XPS 13 9360 hardware, Linux OS, power consumption notes

Question

I've owned a 9333, 9350, and now the 9360. Overall, the 9360 is fantastic in linux and is a fantastic laptop. HiDPI is still a pain on linux. The next version of openjdk should help with java apps, but that's not here yet, and Qt5 and GNOME still don't quite know how to communicate how to scale things all the time. For now, I find myself staying at 1600x900 (1/4 native resolution) to avoid the headache. The screen doesn't look as nice, but HiDPI support isn't needed and power consumption goes down a little. I'm looking forward to the day when I can stay at 3200x1800 and have qtcreator, unity IDE, eclipse, arduino's IDE, and android studio all behave well. HID USB devices don't seem to go into full power saving mode, and I don't use the touchscreen except for certain development tasks. I disable it in the BIOS when I'm not using it to save some power. I don't currently need bluetooth, and it's annoying that ubuntu can't seem to remember that I want it disabled all the time, so I disabled it in the BIOS. Disabling thunderbolt in the BIOS reduces power consumption by a little bit on first boot and by quite a lot (~2W) after resume (since all the thunderbolt controllers show up even when not needed for some reason). I don't know if this is caused by a firmware issue or something missing in kernel/userspace on my setup. The Atheros firmware/drivers finally bothered me enough to spend the $26 to buy an Intel 8265. There were a few times where the atheros card was missing, a few times where it took forever to connect after resume, and the fact that the firmware or driver don't get much love from the manufacturer. I'm happy to leave it out of my laptop. As an extra bonus, power consumption is slightly lower with the intel card. Since kernel 4.9, Mesa 13, libinput 1.6, and replacing my wifi card, I don't really have any hardware complaints. I'll probably upgrade to a later kernel where fbc or psr is on by default. I tested a Samsung 960 Pro 512GB (new toy) in the XPS 13. Sequential read speeds are about the same as the Toshiba 512GB (~1600MB/s), which made me think the m.2 slot only has 2 PCIe lanes wired up.. I could be wrong, I'm not sure why speeds are so low. In my desktop, the Samsung gets advertised sequential read speeds of ~3200MB/s, so I left it in there. Another big reason to not use the Samsung 960 Pro in the laptop is that the power consumption at idle went up almost a watt! Diablo III is very playable at 1280x720 with wine-staging. As far as native games go, Borderlands 2, Bioshock Infinite, CS:GO, Don't Starve, and DOTA 2 are all playable at 1280x720 as well. I am a casual gamer and low frame rates don't bother me as much as high latency. Idle power consumption is now just around 4.95W at minimum brightness at 1600x900 in airplane mode, both on fresh boot and after resume. If I could put the keyboard from my XPS 13 9333 into this laptop, I would.

relevant · Answer

This was a fun read. Thank you! I hope your comments are taken into account for the next model.

bwat48 · Answer

regarding the  thunderbolt 2w power usage on resume issue, you don't need to disable thunderbolt completely, you only need to disable 'Thunderbolt boot support'

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