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Queen6

macrumors G4
It does not matter which band I connect to same result. All my other computers work fine, even the Yoga I sent back and the MBP that was on it before. Guaranteed not the router.

Edit to add: Appears to be a highly reported issue with the Killer cards. The card in this machine is new version but apparently same unresolved issues. I am resetting it now so we shall see..

Some of the "Killer" cards are rebranded intel, might be worth having a look and ditching all Killers SW & drivers for vanilla Intel.

Q-6
 
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raqball

macrumors 68020
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Sep 11, 2016
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Some of the "Killer" cards are rebranded intel, might be worth having a look and ditching all Killers SW & drivers for vanilla Intel.

Q-6
No dice...

I had Comcast run checks on service and modem just to be sure and all a-ok there. All my other computers work fine and only the Dell exhibits the problem.

I'll reset it tonight and see how it goes from there. Could have something to do with all the Dell crud I removed. Maybe something I axed is causing the behavior. I don't see how as none of it was drivers or anything that would be required but who knows...

It's a very nice machine and I'd like to hammer out the WiFi issue if I can...
 

Queen6

macrumors G4
No dice...

I had Comcast run checks on service and modem just to be sure and all a-ok there. All my other computers work fine and only the Dell exhibits the problem.

I'll reset it tonight and see how it goes from there. Could have something to do with all the Dell crud I removed. Maybe something I axed is causing the behavior. I don't see how as none of it was drivers or anything that would be required but who knows...

It's a very nice machine and I'd like to hammer out the WiFi issue if I can...

I've only had one notebook previously with a killer WIFI card and TBH I'd rather avoid. Seemed like a lot of needless SW to control aspects that I never need to use. Something ticking away in the back of the mind from the long past; try going into the adapters settings and shut off the power saving.

Q-6
 
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raqball

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Sep 11, 2016
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I've only had one notebook previously with a killer WIFI card and TBH I'd rather avoid. Seemed like a lot of needless SW to control aspects that I never need to use. Something ticking away in the back of the mind from the long past; try going into the adapters settings and shut off the power saving.

Q-6
Yeah best I can tell these Killer cards are GARBAGE! I'll factory reset the machine later and leave all the Killer trash programs installed and see how it goes. Dell piles a crap ton of junk into these machines and I'd rather remove it all. After I reset I'll remove them one by one this time and retest after removal...

Love the machine so far but this WiFi card might be the death of it, for me at least...
 

Queen6

macrumors G4
Yeah best I can tell these Killer cards are GARBAGE! I'll factory reset the machine later and leave all the Killer trash programs installed and see how it goes. Dell piles a crap ton of junk into these machines and I'd rather remove it all. After I reset I'll remove them one by one this time and retest after removal...

Love the machine so far but this WiFi card might be the death of it, for me at least...

Really it's a pity Dell does this, as realistically no one want's all these junk programs and a reason why I won't purchase any of Dell's consumer line up. Does Dell produce an equivalent Precision model? If so that will be a "clean" W10 Pro OS image with only Dell's own system management applications installed, or does MS store sell the same model 7390? as again that should be a clean W10 OS image.

I recently bought a new PC from a small OEM as my on the go system, although it's just a duel core it fly's thx to the OEM not installing any junk whatsoever on the system. TBH I'd be willing to pay more for a clean OS image as removing all the junk takes time, sometimes being easier to just blast the drive and install W10 fresh.

Q-6
 

raqball

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Sep 11, 2016
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TBH I'd be willing to pay more for a clean OS image as removing all the junk takes time, sometimes being easier to just blast the drive and install W10 fresh.

Q-6
Agree as would I..

Most of the Dell added crap is support related which I don't care about, need nor want... The Killer crap is several 'suits' of software and drivers.

I do like the machine so I am hoping I can resolve the WiFi issue. 40 Mbps down is not going to cut it when everything else I have gets 400-500 Mbps down.
 
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raqball

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Sep 11, 2016
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Some of the "Killer" cards are rebranded intel, might be worth having a look and ditching all Killers SW & drivers for vanilla Intel.

Q-6
Bingo!

Reinstalled the OS and removed Killer programs and drivers. Installed Intel ax200 driver. After reboot I was back to having the Killer driver (I thought) so I tried again. Same..

Well I am a doofus! Device Manager still shows the Killer card (which is why my earlier reply said no dice) but I dug deeper and while it does show the Killer card, the Intel ax200 is now it's driver...

So far, a-ok.. I also disabled Killer updates in Win as well.
 
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jrichards1408

macrumors 6502a
Nov 4, 2016
615
194
Bingo!

Reinstalled the OS and removed Killer programs and drivers. Installed Intel ax200 driver. After reboot I was back to having the Killer driver (I thought) so I tried again. Same..

Well I am a doofus! Device Manager still shows the Killer card (which is why my earlier reply said no dice) but I dug deeper and while it does show the Killer card, the Intel ax200 is now it's driver...

So far, a-ok.. I also disabled Killer updates in Win as well.
Brilliant. Could you now test out the battery life on almost max brightness?

What do you do for a living? Could you do a normal day's work on it running off the battery and mix it up by watching a few 4k videos too?
 

pdauser92

macrumors member
Nov 11, 2011
89
83
London, UK
Bingo!

Reinstalled the OS and removed Killer programs and drivers. Installed Intel ax200 driver. After reboot I was back to having the Killer driver (I thought) so I tried again. Same..

Well I am a doofus! Device Manager still shows the Killer card (which is why my earlier reply said no dice) but I dug deeper and while it does show the Killer card, the Intel ax200 is now it's driver...

So far, a-ok.. I also disabled Killer updates in Win as well.

Thanks for your research. I downloaded and ran the Intel Driver and Support Assistant (https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/intel-driver-support-assistant.html?iid=dc_IDSA), which appears to have installed the relevant driver(s). My download speeds have increased from a paltry 24Mbps to 154Mbps. :D
 
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raqball

macrumors 68020
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Sep 11, 2016
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Brilliant. Could you now test out the battery life on almost max brightness?

What do you do for a living? Could you do a normal day's work on it running off the battery and mix it up by watching a few 4k videos too?
I am a retired bum. I will run some battery tests this weekend for you.

Thanks for your research. I downloaded and ran the Intel Driver and Support Assistant (https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/intel-driver-support-assistant.html?iid=dc_IDSA), which appears to have installed the relevant driver(s). My download speeds have increased from a paltry 24Mbps to 154Mbps. :D

If you have the Killer Suite installed download the Killer uninstaller and run it twice. The make sure you stop Win updates for the Killer driver.
 

raqball

macrumors 68020
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Sep 11, 2016
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Could you now test out the battery life on almost max brightness?

Could you do a normal day's work on it running off the battery and mix it up by watching a few 4k videos too?

Tested last night. I'll run another today and tomorrow.

Test one: Edge beta with anywhere from 1 to 5 tabs open, youtube video (some 4K some 1080P), word and excel use. Pushbullet and several other apps and prgrams running in background. Machine set to max performance and max brightness (500 nits).

100% to 5% = 4 hours 51 minutes.

Edit: Update on previous WiFi issues. No problems at all since whacking the Killer driver and using the Intel. I've removed all the Dell crap as well and smooth sailing. I think this machine is a keeper so off to upgrade to Win Pro.
 
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jrichards1408

macrumors 6502a
Nov 4, 2016
615
194
Tested last night. I'll run another today and tomorrow.

Test one: Edge beta with anywhere from 1 to 5 tabs open, youtube video (some 4K some 1080P), word and excel use. Pushbullet and several other apps and prgrams running in background. Machine set to max performance and max brightness (500 nits).

100% to 5% = 4 hours 51 minutes.

Edit: Update on previous WiFi issues. No problems at all since whacking the Killer driver and using the Intel. I've removed all the Dell crap as well and smooth sailing. I think this machine is a keeper so off to upgrade to Win Pro.
Quality thanks for the update. Battery seems better than my X1 extreme 4k model. I get abjhr half that or less.
 

Queen6

macrumors G4
Ain't these 2.1 dell xps y series?

Think so, but there's a lot of versions of the XPS 13. Y series is economical for the sole reason it will only pull 15W max for PL2 & just 7W for PL (little less or more depending on the OEM's config) I've has a couple of Y series and they are fine for basic use, my latest has an i7-8500Y which tops out at an impressive 4.2GHz.

Heavy lifters they are not as they are TDP bound, that said for your basic productivity the are easily fast enough especially when coupled with an NVMe SSD. My Y series is a secondary notebook with my primary being the heavy lifter, so I'm fine with the limited performance for heavier sustained tasks.

Q-6
 

raqball

macrumors 68020
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Sep 11, 2016
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Think so, but there's a lot of versions of the XPS 13. Y series is economical for the sole reason it will only pull 15W max for PL2 & just 7W for PL (little less or more depending on the OEM's config) I've has a couple of Y series and they are fine for basic use, my latest has an i7-8500Y which tops out at an impressive 4.2GHz.

Heavy lifters they are not as they are TDP bound, that said for your basic productivity the are easily fast enough especially when coupled with an NVMe SSD. My Y series is a secondary notebook with my primary being the heavy lifter, so I'm fine with the limited performance for heavier sustained tasks.

Q-6
I believe the only Y series in the new XPS 13" 2in1 is if you get the i3. The i5 and i7 versions are G series which is equivalent to the previous U series.
 

jrichards1408

macrumors 6502a
Nov 4, 2016
615
194
Think so, but there's a lot of versions of the XPS 13. Y series is economical for the sole reason it will only pull 15W max for PL2 & just 7W for PL (little less or more depending on the OEM's config) I've has a couple of Y series and they are fine for basic use, my latest has an i7-8500Y which tops out at an impressive 4.2GHz.

Heavy lifters they are not as they are TDP bound, that said for your basic productivity the are easily fast enough especially when coupled with an NVMe SSD. My Y series is a secondary notebook with my primary being the heavy lifter, so I'm fine with the limited performance for heavier sustained tasks.

Q-6
What y series laptop do you have? Is it good enough for media consumption and some light 42mp photo editing?
 

Queen6

macrumors G4
What y series laptop do you have? Is it good enough for media consumption and some light 42mp photo editing?

Something that's very niche and comes with a premium price point as it's a full on 2in1 UMPC. For editing pictures think that you will need more than a Y series can offer. Intel U series will be a far better option, in which case I'd be looking at one of the new 10th Gen CPU's.

The i7-8500Y will do what you want, however it's going to hit it's PL1 (7W) limit editing large images and subsequently be limited to around 2.3GHz across just two cores (4 with hyperthreading). A lot's going to depend on your priorities runtime off mains or performance.

A lot can be done to extend the battery runtime of a W10 Ultrabook by undervolting the CPU and cutting unnecessary background applications. New Samsung Galaxy Book S might be worth investigating as it has the new ARM 8CX SOC and might just pull off both performance and battery longevity.

I've not yet tried the new ARM powered Samsung, I have tried the equally very new Huawei MateBook E with Arm Snapdragon 850, in stock configuration it was fine on a quick look. That said I'd want load it up and see what how it really performs under load. The Samsung has the 8CX so it's a level up again on the Huawei, however more a traditional clamshell notebook, versus the MateBook being a tablet centric 2in1.

MS Surface Pro & Laptop get decent runtime with regular U series i5/i7 CPU's, not sure if a 2in1 interests? I've also an Acer Switch 5 (i3, 4Gb, 128 SSD) and it's rated for 10+ hours, in the real world it more like 7 hours.

Personally I miss the Apple of yore; Always under promised, always over delivered. Once did a job, I'd have been done had the notebook shutdown midstream :( 2014 13" MBP pulled over two hours past it's recommended runtime :D Outstanding, such a pity Apple now values itself so much more than it's customers :oops:

Q-6
 
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raqball

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Sep 11, 2016
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Update on the XPS...

No issues to report and I am very happy with the machine. Killer released a new WiFi driver that some are reporting success with but I am not about to tempt fate and try it as I've had zero disconnect issues since removing all their crud in favor of stock Intel drivers.

Nice machine overall and my battery life has been descent considering my settings.
 
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TheGenerous

macrumors 65816
Nov 14, 2010
1,118
437
I'm an Austronaut
Hello, I'm visiting the US by the end of the month, Orlando. Where can I purchase this laptop in a brick and mortar store? I've been looking around at bestbuy online but they sell the previous model. Thanks
 
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