New Dell XPS battery only 300 rated cycles??!

[Light-Yagami]

Hello everyone,

 

I've recently bought a Dell XPS 9700 (17 inch), maxed out.

It has come to my attention that seemingly for ever, Dell has been putting low quality batteries in their devices, rated only 30% of that Apple claims (1000 cycles).

 

Does anybody have an older Dell XPS device who can confirm that batteries really go in what.. a year??? I hope that's only stated to avoid premature warranty claims without shilling extra for extended battery warranty, and NOT actual reality. Because that would be really disappointing.

 

Thanks for all answers

[5x5]

The XPS machines are extremely poor quality and riddled with issues. It's common knowledge that the parts and design is nowhere near as good as the marketing would have you believe. They have heat, power and DPC latency issues in addition to the garbage batteries and poor QA/support.

 

Return it I'd you ask me. It's not even worth half the asking price.

[flashiling]

sounds like the oppesite of what linus said in one of the latest videos

[5x5]

3 minutes ago, flashiling said:

sounds like the oppesite of what linus said in one of the latest videos

Because it is. Linus' coverage of the XPs devices has always been heavily criticised not just by me. The massive numbers of sees with broken BIOSes, broken sleep modes, DPC latency, overheating XPSes, overheating VRMs on XPSes, power discharge under load and massive issues with Dell support are the main reason the XPS laptops are never recommended even on his own forum

[Light-Yagami]

4 minutes ago, 5x5 said:

The XPS machines are extremely poor quality and riddled with issues. It's common knowledge that the parts and design is nowhere near as good as the marketing would have you believe. They have heat, power and DPC latency issues in addition to the garbage batteries and poor QA/support.

 

Return it I'd you ask me. It's not even worth half the asking price.

Literally everything you've said has been fixed. So idk where you're coming from, seems like you're just bashing on Dell XPS for the sake of it. 

 

QA support is trash, that I agree with.

[5x5]

To answer the OPs question, the rating is real and the rating holds true. The battery is only rated for 300 cycles after which it is dumb luck on whether it fails or not. It also only has a six month warranty on the battery itself because it's classified as a consumable.

[5x5]

Just now, Light-Yagami said:

Literally everything you've said has been fixed. So idk where you're coming from, seems like you're just bashing on Dell XPS for the sake of it. 

 

QA support is trash, that I agree with.

Nothing has been fixed. The laptop still hits 99*C and cooks itself. It still throttles and it still discharges the battery while running the VRMs at 100*c. 

[Light-Yagami]

1 minute ago, 5x5 said:

Because it is. Linus' coverage of the XPs devices has always been heavily criticised not just by me. The massive numbers of sees with broken BIOSes, broken sleep modes, DPC latency, overheating XPSes, overheating VRMs on XPSes, power discharge under load and massive issues with Dell support are the main reason the XPS laptops are never recommended even on his own forum

DPC has been fixed this year, tested by Dave2D, TallyHo Tech and others, Overheating has been addressed with a vapor chamber, draining from the battery was a choice made by Dell to reduce the brick size, VRMs do not overheat anymore, I haven't seen reports of broken BIOSes on latest 9700 model.. 

 

I'm honestly confused where you're getting your info from. 2016? 

 

I would've bought a Dell XPS in the previous years were it not for their issues. It's only this year that I find them good enough to be worth a purchase. I'm as critical as it gets with these things. So.. the only problem I have so far is that battery cycle statement. Which I asked if true.

[Light-Yagami]

3 minutes ago, 5x5 said:

Nothing has been fixed. The laptop still hits 99*C and cooks itself. It still throttles and it still discharges the battery while running the VRMs at 100*c. 

You have a choice - run in ultra performance and get 100C, or run in any other profile (there are 3 other) and get mid 80s at worst. Not to mention - you can set your own PL2/PL1 limits.

[5x5]

Just now, Light-Yagami said:

DPC has been fixed this year, tested by Dave2D, TallyHo Tech and others, Overheating has been addressed with a vapor chamber, draining from the battery was a choice made by Dell to reduce the brick size, VRMs do not overheat anymore, I haven't seen reports of broken BIOSes on latest 9700 model.. 

 

I'm honestly confused where you're getting your info from. 2016? 

 

I would've bought a Dell XPS in the previous years were it not for their issues. It's only this year that I find them good enough to be worth a purchase. I'm as critical as it gets with these things. So.. the only problem I have so far is that battery cycle statement. Which I asked if true.

Look at Dells documents. The vapor chamber is rated for 100w I'd thermal dissipation. It houses a 100W 2060 and 60W i7/9. That's over 50% more thermal capacity than the cooling can handle. But by all means run a demanding game, see I'd it doesn't shoot to 99*C and doesnt start throttling. The issue is, over time, the board WILL warp due to the extreme heat cycling and it will fail.

 

I have a colleague who still has BIOS issues on his brand new 15 so no, it's not fixed at all. Dell also refused to address anything and are not taking his calls anymore.

[Light-Yagami]

Just now, Light-Yagami said:

You have a choice - run in ultra performance and get 100C, or run in any other profile (there are 3 other) and get mid 80s at worst. Not to mention - you can set your own PL2/PL1 limits.

@5x5 And this is coming from a guy who opened it immediately after getting it to change to thermal compound, so I actually get better temps than that.. maybe I'm stupid and you know something I don't, idk

[5x5]

1 minute ago, Light-Yagami said:

You have a choice - run in ultra performance and get 100C, or run in any other profile (there are 3 other) and get mid 80s at worst. Not to mention - you can set your own PL2/PL1 limits.

At that point what use is the hardware? If it has to run slower than a 1660 and an i5, why even incude it at all?

[Light-Yagami]

1 minute ago, 5x5 said:

Look at Dells documents. The vapor chamber is rated for 100w I'd thermal dissipation. It houses a 100W 2060 and 60W i7/9. That's over 50% more thermal capacity than the cooling can handle. But by all means run a demanding game, see I'd it doesn't shoot to 99*C and doesnt start throttling. The issue is, over time, the board WILL warp due to the extreme heat cycling and it will fail.

 

I have a colleague who still has BIOS issues on his brand new 15 so no, it's not fixed at all. Dell also refused to address anything and are not taking his calls anymore.

Under load, it's set up to only draw 85W - 50W GPU, 35W CPU. Tested by Tally Ho Tech. You can not draw 160W sustained, idk why you'd want to.

[5x5]

2 minutes ago, Light-Yagami said:

Under load, it's set up to only draw 85W - 50W GPU, 35W CPU. Tested by Tally Ho Tech. You can not draw 160W sustained, idk why you'd want to.

That's the core. VRAM is another 20W for the G6 memory. You have to factor those in as well as they do generate heat.

 

If you're drawing 65W from the entire card package the 2060 becomes slower than a 1650 Ti mobile. If you limit the CPU to 35W it won't even hols the base clock. Base clock is rated at 45W and the CPU will attempt to boost to about 4GHz or about 62W peak.

[5x5]

Look, your machine, your choice. I've seen enough dead XPS 15s due to heat and power overload on the VRMs that I honestly cannot recommend them at all. I've seen the BIOs issue even on the new models first hand, as recently as yesterday. I've heard Dell reps confirm the battery rating and I honestly cannot understand how the machine is priced at 3 grand when cheaper laptops have MUCH less issues and a three times higher battery rating.

[Light-Yagami]

5 minutes ago, 5x5 said:

That's the core. VRAM is another 20W for the G6 memory. You have to factor those in as well as they do generate heat.

 

If you're drawing 65W from the entire card package the 2060 becomes slower than a 1650 Ti mobile. If you limit the CPU to 35W it won't even hols the base clock. Base clock is rated at 45W and the CPU will attempt to boost to about 4GHz or about 62W peak.

See.. it's a good thing that I tested this beforehand. Here are the results.

 

Aida64:

20W – 2.1ghz

25W – 2.5ghz

30W – 2.75ghz

35W – 2.95ghz

40W – 3.15ghz

45W – 3.35ghz

50W – 3.5ghz

55W – 3.6ghz

 

It holds base clock at less than 25W. (base is 2.4ghz)

In a highly synthetic load. I don't know where you get your info from. 

 

RTX 2060 is around 15% faster than 1650ti, while also supporting rt and dlss. And that's why you're buying it, not for the "insane performance gains". 

[Kilrah]

15 minutes ago, 5x5 said:

The vapor chamber is rated for 100w I'd thermal dissipation. It houses a 100W 2060 and 60W i7/9. That's over 50% more thermal capacity than the cooling can handle.

That's how it is with every thin/light laptop around and a compromise people are OK with not to have to carry a brick of a gaming laptop with them.

[Helpful Tech Witch]

15 minutes ago, 5x5 said:

Look at Dells documents. The vapor chamber is rated for 100w I'd thermal dissipation. It houses a 100W 2060 and 60W i7/9. That's over 50% more thermal capacity than the cooling can handle. But by all means run a demanding game, see I'd it doesn't shoot to 99*C and doesnt start throttling. The issue is, over time, the board WILL warp due to the extreme heat cycling and it will fail.

 

I have a colleague who still has BIOS issues on his brand new 15 so no, it's not fixed at all. Dell also refused to address anything and are not taking his calls anymore.

Bashing dell for thermal problems? Lets focus on Macbook airs. 

[Light-Yagami]

5 minutes ago, 5x5 said:

Look, your machine, your choice. I've seen enough dead XPS 15s due to heat and power overload on the VRMs that I honestly cannot recommend them at all. I've seen the BIOs issue even on the new models first hand, as recently as yesterday. I've heard Dell reps confirm the battery rating and I honestly cannot understand how the machine is priced at 3 grand when cheaper laptops have MUCH less issues and a three times higher battery rating.

I don't understand why you're so mad about it. I'm a random guy on the internet who made in informed decision to invest in a laptop after 5 years. And I'm aware of all the issues that Dell XPS line-up had in the past. I've done my research, and testing, and I found there's little to complain about. It's not like they'll ever sell it for a decent price in Bulgaria. I had to get someone to buy it for me in US, cause I'm not paying what 3600€ here in Slovenia. Nobody sane would shill that much cash for a piece of sand that can think

[TomvanWijnen]

While I don't know the answer to your question, I can say the following: you opened it up, right? Do you remember if you could easily replace the battery? Because if so, you could always just replace it down the line if it ends up degrading in quality too much. If the batteries are anything like the phone and laptop batteries I've seen degrade (the laptops had circular cells though), then it won't just randomly die, instead it will slowly hold less and less of a charge.

[Light-Yagami]

6 minutes ago, TomvanWijnen said:

While I don't know the answer to your question, I can say the following: you opened it up, right? Do you remember if you could easily replace the battery? Because if so, you could always just replace it down the line if it ends up degrading in quality too much. If the batteries are anything like the phone and laptop batteries I've seen degrade (the laptops had circular cells though), then it won't just randomly die, instead it will slowly hold less and less of a charge.

I was trying to find an answer if Dell does this to avoid warranty claims (setting the bar low so that warranty expires as quickly as possible) or if it's true that batteries really die after 300 cycles - die as in start loosing significant amount of charge over a short period of time. 

 

I would expect at least 600 cycles before having to replace - meaning my battery would only hold about 60% of it's charge. And even that is a terrible stat, Apple batteries don't even show signs of ageing at that point. My friend has a macbook air with 960 cycles and it still holds 75% of charge. idk.. I guess I'm just a bit disappointed 

 

Edit: To answer your question - yes, the battery can be removed fairly easily.

[Kilrah]

13 minutes ago, Light-Yagami said:

I would expect at least 600 cycles before having to replace - meaning my battery would only hold about 60% of it's charge.

I would expect the rating to be to 80%, and thus if you tolerate 60% it'll be a lot more. But we don't know since they don't say.

[5x5]

1 hour ago, TheTechWizardThatNeedsHelp said:

Bashing dell for thermal problems? Lets focus on Macbook airs. 

Doesn't take much to find my thoughts on that one

 

1 hour ago, Light-Yagami said:

I don't understand why you're so mad about it. I'm a random guy on the internet who made in informed decision to invest in a laptop after 5 years. And I'm aware of all the issues that Dell XPS line-up had in the past. I've done my research, and testing, and I found there's little to complain about. It's not like they'll ever sell it for a decent price in Bulgaria. I had to get someone to buy it for me in US, cause I'm not paying what 3600€ here in Slovenia. Nobody sane would shill that much cash for a piece of sand that can think

You have a wrong impression. I'm not mad at all. I never spent my money on it.i do, however, think it's a very overhyped device with people such as Linus calling it perfect while it has many flaws. I've seen them first hand and I do feel bad for the people I know who have an expensive device they can't really use as intended because of said issues. I hope yours is better but speaking from experience, the XPS models always become a nightmare after a while.

 

Oh and on a side note, the 2060 in the 15 gives the same performance as a 1660 Ti. Have tested and you can too. The power target and thermal limit prevent it from being faster. Theres actually a 100W 1660 Ti in some laptops thats even faster than the 2060 in here due to better power and thermal envelopes.

1 hour ago, Kilrah said:

That's how it is with every thin/light laptop around and a compromise people are OK with not to have to carry a brick of a gaming laptop with them.

No, not really. There are many thin and light laptops that perform well and run in the high 80s at most without crippling themselves. The XPS machines have no excuse considering even much cheaper models such as the Zephyrus G14 runs faster, cooler and even has a higher quality battery that's rated at 1000 cycles.

[Kilrah]

30 minutes ago, 5x5 said:

considering even much cheaper models such as the Zephyrus G14 runs faster, cooler

The First Gaming Laptop With AMD Inside Is Wicked Fast, Wicked Cheap, and Wicked Hot

 

Quote

It runs too damn hot. We saw a similar issue with the Gigabyte Aorus 17G, but unlike the Aorus 17G, the G14 sometimes gets too uncomfortable to keep my fingers on the keyboard for longer than 10 minutes while gaming. The CPU routinely hits temperatures as high as 100-105 degrees Celsius, sometimes spiking to 112 degrees Celsius. (The max temp for this processor is 105 C, according to AMD.)

 

[5x5]

19 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

The First Gaming Laptop With AMD Inside Is Wicked Fast, Wicked Cheap, and Wicked Hot

 

 

That's the exact opposite of my experience. Whatever we did, we could not get it to hit 95. Seems like a damaged pipe on that unit as many other YouTubers seem to be reporting max thermals in high 80s or low 90s.

 

Side note - 112 is impossible as thermal shutdown is initiated at 106. Most likely a broken readings as some applications report 20*C offsets on Zen. So the real temp would have been 92 - which is perfectly in line with what I experienced.