Dell XPS 15 L501 Thread

what oc software did u use to get these clocks?

 

What have you overclocked yours to? To give me a rough estimate of what to aim for.

Just general messing about, no CPU usage to speak of, spotify on GPU is hanging around 44C and the CPUs are at 50C. Havnt taxed them yet though, going to do some gaming later to see whats what.

Also have you managed to update your drivers?

 

@ sheikhstone - I am using afterburner ver 2.1.4 beta. NST would let me clock that high.

@ huntergreenall - I started at 750/1500/900 and it breezed it so I upted it to 800/1600/1000. I am afraid to push it any higher until I have repasted the GPU with MX-3 as my temps hit 95c in furmark.

Temps in BFBC2 was 88c after 30mins play

 

I have dell calling me in a few hours.....got a good price and want to get this..but these temps are scaring me....

 

I have to admit, I dont worry unless I near 100c.
I would rather have it a few degrees hotter inside than a laptop with a lot of external heat or worse....throttling!

Plus we need more users to post temps, I may just have a poor Dell paste job (it wouldnt be the first time)

 

Anandtech saw high temps as well ninja2000 with their lower speced XPS 15...Look...im not tryng to bash this laptop...i just do not want to get another laptop that I end up sending back because it just cooked itself...

 

Agreed........(mine's not due till end of next week)

 

I ran 3Dmark06
same score
temps rose to mid to high 70s
OC now and will rerun

 

huntergreenall...what are your specs?

 

i7 740qm
nvidia 435m
4gb ram
640gb 7200 HDD
1080p B+RG LED Display
Intel 1000n wireless
9 cell battery

Just ran 3dmark06 OC'd to 750/1500/900 and got 8313
GPU temp rose to 79C, CPUs between 71C and 78C

 

Mine arrived an hour or so ago... First impressions...

Good points:

- Screen - the 1080 screen is lovely. Very happy with it. It comes configured with 125% font sizes, which I've turned down to something like 115%, which suits my eyes.

- Appearance - Pleasantly surprised. It looks nicer than the photos make it look. It's a bit chunky, but not ugly by any means.

- Quiet when under light load. (Not silent, slight fan noise, not enough to be annoying)

- Not too much crapware to uninstall. I don't feel the need for a format+fresh install.

- Touchpad. After a fair bit of settings tweaking, this behaves quite well (even for a Macbook user, it's acceptable, once you've got 2-finger scrolling configured sensibly)

- As expected, speakers are better than average

Not so good:

- No backlit keyboard (UK)

- Heat - It definitely kicks out a fair bit of warm air when under load. A few minutes in WoW had the fan up to full speed, and it was blasting very warm air out of the main vent. But the heat was limited to that area, the palm rests stayed cool, so maybe the cooling system is doing it's job OK? But it was only running for a few minutes under load.

- Power cord - Very chunky cable, straight connector (why not right-angled?...), and a bit short. Not a big deal, though

Undecided/Don't Know yet:

- Keyboard. Will take some getting used to. Coming from a Macbook, it's obviously got a very different feel. It 'rattles' and does have a little bit of flex - but I wouldn't call it bad, and I think I'll get used to it. Glad to have a proper PC keyboard layout again (with a Del key...) after using the Macbook.

- GPU performance/performance in general. Only tried WoW so far, and it isn't really the best test, as it does a lot of disc thrashing (was in Dalaran...), and is fairly CPU dependent too (certainly looks playable at native 1080 res and fairly high settings, just not super-smooth). Need to try some more games later.

 

@ huntergreenall - Very nice, you are 10c lower than me. I wonder if its because you have the 9cell which lifts your laptops rear end!

 

@ bluescrn - do you really think the heat is a negative? you have a quadcore and gpu pushing out 100w of heat, I think it manages it very well. Yes it pushes hot air out of the side, but the laptop remains cool on the palm rest and keyboard.
The sxps I had pushed the air out of the rear and was clocked by the screen and the palm rest and keyboard got so hot I couldnt game on it.

 

Thats a bit better for temps...

 

Quite possible. It is also friggin FREEZING in my room (Student )

 

lol best do some gaming then to keep yourself warm

 

Yeah, maybe that's being a bit harsh - but I was surprised how quickly it heated up - I only tested it for about 5mins under load - and there was some serious warmth coming out of it. But as long as it stays that way during a longer gaming session (without too much heat spreading to the front of the machine), I'll be happy with it.

 

Well I have had an hour on BFBC2 earlier with the gfx card @ 800/1600/1000 and the laptop didnt get hot so I am really pleased with the cooling solution. Hoping I can get the internal temps down a bit too with some MX-3

 

can some of u guys with the fhd screen post their display model name? i have the "AUO17ED" which is a different panel than the one that anandtech had, but i guess its nonetheless pretty good, anyways just curious ;D

 

I have the same mate

 

FYI
9 cell - brightness low, music streaming, wireless on, light internet browsing
3 hours left at 90%

 

Just found these unboxing videos for those who are interested:

YouTube - Dell XPS 15 unboxing l501x

YouTube - My New Dell XPS 15 / unboxing

I think it looks really nice!

 

You mean after 3 hrs use, it's still showing as 90% juice remaining

 

By the way, what are you guys going to assign to the custom touch button?
too many options!

 

No, as in at 90% it says three hours remaining.

I thought that would be obvious haha

 

Those numbers are not that reliable... Maybe initially they might be a little bit reliable but afterwards when the battery gets old... they are not at all reliable...

 

Ok, never come across a laptop that says how much actual time is remaining on the battery. Then again, I've only ever owned a powerbook.

 

Oh man. That makes me want it more than ever now. Thanks for the links!

 

Those videos are funny. In the first one, the guys' dog is in the background thinking his master is about to pull out a nice juicy treat from the box. In the second, the guy is unpacking with one hand and holding the camcorder in the other.

 

Hi All,

Just unboxed my XPS. schweet!

So far so good - just copying my files over. Civ 5 runs beautifully. Downloading Black Ops on Steam now.

3 points of note:

* I agree with a lot of the sentiments about the keyboard. It's ok, but a bit mushy. I can get used to it.
* 1080p sceen is good. A little over-saturated. Yellows and reds are very bright.
* the speakers are A-mazing. I've never heard anything so good on a laptop.

 

On the heat issue, I played Fallout 3 for a couple of hours last night, with the computer on my lap.

The fan does work quite hard, and is audible, but it isn't annoying, just a kind of a gentle 'whoosh'. The air coming out of the side vent got very warm, but the machine stayed quite cool. The point directly under the exhaust vent, which I guess is where the GPU is, got mildly warm, but not in any way uncomfortable. The rest of the underside was cool and the palm rest didn't get particularly warm.

Not very scientific I know, just a user opinion.

So, for a quad core laptop it isn't bad at all really.

 

That may be the result of the extended gamut that I've heard this screen has. Is there any way to set the display to sRGB compatible?

 

When did you place your order? I placed mine on Oct 27th and it's still "in production" so it's been like 2 weeks since I placed the order!

 

Mine is a replacement, contacted them about 2 weeks ago, returned my SXPS last week.

 

Thanks! I'm just tired of waiting. The estimated delivery date is the 18th and I'm thinking it will probably arrive on that day at this point!

 

HURRAY! I just called Dell by-phone order management system and it said that my order was shipped today, arriving to me on Monday 15th!!!

Whereas online status check still says 'in production'

 

Good question

From the anandtech review:

"In an ideal world, you'd be able to choose between 82% sRGB backlighting and 100% ARGB1998 backlighting at the flip of a switch, but for now you'll have to settle for one or the other"

Dell XPS L501x: An Excellent Mainstream Notebook - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News

But he didn't say how you change settings

 

Damnit! I've already dented the aluminium palm rest. Dropped my iphone on it from about 5 cm. Looks like this thing is going to look old very quickly

 

sorrry but loooooool ;D

 

I watched those unboxing videos and was a little disappointed to see that Dell is not including a reusable sleeve with the new XPS line. Anyone know of a sleeve that can accommodate a 15.6" laptop with extended battery?

 

Heat coming out of the exhaust vent is good. Don't worry about that. Run hardware monitor and check the CPU and GPU temps under load. That's what we need to look at and be concerned with.

 

Yeah we really need Ambient room Temps when checking the temps on the notebooks. That gives us a better idea of how hot it's running.

I really wish Dell had sent mine so I could run all the tests I need to do. Sigh.

 

which department did u call? i might do that as well!!

 

Fixed again.

 

me too! when did u order? i got the same edd as you. delay may be for the region [aus here]
some of the guys said that their lappys are shipped while the status is not updated, not sure though!

a sign of an expert

posted by vovano, see below:

its already weekend for me, i will try on monday!

 

I would be worried about the iPhone if I were you!

 

It's wrapped in invisibleShield... hmmm maybe I should get some of that for the laptop!

 

Whats everyone overclocking their 435 to?

 

Still running mine at 800/1600/1000. Been gaming for a few hours with no problems so far

Throttlestop log attached to front page to proove no throttling whilst running prime.

Star Craft 2 results for play at 1080p all high settings except shadows medium.
Stock clocks - 30-34fps
OCed - 37-40

Whilst OCed I get more fps than my Envy 15 with stock clocks so I am pretty pleased

 

Hey,

can anyone do a 3DMark06 test with stock 420M and 720p HD+ display? Thanxx!