XPS 15z Crackling Audio with Network Traffic

Yes, including a bunch of settings that simply didn't exist or just didn't make sense like changing the adhoc channel even though I was using infrastructure mode.

It also looked like he was giving instructions based on Vista or XP rather than Windows 7 so to any regular user would have been quite confusing.

 

I don't think the antenna is directly generating interference otherwise you would hear it all the time.

In my case it only occurs when the machine is actively playing a sound.

I feel that the digital sound data when being transmitted/transferred from memory to the audio device over whatever databus/pathway that they use in PCs these days, it is being delayed and/or corrupted causing the glitches.

Somehow the Wifi card is generating interrupts or hogging the system preventing the audio data getting through. Audio data needs to be real time.

Also Dell have today offered to "pay for the Intel Centrino card" and let me just keep the lower functionality Dell Wifi card. Not really happy with this since I get much less Wifi performance. I don't know how much they consider the Intel Centrino card to be worth. I have asked if engineering is willing to even look at this problem. So far it seems they are not.

 

If you use the Dell wifi card over the Intel Centrino card, you will lose the functionality to use Intel WiDi (Wireless Display). I would not cave in on this point.

 

Yes I made the point about WiDi as well. The bandwidth is my more immediate concern

If anything I'd rather keep the card and as long as I'm not generating masses of WiFi traffic it will have less impact.

 

Shonky, I think I MIGHT have found a solution.

I realized that the XPS 15 I originally bought had the same Centrino card my 15z has now. So I went to the drivers page, downloaded the 6230 driver for the XPS 15, and installed it.

I did my usual test and found that I didn't get NEARLY as many latency spikes as I did before.

**HOWEVER, I do want to point out that I'm not on my school network anymore. Instead of a wireless N network, I'm connected via wireless g. But I wanted to let you know as this might be a viable workaround.**

 

The 802.11g network will make quite a difference from what I've seen since the bandwidth is 5-6 times lower.

But I will try myself some time in the next day or so.

I can't get to the Dell Driver page at the moment - it seems broken on both US and Australian sites

 

Ok let me know what happens. Though I don't know about you, but the Dell Drivers page is working here as of today.

 

There is yet another version on the Dell website. Still called A04 14.2.1.1 but now dated 12th December....

Drivers and Downloads | Dell [United States]

 

You were right, wireless-g makes a big difference from wireless-n. I tested the XPS 15 driver on a wireless-n network and got the same crackling sound. Looks like I will need to get my Centrino card replaced.

I updated to the driver that's dated the 12th. It might have improved the latency problem, but I can still hear the crackling sound.

 

I have started using the "new" machine since Dell are taking back the old one today. I have done a full system restore. Installing the 12th December version makes no appreciable difference to the audio distortion or to the numbers displayed by DPC latency checker.

 

Guyz how much dedicated video memory does the XPS 15Z possess?

 

There are 1GB and 2GB versions. Very easy to search and find this.
XPS 15z Laptop Details | Dell

Please keep this topic on track.

 

Shonky, when you used the Dell-branded WiFi card, did you get bad latency (yellow bars/red bars)?

 

When I had the Dell card, I don't think I ever saw a red bar. Occasionally some yellow ones so possibly not as good as it could be but I'd say good enough. I didn't hear any distortion. That machine is going back today so I can't really play with it any more. I had wiped and restored it on the weekend.

The problem with the Dell branded Broadcom card was that because it was only 2.4GHz and only x1 i.e. 150Mbps, my overall throughput was significantly less than with the Intel. As you've seen, throughput does seem to make quite a difference.

 

Do you know if the 15z is compatible with other wireless cards other than the Centrino 6230? I want to know if I have any other options for dual band wireless adapters. If not, I think I will settle for a Dell branded card, provided that it is compatible with Bluetooth.

 

Well it certainly worked OK with the Dell card.

Bluetooth seemed to work. By that I mean it showed up in Device Manager without any exclamation marks or anything like that. I didn't actually pair it with anything though to actually use it.

It was described to me in email as a "Dell Wireless 1701 802.11 b/g/n wireless card"

Further research showed that to be Broadcom BCM4313 for Wifi and BCM2070 for Bluetooth.
Broadcom.com - BCM4313 - InConcert Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Coexistence Interface for Single/Dual Antenna Designs
Broadcom.com - BCM2070 - Single-Chip Bluetooth 3.0 HCI Solution

Searching now I found this which is a reasonable overview:
Dell Wireless 1701 802.11n + Bluetooth 3.0 Mini-Card Windows Vista,Win7 Driver, Ver.A025.100.82.34 | Wireless Driver & Software

2.4GHz only as I mentioned previously so doesn't meet your requirements.

It is a PCI Express Half-Height Card so any device confirming to that should work assuming the antenna connections are OK (MMCX or U.FL or similar) think). There's one for Wifi and one for Bluetooth.

Soooo....
Something like these should work OK
DELL DW 1510 AGN Half bcm4322 dual-band N pci-e card | eBay
DELL Wireless 1520 (11agn) WLAN Half-Height mini-Card for Select Dell Systems : Networking - Wireless & Wired | Dell
Dell Wireless 1530 802.11a/g/n WLAN Half MiniCard Windows XP, Vista, Win7 32/64bit Drivers, Utility | Wireless Driver & Software

You'll have to research more to confirm the chipset of these though. It's a standard size and connector so I don't see any compatibility issues apart from perhaps mechanical ones if they are two big or the antenna cconnectors are not in good locations (pretty hard given the board size).

 

Ah the problem with the 15xx cards seem to be no bluetooth even though it looks like there is a connector there for it.

 

Ok. I will actually settle for the Broadcom card if it comes down to it. I recently bought a Linksys single band wireless-n capable router. Since it's only single band and my internet connection maxes out at 20 megabits per second, I really have no use for the 5Ghz band use for wireless-n and wireless-a. Plus, I can do without Intel WiDi and Intel My Wireless Technology.

One question though, I see that the Broadcom chip has Bluetooth 3.0 so is it the same as the Bluetooth that's with the Centrino 6230?

 

Really how many issue have 15z touchpad, screen and now this networking issue. Guys try to update your BIOS to A08 version.

 

I only have an ADSL2+ internet connection which maxes out at about 15Mbit/sec so yeah even 802.11g is enough. However access to my NAS is slow and I do have a web proxy running on my firewall that speeds things up.

They both have Bluetooth 3.0 which is as close to the same as I would expect. I'm not really aware exactly what features there are with BT 3.0 and what might be missing. They are not the same physical part and would also have different drivers etc. So functionality might be a bit different.

 

My screen is fine.

The touchpad does use a bit of CPU time but otherwise works OK.

There is also the Quickset issue which causes windows to lose focus frequently.

So yeah there are some issues it seems with these machines but the Wifi one is the main one that affects me.

That's a brand new BIOS but the history only lists "Fix battery insert-detected issue." which I don't even understand. The battery is not removable.

I will update to A08 now but I'm not expecting big things honestly.

 

BIOS update did nothing.

I see there is also a new network driver v14.3.0.6 or A06 in Dell versioning...

Drivers and Downloads | Dell [Australia]

The history doesn't show any particular fixes for the crackling problem though.

 

This driver update made no noticable difference.

 

I uninstall the cypress driver,now it' working fine for me before this I can't scroll up and down some times it freeze.

I didn't face any issue with Quickset.

Regrading screen there are many people who are facing that worst issue believe me if the screen is not good you can do anything without seeing. There is separate thread is running for this issue in the forum.

I just updated with new BIOS. Yes forget to mention one more issue when your battery fully charged just disconnect the charger then it will show 100% battery after few second it shows you 85 to 87 % may be less.

Yes, I also updated last night both BIOS and network driver (Network_Intel).

correct. Can you please tell how to check this cracking audio thing, try to play youtube video but didn't notice any cracking audio thing, but when I start the DPC latency I can see the yellow and red bars even if I don't play any online videos. It goes upto 6550.

 

If you want to see (well hear) the issue, read my first post. Generate a large amount of traffic either by a file transfer or iperf or similar.

You really need a good 802.11n network. I get much better throughput on 5GHz too. I get upto 15MByte/sec throughput with my Asus RT-N56U router.

Play some quiet music perhaps classical. When the machine is idle it will not cause problems. It will only be a problem if something is actually playing. So if you play something with quiet passages it's much easier to hear.

If you can get lots of red bars with DPC latency you should be able to hear it. I might try and do a video of it. Not sure how well my camera would pick up the bad audio though.

 

I had the Centrino card replaced and I was told it was a newer "revision" of the one that was in my computer. Unfortunately, it didn't do anything to improve the latency.

 

Still issue is remains same ?

 

Unfortunately, yes. I am willing to settle with the Broadcom card that Shonky used to have on his 15z that Dell took back. The thing is, I need this problem solved because I HAVE to stream lectures from online.

 

So, 15z is whole y machine made of all faulty.

 

Maybe that's a stretch
But considering its a brand new model, I expected a few issues

Few issues I got...
1. (minor) LCD Bezel being loose -- Dell replaced LCD (see note* below)
2. (worst) Focus being lost while typing, etc -- luckily a workaround helped
3. (bad) Crackling audio on streams -- no solution or workaround yet!
4. Battery -- capacity levels are not consistent (and not close to advertised times.. could be FHD)

* Worst part of replacing LCD was that the technician Dell sends is from some 3rd party. This guy has never seen a Dell XPS 15z and he learned opening it on my laptop!! And guess what happened!..messed up Audio input. For which Dell did another LCD replacement..still issue not fixed..then replaced the laptop itself.. now I'm not sure of asking for in-house support

 

Soon I'm going to start a issue thread.

 

Shonky,

Did you ever do a clean install on the 15z with the Centrino card to see if the cracking went away?

 

^^ Bro, I tried and still DPC latency showing wired frequency

 

So you wiped your hard drive, reloaded the OS, used drivers from the Dell website, and it STILL didn't resolve the latency spikes/crackling audio?...

 

I only did a "clean" install via the Dell Restore. So not really clean at all since it had all the Dell bloatware. But the crackling was present on the very first Windows login after that (I had set up the Wifi during the re-installation).

I might upgrade to an SSD soon. If I do that I might do a fully Dell bloat free install but I didn't get the DVD media kit since I purchased in a retail store. If I had bought online direct, it would have been $1.54, but Dell want $55 for it now.

 

What did and always do, whenever I get system from the day first I format the default partition and create according to my need after that I check the latest drivers on Dell website download them and also with window update plus cross referencing with driver CD which I got with my laptop. So there is no trace of Dell setting or there that drivers which install in system by them. I think it's very clean installation.

 

Ok I was wondering if I should try a clean install. But since it seems that this would not fix the problem, I won't spend my time doing so.

 

Shonky, what did Dell do after you sent back your 15z?

 

Nothing. Zero. Zip. Zilch.

Haven't heard a thing. Last communication after I rejected the Wifi card downgrade was:

 

Also I'm currently running 14.3.0.6 dated 20/12/2011 which I just downloaded from the official webpage. It does seem to have improved to the point that it's not very easy to hear any more. I still see spikes in the DPC latency tool like in the attachment. Previously it would be almost solid red bars filling the display.

 

Shonky what they trying say only refund of Wi-Fi what does it mean. It's possible Dell can install any other card which you want, as you mention earlier in post, I think broadcom one.

 

As part of the debugging process they decided to replace the Intel 6230 NIC with a Broadcom based one. That essentially fixed the problem but gave me reduced functionality (no MyWifi, no 5GHz etc) as well as slower speeds of only 150Mbps vs 300Mbps

I had the option of taking the Broadcom based one and they would "refund" the cost of the Intel NIC. i.e. I might get $50-100 back. I didn't want that. I wanted what I paid for to work properly.

On top of this I'm now have graphics corruption issues with the Intel graphics that I didn't have with the first machine I bought

 

Shonky, i don't even know what to say. At this point, you should demand a refund if possible. But if it's any consolation, Dell hasn't done anything more than replace the Centrino card with an identical. I am hoping that a driver update will finally end this issue.

 

So it's means all that machine who having Intel 6230 are getting the same issue it doesn't matter if it's 15z or XPS 15 right ?

 

I don't think we know that for sure.

Remember that the XPS15 and XPS15z whilst they have similar names are not really the same family of machine.

They might have the same issue if they have the same or similar hardware/components and use the same drivers. I don't believe any one has reported the XPS15 to have this issue.

 

I'll take this back. Problem is still definitely there and noticeable. It seems some days are better than others Occasionally I get a "stutter" which it plays a very short bit a few times. Kind of sounds like a buzz.

 

I got my XPS 15z yesterday and I think im having the same problem as you? Maybe you can confirm.

Essentially im connecting to my home wifi network. I have 50MB connection but im getting some really inconsistent connection issues. Originally i thought it was my ISP but this is not the case. Trying to download do updates etc my speeds are dropping all over the place. From 5KB to 500KB. I havnt even been able to do a full broadband speed test as it fails everytime.

Whats the best way to see if im getting this problem? Do a large download and play some music and see if i am getting the crackling noise?

 

Just to note i have also done the latest driver updates and have also updated the BIOS to the A08 bios update.

 

Man it's our Intel 6230 Wifi card

 

Has anyone tried the following?

changing the `Power Saving Mode` to `Maximum Performance`Im reading from the Intel forums alot of people are having little or no connectivity problems by making this change. No dropped signals and speeds are good.

Anyone else?