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Comment by timeattack | Hacker News Reader

I do own XPS 13 9360 and there are number of issues:

- coil whine under load;

- poor heat sink, under little load i7 goes to 100C and CPU throttling kicks in;

- sometimes 'w' button seems to be 'stuck' in pressed state even when it's physically un-pressed; seems to be a firmware keyboard bug, since I've seen same problem on another XPS 13;

- I've had to replace Killer WiFi card, because RTT for packets spiked up every time card was scanning for networks;

- that 'spidey-fingers' webcam;

- that 'Content Adaptive Brightness Control' when gamma-level goes off every time you switch from black to white image on the screen;

- unable to replace battery, since even when I've ordered battery from authorized service center they gave me non-official third-party battery which was not accepted by laptop;

- connecting 4K@60Hz is kinda problematic, since you need to find USB-C adapter which supports it;

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I have 9370 (the 2018 model) and I only have these two:

- that 'spidey-fingers' webcam;

lol, that's a weird one, but solved with the external keyboard

- that 'Content Adaptive Brightness Control' when gamma-level goes off every time you switch from black to white image on the screen;

that's a weird one, how to turn that off? (win 10)

You can do that from the BIOS and disable Dynamic Brightness Control in the display options

I bought a 9360 and returned it because of the coil whine, it was so bad that I could hear it over music playing from the laptop. I returned it for a refund and got a 9370 about 8 months later and it has been so much better. No coil whine now. The webcam is in the same place, but I have never had to use it. I didn't have any issues with the Killer card in either the 9360 or the 9370 (and use it daily for multiple hours at a time).

I do really wish I could've got the laptop without the 4k screen because on a 13" laptop I would rather save the battery life and not have a glossy screen, alas, it wasn't available last year in Australia with 16GB RAM. It does seem that this year though it is available.

I use an external 4k screen and don't have any issues, although I am using the Dell TB16 dock. The more annoying issue is that you can use 4k@60 over HDMI since it isn't supported by the Intel GPU, you need to use a DP connector.

Coil whine seems to be a problems with lots of current gen laptops - work colleague had to return a brand new top-of-the-line Apple laptop a month or two ago because the coil whine was ridiculously loud.

> sometimes 'w' button seems to be 'stuck' in pressed

I've had several XPS13s with keyboard issues. I honestly cannot consider it a "developer edition" when the keyboard is wonky. Contacted HP support every time, found them trying to ignore the issue while whole support forums where mobbing up in anger over the issue. Finally they admitted, but nothing happened. I'm on a T420 now, while I really-really wanted to support suppliers that provide Linux-out-of-the-box machines.

You contacted HP support for a Dell laptop... That might be the problem ;)

PEBKAC classic. But I have to second the keyboard sentiment. I can't rely on it to be decent on anything but lenovo these days, may be not even...

I have HP probook where you can replace the keyboard easily. When I got the machine with "premium" keyboard, a few keys were wobbly, made different squeaky sounds and had overall inconsistent feel to them. I went to HP website and ordered a replacement -- it came with other keys being bad. I called HP and they sent me replacement for replacement -- the same story -- their keyboards are just so cheaply made and quality control so lacking, that you have to be very lucky to get one with all keys working consistently.

Keyboards are the worst part of the laptop these days.

Excuse. It was Dell obviously that I contacted. :)

(okay I had to contact HP several times as well, but that was a server unit, and after some calls/ceremony it got adequately serviced)

I have a 9360 with coil whine. So far I like everything about it (size, weight, power) except that noise. Luckily, FreeBSD powerd_flag="-a adaptive" seems to get rid of most of it. I find that it is silent when idle with low CPU freq, silent when under heavy load with high CPU freq, but noisy when idling with high CPU freq, so that a quickly dropping the speed make the problem mostly go away.

I don't use the Killer WIFI because my OS doesn't support it yet. Perhaps I'll be able to complain about that later in the year.

Sometimes I regret not picking up a Thinkpad X1 C6 (I have lifelong Thinkpad keyboard envy, since owning a T something many years ago), but they're way more expensive and I keep reading about disappointing manufacturing problems with those things, and I know that'd be a pain to deal with in my location.

I've started returning laptops with coil whine.. ended up doing it last I tried XPS.

Similarly, I sent a X1 Carbon back this summer due to missing Linux support -- suspend, touchpad, CPU scaling, and lots of small bugs. (I'm quite happy with my older X1 though)

Anyways, I suggest sending it back and ask for refund next time to get a laptop with coil whine. There is only one way to teach manufacturers that this is unacceptable.

> Content Adaptive Brightness Control

It is part of Intel's shenanigans to improve battery life.

CABC bothered me on my surface book too, fortunately they allow you to disable this. It previously (pre-9350) required a firmware update but can now be switched off using the latest intel display driver control panel.

Personally the bezel is driving me nuts. How is the screen not flush with the top frame? Coil whining is taken care of by preventing any single core to run at 100% for any period of time. My biggest grip is still the lack of proper docking station for using it as a desktop replacement. Every single port replicator I have used fails at some point (ethernet, dual monitor, external USB device) and requires a reboot. For that reason I would personally go with a TP given the choice.

You’re not alone: I have the 9360, too, and experienced 6 of your 8 listed problems (the battery replacement I haven’t tried, and the heat I never noticed).

I also have a 9360 and I have also experienced 1, 2, 5, and 6 off your list. I also have the monitor just go nuts every so often until I give it a whack in exactly the right place. I've also had horrible experiences with reliability and Dell's support which I posted elsewhere in this thread.

Next machine's another X1 Carbon for me (I had the 1st gen before this).

I’ve been having many of these problems with my 9360 as well. I recently switched back to using a 2013 MacBook Pro Retina with Linux on it, and the much older thing just feels faster, and I can’t put my finger on why. Maybe it’s the CPU throttling? I mean, even web browsing doesn’t feel right on my 9360.

Another issue is that the battery can swell. And you'll have to go through the process of ordering a third-party battery and trying to replace it yourself.

At least with Apple, you can take it to the store for authorized service.

> - sometimes 'w' button seems to be 'stuck' in pressed state even when it's physically un-pressed

Ah, so it's a common issue. I also have the 'w' problem on Dell Lattitude E7450.

Ditto almost all of that. The 9360 is junk (and doubly junk when paired with a TB16 dock)

I have xps15 with killer wifi card and it sucks

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