Arch Linux

frank604

Member

From: BC, Canada

Registered: 2011-04-20

Posts: 1,212

Dell XPS 13 Late 2016 9360 Kaby Lake 7th Gen

Just purchased the newly released 9360 from Dell.  Very excited to receive it in a couple weeks.  Not sure what issues we will have yet until I boot into Arch.  If anyone in the UK who has already received it can comment please do.

This thread's purpose is to share news about our laptop, issues, solutions, and patches.  Feel free to ask our growing brethren for help.

alexjj

Member

Registered: 2013-02-10

Posts: 11

Re: Dell XPS 13 Late 2016 9360 Kaby Lake 7th Gen

I don't own one but have been eyeing them. The only decent review out at the moment isn't showing the new model as being all that great (compared to the previous one).

I'll be interested to hear about coil whine, and the Content Adaptive Brightness Control (CABC) in the new model. What specs did you go for?

There's a wiki page ready for it.

Last edited by alexjj (2016-10-05 03:22:58)

bulletmark

Member

From: Brisbane, Australia

Registered: 2013-10-22

Posts: 680

Re: Dell XPS 13 Late 2016 9360 Kaby Lake 7th Gen

There's a wiki page ready for it.

We really need to reconcile the names of the wiki pages for the various model XPS 13's as it is was already confusing to name the late 2015 model (9350) as the "2016" model compared to the early 2015 model (9343) and now this late 2016 model (9360) really mucks things up.

alexjj

Member

Registered: 2013-02-10

Posts: 11

Re: Dell XPS 13 Late 2016 9360 Kaby Lake 7th Gen

Yeah, I don't know why the late 2015 was named 2016. Not sure how easy it is to change the naming convention across the wiki though.

frank604

Member

From: BC, Canada

Registered: 2011-04-20

Posts: 1,212

Re: Dell XPS 13 Late 2016 9360 Kaby Lake 7th Gen

@alexjj,
We won't know anything until we get our hands on it I guess   Here is my order description

Item Number     Item Description     Quantity     
210-AJJH     XPS13 MLK     1     $xxxxxx
340-AAMU     US PowerCord 2.5A 1M C5 E5     1     
340-AGIK     SERI Guide (ENG/FR/DUT)     1     
370-ACTJ     16GB On-Board Memory     1     
400-ANKY     512G PCIe SSD     1     
490-BDFO     Intel(R) HD Graphics     1     
555-BCRM     Killer 1535 2x2 AC + BT 4.1     1     
555-BDEV     N1535 Killer Wireless Driver     1     
580-AFNU     Backlit Keyboard, English     1     
619-AHCY     W10H-HE 64 ENG WW     1     
801-1596     HW WRTY,XPSNB1MIM2     1     
801-1601     ACC DAM,XPSNB1MIM2,1YR     1     
803-1629     PRS NBD OS,XPSNB1MIM2,1YR     1     
803-1647     PRS TECH SPT,XPSNB1MIM2,1YR     1     
320-BCDJ     Silver     1     
332-0550     Non-retail Order     1     
332-1530     Non-retail Order     1     
338-BJVG     Intel Core i7-7500U, 16GB,1705     1     
340-ACQQ     Not Included     1     
340-BIWO     Plmat(Eng,Fren,BPor,Spn,Dut)Win10Ubuntu     1     
340-BJLM     Direct Shipping Material     1     
389-BLST     Intel Core i7 Label     1     
391-BCUP     13.3 in QHD+ touch disp, Silver     1     
450-ABEN     45W     1     
451-BBXF     Battery     1     
525-0036     McAfee XPS Live 12 Month Subscription     1     
631-ABDI     Systems Managment SW     1     
658-BCCO     McAfee(R) 30day Trial     1     
658-BCSB     MS Office Trial, MUI     1     
658-BCUJ     Addl SW,XPS,SMOD,Win10,US/CAN     1     
817-BBBP     None Included     1     
998-CCYY     Fixed Hardware Configuration     1

@bulletmark,
I too also felt our naming, in regards to the early/late $year, kinda ... sucks?  You are welcome to bring that up in the discussions though.

Edit: If anyone is in Canada and interested in ordering one, shoot me a PM.  No promises but I may be able to save you some CAD.

Last edited by frank604 (2016-10-05 03:46:57)

kraftverket

Member

Registered: 2016-03-25

Posts: 8

Re: Dell XPS 13 Late 2016 9360 Kaby Lake 7th Gen

I don't have one myself (but interested in getting one). However, I found this in Dell's forum area: http://en.community.dell.com/support-fo … t/19992657

It would seem like the coil whine issue is still present in this new 9360 model.
Now that doesn't concern me, most of my home electronics "whispers", but I bet this is important to some people.

zhjn921224

Member

Registered: 2016-10-05

Posts: 7

Re: Dell XPS 13 Late 2016 9360 Kaby Lake 7th Gen

I'm from China and this 9360 model seems to be launched more than a month ago in our country. I bought it a couple of days ago (i7, 8g, 256g, fhd) and it took me all these days to install Arch Linux and fine tune the system (total newbie here).

I basically followed the installation guide and XPS 9350 wiki page, and so far everything works fine. Two small glitches though: First, I didn't noticed the CABC firmware update in the wiki page before I wiped Windows and installed Arch, so I'm unable to turn it off now. It's a bit annoying when you are always switching between a dark terminal and a bright browser. If you try to wipe Windows like me, don't forget to update that firmware (and also the BIOS).

Second, there is a strange issue with the touchpad. The touchpad does not register the first one or two millimeters of my hand's movement when I touch it, kind of like a delay. But if the cursor starts moving and I don't move my hand away from the touchpad, AND I'm moving only in one direction, it works fine. Whenever I change direction, for example if I'm moving cursor down and now I start to move it up, the delay happens again; or when I move my hand away from the pad. It took me some time to discover this complicated pattern. There are some people using XPS 13 reporting this issue (mostly on Windows) but I cannot find a proper fix. If someone has some thought on this issue, please tell me...

As for the "coil whine", I never heard that sound if I didn't put my ear on the back of the laptop. To be honest, this is the quietest laptop I've ever used. I can barely hear any sound from it if it's not doing some heavy task. And its battery life is also terrific; it can last more than 12 hours of light use (web browsing with low backlight, maybe some video watching).

If you have any questions, I'm also very willing to help :)

Last edited by zhjn921224 (2016-10-06 00:23:08)

kraftverket

Member

Registered: 2016-03-25

Posts: 8

Re: Dell XPS 13 Late 2016 9360 Kaby Lake 7th Gen

I'm from China and this 9360 model seems to be launched more than a month ago in our country. I bought it a couple of days ago (i7, 8g, 256g, fhd) and it took me all these days to install Arch Linux and fine tune the system (total newbie here).

I basically followed the installation guide and XPS 9350 wiki page, and so far everything works fine. Two small glitches though: First, I didn't noticed the CABC firmware update in the wiki page before I wiped Windows and installed Arch, so I'm unable to turn it off now. It's a bit annoying when you are always switching between a dark terminal and a bright browser. If you try to wipe Windows like me, don't forget to update that firmware (and also the BIOS).

Second, there is a strange issue with the touchpad. The touchpad does not register the first one or two millimeters of my hand's movement when I touch it, kind of like a delay. But if the cursor starts moving and I don't move my hand away from the touchpad, AND I'm moving only in one direction, it works fine. Whenever I change direction, for example if I'm moving cursor down and now I start to move it up, the delay happens again; or when I move my hand away from the pad. It took me some time to discover this complicated pattern. There are some people using XPS 13 reporting this issue (mostly on Windows) but I cannot find a proper fix. If someone has some thought on this issue, please tell me...

As for the "coil whine", I never heard that sound if I didn't put my ear on the back of the laptop. To be honest, this is the quietest laptop I've ever used. I can barely hear any sound from it if it's not doing some heavy task. And its battery life is also terrific; it can last more than 12 hours of light use (web browsing with low backlight, maybe some video watching).

If you have any questions, I'm also very willing to help

About the touchpad:
What you are describing is exactly what I found about an older model of the XPS 13. I did read about this only a few days ago, and if I remember correctly this can be solved by adjusting some property in the xorg configuration.

Now, I could be wrong. It could be some firmware update...

I did look through my browser history for this, but I could not find that page. I am sure google (or baidu) could help out, unless some friendly community member steps in

One question: What wireless card do you have installed in your unit? Is it the Killer card?

frank604

Member

From: BC, Canada

Registered: 2011-04-20

Posts: 1,212

Re: Dell XPS 13 Late 2016 9360 Kaby Lake 7th Gen

@kraftverket, never had the coil whine in 9350 and I hope I don't get it in 9360!

@zhjn, you can update bios with a pure linux machine.  Place it in /boot and load up the bios update.  Should be same as 9350 in that regard.  If it is firmware installer, we might have to load it through windows.  Perhaps you can install windows to an external usb harddrive?  Just for these updates at least.  Great to hear you are enjoying the 9360!  Canadian release was much behind the UK and I guess, Asia.

zhjn921224

Member

Registered: 2016-10-05

Posts: 7

Re: Dell XPS 13 Late 2016 9360 Kaby Lake 7th Gen

I'm from China and this 9360 model seems to be launched more than a month ago in our country. I bought it a couple of days ago (i7, 8g, 256g, fhd) and it took me all these days to install Arch Linux and fine tune the system (total newbie here).

I basically followed the installation guide and XPS 9350 wiki page, and so far everything works fine. Two small glitches though: First, I didn't noticed the CABC firmware update in the wiki page before I wiped Windows and installed Arch, so I'm unable to turn it off now. It's a bit annoying when you are always switching between a dark terminal and a bright browser. If you try to wipe Windows like me, don't forget to update that firmware (and also the BIOS).

Second, there is a strange issue with the touchpad. The touchpad does not register the first one or two millimeters of my hand's movement when I touch it, kind of like a delay. But if the cursor starts moving and I don't move my hand away from the touchpad, AND I'm moving only in one direction, it works fine. Whenever I change direction, for example if I'm moving cursor down and now I start to move it up, the delay happens again; or when I move my hand away from the pad. It took me some time to discover this complicated pattern. There are some people using XPS 13 reporting this issue (mostly on Windows) but I cannot find a proper fix. If someone has some thought on this issue, please tell me...

As for the "coil whine", I never heard that sound if I didn't put my ear on the back of the laptop. To be honest, this is the quietest laptop I've ever used. I can barely hear any sound from it if it's not doing some heavy task. And its battery life is also terrific; it can last more than 12 hours of light use (web browsing with low backlight, maybe some video watching).

If you have any questions, I'm also very willing to help

About the touchpad:
What you are describing is exactly what I found about an older model of the XPS 13. I did read about this only a few days ago, and if I remember correctly this can be solved by adjusting some property in the xorg configuration.

Now, I could be wrong. It could be some firmware update...

I did look through my browser history for this, but I could not find that page. I am sure google (or baidu) could help out, unless some friendly community member steps in

One question: What wireless card do you have installed in your unit? Is it the Killer card?

No, lspci shows it is Qualcomm Atheros QCA6174, and it works fine without any configuration.

I did see someone fix the touchpad issue on Windows by installing some driver. As it's on Windows, I didn't read it very closely. I also thought some setting will resolve the issue, but I just can't find the appropriate entry. I will keep looking...

zhjn921224

Member

Registered: 2016-10-05

Posts: 7

Re: Dell XPS 13 Late 2016 9360 Kaby Lake 7th Gen

@kraftverket, never had the coil whine in 9350 and I hope I don't get it in 9360!

@zhjn, you can update bios with a pure linux machine.  Place it in /boot and load up the bios update.  Should be same as 9350 in that regard.  If it is firmware installer, we might have to load it through windows.  Perhaps you can install windows to an external usb harddrive?  Just for these updates at least.  Great to hear you are enjoying the 9360!  Canadian release was much behind the UK and I guess, Asia.

Actually I'm a bit confused about these firmware update things. If I install an firmware installer, like video card or touchpad on Windows, why does it have effect on my Linux system? I can understand BIOS update through Windows, because it writes info to bootloader and makes changes after next boot (am I right?).

kraftverket

Member

Registered: 2016-03-25

Posts: 8

Re: Dell XPS 13 Late 2016 9360 Kaby Lake 7th Gen

@kraftverket, never had the coil whine in 9350 and I hope I don't get it in 9360!

@zhjn, you can update bios with a pure linux machine.  Place it in /boot and load up the bios update.  Should be same as 9350 in that regard.  If it is firmware installer, we might have to load it through windows.  Perhaps you can install windows to an external usb harddrive?  Just for these updates at least.  Great to hear you are enjoying the 9360!  Canadian release was much behind the UK and I guess, Asia.

Actually I'm a bit confused about these firmware update things. If I install an firmware installer, like video card or touchpad on Windows, why does it have effect on my Linux system? I can understand BIOS update through Windows, because it writes info to bootloader and makes changes after next boot (am I right?).

A firmware update doesn't touch your operating system or kernel. If it is a BIOS update, it flashes the binary blob into the motherboard, not to the bootloader.

zhjn921224

Member

Registered: 2016-10-05

Posts: 7

Re: Dell XPS 13 Late 2016 9360 Kaby Lake 7th Gen

@kraftverket, never had the coil whine in 9350 and I hope I don't get it in 9360!

@zhjn, you can update bios with a pure linux machine.  Place it in /boot and load up the bios update.  Should be same as 9350 in that regard.  If it is firmware installer, we might have to load it through windows.  Perhaps you can install windows to an external usb harddrive?  Just for these updates at least.  Great to hear you are enjoying the 9360!  Canadian release was much behind the UK and I guess, Asia.

Actually I'm a bit confused about these firmware update things. If I install an firmware installer, like video card or touchpad on Windows, why does it have effect on my Linux system? I can understand BIOS update through Windows, because it writes info to bootloader and makes changes after next boot (am I right?).

A firmware update doesn't touch your operating system or kernel. If it is a BIOS update, it flashes the binary blob into the motherboard, not to the bootloader.

Thanks for the explanation! So when you mentioned that the touchpad issue could be related to firmware, do you mean firmware of the touchpad? I see a series of Intel chipset drivers on Dell's downloads page, do they have anything to do with firmware? Sorry for those basic questions.

kraftverket

Member

Registered: 2016-03-25

Posts: 8

Re: Dell XPS 13 Late 2016 9360 Kaby Lake 7th Gen

Actually I'm a bit confused about these firmware update things. If I install an firmware installer, like video card or touchpad on Windows, why does it have effect on my Linux system? I can understand BIOS update through Windows, because it writes info to bootloader and makes changes after next boot (am I right?).

A firmware update doesn't touch your operating system or kernel. If it is a BIOS update, it flashes the binary blob into the motherboard, not to the bootloader.

Thanks for the explanation! So when you mentioned that the touchpad issue could be related to firmware, do you mean firmware of the touchpad? I see a series of Intel chipset drivers on Dell's downloads page, do they have anything to do with firmware? Sorry for those basic questions.

It is a guess, I do not remember what the article said. I could not find it in my browser history..
However, I don't think the Intel chipset drivers have anything to do with firmware.

Most likely is this a configuration parameter in the xorg config.

I am as curious as you.

zhjn921224

Member

Registered: 2016-10-05

Posts: 7

Re: Dell XPS 13 Late 2016 9360 Kaby Lake 7th Gen

Hi guys, after many hours' googling and trying, I finally found the solution of that touchpad issue I mentioned before. There is a default setting called noise cancellation in this touchpad, that is, movement smaller than a threshold is considered noise and not being registered. I only installed the libinput driver before so I didn't see this property in "xinput list-props". After I installed the synaptics driver (xf86-input-synaptics) and created a conf file in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/ with a higher priority than the libinput conf file, my touchpad was taken over by the new synaptics driver and I finally saw this noise cancellation property listed in xinput. (The reason I didn't uninstall libinput is that I want to keep the libinput-gesture features.) My /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/70-synaptics.conf file now looks like this:

Section "InputClass"
        Identifier "touchpad catchall"
        Driver "synaptics"
        MatchIsTouchpad "on"

	# Disable Noice Cancellation
	Option "HorizHysteresis" "0"
	Option "VertHysteresis" "0"

	# Enable Tapping
	Option "TapButton1" "1"
	Option "TapButton2" "3"
	Option "TapButton3" "2"

	# Adjust Scrolling Speed
	Option "VertScrollDelta" "40"
	Option "HorizScrollDelta" "40"

	# Smoother Scrolling
	Option "CoastingSpeed" "0.1"
	Option "CoastingFriction" "20"

	# Change Move Speed
	Option "MinSpeed" "1.2"
	Option "MaxSpeed" "1.7"
	Option "AccelFactor" "0.10"
	Option "ConstantDeceleration" "1.5"

	# Palm Detection
	Option "PalmDetect" "1"
	Option "PalmMinWidth" "5"
	Option "PalmMinZ" "100"

EndSection

This setting makes the touchpad very usable, accurate small movement and proper acceleration when moving fast. If anyone wants to try this config, you can adjust the "Move Speed" part to meet your preference.

One small issue though, every time I login, the min speed and max speed are changed to 1 and 1.416667 respectively as shown in xinput. I have to manually set them to what I set in the conf file, 1.2 and 1.7, to make the cursor move a little faster. I don't know why this happens because other properties I set in the file are consistent except these two. Anyway, after all these tussles, I finally have a highly usable touchpad

Last edited by zhjn921224 (2016-10-07 01:37:08)

kraftverket

Member

Registered: 2016-03-25

Posts: 8

Re: Dell XPS 13 Late 2016 9360 Kaby Lake 7th Gen

Hi guys, after many hours' googling and trying, I finally found the solution of that touchpad issue I mentioned before. There is a default setting called noise cancellation in this touchpad, that is, movement smaller than a threshold is considered noise and not being registered. I only installed the libinput driver before so I didn't see this property in "xinput list-props". After I installed the synaptics driver (xf86-input-synaptics) and created a conf file in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/ with a higher priority than the libinput conf file, my touchpad was taken over by the new synaptics driver and I finally saw this noise cancellation property listed in xinput. (The reason I didn't uninstall libinput is that I want to keep the libinput-gesture features.) My /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/70-synaptics.conf file now looks like this:

Section "InputClass"
        Identifier "touchpad catchall"
        Driver "synaptics"
        MatchIsTouchpad "on"

	# Disable Noice Cancellation
	Option "HorizHysteresis" "0"
	Option "VertHysteresis" "0"

	# Enable Tapping
	Option "TapButton1" "1"
	Option "TapButton2" "3"
	Option "TapButton3" "2"

	# Adjust Scrolling Speed
	Option "VertScrollDelta" "40"
	Option "HorizScrollDelta" "40"

	# Smoother Scrolling
	Option "CoastingSpeed" "0.1"
	Option "CoastingFriction" "20"

	# Change Move Speed
	Option "MinSpeed" "1.2"
	Option "MaxSpeed" "1.7"
	Option "AccelFactor" "0.10"
	Option "ConstantDeceleration" "1.5"

	# Palm Detection
	Option "PalmDetect" "1"
	Option "PalmMinWidth" "5"
	Option "PalmMinZ" "100"

EndSection

the
This setting makes the touchpad very usable, accurate small movement and proper acceleration when moving fast. If anyone wants to try this config, you can adjust the "Move Speed" part to meet your preference.

One small issue though, every time I login, the min speed and max speed are changed to 1 and 1.416667 respectively as shown in xinput. I have to manually set them to what I set in the conf file, 1.2 and 1.7, to make the cursor move a little faster. I don't know why this happens because other properties I set in the file are consistent except these two. Anyway, after all these tussles, I finally have a highly usable touchpad

Ah sweet! How nice of you to return here with a config!
In my opinion, the touchpad is by far the most difficult part to get working properly on a gnu/linux system (grrr).
Perhaps "working" is the wrong wording - Lets say, working in a predictable sane way.

I am sure you would agree.

zhjn921224

Member

Registered: 2016-10-05

Posts: 7

Re: Dell XPS 13 Late 2016 9360 Kaby Lake 7th Gen

Hi guys, after many hours' googling and trying, I finally found the solution of that touchpad issue I mentioned before. There is a default setting called noise cancellation in this touchpad, that is, movement smaller than a threshold is considered noise and not being registered. I only installed the libinput driver before so I didn't see this property in "xinput list-props". After I installed the synaptics driver (xf86-input-synaptics) and created a conf file in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/ with a higher priority than the libinput conf file, my touchpad was taken over by the new synaptics driver and I finally saw this noise cancellation property listed in xinput. (The reason I didn't uninstall libinput is that I want to keep the libinput-gesture features.) My /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/70-synaptics.conf file now looks like this:

Section "InputClass"
        Identifier "touchpad catchall"
        Driver "synaptics"
        MatchIsTouchpad "on"

	# Disable Noice Cancellation
	Option "HorizHysteresis" "0"
	Option "VertHysteresis" "0"

	# Enable Tapping
	Option "TapButton1" "1"
	Option "TapButton2" "3"
	Option "TapButton3" "2"

	# Adjust Scrolling Speed
	Option "VertScrollDelta" "40"
	Option "HorizScrollDelta" "40"

	# Smoother Scrolling
	Option "CoastingSpeed" "0.1"
	Option "CoastingFriction" "20"

	# Change Move Speed
	Option "MinSpeed" "1.2"
	Option "MaxSpeed" "1.7"
	Option "AccelFactor" "0.10"
	Option "ConstantDeceleration" "1.5"

	# Palm Detection
	Option "PalmDetect" "1"
	Option "PalmMinWidth" "5"
	Option "PalmMinZ" "100"

EndSection

the
This setting makes the touchpad very usable, accurate small movement and proper acceleration when moving fast. If anyone wants to try this config, you can adjust the "Move Speed" part to meet your preference.

One small issue though, every time I login, the min speed and max speed are changed to 1 and 1.416667 respectively as shown in xinput. I have to manually set them to what I set in the conf file, 1.2 and 1.7, to make the cursor move a little faster. I don't know why this happens because other properties I set in the file are consistent except these two. Anyway, after all these tussles, I finally have a highly usable touchpad

Ah sweet! How nice of you to return here with a config!
In my opinion, the touchpad is by far the most difficult part to get working properly on a gnu/linux system (grrr).
Perhaps "working" is the wrong wording - Lets say, working in a predictable sane way.

I am sure you would agree.

Darn right. I also think Linux is far behind windows and mac regarding drivers and proper (GUI) configuration tools. You have  to dig into the man pages and find the right entry. This config is still not perfect because the palm detection seems not working very well (or at all ). Maybe I will look into this later, but now I have to enjoy for a while this new computer . It's awesome!

frank604

Member

From: BC, Canada

Registered: 2011-04-20

Posts: 1,212

Re: Dell XPS 13 Late 2016 9360 Kaby Lake 7th Gen

So I've been working on setting up the 9360 QHD.  Any of you QHD guys want to share your external monitor setup assuming the monitor is lowdpi?

doblerone

Member

Registered: 2011-12-08

Posts: 215

Re: Dell XPS 13 Late 2016 9360 Kaby Lake 7th Gen

What about the bluetooth? I'm thinking in getting this laptop but I've read on reddit a thread where a guy is having issues with his mouse.

iv597

Member

From: United States

Registered: 2011-09-18

Posts: 96

Website

Re: Dell XPS 13 Late 2016 9360 Kaby Lake 7th Gen

So I've been working on setting up the 9360 QHD.  Any of you QHD guys want to share your external monitor setup assuming the monitor is lowdpi?

I explicitly bought the 1080p panel on my 9350 to avoid dealing with that, but when I ran Arch on a Retina Macbook Pro, I would run the internal panel at native res and let GTK/QT handle HiDPI as expected, then

xrandr --output <whatever, external> --mode 1920x1080 --scale 2x2

Now that Wayland is almost usable as a daily driver (I just need copy-paste between Chromium and Termite to work...), this situation is about to get a whole lot less painful. OSX-style HiDPI scaling without xrandr hackery.

---

Currently running Arch on a Samsung Chromebook Pro (dual booted with ChromeOS), and various VPSes and Docker containers.

Dotfiles on Github

frank604

Member

From: BC, Canada

Registered: 2011-04-20

Posts: 1,212

Re: Dell XPS 13 Late 2016 9360 Kaby Lake 7th Gen

Hi iv597, I forgot to update my question. I have a thread specifically for this setup issue.  I resorted to manually setting my hidpi built in monitor to 1920x1080.  You can read more at my thread here.  I did some further reading and xorg cannot do separate dpi per monitor.  The tiling wm I use doesn't look like they will convert to wayland anytime soon.  So this is a 'fix' for me as the fonts are still crisp.  Everything is natively scaled properly by setting this res.  So far, I've been a happy camper.

@doblerone, I don't use bluetooth with my laptops.  Sorry, maybe someone else can provide better insight?

Last edited by frank604 (2016-11-01 21:02:44)

frank604

Member

From: BC, Canada

Registered: 2011-04-20

Posts: 1,212

Re: Dell XPS 13 Late 2016 9360 Kaby Lake 7th Gen

On a i7 qhd, I'm idling in the high 30's celcius (36-40) with web browser, mosh+irssi, and a few terminals. Laptop is on my lap on my bed.  Using Andy L's nvme power saving patch, tlp,, modified kernel tick rate to 250hz. 

https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/47086

For kaby lake has anyone tested the effects of setting tick rate to 250hz or 1000hz?  I haven't done much testing with this and was curious.  Not sure if placebo or not.  Will monitor for the next few days.

Last edited by frank604 (2016-11-09 17:08:07)

alexjj

Member

Registered: 2013-02-10

Posts: 11

Re: Dell XPS 13 Late 2016 9360 Kaby Lake 7th Gen

How is the laptop? Any issues? Noise/heat/build quality?

xaverlalo

Member

Registered: 2012-05-02

Posts: 18

Re: Dell XPS 13 Late 2016 9360 Kaby Lake 7th Gen

What about the bluetooth? I'm thinking in getting this laptop but I've read on reddit a thread where a guy is having issues with his mouse.

My bluetooth worked a view days ago. At present it's not working any more (see: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=219358).

How is the laptop? Any issues? Noise/heat/build quality?

I like it a lot.
Issues: bluetooth stopped working, but thats my fault. It already worked.
Noise: Some little coile whining (you have to press your ear on the hardware to recognize it), Fan only starts spinning under high load and than it's noise level is acteptable.
Build quality: Better than anything else I used. The surface inside is somehow a little soft and your fingers will leave visible traces on it (fat) but the overall feel is great.

kraftverket

Member

Registered: 2016-03-25

Posts: 8

Re: Dell XPS 13 Late 2016 9360 Kaby Lake 7th Gen

I ended up getting one for myself, the 1080p with i7-7500. I want to mention that I am running Ubuntu 16.10 on mine, keep that in mind.
I have literally zero things to complain about. I made some bullets about various things about the device:

Coil-whine: There are some *sometimes* during heavy tasks, such as file compression. But honestly, you can barely hear it unless you put your head down on the keyboard.

Heat: It does get warm, but only if you push it. Tasks such as browsing, youtube, 1080p, coding, etc, the fan will stay completely off. I rather have the power under the hood to pull heavy tasks, then a cold machine with no horsepower!

The display: It is nothing short of gorgeous. CABC kicks in depending on what is on the display. I guess this could be an annoyance to one or two people. I have not idea if this can be disabled or not, but I don't care, I personally like it.

Bluetooth: I use bluetooth headphones mostly, and they do work well.

Build quality: The word supreme describes it well.

Inside material: As xaverlalo said, it is soft, almost 'rubbery', very pleasant!

Touchpad: Now this is interesting. I would have expected it to be flaky at best, however, it is pretty damn good. Infact it is so good that sometimes I move from my external mouse to the touchpad unconsciously. That cannot be said about most laptops, let me tell you...

Keyboard: As one would expect with keyboards, it takes a few days to adjust oneself to a different keyboard. Nothing bad to say here, it is nice, and I can type pretty rapidly on it.

Speakers: I guess this is pretty subjective, it depends on what you are used to! They sound pretty good.

In short, it is a rock solid machine. I only wish Dell would ship it with Ubuntu pre-installed in my country. I did have to get the Windows 10 version, but it is pretty easy to scrub off that nastiness that Windows 10 is.