*** XPS 17 Owner's Lounge ***

Well that's been a complete disaster.

My new XPS 9700 was delivered on Tuesday, faulty right out of the box. Do Dell actually QC their products at all?

The 8 core CPU appears to be locked at maximum frequency most of the time even when not under load and only occasionally dropping. The CPU temp never dropped below 80 degrees at idle, opening Google Chrome would see all cores hitting 100 degrees. Within a couple of minutes the entire case, carbon fibre deck and underside was uncomfortably hot to touch. Fans spinning at maximum all the time. I checked all the power profile settings, flashed the bios and reinstalled a fresh image. Dell accepted it was faulty straight away. Lots of system board temp warnings.

Add to that the apparently fixed issue with the trackpad wasn't quite as fixed as Dell claim. The lower left of the trackpad was visibly wobbly whilst the lower right was so stiff and resistant you'd have to press really hard to register a click. The rest of the trackpad didn't register a click at all.

Finally just to add insult to injury the battery wear appeared to be 21%. I know it's unrealistic to expect anywhere near 100% but honestly? Was this a spare used battery they had knocking around for a few months?

I appreciate this isn't representative of all shipped XPS's but it's really put me off Dell. How on earth did my laptop get out of the factory?

I can't even say I'm disappointed as I didn't expect any better. I've just ended up feeling foolish and frustrated for being stupid enough to buy a $3k+ paperweight from Dell. When it comes to Dell, buyer beware.

 

Wrightc23,
The 100% max CPU usage has to do with the power plan, see if your power plan is on best performance, rather than better performance/balanced.
The battery might take a few cycles to correct itself, which i believe is normal (someone correct me if i'm wrong).
Edit: I'd be pissed with the trackpad

 

Thanks, I tried all that, it made no difference. I even restored the plan attributes back so I could set the the max cpu to 5%. The laptop was tripping thermal warnings whilst booted in the bios with the fans spinning on maximum.
I'm probably being harsh about the battery but I was pretty pissed by that point.

 

Oh wow! RMA that baby

 

Regarding Dell QC: my first Alienware arrived with wrong GPU, the other one with faulty GPU!

Max clocks could be due to perf mode - this doesn't mean the CPU is drawing max power. In fact, it can run at max clocks and draw a few W.

Like every Dell performance laptop, yours likely needs to be undervolted (recommend ThrottleStop) and repasted to perform as expected...

 

Looks exciting, just wished they used a 1000 cycle battery instead of a 300 cycle one. Then again it is easier to replace than on a Mac.

 

WRT the power plan - make sure you use the Dell Power Manager and not just the windows settings (I had a refurb with a clean win10 install and the previous power plan of cool an slow was still set).

 

AFAIK, there won't be any undervolting for 10th gen CPUs (at least with Dell not giving the option to set SGX)...

 

RIP thin and light 10th gen Intel laptops then, unless they are factory optimised.

 

There is no factory undervolt applied from the reviews I've seen.

 

Lets hope this didn't happen to your lappy: https://www.reddit.com/r/Dell/comments/h9dlqa/found_a_piece_of_plastic_between_cpu_and_heat/

 

Don't make my mistake of just letting little things slide and trusting RMA - RETURN IT NOW. RETURN IT NOW! RETURN IT NOW NOW NOW! GET YOUR MONEY BACK.

Incase if you didn't really get what I meant:

RETURN IT NOW! GET YOUR MONEY BACK!

EDIT: I know the XPS 17 9700 is a wonderful combination of features not seen anywhere else on the market. I know it is very unique. It can be very performant while having wonderful battery life and a great display. Just know that even remotely trusting the RMA process in fixing anything (without breaking something else) is like playing Russian roulette. There are only two outcomes: you delay the inevitable or you lose right then and there. IMO, unless if you have luck + a silver tongue, you aren't talking your way out of a mess.

If you are still within the return window, it's time to return the laptop and get your money back. Only when the money is back in your hands, is it time to consider buying another XPS 17 and hoping for perfection, or seeing if anything else has come onto the market since then.

 

Ouch! Just got notices from Dell & FedEx that mine will arrive Saturday. Hoping for better QC...

 

Anybody got an idea why I would have constant failures when I plug a USB-A mouse in using the USB-C dongle that came with the laptop? I've tried with a Razer DeathAdder Elite and with a generic old Dell optical mouse. Both pop in and out of the HID list in device manager, and both show as failed when the pop out, but working when they pop back in. The Razer makes this even more obvious because the light goes out every time it fails--which is every few seconds.

 

I won't bother to quote myself since I'm the only one talking... It's a faulty thunderbolt port. So much for better QC...

 

Are there any thunderbolt firmware/driver updates out? If not, what is Dell doing to make it right for you?

 

Will be interesting to see how these end up performing:

https://www.xmg.gg/en/xmg-neo-17

Factory liquid metal, but no 2080S option for some reason. I'd assume existence of a Clevo/Sager variant.

 

Looks like a TongFang, same is the Eluktronics MECH-17.

 

I don't know why, but I'm also having troubles with mouth a Razer mouse and a keyboard on USB C to A adapters, both dell brand adapters. I'm finding that I have to unplug and re-plug up to 3 or 4 times to get them to work sometimes.

Unrelated; I'm also having issues with eGPU crashing - event viewer showing driver failure. Lastly - the trackpad around the outer 10% of the edges doesn't seem to hold down a click and continues to reclick on its own. This laptop is giving me quite the headache. Not too thrilled with these 3 issues I'm encountering so far.

Edit: Just saw your follow up post about a faulty TB3 port.

 

One annoying revelation I noticed is that the Dell XPS laptops are throttled while on battery power - while for example MacBooks remain at full power on battery. That is kind of disappointing for anyone who does like to work mobile/off the charger (and apparently can’t be fixed by just changing power/battery settings to maximum performance). Can anyone else confirm?

 

I ran all updates, and it's only one of the four ports that has this problem, so definitely hardware. Can't RMA on weekends, so I'll be calling first thing in the morning.

 

Forced me to waste 90 minutes with tech support, but after I bit his head off before he could finish the sentence that began with "It's soldered on, so a motherboard replacement...", the RMA process went pretty smoothly. I decided to go with the 64GB Crucial pack from Newegg that somebody linked here earlier, so I asked for a refund and ordered a new one with only the base 8GB.

 

8GB is the way to go with Dell laptops, and probably the reason why they started soldering RAM!

 

Hello

Can anyone confirm whether the XPS 17 has one or two PCIE slots?

 

I can confirm apple does the same thing as well. They all do. It's a function of battery life.

 

Are you talking about M.2 PCIE slots? If so, then two.

 

Should be an easy repaste job anyway based on what I have seen of the internals. Dell uses some pretty terrible thermal crud so anyone that buys one should repaste.

 

The benchmark runs on the MacBooks didn’t lower when on battery compared on the XPS, so not sure about this.

 

I have seen many benchmarks where apples just dies when pushed hard. It's not some magical device. It lives in the same constraints as the others. Although apple users will make you believe it's the second coming.

 

I am strictly talking about whether the laptop is throttled on battery under load, not about how good or bad an Apple or non Apple performs on benchmarks - it’s obvious MacBooks being so thin and light with a meh cooling solution will never be the fastest.

A recent review comparing the two machines under benchmarks on and off battery and noticed the Dell perform a lot worse on battery (despite trying to change power profiles) while the Mac performed the same. Might be a Windows thing?

 

I know exactly what you are saying and it happens with Macbook too.

 

Who knew, laptops tend to be configured in energy saving mode while running on battery! Absolute shocker lol Surely people would prefer the laptop to run at full speed with 30 min battery life under load.

 

One important thing to remember is power draw on the battery. It's not good to have high load on batteries and will shorten their lifespan and can cause damage. You're not going to ever get 100% performance when only on the battery.

You can mess around with power limits with throttle stop if you want to get more CPU power while on battery, but that's on you. It's a shame you can't undervolt the CPU as that would limit power draw and provide a nice boost to performance.

 

From 7:30.

 

It's a video with a guy talking. It proves nothing. Who knows what settings he was using for both. Again, the apple does the exact same thing you describe it not to do when on battery power. Physics is wonderful.

 

Totally agree, there is zero proof of anything. Just him saying the MBP runs at full speed. I'll remain skeptical.

 

This is Apple-book behavior...

The basic cooling performance of the Apple MacBook Pro 15 did not change, and especially the optional 6-core Core i9 processor in the 2018 model was not faster than the i7 6-core. It seems Apple tuned the system a bit, because the 8-core Core i9-9880H performs better.

We see a short peak consumption of 100 Watts, but it eventually levels off at around 53 W after a couple of seconds. This level can be maintained for a few minutes, before the CPU then stabilizes at 45 W. This behavior is well illustrated by our Cinebench Multi loop.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple...h-Core-i9-and-Vega-16-in-review.450306.0.html

 

I don’t think you are following the conversation, your link doesn’t compare benchmarks while powered vs on battery on the 16”. We know none of these laptops can handle turbo boosted clock speeds at max. Maybe the “full speed” in the post you quoted was ambiguous in context - what they meant was the same speed on battery as on power.

Physics has nothing to do with limiting power on battery - this is a 100W limited machine so nothing stopping it running at the same speed on battery as it does on power - it’ll just mean it’ll kill the battery faster.

I think you might be barking up the wrong tree - what exactly did I describe it not to do when on battery power? Seems like some misunderstandings going on in this thread.

 

The video you posted doesn't actually show anything. I could make a video saying that my G14 can turbo to 5ghz all core, doesn't make it true. If he posted some benchmarks from both systems with AC power and without I'd be more inclined to believe him. The CPU isn't putting out 100W... You can use Throttle stop to change turbo timers/package power if you really want full CPU power while on battery, but again it's not good for the battery.

 

Physics has everything to do with it, fanboying out does not however. You stated Macbook don't limit power on battery. In fact it does. What's so hard to understand.

 

Limit power vs plugged in, not about limit clock speeds altogether.

Eg if it stabilises on 2.5ghz using power cable, it does the same while on battery. I am not saying while on battery it is able to do 5ghz or whatever.

Sure he could be lying or wrong, but do we have confirmation that clock speeds are higher while plugged in on the MacBook vs when on battery power? There is no physics as to why this should be the case - if it is the case it would be only done to preserve battery life.

In a nutshell, does the MacBook export a 4K video faster if you plug it in compared to if you are just on battery. It’s quite rare to see people check performance on and off power supply so it was new information to me.

Again, in the video he isn’t saying it turbos at max clocks. He is saying the performance of the laptop is consistent whether you are plugged in or not, as compared to the Dell which performed better while plugged in (suggesting an aggressive battery saving mechanism - perhaps to aid against battery wear - or maybe because it has a higher power package than that which can be supplied by the battery).

 

OK, I'm bowing out now. You do not comprehend what is being said.

 

You should have bowed out ages ago if you couldn’t confirm with any evidence other than “physics” in the wrong context. All you would have had to do was show a bench mark on battery vs plugged in on a MacBook - all this unnecessary defensiveness when my original post was “can anyone confirm?” and instead you guys were being hypocritical - you said I shouldn’t take this reviewers words as gospel (which I didn’t - hence me asking if someone could confirm) but you guys wanted me to just take your word as gospel instead and got angry. I think you and etern4l would get along very well.

 

This is all down to the manufacturers. Apple has a 100W battery and 100W Charger supplying power to the MacBook Pro 16. Most windows manufacturers have much more powerful chargers and that’s why the performance drop gap while running plugged in vs battery is so big when compared to Apple’s offerings.
Some laptops have 300W chargers and like 84Whr batteries. You just cannot get the same or, in this case, similar performance when running on battery.
Yes, even Apple’s laptops will throttle the performance down while on battery after a few minutes of stress. All done to preserve the battery longevity.
Which do I prefer? Well, I have the XPS 17 so I do like the fact that I can get better performance when plugged in (vs MB pro 16). I don’t find myself needing all that performance on the go. If your use case requires maximum performance, then MacBooks will give you that. Performance here is relative as well. So an i7/5300M MB pro 16 will hold its “plugged in“ performance better than an i9/5500M when they’re both running on battery.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Wow. If Applebooks really come with a 100W charger, it would follow they have to draw power from the battery under load even if plugged in, and cannot sustain max theoretical system power of a 45-90W CPU plus a high-end GPU (although to be fair, last time I checked no Applebook was offered with a high-end GPU)... Sad.

 

Again, WRONG.

Physics is more than moving things bucko. Also, You have no evidence provided that your claims are correct other than a guy blabbering on a youtube video. I am not angry. You are just upset that your views are not correct. Every device throttles at some point on battery....why? If they never, your battery life would be about an hour. PHYSICS!

 

Sigh... They are not my views, nor my “evidence”. Hence why I asked if anyone could confirm (due to the missing evidence) of the claim by the YouTuber.

There was no obligation for anyone to even provide said evidence - it is optional. What I didn’t want is another persons opinion, which like the Youtubers, cannot be verified. How ironic that someone is trying to bash me for not providing irrefutable evidence (which I didn’t claim my link was), when they themselves don’t?! That to me is the sign of someone angry without logic or reason. And yes you are angry, why else would you accuse me (a long time Apple critic on this board and others when they got things wrong) of being an Apple fanboy?

Also by admitting that the battery would last less than an hour without throttling (contradicting yourself...), that means it is possible to run a laptop at that power at the cost of battery life. Apple may have chosen to do just that as claimed by said YouTuber. He however could be wrong. But where is the evidence that physics stops it running at that power? None has been provided. They may limit it for efficiency reasons but that is not the same as something being physically impossible.

Shouting “PHYSICS” doesn’t make you look smart, especially in the wrong context, believe me.

 

I can see a lot of Adobe creatives jumping to the XPS 17, the Dell beats the Mac by quite a high margin.

 

facepalm. You ask a freakin question....get an answer YOU don't like. and then go on the offensive. Again, I am not angry, you are. I give you the answer you don't want to hear. I don't know you from adam. Hence the apple fanboy comment. Good for you that you don't like apple. I used to be like that until very recently as well.