Dell XPS 14 L401x Thread

Just got a XPS14 from Dell refurb for about $600. Did the display switch-a-roo, much easier than I expected thanks to you all. 8GB memory on route. Seems like a solid rocket machine.
iCore5, 500GB(7200), 4GB Ram, 1GB Video, and now upgraded LG monitor.
Sweet!

 

Yeah it's a fantastic deal.

If I could get 5 hours of battery life, I'd be 100% happy. Right now I get 3 hours of web surfing.

 

HAHA, I get an hour and a half with the i7 and a six cell

 

Is there a way to bootup the XPS from a SD card?

 

I too get just over 3 hours doing some light coding and surfing the web on my i5 14inch XPS. I might refine my power options some more to see if I've missed something, but I was hoping for at least 5 hours, not 3. But I can't complain, as this laptop surprising plays all of my favorite games really well!

For those who are experiencing annoying fans whirling up and down, recently, again a guy at work had this problem with his inspiron, and after I toggled the Windows 7 power settings, the problem went away straight away, without reboot.

The process of trial and error with Windows power options is so straight forward and easy, I'd suggest spending 10 minutes with trying different settings yourself, rather than copying a setting that might not actually be applicable to your setup.

 

Got mine last week for $640 as a superseded sale (pretty cheap for Australia). Great little machine! Pity about the lack of USB ports though.

 

For those of you who replaced your primary drive with an SSD - do you find that the machine fails to boot on cold start and you have to hit CTRL+ALT+DEL to boot it up? WHat I think is happening is that the BIOS boot sequence runs too fast for the SSD to power up in time, so it fails to boot. On warm restart there's no problem however.

I wonder if there's some way to impose a BIOS wait or timeout before attempting to boot from the drive?

 

Hey guys,

Just a little update. I haven't been using my laptop too much this summer since I've got my desktop now, but i started having EVGA precision load my OC settings on startup and I'm beginning to get errors. Seems that the 900MHz memory is just too much. So its safe on the core speed but I think on the memory you have to back off. Sometimes when my laptop screen turns off and i move my mouse to turn it back on I'll get the vertical lines on the screen showing graphics errors....OCCT test confirms the errors @ 900MHz memory. I'm just leaving it at stock now. Still running 740MHz core speed though. Just an fyi

 

sorry I haven't read through every single post in the thread so maybe this is already answered. But I wonder whether one can flash a xps15 (L501X) BIOS onto a xps14?

 

^^^
No. The BIOS updater will identify the system and not allow you to flash it.

 

i have been running my l401x with a crucial 256gb ssd since late march with no boot issues.

 

Ha! So typical! The first time I head on a road trip and take my laptop with me, it nukes itself!

Twas most strange... Simply turned it on, things were verrrry slooow and locking up. Everything from clicking the start menu, to navigating through explorer. Eventually I make my way to Windows Event Viewer, and it advises that the service is either disabled or uninstalled.



So I head to Windows services, and almost every critical service has some how managed to switch itself off!!!

The last thing I did was switch Steam to offline mode, prior to that, I installed a couple of old Steam games, umm, Spell Force 1 & 2 and Overlord.

So yeah, considering I'd been running with the original Dell image, which came with some bloatware and broken applications (Zune for example), I decided to format and started again.

For reference, I've installed only the following (give or take on of these) ;

R297601
R294210
R292250
R289098
R289092
R286186
R283185
R277384
R277383
R277354
R273603

And the Device Manager has resolved all hardware elements.

So yeah, good as new! Things are fast, again, I've really liked this laptop it's been great. Just thought I'd note here that Windows died randomly, just in case others have also had this problem.

Oh, Restore points did nothing either. Problem persisted. I'm now going through the process of creating some System Images using Windows Back Up & Restore now that everything appears perfect.

 

hi guys. i've had my xps 14 (l401x) for about 6 months, and it's been fine for the first 4 months. however, at the 4th month, the hdmi failed me so i contacted dell to fix some issues.

I live in Thailand and was surprised that Dell came in just like that, the next day (how sweet of them) to replace my mobo. However, after that day, playing a game longer than an hour has been causing me stuttering issues with the sound and graphics. I tested the core temperatures/gpu temperatures and they exceeded 86 c, and i was only running fable 3! (we're talking about everything at stock, no oc)

I mean, when i got the laptop, i could run crysis 2 on medium with ease. i could play 6 hours nonstop, and no graphic/sound stuttering. my temperature never exceeded 70-80 c.

I'm 80% sure that this had something to do with the assembly. i dare not disassemble the laptop as it looked really complicated in reassembling and disassembling. Is this a hardware fault? sloppy thermal paste? or just the laptop itself?

Current Specs
Core i7-740m (1.73 ghz)
Nvidia Geforce 425m
4 gb of ram, 1333 ghz

 

Yeah. You've answered it pretty much. It's the heatsink issue. Maybe its not properly seated. For me too, its about 6-7 months with my XPS 14.

And regarding temps, the exterior of the laptop (like the palmrest, bottom, etc.) do get heated up while gaming. But the internal temps remain fine.

For instance, while playing NFS Hot Pursuit (2010) at room temp more than 25C, the CPU gets to 80C(max), and GPU is at 70-75C.

I was facing a similar problem when I received my laptop in a new condition. Every now and then I played any game for say 10 minutes, it would get the GPU to 78-79C. Playing battlefield for 30 mins also got me about 83C. And furmark drove it to 90C!

Then I called up dell and they cleaned the fan, and cleaned the old paste, and applied the thermal pad. And I can say that I'm getting much lower temps on my GPU. Furmark doesn't exceed 70C at all. On cpu, idle temp is somewhat higher (remains at 45-50C all times). Load temps are just high 70s.

So I can say that something's really wrong with your laptop. You should hit dell a call. Maybe the fan has become clogged with dust, or the paste/pad is a bad one. And also do reply back with your temps (on prime95, furmark, and prime95+furmark running simultaneously).

Also tell me if you get full turbo boost of 1.86GHz when all cores are stressed (try prime95 and please report me what clock the turbo monitor is showing).

 

howdy guys recently received my new m14x i7-2820QM 8gb ram, awesome little box, (havn't added ssd yet either). Kills the loading time and bootup of the gt683R i7-2630QM 16gb ram raided HDDs. Even with the m14x standard 750 7200rpm HD.

So know i have to pimp my l401x to compare. The screen upgrade will do and ssd. Ideally i'd like to upgrade the cpu/processor. Have looked everywhere (google) and cant find anywhere someone that has. I can see that dell sold the i7 740QM and i7 840QM models but no i7 920xm. Is this upgrade possible I believe the HM57 chipset supports the i7 920xm cpu. It says supported product on the intel site. Can the dell xps l401x motherboard support the cpu(i7 920xm) or is it something to do with the TDP difference?

Any help appreciated.

 

THANKS for the reply Lakshya! Dell came in this friday to fix my heatsink. he said a sort of white thermal pad had been removed from the heatsink by the previous technician, and that there was an excess of thermal paste on the processors. he also noted that there was a bit of dust located in the computer, and said it shouldn't be much of a problem.
well,

i haven't taken a run at those programs but will try later. i've just overclocked my GPU to around core 700/shader 1400/memory 870 mhz with no sign of my computer going over 80c at all! The only game however that breaches 80c is crysis 2, but no sorts of it ever reaching above 83. I used evga precision

The idle temp is amazing, i've had it as low as 41 c, in a room with 25 c with the aircon on. in a hot 30-35 c room, its only reached around 45-50 c and i'm quite pleased with the results.

Just a question, but how were you able to get it on a full turbo boost? i want to try but i have no idea how

 

Hey guys, first time here! I have my laptop since jan this year, and I'm having the same problems that some people is having: NOISE! Don't know if it's the hard drive or the fan or something else. I tried to uninstall the free fall censor driver but the noise is still there. Did anyone find any solution to this?

cheers!

 

Oh and congrats.

But about the turbo, I NEVER got that turbo (100% cpu load). But you can get that when you're on battery, but on A/c it doesn't work. This is because on battery the cpu doesn't really work hard.

Hey do try it. Run prime95 with intel turbo monitor side by side, and see if you manage to get 1.86GHz on it. If we don't, then one can say that the XPS 14 is the slowest i7 machine in terms of rendering! (lower scores than all i7s).

Not sure. It should support, but if the bios of the xps doesn't recognize the 920xm, then its a waste.

Also, do note that you may hit performance issues due to heat (possible) on such a small machine and an extreme processor.

I recently did an OC on this machine (730/1460/900). Didn't spare time to check for temps though they were pretty much the same.

Now a BIG OC 730/1460 (same) but memory - 980Mhz!! Its stable too!

 

Anyone try replacing the dvd drive with a SSD yet? I'd love to do it. No need for that cd drive at all.

 

I noticed there is a high pitch sound from the capacitors, anyone else?

 

Just had a bluescreen on my XPS. Things had been running OK since after I rebuilt it when it randomly died a month or so ago... so sad to see it crapping out again.

I ran the Windows 7 system benchmark whilst monitoring GPU and CPU temps, and noticed my CPU was peaking at 78 deg cel!!! That's a little high for a cpu temp! As I type this, it's idling temperature is 38 deg cel.

Can anyone else post their temperature whilst running the application Core Temp and running the windows 7 benchmark? It would make an interesting comparison.

I'm tempted to open up this laptop and review if there's enough thermal paste, or if a spacer is needed to apply more pressure between the heatsink and the cpu...

 

does anyone got sec5441 monitor id as the stock monitor?
how is the comparison between sec and auo?
thanks..

 

Mostly this question is directed to Lakshya (but feel free to ring in if you've got the answers). I've noticed that a few users in this thread have quoted that they've upgraded to the Intel i7-740QM and I'm wondering; is there any reason why you didn't go for the i7-840QM? I'm interested to upgrade the CPU in my L401x and am trying to gather the required info before making the plunge.

Also, as a side, I've noticed that on the product specification page for both the i7-740QM & i7-840QM their "Max Memory Size" is locked at 8GB, does this defiantly mean that the L401X has a RAM cap at 8GB or could it be possible to throw two 8GB sticks in and get yourself ~16GB?

Currently this L401X for me is my work horse PC and has replaced my desktop for some time now. And as such I'm looking to squeeze as much juice out of it as I can.

Any info here will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Edit:
One last thing I've been wondering is whether the available expansion slot (next to the WiFi card) is an available PCIe slot? I've been wondering whether it's possible (or even worth it) to throw in a RunCore SSD as shown on this page: ( link)

My plan assuming this is possible is to add a 32-64GB Mini SSD into that slot to use as my OS drive, leaving the main HDD as a file/backup drive.

 

@mydemise, my laptop (XPS 14) is actually a replacement for my defective studio 14. Originally the studio 14 had an i5 processor and had a sluggish GPU, and this one has a 740qm and a 425m gpu. So whatever config they had given me, I had to accept it.

I'd say, be satisfied with your 740qm. I know these words won't please you, but there's not that big difference (just around 8.3%) that you need to spend over $500 for just a little benefit. If you really want something, get an SSD.

Regarding the memory thingy, I'd say, don't take any risk. Those are intel specs that you're talking about. There ARE machines which have ~16GB and are running an i7 processor. Although the xps mobo can support 16gb memory, but according to dell, the limit is 8GB. So if you want to exceed it, you can try it, but you'll be risking your warranty.

And the expansion slot: Yeah even I noticed it. But I think I'm sure that it's reserved for that TV tuner card (I heard it somewhere).

 

Has anyone swapped a normal keyboard for a backlight version P/N 0KMP3

 

Hi, how did you overclock the GPU?
Thanks,
Kunal

 

Yep, I bought a caddy from newmodeus and put the hard drive in that, and put the SSD in place of the as-bought hard drive (ie. the SSD is now C).
There's a few posts in this thread about it, but they're a pain to find.

The caddy doesn't match the machine's lines, so if you want a clean look you need to take the bezel off the DVD drive and tape it onto the hard drive caddy.

This machine is great with the 2 drives... Nice and fast. O/S on the SSD, all the other crap on D.

Only problem I have is that when the machine cold boots, the SSD doesn't fire up fast enough so I have to soft reboot it every time. I'm using an Ocz Vertex 2 120GB

 

can anyone send me a picture of which way the backlite cable should be inserted into the plug?

 

Little update on overclocking after I've had this for a year.


The LG replacement screen is amazing! I absolutely love it and its the best $90 I've spent.
Recently the laptop seems to be running quite hot...and I mean quite hot. I was getting upto 89C on the CPU and 79C on the GPU. I think over break I'm going to take my new found skill at lapping heatsinks and lap the heatsink on this and repaste it with Mx2. Reading awhile back on the heatsink...

That surface looks HORRIBLE! I'm really hoping there is nice solid contact between the heatsink and chip. If not I might have to mod the metal around the screws so that it seats on the chip nice and real tight... If that's ok then I can do my work on the heatsink and get that puppy dead flat and to a nice mirror finish. I hope my project will drop my temps a good 10C...

Also! With overclocking the GPU to a good 700MHz+ on the core.... I noticed that it'll top out at 760MHz no matter what you do, EVGA precision will let you go to 800MHz but in Nvidia control panel it'll say 760MHz even when you have it at 800Mhz. Also, don't overclock the memory. Yea its terrible DDR3 or whatever but I've noticed that I get alot of memory errors now from having it overclocked 100Mhz more... so leave that at stock!

wow this is epic...the Nvidia 420M chip isn't even making contact with the heatsink.... I'm sanding down alot of metal around it so at least the chip makes contact.... ug

Well after listening to Justin Bieber Christmas album...im ready to post my results...lol

Quite a difference...wow... Mx2 thermal paste is absolutely amazing...along with some modding and new screws you can really get a great drop in temps. Best part, the fan never turns on, on battery power, so helping battery life quite a bit...probably adds 30minutes...

Upon taking it appart:

Spoiler

Notice how bad the thermal paste job is on the CPU and also notice how the GPU isn't even touching the heatsink...how sad...dell fail...

I changed the screws like I said to get rid of the standoffs and basically bend the motherboard a little bit so the GPU actually touches the heatsink. That and better thermal paste...does quite a good job...

Before results:



Max temps:
CPU#0: 85C
CPU#2: 86C
GPU: 79C

After:



Max Temps:
Core#0: 65C
Core#2: 67C
GPU: 63C

If dell had unlocked bios...you could get probably quite a good overclock on the CPU and the GPU can be maxed on overclock without a problem with temps. Its quite a decent cooling system. Heck you could get some pretty beefy CPU and GPU in there and still provide sufficient cooling if it was done right...

Hope you guys like my input. It might be a good mod to do if your careful and pretty good with taking things apart and putting them back together. I hate taking laptops apart...desktops anyday but laptop...ug

 

Which caddy did you use on that site? I only see the XPS 15 model. Does that fit the 14 too?

 

@VSS LLP, may i know what type of screw you replaced with? If possible can you tell me where to buy them?

Thanks

 

Brilliant write up mate! Since my temps roughly resemble yours, I can only assume the same thing is going on inside my Dell XPS14. I too also am confident with taking apart a desktop, but am reserved when it comes to taking a screw driver to a laptop!

No doubt I'll have the confidence to do it one day, probably in a couple of years when this one's a spare!

 

What's the best way to go about dealing with the over heating of this laptop? I don't know how to do the thermal paste and stuff like that, but my laptop is getting so bad that it'll just shut off when it gets hot.

If I send it to Dell, how much are they going to charge me to correct their mistake?

 

You'd be much better off having a knowledgeable friend or a local shop doing it than trusting Dell to fix it. Remember, they are the ones that screwed it up in the first place. Mine didn't have any thermal paste on the GPU or CPU at all.

 

That is a huge concern, that the GPU wasn't even contacting the heatsink. Good job fixing it!

I'm going to repaste my own XPS L401X, I'm currently running the GPU at stock speed, and I wouldn't even consider overclocking before repasting the heatsink.

Can I ask though, to the people that have gone to the trouble of repasting, what's the easiest / best way to deal with the GPU contact to the heatsink?

There's not much point repasting the GPU if it is'nt contacting properly. VSS LLP, you mentioned that you changed the screws, and you sanded down the metal around the GPUh - was this difficult? Where did you get the replacement screws from? I'm not willing to start sanding down the motherboard, does anybody know of any alternative solutions - such as a copper plate for heat transfer, or something else?

 

With the speed at which my CPU is spiking in temps, from 40dc up to 62dc in under 2 seconds, I'm getting more and more tempted to open up this puppy and sort it out once and for all.

 

Hey guys,

I had got my motherboard replaced about a month ago, and now I'm having some temperature problems (especially GPU getting hot). Here's the results: (running furmark at 610MHz core).

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/846/furmarktest.png/

As it is winter these days here in india, so I can't expect it to get this much hot. Earlier before the mobo replacement, the temps remained far less than 71-72C when I EVEN managed to get a 730 Core, and around 1000 Memory.

So do you guys think I'm needing a repaste sooner or later? Thanks.

 

I just did a repaste on mine with the i7-740qm. Temps used to creep into the 80s. Now running OCCT or playing some Need for Speed with the GPU OCed to the max, the temps never topped 72.

 

Hey People,

Just a quick update if you start getting BSoD on your XPS L401x, it might be related to the latest nVidia updates that are currently shipping. More found here;

BSoD after 301.42 WHQL install - NVIDIA Forums

EDIT: My Windows started nuking itself again. Decided to run the Seagate Seatools on the samsung 600gig HDD, turns out it is fautly. Damn it. Which I'd done this 6 months ago whilst I was still under the 1 year Dell warranty. =\

Regardless, now I have an excuse to upgrade to a SSD drive, but need to figure out what to put in my DVD caddy drive that I've just ordered off of E-bay. ALSO, my girl friend purchased me an 14.0-inch LG LP140WD1-TLA1 Laptop LCD Screen, so will get to install that too when it arrives!

Which reminds me, when I've got my laptop open, I was also gonna re-paste and reseat all the heatsinks too.

EDIT 2:Lol, partition died on Friday, and is now booting up as RAW instead of NTFS. If anyone else is having doubts about their Samsung stock drive that shipped with the XPS, back it up now! I've plugged the drive into a USB2 sata dock and am running C:\Windows\system32>chkdsk H: /R /X/F on it to see if I can at least squeeze another week of operation out of it, as I'm yet to buy the replacement drive. So far I'm edging towards a Crucial M4 256 SSD, or an Intel 330 180gig SSD. Not too sure which one I'll end up going with yet. Oh, yesterday, I got a call from the delivery company, and my new XPS screen has arrived! Should be able to install it tomorrow, and then the SSD a bit later in the week.

 

VSS LLP, can you give me some details on exactly what you did with the heatsink? Especially what screws did you replace it with.

 

This week, I installed the new screen, a Sandisk Extreme 240gb, removed the DVD player and swapped it with a hdd caddy + WD Scorpio 750gb. Needless to say, this laptop is now in a league of its own. Absolutely no regrets with spending the $500 on the new gear to upgrade it.

EDIT: Below are some pictures to assist with anyone considering this mod. Note that the bezel is the hardest part of this entire mod, from memory there are around 14 clips. I was extremely careful and only broke half a clip, so go slow and steady, with a soft piece of plastic that you can twist to leverage, such as a DVD tab as per my pic below.

​

After using this laptop for ~ 5 days, it's been absolutely flawless. The Sandisk SSD has been fantastic, and so far the WD Scorpio hasn't missed a beat. The screen is worth doing! You won't regret it! I picked one up brand new for $70 AU (+ $30 delivery), delivered in 2 days from;

http://hongkong.nearbyexpress.com/

They had great service, replied to emails within a day, and most importantly took about 3 days to deliver!!!

 

Can anyone please provide me Repair guide / self service guide, because it is not available on the dell support....
If any one already has it saved, i would really appreciate for that
And sorry for bumping old thread and also for bad english

 

Plz help people i need to clean my heat sink(getting hotter) and i am stuck at removing the backlight cable, i cant figure out how can i remove the keyboard, at some blog i read that the tab turns 90 degrees to the upright position ......... is it so ?

 

Was it EVER 100% truly verified that the CHI MEI N140O6-L02 MATTE screen fully & completely functioned properly within the Dell xps L401x?

In this thread, from page 28 - 29 it was discussed, but not verified by anyone:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/dell-xps-studio-xps/531042-dell-xps-14-l401x-thread-28.html

In the screen swapping thread, from page 5 - 6 it was discussed as an ebay item, but not verified by anyone:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/dell-xps-studio-xps/539476-official-swapping-xps-14-l401x-screen-thread-5.html

Any kind of info would be very nice.