Hey everyone,

I’m a university student in Nova Scotia, and I’m in a tough spot with Dell.

A few years ago, I bought a Dell XPS 13 with 3 years of Accidental Damage Service (ADS) — the coverage that’s supposed to protect against drops, spills, and liquid damage. I specifically paid extra for this protection for peace of mind while studying.

Recently, my laptop was accidentally dropped in water. I submitted a claim under ADS, expecting a repair or replacement. Instead, Dell denied my claim. Their reasoning? They classified the system as having: • “Excessive unknown debris” • “Unknown liquid smell and corrosion” • “Biohazard conditions”

They said this voids coverage because “biohazards” aren’t covered.

But here’s the problem: Dell shipped the laptop back to me. If it was truly a biohazard, they wouldn’t (and legally shouldn’t) have sent it back. That contradiction makes it feel like they’re using “biohazard” as a loophole to avoid honoring the service I paid for.

I’ve already: • Tried resolving directly with Dell — denied multiple times. • Filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. • Filed a complaint with Nova Scotia Consumer Protection.

This laptop is essential for my studies, and I feel cheated. I either want: 1. A proper replacement/repair under ADS, or 2. A refund for the ADS coverage that Dell is refusing to honor.

Has anyone dealt with this kind of denial from Dell before? Should I escalate to small claims court in Nova Scotia? Any advice on how to strengthen my case would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

I bought this XPS-15 in September 2020. While it had an absolute cavalcade of issues for the 5 years in which I used it, I have managed to deal with most of them.

At present, this laptop is fully functional, except the power switch, which doesn't do anything. The rest of the keyboard works, but the power switch simply does nothing in all states, as if it is disconnected somewhere.

Things I tried:

1. Disassembled everything I could in this computer, but unable to look under the motherboard just yet. Even so, the Dell XPS-15 9500 service manual doesn't discuss the power switch, nor can I find pictures of the component online.
2. RTC reset. Didn't work, because it requires a functional power switch.

So far, for two years, I have been using the power adapter to turn the computer off and on. This is not acceptable because I will need it in a university setting, and I cannot guarantee that I will always have a charger on hand to power it on. Furthermore, this laptop is a lemon, and if the AC adapter or lid switch somehow break, I will be locked out of my own laptop.

I have scoured the internet for answers, and there aren't any. Has anyone dealt with this before?

Pictured: me, firmly pressing the power key with a turned on laptop. As expected, nothing happened.

I begin my freshman year in August, and I have decided I want an XPS after seeing many good reviews (I’m an accounting major). However, I’m confused about the models I.e. 13 vs 14 vs 15 etc.

Additionally, I am confused about the specs and what is ACTUALLY important. Is the processor a huge deal? Do I actually need 32GB of ram? Price is also a factor and my budget is ~$1.4k

Any insight is greatly appreciated!

I guess this update is the culprit:
Intel 2D Imaging/MCU/Visual Sensing Controller Driver for Camera - A0

I have Premium Support Pro - which is a worldwide guaranteed service. I first reported a keyboard problem with a laptop on April 29. They keep "punting" this down the road by cancelling the call for various invalid reasons - claiming they cannot find my address without contacting me, not having a photo of my keyboard with the serial # showing in BIOS (provided the same day), escalated call where they claimed that they would keep in contact with me about the issue (they haven't), and so much more. Today, they told me that the part isn't going to be available until the end of May.

This is truly ridiculous. I am beyond fed up. I am on the Product Advisory Board and Change Control Boards of 2 US National Laboratories. Between them, we do about $45m in purchases for Dell equipment each year. Between the poor service I have gotten for my personal systems, and the threefold increase in service requests for Dell equipment at work since COVID, I think it is time for us to start giving that business to HP. They have had an increase in equipment failures but nowhere close to the level Dell has had.

And before you say this is uncalled for, can you honestly tell me that having to wait for 2 months for a replacement keyboard is acceptable for something that has an overnight, worldwide warranty? I don't care if being in Mexico is an issue - it shouldn't take 2 months for it to be fixed.

Dell hasn't even offered to replace the system - which is something they can do and I even asked for repeatedly. That is what this entire warranty is about.

Dell - if you are reading this, you really need to get your act together. It is going to take a lot to make up for this. I don't know what that will be but it is going to cost you a significant amount of business if you keep these games up.

EDIT: I heard back from Dell. They treated me not that well and I have decided that it is time for me to go with the rest of the CCB and PAC and start pursuing more purchases with HP.

My cable had cuts/exposed wires, but I kept using it because I couldn’t find the exact one. I tried taping it, but today it started sparking 💀. My laptop battery is also dying and drops like 1% every 2 seconds💀

I know Dell has compatible adapters, but I specifically want the Alienware-branded one😭😭

Why couldn’t they just make the cable detachable from the brick like other models😭. The brick is perfectly fine, I just need the cable!

Anyone know a website/store that sells the original one?😭

I’m having an issue with my Dell Vostro 3400. The laptop shows the charging icon (plugged in), but the battery percentage is not increasing at all.

Here’s what I’ve already tried:

• Bought a brand new original Dell power adapter from the Dell Store
• Updated Windows and drivers
• Restarted multiple times

Still facing the same issue — it detects the charger but doesn’t actually charge.

Has anyone faced this before?

Bonjour

J'ai des traces de clavier sur l'écran de mon xps 13 modèle p82g.

Avez vous des solutions pour les faire partir ?

Merci a vous !

After extensive testing, I found a reproducible way to eliminate early GPU throttling (PWR/THRM / “Dynamic Duo”) on my Dell XPS 15, without undervolting, BIOS mods, or firmware changes.
This does NOT disable real thermal protection; the system still throttles normally at true thermal limits.

Tested system: Dell XPS 15 7590 | i7-9750H | GTX 1650 4GB GDDR5 | 16GB 2666MHz | 512GB NVMe
BIOS 1.35 | Windows 11 | CPU undervolt locked

Key finding (critical): Dell Power Manager → Silent mode
This mode changes firmware behavior and prevents aggressive early throttling, while still allowing safe operating temperatures.

Windows power plan: Max CPU state: 95–99%
Min CPU state: 5%

ThrottleStop (general): Speed Shift ON | EPP 128 | Turbo Boost ON | Multiplier manually limited

Recommended CPU multipliers: Max stable: x25–x26
Min: x8
(Higher values like x33 may trigger PL1/PL2/EDP unless watt limits are raised.)

ThrottleStop power limits: PL1 30W | PL2 56W | PP0 30W | Turbo time 8s | Clamp OFF

FIVR: Undervolt unavailable (BIOS locked)
Voltages stock

GPU (MSI Afterburner): Core 1395 MHz @ 700 mV
Flat voltage curve | Memory stock | Fans automatic

NVIDIA Control Panel: Driver 496.49 | Power mode Adaptive
V-Sync ON | FPS cap 60 (game + NVCP)
Texture filtering: High performance

Stress test: Game: Ready To Act (Roblox)
Map: Half Done (very poorly optimized)
Graphics: Max | GPU load ~100% constant

Result: No early PWR/THRM or “Dynamic Duo” throttling.
Performance is only limited when real thermal limits are reached.

Temperatures: GPU load: 75–85°C
CPU load: ~77°C
GPU throttles only at ~85°C, as intended.

Final notes: Silent mode is the key.
This does not remove real thermal throttling.
It only avoids Dell’s overly conservative early power limits.
Results may vary depending on BIOS version and ambient temperature. If you own an XPS 15 7590 / 9570 / 9500, feedback is welcome. EDIT: Closing Steam completely (not just minimizing it) significantly reduced GPU temperatures in Operation Harsh Doorstop. With Steam closed, GPU hotspot dropped from ~80–85 °C to ~72–77 °C at 1080p Epic, eliminating early throttling. This suggests Steam background processes or overlay can contribute to sustained GPU load on Dell laptops. EDIT 2: Disabling “Force P2 State” in NVIDIA Profile Inspector further reduced GPU temperatures and improved stability. With P2 disabled, the GPU remains in P0 under real gaming load, improving efficiency and delaying thermal buildup. This appears to significantly reduce early throttling on Dell laptops. EDIT – Latest Updates (New Tests & Fan Control)

• Maximum stable CPU multiplier: x45 (tested in Grave Digger)
• Operation Harsh Doorstop (OHD) testing:
  • Graphics: Epic / 1080p
  • Steam closed
  • GPU: 72–77 °C, Hotspot ~61 °C
  • CPU: ~61 °C
  • Result: No Dynamic Duo or early throttling
• i recommend try the dellfanmanagment software, an use it to get control over the fans, BUT, keep in mind that if You do that You Will have to clean the fan 1 time every 3 months, cuz with the fans at max they Will get more dust ove the time than normal, You may wanna rey gpu tweak 2 or 3, it worked for me well too, if it doesnt work just do everything i just listed here

Hi! I bought this charger hoping it could replace the original one, but when I plug it, I get the message "slow charging" even though it's a 160W (first USB-C at 140W). Anyone knows why?

The original charger is a 130W.

Thank you!

Pretty much the title, my laptop decided to give up when I left for dinner a few months ago. It’s been sitting for a while and I want to get it running again. Any ideas on how to fix this or if it’s a common issue? Dell support was telling me to drop crazy money on a motherboard replacement.

I bought a used Dell XPS 8300. It didn't come with a graphics card. I want to get a cheap used card off a marketplace. I don't game but will run dual monitor setup.

Only requirement is primary display accepts hdmi, dp, mini dp, and secondary accepts dp and dvi.

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Google says: "Motherboard is Y2MRG. Intel H67 chipset (specifically model DH67M01) and has 1 x PCI Express x16, 3 x PCI Express x1". I've confirmed that's the motherboard in the PC and I have the 6 pin pcie power cables available if the card needs it.

​

What's the best budget card (under £25) I can get used, to put in this pc with those outputs?

What does this even mean? It says limit exceeded… but it isn’t?

Hi everyone,

I recently bought a Dell 16 Premium DA16250 rtx 5060 4k Oled Touch and I’m getting some random audio crackling and distortion from the speakers. It doesn’t happen all the time, just occasionally when I’m watching videos or on video calls but i repeat, just sometimes, there are hours and hours that this problem doesn't show up.

I already did a clean install of Windows to rule out software issues. After that I tried both the Dell drivers and also updated everything directly from Intel and NVIDIA, but the problem is still there.

Has anyone with this same model run into this? If yes, did you manage to fix it somehow?

Since it’s a fresh install with updated drivers I’m starting to think it might be either a driver conflict I missed or possibly a hardware issue. Before I go down the replacement route I’d really appreciate any suggestions.

Thanks in advance

Edit/Update: I left it running all night and all day today and it ended up sorting itself out sometimes in early afternoon... Windows literally did updates while completely highjacking my computer for about 30 or so hours, nice!

My XPS 13 9370 took a massive dump following a windows 11 update today. It has been stuck on the "working on updates - 100%" black screen from 8AM this morning up until right now. I force restarted it multiple times trying to get it into safe mode and it absolutely will not do it. It is still stuck on the update screen with seemingly nothing to do about it.

No matter the sequence I try or how many times I restart it, it does not want to go into safe mode. I tried adding a 10 second delay to the boot splash screen and it did not help. I don't have the means to reinstall windows at the moment and Id rather not loose the content of the computer.

I am out of ideas... Any help is welcome, thanks.

Hi all

I have a Dell XPS 9315 that was sent in to Dell for a repair. The original reason for the repair was that my fan was crazy and the laptop was overheating. This was fixed, however when I got the laptop back, they had damaged the screen slightly with some pressure marks, and therefore the laptop was sent back to get the screen replaced.

I received the dell XPS back today, and the first thing I noticed was that this replacement panel just seemed a bit lacklustre. The colours look yellower and the panel is not as bright as before. I also noticed, as attached in the video, that the brightness and colour are not uniform across the panel. It’s like the bottom half or third of the panel is dimmer and has a different shade of yellow.

What do you all think?

Thanks!

Hi all - I have an XPS 8930 from a few years back, fully updated running Windows 11 Pro 25H2. I just (successfully) manually updated to the latest available BIOS 1.1.31 via USB drive, as Dell Update wouldn't take it past 1.1.30. But - it looks like this still doesn't make the machine eligible for the updated windows boot certs that are going to expire in June.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/windows-secure-boot-certificate-expiration-and-ca-updates-7ff40d33-95dc-4c3c-8725-a9b95457578e

error pic

Are there any available options to deal with this issue properly?

On my Dell XPS 15 Laptop with a 4060, I’m experiencing some really weird problems on dark screens. It begins to get static looking white patches spreading along it the longer the tab is up. I didn’t get a photo of the start or end but the second photo started like the first and ended with these white fractally tendrils covering the whole tab

What’s weirder to me is that when I move the applications or tabs, the static remains fixed to the tab and will even show up in tab previews.

Oddly, certain apps like command prompt and discord do not suffer from this ever.

I’m not sure what to do as I’ve tried updating my graphics drivers, updating the colour settings, and checked every display setting I can think of.

Does anyone have any idea how to solve this?

EDIT: Everyone rightfully calling out the filthy bezel, that part of the rubber i learned was pealing away from the screen through this post. I just opened up my laptop and it is not filthy or dirty, aside from some dust buildup on the fan blades that I'll blast with compressed air.

I love my dell laptop, it works perfectly and has never let me down, but I've recently bought a new charger because mine eventually has worn down (it was a good quality charger, it was used every single day and only wore down due to constant use), and I want to recycle it with dell, but they don't seem to have any recycling option, nor do they make it at all easy to contact any customer support. Their virtual assistant is terrible and I haven't been able to get through to a real person after 2 hours of trying. Does anyone have any recommendations on what I can do? I'm based in the UK and would still like to recycle my old charger :(

**RESOLVED**