Dell XPS 15 L501 Thread

guys im new to the laptop scene as you can see from my previous toy lol....im thinking of buying this beast for gaming xps 15 740.... my questions are:
can i use the laptop without battery attached?
how would it handle if i played cod black ops for like 4 hours per day?
thank you

 

Got the order confirmation for my Dell XPS 15. Estimated date of delivery : on or before 19-11-10. One more week to go!!!

Did anyone else in India hear from Dell regarding the delivery?

 

Hi guys, I am currently using a dell vostro 1520 and I would like to know how the keyboard on this laptop compare to the dell XPS 15 L501

Thanks

 

i`de like to be posting a review! Ordered mine on oct 22nd; then Dell re-enterd the order on november 5th; then I cancelled to upgrade to 1080p screen... they dind`t call back to ask for my credit card info to charge the pupgrade`s premium... guess i`ll be receiving it by xmas lol...

btw i was quite cuirious bout the package; thos unboxing videos look gret dont`them?

Also noticed the top cover is not absolutely flat, it`s got a kind of curvature, wich makes it a little more interesting; i think it looks better "in person" than "in pictures"

 

I am from India
I got the order confirmation with Date as 17/11/10
But in Site it still says order received
What about yours?

 

Even i am looking forward to it

 

Really ? Mine is in the next stage [forgot what it is called - 'building' or something like that].

 

Perhaps on this thread we could discuss the L501 itself and leave the shipping and delivery posts to:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/del...0-xps-configurations-delivery-dates-here.html

I think that was the OP's intention for this thread, anyway.

Thanks

 

Awesome.
And this is why I'm getting rid of my MBP and getting this system. My MBP can barely run SC2 at 1280x768 with most settings on low or off.

 

Same for me ..i ordered on 8th Nov and received the mail stating the EDD as 24th Nov, the status on website still hasnt changed from 'Order Received'. Hope they ship it earlier than that. I received both my previous dell laptops in around 4 days from the date of order

 

Guys, does this new XPS 15 have inbuilt bluetooth device unlike those present on studio and inspiron laptops or do we need an external dongle?

 

loool today i managed to make my L501 throttle!!! i oced my gt 420m to 650 1300 and 1000 and with furmark(extreme burning setting) and prime95 and full brightness it started to throttle the cpu after like 15 mins. the i3-370 went from 18 to 16. although as soon as i lowered the brightness to min the cpu would go up to 18 again.
i m very curious if that would also happen with the 120watt psu attached to it, since i only got the smaller 90watt psu delivered with my xps.

can someone with the 120watts psu try the extreme burning mode setting in furmark with oced gfx card and prime95 running as well and display brightness maxxed?

oh and funnily enough hw monitor reports different cpu temps than throttlestop. while stresstesting hw monitor reported the cpu to be at 80 degree celcius while throttlestop v2.85 reported it to be at 97 degree celsius? did someone encounter the same issue?

 

Supposed Delivery is today, but I may not be here. Also, the Fed Ex guy tends to leave stuff at the front office and they close early. Oh well, I'll get it monday.

 

How are you getting 800/1600/1000??
With MSI afterburner my memory clock can only go up to 960. Have you got different drivers or something? I'm using 459.39
Am I ok to have mine at 800/1600/960?

 

My XPS arrived. I'll be unboxing it and running it through it's paces for the next couple of days. First thing, Heat test.

Or maybe not, This doesn't look like a 1080p screen. Will have to wait to check though, transferring my desktop settings over to it at the moment.

It's running hot. Example. HDX18T is running at 39c both cores and 44c on the CPU. The Dell is running at 60C, and all it's doing is copying files. :/

 

Congrats, looking forward to hearing about it.

 

Great machine, have a lot of fun with your new laptop!

(I have seen that you ordered the Intel I5-540m CPU. So please, if you have some time and boot your laptop the next time it would be really nice if you could have a look at the BIOS if there is an option to switch on the NVIDIA card permanently... This would help me a lot....)

 

Not a problem.

 

Did you get the correct screen? What's your opinion of it?

 

Is the XPS 15 with switchable graphics? I dont need switchable graphics and I want it to run Nvidia all the time, and I should be able to upgrade the drivers when new ones are released from Nvidia, rather than waiting for Dell to upgrade the drivers.

Please let me know.

 

The xps 15 has switchable graphics with the i5, if you upgrade to the i7 it would not, only the nvidia card.

 

Yay! Order status went from "In Production" to "Delivery Preperation". I can hardly wait!

 

yeah I did. It was scaled up to 125% and that's why it didn't look right to me. everything was huge.

The screen looks better than the screen on my HDX18T. And it's a nice looking screen. The whites are more white, the contrast is better, Color saturation is heavy. Brightness, I have to agree with someone else, it's almost too bright at stock settings. (i haven't changed the way it came from Dell yet, too busy installing software.) The screen is better than most notebooks. And I repair a LOT of notebooks. It's on par with the Macbook Pro screens, most definitely.

But, I'm running across some oddities here and there. This notebook started complaining that the hard drive was overloaded. I've NEVER seen a computer complain that I was working the hard drive too hard before. It sounds crazy but that's exactly what it said. I was doing some installs and downloading some software, and the message popped about overloading the hard drive. And no it wasn't the usual windows message about running out of space.

The touch pad is finicky, I find the touchpad non-responsive occasionally after I click on something and I have to lift my finger off of it momentarily then try using it again to get it to work.

And there is no option to turn off the integrated graphics chip and go with the NVIDIA GPU full time. sorry.


Heat, The laptop is incredibly warm on the left side palm rest. Granted, it's been working, but it gets a lot warmer than what I am used to in my personal notebooks.

Running 3dmark06 right now and the fan immediately kicked into high speed. Kind of loud. Hmm 75C on the CPU. Not liking that at all. Ambient temp is about 68 degrees where the laptop is sitting. It's sitting by a window, and I'm in South Carolina, so it's about 45 outside tonight, and the window is open. That's pretty hot. It had no problem jumping up to temps that my HDX18T have NEVER reached. Not when gaming, transcoding videos, etc. GPU Temp hit 68c. Why on earth is the CPU running hotter than the GPU? Hmm

I'm running furmark now...

 

When did you order it?

 

What a pity! Now I have to think if I am going to buy the I7/435 configuration or a complete different laptop....

Thanks a lot, it really helped me.
PS: Overloaded harddrive? Seriously, maybe this was the error message of a P2P-Programm?

 

Haven't installed one yet. hehe. YET.

 

Perhaps it is a BIOS setting, or a Control Panel/Display setting that requires a reboot to apply? If anyone finds out, I'd like to know which it is.

 

Can you still install all latest nvidia drivers? or you have to use dell drivers?

 

Guys, does this new XPS 15 have inbuilt bluetooth device unlike those present on studio and inspiron laptops or do we need an external dongle?

 

Who wants to do me a favor? If anyone has a studio or a studio xps, can you do side by side comparisons with the xps 15?

Thanks.

 

Using stock dell drivers and msi AB 2.1 beta 4.
It lets me clock it up past 1000 without modifying anything. I am leaving it at 1000 though as that is more than enough.

Just make sure you keep an eye on temps. Mine hits about 88c OCed whilst gaming which I am fine with although I will repaste it soon.

 

I have already tried the furmark and prime with full brightness with GPU OCed and no throttling so I guess the 130w has enough juice. Looking at my kilowatt meter I can see it hits 115 watts so if your cpu is 20w less than mine I guess yours could reach 90-95w which should still be fine with a 80w adapter (as 90-95w taken from wall is probably about 70-75w from your psu) but Dell never let you fully load a psu

 

More benchmarks guys. The 3dmark is with the clocks at 800/1600/1000:

 

Wow, 8836? My current 1645 only got 7200 on the VirtualMark you ran. Can't wait to receive my XPS 15

When I ran 3dmark06 I got around 7366.

 

I have just tested my xps 15 on my zalman nc2000 notebook cooler.

Playing COD BO with gpu @ 800/1600/1000 my max tamps were 69c on cpu and 76c on gpu so that 10-12c lower than without

 

I get 69C on CPU idling and still in production -_-

 

ouch! I get 48-50c idling without cooling pad.

I had a hot running sxps 1640 so I feel your pain!

 

hey guys i m newbie here. m planing to puchase a lappy for all purpose (cad: autocad, pro-e, watching hd muvi, playing games in free time etc. )
as i have compiled the choices and come to select betwn Envy 14 & XPS 15. so ur suggestion would be helpful to me.
for Envy 14: i5-450, 4gb ram, ati 5650 1gb, 1600*900 screen.
positives: elegant look and feel, also 5650 is better than 420m, battry life 3-4 hr.
for xps 15: i7 740, 4gb ram, 435m nvidia 2gb, 1920*1080.
positives: better audio than envy, better screen .

nw m confused which one to select? i want battry life of 3 hr minimum..cn i get that with xps? hw about the performance differenc between i7 and i5 for cad software? i m not a hardcore gamer but ya i play games more often..

@ninja 2000...y u sold envy 14??

 

Keep those temp readings coming pls!

60C at idle is not good. I had a laptop with >56C idling (warm country here) and and load (gaming) it went to 98C (95C GPU) maximum.

50C idling sounds ok for i7. What is your room temperature?

 

I had made order on 11th of NOV.... have got EDD as 23rd nov in mail.. but in order status page its still order received and against EDD column it says dat ll be available oly after 3 business wrking days..... It more dan a week since I placed order.....

and u all want to kno wat i ordered na...???

I have placed order for XPS l501x......

 

have ny1 got xps L501X... hwz t.... ts really gud r do u face ny probs....
t ll be of help fu guys share t... ots positives and negatives.......

 

^^ Even I get the same message
But in Order Confirmation i got EDD of 17th
I think its a common problem for us Indians

 

oh.... rite... lets hopes v get t soon.... .... but d reviews i read in dell community is disturbing yaar..... one guy order last month and te=wice his EDD s changed and d latest EDD is nov 27

 

Hi Harsha,

I live in India and checked out the prices and they found to be at least 30% more than as that of the US for the same configuration. Can you please share your configuration and the final price?
Anyway I ordered mine from US and my brother is going to get it.

Thx!

 

I hope they stick to that day at least
They were very prompt in receiving payment and afte that no word
Only order confirmation

 

I really have no problems with the temps you guys are posting up. They actually look good considering this is a desktop replacement quad core stuffed into a 15".

The P8600 in my Macbook Pro runs idle at mid 50s all the time. Under load it hits 70 or so.
The 8600m GT in this overpriced piece of aluminum idles at mids 60s to high 60s and will hit mid 80s in a heartbeat when I game.
And these are 3 year old mobility parts we're talking about.

I really think these XPS 15s are not going to have any problems as long as they remain where users are posting them.

 

Summary of impressions so far. Typical forum non-concensus

 

Some temps from my i7 820QM / Geforce 435 (from CPUID Hardware Monitor)

Idles (windows desktop/light browsing) in the high 40s/low 50s.

20mins of Starcraft 2, with the machine on a desk in a fairly cool room, both the CPU and GPU were around 73 when I exited the game, very quickly dropping to around 50

A similar session with the machine sat on a bed (main side vent clear, but underside obstructed), the temps reached the high 80s.

So if you use your XPS on a bed, sofa, etc - I wouldn't recommend putting it under high load - Make sure is's on a nice solid desk/table for gaming (It seems perfectly fine just browsing the web when the underside vents are obstructed, though)

 

well done bluescrn. You get much lower temps than me. Have you got a 9cell batt?

Another user with temps similar to yours also had a 9 cell. I guess the rear end lifting helps with ventilation.