Dell XPS 13 9370 overheating?

Run some stress tests and take a look at temperature charts to verify your unit behavior ie. using Intel® Extreme Tuning Utility. It will produce "visible" results that you can later use in contact with support.

Section responsible for charging and transmitting power while on AC is poorly designed in 9370 and it might get quite hot wile in use (and cause fans to spin lie crazy)

Here's what worked for me with mh Dell XPS 13 9360.  Charger got VERY hot when used.  Dell sent replacement, which still gets quite warm (especially when battery is  low), but not as hot.  Didn't solve my problem of the core temps getting high whenever battery was being charged.  After some fiddling with settings, finally came up with solution (for my situation). 

(1)  Settings---Dell Power Manager---Thermal Management--"Cool" (versus the default "Optimized" setting). 

(2)  Control Panel---Hardware and Sound---Power Options---"Balanced". 

I repasted my xps 9370 with new thermal paste. When doing a stress test, it used to get to 100C, but now it is 75C. Definitely change out the thermal paste if you have the confidence to open up your laptop. Also you can try undervolting, that might bring it down a few degrees.

What thermal paste did you use? 

Essentially any of the well known brands will work wonders compared to the stock one if properly/nicely applied. I have used Cooler Master MasterGel Maker and undervolting, resulting in 43-45°C in silent profile and battery mode (no fans spinning at all), 55°C while connected to the power adapter (very low fan activity). In performance mode it'll level around 78°C with no thermal throttling and the fans going full blast.

Most people I've read have been using the Thermal Grizzly liquid metal one, which will give even better (marginally) results, but I'm sceptical towards liquid metal thermal pastes due to their nature and effects.

Just got mine out of the box and set up my Outlook 365 account and it's a "Toaster". Concerned so I put a heat (from outdoor grillin) laser on the back left corner that was burning my knee. 145 degrees!! Are you kidding me. This one is going back to Costco. Oh yea. It's brand new, yet had early 2017 Windows System updates. Sad.

I bought a Dell XPS 13 with i5 8550U and 16GB RAM, 1080 P display (not 4k) and unfortunately had to return it within a day as it was becoming super-hot. Still considering it though for work except for the heating issues, which might be due to the vent design (only 1 horizontal vent at the bottom?? learn something from the Macbook Pros sleek and discreet side vents Dell!!).

So, my question is, how reliable is this Dell with these super-hot heating issues? I don't want to spend $2000 and have the laptop not even last a year. What would to the internal components with so much heat being generated?

Anyone experience the same issues?

I know this is an old thread, but I'm posting in case other folks are looking for info on xps13 9370 temp mitigation.

I repasted the cpu/gpu with Noctua NH-1 and noticed only a 2 degree difference from the stock paste. I used throttlestop to undervolt the cpu and cpu cache by 100mv, and the gpu by 50 mv.  This probably increased battery life a tad, but I didn't notice much difference with temperatures.

Now here's what made a huge difference for me.  I applied a 120x20x1.5mm Thermal Grizzly Minus Pad 8.  I cut it into two pieces to cover the cpu/gpu block and the cooling fin area. 

Before: My idle temps were around 40 deg C.  Running the Cinebench CPU test I was hitting 99 deg C and saw throttling.  Using HWMonitor, I saw the package would draw 30 watts until it hit 99deg and then step down to 15 watts.  Then, the fans would audibly kick in and wattage slowly rose back up to about 22 watts all while staying at 99 degrees.  The highest Cinebench score I was able to get was 647 with settings maxed in windows power settings and in Dell Power Manager.

After the pads: Idle tems are 31 deg C.  Running cinebench I maxed out at 88 Deg C and drew 30 watts for the entire duration of the test.  I got a score of 713 with power settings on max performance and Dell Power Manager set to optimized.  The bottom of the laptop gets *Warm* but not *Hot* under full load, with no noticeable difference at idle or under normal usage.

I would recommend getting a thermal pad, it was $12 on Amazon and made the single biggest difference in my experience.

yes I too faces same issue

I know my 9360 get's pretty warm when battery charging and I am using notebook. I noticed a couple places on adapter the laser temp gun I have reads 125 degrees. Bottom of notebook can reach 115 degrees too! I've come to accept that I have been shutting down the notebook or in sleep mode when charging. Someone mention that charging from Thunderbolt port USB C was better? But the adapter they were using was rated higher, maybe a dock they were not specific. 

Mine heats up to 125 F surface temperature while charging even if no applications are running. Heating is mostly on the left side palm rest left of Shift and Ctrl key. Heating stops when battery is fully charged. Does the same on both AC Adapter as well as Docking station USB-C charging (WD15 dock). Opened several service requests and dispatches. Went thru the Motherboard, battery, Fan, Heat sink replacements 3 times. NO improvement yet. Asked for system exchange. Hopefully new system won't do the same..