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#176 2017-10-22 16:26:43

johannesg00
Member
Registered: 2010-11-30
Posts: 74

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

Hi, has anyone this laptop with the new kaby lake refresh CPUs?

And i often read about the dynamic brightness setting of the laptop. Is this really that annoying?

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#177 2017-10-23 11:32:02

Magg
Member
Registered: 2016-08-22
Posts: 8

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

johannesg00 wrote:

And i often read about the dynamic brightness setting of the laptop. Is this really that annoying?


I don't notice the dynamic brightness much at all. You have to pay attention to notice it.

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#178 2017-10-24 11:17:48

Luminger
Member
Registered: 2010-09-20
Posts: 4

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

johannesg00 wrote:

Hi, has anyone this laptop with the new kaby lake refresh CPUs?

And i often read about the dynamic brightness setting of the laptop. Is this really that annoying?

I recently bought the i5-8250 (QHD+, 8GB Ram, 256GB NVM, Windows 10 Home) and I'm quite happy with it so far, even though I would have preferred the same configuration with 16GB Ram, but Dell couldn't make that happen for me (it seems they just sell it with the i7)

The installation went smooth (LUKS+LVM) and most of the things just work out of the box (I followed the 9360 wiki page regarding kernel parameters etc.). It was even able to suspend-to-ram without any issues out of the box and it always came back since I've set it up (1 week).

That said, there are still issues I'm trying to resolve, some of my painpoints right now:

  • The QHD+ display is gorgeous, but Xorg detected it as a 96DPI display out of the box, which is not cool. I've read somewhere that the display was detected as a 233dpi display for some people (9350 I think). I've changed the DPI in my .Xresources, but this doesn't magically sets everything to the desired scaling. I had to scale my qtile stuff manually, as well as spotify, GTK2 apps etc... I'm still looking for a better way to fix this, preferably without running a full blown desktop environment (I like my qtile setup).

  • I need to fiddle more with the touchpad drivers. The synaptics driver for Xorg is in maintenance mode and I wasn't able to reverse vertical scrolling ('natural scrolling'). Never tried evdev, but as libinput seems to be the way to go I switched it over to libinput for now; which does support natural scrolling, but the pointer speed is just terrible. I'm still trying to figure out a reasonable configuration.

  • I had to swap out the firmware for the killer nic as the WiFi connection dropped every minute or so. It's better, but it still feels slow from time to time, not sure if my AP is to blame but it's good enough to not really notice it much.

  • In general you should follow the XPS 13 9360 wiki page, almost everything applies for the 8th gen model as well

Things I noticed:

  • It definitely has coil whine, but it's not too bad for me; it's not super prominent and even when I notice it, it doesn't bother me too much. But that's just me.

  • It looks like this 1000$+ notebook doesn't ship with an ambient light sensor (any more?). Honestly this drives me crazy, according to the interwebs it was previously in and they stripped it? Or is it just in the FHD version? Both doesn't make sense to me, I'll probably setup my webcam to act as an ambient light sensor, which is not great as it probably wastes a huge amount of battery.

Edit: The dynamic brightness seems to be enabled in my model, but the test website doesn't reveal it. While I had windows installed I wasn't able to install the patch, so I felt confident that it wasn't enabled. However, under my Linux setup I have the feeling that the brightness levels change very slowly when I switch from a browser tag to a console tag - it might be an optical illusion, but in either case it's barely noticeable.

I would love to hear suggestions from others on how they solved the issues I described, I'm rather sure I'm not the only one with those problems.

So, while I'm still trying to figure out how to configure it just how I want it, it looks like a solid notebook where most of the things work out of the box. If you like the size, touchpad and keyboard (which doesn't has a lot of key travel), this is a great machine.

Last edited by Luminger (2017-10-24 11:20:19)

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#179 2017-10-24 18:52:21

johannesg00
Member
Registered: 2010-11-30
Posts: 74

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

Hi,

thanks for your answer. I think i will buy the i7 version with 16GB RAM (and the HD display).

What do you mean by swap out the killer nic firmware?

I asked something similar in https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=231092 (before I saw this thread). The user caskale13c has the same laptop and noticed some wifi issues too.

Do you have an fix for the touchpad meanwhile?

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#180 2017-10-24 19:23:43

Luminger
Member
Registered: 2010-09-20
Posts: 4

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

johannesg00 wrote:

Hi,

thanks for your answer. I think i will buy the i7 version with 16GB RAM (and the HD display).

What do you mean by swap out the killer nic firmware?

I asked something similar in https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=231092 (before I saw this thread). The user caskale13c has the same laptop and noticed some wifi issues too.

Do you have an fix for the touchpad meanwhile?

The wifi nic gets its firmware from the linux-firmware package, but Dell has issued alternative firmware (I guess? Dunno where it originates from) which can be used. See https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/De … )#Wireless and https://github.com/kvalo/ath10k-firmware for the actual images I used. I don't get the kernel traces which seem to correlate with this (anymore maybe, didn't check before I replaced it). So it might be an AP issue for me.

Regarding the touchpad, it's not really broken or something. It's more like a choice between different drivers which all seem to have their own problems. I got kind of used to the pointer speed by now, but I'm a tiling wm guy as well, so this probably doesn't count. But I suspect that it's possible to find a good config with one of the drivers, I just didn't threw enough time on that issue.

Minor update: It seems that there might be an ambient light sensor after all, I do have at least acpi_als loaded; it might 'only' be a driver issue, I need to dive deeper into that as well. But there is no obvious/suspicious hole like there is for the webcam...

Last edited by Luminger (2017-10-24 19:27:25)

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#181 2017-10-24 20:35:53

johannesg00
Member
Registered: 2010-11-30
Posts: 74

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

Okay, that sounds quite good.
I often work with an external monitor, have you tried connecting a USB C/Thunderbolt to HDMI converter?

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#182 2017-10-24 22:54:35

caskale13c
Member
From: Colleyville, TX, US
Registered: 2008-12-29
Posts: 33

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

All of my WiFi issues seem to have been addressed with the latest linux-firmware in testing 20171009.  THe latest ath10k drivers were placed there.

johannesg00 wrote:

Hi,

thanks for your answer. I think i will buy the i7 version with 16GB RAM (and the HD display).

What do you mean by swap out the killer nic firmware?

I asked something similar in https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=231092 (before I saw this thread). The user caskale13c has the same laptop and noticed some wifi issues too.

Do you have an fix for the touchpad meanwhile?

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#183 2017-10-25 04:20:42

seiichiro0185
Member
From: Leipzig/Germany
Registered: 2009-04-09
Posts: 226
Website

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

johannesg00 wrote:

Okay, that sounds quite good.
I often work with an external monitor, have you tried connecting a USB C/Thunderbolt to HDMI converter?

There are quite a few known as working USB-C/TB to Display (and other stuff) adapters and docks, see the list in the wiki: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/De … lity_Chart


My System: Dell XPS 13 | i7-7560U | 16GB RAM | 512GB SSD | FHD Screen | Arch Linux
My Workstation/Server: Supermicro X11SSZ-F | Xeon E3-1245 v6 | 64GB RAM | 1TB SSD Raid 1 + 6TB HDD ZFS Raid Z1 | Proxmox VE
My Stuff at Github: github
My Homepage: Seiichiros HP

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#184 2017-10-25 06:58:10

Luminger
Member
Registered: 2010-09-20
Posts: 4

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

seiichiro0185 wrote:
johannesg00 wrote:

Okay, that sounds quite good.
I often work with an external monitor, have you tried connecting a USB C/Thunderbolt to HDMI converter?

There are quite a few known as working USB-C/TB to Display (and other stuff) adapters and docks, see the list in the wiki: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/De … lity_Chart

I'm planning on buying one of those as well, unfortunately the ones that do have the ports I do want to have are either too expensive in my mind for what you get (looking at you Dell), or it's not easy to get them here.

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#185 2017-10-26 10:39:04

DaNiMoTh
Member
Registered: 2006-06-10
Posts: 260

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

I am quite happy with the combination bumblebee/nvidia. No touchpad issues (I use acpi_rev_override=5), I happily use also the power management on PCIe port (disabled only for the GPU port), and overall everything looks fine.

However, after some time of use (it seems completely random from brightness level) I have a very fast black flickering in the low side of the screen. With Windows I don't notice anything. Some of you guys noticed the same thing?

Thanks

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#186 2017-10-30 02:32:54

Hoek
Member
Registered: 2010-08-27
Posts: 7

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

BIOS 2.3.1 was released some days ago, the only changelog entry seems to be "Fixes for system stability".

The 2.x.x BIOS removes coil whine for me almost completely.

Last edited by Hoek (2017-10-30 02:36:39)

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#187 2017-11-21 03:27:54

Hyugga
Member
From: Santiago, Chile
Registered: 2010-03-26
Posts: 335

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

With bios 2.3.1 i still have the coil whine.
Following the wiki on this model  (especifically using enable_fbc=1) the coil whine is almost completely gone.
Still present, but a lot more silent.

EDIT: I'm calling support, watching a 1080p youtube video in full screen, the sound is loud and annoying.....

Last edited by Hyugga (2017-11-21 15:34:06)

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#188 2017-11-21 17:43:56

ooo
Member
Registered: 2013-04-10
Posts: 1,637

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

I noticed there's a new firmware update for disabling dynamic brightness control released on October 31st. This one doesn't have QHD in the file name, so I'm wondering whether it would also disable DBC for FHD model.

Does anyone with FHD model still happen to have windows installed to test this?

Also, I'd like to share my results for replacing the thermal paste: With stock paste, while stressing the system with burncpu and glxgears, my core temperatures went up to >90C. After replacing the paste, they stay at around 80C. My laptop fans are now noticeably quieter on load. I haven't noticed difference in performance on i5 system, and didn't remember to benchmark before replacing the paste to measure it.

Last edited by ooo (2017-11-21 17:45:58)

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#189 2017-11-30 09:40:11

tsipizic
Member
Registered: 2015-05-13
Posts: 3

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

I just got an XPS 13 with Kaby Lake Refresh i7 CPU and installed Arch. All went well except from the fact that I experience some random 1-2 seconds freezes randomly. I suspect video module power saving settings. I have this options enabled in for i915 module
modeset=1 enable_rc6=1 enable_fbc=1 enable_guc_loading=1 enable_guc_submission=1 enable_psr=1
Anyone else experiencing this?

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#190 2017-11-30 10:25:29

Asriel
Member
Registered: 2016-11-28
Posts: 43

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

Add i915.disable_power_well=0 - that worked fine for me on 9350 Skylake, maybe it will be same for 9360

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#191 2017-12-06 20:05:22

xaine
Member
From: Brooklyn, NY
Registered: 2014-10-24
Posts: 5
Website

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

Anyone else have their wireless card and bluetooth disappear after updating to kernel 4.14.4-1 ? I downgraded to 4.13.11-1, and am still not seeing my wireless card. dmesg has no clues.
modprobe shows ath10k_core and btusb loaded. lspci -k shows no network card or bluetooth.

rfkill list shows no output

My only theory is that something is physically disabling the network/bluetooth card on boot via the hardware switch? But I can't figure out what.

Last edited by xaine (2017-12-06 20:06:41)

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#192 2017-12-06 20:59:24

seiichiro0185
Member
From: Leipzig/Germany
Registered: 2009-04-09
Posts: 226
Website

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

I still see my wireless devices on 4.14.3 (no 4.14.4 in my updates yet):

seiichiro@xps13 ~$ uname -a
Linux xps13 4.14.3-1-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Thu Nov 30 18:33:13 UTC 2017 x86_64 GNU/Linux
seiichiro@xps13 ~$ rfkill list
1: phy0: Wireless LAN
	Soft blocked: yes
	Hard blocked: no
2: hci0: Bluetooth
	Soft blocked: no
	Hard blocked: no
seiichiro@xps13 ~$

My System: Dell XPS 13 | i7-7560U | 16GB RAM | 512GB SSD | FHD Screen | Arch Linux
My Workstation/Server: Supermicro X11SSZ-F | Xeon E3-1245 v6 | 64GB RAM | 1TB SSD Raid 1 + 6TB HDD ZFS Raid Z1 | Proxmox VE
My Stuff at Github: github
My Homepage: Seiichiros HP

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#193 2017-12-10 10:44:23

johnnytheboy
Member
From: Berlin, DE
Registered: 2016-03-16
Posts: 3

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

Asriel wrote:

Add i915.disable_power_well=0 - that worked fine for me on 9350 Skylake, maybe it will be same for 9360

Same issue here, that helped. Thanks!

Also I noticed that every some seconds the display flashes black. I experimented with enable_psr and switched from xf86-video-intel to modesetting, but that didn't help. I have the fresh i7-8550u (512/16) model. Anybody noticed that too? Everything else works as expected. No coil whine at all. What a nice piece of technology. smile

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#194 2017-12-10 11:40:39

johnnytheboy
Member
From: Berlin, DE
Registered: 2016-03-16
Posts: 3

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

Ok, regarding the black flashes, it seems to help disabling DRI3 page flipping (for the modesetting driver):

# /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf

Section "Device"
     Identifier  "Intel Graphics"
     Driver "modesetting"
     Option "PageFlip" "False"
EndSection

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#195 2017-12-13 10:22:01

Tommylefunk
Member
Registered: 2016-02-03
Posts: 9

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

Does anybody else have sound problems?

I have the i7 8gen, 16 GB, QHD+ version. Everything runs butter-smooth, but the sound quality of the headphone jack is crazy bad.
Whenever I, e.g. switch a tab in the browser, I can hear white noise in the speakers. Also i notice some noise emmission from somewhere underneath the trackpad.

The issue is definitely graphics related as these sound irregularities only appear when the screen changes.
I also muted the internal mic, which does not help.

Does anybody else experience something similar?

Last edited by Tommylefunk (2017-12-13 10:22:21)

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#196 2017-12-13 10:24:25

tsipizic
Member
Registered: 2015-05-13
Posts: 3

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

Asriel wrote:

Add i915.disable_power_well=0 - that worked fine for me on 9350 Skylake, maybe it will be same for 9360

this helped me too! Thanks a lot smile

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#197 2017-12-13 11:40:48

Tommylefunk
Member
Registered: 2016-02-03
Posts: 9

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

I found a fix.

I did not have GuC enabled. Using i915.enable_guc_loading=1 as kernel parameter fixed the issue completely.
Super interesting. Even the noise from the laptop's inners is gone big_smile

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#198 2017-12-13 12:01:56

johnnytheboy
Member
From: Berlin, DE
Registered: 2016-03-16
Posts: 3

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

Another update to the black flash issue: Seems I was too quick with the fix, disabling PageFlip doesnt help at all. I noticed some dmesg output when that happens:

[ 1752.260725] pcieport 0000:00:1c.4: PCIe Bus Error: severity=Corrected, type=Data Link Layer, id=00e4(Transmitter ID)
[ 1752.260739] pcieport 0000:00:1c.4:   device [8086:9d14] error status/mask=00001000/00002000
[ 1752.260748] pcieport 0000:00:1c.4:    [12] Replay Timer Timeout  

So after reading the wiki I decided to update the wifi firmware by hand. ath10k is now running with 4.4.1.c1-00035, but dmesg errors are still the same when on WIFI. Well lets see if it makes any difference in the long run ...

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#199 2017-12-14 04:30:07

jshap70
Member
From: Austin, TX
Registered: 2017-12-14
Posts: 12
Website

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

Tommylefunk wrote:

I found a fix.

I did not have GuC enabled. Using i915.enable_guc_loading=1 as kernel parameter fixed the issue completely.
Super interesting. Even the noise from the laptop's inners is gone big_smile

This only masked my problems, whenever the soundcard began producing output again the coil whine would come back.
The strangest thing about my problem is that it only happens after suspend. On initial loading it is perfectly fine.

I did manage to figure out that it was changing the "Power" setting in alsa from `Power: setting=D0, actual=D0` to `Power: setting=D3, actual=D3` on waking from suspend, but my alsa foo is weak at best.

I did figure out something to get it to go away with forcibly disabling port 0x12 in hdajackretask, but this caused just as many issues as it solved as i'd have to finagle the input/output routing settings over and over again while togling the output.

Basically, I'm at a loss.

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#200 2017-12-17 00:58:43

jshap70
Member
From: Austin, TX
Registered: 2017-12-14
Posts: 12
Website

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

Ok I think I'm on the right-ish track. Well, at least more right than before. Using `hdajackretask`, if I override the internal mic (pin ID 0x12) to "not connected" the coil noise on display drawing is gone from the headphones after doing some combination of toggling it and killing/respawning pulse. Really really weird stuff, and very annoying to have to do everytime I wake from sleep.
My running theory is that pulse is not correctly setting registers on restore in the audiochip based on the power setting not changing back to what it was before, I just don't understand how I'm the only one having this issue after getting this computer a couple of weeks ago. Was there an audio firmware update I missed when I was installing all of the others?

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