Dell XPS 15 R2 - L502x - Owners Lounge

Just to say, I updated to the newest drivers, and Fallout NV seems a lot smoother on the reccomended settings than it did before the update.

 

Any one notice things getting worse when updating the graphics drivers?

Noticed that cut scenes are "flashing" in Bad Company 2, just rolled back to original driver and problem is gone.

 

I had the same issue, stuttering when playing audio or video from any source, VLC player, WMP, even youtube and sometimes touchpad delay.

I disabled core parking and this has solved it for me, core parking is an epic fail as far as I am concerned, makes a core i7 stutter when doing simple tasks a much lesser processor can do easily without any stuttering.

This has solved the random stuttering for me and has not affected batterylife, mimimum power draw is the same at idle with core parking turned off, 4.16W min shown in HW Monitor Pro.

Check out this thread for instructions: http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus/494232-how-adjust-core-parking-inside-windows-7-a.html

Overall responsiveness has improved and no more micro stuttering or touchpad delay

 

Any news on A05 BIOS update and the fan issue?!! trying right now! let's see...

 

Testing... nothing new ... fan issue still makin me crazy!!

 

Wait!! the fan issue is just for a couple of minutes (at the start of windows)!, after that apparently is fixed!!!! I think! someone to confirm?!

 

Hey guys,

This question isn't really related to the A05 BIOS but I'm going to try that now and post back soon (if the Dell site would load).

I just bought a Mini Display Port to HDMI adapter ($6 from monoprice ) and when I try to output through it I only get a black screen. It's weird, I get sound, the TV thinks it has a signal, the computer thinks the TV is connected and it's displaying to it, and I can drag windows onto the external display and back again. Just no video at all. HDMI output works fine, and the cable works fine on my roommates mac so I know it's not that.

I think it's a problem with the intel graphics, but I'm really stumped on this one. If anyone has encountered this before or has seen it in the forums somewhere let me know. Any help is appreciated!

 

I updated for A05 as well and also no difference.and about the fan issue,i did not face this problem before or after the A05.

 

Just updated to A05, no obvious difference yet. I wasn't having any problems with the fan except for once yesterday while playing crysis 2 (with the GPU OC'd to 550m speeds) for about an hour, the fan was turning on and off very rapidly; about half a second on half off.

Turns out that Dell HAS been using UEFI all along! The flasher said something along the lines of "UEFI flashing utility 1.3.1.4".

Can anyone clear up what "updated intel microcode" actually means?

 

It has not happened for the last couple of days which is weird - but if it starts happening again I will check it out - thanks


Also is there a way I can disable the muti-touch setting for the touch pad - I keep zooming into pages by accident

 

@loaded12

If not mistaken, microcode is used to allow bios to detect newer processor...
Or to update certain feature of a processor, but not really sure also...

 

I received my new Dell XPS 15. I am experiencing a very annoying issue. It is about a mild electric shock. While I use my laptop on power, I get a little electric shock especially when I touch the aluminium cover.
The support desk, attended my inquire politely and quite fast. They shipped a new adapter that has arrived today. It does resolve the issue when the socket I am plugging the laptop into is earthed but when I use a socket with 2 pins the problem returns.

That is really dissapointing because most of the sockets in our house have 2 pins.

I wonder if is a fact that with these model we will experience this annoying and unplesant issue whenever we are using a 2 pins socket? That would not be acceptable for me.

Even my metal toatster or microwave doesnt give any electric discharge in a 2 pin socket . and they run with a lot of power. Beyond any joke I am worried about my lappy

I contacted the support desk again, and I will let you know which the final result is.

Somebody else experiencing a similar issue?

 

Dell stopped using UEFI BIOS recently, last time I seen it was in the older Inspiron 1545.

The only parts now that utilize UEFI is the updater and the diagnostic utility.

 

Does your laptop plug have 3 prongs? If so, how are you plugging it into 2 prong socket?

 

Hi, thanks for you reply. I live in Europe, the European standard allows to plug a 3 pins plug into 2 prong socket y vice-versa (There is no diference in the sockets or plug constructions, except for the earth that is either present or absent)
Have you experienced a similar issue?
I have seen other people reporting the same problem in the dell forum:

Re: Dell XPS 15 Problem - Laptop General Hardware Forum - Laptop - Dell Community

 

Microcode is how you talk to the CPU. It means that the code used to tell the CPU what to do is updated.

 

I had some fan issues lately on/off and less battery life, so i reverted back to the dell website for the graphics drivers and it has appeared to have solved the issues, i was using the latest nvidia drivers from the nvidia website, i havent really gamed on it lately so i cant comment on the performance. but the battery life is better and the fan doesn't run so much.
I think the problem was the graphics were not switching back to optimus with the latest nvidia drivers.

 

just yesterday i got my xps 15. really awesome. good gaming performance at medium and HD resolution. which is more than enough for me as i am a casual gamer. fast processor. i have seen dat during games like need for speed shift 2 the memory usage never crossed 60%. screen is good. needless to say about sound quality. m really happy i chose xps. thanks

 

hey buddy, can you please tell me the process on how to overclock graphics card ??? i reallly wanna do it. mine is GT540m 2GB.

 

hey guys... just wondering do any of you guys have problems with charging things while the computer is sleeping? sometimes my laptop will output power to the usb's while sleeping, other times it wont, it's really weird. does anybody know of a potential way to fix this? i checked the advanced power options and am wondering if usb selective suspend has anything to do with it..
also sometimes when i tell my computer to sleep it'll sleep then turn on right away again... i don't know what the problem is, perhaps i need to reinstall windows

 

I have the same problem with the caps lock key, it also keeps on highlighting every 1st word i type and it makes my browser flash in the background when i press it, not sure what's called.

 

same problem here, anyone?

 

I have been using my new XPS for a few days now, and found a problem with the CD/DVD Drive, it will not read some discs that the old machine had no trouble with Eg: Adobe TCS V3 makes a grinding noise & fails to install, but the disc is fine I used it on another machine. Anyone else have any Optical Drive read problems? PS: I also cannot get the new Nvidia Graphics drivers to install.
Cheers, Greg.

 

Can anyone point me to a user review of the XPS 15. I'm trying to choose between this and a macbook pro 13 from microcenter.

 

***Attention***

To fix the caps lock problem click follow the instructions below exactly. I did the fix last night and the problem is gone

1. While it is optional, back up your computer. A registry, again, is dangerous to mess around with if you don't know what you are doing. (not necessary just follow the instructions exactly and you have nothing to worry about)
2. Press Start and click "Run..."
3. When the dialog box opens, type "regedit" and press OK in order to open the registry editor.
4. Open the My Computer folder if it isn't already and find the HKEY_CURRENT_USER folder. Open it.
5. Find the Control Panel folder and open it.
6. Find the Desktop entry and click it. The side window should reveal many keys to choose from.
7. Find the ForegroundLockTimeout key and double-click it. A box should pop up.
8. Change the current value to "30d40" (without the quotes.) MAKE SURE that the Base ratio box is set to Hexadecimal.
9. Press OK and close the Registry Editor.
10. Restart your computer for the changes to take effect.

Dell Community

 

Mine doesn't have the problem, but probably it is coupled to the keyboard layout, and mine is not US English...

 

interesting. my l502x doesn't have this issue. it has a US backlit kb. i looked at the registry as above and the value is 0.

 

Does anyone know where/if these can be found in the wild? I've been to Microcenter and 3 Best Buys but no one seems to have it.

 

Luckily it was a quick and easy fix. Are you able to pick up any wireless TV broadcasts using the antenna? I tried mine and it picked up one channel (not bothered really but I'm curious what results others are getting)

 

The XPS L502x?

It's only available directly through Dell. Local retailers like best buy tend to only carry the lower spec systems like the inspirons and smaller.

 

Best Buy does carry the L502x however they are online only so you can't really take a look at it. The only place I've seen the new XPS series on display is the Microsoft Store. But like Auron said, usually they are the lower spec'd machines. Majority of the laptops in a physical store aren't going to have things like the back-lit keyboard and the B+RGLED screen.

EDIT: The one on Best Buy's website is actually the L501X. It's fitted with the i7-740QM.

 

Even if Best Buy did sell the XPS in the store, Best Buy seems to have an aversion to selling 15.6" laptops with anything higher than 1366x768, as if they don't even want resolution to be a deciding factor for customers. They won't have the good screen.

and you don't want the XPS 15's standard screen, it's not great at all. You'll want to make sure that whichever model XPS you get, that you're getting the B+RGLED 1920x1080 display.

 

Please excuse me being lazy as I'm sure this has been highlighted before - if so what page has the Fan issue been addressed? My XPS fan is driving me crazy just keeps being noisy when I change pages in firefox ext.

Also Is there anyway to disable the mutitouch on the trackpad I keep Zooming in and out by mistake. - thanks for any help

 

Hey guys, quick question: i'm using my notebook only stationary (always plugged in)

Is it safe to keep the battery in, or should i remove it?

 

I did clean reinstall from DVD, but where the hell can I find the camera software that came with original installation?

 

I've been using my new XPS for a week now and i have a very annoying issue with the touchpad, every time i startup Windows, the touchpad behaves extremely weird for about 5 minutes, zooming randomly and not working at all for some seconds, after 5 munutes more or less, it stops the crazy movements and works well, until I restart my PC.....anyone else is having this issue?

 

Here's my latest report regarding the fan.

So far I can say for sure for everyone who is looking to buy this notebook: those problems with a fan are real and I'm not happy about them. And I'm sure Dell are lying about not having reports about it. But so far I seem have to fixed it at least temporarily.

 

The problem is real but it's not always Dell's fault. People do fiddle with their laptops, I know I did. Playing with drivers, fan control programs, overclocking, etc.

 

I just bought this laptop but theres one annoying issue. The fan is ALWAYS on. However, the speakers are awesome. And I just upgraded from an HP ENVY 14.

 

I've had my system for about 3 weeks, and it is awesome. The screen is soooo much better than my previous laptop. However I'm having a problem with playing The Witcher. I downloaded it from gog.com since they were selling it for $5 and I've thought about checking it out before. I installed it no problem but then I go to open it and it says I don't meet the system requirements. I tried exiting out of it and right clicking on it to run it with the 525m and still no luck. This game is 3 years old, so I'm pretty sure I can run it even if all the settings aren't the highest. Anyone else run into this problem? I can't get my dell downloads to get past the register screen either. I'm thinking of downloading the drivers from Nvidia, but I've heard people are having battery life issues when they've done it. Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

 

i picked up 14 channels but most of those are radio channels... out of the 8 free to air digital tv channels, i got 2 of them lol.

this is in australia with stock antenna

 

I'm very excited for my L502x to arrive Monday.

The Dell Outlet has some good deals on the L502x -- I grabbed mine for $699 (one day after their $49 off coupon expired). I'm convinced it's the best deal I could have gotten for the price:
Intel Core i5-2410M processor (2.30 GHz with Turbo Boost 2.0 up to 2.90 GHz)
Windows 7 Home Premium x64
500 GB SATA Hard Drive (7200 RPM)
4 GB DDR3 ECC SDRAM 1333MHz (2 DIMMs)
8X DVD +/- RW Drive
NVIDIA GeForce GT 525M 1GB graphics
15.6" WLED screen, 1366x768
9 Cell Battery

I plan to upgrade to 8GB RAM later when I can afford it.

I'm upgrading from a Vostro 1000 with a basic dual core processor, 1GB RAM and onboard graphics, so it should be quite a jump.

Traditionally, I don't use laptops' batteries; I simply use them as desktop replacements. With the L502x, however, I plan to rely on the battery and work outside.

My questions:
How long will the 9-cell battery last, on average?
Is there an area for a secondary battery on the L502x?

Thanks!

 

Okay, I used System Requirement Lab's Can You Run It? and it says I don't have 3D support. So obviously it is an Optimus issue, I'm pretty sure the integrated graphics aren't switching over to the 525m. Maybe if I change the power management settings it will switch over. I'll try that later, since I didn't think about this until after I was at work. If that doesn't work I guess I'll see if the my dell downloads works tonight. Does anyone have a direct ftp link to the latest Nvidia drivers for the GT 525M from Dell? Otherwise I will probably have to try the ones from Nvidia's website.

 

Tried this profile. It's better than default (which has too much red I think), but it shows gray as blue. Shouldn't the gray color be gray? I want to find a better profile. Any ideas?

 

I posted this elsewhere but just adding this here since this is what people thinkin about the laptop would read. I HATE the 720p screen. Horrible viewing angles and no contrast. I wouldn't consider this laptop with anything other than the 1080p.

 

Dang, thats a nice set-up. We need to get more pictures of the laptop in this thread.

 

has anyone updated to A05 bios?

 

Yes, recognized no difference.

 

+1 the same

 

Yeah no difference.

Quick Questions. Anyone know if i can purchase the bluetooth device for the XPS? i opted out of it during the build, but would like it now if its a reasonable option