Dell XPS 13 9350 Late 2015

tmotard · 2016-05-13 06:38:10

Blind wrote:

Is anyone of you guys experiencing random intermittent stops in touchpad response, once the system was suspended and resumed? Once the touchpad 'continues' the cursor jumps wherever your franitc finger movements may have led it ;-)
I have the developers edition of the XPS 13 (2016).

hi,
i've got the same problem since few days.
will try to disable i915.enable_psr kernel as halka told us to do.

kgizdov · 2016-05-13 08:05:02

tmotard wrote:

Blind wrote:
Is anyone of you guys experiencing random intermittent stops in touchpad response, once the system was suspended and resumed? Once the touchpad 'continues' the cursor jumps wherever your franitc finger movements may have led it ;-)
I have the developers edition of the XPS 13 (2016).
hi,
i've got the same problem since few days.
will try to disable i915.enable_psr kernel as halka told us to do.

I have a similar problem and haven't been able to mitigate. When I triple tap the cursor, it gets locked and I have to triple tap again to be able to use it. This was introduced with 4.5 and is still present with 4.6. I'm using libinputas, because psmouse doesn't work for me.

halka · 2016-05-13 17:51:14

Baba Tong wrote:

Finally got my hands on the i5 developer edition.
Running 4.6rc7, i915.enable_rc6=7
fbc and psr disabled, as enabling either/both causes flickering and for whatever reason causes qt applications to lag
other than that, getting acceptable power usage, around 5-7W with backlight 100% on.
So, all in all, quite usable and not many problems.

5-7W is pretty damn solid. Just to check, which display panel did your XPS come with? Which wifi card?

cabellicar123 · 2016-05-14 01:49:47

Has anyone gotten HDMI to work through the Thunderbolt 3/USB-C port? The display's name is listed correctly in my Cinnamon display settings, but there does not seem to be any output and the display does not register any signal. I'm using the Dell Thunderbolt 3 hub. I'm running 4.5.4.

frank604 · 2016-05-14 02:29:20

cabellicar123 wrote:

Has anyone gotten HDMI to work through the Thunderbolt 3/USB-C port? The display's name is listed correctly in my Cinnamon display settings, but there does not seem to be any output and the display does not register any signal. I'm using the Dell Thunderbolt 3 hub. I'm running 4.5.4.

Can you test against the 4.6-rc7 kernel?

belette · 2016-05-14 10:58:43

I noticed after kernel 4.5.3 upgrade (and lot of other packages upgraded) that opengl is not active anymore on my system.
anyone has the same issue? something special to solve this issue?

Baba Tong · 2016-05-14 14:49:32

halka wrote:

Baba Tong wrote:
Finally got my hands on the i5 developer edition.
Running 4.6rc7, i915.enable_rc6=7
fbc and psr disabled, as enabling either/both causes flickering and for whatever reason causes qt applications to lag
other than that, getting acceptable power usage, around 5-7W with backlight 100% on.
So, all in all, quite usable and not many problems.
5-7W is pretty damn solid. Just to check, which display panel did your XPS come with? Which wifi card?

It's the 13.3'' FHD 1920 x 1080 InfinityEdge display, the wifi card being a dual-band Intel 8260.

In terms of power management, just run TLP on default settings at the moment, and actively try to avoid using any software with big overheads (which probably makes little difference tbh).

Might be worth pointing out to anyone here as well: on 4.6rc7, adding nvme to hooks is not required.

ml · 2016-05-14 16:47:43

Used the Dell XPS 13 9350 QHD+ 16Gb RAM for less than a month.
Today it got hung up so I had to power off by pressing the power button.
Didn't boot anymore, didn't even show the POST screen.

So consider yourself warned, might be yet another overpriced low quality product.
(IMHO this device is not worth the money.)

And no, it didn't fell or whatever. I treat my devices with a lot of care. My old (cheap) Laptop still works without any hardware failure after 6 years.

Baba Tong · 2016-05-14 17:07:50

ml wrote:

Used the Dell XPS 13 9350 QHD+ 16Gb RAM for less than a month.
Today it got hung up so I had to power off by pressing the power button.
Didn't boot anymore, didn't even show the POST screen.
So consider yourself warned, might be yet another overpriced low quality product.
(IMHO this device is not worth the money.)
And no, it didn't fell or whatever. I treat my devices with a lot of care. My old (cheap) Laptop still works without any hardware failure after 6 years.

It's virtually impossible to produce something as technically complex as a laptop in high volumes and then transport it all over the world without a certain percentage failing early in their lifespan. A single instance of anecdotal evidence should hardly be used to make far-fetched conclusions about the entirety of the product line. Dell support might not be the best out there, but if your case is as you describe, then they will either replace or refund it.

The reason I chose to get the XPS is because I've repaired and upgraded a fair few at work (and thus have seen them extensively from the in- and outside). Their build quality is sound, the only weakness being the soldered-on RAM and weird camera placement. As for choice of components, internal layout, chassi build quality, I certainly can't fault any of them, and the fact that they provide maintenance manuals and upgrade instructions freely is more than excellent. Further add the fact, that Dell does make an effort for it to work with Linux, something many I know would be happy to pay a premium for (as of right now, the dev edition is in fact cheaper than the Windows one).

If you ask me, the XPS 13 is entirely worth the money.

Last edited by Baba Tong (2016-05-14 17:08:39)

ml · 2016-05-14 18:58:09

Baba Tong wrote:

ml wrote:
Used the Dell XPS 13 9350 QHD+ 16Gb RAM for less than a month.
Today it got hung up so I had to power off by pressing the power button.
Didn't boot anymore, didn't even show the POST screen.
So consider yourself warned, might be yet another overpriced low quality product.
(IMHO this device is not worth the money.)
And no, it didn't fell or whatever. I treat my devices with a lot of care. My old (cheap) Laptop still works without any hardware failure after 6 years.
It's virtually impossible to produce something as technically complex as a laptop in high volumes and then transport it all over the world without a certain percentage failing early in their lifespan. A single instance of anecdotal evidence should hardly be used to make far-fetched conclusions about the entirety of the product line. Dell support might not be the best out there, but if your case is as you describe, then they will either replace or refund it.
The reason I chose to get the XPS is because I've repaired and upgraded a fair few at work (and thus have seen them extensively from the in- and outside). Their build quality is sound, the only weakness being the soldered-on RAM and weird camera placement. As for choice of components, internal layout, chassi build quality, I certainly can't fault any of them, and the fact that they provide maintenance manuals and upgrade instructions freely is more than excellent. Further add the fact, that Dell does make an effort for it to work with Linux, something many I know would be happy to pay a premium for (as of right now, the dev edition is in fact cheaper than the Windows one).
If you ask me, the XPS 13 is entirely worth the money.

Paid over 2000€ for this thing.
1849€ for the Laptop and around 300€ for the Samsung M.2 (especially for this device).
The 300€ M.2 drive is useless now, so is the broken Laptop.
I have no chance to get a refund since I'm a few days over the 14 days money back guarantee. (oh what coincidence)

Maybe you're from the US or some other country without or with low taxes, then this device is very affordable.

And no, you can't say this device works with Linux, oh well maybe if you fix this, set that, use the latest mainline Kernel whatever. For a 1800€ device which is officially sold with Ubuntu, this is bullshit.

Soldered-on RAM: Single-Point-of-Failure.
QHD+ reminds me of 1440x900. the crippled brother of 4K. Since they offer the XPS 12 with a 4K display there is no reason why the XPS 13 doesn't have one.

I regretted it the days after I received this thing. Should've gone for this Laptop (which I already ordered but then canceled)
http://www.tuxedocomputers.com/Linux-Ha … -Book.geek

Compared to my old 200€ Laptop which I've been using for almost 6 years without any hardware failure, this device is trash.

Been starving 6 months to save money for a good portable laptop, got this crap, every day without a working device is additional financial damage.
So yes, this is an unfair review of this Laptop because my whole world just collapsed.

bart_vv · 2016-05-14 19:27:38

Don't know why QHD+ is worse than 4K in any way , I really can't understand the push for absurdly high res in small devices. Maybe when majority of the video content will be 4K this will be bad because of the need for scaling, but in reality at least a decade will have to pass for that. Though yes, I would prefer FHD and matte display, but there weren't any with 16GB. Soldered RAM? Yeah, can be annoying for developers with urgent need for more RAM, but for other groups, how often do they actually replace their RAM instead of buying a new laptop? How often do old (used at least for one/two years, the standard warranty period) RAM sticks fail?

Baba Tong wrote:

A single instance of anecdotal evidence should hardly be used to make far-fetched conclusions about the entirety of the product line.

Well said. It is also very unscientific, but I guess can be explained by the frustration and the losses, both financial and in time, of the buyer. Too bad, mate. As for me, I am happy with my xps 13 and I be staying with it for the next few years. Unless, of course, it fails - they surely I will call it a piece of crap and buy something different

But, I would still advise you to replace it, maybe you will be happy with it after all. As you can see, the vast majority of owners do praise this laptop.

ksim · 2016-05-14 19:36:28

ml wrote:

Paid over 2000€ for this thing.
1849€ for the Laptop and around 300€ for the Samsung M.2 (especially for this device).
The 300€ M.2 drive is useless now, so is the broken Laptop.
I have no chance to get a refund since I'm a few days over the 14 days money back guarantee. (oh what coincidence)
Maybe you're from the US or some other country without or with low taxes, then this device is very affordable.
And no, you can't say this device works with Linux, oh well maybe if you fix this, set that, use the latest mainline Kernel whatever. For a 1800€ device which is officially sold with Ubuntu, this is bullshit.
Soldered-on RAM: Single-Point-of-Failure.
QHD+ reminds me of 1440x900. the crippled brother of 4K. Since they offer the XPS 12 with a 4K display there is no reason why the XPS 13 doesn't have one.
I regretted it the days after I received this thing. Should've gone for this Laptop (which I already ordered but then canceled)
http://www.tuxedocomputers.com/Linux-Ha … -Book.geek
Compared to my old 200€ Laptop which I've been using for almost 6 years without any hardware failure, this device is trash.
Been starving 6 months to save money for a good portable laptop, got this crap, every day without a working device is additional financial damage.
So yes, this is an unfair review of this Laptop because my whole world just collapsed.

Bought 9350 QHD+ 16Gb RAM in October (preorder for £1350), the standard SSD is good enough, no reason to replace it, since that have been using linux happily, had a failure (fan started to make crackling noises, was fixed next day by a dell engineer), the battery life is perfect for me, using the laptop as a powerbank for my phone, was able to watch movies/series/use internet for 6-7 hours on one charge in long trips, the screen just perfect, font looks awesome, the resolution is perfect for the screen size. I think it is the best laptop I've ever had, silent, powerful, good battery live, good linux support (every kernel release improves things, all laptops/PCs on skylake have similar problems, they are related to CPU and GPU, not the laptop brand). I am sure Dell will replace the laptop or even they might refund if you are so unhappy, and you can be unhappy with another model. But please go somethere else and do not post that type of messages in the technical conference related to Archlinux. you can go to forum.notebookreview.com or en.community.dell.com, they are much better places for you tears.

ml · 2016-05-14 19:45:46

bart_vv wrote:

But, I would still advise you to replace it, maybe you will be happy with it after all. As you can see, the vast majority of owners do praise this laptop.

I'll replace it obviously, since I can't get a refund anymore.
And I don't think most owners praise this laptop since this device has by far more issues with Linux than most other devices, devices that don't have a thread in this subforum.

But to get back to the topic since I'll have to live on with this laptop and still want to resolve some issues:

Applications like Steam and Spotify didn't seem to be affected by the Xorg ScreenSize setting and remain with a extremely small (almost unreadable) font.
Did anyone already solve this issue and/or can link be to a helpful article?

Edit:
Also, the Touchpad "Tapping" (Xorg setting) seems to some times disable itself randomly. Any info on that?

Last edited by ml (2016-05-14 20:07:52)

ksim · 2016-05-14 21:02:22

ml wrote:

Applications like Steam

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/HiDPI#Steam

ml wrote:

and Spotify

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/HiDPI#Spotify

ml wrote:

Edit:
Also, the Touchpad "Tapping" (Xorg setting) seems to some times disable itself randomly. Any info on that?

never had that, tapping always works.

cabellicar123 · 2016-05-15 04:16:18

frank604 wrote:

Can you test against the 4.6-rc7 kernel?

As 4.6 will be released any day now and some important work I have to get done in the next few days, I'll wait to upgrade. I'll report back if this new release fixes the issue.

Nabobalis · 2016-05-16 12:32:59

ksim wrote:

...the battery life is perfect for me, using the laptop as a powerbank for my phone, was able to watch movies/series/use internet for 6-7 hours on one charge in long trips, ....

I agree, I do love the QHD+ screen and this laptop but never has the battery lasted that long either on linux or windows. 3-5 hours on a single charge is typical for me.

ksim · 2016-05-16 12:43:55

Nabobalis wrote:

ksim wrote:
...the battery life is perfect for me, using the laptop as a powerbank for my phone, was able to watch movies/series/use internet for 6-7 hours on one charge in long trips, ....
I agree, I do love the QHD+ screen and this laptop but never has the battery lasted that long either on linux or windows. 3-5 hours on a single charge is typical for me.

the screen is not related to the battery time much, linux (windows also) is not good with NVMe and powersave states yet. this is why SATA version has much better battery time.

kgizdov · 2016-05-16 23:42:30

I have some good news to report. Since kernel 4.6 my Dell recognises and connects to my Nexus 6P over the USB-C -> Thunderbolt port. Charging, file transfer, ADB, etc. are all working as expected. I will test the small Dell Adapter DA200 tomorrow and will update.

projectgus · 2016-05-17 00:34:29

cabellicar123 wrote:

Has anyone gotten HDMI to work through the Thunderbolt 3/USB-C port? The display's name is listed correctly in my Cinnamon display settings, but there does not seem to be any output and the display does not register any signal. I'm using the Dell Thunderbolt 3 hub. I'm running 4.5.4.

I had the USB 3.1/DisplayPort output working in Arch's 4.5.2 kernel, using a generic (Taikesen brand) USB 3.1 to HDMI adapter (the DisplayPort Alternative Mode type, not a USB device). It also worked in 4.6rc5 (and rc4), but in 4.6 I had a lot of display flicker on the LCD (the fixes in this forum thread made the flicker better for me but not entirely, QHD display.)

However the USB 3.1/DisplayPort adapter stopped working when I updated to 4.5.4 (the DP-1 output always shows as Disconnected in xrandr.)

EDIT: Mainline 4.6rc7 also didn't work for me, but I'm fairly sure older 4.6 release candidates did. Have rolled back to 4.5.2 until I have time to poke around some more.

EDIT: 4.6 works, it's possible I messed the earlier 4.6 revisions up using the wrong kernel parameter.

One thing that's been consistent when using the USB 3.1/DisplayPort output on all kernels is that it seems to break both resume and poweroff - the system freezes almost every time and I have to hold the power button. . It freezes even if I've already disconnected the DP adapter and disabled the output in xrandr.

EDIT: Suspend and resume works OK with displayport connected in 4.6, although there still seem to be some subtle bugs.

(Overall I'm surprised the Linux support is so patchy, I should have done more research before I bought mine. The hardware build quality seems very good, but I'm surprised to have so many kernel integration problems given Dell ship factory Linux in the very similar Developer Edition.)

Last edited by projectgus (2016-05-18 07:22:22)

SheepOnMeth · 2016-05-17 11:47:15

I have been using 4.6 since this morning with psr enable, no flickering. It is working well with the WD15 dock with a screen connected via displayport, audio and network also perfect. I have the FHD model.

The only problem is the touchpad, 3 fingers touch lock the touchpad in a weird mode. To go back to the normal mode, a 3 fingers touch is needed. I think it is more related to libinput that the kernel. I am still not sure that libinput is reading my config file correctly because the libinput-list-devices command output is wrong about the running config.

I will test the Dell Adapter DA200 tonight.

OdinEidolon · 2016-05-17 12:21:53

SheepOnMeth wrote:

I have been using 4.6 since this morning with psr enable, no flickering. It is working well with the WD15 dock with a screen connected via displayport, audio and network also perfect. I have the FHD model.
The only problem is the touchpad, 3 fingers touch lock the touchpad in a weird mode. To go back to the normal mode, a 3 fingers touch is needed. I think it is more related to libinput that the kernel. I am still not sure that libinput is reading my config file correctly because the libinput-list-devices command output is wrong about the running config.
I will test the Dell Adapter DA200 tonight.

Thank you for reporting about the dock and the DA adapter, I'm very interested on those.

tmotard · 2016-05-17 13:08:23

Yes @SheepOnMeth
thanks a lot for reporting. i'm very interested about the DA200.

zetxx · 2016-05-17 14:17:06

SheepOnMeth wrote:

I have been using 4.6 since this morning with psr enable, no flickering. It is working well with the WD15 dock with a screen connected via displayport, audio and network also perfect. I have the FHD model.
The only problem is the touchpad, 3 fingers touch lock the touchpad in a weird mode. To go back to the normal mode, a 3 fingers touch is needed. I think it is more related to libinput that the kernel. I am still not sure that libinput is reading my config file correctly because the libinput-list-devices command output is wrong about the running config.
I will test the Dell Adapter DA200 tonight.

i can't confirm that, but i can confirm that with psr=1 and started chrome without chromium-browser --disable-gpu-driver-bug-workarounds --enable-native-gpu-memory-buffers my xfce is freezing !

Last edited by zetxx (2016-05-17 14:17:28)

xxxifan · 2016-05-17 14:52:03

I'm on 4.6 kernel and facing page blinking while browsing with chrome. xorg settings is default(no any settings)

belette · 2016-05-17 21:52:40

After upgrading to 4.53 I got now blurring in Firefox when I scrool down (I think it is related to the fact that I lost opengl with this upgrade!)
I still get (more) entire system freeze (which is a very big issue for me as I am working with the XPS...all the others issue are anoying but I can almost live with them but impossible for the system freeze...)
Anyone who has been able to solve this issue entierly with some known parameters or something else?
it is very frustracting to get entire freezed system more than 3 times per day on a 2000 euros machine ...
many thanks

Arch Linux

#576 2016-05-13 06:38:10

Re: Dell XPS 13 9350 Late 2015

#577 2016-05-13 08:05:02

Re: Dell XPS 13 9350 Late 2015

#578 2016-05-13 17:51:14

Re: Dell XPS 13 9350 Late 2015

#579 2016-05-14 01:49:47

Re: Dell XPS 13 9350 Late 2015

#580 2016-05-14 02:29:20

Re: Dell XPS 13 9350 Late 2015

#581 2016-05-14 10:58:43

Re: Dell XPS 13 9350 Late 2015

#582 2016-05-14 14:49:32

Re: Dell XPS 13 9350 Late 2015

#583 2016-05-14 16:47:43

Re: Dell XPS 13 9350 Late 2015

#584 2016-05-14 17:07:50

Re: Dell XPS 13 9350 Late 2015

#585 2016-05-14 18:58:09

Re: Dell XPS 13 9350 Late 2015

#586 2016-05-14 19:27:38

Re: Dell XPS 13 9350 Late 2015

#587 2016-05-14 19:36:28

Re: Dell XPS 13 9350 Late 2015

#588 2016-05-14 19:45:46

Re: Dell XPS 13 9350 Late 2015

#589 2016-05-14 21:02:22

Re: Dell XPS 13 9350 Late 2015

#590 2016-05-15 04:16:18

Re: Dell XPS 13 9350 Late 2015

#591 2016-05-16 12:32:59

Re: Dell XPS 13 9350 Late 2015

#592 2016-05-16 12:43:55

Re: Dell XPS 13 9350 Late 2015

#593 2016-05-16 23:42:30

Re: Dell XPS 13 9350 Late 2015

#594 2016-05-17 00:34:29

Re: Dell XPS 13 9350 Late 2015

#595 2016-05-17 11:47:15

Re: Dell XPS 13 9350 Late 2015

#596 2016-05-17 12:21:53

Re: Dell XPS 13 9350 Late 2015

#597 2016-05-17 13:08:23

Re: Dell XPS 13 9350 Late 2015

#598 2016-05-17 14:17:06

Re: Dell XPS 13 9350 Late 2015

#599 2016-05-17 14:52:03

Re: Dell XPS 13 9350 Late 2015

#600 2016-05-17 21:52:40

Re: Dell XPS 13 9350 Late 2015

Board footer