Dell XPS 15 R2 - L502x - Owners Lounge

I have the 2630QM. I've been meaning to re-paste the thermal paste in order to lower idle temperatures. I guess I'll get to it this weekend..

 

I have the same cpu (2630QM) and the cpu temperature usually stays below 50 for all cores with normal usage, after briefly spiking up to 60C with some load. Hopefully thermal re-pasting will cool down yours a bit.

(edit) I think this is important. For some reason, my fan keeps running at low rpm and it rarely shuts itself down. I don't mind it because it seems to keep things cool and I can barely hear it under most circumstances. Perhaps your fan often shuts off completely? (I am not using any fan control programs.)

 

Has your CPU always been that cool or did you have to do a repaste?

I used to have fan issues where the fan would turn on and off, but I haven't had that problem in a while. The fan does turn on every now and then when things get hot though. I'm not using any fan software either.

 

Mine has been always the same from the beginning, no repasting.

Maybe it's a good idea to check your cpu's clock speed (cpu-z seems to give reliable real-time readings). Mine usually stays at 798.3mhz when there is not much load, and that's when my cpu temps stay around 45C.

 

I can't see any more post complaining about the XPS fan turning on/off randomly or multiple times in a row. Is it still happening or is it solved?

 

This issue was occurring mainly for those who had gpu monitoring gadgets installed in their machine. Try removing any gpu monitoring gadget and temp monitoring tools that monitors gpu temp. With this there is high probability of this issue getting resolved.

 

I bought l502x i5 sandy bridge last month. What a wonderful laptop this is. 1080p screen clarity is beyond words. But I am facing a bit of heating issue. Whenever I surf internet using firefox with 5-10 tabs open, cpu temp would always hover around 55 C. Sometimes temp would spike to 65 and will quickly come back to 55. I haven't played any games yet. So no idea of peak temperature.

Can anyone enlighten me on whether this temperature of 55 c is ideal temperature for i5 laptop? If not what can be done to bring it down (suggestions other laptop cooler are much welcome). Other than heating issue, this laptop is simply awesome.

 

My temps hang around 55-57 when idle/light browsing. I have the 2720QM.

I think it's normal.

 

Hi guys
i got dell XPS 15 with crappy 720p screen and want to replace it with 1080p one
i find this two link on the thread
B156HW01 V.4 (LED) GRADE A+ Pre-Order Link - Kuzotronic.com
AUO B156HW01 V.4 LCD screen,US$133.06 - AUO B156HW01 V.4 LCD screen 15.6 inch LED 1920x1080 WUXGA,www.nbkit.com
but there is a huge price difference between them
which one i must try?

 

Hm, I have the same CPU, and the same temps. My fan does turn itself off most of the time when only surfing, so it's understandable that it then slowly heats up. I guess having the fan run constantly would get the CPU to cool down further, but I like the quietness of the machine. I'm intrigued to see what repasting will do for you. If it helps, I'll be sure to do the same.

 

My XPS 15R l502x just arrived today 8 days early !! Have the i7 2720QM installed and the 1080p display, 8 Gig of ram, 750 Gig hard drive, nvidia GT-540m, backlight keyboard and bluray, all I can say is WOW !!

 

I have the exact same. Love it.

 

How is everyone measuring their CPU temps? Dell Support Center? I used it after reading earlier posts and it shows my 2620 cores are at 80 and 84 C! can this be correct? esspecially while just browsing?

Please list how you're measuring temps. Thx

Update: 5 minutes later after checking with Dell Support Center CPU cores are at 70 and 72 C.

 

I am on the fence about buying XPS L502x, can somebody here who has 1080p version let me know how setting your display resolution to 1600 x 900 looks on their screen?. Will it look like other 900p screens(thinkpad w520) or will things start looking weird/funny.

1080p is too high as text might be too small for me.

Thanks.

 

Get the 1080p screen It's awesome and you can always increase the size of the text easily. I just tried 1600x900 and it looks lousy on my screen.

 

I have bad eyes and I'm fine on 1920x1080 with the DPI set to 125%. I do game on 1600x900 and it looks fine there.

 

I feel funny about quoting myself but I just used CoreTemp to check my 2620 temps and it shows an average of 51C.Whew...I'm guessing the Dell Support Center sucks to check temps...I'll go with what CoreTemp says being that my fan does't turn off and on all the time.

 

Thanks for trying it, I mainly use my PC for software development, mostly switching between different text editor's. Thought 1080p might mess up my already strained eyes. Local bestbuy doesn't have it in stock, so I have no way to know .

 

They won't have a 1080p XPS 15 in stock, but look for a 1080p Vaio F.

 

Does anyone know how to access the "Recovery" partition of the hard drive in order to reset the laptop to factory settings? I bought my laptop on Dell Outlet and it does not have the DataSafe software installed. There is no .exe setup program to open on this partition, and I have yet to find a way to boot to the partition (unlike my old HP laptop, which clearly told me on startup to hit F10 to run the recovery program from the recovery partition).

I do have the Windows 7 reinstall disc, but I am concerned with being unable to install Roxio and PowerDVD without paying for it all over again.

 

Try to press f8 on startup, and choose Windows Recovery (or similar) in the option.They suppose to have the function there. CMIIW

 

I found a laptop from Dell Outlet USA, which came to a total of $754 (£474) after using the 20% off voucher

The specs are:

Intel i7-2630m
15.6 Full HD Display
750GB Hard Drive
6GB Ram
Blu-Ray Drive
Nvidia 525m 1GB Graphics

I just wanted to know (from an American perspective) if this was good value for money, as I'm going from the UK and so I'm looking at getting a laptop whilst I'm there?

 

It's very good value for money, but do take into account that the price most likely does not yet include sales tax... Still, for Europeans that is a way better price than we get over here.

 

That was the amount charged to to the paypal account, so I'm pretty sales tax was included.

The voucher expired last night, so it was a last minute rush to buy the laptop, that's why I'm only asking the questions now.

I'm going to have a look around ebay to see if I can get a backlit UK Keyboard and power adapter, hopefully won't cost that much

 

Backlit Keyboard;
http://forum.notebookreview.com/del...-l502x-uk-backlit-keyboard-part-number-2.html

I ordered one and it's great. 10 mins to fit, but be careful prying the palm rest off the base!

 

How can I do fresh installation of windows in this machine without loading any third party softwares provided by dell. I am unable to figure this out as dell hasn't provided windows 7 installation cd.

 

Amazing price, but unfortunately non in stock

Is it the same quality as the original dell keyboard?

 

Hi guys,

Today I received my Dell XPS 15, and all I can say is this thing is amazing. The screen and speakers are the best I've seen on a laptop.

Anyway I read in the book which said I should charge it for 12 hours which I am doing know, so far i am 4 hours done. However is it necessary to do the full 12 hour charge?

Thanks for your help.

 

@acwest10: did you experience Fan problems?

 

No fan problems as of yet. I keep you posted if I have any.

 

acwest10: Like yourself I got my XPS 15 today. I believe that it only means to keep it plugged in and charging for at least that length of time. Not that you cannot use it while it's plugged in. I heard somewhere that not doing the full initial charge can reduce your battery's overall capacity, but I honestly don't know how true that is.

I haven't had any fan problems yet, although the fan set-up is annoying. For example, provided the CPU stays below 55-60 degrees the fan will stay off. If it goes above that, it will come on until the CPU drops below 49 degrees and then switch off. Curiously though, if you are watching a video the fan stays on throughout and the CPU temps drop to mid-40s and stay there. I haven't loaded any GPU monitoring software as I've heard that can cause more fan trouble.

The sound of the fan during this time is frankly non-existent and I'd really like to be able to keep the fan at that level continuously. If anyone knows a trick to achieve that I'd appreciate it if they could post (or link) said solution. I've already stopped the cores going into turbo when all I'm doing is browsing, which is great, but a fan trick would really seal the deal.

 

Beating a dead horse at this point...but is anyone having this issue with MineCraft:

It runs great, everything maxed. But every 5-10 minutes it locks up, sometimes it just stutters, other times it totally crashes. I can't pin point when or what causes it. nVidia is set to run with the Javaw.exe, I've set the nVidia to run with the MineCraft.exe, I've set the whole computer with the nVidia rather then picking with Optimus. I've tried everything I can think of. Drivers are the latest from nVidia's website, everything on the system runs fine, no issues like this for other games. Any suggestions?

 

It's quite easy really: install a vanilla copy of Windows 7, insert the dell OEM license certificate (a .xrm-ms file, easily found on the web) and then enter the OEM product-key, and voila presto, you have a clean legit Windows (provided you use the same version as mentioned on the license sticker located on the bottom of the device), without all the bloatware.

 

I think those temps shown in the Dell Support Center are inaccurate. Look for RealTemp, Sandy Bridge version. It shows temps about 15 degrees lower.

 

I just checked and HWiNFO shows about 5º cooler temps than DSC too.

 

hello everybody i just got my laptop 2 weeks ago and have an audio problem. speakers and sub sounds distorted and buzzy (especially left speaker). i tried everything (reinstalled drivers also reinstalled win7. can anybody help?

 

just turned on my laptop this morning after recieving it yesterday.
my god im in love! this RGBLED screen really is so amazing. its so nice to finally have a new laptop after 6years!
I used to have an inspiron 6000 with 1.73gHz, 1GB ram, 80GB HDD and 128MB ATi radeon x300 GPU.

 

No, it is not necessary for lithium batteries. Besides, mine already was 100% charged when I got my computer.

 

Hello,

My one month old l502x is getting very hot at the bottom even though i am just surfing the net. HWMonitor shows the cpu temperature at mid 50s which i think is quite normal. But it's literally impossible to keep this laptop on laps even while surfing. Do others also face this heating issue or is it only me? Just thought of inquiring fellow users before contacting dell.

 

Sagar, do you have a i5 or i7 ?

 

I've got an i5 2410m and mine seems to hover around 57 Degrees C'. is this normal? the air coming out the vents is quite warm

 

got a replacement of xps 15 from dell. really like the speaker on it.

 

eri - I'm not sure if its normal or not, but my i7-2630 hovers in the low 50s. I have, however, disabled turbo-boost on the processor.

To disable it, right-click on the battery symbol in the lower right hand corner of your screen -> Select Power options -> Change Plan Settings -> Change advance settings -> Processor power management -> and edit Maximum Processor State to 99% you'll reduce your heat output fairly significantly.

As far as I can tell, there's no drop in performance. I just finished a two hour stint of Civilization V (which I understand is a CPU intensive game) and the processor seemed to keep reasonably cool (max 75 degrees and usually between 65-70) and I didn't notice any slowdown in comparison to when I had tried playing it with turbo-boost active.

A question of my own though: What GPU monitoring software should be used if you don't want to interfere with the fans? I've read (or rather pieced together) that some monitors, like SpeedFan which I have used previously, are causing the fan to act oddly.

 

Got my XPS15 20 days ago and it was working all fine until 2 days ago when it suddenly hung and displayed the blue screen and made a ticking and whirring noise with the BIOS not detecting the drive. Obviously the hard drive failed. Had to go through a long tech support call until they accepted that the drive requires replacement. When I asked why a not-even-one-month-old-computer has a drive failure, he said, 'Well, it's an electronic device.'.

It is within the 1 month return period, but that must be a lengthy process - returning the laptop and ordering a new XPS, 'cause there's no other laptop with the features that I want. So, I'm guessing it was just a bad drive installed in my laptop and replacing it would solve the issue? I'm hoping this doesn't happen too often though, in case there's something wrong with the laptop that's causing the drive to fail? Is that possible?

This means that the week I spent setting up the drive on the new laptop was wasted.

 

Hello Tomma, mine is i5 2410. I am fine with cpu temp of 50s. But the heat at the back of laptop is worrying.

 

on my 2720qm right after doing the cpu test core 0 is 61 degrees C, core 1 is 65, core 2 is 56 and core 3 is 56

 

You mean it reached max temp of 65 during cpu stress test? If so then it's pretty impressive!. mine reached nearly 80 C during cpu stress test.

 

I think he means after the test.

 

Right, didn't do the stress test, I did start the stress test and let it rum for about 60 seconds, stopped it then re-ran the normal test... Temps were still the same

 

I have an XPS 15 L502x with a TV tuner card. Where can I buy a dongle that will allow me to attach a standard coax cable for a normal rabbit-ear antenna or basic cable TV? The included antenna barely picks up two channels.

Also, according to the XPS manual, this dongle is supposed to be included with the laptop, but I did not get one. Would I have success in reporting this to Dell, and thus have them send me one for free (I have the 1-year warrantly with in-home service after remote diagnosis)?