Dell XPS 15 R2 - L502x - Owners Lounge

I found the nine-cell makes the laptop harder to fit into "slim" cases and sleeves. But it sure helped on having some ventilation underneath.

 

A Dell technician came out today, put on a new cover... the old one may not have been fully seated, or its clip at that corner had just come loose. The new cover snaps into place at all locations, and looks/feels fine. The aluminum is a very thin skin over a flexible plastic base, but is very easy to live with.

 

Oh for sure! I'm glad I went with this battery for the life, too. At the university I get around 4-5 hours (thanks to optimus!) using the balanced power setting and doing homework (and the occasional distraction by multitasking...hehe).

Does anyone else have have very high temperatures when gaming? (95C CPU, 80C GPU) Even with this 9 cell battery giving sufficient ventilation, I'm still getting these temps. Has anyone contacted Dell about this before?

 

I don't know what my temps are as I don't monitor it. My only gripe with the laptop that I have so far is this Xbox 360 sized power adapter.

 

Nope, mine has the 6-cell, and tops at 85C when heavily gaming. The palmrest does not get hot at all, even above the vent its not extremely hot.

It is also one of the first units from last March, but the cooling is still awesome.

 

Any heat issues when gaming might also be remedied by undervolting the video card by using a custom modded bios. The stock 3d voltage on the 525m is .95 volts and mine is able to run on .85, and temps are significantly lower. It's been a while since I've used the stock .95 so I cannot say for sure the exact amount. Check http://forum.notebookreview.com/del...modded-bioses-download-gpu-voltages-more.html

 

Received my Brand new XPS15 10 days ago. Running it since then, without any hiccups. Just one word, its awesome. Currently running A09 bios, soon after A10 was released.

COOLING: Well cooled as 9 cell lifts it for proper ventilation. Fan kicks in during some heavy usage and shuts off soon. low noise levels. Maximum times its almost silent as if nothing is there. Temps max at about 95C during heavy gaming, maxed out settings. And during normal usage ~55C. Its already 30C here at my place.

SCREEN: B+RG screen is awesome with very good color gamut and max brightness level is such that we need sunglasses to see it (from someones post) . Also FHD is no any problem, while reading text etc as windows DPI setting to 125% takes care of the same.

KEYBOARD: Read somewhere of backlit keyboard flex, but there is no such problem here. Its perfect solid without any flex. And must say backlit is a must.

FRESH FORMAT: Soon after receiving it, first i uninstalled bloatware and checked it for 2 days. Then made recovery disk (it took 3 dvds for full factory backup) and clean formatted it using OS dvd that came with system. Went for driver install sequence as recommended by Rogo, LINK Change visible is only that desktop graphics rating went from 4.9 to 4.8 Rest speed, boot times have improved a lot.
No of processes: 71 soon after boot.

BOOT TIME: At present have boot time of 30sec (checked using boottimer.exe)

BATTERY BACKUP: Normal usage, wifi on, screen brightness set to min, Backlit off, surfing, backup is of approximately 8-9 hours and during gaming at max settings its approximately 2-2.5 hours. These may vary as during 10 days, only its today that i was on battery. So time may not be that accurate.
At present, its 17% remaining and 1hr 20 min left ( normal usage)

TOUCH PAD: dells touchpad is really very spacious, responsive and have very nice gestures. You will almost forget mouse, with use limited to gaming.

BATTERY: current wear level 1%

SOUND: JBL's sound doesn't require any remark. It sufficient to fill a room with good amount of bass. Although at max settings, subwoofer shows a bit of distortion. A bit lower on settings, its great.

Ran 3D mark 2006: score 8223 , LINK

WEI:- processor: 7.5 | memory: 5.9 | desktop graphics: 4.8 | gaming graphics: 6.6 | Hdd: 5.9

Rest did not run any other test as dont want to stress it much, as its already hot here!

 

Bought myself a Dell XPS L502X. Arrived this week. Very happy with it.

Specs are i5 2450 2.5Ghz 4GB Ram GT525m 750gb HDD 3 USB 3.0 ports with Win 7 home premium. Its was from the Dell U.K. Outlet, cerrtified refurb, but it came
with a broken DVD-Drive cover and one of the glide pads mouse buttons was sticking up a little too much. So called Dell and they sent an Engineer round the next day and fitted a brand new DVD-Drive and new mouse pad and the whole cover that goes around the keyboard. So top notch service from Dell and I feel I have a brand new XPS now for only £377, which is an excellent price for this laptop. I was lucky enough to get free delivery and a £20 discount voucher code off the net. Waited a couple of months before purchasing from the outlet as you have to be real quick to get the proper bargains on there.

 

Had a problem with my arrow keys on my keyboard which kept clicking. So I called Dell and they sent me out a new one, which I have now fitted. Shipped over the weekend, very good customer service. I will be buying a Dell again when I look to upgrade.

 

Hey Pushpipsu, congrats on your new box.

To manage heat effectively, pick up a can of spray air, often called "Dust and Lint Remover" to blow out the left side vent. You will be shocked after a few months. Make sure to vacuum the bottom vent for the fan frequently, it gets clogged rather fast.

I should probably update my clean install driver sequence on page 74. The "Intel Wireless Display" should be optional. I bought both adapters and pushed the signal from my laptop to 1080P and 720p TV's. The lag time was frustrating - an HDMI cable was far superior.

Don't forget MSCONFIG to turn off the many service that aren't really necessary. That should make another noticeable difference. Mine usually has only 40-45 services running. Most will probably want to keep checked Quickset and Relatek Audio Manager (WavesMaxx button in upper right)

 

thanks Rogo...will try these things! spray can etc

For msconfig, did what you said, but that just increased my boottime by 15sec, although no of processes decreased to 61. Dont know what happened. Also by mistake i unchecked synaptics, and synaptics driver stopped working and now even after checking it again in msconfig, its not working . Its not getting started on its own. Need to go to control panel to start it.

Reinstalling synaptics driver!!
[EDIT] reinstalling driver fixed the problem

 

The thing you unchecked FF_Protection_service is what monitors the free falling sensor that might save your hard drive if you drop your computer.

 

Anyone have a problem with USB devices after system resume? I am using a death adder gaming mouse in the usb port on the right side of the computer. It works fine from a startup. But if my laptop has been in sleep mode or standby, the mouse works intermittently. I am using the latest USB 3.0 drivers, however I don't think this is even plugged into the USB 3.0 port.

 

I'd disable USB Selective Suspend:

 

I seem to have run into a problem today

At the moment I am using the Realtek ALC665 drivers that are available on dell's website

And i seem to have misplaced the disc having the soundblaster x-fi mb 1.2

Ive asked dell to send me a new disc, but its going to take a while, and i cant find a way to download the software & their drivers from the dell website ... (if anyone knows how to download the soundblaster from the dell website, thats problem solved for me right here)

--------------------

After a lot of reading - i am thoroughly confused

which mod should i download :
Realtek HD 2.67 Mod [Win7 x64] or
Realtek R248 Modded (the ones posted by TheMarkness)

or something else ?

and should i continue using MB 1.1 or should i use MB 2+ (as in will it work ?)

I am seriously confused, can anyone help me out ?

 

anyone having issue with HDD performance ?

http://forum.notebookreview.com/del...eel-hdd-dragging-performance-suggestions.html

Need some help on this

 

Your HDD is 5400 RPM or 7200 RPM ?

If its 5400 RPM - that acts as a bottleneck to System performance

 

7200 rpm

bench here : http://i.imgur.com/fsS07.jpg

 

Anyone using the A10 bios? Opinions?

Saw a post where someone said the fan control also throttles cpu (in A10).

 

The right USB/eSATA port got pushed inward this afternoon when I plugged in my USB receiver for my mouse. Now I can still plug devices into this port, but it is slightly more difficult. Fortunately, I am already getting a new motherboard from Dell because my fan is making grinding noises (the fan is being replaced also).

 

That happened to me, when encoding video using x264 (which uses all the cores) my i7 core 2630m when from 2000 Mhz to 1600 Mhz because the temperature was close to 100 °C (99 °C) and the fan was not active, after a couple of minutes the GPU reached 80 °C, so the fan started working at maximum and the CPU clocks returned to normal levels... until the GPU reached 75 °C and the fan when OFF, then the process repeat itself Ad infinitum.

With previous firmwares the fan was working non stop during all the encoding process and the clocks were lower than stock (2000 Mhz).

 

I found the same thing with A10, I was getting cpu throttling while gaming that didn't happen on A09. I noticed slowdowns/stuttering while gaming and checked temps, fan was not coming on when cpu was in high 90's, fan control seems to be gpu dependent now. I have returned to A09 and the issue has gone away. The fan is on the whole time while gaming, which is how it should be and there is no throttling.

 

That's very strange, I have the same BIOS version and my fan seems to be behaving in much the same manner as it was with A09. It's interesting how it affects some models and not others.

 

As some of us have discussed here, that may be because it is not a BIOD issue. It may be an issue with other elements, possibly drivers or a combination of system settings and software. Many of us have never had the fan problem with any BIOS.

 

Yes, that's quite true. I remember having the constantly on/off fan when I first acquired this laptop. I uninstalled the Nvidia drivers a couple days later and reinstalled the drivers from the Nvidia site, and I never had the fan issue ever since.

 

A few weeks ago, my fan started making a grinding/clicking noise when it was running at a medium-high speed. I contacted Dell, and they sent out a technician to replace the system fan, the motherboard, and the USB 3.0 port card. (I was wondering why they replaced the motherboard and port card while mine were working fine, but I did not see the need to argue with them).

While the new fan and motherboard are working properly, the new port card is defective. Now the technician has to come to my house again to replace the port card.

 

My machine has always done very well with each BIOS upgrade since I got it. No problems with the throttling at all, ever. Well until A10. Dang thing started doing it and driving me nuts. Tried all the tweaks to adjust it out. Nothing. So downgraded back to A09. Back to normal. This may be the point I cease BIOS upgrades with this laptop. It really is pretty much perfect like it is anyway. I always itch to upgrade though. Maybe I can hold out. >.>
-joe-

 

Have you tried undervolting the gpu?

 

So I just ordered the l502X, but now I'm reading (about 80 pages so far) in this thread about all the problems people are having with crazy fan issues, the 6230 wireless card, etc, and I'm a little worried I may have made a mistake. I don't want to have to gimp my machine with power settings in order to not have a fan that cycles on and off! Are any of these problems resolved?

 

Wireless issues were resolved a few months ago with updated intel drivers. The fan issues have been almost resolved, sometimes the fan gets stuck on high speed but it does not go crazy everytime you open an app like it used to!

 

That's good to hear. Are the intel wireless drivers the ones from the Dell website, or something that you download elsewhere?

 

The ones from Dell's website, you can also use intels as well.

 

I've tried looking on MANY sites and forums (including a large portion of these 339 pages) trying to find someone who has actually done the upgrade from the 768 to 1080 screen. As we all know, the 768 screen is horrid. I want to replace my screen in a very bad way. Has anyone here successfully done the upgrade? Was the screen used the AU Optronics B156HW1? Where did you get it? Was a new cable necessary? Thanks.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/dell-xps-studio-xps/554402-dell-xps-l501x-lcd-display-swap.html

No difference from L502x

 

Awesome Thank you!!!!

 

just got a (dell Outlet) XPS 15 (L502x) and ive found that connecting any usb 2.0 device to either of the blue usb 3.0 ports doesnt seem to do anything ive tried usb stick and usb harddrive get nothing ive tried updating the usb controller with the software from the dell website but when i open up the software it says no usb controller found does this mean that the controller is dead and came from dell dead or am i going about my device update the wrong way to fix the problem i have updated the bios to latest


XPS 15 (L502x)
Processor: Intel Core i5-2430M (2.40 GHz with Turbo Boost up to 3.00 GHz)
4 GB (2x2GB)1333MHz DDR3 Dual Channel Memory
1GB NVIDIA GeForce GT 525M Graphics card
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium

 

Have you checked the BIOS and see if the USB is enabled?

 

guyz any good webcam software that records continuously..not screen recording

 

Hi guys, I just got the L502X yesterday and trying to work it out.
It comes with no OS preinstalled and, weird enough, no driver CD either, so I was stuck with trying to download drivers from the Dell site. I was a bit weirded out when Windows 7 didn't discover ANYTHING of my hardware by itself. It doesn't see the wifi card it even thinks my screen is 4:3.

This is the config, as far as I know it:

Intel Core i7-2630QM 2.00GHz/2.90GHz
8GB DDR3 1333MHz
500G 7200 RPM HDD
FullHD B+RGLED
nVidia GT540M 2GB
HDMI&MiniDisplay video output

Anyway, I set on downloading the drivers and installing them myself but I get too many options on the site and I have no idea which fits my system. How do I find out the model of my wifi card? It's nowhere in the booklets. Do i need to unscrew?

I will not install BIOS driver for now because I'm not sure I can roll it back and I have 7 days to possible return the notebook.

From these other drivers I am unsure what to get:

RogersCorporation driver for Wireless 5550 HSPA Mini Card
Wireless 5620 EVDO-HSPA Mobile Broadband Mini-Card
Some TELUS driver that also aplies to the same 5550/5540 HSPA card

Actually not even sure if any of these applies to me because they are listed under Communications. There is another section called Network which lists many more other wifi drivers. Not sure what is the difference there.

for DVD Drive seems to be 3 relevant options: TS-L6333J, TS-L6333C, DS-8A5SH. Again, no idea how to find which translates to my system.

USB 3.0 - there's a Dell Driver (2012) and a Renesas Driver (2011). Which one should be better?

There are two Intel drivers for "Huron" and for "Management Engine Interface", no idea what are they for. I can't seem to locate a chipset driver unless thats the Huron one.

Under "Network" there are ten thousand options for wifi card, too many to list here. Not sure how do I find out which is the correct one.

Any suggestions?

One more question - my laptop has something like a transparent cover on the keyboard. It seems pretty air-filled on places though. I was wondering is this just a sticker that I can peel off with time, or is it part of the keyboard that I need to worry about given that it's got air bubbles.

 

yeah ive checked in bios but the controller doesnt show up in device management so im gussing the usb 3.0 controller is dead?

 

If you ordered the L502X from Dell, call service. If you ordered it elsewhere, talk to the seller. Did you have to buy a Windows 7 license in addition to your laptop???

Peel it off. It's only a pre-assembly protector for the keyboard part. There is also a transparent protector for the Dell logo on the lid and there may be another for the subwoofer at the bottom.

 

Just follow this guide: http://forum.notebookreview.com/7415385-post736.html

 

My L502x (replacement for my 1645) is in the production stages.

I'm thinking of picking up a mDP->HDMI adapter from Monoprice. Has anybody had success in hooking that up to a HDTV via HDMI, and had sound?

I'm not very familiar with DisplayPort outputing video/audio to a TV. Until now my only experience with DP was DP-> 2x DVI for monitors, so I am hoping that the mDP can output audio as well (would like to use that to play bluray movies, instead of the HDMI).

 

As far as i know dell does not give you an option to buy your laptop without Windows pre-installed. By default you get Windows 7 Home Edition, which can be upgraded

In my case Dell did not send the Windows disc with the laptop - after calling the sales rep it was sent to me later (took about 15 days, since it was shipped in from Malaysia)

About your drivers disc, that should always be provided

I would suggest calling dell and telling them about the windows not being pre-installed and the missing disc ... I'm quite sure they will send you the disc, about the windows not be pre-installed ... I do not know

Using your service tag number you should be able to download your drivers, etc for your laptop from the dell site.

 

The l502X has a dedicated HDMI port. You do not need to use the displayport in this case.


---
I am here: http://tapatalk.com/map.php?dfvaqy

 

Sorry, I should have explained it better.

I already have a HDMI->DVI cable, which I will be using with the HDMI port.

I use my current laptop at work (in a newer configuration than I explained several pages earlier) in a 3 monitor configuration. This is depicted by the top portion of the attached image.

With the L502x, I intend to output through the HDMI port to a LCD screen on DVI. Then I would also like to output over the mini DisplayPort to my other external monitor, preferably over DVI as well. This setup is depicted in the bottom portion of the attached image.

The mDP -> HDMI adapter can also serve as an output to TV for a Macbook I sometimes use, assuming I can get audio through the mDP port. Hence my original question of whether or not I would be able to get audio through the mini DisplayPort if I had a mDP->HDMI adapter.

Thanks!

 

Guys, sorry if I post in wrong thread, or I'm asking a dumb question that'd been answered 100+ pages before. I've been fighting with forum search for 15 mins, and can't find a related thread. Anyways:

My Dell XPS 15 L502x died on me a couple of days ago. I was browsing the Internet and than, BAM, lappy just shuts down. And it stopped reacting to the power button. So, given that it was 1 AM, and I knew i coudn't sleep because my beloved lappy died, I went to Dell's site and followed the disassembly guide in order to check if there are any visible damages on the mainboard. Halfway through, and after disconnecting and reconnecting the hard drive, CD-ROM and RAM, I assembled it again. Now it reacted normally to the power button. It booted up, showed me the XPS logo, than it showed me the WIN7 logo, and rebooted. I tried all available boot options, safe mode, debugging mode, command prompt, nothing wanted to boot. So I thought it must be the HDD. Maybe I need to run a fixboot or fixmbr. So I inserted a WIN7 installation DVD, and when I tried to choose the WIN7 X64 EMS, the lappy rebooted almost instantly. The X86 version of the EMS booted normally, but it doesn't work with X64 versions of the OS. Then I went to my second PC, also with Win7 x64, and I burned a Windows System Recovery DVD. When I tried to boot it I had the same result as with the Installation DVD. Hm, ok. I burned the latest edition of Hiren BootCD v14. Booted a compact WinXP Live CD, and it loaded ok. I could browse my HDD, everything was intact. I ran chkdsk x: /f /r /x on all logical drives. CHKDSK found some errors in bitmap and corrected them, but the lappy still didn't want to boot normally. I've tried some more utilities on Hiren Cd, tried to force the C: partition to be ACTIVE, all to no avail. I even disconnected a HDD with Win7 X64 from another laptop and connected it to XPS 15, just to see if it could boot to desktop - nah, that didn't happen. The next morning I took it to Dell Certified service center and asked them to perform tests to find out what the hell happened. Today they gave me a phone call and told me that my Video Card RAM may be damaged and be the culprit, but they didn't sound 100% sure. Tomorrow I'm going to get my lappy back. The problem for me is that I live in Kazakhstan and my lappy was a refurbished XPS15 bought on ebay from some guy in North Apollo and delivered to me via Sh***to, so I need to order parts from US and wait for them to delivered to KAZ. Guys in the service center told me I need to replace the MB, and that it'd cost me 500 USD +50 USD for their work and that the replacement will come from Dell in a month. That's a little bit expensive, given that I bought my XPS for 1300 USD. I went to ebay and bought a replacement MB with the same part number and GPU (BTW it's GT540M). It should arrive in 10 days. So the question is - is there anything I can try to bring my GPU back from the DEAD? I don't care if it's dangerous or not - I'd already bought a replacement.

 

I'm waiting for a brand new L502x, hopefully it'll arrive on tuesday. Unfortunately, the backlit keyboard is not an option in the nordics. So I'm wondering... is it possible to order a backlit kbd and move all the keys over from the non-backlit one?

edit:
I see the 15z actually has a backlit nordic keyboard. Anyone know if it'll fit on the 15?
edit2:
nm, the keyboard is completely different.

 

You can get a keyboard from here Keyboards - Kuzotronic.com I am sure if you emailed and asked, they would be able to get one with the special grammar keys for nordic language.

@QDR If you can edit your post with some paragraphs, then I might be able to read it and help you resolve your issue

 

Possibly, but there is no original backlit kbd for nordic, and I can't find any 3rd-party that makes them either. I've sent them a mail, but I don't have high hopes for that...