NEW.. Any and all concerns about the new XPS 435/8000/9000

I may just have to cancel my XPS 9000 order also, after reading so much about all the delays and the headphone jack issue.

My OLD XPS gen 2 had this same Front Headphone Jack noise back in 2003 and i hated it and bitched for three years about it.
i can not believe after five years i get another XPS and it also has this same problem.
Here are some old links from the old forum, You will not be able to tell but these old threads had a few 100 pages back then when each page had 25 reply's.
http://en.community.dell.com/forums/p/5583975/5718691.aspx#5718691
http://en.community.dell.com/forums/p/6087045/6210031.aspx#6210031

Also cancel because,  i see PC's are starting to have the new USB 3 and SATA 3 and i think i need to wait for them.

I know some are saying that the rear audio jacks don't have this problem. But on my OLD xps we all though the same thing and that was not true. The noise is still there also but may not be as bad. We had to set the levels of the the adjustments for the different volumes just right to limit the noise, but that in true made the PC sounds to loud so you have to turn off PC sounds. So crank up the speaker volume to full, set the audio card vol to no more then 65%. Adjust the wave vol for the desired vol level. Mute all other that are not being used. Buy a splitter for the rear speaker jack so you can have speakers and headphones plugged in at the same time. Then make extension cables for the Mic and Headphone to a little box you can set on top of the desk. Someone should sell one of these on ebay.

Has anyone found and tried a USB headset and will that stop the  noise from the front I/O connections?

Have owned my XPS9000 for ten days. I love it when it works. But since I ordered this computer, that past one month is not very pleasant.

I received shipping notice via e-mail from DELL on Nov 18. But there was no tracking number at my order status. Called DELL order support, and got a tracking number from them. Then contacted Purolator, I was told that tracking number was not on file. Then e-mail DELL order support, and called them three times, still got same tracking number. Received XPS9000 on NOV 24, and found the tracking number is not the same number I got from DELL order support. I have received this order, but my online status till now still shows "IN TRANSIT".

After installing Windows 7, the computer start up very slow and then freeze up. Reinstall Windows 7 again, the computer start up without problem. The trying to do first data backup, at 99% backup process, the computer gave error message. The backup was failed. OK. I just ignore the problem, start installing office 2007 and other software. The computer ran very fast and smooth. But it is not the end of the story.

Yesterday, Saturday December 5, when I press the button on the computer, the system starts booting, goes to chkdsk, does the countdown. It stops at one second; never goes anywhere. Pressing ctrl+alt+delete will not get it out, I have to hard reboot the system. Reinstall the Windows 7 doesn't solve the problem.

Let the system going through self assessment. I got two error codes. Contacted DELL technical support. Now I am told that one technician will come to my house to replace the hard drive.

I wonder how long this computer will last. I really love the design of the XPS 9000 and the excellent perform when it works. But till now I am really not happy with my XPS9000.

Just hang in there. After the tech gets the hard drive replaced you may never see another problem. I was on my third graphics card in 5 weeks. The last one has been flawless and have not had one problem otherwise.

BruceDB: I feel your pain. I'm on my second 435T/9000. I won't go through the all the details about dates commited and then not met by Dell. Nor will I list the numerous calls, lengthy wait times and painful frustration of customer service processes that lack appropriate data (ie estimated delivery date of a replacement system) and steadfastly refuse to deal with the root cause of the crosstalk problem.

What I will share is an observation that if Dell continues to spend money shipping parts, dispatching service technicians and replacing systems like they have done with me, you and others, they are going to go broke. It's absolutely the wrong approach to the problem and only makes customers more frustrated. The right approach would be to read these forums and take note of all the savvy engineers who happen to be Dell customers that have described this design flaw as a shielding/grouding issue and then tell us all how they intend to fix the problem. I have begged Dell to let me talk with one of their audio engineers about this problem. "There is no process to do that, " is the response I get. I even found one of their audio engineers on LinkedIN and tried to connect with him there. He never accepted the invitation.

I'm fortunate in that my second system is not experiencing the noisy power supply problem, but it still has the crosstalk at the headphone jack. And I presume that crosstalk also impacts the microphone jack which should be delightful when I try to use my speech recognition software. Since I'm also a musician, my work-around to the headphone jack problem is a USB-connected external audio box. However, that solution is not perfect as the 435T/9000 seems to have problems with USB connected devices when it tries to enter Sleep Mode. When it comes back out of this mode the external audio box no longer works and the system usually produces a Blue Screen of Death within 15 minutes. To be fair to Dell, a little investigation of this problem with Google shows it is happening to products from all vendors, so it's likely either a Windows 7 issue or a Win 7 / Driver conflict. I have disabled Sleep Mode in my power management settings and now appear to have a stable system. Great, so now my electric bill goes up too!

This machine still has great specs and hopefully, it will live up to them over time. Since I originally bought it at a 24% discount and since I have found ways around my problems I'm going to keep this system. I'm also going to continue to keep my problem tickets open with Dell and maybe one day I'll get to talk with someone who is actually empowered to solve problems.  My favorite comment in situations like this is ask the manufacturer how they would feel if I paid them with imperfect money and thus, why I feel abused as a customer having to accept an imperfect system, ineffective customer service and no means to resolve my problem. That usually leaves them speechless. I agree with you that folks should know what they are getting into before they spend thousands for the kind of customer experience we've endured.

Good luck.

Apparently Dell did not like my last post and deleted it, but at least someone got to read it. The utter lack of any true desire to resolve these issues is offensive. Their answer is to ship out a replacement system, a tech to your home or to pretend they have never heard of the issue in the first place. Shame on you Dell, this is not what we paid for to say the least. It has now been over a month since I was told I would have a replacement system in 7 days and it is still not here and as we all expect it will have the same issues as the first two and many others have experienced. I don't have a lot of time atm to go into details again, but I wish I had not saved money and gotten a monitor for free with this system or I would have already returned it for a full refund. If anyone else has the same issues with your new system, be sure to contact the 21 day return dept. and have them note and agree you can return any replacement for a full refund if it shows the same problems. Do not be tricked into thinking you will have a replacement in a timely fashion, chances are you will not. Dell stop deleting posts that you think might hurt your business simply because they tell the truth of what is going on with your customers. My system has audio cross talk in the front headphone jacks, a noisy power supply when it is off and an in home tech messed up my system further by not knowing how to service the system and incorrectly wiring the top USB jacks when he tried to fix it but was shipped the wrong parts to do so. Of course simply replacing the existing parts with the same parts will not fix this issue anyways. Beware if you plan to use headphones from the front of your system!

Update, I just received the new replacement system after a month (only the third XPS 9000 system so far)! Guess what?! Yep.. the buzzing/crosstalk is STILL THERE!  Not only that but now my harddrive is making clunking noises when the previous harddrive was quiet. After spending all the time to setup the new system, and expecting it to work properly I am very disappointed yet again by the lack of quality and apparently no true desire to resolve the issues. Now I have to call Dell XPS support and not only complain again about the headphone issue but the new harddrive issue as well.  Just wonderful Dell, thank you for making me waste more of my time and more of your money.

Update: I have solved the hard drive issue but swapping the "new" Seagate 1TB hard drive with the "old" Samsung 1TB hard drive. After asking XPS Support if I would be allowed to do that, waiting about 10 mins while the phone tech checked, they said yes. Now the drive is back to being whisper quiet! One small battle won. If your computer starts to shake the house for reads and seeks, check to see what brand you have because it is not something you should have to put up with and it should be replaced which is made evident by the complete difference in these two drives. I am so glad I still had the "old" system here and had not shipped it back yet.

As for the power supply issue, this one is much quieter and the high pitched squeal is about 98% gone to the point of no longer bothering me if I power the system completely off, thank goodness! So that is two problems resolved!

The main issue however, the audio static/buzz/crosstalk coming through the badly shielded cables, remains. The only partial solutions I can find, other then going to the back of the system, is to use headphones that have a volume slider on the cord and keeping it extreamly low while pumping up the volume for everything to max on the PC or using a USB converter made for headphone jacks to USB (available from Skype or Newegg). As the crosstalk is present with the sounds muted but whenever the graphics are used I really am starting to think it is a PCI Bus issue more then a shielding issue perhaps. And if that is the case then I have to wonder if the cause might be the video card itself or even the motherboard choice. I think I will have very little luck in getting tech support to find me a different motherboard or comparable video card to replace those components with. I was of the mindset to return this system and try an alienware system instead even though it would cost me more money, but I am starting to think I will just live with it for now until they can find a solution.

So, for anyone looking for a partial solution, try a USB Converter for your headphone jacks or headphones with an inline volume control. These are not perfect solutions and come with their own problems, but they do seem to at least help somewhat until Dell takes ownership of this flaw and makes it right. Yes, that statement makes me laugh too!

Has anyone tried replacing the power supply with a non-dell part...like an Antec, to see if that eliminates the audio interference? Just wondering what the source of the noise is coming from. I noticed when I put in a different, pro level PCI audio card (M-Audio Delta 1010LT) I still had the noise...actually worse. Sounded more like a 60 Hz ground loop, but I also had interference while moving my mouse or from hard drive noise. Granted it was PCI and not PCI express, so other factors could be the cause.

I swapped my PSU with a Corsair 750hx modular one and the audio interference is still there. I don't have any sound cards in my 9000, just the on-board audio.

Hi there ~ My one and only concern is static in the headphone jack on top of the machine.  It's not a *dire* concern, because I do have alternatives available, but I was wondering if anyone had found a fix for it. Thanks for starting a new thread, Jon.  Good to "see" you again.  :emotion-5:

Mine has this problem as well.  Can anyone with an XPS 9000 confirm that they don't have this problem?  As reported by others, this background noise from the headphone jack (on the top panel) is like electronic bleed through or crosstalk (electronic buzzing).  For example, just moving the scroll bar on this page causes the noise to change.  You won't hear it if you are listening to loud music, but it's definitely there during a quite passage.  Sound card is a Soundblaster X-Fi Xtreme.

I too have the same problem , I've had the XPS 9000 for 3 days.

I have a Creative Soud Blaster X-FI Xtreme sound card.

I just got my XPS 9000 on 2/6/10 and it has the same problems with noisy front audio jack and high pitched whine (from the power supply, if the rest of you are correct). I wish I hadn't read about the whine, because I didn't notice it until then, and now it's driving me nuts! Like many of the others with audio problems, I have no audio card, and the main outputs in the rear of the computer sound fine.

I don't understand why Dell won't deal with these niggling problems head-on. They can't be that hard to fix.

I have the same issue with the "crosstalk / whine" on the headphones.

A Dell tech was sent out twice. Once to swap out the Soundblaster X-FI Xtreme Audio card a second time to swap out the i/o port (headphone/usb/mic front ports). But the problems still persist.

I love my Studio XPS 9000 with its 16GB of DDR3 SDRAM, Soundblaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio and Win 7 64-bit, with all the bells and whistles.

The replacement order was "In Production" but went to "Canceled" after a month waiting - Total waiting for a solution has been three months.

Please note that a more detailed post was deleted - twice.

Apparently Dell did not like my last post and deleted it, but at least someone got to read it. The utter lack of any true desire to resolve these issues is offensive. Their answer is to ship out a replacement system, a tech to your home or to pretend they have never heard of the issue in the first place. Shame on you Dell, this is not what we paid for to say the least. It has now been over a month since I was told I would have a replacement system in 7 days and it is still not here and as we all expect it will have the same issues as the first two and many others have experienced. I don't have a lot of time atm to go into details again, but I wish I had not saved money and gotten a monitor for free with this system or I would have already returned it for a full refund. If anyone else has the same issues with your new system, be sure to contact the 21 day return dept. and have them note and agree you can return any replacement for a full refund if it shows the same problems. Do not be tricked into thinking you will have a replacement in a timely fashion, chances are you will not. Dell stop deleting posts that you think might hurt your business simply because they tell the truth of what is going on with your customers. My system has audio cross talk in the front headphone jacks, a noisy power supply when it is off and an in home tech messed up my system further by not knowing how to service the system and incorrectly wiring the top USB jacks when he tried to fix it but was shipped the wrong parts to do so. Of course simply replacing the existing parts with the same parts will not fix this issue anyways. Beware if you plan to use headphones from the front of your system!

My posts have been deleted twice (maybe a third) and it was not as descriptive as yours... not sure whats going on.

I am in England

The dell xps 9000 is NOT available in England

After a week of talking on the phone – Dell said they will sell me a machine with:

Xps 8100

Intel 15- 750

Radeon hd 5770 card

6gb ram

Wind 7 pro

2 Xdvd drives

3YEAR mcfee

3 year full warranty

For (ENGLISH POUNDS) 1100

u.s dollars $2200

Yesterday the dell person rang and wanted me to agree straightaway with the deal

I replied on the phone I want time to think.

After reading the above – I think I am being OVERCHARGED

What do you say?

Thank you