dell-xps interview questions
Top dell-xps frequently asked interview questions
Some machines in the new XPS laptop range from Dell come with a regular, large (500GB+) HDD and an additional 32GB m-SATA SSD. The only detail I can find about this extra drive on the Dell site is this:
Store your important files, multimedia and photos with XPS 15’s large hard drive options. To get instant access to your media, choose an optional mSATA solid-state drive (SSD) that can boot up to twice as fast as a regular hard drive and resumes in less than 1 second.
I'd like to know more about how this extra drive is set up and used, specifically:
- Is anything installed on it (e.g. OS files or a boot loader) or is it just used as swap space?
- Is the m-SATA drive visible as a lettered drive in Windows? (I'd guess not if it's used for swap file only.)
- Is this unusual configuration likely to cause any problems later down the line - e.g. when upgrading to Windows 8?
As usual, Dell's sales team haven't been able to help. If anyone's actually got a Dell machine with this or a similar hard drive set-up and can give a definitive answer rather than speculation I'll accept the answer.
Source: (StackOverflow)
When looking at the list of items included with the Dell XPS 15 I see:
FGA Module:
Catalog Number / Description = PPAN1303_023/PPAN1305_027/BTO
Product Code = FG0011
What does it represent?
I found one guess that FGA stands for "Fast Genetic Algorithm" used for facial recognition, but didn't get any results at Dell when searching for it.
Source: (StackOverflow)
I recently upgraded from Windows 8.1 to 10 on my Dell XPS 13. It comes with the following audio devices and associated drivers:
I have version 6.0.1.7544 of the audio driver installed
The audio drivers available for Windows 10 on the Dell website specific to my laptop can be found here. At the time of writing, the driver version shown in the Dell site is 6.0.1.7509 which is weird because if I install the version shown by Dell, Windows 10 is happy to upgrade to the newer version.
However, no matter which of the above two versions I use, my sound volume is no where as high as it used to be before the upgrade.
Needless to say, I have checked all the obvious sound properties to no avail.
Looking to see if anyone has any suggestions as to what I can do.
Source: (StackOverflow)
I have been dealing with this problem for months.
The Computer
- Model: Dell XPS M1330 (specs found here; I have the full 4GB of RAM)
- Age: 3+ years
- OS: Windows 7 Professional x64
Problem Investigation
One day I noticed that my computer was intermittently experiencing major slowdowns. It was to the point where there are sometimes several seconds of delay between me pressing a key and the character appearing on the screen. At first I thought that a Chrome update was causing the browser to eat all of my CPU, but eventually I figured out it was happening even when Chrome wasn't open. Finally I got the bright idea to use the Resource Monitor and noticed that Windows was routinely throttling my CPU to 25%.
What I've Tried
- I checked the health of my disk drive and ran pretty much every system maintenance utility that Windows ships with and the problem persisted.
- I have systematically played with power settings
- After some Google searching, I found out that the most common reason for this is overheating. So I did the following:
- Had all my fans cleaned
- Had the thermal paste on the heatsinks replaced
- Used SpeedFan to confirm that temperatures are all normal (except for the GPU, which is apparently normal for this model).
The problem persists. In fact, sometimes it's even worse now. If I really need to I'll suck it up and buy a new one, but I would like advice on how to proceed from here.
Source: (StackOverflow)
I have a brand new Dell XPS 15Z as a replacement for my workstation and I am trying to plug the two monitors that I had with my old machine. I have been looking online and asking some of my coworkers but everything indicates that this is not possible.
The laptop has two cards, the Nvidia GeForce GT 525m and an integrated Intel HD Graphics, two external display's ports, and HDMI and a mini displayport; is there a way to use both graphics cards at the same time so I connect two external monitors?
Thanks for your comments!
Source: (StackOverflow)
I installed a Samsung 830 SSD in my XPS L501X and now every time it boots, after the logo screen it beeps twice, rattles the DVD drive and displays this message (and nothing else)
Press <F1> to continue......
Press <F2> to enter SETUP
Press <F12> to enter Boot Menu
Pressing any key except K2 or F12 continues the boot and nothing seems wrong.
In other cases this are shown below an error message and the usual solution is to disable boot errors, but the PhoenixBios (v. A08) in this laptop has no such options, just the usual boot devices, security and switches for built-in devices.
Can I get it to display an error message? Or at least stop signalling the error?
Source: (StackOverflow)
I just ordered the Dell Studio XPS 16 with i7 and 16" RGBLED screen. This upgrade from WLED LCD to RGBLED LCD charged me more $$. But now when I view the order online, it lists this part as "320-8335 Premium FHD WLED Display, Obsidian Black, 2.0 MP Webcam". When called Dell, the rep says this part is RGBLED screen and the "premium" is for RGBLED. I want to make sure they are shipping me the RGBLED screen and not the WLED.
Is there any way to verify this after I receive (either from Device Manager or BIOS or somewhere in system settings)? Also, is there any published specifications / criteria that we can run (some third party software) on this monitor which can tell if this is WLED or RGBLED?
Source: (StackOverflow)
I just purchased a Dell XPS 8500 that comes with a 2TB mechanical HDD + 32GB SSD that is configured to use Intel's SRT.
I'm planning to dual boot Win7 and Ubuntu, but it seems like SRT drivers are not available in linux. So I'd like to disable SRT and use the 32GB SSD as a regular disk to have Ubuntu run on it (my priority is to optimize Ubuntu). Additionally I'd like to run Win7 on the 2TB HDD.
I've found plenty resources on how to enable SRT properly but haven't found a in-depth article on disabling it.
Is it as simple as turning the feature off in the SRT UI (in windows) and in the BIOS configuring your HDD to run in AHCI mode rather than SATA0?
Also, is it a good idea to dual boot on 2 separate drives as mentioned above (the 32GB SSD was included as a part of the XPS package so I'd like to use it)?
Source: (StackOverflow)
my machine is a Dell Studio XPS 9100 with 8GB of RAM installed. When I open the BIOS setup and enter the System Info, it shows that my machine got 8GB of RAM installed but only 6GB is available (yes this is from the BIOS only). In Windows 7 (64bit Pro) it shows only 6GB of RAM are available. But if I run CPU-Z then it can detect all 8GB RAM. The machine came pre-configured and I have never opened the case before.
Source: (StackOverflow)
This may have been asked before, but not for Windows 8. How do you create the factory restore media for a Dell Laptop (a Dell XPS 15 in my case) before I go and do something stupid with it.
Source: (StackOverflow)
I have a Dell XPS M1330, since I moved to my new house, the wireless barely works on it, my housemates report no problems, so I guess it's something to do with my laptop. It's eratic in normal mode, sometimes not working for days, usually working on-and-off, forcing me to reload pages a few times before they work, etc. It works perfectly in safe mode, the driver I'm using is the Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection, version 12.4.4.5, with a date at 26/10/2009, the most recent one I could find, bluetooth is not enabled, and I'm running Vista 32-bit Home Premium, which it shipped with.
I also tried disabling IPv6 and resetting the IP stack, both to no avail. Can anybody help me?
Edit: Forgot to say, I tried changing the wireless channel too, didn't work.
Edit 2: I stopped uTorrent from loading on start up and it's workingg now as a result. Still don't know what caused it, but at least it's working now.
Source: (StackOverflow)
I just opened a brand new Dell XPS 13 Ultrabook and connected to my 802.11n wireless network.
Performance is abysmal. Web pages time out, SpeedTest shows 0.15 Mbps (on a 50 Mbps FiOS connection), and the ping between my computer and the wireless router is between 700 and 3000 milliseconds.
Oddly, connection to a 802.11g network works flawlessly. What's wrong?
Source: (StackOverflow)
I have Dell XPS-L502X(Early 2011) with Windows 7 Home Premium-64 bit. I already reserved my Windows 10 copy and started an update to it that was 2,712.6 MB and failed after 84%, it took for that 17 hrs as i have 512 kbps net speed. I tried many times to continue that update but it won't progress. I tried Update troubleshooter it gives me an error as "Service Registration is missing and Corrupt" and "Windows Update Error 0x80070057(2015-08-02-T-08_01_52A)" are not fixed.
P.S.- I have Windows 7 from my Dell Manufacture which is not a crack version.
Please help me to get that most awaited update.
Source: (StackOverflow)
I am having frequent Blue Screens of Death on my new Windows 8 Dell XPS 13 UltraBook. The specifics:
Hardware (screenshot of device manager with what I think are the most relevant items expanded):
Software:
OS: Windows 8
Applications: Web browsers, development tools (Prolog, Eclipse, etc..)
More specificically, BSOD occurs almost always on every third time I try to log in to my machine on startup. As I type my password in or just after I have finished typing my password, I get the BSOD always with "DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION". At times, it also happens every second time but has never happened on consecutive times that I log in. I have no idea if that has any relevance or is even a valid pattern.
To diagnose the issue, I downloaded WhoCrashed and it told me this:
On Sun 2013-03-24 2:52:26 PM GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\Windows\Minidump\032413-6218-01.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: ntoskrnl.exe (nt+0x7A040)
Bugcheck code: 0x133 (0x0, 0x281, 0x280, 0x0)
Error: DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION
file path: C:\Windows\system32\ntoskrnl.exe
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: NT Kernel & System
Bug check description: The DPC watchdog detected a prolonged run time at an IRQL of DISPATCH_LEVEL or above.
This appears to be a typical software driver bug and is not likely to be caused by a hardware problem. This problem might be caused by a thermal issue.
The crash took place in the Windows kernel. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver that cannot be identified at this time.
On Sun 2013-03-24 2:52:26 PM GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\Windows\memory.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: usbmac64.sys (USBMAC64+0x5B96)
Bugcheck code: 0x133 (0x0, 0x281, 0x280, 0x0)
Error: DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION
file path: C:\Windows\system32\drivers\usbmac64.sys
product: --
company: --
description: NDIS 5.0 driver
Bug check description: The DPC watchdog detected a prolonged run time at an IRQL of DISPATCH_LEVEL or above.
This appears to be a typical software driver bug and is not likely to be caused by a hardware problem. This problem might be caused by a thermal issue.
A third party driver was identified as the probable root cause of this system error. It is suggested you look for an update for the following driver: usbmac64.sys (NDIS 5.0 driver, --).
Google query: -- DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION
I am not quite sure how to proceed. I used Dell System Detect to check if I have all the updated drivers for my machine and I do.
Appreciate any input on this.
EDIT: Added a link to all the .dmp files relevant to this issue here
Source: (StackOverflow)