XPS 13 9305: brand new and overheated!

Just a suggestion. If you are going to place the laptop in a desk, a backpack, a suitcase, in other words inside of any type of enclosure, turn the unit off not to sleep. Dell specifies that the unit should be turned off.

Yes,  I get that.  But as you'll see from my post,  the laptop was on a desk in the open not enclosed in a sleeve or bag. 

My advice is contact Dell, as it will happen again, have Dell fix it before you run out of warranty. I think, by the many reports of overheating of Dell laptops, Dell know they have an issue and they know how to fix it.

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@Roland10pont wrote:

My advice is contact Dell, as it will happen again, have Dell fix it before you run out of warranty. I think, by the many reports of overheating of Dell laptops, Dell know they have an issue and they know how to fix it.

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Thanks, it makes sense and I have decided to do that. I've had no more experiences like yesterday's but even if it has somehow healed, I really would like to know what actually happened.

Well, I've been having a fascinating chat with a bot on #Dell's WhatsApp tech support channel. It went away to get a human and I heard no more...

Calling the UK 0800 support number just gets an automated voice that really can't deviate from its script. I'd love to speak to a human in Premium Support. Any idea how I can do that?

I also had premium support and once you manage to get by the computer bot asking for your 11 (!) digit support number, next is a real human to talk to.

Eventually, a human did appear about an hour later! It was actually quite a productive session via WhatsApp. Luckily, I could use WhatsApp on the desktop so making the interaction very easy, typing on my keyboard rather than on the phone. I'll post separately on what happened in that session.

Another useful feature of using WhatsApp for this is that I can export the chat and so have a detailed record of everything that was discussed and who said what, complete with date/timestamps.

On Saturday, I had a lengthy text conversation with a support agent at Dell Technical Support EMEA via its WhatsApp channel about this overheating issue. After an initial interaction with a chatbot (see earlier post here) I finally got to a human.

Over the course of about 90 minutes on WhatsApp - luckily, I was using the desktop app so could type with a normal keyboard and use a big monitor - we went through the overheating I experienced and a set of procedures to help the support agent understand the issue and maybe determine a solution.

Inevitably this started off with very basic questions from the agent, similar to what the chatbot asked, but we soon got past that into Q&A that were far more focused and specific to my experience. That made this worthwhile. And it's worth noting that patience is essential here as I was asked to do some things I'd already done myself, especially F12 diagnostics.

But it was worth doing as I sent the agent screenshots of the Health table so he could see the detail for things like the temperature for each thermal sensor for the CPU, RAM modules, battery and a few more things. He confirmed that it all looked highly normal, a conclusion I'd reached myself from using the nifty Core Temp utility I'm now running on the laptop that shows the temp in real time for each CPU core.

If I were to summarise the 90-minute engagement, it would be highlighting these three things:

1. The support agent was friendly, professional, and helpful. Maybe he was just following a script, and maybe that is so as I'm sure many of the support requests can be addressed that way. But he made it personal and relevant.
2. There was nothing apparent to indicate what might have caused the severe overheating I experienced on the day after receiving the computer from the factory.
3. I realise that problems with new tech purchases can happen - consider my first experience with an XPS 13 a few weeks ago that had a faulty display panel; this current one is a replacement under warranty for that machine - and effective customer support at that time is key to retaining the customer.

After we concluded the WhatsApp exchange, I did one thing I'd been thinking about - changed the Thermal setting in Dell Power Manager to Cool. Interesting that as soon as I did that, the fans kicked in.

(Wondering if one problem here is that Dell makes really powerful laptops offered in a small form factor. This XPS 13 has an i7 CPU and 16 gigs of RAM. Maybe powerful CPUs and memory need more space for better heat ventilation. It makes no sense at all to me to be thinking about disabling some settings in the BIOS, changing down settings in a power manager, or somehow throttling speeds, etc, because things get too hot even in light use. What's the point in buying such a machine in that case? But this is a big topic outside the scope of this post.)

The overheating has not happened again so far. Does this suggest all is well and there's no reason for concern? That's doubtful as the cause of the overheating has not been determined, so the issue is still unresolved, and therefore it's anyone's guess whether this may happen again.

Going forward, I am willing to use this machine in the way that I wish to in the reasonable expectation that it will work as I expect it to. Let's see how this plan pans out.

Following further engagement yesterday with Premium Support, this time via the @DellCares Twitter handle, I think this has got as far as it will for now. I'm okay with that.

I did learn something interesting regarding the Dell Power Manager program. The support agent told me an update is coming. He said:

"We have changed the settings in power management and it will fix the issue."

One interesting aspect in all these engagements is the way in which each support agent is keen to get closure, couched in concluding statements like this one:

"We're glad to hear that your issue is resolved. It was my pleasure assisting you. Thank you for contacting Dell technical support team."

I had to correct that:

"No it is not resolved. Like I said before the cause of the overheating is still unknown so the issue is still open. But I'm happy to pause this for now."

You may consider this a bit pedantic but I want to be sure that the door is still ajar if this overheating occurs again or until it's wholly fixed, maybe via the Dell Power Manager update the agent mentioned. The issue is now a formal one as I have a service request number.

In the meantime, unless the gremlins return, I will continue to enjoy using this delightful machine.

Today I received a Dell Technical Updates email with a link to download the initial release of the Intel Processor Power Management Utility that "helps lower the system temperature and fan activity through reduced CPU power consumption by low Quality of Service (QoS) threads" says the email.

Not wholly clear what that all means. Nevertheless, it comes as 'Recommended' for my machine so I downloaded and installed the driver. Maybe it is to do with the overheating issue I experienced literally on second use of my brand new XPS 13 9305 as the driver page says it applies to Intel Processor Power Management and Processor Power Management.

https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-uk/drivers/driversdetails?driverid=7pp83&dcp=email

The driver page also says it applies to a wide range of Dell laptops including XPS 13 9305, XPS 13 9310, and XPS 13 9310 2-in-1.

I'll see if it makes any difference to anything. I'll add that I have not experienced any further overheating since that initial episode. Still, I've not used the machine in any kind of stress situation yet so it's not been placed under any pressure.

I had the same problem.  The laptop was so hot that I was worried about a lithium fire.  Here is the pattern that I found.  If I run SupportAssistant and close the laptop w/o restarting or turning it off, it just runs super hot.  My suggestion is that should you run Support Assistant, restart the laptop before you close the top &/or turn the laptop off when you are finished for the day.  I also took everyone's' advice and changed the thermal setting to 'cool'.  But, it is scary to open the laptop, it won't start and it is super hot. Again, for me, it seems to be related to Support Assistant not finishing and running in a loop, overheating the laptop.

All, please read through this article.

Identifying High Temperature/Heat/Thermal Concerns/Fan Noise on Dell Notebook Systems