Dell XPS 15 R2 - L502x - Owners Lounge

I am trying to overclock my GT 540M GPU using NVIDIA System Tools. However, if I plug in the settings I want, and then restart the computer, it does not keep the settings. I am on the latest NVIDIA drivers. Any suggestions?

 

I use EVGA Precision, you could try that.

 

Interesting thing regarding temps, especially for gamers:
I use evga precision to OC my 525m to 700 mhz, and I use game booster by iobit. When running an intensive game, say crysis, using just game booster, I get gpu temps in the low 80's and cpu temps around 87 (which I do not like). I decided to go into game booster's power plan and set the processor max state to 99, effectively disabling turbo boost. While I do like turbo boost for things like video recording or running long codes (i am a college student), the 4 cores of the 2630qm can handle any game at 2 ghz with no fps drop. After turning off turbo boost, I had another crysis playsession, and with the processor no longer hogging as much of the heatsink, temps on the cpu were around 80 max, and temps on the gpu never got past 80. Results were the same when I used the gpu on stock settings, though there was an appreciable fps drop (around 3-4).
In summation: If you are a gamer, go ahead and give your gpu a little oomph, but allowing the cpu to tack on almost another ghz on the same cooling hardware is a little ridiculous.

Dell xps l502x
nvida gt525m
intel 2630qm
cpuid hwmonitor for testing
crysis for testing
stock paste, no notebook cooler

 

Has anyone taken the mesh off their intake vents underneath the mousepad/ram? Noticed any improvements? I took the mesh off the intake under the mousepad and it seems to run a little cooler, but I think this is more to do with it allowing more heat to ventillate out.

 

any free program to monitor gpu cpu and overall system temp?

 

CPUID - System & hardware benchmark, monitoring, reporting

 

i installed it but when its not working..

 

That was the first thing I did,also repasted, temps dropped about 5c .But the xps runs a bit hot, not dangerous, but still.I did all I could just for longevity if nothing else.Take the screens off!Just clean the vents with air and don't keep the xps flat,or vents obstructed,you'll be fine.

 

Cheers man. Did you take all meshes off the vents? I was thinking about taking the one off under the F1/2 key but...can't be hacked taking it apart at the moment, also slightly concerned about dust. Do you think the temp drop is due to vents or mostly due to your repaste? I'm thinking about getting some thermal paste for xmas...ho ho ho

 

Yeah,I removed all the mesh,it made a big difference.I saw a thread on heat and basically seemed the easiest of all,so I did it.No regrets,you can actually feel the difference in flow!I clean the same as before,ofcourse if you dont keep the vents clean your going to have heat issues anyway.A repaste is great but alot of work compared to just peeling off the mesh.You can stick it back if you want,I don't think you will though.Good luck,It definitely works.

 

I took the mesh off the center panel, though not the intake fan, and now I actually see a result when using a cooling pad. Normally the mesh blocks a lot of airflow so a pad does nothing, but now temps are dropping and i can actually feel some hot air from behind the pad fans

 

See!Sometimes it's the simplest things. I have the mesh off for 5 months,Just keep the vents clear,now that you have literaly what seems like double the airflow.I saved the mesh just in case,I have such great temps i'll never put it back and I truly see no difference in dust,but I am very cleaning overkill.lol.Im glad your happy with the flow.My fan hardly comes on,unless gaming of course.Enjoy!It only gets better now.

 

thanks a lot, it took me less than 3 minutes to do this. When I have the time I will probably repaste. In the mean time, I'll be looking for an l502x bios mod or something that will give better fan control. I could care less about the notorious "fan on/off" problem, though I do have it, but I'd like to see the fan be a little more aggressive than turning on at 60C. IMO having it at 40ish% always would mean it is quiet but still actually cooling the laptop. In fact, I think it's a bit foolish to have the fan shut all the way down at any time, let alone at a somewhat toasty 60c when the i7 is liable to pump out heat whenever you ask it to do anything "i7-y"

 

Can the Nvidia GT 525M/540M chip handle SC2?

 

Me too.Dell is famous for slow updates,like bios for fan,but I'm sure we'll get there.Any way congrats on the mesh rip,Its the best 3 minutes Ive done.The paste helps also,Imho though,I think the best change was the mesh and a cooler.Im online for hours its wisper quiet the fans on just not like a blowdrier.Btw my average temps are 41c.Just light surfing and stuff,that's good enough for me.

 

I never tried,but some seem to have better luck than others when gaming,tbo I use my M14X and shoot it at my 50inch with WI-HD,It's Sweeeeet!I know its more powerful but my 555m is by no means a beast and it eats up pretty much anything I throw at it.The 540 In my XPS 502 is pretty good and with a lil OC it's even better.The newest driver "beta" worked well for me also.

 

Is there an easy way to remove the fan cover mesh? If i can't find an easy way i will do it when I repaste (in around a month), but I'd like to know if I can do it without taking apart the entire computer as per the repasting guide
also I'm sure it can handle the game, I have a 525 oc'd to 700 mhz, and it can handle pretty much anything, and rarely do I need to set the settings all the way to minimum. Also, playing it at 1367x768 will do wonders for framerate, and I find that only a few games (all source) can run at high in at 1080p.

 

Hi fella's, i'm hoping someone can help me out with a problem. I've recently bought myself a XPS L502x of the Dell Outlet site. When i shut the laptop down, it does not stay shut down. instead it boots right back up again! Anyone had this problem before, and solved it?

 

The safest is to take it apart,but if your careful you may be able to sneak it through the side after taking off the bottom ram cover.I can't remember for sure though,I did mine at the same time as repaste.I heard from someone who used a blowdrier to heat the glue and pulled it out with mini pliers.Anything's possible.Remember you want to feel heat out of the vents,that's the whole point if it's cool air somethings wrong,I.e not dissipating heat properly.My fans on right now (low) but there's heat at the vent,Thats what we want.Otherwise the heats going somewhere we don't want.

 

A key broke off the keyboard on my laptop, so I had a Dell technician come over earlier today to replace the keyboard (it is still under warranty). However, one thing that is really interesting is that the letters on the new keyboard are actually easier to see even with the backlight turned off. They seem to have a bolder font. I wonder if Dell contracts multiple companies to manufacture their keyboard?

 

Hi guys, I got my XPS 15 as a replacement laptop recently. It replaces my laptop in my signature. It has very basic configuration but I think it is still better than my 13'' laptop. Also, the LCD from LG is not that bad. It is better than the samsung LCD when I receive my laptop.

 

Hi
Just joined having just ordered my first ever Dell! Got a good price by getting Dell to match the price of a seller on ebay - specced up it costs £1,027 and got it for £733!

It's an XPS15 with the following upgrades - i7-2670QM, 750gb HDD, 6gb RAM (I'll upgrade to 8 RAM later), 2gb GT540, DTV tuner.

I didn't upgrade the screen as I'm happy with the standard screen. I don't want the backlit keyboard either, as it is for my daughter and I don't want to encouirage her to stay up all night!

What's the maxium RAM this can take, and is it worth upgrading after the event? Any other tweaks recommended?

 

Sounds good mate,ram is cheap online,I just saw 8gb kit 29.99 at newegg.But as Im sure your going to hear alot,You definitely should have gotten the upgraded screen,It's one of the best laptop screens available and a fairly cheap upgrade.Trust me there's a big difference between the screens(HUGE!).Other than that your good imo.Enjoy it,btw I'm not sure about max ram with your new proc,but I have 8gb plug and play kit and it smokes,7.8 on wei.

 

What? You should not buy the Dell XPS 15 with the standard screen. The screen makes the most difference and getting any other upgrade before getting the upgraded screen shows lack of priority.

The 1366x768 screen not only has the absurdly-low resolution that makes multitasking difficult because of how little fits onscreen at a time (it's the same resolution used in 12-inch laptops) it's got really bad image quality as well.

Cancel your order as soon as you can, before Dell locks you in. It is not a smart decision to not have upgraded the screen.

 

</b double post>

 

Exactly! There were many threads on this very topic,and honestly I had both options,the difference is astounding.I think the upgraded 1080p b+rg is the nicest part on this XPS.

 

Hey all, just picked up a xps 15, upgrading from a SXPS 16 1647. So far I am happy with it, expect for the wireless performance. Stock it had the Wifi Link 1000. But I took the intel 6300 I put in my SXPS put it in the XPS 15 (stock on the studio xps was the 6250).

I was pretty shocked that there was only two antenna cables in the XPS 15. Even all the way back to my M1530 there were at lease 3 antenna's regardless of what card was ordered stock.

I still have some more comparisons to do. But my SXPS with the 6300 would report a 300mbps solid connection via task manager (5 feet away from the router 5ghz band). The XPS 15's with the 6300 would jump all over the place, from 144 to 270.

I am nor convinced the 3rd antenna is the reason, as when I had the 6250 in the SXPS it would also stay pretty well pegged at 300.

Looks like I nee to edit my signature! Lol

 

Fwiw, we discussed the Dell "Recovery" partition and how to restore the Dell factory Win7 over here.

I came up with some solutions to re-link your Dell Factory Image Restore after a clean install (and some other stuff).

 

I purchased a L502x from the outlet and it came with 6GB (2GB + 4GB PC3-10800 667 MHz)

I just want to know whether I can just replace the 2gb Ram for KINGSTON 4GB DDR3 1333MHZ PC310600 LAPTOP MEMORY SODIMM | eBay

OR

Whether I would have to replace both Slots for the same make?

 

Awesome! I thought it would be possible, but hadn't yet felt the need to figure it out - glad you did and saved me the time. Nice work.

 

You should go with the same brand for both.

 

I just experienced a blue screen on my dell xps 15.. it says bad config

fortunately, it recovered after the automatic system repair by windows...

why is that happening?

i have my dell upgraded from 4-8 gb a few months ago.. does that have anything to do?

 

How do i reduce the boot time of the system its noticabely long tried removing bloatwares,changing startup programs settings but nothing seems to work
please help on this?

 

Get an SSD

More seriously, download Autoruns (it's a Microsoft program, just google it), and disable started programs, and defrag.

 

Wondering if I got lucky on this system, just bought it from the Outlet. Here are the specs and price:

Intel Core i7 2630QM 2.0GHz
15.6 inch FHD (1080p) B+RGLED Display with 2.0 MP webcam
NVIDIA GeForce GT540M 2GB graphics with Optimus
750 GB SATA Hard Drive (7200RPM)
8 GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz (2 DIMMs)
Sound Blaster X-Fi MB Panzer software
9 Cell Primary Battery

All for 809.00 shipped. I saw a couple of systems with the same spec but they were scratch and dent, this one was a certified refurbished. I was wondering if this was a good deal.

 

Has anyone gotten Batman Arkham Asylum to work on the Dell XPS 15 L502x??? I still have these problems, it gives me an error. I have my BIOS, graphics card updated.

My post is on Page 10, post # 95

 

Guam_guy yeah you got a very good deal
on a new note: Is there a way to upgrade the battery without straight buying a new one? I have the 6 cell, and don't want to drop 160 on a 9 cell. However, is there a way I can trade in the 6 cell?

 

I might get slammed for this but some Microsoft Windows Updates will slow the whole system down including startup. I don't auto-update because I like to keep track of what updates are installed and how they affect the system.

You can always Recover to a previous time before an update and/or program was installed using "Recovery". I done it a couple times when my system seemed to slow down so I could troubleshoot...also restoring doesn't affect your Documents.

Good luck...

 

I got it running at 1920x1080 with no problem. I installed the update/patch 1.1 and made sure I was using the NVIDIA GPU and it looked and ran really well.

Also make sure your running on High Performance mode.

 

suggest a program to know when to update drivers i mean to check drivers are upto date or not?

 

I'm not talking about drivers...I'm talking about security, program, cumulative, and other updates/patches for Windows 7.

I.E, Windows 7 Service Pack 1 and all the other updates using "Windows Update"...which can be configured in the Control Panel.

 

Can anyone help me with finding a Dell XPS 15 L502X i7-2820QM 3.4GHz 8GB 750GB laptop in New York. I will be there for 5 days 18th-23rd November.

The hotel does not accept packages so I have to purchase it in store.

Please.

Best Regards

 

Don't get the 2820QM. $300 more than the lower processor is not worth the minimal performance increase. Also, you can save money by buying a lower amount of RAM, and then upgrading yourself by buying RAM off Newegg.

 

Hi everyone.

Quick query regarding the screen. I have the 1080p screen and i have dowloaded the zip file for the screen profile.

"A calibrated display profile for the B+RGLED screen, generated at 5 blocks brightness. Screens vary, including a single screen over time, but it should be better than stock. L502x-B_RGLED.zip"

Where do i put this file?

Thanks

 

Don't get the 2820QM, but keep in mind that you must get the FHD 1080p screen (1920x1080). Don't get one that has the 1366x768 screen.

 

I second that.

 

Hello peoples, I'm new to the l502x, I wanted to know which software I can measure the temperature of the cpu and gpu in real time?

I've been playing and noticed that the air goes hot enough, should I worry or is ready for that?

Sorry for my English

thanks

PD: I have i7 2630qm and 525m.

 

for all who have dilemma regarding screen let me tell you if you hace enough budget definately go for fhd you will surely get good experience but if you dont have enough budget and not into movies no issue get hd you will be happy....
fhd is not mandatory it depends on ur requirement and personal choice...
fhd is better but hd is not bad....

 

No - the normal HD screen IS bad... And that's not just my opinion, that's based on as many tests as possible been done by various reputable sources. The screen is bad. Very bad.

 

isnt dell a reputed brand? its about i5 or i7 300gb or 750gb
depends on individual to individual what he wants in his.machine thats all nothing to worry about tests etc..