XPS 15 9530 - Noise problem?

[quote user="cz111"]  are you experiencing coil whine on WINDOWS? or are you just using linux? it's already been reported no coil whine on certain linux distro's probably due to no nvidia optimus support therefore not using the integrated GPU which is coursing the problem.

It sounds like you think that every laptop has coil whine. I can tell you categorically that they don't. The first laptop I received had the whine while the replacement I received definitely doesn't, and I have been using it heavily for almost two months. 

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Of course its on all laptops, they have same haswell component, i suggest you look at xps 13 and m3800 have the exact same issue on all new haswell products. Dell have already admitted it's not a batch issue, go ahead phone them up if you don't believe me. in your case I already replied to you. Plugging in extra power hungry USB devices will flatten the noise, including customizing your SSD options, those that say you don't have any noise are either Dell employees or you happen do be doing something(unknown) which is merely dampening the noise temporarily. Also make sure your following the Battery Fully charged and plugged in scenario.

Those that play games should notice no noise while playing, if you have configured your NVIDIA settings correctly.

It's unfair to shout down spots107 because his machine doesn't have the coil whine. As demonstrated in this thread there are varying degrees of the severity of the problem.

Because a small percentage does not have a coil whine, it does not lessen our complaint.

Actually, at least in my machine, the Nvidia card is silent. Are the Intel GPU and the CPU what makes the noises. Both in Windows and in Linux.

I am just using Windows 8 at this stage. I have not tried using the laptop with Linux yet.

I have used the laptop plugged in fully charged, as well as plugged in while charging, and just running on battery and it is the same.

I have no HDD with my laptop (just a 500 GB SSD) so that helps cut down any noise as well. I am the type of person who can hear high pitched noises that other do not hear. So I do not think it is a problem with my hearing. It has turned on the fans at one stage to cool things down and that would surprisingly loud, but it did not last long and was certainly not a whining sound. You definitely need to keep the bottom of the laptop clear as that is where all the vents appear to be.

To be honest, I was disappointed that I did not hear any noise, as I had hoped to get a replacement in a month or two. That is why I got the 3 year warranty.

Note, I have not really pushed the laptop that hard yet. I will try to do that soon and see if that causes any other undesired noises. I will post again if it does.

Interesting,

maybe someone at dell can shed some light on this

Today, the early July ETA literally passed. Anyone here feels cheated and played around as I do? We should start to fight for our own justice.

I got a reply from Terry on this issue:

"From the news that I have received a new XPS 15 shipping in late July or August should be fairly silent, and it is very likely that tech support will be able to set up services for system board replacements some time in August. I can't give you any specific dates but this is a good time to order the model."

So it does appear at least that a fix is imminent, and if you order one now you might get lucky!

I have emailed premier support 2 days ago asking for this update and for them to reply here I hope they will post soon.

I am tired of the miss information we have 4 days until their last promise is void. fingers crossed. 

What's really bewildering is the secrecy of it all. The engineers who designed, ptototyped, and built a machine, and have every imaginable dagnostic tool at their disposal, plus tens of samples to take apart take more than 6 months to supposedly discover the cause for a noise that affects a majority of them. The only contact they have with the thousands of buyers affected is through some mystical Terry B's (With all due respect for being the only responder who has even a little bit of substance) sporadic and vague answers. My question is: did they find it's not cost effective to fix it and hope we'll grow tired and shut up?  Again, respect to TB, but "fix is coming" is not a forthcoming answer, especially if Dell's aware of the contradicting information coming from Dell reps. To name a few:

• No refund, will exchange (radio silence afterwards)
• No fix for this iteration of the model.
• No fix for any iterations of the model.
• Intel's to blame.
• It's not a defect.

A lot of people who bought this machine (me included) did so to replace a broken machine (VAIO faithfully served 7 rough years) to do real "earn a living" work. A good number (me included) cannot work with this defect. It takes gall to say, with a grin, "wait 7 months, and I'll see what I can be bothered to do".

To rephrase my question: Is the problem not cost effective to fix and you drag us along, or were thousands of complaints not enough to make you look for the problem in the first place? I can barely believe you looked and didn't find a fix. Out of self respect, I do not believe you weren't able to at least find the cause because: any decent company would tell its customers the cause when it foud it, no?

/rant

I got a reply from Terry on this issue: "From the news that I have received a new XPS 15 shipping in late July or August should be fairly silent, and it is very likely that tech support will be able to set up services for system board replacements some time in August. I can't give you any specific dates but this is a good time to order the model." So it does appear at least that a fix is imminent, and if you order one now you might get lucky!

If that's the real case, can Terry answer the following simple questions：

1. Has Dell made a fix to the coil whine or not? If yes, what was causing the whine and what had Dell done to fix it?

2. What about the information from other Dell reps that Dell never looked into the problem? Is there any proof that Dell has actually found the fix?

3.Does that mean customers won't receiver models with coil whine after late July?

This raises three questions for me: 1) What does “fairly silent” mean? Does that mean they have not eliminated the noise but have only reduced it? How will “fairly silent” compare to typical laptop noise? 2) I did not understand the point “this is a good time to order the new model”. If I order a new XPS 15 in the UK today it ships July 11, which is before the end-July/early-August timeframe Terry says the “fairly silent” models will ship. We need a clear announcement on this thread at the point the new motherboards are being used in new units so we know when we can make a purchase. 3) I know this is an XPS 15 thread but do these timeframes also apply to M3800 which appears to suffer from the same noise issue and is the model I plan to purchase?

Does this noise issue apply to the M3800? I assume it does, but is that a correct conclusion? Is anyone aware of some other thread for this issue with the M3800? The M3800 is what I plan to buy, so I'd appreciate knowing the basis for saying "the M3800 appears to suffer from the same noise issue". That sounds logical, but is it so...? Thanks.