Are Dell Remote Diagnostics reliable?

@Unhappy Canadian  My escalation path is something that I have to get involved with on a case by case basis, not a secret phone number for people to call. And since you still haven’t tested a controlled benchmark test on a clean install and it sounds like the response you’re getting from ARS has improved anyway, it’s not something I’m prepared to consider at the moment.

@jphughan  Sorry, we did not mean to suggest that you intercede personally on our behalf.  You have already done so much already!  We had thought that there might be some well-hidden means of circumventing the merry-go-round which hitherto been so difficult to escape.  We would then share this with other partners in misery we have encountered here or perhaps use in the future for ourselves.

If we ever do (abashedly) come to you with such a request to impose on your good will, rest assured it will only be after every other avenue has been explored.

And this would never happen before we have done everything that you have so kindly suggested, most particularly the clean install.

For now, we will see how things play out with what does seem like an improved response.

Until then, if we ever do bother you, it might be for general information (like what you mentioned about password mangers).  Sign us up for some pre-orders if you ever write a book!  

@jphughan   Well, whatever hopes we had for an improved more positive response from ARS were just dashed to smithereens.  Forgive the (only slight) hyperbole.

As we reported there were a couple of very understanding and supportive mangers in Technical Support that we spoke to. Our issue was escalated again.

Unfortunately, the escalation went to the very same person, Mr. Narendra R., from ARS.

Mr. Narendra R.  His name bears repetition because he needs to be avoided at all costs.

Normally, such personal antipathy would have no place here, but if he is an aberration or outlier in ARS, this needs to be known.

Regarding our issues, he once again repeated that they had already been "resolved".

He insisted that the battery that was replaced was just fine (so the diagnostics had indicated) even though we saw and the technician reported that this battery had been very swollen.

He did admit that a swollen battery would be bad, so that must mean that he thinks that the technician and I were both lying.

He also repeated that a battery should get 20 to 30 minutes per cell.

He acknowledged that 2 hours is not "incredibly long" but refuted that the promotion "you'll get incredibly long battery life" is a promise by Dell or should in any way be construed as such.

He dismissed all the independent reviews and experience of countless customers that all report much, much longer battery life than 2 hours.

He refused any further diagnostics or explorations of our issues since, according to him, our system is fine with nothing wrong.

Mr. Narendra R. seemed more polite this time around (and we were exceedingly so) but it appeared as if he left the conversation a good part of the time...we would ask direct questions and there would be no answers...and then he just hung up.

It looks like we are back in purgatory.

@jphughan   Thank you for your reply.  Well, this has really been a roller-coaster ride.  I kind of made a big stink after that last encounter with Mr. Narenrdra R.  Well, not really a "stink" but I wrote emails to the 3 managers in Tech Support who had been previously helpful and supportive.

So...a couple of hours ago I received an unexpected call from a Mr. Haran K., also of ARS.  I want to mention him for the opposite reasons that I named Mr. Narenrdra R., because the actual support we got from Mr. K was...well it was actually SUPPORT!

I am kind of in shock...for good reasons this time!

First of all, Mr. Narenrdra R. is forever off our case.

Second, at no point in our conversation was he rude, or imply that we were lying or making things up.  He did not dismiss our concerns or hang up on us.  Some of these things are low bars, but compared with what now does appear to be an aberration, well...

Third, he actually pointed out things that alleviate some of our concerns regarding potential underlying issues.

Prior we had been led to believe that benchmark tests were done on highest configuration systems...it seems logical, right?  High end systems will get the best results.

But perhaps not for battery life...those benchmark tests were done on lower end systems...an i3 chip, 4 gb ram, 256 gb ssd...ours is an i7, 16gb ram, 512 gb sd...and yes, we have an FHD display, not a UHD.  But all these run the system harder...and faster...so it is reasonable to expect this to have an effect on battery life.

No one...not one...certainly not Mr. Narenrdra R. from ARS...had pointed this out to us before.  They had said...and implied...quite the opposite.

Together with what you have told us about the unlikelihood of a hardware problem being an underlying issue causing reduced battery life, this has greatly reduced our worries about such potential serious hardware concerns.

So, in addition to be understanding, non-dismissive and sympathetic, Mr. K readily acknowledged that we had unnecessarily been through a very frustrating couple of months.

He offered to send us a Dell Power Bank to compensate for this frustration, but also and more importantly gave us his contact information and invited us to readily reach out to him to circumvent any such frustration in the future.

As it stands, there is much relief.  The 3 to 4 hours we get on the battery now still seems a little low, but is something we can live with...as long as nothing else is going on that might damage or destroy our system.

I do want to learn how to do a clean install...mostly it is just my complete inexperience that causes me any trepidation, but I am sure it would be a very useful thing to learn how to do.

"Capturing a disk image backup"  is also something I have never done before.  Forgive my utter ignorance!  Really, you should write one of those "for complete idiots" books!

In the meantime, there are a whole host of matters I am tempted to ask you about...

The password managers you mentioned, VPNs, screen-mirroring and media casting, etc.

All the little known or against the "common wisdom" stuff which seems to be your forte.

If you enjoy sharing these things, we would even more enjoy learning about them!

Cheers and best wishes for all your patience and good-will!

@Unhappy Canadian  Quite a roller coaster indeed!  Nice to hear you got a somewhat better answer, but while it's true that battery life claims are performed on lower-end specs and sometimes in use cases that don't resemble real world use, 3-4 hours still seems unreasonable.  One of the notebook review sites I really like is Notebookcheck, because they post extensive reviews of the systems they test, and they often test more than one configuration of a given system, for reasons just like this.  For example, they might test an i5 FHD spec of an XPS 13, and then do a follow-up review of an i7 UHD version specifically to call out differences around display experience, performance, and of course....battery life.  I've just realized that you didn't mention what generation of XPS 13 you have, but there's an excellent chance that Notebookcheck has reviewed multiple variants of it.  I'd suggest looking at their reviews.

And for what it's worth, even outlets that only review a single spec don't always get a low-end spec.  Dell's own battery life claims might be based on a bare bones spec, but that's not what they will always send to other outlets, because of course they'll want their system to compare favorably to the competition in other respects, such as display quality, performance, etc.  So they won't necessarily want to optimize their review units for battery life at the cost of everything else.  And review outlets that are worth reading will typically indicate the specs of the system they're testing, so you can look at those to see one that's a reasonable match to your system and then see what they observed in terms of battery life, hopefully with some context as to what the system was doing during the battery life test.

In terms of a clean install, it really does boil down to this:

1. Download the Microsoft Media Creation Tool and use its wizard to create a bootable Windows 10 installation flash drive.
2. Back up all of your data.
3. Boot your system from this flash drive by pressing F12 during startup to access the one-time boot menu.  Choose to boot from the flash drive.
4. Follow the dead simple Windows 10 Setup wizard.  When you get to a choice to perform an Upgrade or Custom install, choose Custom.
5. At the point asking where to install Windows, choose to delete all existing partitions on your internal disk (which will be identified as Disk 0), until there's just a single Disk 0 entry identified as Unallocated Space.  Select that.
6. Once Windows starts up, download Dell Update.  Run that and it will pull down the drivers you need.

As for image backups, there are a variety of tools for that purpose.  My favorite is Macrium Reflect, which has a Free version that would be suitable for this purpose.  They also have very good documentation.  If you want to go that route, you'd want to capture an image backup of your disk, which is easy, and then make sure you create "Rescue Media", which is a bootable flash drive that loads Reflect, which is what you would use to restore your image backup even if your system isn't bootable.  Image backups are great to perform on a regular basis anyway to ensure that your system is recoverable if a Windows update goes sideways or something -- and of course they can be used as a regular file backup solution to cover accidental deletions, overwrites, etc., even if your entire system isn't hosed.

Good luck!

@jphughanYeah, the roller-coaster has perhaps exaggerated any elation I might feel.  There are still many concerns, of course.  The biggest being the almost script-like repetition of "two hours" which is in such stark contrast to all the promotions and, yes, independent reviews.

We have the 10th generation XPS 13.

Yes, of course in trying to maximize the performance boasts of promotions, battery life has to be balanced out with so many other aspects that would be lessened by minimal systems.

It HAS lessened our worries that you don't readily see an underlying hardware issue...and we WILL do that clean install, lol!  And we WILL do the regular backups (maybe experiment with that first, then the clean install).

But just a hypothetical...once we do the clean install...and, if the battery life remains on the lower side...say, the 3 - 4 hours...well, what then?

Oh, and by the way, what is a good, objective test for the battery life?...so far we have just really been doing normal usage and what I deemed an extreme minimal one (computer on, doing nothing).  Is there some sort of standard test or procedure?

You give us so much useful information! 

The next thing I want to ask you is about screen-mirroring.

We have tried a windows display adapter a few years ago with very iffy results.  We have tried various casting options...chromecast, roku...but these have limited capabilities.

For media, we recently started using Plex together with a Roku device with fairly good results.

But to use our tv as a computer display, the only thing that has really worked is to connect the laptop directly to the tv via an hdmi cable and use a wireless keyboard (logitech) to control the laptop from the comfort of our chair.

It would be nice to find a way to do this without the addition of this remote keyboard.

Any solutions for this?

Answer at your leisure and discretion, we will always be in your debt!

@Unhappy Canadian I'm not sure what "10th generation XPS 13" means.  Do you mean the version with a Core 10th Gen CPU?  That I believe is the XPS 13 9300, but you may want to verify by checking your system model. There are various ways to do that in Windows, in the BIOS, and on support.dell.com (by entering your Service Tag -- which you should not post on a public forum such as this!)

If battery life is not meaningfully improved after you perform a clean install, including all necessary drivers, I will be out of ideas.  I suppose a hardware issue that I can't even theorize is a possibility, but if you have a modern XPS 13 with a fresh battery, then I would not immediately be able to account for such poor battery life under typical usage.

Speaking of typical usage, there are professional benchmarking tools such as PCMark that have battery life tests, while other outlets simply have a standardized set of parameters, such as setting the display to 50% brightness, the volume to 50%, and then using a specific media playback application to play a specific video file stored on the system itself (i.e. not keeping WiFi busy by pulling it over the network) on a loop until the battery dies.  That's of course not representative of how most people will use their systems on a daily basis, but performing the same test will at least give a sense of how laptops perform relative to each other.  Here again, if you can find reviews of your system with approximately your hardware spec, see how they themselves tested battery life and try to replicate that, then see how closely your results align with theirs.

For screen mirroring, I don't have to do that from Windows systems often.  On my Apple devices I use an Apple TV, which is quite solid.  But on the Windows side, in my own home I happen to have an Xbox One, which has a Wireless Display app, and wireless casting to that works pretty reliably, almost certainly because Microsoft controls both ends of that equation.  It also helps that the Xbox and source system are on the same network, as opposed to dongles that sometimes rely on the source establishing a WiFi Direct connection.  That can be an issue since not all systems even support having a WiFi Direct connection to a device while also maintaining the "standard" WiFi connection to the network in order to retain Internet access and such, and even the ones that do support this may not handle it all that well.  But I know some clients of mine have had success with the Microsoft Wireless Display Adapter, which is admittedly pretty easy to set up.  If that's the adapter that you had issues with, try updating its firmware, which requires you to download the Wireless Display Adapter app from the Microsoft Store (full instructions here).  But when it comes to reliability, an HDMI cable connection is always going to be tough to beat, especially if you'll be watching videos as opposed to displaying more static content like productivity apps and such.  Hopefully this helps somewhat!

@Unhappy Canadian  Thanks for the kind words.

Ok, so it's an XPS 13 7390.  That's still quite recent and should deliver very good battery life, regardless of whether it's the 2-in-1 or the "standard" version.

Blurriness can be the result of running displays with very different scale factors simultaneously.  If you were using 1080p when casting wirelessly, but 4K when connected via HDMI, that could account for that.  The background on this is somewhat technical, but I've written it up a few times here before, and I just found one example here if you're curious.  I don't know for sure if this was involved in the experience you had, but it may have been.

I haven't used Plex myself, but I have several friends who love it.  I actually just use the Windows Media Network Sharing service and basic UPnP/DLNA clients on other devices, such as my OPPO UDP-203 4K Blu-ray player, which has a rudimentary client for this purpose.  It gets the job done for me because I don't do a lot of that since I don't have a large internal media library.  Likewise I don't have much experience with Roku except for helping others set up their Roku sticks and TVs.  I have an Apple TV that works quite well for all of my Internet-based content consumption.  As for VLC, I always have it installed because it can play just about anything, but I don't watch much on my PCs anymore.  It's mostly on my iPad and TV, and VLC's iOS client isn't very good, sadly.

@jphughan  We've been thinking about getting an Apple TV anyways, it might very well be useful for us. Which brings up a question I've been meaning to ask...is there anything similar to the Dell Power Manager for Apple devices?  So that we might adjust the settings as you have advised to preserve the battery.  My admittedly cursory research did not readily find anything.

I checked out Notebookcheck but could not find an onsite review for our device.  Do you know what might be the most similar?  The system reviews I looked at did seem to indicate that battery life of around 10 - 11 hours was a likely near "real life" experience. 

What you wrote in that other post may indeed explain some of the things we were experiencing, though perhaps some of the issues were just due to the limitations of the device we were using at the time.  One of these days I will dig out the Wireless Display Adapter and see how it works with the Dell.  I know I didn't throw it away, so it must be somewhere! (and no, we will not ask you to recommend an app for personal Home Organization and Management).

If you want kind words, we have an endless supply for you.  Really, if you ever needed a reference, we would push to the front of the line to provide one...

@jphughan   So, update on the situation.

Battery life still the same, but...

As mentioned earlier, the unit was quite noisy for most of its life.  Everyone at Dell told me this was normal, just as they told me 2 hours battery life was normal.

Now we are getting a critical error about the cpu fan.

So, went back to ARS...the reasonable guy who sent us a free power bank is no longer reasonable.  Claims this is a "new" problem which, since it is not out of warranty, we can only get fixed if we pay for it.  He says he has the power to make an exception, but will not do so.

The fan misbehaving seems, to me, to have everything fall into place.  I think this was the underlying problem which I was worried about, which no one at Dell either identified nor even contemplated, even though I repeatedly told them that the unit seemed excessively noisy.

Does this sound right?  If the fan was running most of the time, this would drain the battery quicker, and that "problem" wouldn't be fixed by replacing the battery (which was done).

I spent countless hours expressing my worries about something like this, but was dismissed out of hand everywhere at Dell.

Now the ARS guy says this is a completely NEW problem, unrelated, so he will not make an exception to get the fan replaced.

I am done with Dell.

When this computer dies (probably pretty soon) I will have to buy another...do you have any that you might recommend?...maybe Apple or something else...preferably some company that has a customer service department which is not an oxymoron...

@Unhappy Canadian  Nice to hear from you again, although I wish it had been with better news. I don’t really have a way to test this, but I would be surprised if a CPU fan that was erroneously running at high speed, i.e. even when not necessary due to the amount of heat being generated by various components, would have cut your battery life by that amount. I wouldn’t expect small fans to consume that much power, but again I don’t know for sure or have a real way to test that.

In terms of alternatives, if you’re not tied to Windows or highly price-sensitive, then Apple is indeed an attractive option, especially if you’re already in their ecosystem with other products. If my career weren’t focused around Windows, I might have switched to a Mac at this point myself, seeing as I already have an iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, AirPods, and Apple TV. The integration between those products is excellent and only gets better with software updates. Apple is a walled garden, but I have to say it’s a pretty sweet garden.

Otherwise, Lenovo is the obvious alternative, especially if you care about things like on-site rather than mail-in service, which very few other vendors offer (not even Apple). I had an XPS 15, but in late 2019 when it came time to upgrade, I went with a ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 2 instead for various reasons I wrote up in a thread that I believe I linked earlier here. But if you want something closer to the XPS 13 in terms of size and weight, the X1 Carbon or X1 Nano would be closer. One of the things that would really bug me and HAS bugged many others about very recent Dell systems, and the last few generations of XPS 13s, is the change in the keyboard layout that put Home/End on the top row, while keeping PgUp/Dn near the arrows. More on that in this thread. That said, I haven’t had occasion to use Lenovo’s support yet, so I can’t really comment on that aspect.

@jphughan  You can always be relied upon for useful information, even if the original problem or complaint is not fully "solved".

A couple or three questions if you have the time:

1. Could a misbehaving fan (perhaps failing) cause other problems which might contribute to power drain?

2. Can the laptop be run relatively safely without a working fan? Are there measures that can be taken (for instance, turn off if it gets very hot) to assure this?

3. A question about cleaning:  The user is not supposed open the case, so it is recommended using compressed air directed through the vents to "clean" out the dust from the fans.  But won't this just push any dust around if the case is not open, causing problems later?  If so, how are you supposed to clean out any dust if you cannot open up the case (and void any warranties)?

Thank you for your kind words.  One reason I stayed away was I was just tired of dealing with all the hassle.  Another was that it was too tempting to take unfair advantage of your extraordinary kindness.

See, I'm doing it again...

By the way, the two options you mentioned were the ones I was already considering...Apple, because of my own past experience with them (plus the reasons you mentioned)...and the Leonova primarily because of what I had read from you before.

Again, many, many thanks!

@Unhappy Canadian 

1. I can't immediately think of how a misbehaving fan could cause more drain than the power required to run the fan itself, but I certainly wouldn't consider my thoughts on the matter to be the final word.

2. Laptops do have methods of throttling performance if temperatures get too high, but if a laptop is designed to have a fan, I'm not sure if that would be sufficient to allow it to run safely with no fan at all.  Normally thermal throttling is intended for situations where the cooling system is already known to be adequate only for allowing the system to run at heavy loads in bursts rather than for prolonged periods of time.  It's not meant to compensate for hardware functioning improperly or not at all.  That said, some laptops equipped with fans can handle lighter workloads without having to activate them.  Unfortunately this just isn't something I've experimented with at all, and I expect the results would vary from one system to the next.

3. What gave you the idea that users weren't supposed to open the case, and especially that doing so would void warranties?  The Dell Support site provides service manuals for systems that provide instructions complete with diagrams for removing and reinstalling every component of the system.  Opening a system on its own definitely will not void your warranty.  BREAKING something in the course of doing so might result in warranty coverage being denied on that breakage, but I've opened systems up to blow compressed air into them.  With smaller systems though, it helps to have more delicate tools.  For that, I'd suggest the iFixit Pro Tech Toolkit.  If you're not familiar with iFixIt, they publish teardowns of all sorts of consumer electronics, and they've put that kit together based on the tools they've found most useful in doing so, including the selection of bits that are included in the driver kit, some of which are quite specialized.  It's amazing how much easier some jobs become when you have the right tools.

Thanks very much for the kind words.  I've been happy to help out inasmuch as I've been able to here.  I wish this had a happier ending, but I wish you the best with wherever you go next!

@jphughan 

Thank you for your reply...and so quick!  Sorry it took so long to respond.

At this point, the first two questions are moot points...whether or not the fans were at the root of the excessive power drainage, and even though I expressed my concerns long before the warranty expired, Dell is not going to do anything about it.

It took me a while to remember where I had heard the stuff about opening the case and warranties.  Part of that is just general stuff, not necessarily from Dell, that laptop manufacturers do not want...or at least discourage...users from opening the case.  They certainly make it more difficult than it used to be.

But that specific thing about the warranty came almost at the start of our problems, when I wondered why I could not just replace the battery myself...like older Apples I owned were easily able to do...and I was repeatedly told that no, no, you can't do that, you need a Dell technician to open up the case and replace the battery.

The cleaning part, though, is official Dell policy, I guess...here are two examples from these boards:

https://www.dell.com/community/Laptops-General-Read-Only/How-to-clean-fan-in-Dell-XPS-L502x/m-p/4154166/highlight/true#M747691

https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-us/000179087/how-to-troubleshoot-fan-issues

Of course, dislodging dust from the vents mostly just moves the dust around inside the unit. That doesn't sound like a proper "solution".

I have ordered the iFixit Pro Tech Toolkit today and it is on the way.  Perhaps a good cleaning will work wonders.  In any case, these seem to be very useful tools to have around.  Thank you for the recommendation.

As far as the cleaning...is compressed air the way to go?  And do you have any particular brand or item you recommend?

The ending here may not have been so happy...but you definitely have made it more bearable for us.