Dell XPS 15 R2 - L502x - Owners Lounge

Those numbers don't really mean too much as far as I can tell. Rate your system on how well it can do the tasks you want to do. You won't be disappointed.

 

got my xps yesterday 5/3.

some nitpick about it.
-fan ramps up and down often and it can get loud.
-left side of keyboard can get pretty warm. (don't mind, my old lappy was the same.
-oil is very visible on keys and black plastic.
-cd/dvd/blu-ray tray feels kinda cheap.
-getting used to the keyboard and 16.9 aspect ratio. (my old lappy had a numpad and 16.10)

overall, i am pretty happy with it and everything seem to be functioning properly.
The xps is a definite a 1up and is about the same size and as my asus m50 so it fits in its bag.
The screen and speakers it really great too.

 

Another newbie here with the same question. My XPS would be arriving in 2 weeks....

 

At what resolution are you running the games in the vids? Pics of the exact settings would be awesome.

 

Try disabling any GPU monitoring software/gadget. That stopped the fan issue I was having. It's actually really quiet under light load, especially if set to "Power saver."

 

I had this issue with Starcraft II as well, it happens randomly and I would have to do a hard shutdown. It might be because I have the setting on high, but then again, the fps was fine and there was no lag at the time. Did you overclock yours? and how high were your settings?

 

What is the gadget called and where is it located? A lot of people are having fan problems. Maybe your solution would help us all.

 

@up

No, it is not specific gadget, it is just any monitoring tools that read nvidia card information (speedfan, gpu-z, etc);

Just try not to use any of them

 

Did anyone tried installing new drivers 270.xx launched for Nvdia 540M GT and succeded in it ? I tried it installer fails to complete the install.

Any suggestions how to proceed on ndvia driver installation if you have an old driver already installed ?

 

Yeah, I think I'll use an external tool like PCmark or other Benmarker & compare with reviews.

Thanks, Greg.

 

Today, Dell technician told me that there should be 6 bad pixels to declare an screen as faulty.

 

Something I just noticed, the outside of this laptop looks like it would come out of Aperture Science? The XPS Glados

Also, apparently they are redoing the XPS 15 design and it looks like a bad 2003 macbook.

Engadget News Article

 

Does anyone know how to turn off the lights of the touch sensitive control panel on the dell xps 15???

 

my laptop has locked up playing black ops 2 times in a row now.

 

I installed the new drivers from NVIDIA Website and I had no problem installing it...

 

I am also looking for the answer. However the power button light is no tasteful to me. I liked the location of these lights in my old Studio 15. There was no light in the front at all.

 

i need a small sized multimedia keyboard to carry with my lappy.
any suggestions ?

thanks.

 

@ Above9000--- How did you proceed for installation ? can you tell me the steps ?

I tried to install in normal mode too , tried to install in safe mode also. But its does not install.

 

I confirmed my order on the 4th of May.. It went into production on the 5th and is showing "manufacturing build complete" on the 6th (today).. I hope the delivery is quick too.. How much time should I expect the whole delivery process to take? I am from India..

 

Run the installer as administrator. Also, select 'Custom' install and tell it to 'clean up' previous drivers.

 

any idea of overclocking tool for 540M ?
rivatuner is having problem with signed driver problem (x64)

 

Any reply ?

 

Question

Anybody using 1030 n wireless card, how is it?

Because, it is not possible for me to customize it, so I have to purchase the only spec available, and just want to make sure 1030 is not a bad card (to catch my campus wi-fi, which is quite short in range)
Previously using Intel 5300, but never touch 5ghz network, so not much to worry...

 

i currently got this with my xps 15 and i have no complaints. actually it detects more networks. i also have a 6300N wireless adapter i usually swap into all my laptops but i need the bluetooth thats built into the 1030. i dont see why you'd have any problems with the 1030N though. good solid card.

 

it does it automatically , but if you want to force the system to use the main graphics , you can do it too , in nvidia control panel . , but so far the automatic Optimus system works for me ... it also helps on the long run ..

 

@Spunky
Thanks bud, because I have quite a problem with 5300 before, and the range of 5300 seems not good enough.

 

Got mine yesterday from Dell Outlet and there is a tiny black mark on one corner and a couple scratches is all!

i7 2720QM, 8GB RAM, 750GB 7200 RPM, 540M 2GB, B+RGLED 1080p, 6150 WiMAX

WEI:

Processor - 7.7
RAM - 7.9
Graphics (gaming and desktop) - 6.9 (guess it used nVidia on both though Optimus is set to auto detect)
Hard Drive - 5.9

Installed all the updates and SP1, uninstalled McAfee, and it looks like the only "bloatware" I have is the Webcam Central software and another little Dell utility. I will still reinstall when I get an SSD I think though.

So far I'm very happy with the system, and with the color profile the two blurays (Dark Knight and Up!) that I watched last night looked amazing!

Not sure why people diss on the looks so much (or the weight). I think the machine is very sleek looking, and I am very happy with the black/silver. The backlit keyboard is great too, and I had a 14mbps download and ~3mbps upload speed with my 6150 card.

Not bad at all for my first laptop and $1000! Thanks for all the posts in this thread.

 

Would someone be able to give me the basic steps of doing a clean install would I need a disk of Windows 7? One did not come with my XPS as far as I know. I have been using "your uninstaller" and have been removing unessary programs that way - would jut doing that be ok or is clean istall way better? thank you

 

So I am loving my laptop so far. My only problem is that the network card (6230) is horribly unreliable. I'm getting severe lag spikes. The silly thing is that my HP Envy also has a 6230 and it works flawlessly. Any ideas?

 

Well, I've had the XPS 15 a few days now, and overall I think it is fantastic!

The performance is great, most of my Steam games can be played at full settings, and look great compared to my year-old Vaio laptop.

I will reiterate, if you get this model, get the 1080 screen, it fantastic for movies, games, browsing, everything!

The fit and finish is great, considering the horror stories that seem to be frequent on here. The build is solid and the quality is good, photo's don't really do it justice. It's unusual looking next to say a mac, but I kind of like it.

I got a 9-cell battery from here second hand (Thanks StoneTrap!) and I like the elevated typing position for working at my desk.

There is an option in the battery section to stop the battery charging until you log out, this is useful as I worry about constantly topping off batteries and them losing charge capacity.

One poster said they returned their laptop because the drawer didn't "pop" open when they pressed the button..... I cannot believe this would warrant a return. I had the same issue, I popped the bezel off and ran a stanley knife round the edge, popped it back on and it works great!

I now have the newest version of Ubuntu installed, as well as windows, and it works great. My boss helped me set it up (he's a real linux expert) and everything important (screen, speakers, keyboard (including lights), wifi, network, bluetooth) are all working. I only really have it so I can try and learn some command line stuff in it.

All in all, it's one of the best computer purchases I've made, I fully recommend this model, if anyone has any questions, reply or PM me.

 

A number of people (possibly on this thread) have reported loose or disconnected wires. They reported that you can access the wires easily through the back panel. Google it for details.

 

hello guys

I have found some annoying anomaly in my XPS 15. If it is plugged in with cable, everything - speed of compressing files, speed while surfing the net via Wifi - is OK. But once I start to use the battery, several functions slow down. It takes ages to extract a dvd, cannot even surf the web because it becomes damn slow.

Anybody has an idea what can cause this ? I did a clean install on my machine and used all the latest drivers from dell official website.

 

Mine had the same characteristic as well. I think when you are using battery, the notebook automatically goes into "Power saver" mode to prolong the battery life and once you are in that mode, everything will slower down to conserve power.

You may try to manually set it to other power mode to see if it improve things for you ...

 

yepp that was the problem....did a quick research on the issue and turned out that the default power saver setting totally slows down the Intel wireless card in order to save max power. I just disabled that functon in the power saving setting and is just works fine now

 

Hello everyone.

I am new here and I have recently purchased an XPS 15 L502x.
Took 6 days to arrive (Including weekend and UK Bank Holiday as well as Will and Kate's wed).

I will report further details i.e specs in time.

I have one minor issue: I ordered a UL/Irish Backlit keyboard.

The backlight did not work....and even if it did, the Keyboard is German.

So, Dell will be sending a keyboard as well as a techie to fit it for me. Then only will I truly dedicated myself to using the machine. Until then, it rests in its box.

Enjoy your XPS 15s folks. We have a great piece of kit here.

XI

 

Hey all,

Just purchased an XPS 15 Here are the specs:

Intel Core i5-2520M processor 2.5 GHz with 3.2 GHzTurbo Boost
15.6FHD TLF B+RGLED LCD L50xX
500GB 7200 RPM SATA Hard Drive
4GB DDR3 RAM
NVIDIA GeForce GT540M 2GB graphics with Optimus
Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6230 and Bluetooth 3.0
Creative SoundBlaster X-FI MB 1.2
Backlit Keyboard
90 WHr 9-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery
1yr Limited Hardware Warranty (Mail-In)

Excited about this, can't wait to see it! Also, its replacing a

HP Pavillion dv6500t
15.4 Screen 1280x1024
Intel Core 2 Duo T7300 (2.0GHz/4MB L2Cache)
2gb DDR2 RAM
383MB NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS
500gb hard drive
12 cell battery

This laptop was my baby, but in an argument, my mom smashed it ; _ ;
It meant so much to me too, as it was my first laptop ; _ ;

 

The status of my purchase order currently shows: In Transit
Estimated Delivery Date is showing 12th May. but I hope it will be sooner

Guys,
I am still waiting to hear some tips/things to check as soon as I unpack my brand new XPS! Just want to make sure that I have got a perfectly working error/trouble free piece.

Cheers,
KF

 

hey guys

just an other quick question. I found that Assassins Creed brotherhood runs really slow on my XPS (2 GB 540m). The interesting part is that I experience the same lagging with every settings - doesnt matter if I try to run it in 1366 High or 1366 lowest settings, the performance remains the same, the in-game videos are out of synch e.g.

I have seen a lot of gameplay videos with this VGA and I doubt that it could be a problem for a Dell machine if an Acer Aspire with the same gpu can run it smoothly on 1366 high settings. I have the latest nvidia driver installed.

Do you have any idea what can cause this ?

 

If you haven't already, try the new Nvidia Verde drivers for the 540m at the Nvidia site. Civ5 wouldn't run for me in DirectX 11 mode and only ran with 'Low' graphics settings DirectX 9 mode. Now it runs great with everything maxed out!

 

Are the drivers optimus capable?

 

Yes, they are.
A great thing about Nvidia over AMD drivers for now

 

roblem solved

actually, it was using the nvidia card, but with wrong settings (powermanagement and performance). I manually modified the settings for the launch file for high performance card, and maximum performance in power saving option than it started to function properly - fullHD max settings runs smooth as hell

 

Hey all, I have been watching this thread for a while, and I have some questions. What is the performance like on the 525m? I don't play a ton of games, occasionally portal 2. I do some HD video editing, and I would like to watch movies on my HDTV via the HDMI. Will this laptop handle all of that easily?

 

While watching a couple of movies through VLC player the movie glitched a bit and even stopped at one point? anyone else found this? I ran the same movie on my far less spec laptop and it worked fine - drivers are up to date as far as I know. 525m video card

 

Did you ever get a fix for this as I have exactly the same problem and it's driving me mad!


Thanks

 

You should essentially do the following:
1. Try out every function, to see if there is any manufacturing flaw
2. If everything is ok, clean the OS somewhat...uninstall the unnecessary stuff...you should not need a clean install, Dell OEM installations are pretty good if you clean them.

 

Looks like there's a new A05 BIOS released today.... interesting.

Fixes/Enhancements:
1. Updated Intel microcode.
2. Fixed issue of battery information(capacity in Watts) does not report correctly in Dell Support Center

 

Thanks for the tip. Right now, I can't access Dell's Drivers & Downloads section or its Support section. I'm getting the following error:
HTTP Error 503. The service is unavailable.

I can log into my account. I wonder what's wrong.

 

I updated but see no difference yet

 

Here is the link for the new bios for windows 7 X64


ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/bios/L502X_A05.exe