Dell XPS 15 L501 Thread

Dell is shipping me a 15 L501 to replace my xps 1340. Anything I should look at closely when it arrives? Or are people generally happy with this laptop.

My 1330 and 1340 were pieces of $h!t. obviously.

 

Love it. No problems with mine at all.

 

Hi, could anybody with Full HD Panel load a black screen and tell me, if the black color is drifting to red, like mine?
I also had a problem with the factory / default-image of win7. When i loaded a flash-based site, the Browser crashed (no matter if FF, IE, Chrome). I tried to reboot, but suddenly i had a black screen and nothing happened. I solved the problem by installing the latest nvidia graphics driver. But i think, that it's strange when a factory image has such significant faults... Has anybody made the same experience? I can't regulate the brightness of my screen as well. Any suggestion how to fix this problem?

Thx

 

I Bought this Bluetooth Card from Dell, Wireless 370 Bluetooth® 2.1 Mini-Card from Dell d/p# 430-3164. its BRAND NEW!!, anyway It fits in the WWAN slot even thought it considered a WPAN card. I have it in there and I soldered a old wifi antenna lead to the XPS 15's Wifi antenna. I then Downloaded the Driver from Dell for that Card. So when I go to install the driver it says "This driver is not for your system" !!!! -- So I looked up the Chipset on Broadcom's site and downloaded that driver. IT tries to install however It cant find the card?! So I went in the bios and made sure that the card slot was turned on and IT is. Did anyone ever use this card. IT's the only mPCI-e Bluetooth card I know of on the market. I can't take-up a USB port just for a little tiny adapter, i want it internal.

 

There is a dedicated spot inside this laptop for a bluetooth adapter. I would suggest considering that option. I got mine at the time I bought the laptop.

 

Make sure the USB 3.0 drivers are updated. They should be 2.0.34.0. If they are not then go on dell's website and get them. Fixes a bunch of issues with usb 3.0 devices.

 

Hi Guys,

I'm new here, so be gentle with me please ;-)

I've had my XPS15 now for a couple of months and I really enjoy it, but I'm beginning to get annoyed at a problem I have when I'm playing any kind of media, MP3, CD, DVD, DivX etc. Occassionally distortion on the sound occurs.
I can then replay the same media file/track and it'll be fine.
It sounds like it's electronic rather than mechanical, if that makes sense.
I've tried playing it at low volume, high volume but it makes no difference.
It comes and goes and there doesn't appear to be any pattern to it. The music will suddenly sort of freeze for a fraction of a second and it sounds like a fly has been caught in one of those electrical fly traps....
Just wondering if anyone else has had a similar problem?
Not sure what to do.......
Hoping someone might be able to enlighten me.

Best wishes,

Verner

 

Hey man, I've had the same problem for ages, in the end I have been sent a replacement by Dell because of this and terrible battery life on my system, it would only last 45mins to 1hr with the 6 cell battery and core i5-560M.

A couple of things that helped me on my old seysem were; Win 7 Service Pack 1, it includes a hotfix which helped reduce this happening on my old system.
I also disabled core parking which further reduced my problems, but it was still there once in a while. You can google how to disable core parking, and I would also contact Dell, because that audio stuttering was driving me mad!

 

WOW! Many thanks...I thought I was going mad! I searched all over the place for an answer to this with no luck until you replied.
Did Dell ever tell you what was causing the "stuttering"?
Thanks again for all your help, it's greatly appreciated.

Best wishes,

Verner

 

Just updated new BIOS A7 in window 7 and got blue screen. I can't boot into window now, not even show boot screen.

any solution to fix this or I have to get it replaced from dell?

 

If your BIOS is corrupted, you can try this:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ace...ix-bios-bios-mod-request-171.html#post7187628

(see Crisis Recovery Disk..... in .rar)

 

wow, thanks dude. I got my corrupted BIOS recovered before the Dell guy coming tomorrow. I guess I will cancel his visit

 

Called Dell yesterday and spent an hour on the phone with a really helpful guy called Errol. Anyway, to cut a long story short.....Engineer coming out today to replace something on the sound card.
I'll post later with an update.

Best wishes,

DaFfY

 

The Dell Engineer came yesterday and replaced the Motherboard and Speakers.
All was fine until the afternoon when the "stuttering" started again!
Another long telephone to Dell this morning............

Best wishes,

DaFfY

 

Oh no! ....

 

Hey guys, have a look at this idea on ideastorm and promote it if you like it:

IdeaStorm | Media Keys defaulted on F Keys

It proposes a third setting in Quickset for the Fn/Media keys, to set the function keys half and half. F1 - F6 as function key first and F7 - F12 as media keys first, the best of both worlds!

 

I just bought a slightly used XPS 15 off of Amazon, it arrives Friday.
501x model
i7 1.73ghz, 6gb ram, 640gb 7200rpm, 1080p RGB screen, 9 cell - paid 750. The service tag says it was shipped on 4/28 so pretty new. I had to order the backlit keyboard from Dell chat, took only 5 minutes, great service, found the ownership transfer webpage and bookmarked it, I want a bluetooth module, it doesn't have one, anyone know which one to get and if it is easy enough to access?

I was pretty happy with the Dell XPS 1647 with RGB Screen, I just hated the super easily scratchable wrist wrest, I have actually bought two of them off ebay for $20 a pop to replace after they get scratched up from gently wiping. I want the aluminum deck to type on and the aluminum lid to keep looking good. Hopefully that will be the case, why can't computer makers ban shiny plastic that scratches so easily and shows finger prints?

 

Anyone having problems with the ICC profile resetting after reboot?

 

hi guys does anyone have a spyder 3 profile I can use on my new Dell XPS 15? FHD screen thanks!

 

Just get Intel 6230 Wireless Card. It's got bluetooth 3.0 + WiFi.

 

i tried searching but found no awnsers

so I have a L501X XPS 15 with the I3 Core CPU, can this be upgraded to a I5 or I7.

I tried a I7 720QM with no luck (no boot)

but was wondering if this is a bad CPU or just not possible.

Thanks

 

Hi!

Is there any ways to change the GT420M graphics card with optimus to GT435M without optimus in L501x and disable the intel HD? My CPU is i5-560M and I want just one discrete graphics card.

Thanks!
Tom

 

There are 2 separate motherboards for the LX501 model. If you have the 420M / Optimus setup, you must have a CPU with on-die graphics, the i7-640m is the highest you can go. If you're looking for the i7 quad-core (720qm and up), you need the non-optimus board (has the nvidia 435m).

 

Hi! One question.

The L501x supports SATA III 6 Gbps? Im thinking to buy a OCZ Agility.

 

Sata II for the L501x. The Agility 3 is still a good choice, it's backwards compatible anyway and will run just fine.

 

now im facing the same problem..ive updated the graphics drivers and changed the user account as someone told me user profile may be corrupted
i donno what im supposed to do ??

 

Anyone managed to put more than 8Gb in an L501X?

I'm currently running a virtual domain and with a DC, SCCM server and a couple of test clients all sitting on Win 7, 8GB is starting to feel a little cramped.

I have seen some reasonably priced 8GB SODIMMS and I was thinking of trying to see if I can get 16GB in there.

 

Hi, wondering someone can help me with a network problem.
After losing my wireless with an accidental use of the F2 key and not realising what I had done, I uninstalled 2 wifi drivers in device manager/network adapters. When I re-booted the drivers didn't come back and I hadn't taken note of the names.

Tried to do a system restore but win7 couldn't complete the operation.
Went to Dell site, put in my service tag and downloaded & installed all comms and network drivers, still no go. Did a win7 home to ultimate upgrade that I'd been putting off, still nothing. Re-seated the Centrino Ultimate N-6300 card too.

Device manager says all adapters working ok but Intel ProSet wireless/ Intell MyWifi Technology application can't find a supported wireless network adapter and WiFi manual diagnostics fails on network adapter hardware test. network map shows a big red cross between network adapter and wireless networks. Also Windows Mobility Center does not show the wireless icon. My whole wireless adapter seems to have disappeared without trace but device manager is still totally happy and I definitely have the latest driver(13.1.2.5).

Windows wireless repair says can't bind the IP protocol stack to the network adapter.
Not sure where to go next with this.
Maybe someone could give me a screenshot of device manager/network adapters?

 

is it possible to do a straight swap from my l501x motherboard to a l502x so i can get the new line of sandy bridge cpu's

 

It Works, you can put 16GB in an L501X (or it works in mine)

Bought 2 x Corsair CMSO8GX3M1A1333C9 8GB SODIMMs for my L501X i7-840QM and I now have a L501X with 16GB RAM working OK.

 

Hi,

Is anyone running an SSD in the optical bay of an l501x?

Am considering running 2x SSD's but am unable to find any info on what speed SATA the optical bay supports.

 

I would like to hear if the upgrade to 16gb has caused any problems with you laptop. I too have a L501x with i7-840QM. FHD display, Blue Ray, TV Tuner, etc..etc.. I would like to know exactly how it went. Did you do memory scan and check? I just ordered some memory from Amazon > 100USD. I want to try it before I upgrade HD to SSD. Please if you are still monitoring the forum I would appreciate the insight.
Thanks!

 

I am asking you to tell me how the 16gb memory upgrade went. Did you run memory test to determine if the memory was functioning properly.
I also have L501x with i7 840QM, Full HD display, Blue-Ray, TV-Tuner, etc..etc..etc... I am trying to memory upgrade before I take the plunge for SSD. Please let me know how it went and what problems you encountered (or not) Thanks

 

My L501X also has an i7 840QM, so the same meory controller as yours.

Upgrade was very easy. Put the SO-Dimms in, ran some memory checks (I work in IT and although was sceptical that although it reported as 16Gb, whether the full 16GB would actually work). Everything seemed fine.

Have been running enough virtual machines to push the memory usage to around 14GB with no issues so far (I use W7 x64, MS Office x64 & Virtualbox regularly)

It is worth mentioning that the device does only "officially" support 8Gb, so I am wondering if I have been one of the lucky ones.

With 16Gb, if left at default the page file and hiberfil.sys (if you do not disable hibernate) will end up taking a sizeable percentage of your SSD, the only negative.

 

my l501x does not work with the nvidia 420, only with the intel. I tried to uninstall the drivers completely and reinstalled, but still the same. Before it worked fine, When I upgrade the drives to latest version occurred
I can do?

 

From reading few previous post I see people reporting successful updates to 16GB RAM.

What type of DDR3 RAM did you use?

Thanks

 

Please look a few posts before, the info is there. For the lazy.


It Works, you can put 16GB in an L501X (or it works in mine)

Bought 2 x Corsair CMSO8GX3M1A1333C9 8GB SODIMMs for my L501X i7-840QM and I now have a L501X with 16GB RAM working OK.

 

Dude, seriously??? Lazy???

There were two completely different answers to my question, that's why I asked here.

For instance in this thread: http://forum.notebookreview.com/dell-xps-studio-xps/679188-dell-xps-15-l501x-up-16gb-ram.html

Thanks.

 

I've installed Windows 8 x64 on my nearly two years old L501x and it is running very well. Windows 7 drivers from dell website were all compatible and I don't think dell will release new Windows 8 drivers for our laptops.
It runs smoothly my only niggle is with the lack of Vertical Sync in the OS.

 

Have you tried installing Windows 8.1 ??

 

Hello all,

Recently, I installed a new windows profession N OS on my laptop and found it very difficult to decide on the device drivers.

1.Can anyone mention all the required drivers to be installed on Dell XPS L501x ?
I found it very difficult to decide which ones to install from the drivers list.
There were some drivers that said were not compatible?

2.Also where do I find the Multimedia control soft key settings?

3.How do I install the Dell support which had come preinstalled with this laptop.?

4.any tips while installing a new OS ??

 

hi all,

has anyone installed a msata ssd on L501x before?

is it an easy installation?

is it possible to run the msata as RAID 0 as many current laptop does with the existing HDD?

Thank you.