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Comment by mscrivo | Hacker News Reader

Why are they still using Killer WiFi NIC's on these things. They are absolutely terrible. We have a bunch of XPS 13 and 15's at our office (9360's up to 9570's) and every single one of them has random connectivity problems on our office WiFi and people's home networks.

We've had to replace all of them with Intel 9260's and the problems instantly disappear. I don't know how this is not a customer support nightmare for them, and why they continue using them given the relatively low cost of the Intel cards.

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It is a real shame they use the Killer (Atheros) WiFi. The developer edition used to have an Intel WiFi - have they changed that?

That said, I haven't seen any issues with Killer WiFi (XPS 15 9570 with Ubuntu 18.04.01), but I do have an Intel WiFi card if the Killer needs to be replaced.

Also I do use a USB3 to Ethernet adapter at work (I have always prefered a wired connection for work when available).

The Killer WiFi issues to me seem to have been related to the Windows driver. Never had any issues on Arch, and an update last year (not suggested by the Dell update tool, check the website) fixed it for Windows.

The card in the 9370 is not replaceable, and despite having bought a card and opened it with the intention of replacing it after I bought it, it hasn't actually been an issue for me in my apartment or dozens of wifi networks across Seattle.

I have a 9370 and never had any problems with the WiFi. I've connected it to lots of home networks, coffee chops, etc.

Reception is perfect, even better than the Intel card my previous latptop had.

(running Fedora Linux out-of-the-box btw)

Maybe I should try Fedora. The Killer WiFi continues to be a problem for me. (Debian Buster with 4.19 kernel and firmware downloaded from the Killer github account.) My uptime is 25 minutes right now because I had to reboot. I restored WiFi when it dropped earlier but the next time the restore process locked up the machine solid (as in hold the power button until it shuts down. Occasionally the Bluetooth disappears and requires a complete power down to restore. BT is on the same Killer module.

I don't know if it is drivers, firmware or my AP but it truly sucks. One really annoying aspect in an otherwise very nice machine. (9370, BTW.)

how's the trackpad?

The best I ever had. Me previous laptop was a VAIO and a MacBook Air (no Force Touch yet) before that one. The trackpad is a little bit better than the MBA's and a lot better than the one from the VAIO.

My thoughts exactly. With such a premium laptop I would expect WiFi to work flawlessly. Instead, I consistently had connection issues with Killer's NIC until I eventually replaced it with an Intel card.

yeah on my 9360 I replaced the killer wifi with an intel 8265. The killer chip was giving me issues in both windows and linux.

Otherwise it's been a great machine though

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