Dell XPS 15 L501 Thread

Ninja2000:

You said the keyboard feels mushy.. do you mean the keys themselves or does the whole keyboard feel flimsy and cheap, like can you feel it caving in as you type on it? ( I hate that ). Also are the keys big enough and have enough room between them, like a desktop keyboard? I was hoping the keyboard would be top notch..it looks good from the picture. The Sony_Vaio_F12 I owned had the best keyboard i've ever used. It was a full-size chicklet and I could type faster on it than on my desktop.

 

hi.
when it will be in stores ?

 

I really want one of these over an alienware...just game on steam(TF2, HL2, L4D..light gaming)....so whats the judgment...do these things have heat issues like the jpgs in the 1st post???

 

What heat issue? The computer doesn't give a damn how hot it is. If it's not throttling, and the HDD and surface is cool, who cares?

 

fan noise...thats the kicker....im on the neverend quest for a quality laptop with the lowest fan noise and highest specs...this is coming close...tried many a laptop...asus G73 was close save the USB 3 port didnt work and the keyboard sucked...M17x is loud...macbooks are under speced....etc etc....why cant someone just make a quality laptop that has quality parts and low noise?

 

87C is pretty damn hot for a stock clocked GPU. It could get even hotter when gaming for long periods. Not much room for overclocking..the max temp they can withstand is around 105C I believe. The overclocked screenshot shows 96C.. any higher and you risking frying the GPU or the VRAM.

 

How is the fan noise? Is it as loud as those Envy 14 fan noise?

 

its one of the most silent laptops ive ever held in my hands. i have to point at the fact though that my system has the i3-370 and gt 420m... even while stresstesting with furmark and prime it didnt get loud?? and it didnt throttle either!!

the other amazing fact is that even though my gf is using it on a bed matress thus almost fully blocking the vent outlets the system doesnt get too warm nor does the fan turn up... in turn when i place my studio xps 1640 on a blanket or bed the vent turns up immediately and the notebook gets very hot as well

i am very pleased with the amount of heat it produces and the fan is barely noticeable most of the time!!!

 

I ordered the FHD screen although I cannot see any text at such a high resolution. I was wondering whether the XPS 15 FHD (with nVidia 420) supports 1600X900 and 1366X768 resolutions.

 

font size is adjustable in Windows

 

Uhm, totally lost on where to find the Nvidia driver (Win7 x64). The drivers on Nvidias site doesn't work. Doesn't recognize my 435M. Does anyone have the driver for this card?

 

its here http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/download.aspx?c=ca&cs=cadhs1&l=en&s=dhs&releaseid=R285363&SystemID=XPS_L401X&servicetag=&os=W764&osl=en&deviceid=24792&devlib=0&typecnt=0&vercnt=1&catid=-1&impid=-1&formatcnt=0&libid=6&typeid=-1&dateid=-1&formatid=-1&source=-1&fileid=423360

i wud appreciate some advice concerning overclocking my gt 420m ;P

 

Well, that's the nVidia GeForce GT 420M. I've got the 435M. Think it'll work anyway?

EDIT:
Just sent an email to Nvidia about this issue as well.

 

i guess it will work, just give it a try!

 

oh and the other thing, how can i actually check which graphics card is currently active or how i can i manually switch between video cards respectively?

 

Will do, I'll report back here.

 

Thanks for the review.

I got much the same box yesterday (stock i7 740 / 435M / 4Gb / 500Gb HDD), but with the 720p screen. I've also done a few benchmarks, all at stock clocks with factory build. Sorry I don't have screen shots so you'll have to take my word for the scores:

WEI - much as ninja with a 5.9 score limited by RAM and disk. CPU was the same at 7.1 and GPU 6.5
Cinebench 10.5 multi CPU - 10383
Cinebench 11.5 CPU - 2.68
3DMark2006 - 8236

The 3DMark score surprised me compared to Ninja's as mine is stock clocks. Maybe the lower res screen is making a difference somehow.

The machine is really quiet and so far hasn't got particularly warm, pretty decent considering there is a quad under the hood.

I'd echo other comments about build, speakers and keyboard. I think I might miss backlit keys but considering the spec of PC I've got for £700 I'm pretty impressed!

 

Thanks for the explanation, sounds great.

 

Thank you!

 

That driver seems to work with my card (435M), thanks.

 

You can always drop down in resolution, just not go up. You can also use the font scaling in Windows 7, it's still not perfect but it's miles better than the scaling in Windows XP.

 

Pretty please?

 

I make it about 9.5" for normal viewing

If the screen is exactly vertical it measures 11"

 

Thank you!

 

Hello, thanks for the nice reviews, already helped a lot.

It would be very helpful for me if someone with a Dell XPS 15 / I5 or I3 CPU can have a look at the BIOS if there is an option to permanently enable the NVIDIA-Card?

(This would be great because than the NVIDIA-Card could be used by Linux. Without this option Linux-Users are sticked to the INTEL GMA HD and could not use the dedicated GPU...)

Thanks a lot!

Peter

 

My guess is it can't be done right now.

 

Unfortunately, it is my guess too. ;-(
I know one Optimus-Notebook, where there was such an option. It was an IBM, but right now I do not remember the model. So at least there is some hope...

 

although even now with win7 ultimate and nvida and intel drivers installed i dont know how to switch between adapters!? is there an option? i know that this switching should happen automatically but i wud like to sometimes switch it myself...

 

use the nvidia control panel. it has some settings and abilities, but from what I hear it's still not perfected yet and is pretty buggy, as in it doesn't work reliably.

My understanding is that Nvidia has a ways to go yet with the software and drivers.

 

Edit: Nevermind, fixed

 

The anandtech review also saw high temps as well...

http://images.anandtech.com/doci/3999/Dell XPS L501x - HWmonitor 4percent-wear.png

 

The 1080p screen upgrade cost is only US$20.00 on Dell Latin America. Beat That!!!

 

Yeah, but we have to pay over $100USD for Delivery..as well as no backlit keyboards and hardly ever any coupon codes.

 

Anyone know where to get the waves maxx audio software after a clean windows installation?

 

There is no flex, I am talking the feedback of the keys themself.
Dont get me wrong it is a good keyboard, but I am very picky and the I prefer the keyboard on my Envy 15 which has great travel and feeling when typing.

 

surely for the 435m you can just use the drivers direct from nvidia? havent had a chance to test yet but will give it a go later when I install my ssd and clean install

 

You will get a higher 3dmark06 to me as yours will be running at 1280x720 (or something similar) mine will was run at 1280x1024

 

Ordered my laptop with
i5 460M
4GB
640GB
Backlit Keyboard
Win 7 Pro 64Bit
McAfee 15months
15.6 HD Screen 1366x768
Costed 57K(INR) including all taxes

Still my Laptop Says item received
Dunno When it will come
As soon as it comes,i will post my results also over here

 

That is the problem with high resolution laptops and in the UK you pay £170 for the upgrade! (Maybe I should have ordered it in Latin America but got it delivered in the UK. )

 

Ninja2000,

Great job you are doing in here. Much Appreciated!! One request from my end. It would be great if you could record a video and post shots of the exact steps/sequence when you do the following -

1. HDD to SSD Change
2. Thermal Paste Mod.

Please do oblige, it would be a great help to us XPS 15 people in here (Mine is going to go under production today, as a 1645 replacement!)

Thanks again!

C

 

I am afraid I cant do a video but I will certainly take photo's and write a guide.

I also have a 540m that I want to try in the motherboard to see if the i5 and 435m are compatible

 

You should find it on one of the CD's provided by dell for re-installation of the OS etc...you checked there?

 

Can anyone confirm which bluetooth module fits this model?

 

mine hase bluetooth module 375 and that one can make use of the 3.0 standard

 

It doesn't work actually. It just says that it cannot find the hardware. The driver for the 420 card works fairly good, untill we get a real working driver.

 

Ahh thanks for clearing that up. I assumed we would be fine but the optimus guys would have problems!

 

Impressions of the XPS 15/ i7-740/ 435m so far have been positive. It does run a bit hot inside but external temps are well controlled. Noise levels are also low. Performance looks very good.

Would that be a fair summary?

 

More benchmarks coming guys

Just clocked the card @ 800/1600/1000 and scored 8900 points at 1280x1024

 

Mine arrived today! So much for 2 weeks haha. I am quite happy, only been on it for half hour, missing the backlit keyboard but dell will be hearing from me shortly about that hehe. Going to stick black ops on soon and see how it copes, need to look into overclocking as well (never done it before).

 

nice one mate.
To overclock you can use nvidia system tools or msi afterburner.

I am now using afterburner as NST only lets you overclock the memory to 960

Also can you let me know what load temps you get on your 435m? interested to see if mine are the norm