This past summer I bought an XPS 15 9500, i7-10875H CPU with 32g RAM and 1TB SSD.

It was my first laptop purchase in quite a while as I’d been surviving off an old surface that was starting to die.

It started out well even after hearing all the horror stories but since last summer it’s progressively gotten worse...

The trackpad doesn’t wobble but it has a firm “click” on the right side yet a soft quiet squish on the left. The trackpad occasionally just stops working entirely for 10-30 seconds too. The screen likes to flicker for no reason and the device will freeze as a whole for long periods of time while in a zoom class (I’m in grad school).

The overheating it the most worrying as well. Initially it would heat up a bit, and when I plug it in it gets red fricken hot. One night I woke up to the fan because it was so loud and hot. Now every time I plug it in, it goes from stone cold to red hot (with nothing running).

Also, when I plug in the charger, the CPU usage jumps by about 10-15% for no reason...

Seriously displeased with Dell and not digging this thing. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to return it as I was mid grad school at the time of purchase and needed something because I was starting a data heavy project in the fall (bought it mid-late summer).

Are there any tips or general rules of thumb to follow to make sure this POS doesn’t explode?

Ex. BIOS updates, Dell support assist (which keeps spamming me with popups), windows updates, temperature settings, general laptop maintenance, etc etc. I’m open to any and all suggestions no matter how simple!

For reference I have the “basic” warranty that runs out this coming June. I don’t think I can get a replacement with this warranty though I may be wrong. Almost 3k down the pooper but trying to make it last :(