XPS 17 (9710) Owner's Lounge and General Discussion Thread

[Steerpike]

2 hours ago, Aaron44126 said:

 

Ah, I forgot about Fn+Left/Right for home/end, but I was really frustrated with that because I tend to use shift+home/shift+end for "select to beginning/end of line"... and occasionally even Ctrl+Shift+Home/End for "select to beginning/end of document"... and throwing more keys into the mix for those combinations just drives me crazy.

 

I also use Alt+PrntScrn a lot but having it as a Fn key doesn't bother me, probably because I'm already used to it from prior laptops.

 

One thing that I wanted to mention is that you can use the dedicated keyboard "menu key" in place of Shift+F10 to bring up the right-click context menu.  On this system it happens to be mapped to Fn+right ctrl.

Right after I posted above, I started reading a few websites while eating dinner. I realized just how much I really liked having a dedicated 'pg down' key - so I could easily scroll down through the page with just one hand/finger. Having to use Fn+down arrow totally changes that - have to use both hands. I ended up using the down arrow alone, which achieves the purpose (advances down the webpage) but is far less convenient. So I may end up dedicating Right-alt and Right-Ctrl to pg-up and pg-down ... 

 

I'm giving some thought to returning the laptop because of this, as trivial as it may seem. I think I have 30 days to decide; but then - what else would I buy?! My current laptop has only 8 Gig and that is starting to be a bit of a limitation (though, not exactly a big one!). 

[Aaron44126]

Have you tried scrolling with the touchpad?  Using two fingers will perform a scroll.

[astrohip]

Also, pressing the SPACE BAR is the same as Page Down in many browsers, on most web pages.

 

I have a Logitech MX Mouse, and I've programmed one of the buttons for Page Down (and another for P-Up).

[Steerpike]

23 hours ago, Aaron44126 said:

Have you tried scrolling with the touchpad?  Using two fingers will perform a scroll.

 

Oh, absolutely! I live and die with that feature. When I'm sitting square-on in front of the laptop, it works great and I use it all the time. But when the laptop is off to the side (since I'm eating), it's just not quite as easy to get that gesture to register (and not be mis-interpreted as a single-click). 

 

4 hours ago, astrohip said:

Also, pressing the SPACE BAR is the same as Page Down in many browsers, on most web pages.

 

I have a Logitech MX Mouse, and I've programmed one of the buttons for Page Down (and another for P-Up).

Ah - pressing Space Bar is not something I remembered!  Yes, that is very helpful!  Now, if I 'overshoot' - page down too far - I still have to get to the 'page up' key (though - shift-space-bar does a page up - nice!).  If my mouse is reachable, I can simply use the 'scroll wheel' to quickly move down; it's just that occasionally I move the mouse out of the way. 

[astrohip]

20 hours ago, Steerpike said:

But when the laptop is off to the side (since I'm eating),

When I got my new XPS 17, I promised myself I would no longer eat near it.

 

That lasted about 15 minutes... 😁

[Steerpike]

An update - 

After getting the motherboard replaced, I was a bit nervous about the reliability of the machine. I experienced several 'bug check' restarts, which I didn't have time to research (I'm in the middle of several very time-consuming personal issues at the moment!). I also noticed that the Dell tech who did the repair put several marks on the case (where he 'twisted' the bottom cover away from the body - he used a metal tool where I think a nylon tool would have been more appropriate ... he did say it was a bitch to remove!). 

 

I'm not thrilled with the keyboard (lack of dedicated home / Pg Up / Pg Dn / End, and Prt Scrn keys, space-bar proximity to the surround), and the weight is just a bit higher than I am comfortable with, so ... I reluctantly decided to take advantage of the Dell 30-day satisfaction guarantee and sent it back!  I'll hopefully have more time on my hands in a few months, and maybe the new model will be out by then and I can take another look! 

 

Regarding the power consumption that I discussed further upthread, I did do some measurements with my 'kill-a-watt' meter.  With the laptop fully charged, and carrying out mundane tasks such as browsing the internet or scrolling through a spreadsheet, consumption was 4-6 watts typical, with some spikes up to 12 watts. If I turned screen up to full brightness, the typical consumption rose to 7-10 watts. If I let it 'sleep' (modern sleep), then woke it, I would see brief consumption in the range of 5-35 watts, before stabilizing at the 4-6 range again. So for typical, average usage, when fully charged, consumption was very low, and this is consistent with what I would expect for a machine with the very latest mobile processor.  I didn't have the time to stress test, unfortunately. 

 

I then ran the battery down to about 50%, and made sure it was in 'sleep' mode (modern sleep, that is!).  I plugged in the charger, and consumption was stable at 58 watts. So this tells me, charging only consumes about 58 watts. After waking the machine, and letting it sit for a minute, then doing some casual activities, I saw consumption of 65-70 watts. Consumption would range upwards to 85-90 watts, occasionally. 

 

I was going to do way more controlled tests, and document everything but just ran out of time. But my conclusion is - a 60 watt portable charger would be quite satisfactory for occasional travel purposes, assuming the laptop is maintained at a full charge ahead of time. Obviously, if I wanted to do some video transcoding while on the road, I'd be disappointed but if I just wanted to browse the internet and respond to emails, I'd be quite happy (and happy not to be lugging the very heavy 135 watt charger they supply with the laptop). 

 

I also would note that I never heard the fan ever, during my entire time with the machine, other than extremely short bursts for a second or less, typically on power-up.  So I have to say, that aspect was great! 

[Asleep]

Just acquired a XPS 17 9710 with base display and 3050 after my trusty M6700 finally gave up the ghost. It's been a decade since I had to setup a new laptop, so I'll be asking some dumb questions. Thought I'd finally try this form factor while I wait for the Precision 7770 to become available.

 

First thing I notice, the date is only partially visible? Is there a fix for this?

 

 

So I finally found a workaround fix.

 

I found this page that shows how to edit registry to make the taskbar smaller, and used a different value:  https://shaadlife.com/make-windows-11-taskbar-smaller/

 

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced

 

Add new > DWORD (32-bit) Value named TaskbarSi

 

Double click and set the hex value to 0 for small, 1 for medium (fixed my problem) and 2 for large (pretty big). 

 

Now the date is not cut off at all. 

[astrohip]

I've used a clock app called T-Clock for 10+ years. It allows you to customize the time display. Any color, format, etc. Solves this issue (as did your solution).

 

Here's a screen shot of my T-Clock. Note that it's actually centered and displayed perfectly, but my screen scrape can't get to the bottom of the display, so it looks off-center/sliced off.

 

[Aaron44126]

For Windows 11 specifically, there is a tool called ElevenClock for customizing the date/time display.

https://github.com/martinet101/ElevenClock

[Asleep]

21 hours ago, Aaron44126 said:

For Windows 11 specifically, there is a tool called ElevenClock for customizing the date/time display.

https://github.com/martinet101/ElevenClock

Thanks, I saw that and https://github.com/White-Tiger/T-Clock 

 

Was thinking having the ability to put the date and time all on one line instead of stacked might be best option for the smallest size taskbar.

[astrohip]

Question about charging: I see these new smaller USB wall chargers on the market, can they charge/power this unit? Instead of using the block that came with it?

 

Specifically, as an example, Anker has a new pint-size (their words) 100W USB-C charger. All else being equal, can this serve as my charger? What I don't know is if there is something special about the provided charger, and is 100W enough?

 

I realize that if I plug other devices into it, the power is reduced. I rarely push my XPS 17 that hard, so I don't think it's drawing huge amounts of power from the charger, at least not most of the time. I leave my laptop plugged in all the time; I don't use it unplugged a dozen times a year, and then just briefly.

 

If I did this, could I use any highly-rated USB-C cable to connect, or is there something special about the Dell cable (other than the little light on the end)?

 

As to why? By using a wall wart, I won't have the charging block laying around; it just makes for a cleaner use. I've never considered doing something like this, until I saw how powerful these wall chargers are getting.

[Aaron44126]

Larger XPS systems ship with 130W power adapters.  As an example, the Core i9-11980H CPU can draw over 85W of power by itself under high load (turbo boost), so a 100W power adapter wouldn't leave you a lot of headroom for other devices (the GPU, the display, the drives, the fans, USB devices attached, ...).  So, if you push the system under load then you will most likely see some CPU and/or GPU throttling with a 100W power adapter.  Under a light/"office" workload then it would probably be fine.

 

You'd also want to test how the XPS 17 behaves with an underpowered PSU connected.  I think most recent Dell systems handle this reasonably well but I have seen some that throttle very aggressively in this situation.  (So, only buy one of these if you can return it, in the case that it doesn't work out.)

I'd say maybe this would be a nice thing to put in your travel bag, but keep the original 130W power adapter at your desk or wherever the primary spot is that you use your XPS.

 

USB-C power delivery is still advancing.  Just now, cables supporting up to 240W of power delivery over a single USB-C connection are starting to hit the market.  Maybe we will see combo chargers like this that can output more than 100W over a single port in the not-too-distant future.

[astrohip]

11 hours ago, Aaron44126 said:

I'd say maybe this would be a nice thing to put in your travel bag, but keep the original 130W power adapter at your desk or wherever the primary spot is that you use your XPS.

Thanks for the feedback.  This is an excellent idea. Keep me from having to unplug the adapter when I travel, which is a PITA (I have it winding thru a desk to hide the cable). Plus it's much smaller to carry, than the current adapter. And a great way to test.

 

Thanks!

 

PS: Where's the like button on posts?

[Aaron44126]

21 minutes ago, astrohip said:

PS: Where's the like button on posts?

Bottom right corner and unfortunately “invisible” (white icon on white background) unless you are using a dark theme.  Hover around and you should see options pop out.  You can switch themes with the drop down at the very bottom of any page.

[Steerpike]

10 hours ago, astrohip said:

Thanks for the feedback.  This is an excellent idea. Keep me from having to unplug the adapter when I travel, which is a PITA (I have it winding thru a desk to hide the cable). Plus it's much smaller to carry, than the current adapter. And a great way to test.

 

Thanks!

 

PS: Where's the like button on posts?

I only had the XPS 17 for a short while, but I did some power measurements with a 'kill-a-watt' meter on the actual power draw at the wall, which I documented above in this thread.  I never saw it draw more than 90 watts at the most (with the battery discharged and thus, charging), with typical consumption being no more than 10 watts for typical usage with a fully charged battery. Now, my model was an i5, with UHD+ display, while yours is i7 or i9 with a fancier display, so you will consume more, but - I would say, for casual activities while traveling you would have no problems with a 100W charger. 

 

Just install the free 'BatteryInfoView', set it to run on startup, and have it log to a file. Watch the consumption dynamically as you do things, and you'll quickly get a sense of how much power is being used.  BatteryInfoView - View battery information on laptops / netbooks (nirsoft.net)  Combine this info with what I posted above - no more than 58 watts consumed by the battery charging circuitry, so about 42 watts left for the CPU/display/etc. 

 

[astrohip]

Weird quirk: About one out of every 4-5 times I shut down my laptop, it restarts instead of shutting down. Since it first started (2-3 weeks ago), I've been careful to click SHUTDOWN not RESTART, and yet it clearly restarts. 

 

Any ideas? As to what's causing it, and how to correct it?

[Aaron44126]

56 minutes ago, astrohip said:

Any ideas?

 

I wonder if it is just crashing on the way down (BSOD) and it is too quick to see, and then just automatically rebooting.

 

Try disabling the "automatically restart" option.  This is under System control panel -> Advanced system settings -> Startup and recovery.

 

[astrohip]

Done. Thanks.

[Steerpike]

Take a look at 'Event Veiwer' also; 'system' category.  Many ways to run it, I use 'win+R' (to get the 'run' dialog) and enter 'eventvwr.exe'. Then open the 'windows logs' category, then the 'system' subcategory (give it a few seconds to populate).  The log tends to be very 'dense', full of all manner of distractions, so in order to pinpoint the restart, I tend to search for (using the 'Find' item on the right) 6005, which is the event ID for 'Event log service was started', and is a reliable marker for where the last startup event occurred (there are plenty of other 'signatures' to find a startup, this is just one that I've learned to use). Once there, read every message that precedes it for a while, and you should see clues as to what may have happened. 

[astrohip]

13 hours ago, Steerpike said:

Take a look at 'Event Veiwer' also; 'system' category.  Many ways to run it, I use 'win+R' (to get the 'run' dialog) and enter 'eventvwr.exe'. Then open the 'windows logs' category, then the 'system' subcategory (give it a few seconds to populate).  The log tends to be very 'dense', full of all manner of distractions, so in order to pinpoint the restart, I tend to search for (using the 'Find' item on the right) 6005, which is the event ID for 'Event log service was started', and is a reliable marker for where the last startup event occurred (there are plenty of other 'signatures' to find a startup, this is just one that I've learned to use). Once there, read every message that precedes it for a while, and you should see clues as to what may have happened. 

Holy Moley! What a rabbit hole to get lost in. Amazing info. Most of it indecipherable, but a few nuggets in there. If I ever knew "Event Viewer" existed, I forgot about it. BTW, in addition to the Win+R access, just type "Event" at the start menu, and it's the first thing that pops up.

 

I changed the "Auto Restart" back to on (from @Aaron44126 post above), to see if it happens again. Then I can check Event Viewer to see any audit trail.

 

Thanks!!

[astrohip]

Does this model have the fingerprint reader on the Power button? I'm getting mixed results when I search.

 

Thanks.

 

Why? I've been reading about FIDO, and it seems a fingerprint reader is one method.

 

[Aaron44126]

2 hours ago, astrohip said:

Does this model have the fingerprint reader on the Power button? I'm getting mixed results when I search.

 

It appears so, or at least it is/was a configurable option.

 

Dell has a fingerprint reader driver posted.

https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-us/drivers/driversdetails?driverid=v30y0&oscode=wt64a&productcode=xps-17-9710-laptop

 

This support page specifically shows "power button with fingerprint reader" on the image of the system.

https://www.dell.com/support/manuals/en-us/xps-17-9710-laptop/xps-17-9710-setup-and-specifications/top?guid=guid-5fe1b857-0eef-49c4-94a8-285f27e7e23c&lang=en-us

 

The general "rule" for these newer Dell laptops is, if you see the "power symbol" on the power button, it is not a fingerprint reader.  If the power button is just an unmarked all black key, then it is a fingerprint reader.

[astrohip]

Thanks, I'll play around with it then.

 

ETA: It is just a plain black button.