Dell XPS 15 L501 *Owner's Lounge*

My fan runs on low all the time. I can hear it but its not really bothersome. Even when setting at the desktop, temps around 48c to 50c, the fan is running at low speed.

 

Hybrid power is not Optimus, I installed it no probs, just like the beta before it.

 

^ Have you seen any improvements?

 

if those are for idle, I sa they're a bit high. My idle temps are 5-6°C lower than that. You probably got a bad paste job, try changing thermal paste and/or using a cooling pad. I've got the Enermax Aeolus.

 

just got mine today...all I can say is awesome. uninstalled some junk and installed all my programs from the other laptop.

the 1080 screen and sound is just unreal. like a mini theater...I had the Dark Knight playing and it was just awesome....

 

Massive improvements in frame rates with Black OPS, that's the main game I play at the moment, also youtube flickering gone when using hardware acceleration.

 

Thats great news! Guess I'll go ahead and up-date mine, thanks.

 

Has anyone installed the new video drivers in a xps with i5 460m and GT420m?

------
Sorry for my english.

 

Yes, and optimus still works fine. Flickering with youtube video's is finally gone.

So no problems so far.

 

Can i install the new drivers and uninstall it if I have problems?

Sorry, i'm so noob..

 

Yea you can uninstall then install whatever other drivers you still have the setup file for.

 

I have a quick question.

I just got a 15 L501 as a gift. I am excited to get it, and was curious to know if it will run some of the games I play.

It is this version
480 i5
4GB Ram
GT240M


The only games I play are HoN, League of Legends, and Black Ops.

15.6 inch display (1366x768)

 

@THEoBZ, I don't think you'd be able to play Black Ops on the highest settings, but you probably can play it.(perhaps medium or lower.) The other games, I've never heard of.

 

Thanks for the input. I have had it on pretty much all day for the past few days, running firefox, photoshop, itunes, word and a bunch of other stuff and the highest it's been is 73 Celsius. I guess if I start doing CPU intensive stuff like gaming or video editing it's going to start approaching 80. I'll keep an eye on temps and maybe get a laptop cooler if need be.

Love the laptop otherwise.

 

I've installed the new drivers, but when I try to play PES2011 says that i don't meet the specs. And when I watch a video in youtube (fullscreen) look really bad (a resolution like 600x400).
Now I'm using the old driver and PES works fine.


(Again sorry for my english)

 

You can play HoN and LoL on high, black ops medium.

 

@ kgh00007

I installed the new nvidia driver and ran the basic version of 3dmark06. With the Dell driver, no over clock all stock settings, I got a 6986 score. With the latest nvidia drive I got a 6685. No big deal there I guess but I was hoping for a better score.

Also I noticed in the nvidia control panel that options for changing the 3d settings are gone. Do I need to do something to get that part back? What does your control panel look like on the left hand side when you open it? Here is a snip of mine

.

 

I know I read it somewhere in all these pages but can't find it. how do you keep the keyboard lit all the time?

 

Have you tried right clicking the .exe file and choose the option 'run with nvdia gpu'?

Had the same problem, rebooted and its normal again. Got a feeling it will disappear again.

 

Yep, it did disappear again. After I rebooted for the second time everything was in its place then after another reboot it was gone again then back again after even another reboot. Thats weird.

 

Hey I hadn't noticed that, but I'll keep an eye out for it!

 

O ya....im also facing problems on PES2011 with new drivers...even manually configured using nvidia gt420m to run...

cos of this prob i roll bck to dell drivers

 

You may want to amend your description for the 1080p.....

 

Started up this morning and again the 3d settings where missing in nvidia control panel. I don't know whats up with that so I rolled back my driver to the latest Dell version.

Got this other thing going on maybe some of you know something about.

Intel My WIFI Technology: Adapter Not Found

That is what it reports if I hover my cursor over the icon. When I open up the app it says, network adapter not found.

I have the n6200 wireless card and everything seems to work just fine. No problems connecting to the Internet through my home wireless router. Anybody else have this problem?

 

I have had wireless installation problems, I ordered with the 6200 but it came with the 1000N, Dell have so far sent me out 2 6200's but neither of them will install!!

I see you have the i5-560M, do you get any wierd audio stuttering when playing music or video files? I get it all the time!!

 

^ No stuttering, all video and music files play normal.

Got my 1080p installed today.

 

Cool, do you like it?

I get constant audio stuttering, driving me mad and I get loads of random shutdowns with a black screen

 

Did you try a fresh install of Win7 with new drivers?
That sometimes is all the cure you need for weird problems like that.

 

Oh yeah, I like it a lot! I had it already on my original but when I received my replacement for various defects, they sent it with the 720p so, yeah, I was very happy to finally get installed.

Wow, sounds like you are having a good bit of trouble there. Think I'd have to go with what sprtnbsblplya said and try a fresh start.

 

My XPS 15 is a month old, and it has already started acting up. Latest, it would not boot into Win 7 and launches the diagnostic tests, which cannot detect any problem. Now waiting for the Dell engineer to come and repair it. Anyone faced a similar problem?

No idea what is causing the problem. Will inform the forum once I get the details from the engineer.

 

Yesterday, I had problems where the screen freezes at the windows start-up screen even after shutting off and turning on a few times. However, it was ok again the next day.

 

Okay, so I just recieved my laptop--a week early I might add--and I am loving it so far. However, I have encountered one little problem, a silly little problem, which will probably make me seem rather silly myself. In short: where the heck is the numlock!? Can anyone help?

 

It isn't there on the built-in keyboard.
There are no number keys overlaid on the right hand side of the keyboard to "lock" to, hence the numlock is missing.

If you look at an older laptop, the right hand side of the KB will have number written on the keys in smaller print above the letters, these are absent on the new XPS.

 

What settings should I try out with black ops on my i5 / 420m / 1080 machine? I was getting some studdering at 1920x1080 - so I imagine I need to turn the resolution down, but not sure about the other settings like AA and AF etc. Any suggestions?

 

I read a few posts here and people experience auto shut down.

I too experienced with two laptops. my first one shuts down with blue screen and my second laptop shuts down suddenly. at first I thought it was low battery but battery was full. it shuts down like this twice already.

This is my third one from dell due to various issues. I don't want to exchange again and not having 1080p screen.

anyone have this auto shutdown issue? and know what caused it?

 

Only problem I have with the L501x is audio stuttering via HDMI to HDTV with videos. My assumption is the Dell video drivers may be the culprit.

 

I have the exact same problem, and this is also my third laptop from dell, first one had constant blue screen, second one went on fire with thick smoke pouring out of it and now this one constantly shuts down with a black screen and has constant, random audio stuttering and I'm also stuck with a crappy wireless card, the 1000N when my origional laptop had a 5300 with 3 aerials.

I have tried this hotfix from microsoft that I read about in another thread:

Stop error message when you run an application that transfers data by using the UDP protocol in Windows Server 2008 R2 or in Windows 7: "STOP 0x0000007F"

It's possible that the black screen shutdowns are due to an issue with Win 7 x64 and your firewall. I applied the hotfix yesterday and will post back results, you can request the hotfix by clicking on the link at the top right of the screen.

I still haven't found a solution for the audio stuttering!

 

I find the latest driver from NVIDIA really improves the frame rates on Black OPS, ver 266.58, it will install and is compatible with Optimus.

I can run at 1080p with the 420M OC'd to 650/900 using NVIDIA System Tools. All standard settings in Black OPS, the only thing I have changed is the resolution up to 1080p and turned AA off, I get 28-45 FPS as reported by FRAPS.

Without the OC it will run fine at 720p (1280x720).

You should also install the latest update for Black OPS as this improves threading on dual core CPU's.

 

420m or 435m based XPS?

That makes a difference as some guys had probs with 420m setups and HDMI to HDTV. I have the 435m and I hook up HDMI to my HDTV all the time and its flawless.

If it is 420m, are all the drivers up to date?

 

Anybody? 10char

 

REQUEST BACKUP DISCS

 

That's the way to do a clean install?

 

I too would like to know. Is it safe to assume the recovery disks do not come with any Dell software, and are a clean OS copy?

 

Sigh, just had my XPS 15 lock up on my last night. Wouldn't POST after that, only the keyboard and power lights would come on.

This is my month old replacement for faulty Studio XPS 1645. It would finally POST after a few tries, then just black-screened over and over again. Got into Windows once, called tech support and it turns out they didn't transfer the warranty and "have to look into it".

Now I have no computer and was just sitting down to start some work when it started. My only regret is not selling this thing before even opening the box.

 

They will send you the Windows only disc and discs for extra software you ordered. I think I got the Win7 only disc and the PowerDVD disc.

 

How long do you guys estimate it to be before parts become freely avaliable? I mean screens and motherboards ect. As I want to upgrade my 720p screen to 1080p. I also wish to upgrade the i3 to a high end i5, or maybe see what the Sandy Bridge upgrade will bring to the table?

 

Just too add, the 720p display is simply awful. I did not expect it to be this bad! I though people's vision of rubbish was clouded after seeing the 1080p display.

 

I got my refurbished i7 L501 a couple days ago. I'm loving it, its quite the upgrade from a D620 :-D

The couple of questions/comments I have:
The temps, according to CoreTemp idle at around 50 C, although when coming from sleep it can be in the low 20s. Under load I've seen temperatures almost to 90 but usually around mid 70s. These are all temps observed while it is on a cooling pad. I know i7s run hot, but are these "good" temps?

The computer has frozen a couple times waking up from hibernation...I seem to recall seeing this issue somewhere in the thread but I couldn't find it or see if it was resolved. Related to this sorta - is there a way to find out at a glance if my computer is updated with the latest drivers and such?

Third thing I have is in regards to the screen. I ended up with the lowly 720p display because there were no 1080p in stock in the Outlet. My thoughts are that it is not a good screen...but it is not so terrible either. It's very quite average as far as modern laptops go. Bright, and the glossy screen at least fakes somewhat good contrast.
In any case, it is certainly better than the scratched/dim/failed user repair screen on my inherited D620. :-D

 

Just got my XPS 15.

The display (FHD) is amazing!

The sound quality is also quite amazing.

I just wish there wasn't like 20 crappy programs preinstalled that I'm having to remove.

No Windows reinstall media included - LAME!

Bing Bar? LAME!

I'm not sure if I should just reload Windows from scratch onto my SSD or if I should just do a windows backup and make restore media.

I need to crack this sucker open and redo the thermal compound though as well.

 

Bad compared to other 720p screens? Or just bad compared to the 1080p screen?