection. I have the computer at the end of my desk where the weight of the cord is causing the connection to bend down some. There seems to be some play where the cord is connected to the computer. My questions.
-Is there suppose to be some bend where the computer and cord meet?
-Is the connection between the power cord and computer suppose to have some play?
-Is there any longterm concerns with how flimsy it seems?
-Unrelated question. Is it worth the 3 year warranty as I only have the 1 year now?

 

There's a bit of play in the power connector, but I wouldn't call it loose. Just try to avoid too much strain at the bend point and you should be fine.

Statistically the most common warranty replacement periods are the first 90 days and the second year. Given how expensive many of the components in this system are likely to be, I'd upgrade your coverage. In fact if you're using it for school/work, unless you also have a secondary machine I'd argue it's worth it just to have next-day on-site support. If you're in the middle of some big project/paper and your laptop dies right before your deadline, you don't want to be told you need to send it into a depot and you'll get it back in 2 weeks.

 

the only thing which has been connected is the usb nano receiver, but the mouse is turned off, and it has been like that for weeks now. i tried a lot of things with drivers last night and the nividia card doesnt seem to work properly anymore. neither with dell or nvidia drivers. cant start the nvidia settings, cant change an app to start with nvidia (this option was there in the beginning, now it is gone). device manager als reports problems sometimes for the card, so there's definetly something wrong. i disabled the card, rebooted, and now reboot times are fast again as they used to be - but still there was a drain from 100% fully charged to 88% in 6 hours while it was shutdown, and battery life is supposed to be 3:43 H after a full charge - which is totally NOT okay.
so i still dont know how to solve this issue....

 

Hello everyone, I have a quick question. Does anyone know of a complete list of non Dell drivers for the XPS 15? I just re-installed windows 8 to clear all the Dell bloatware and before I search all over the internet I was wondering if some kind soul had already gone through the trouble of gathering up all the drivers. Thanks!

 

I haven't seen any such reports about the XPS15 getting 3.5h. Could you post a link?

unless you mean graphics card, clocking differently or using different memory does not constitute different versions of a graphics chip.

Actually that's not true. In most cases that you refer to there are hardware differences, not just different frequency. Otherwise overclocking to the same frequency would yield the exact same behaviour, but it doesn't (there is more heat, less stability, etc).

I think that if If PCB/firmware/driver was the issue, hacks (including PCB hacks) would have surfaced by now to unlock the FP64 capability of Geforce chips for compute/CAD apps. Disabling blocks within the chip as that would allow higher clocks for the same TDP. It is true that there are reviews out there (e.g. here) which mention the driver limiting the FP64 capacity of the chip ... not sure where they got the info from though, it seems they assume it.

 

Guessing you're already aware of this? Drivers & Downloads | Dell US

 

Hi guys,

I start to have concerns about the coil whine some people are complaining. I was going to buy the laptop today but after hearing this I am thinking that it may be best to wait and buy the laptop in a few weeks and hope that the later I order it the less chances I have to get a noisy coil. I would guess that dell is aware of the problem and they will fix it in the next "revisions" of the laptop (???).

I also want to ask something related to the battery of the laptop. My old HP laptop will drain power through the battery even when the adapter is on. As a result the battery dies after a year because I use the laptop as my main computer. I find this silly because I believe they could somehow detect the presence of the AC adapter and "redirect" the power directly on the hardware (after all, the laptop can work if the battery is removed and the adapter is on). So, how about dell XPS15? Does the current pass through the battery even if the adapter is on? The good thing about my old HP laptop is that you could just remove the battery in a second and then use the laptop with only the adapter on. I think this is not possible with the dell XPS because in order to remove the battery you have to unscrew the whole bottom cover, right?

Thank you.

 

Hello,

I have the top tier XPS 15 ordered (early Jan). Seeing that there are quite a hand-full of problems I am considering spending the extra $$ and getting the same spec rMBP would this be a wise decision? or are the problems only affecting the minority?

Thanks

 

Can you list of your problems please? I just sold my rMBP Oct 2013 because I had a lot of problems.
I am using Linux and here is a list of rMBP problems under that OS:
* No nVidia Optimus support
* No external monitors when using IRIS5200
* I/O is very slow when accessing the hard disk from different processes.
* You have to disable NCQ otherwise you get random hangs every 5 minutes
* The camera does not work because the webcam is no longer USB but PCIe
* Lots of problems with recovering from Sleep mode
* Card reader does not work
I guess most of the problems are going to be fixed with new drivers in the coming year.. but I can not wait till then. Having that said that I believe rMBP build quality is superior to XPS15 (although I havent bought it yet).
Can you please list all the issues you have with the XPS15? Thanks!

EDIT: Oh, and while the PCIe SSD performance in awesome for big files, the performance on 4K is really bad. Worse than the most of the SSDs out there. This applies for MacOSX, Windows and Linux.

 

Sorry I was a bit unclear, I'm still waiting on mine to be built! (hold-up with parts to factory) was getting nervous about all this negative feedback in previous posts.

 

I share your pain as mine lost 28% charge in 4.5 hours whilst it was asleep this morning. It had been unplugged for over a day before that and was pretty much static at 80% so something woke it up and guzzled some juice but I don't know what!

 

I wouldn't wait for the coil whine issue to be fixed, personally. First, it's not clear that there's been an actual production change that fixes it. It could just be that there's a manufacturing variance that results in some identical-spec motherboards having whine and some not. Besides, you'll have a warranty anyway, so you can always get a replacement motherboard later if it really bothers you. I have it and won't be doing anything about it because this laptop's whine is no different from any other high-powered laptop I've ever used.

This laptop seems to have adaptive battery charging, and from what I've read about it, if it detects that it's been plugged into the wall for 2 weeks at a stretch, it will disconnect the battery and actually let it self-discharge down to a point, so you could be sitting at your desk with your laptop plugged in and see it at 90% full for example and still not be charging. There are also BIOS settings for manually controlling the battery charge, but people who have experimented with them say they don't seem to work at the moment. Other than that, I'm not sure how to test whether current is running into a battery while the laptop is on and plugged in unless you have some specialty equipment for that purpose.

 

Do you have Intel Smart Connect enabled? What about "Allow Wake Timers" in your Power Options? And what about Wake on USB in the BIOS? It sounds like something has been waking up your systems repeatedly (and then it goes back to sleep per its power profile), and all three of those options would do that.

 

These reports are surely in this thread, my difficulty finding them is the same as your, maybe initial participants at this thread, who are still here, can confirm these reports.

I did not mean that there are different version on graphic chip, also because GT750m has the same GK107, used on GT 755M, GT 745M, GT 740M, GT730M, GT 650M, GT 645M, GT 640M, GT 640M LE.
Instead I'm saying that there are different version of GT750m because they use different frequencies and different kind of memory, but Nvidia has decided not to give they a specific name, while it does with GT740m.

These four Intel CPUs differ only for frequencies.
http://ark.intel.com/compare/71257,71256,64896,64895

You have given the reason why the unlock operation does not make much sense:

Moreover if you have to hack PCB this operation could be very risky and might be different on different notebook, besides the majority of the users would prefer GeForce over Quadro.

 

If you ask for a laundry list of problems, of course it's going to make you nervous! You're also reading a forum, which in addition to being the vast minority of the market is also far more likely to contain negative information (since people will be looking for help solving their problems) as opposed to people coming here just to say everything is great and they're happy as a clam -- which I am with mine, fwiw, despite the coil whine. But since you seem to be a glutton for punishment, the most commonly reported problems are:

1. Coil whine. Most have it, some don't. Some have been successful eliminating it with a motherboard replacement, others haven't. Some people who don't have it who got their systems a while back, others who just got systems have it. Doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason here.

2. QHD+ scaling issues -- software issue. Options are find to either workarounds for your apps (including running the panel at a lower resolution), put up with it, or don't buy the QHD+ panel. How much this affects you will depend mostly on what apps you run.

3. GPU throttling. CPU doesn't seem to throttle, but the GPU apparently can when you're maxing out both the CPU and GPU, though that's more of a benchmark condition than typical real-world, which is why not everyone experiences this in their real-world usage (I don't). This laptop is also picky about its placement for ventilation, i.e. don't put it on a bed or tilt it such that the front is more elevated than the back. Still, throttling doesn't seem as bad as the rMBP, which can even draw current from the battery while on AC because its power brick isn't enough for its hardware when running maxed out.

4. Lower battery life than expected and advertised. Dell shouldn't be claiming battery numbers as high as they are (though they're hardly the only vendor to do so), and otherwise I think expectations were higher based on what people observe with other thin and light systems, whereas this one has a lot more high-power hardware than most of those do.

Those are the big ones. Other complaints on here seem to be issues with their specific units (e.g. dead pixels, LCD pressure points, etc) that are fixed with a warranty replacement, not design issues endemic to the model.

Oh, and remember to disable splendid mode.