Bugs I've noticed on Latitude 5289 (Waves MaxxAudio Pro and boot up on closed lid)

Hi all,

After being hassled around for more than a month and treated like an idiot by Dell support, I'm going to share three bugs I've come across on the Latitude 5289 (though looking at some past discussions on this forum, they're not only on this model).

1. First, the Waves MaxxAudio Pro driver/audio controller is a mess and is definitely a memory hog. My issues started here when I had severe audio and buffering issues that went away on turning off the "dimension" setting. After a trip to the workshop that issue has mostly gone away, until I spent more time on a video tonight - just over an hour in I had the same issue that immediately went away after turning off audio enhancements, but I later had some mild buffering issues because long videos are large files.

This was a confirmation of something I had thought from the start: the audio enhancements are using a non-trivial amount of processor and memory to work. I'm hoping they don't get any worse this time. I would be so happy if I could just set it to be off on startup...

2. There's a built-in thing to stop you from turning the laptop on when the lid is closed, presumably because the on switch is on the side and you don't want it to turn on any time it's bumped. However, I often use the laptop connected via HDMI to an external display and will close the lid if I'm not using the built-in LCD. If I restart the computer for any reason, it displays the Dell logo and doesn't load beyond that screen, even if you then open the lid back up. I need to do a hard reboot with the lid open for it to work. I have recreated the issue by opening the lid a little so I could use the power button then closing the lid before it goes any further.

3. As a bonus, the installed and up-to-date chipset "Intel Dynamic Platform and Thermal Framework" drivers developed a bunch of errors less than a week after getting the computer back from the shop. The CPU would reach the critical temperature of 373K (!!) within minutes of startup, and the system would shut itself down. Reinstalling the drivers fixed the issue instantly.

Furthermore, taking weeks to progress support requests while you treat the customer like a moron (I don't know how many times each I was asked to reboot, update drivers, reset the BIOS, and even reinstall Windows after making clear at my first contact that I'd done all those things) and trying to pass the blame to them for issues not of their making should be considered a bug in the way that Dell support operates.