Dell XPS 15 R2 - L502x - Owners Lounge

been like that since i bought the laptop a year ago

 

a query related to max payne 3!!!
config. of my system :i7,4gb ram,2gb nvidia graphics
i can play all big games like battlefield 3 crysis 2 on high settings smoothly but with max payne 3 under normal settings performance is not good as others but video memory used is not even 50% used...
whts the issue? drivers are updated...

 

The Dell Tech replaced my drive a few months ago. I need to do it again by myself. But what did he edit?

After he swapped drives he said "I also changed the serial number.." or something like that. I do know he did something beyond just a mechanical swap, maybe something in the BIOS to reflect the drive serial number? I just want to make sure I duplicate the same process but have no idea what this last step was. It seemed to be more of a courtesy than an actual requirement.

I had the Toshiba drive - it went bad after a few months. They put in the identical drive and it's starting to fail. I asked repeatedly for the Scorpio Black 750 but they shipped me the Samsung Momentus 750.5.

 

This machine is only available with a 1366x768 screen.
Can anyone please suggest the feasibility of getting a 1600x900 screen to replace the inferior one?
Thanks

 

perhaps wait a little bit. The L521x has been outed and reviewed (briefly) here.

 

I looked at that but prefer the L502x.

 

As I said HERE you need the FHD cable and you also have to downgrade BIOS version to A05 (if that's possible on your particular machine).

 

Hi all,

I'm trying to use the HDMI to display on my Panasonic television but when I try to play films I get horizontal lines on the television. Any ideas what the problem might be?

The Nvidia control panel also says 'This display does not support HDCP as configured'. The TV is HDCP compliant.

 

Hi,

Trying to swap displays and wondering what a certain part of the display assembly is. It's a board at the bottom middle of the display that connects to the display cable. There was a gold ribbon connecting it to my display screen.

I have a pic that I'm trying to paste but maybe somebody knows offhand. It's in between the antenna cables, screwed to the top cover and was connected by a 2" wide ribbon with the display cable connected at the other end.

Thanks so much. Thoughts on next laptop to buy for $600-$700?

 

Have you tried using another HDMI cable? Also, have you tried using the same HDMI cable on a different TV?

Just checking to see if it's the cable that's the problem, or perhaps the TV/port on the TV

 

Fixed my issue. Turns out the NVIDIA Control panel defaulted to displaying on both the laptop and TV at the same time. As soon as changed it to display on the TV only the problem stopped.

Thanks!

 

I think I'm experiencing this behavior. I'm not doing anything but listening to music and using Reddit (on Opera) with like, 10 tabs open. Damn thing freezes for a second or two constantly! My ty old work and home desktops have no problems using two or three or four times as many tabs. Combined with the issues with my stupid touchscreen (which is due to be replaced in a weekish), I am seriously ready to throw this thing through a wall.

 

Tried to read as much of this thread as possible but can't find a similar issue.

Just got my L502X with 540M.

Rather than use the supplied drive I swapped it out for a Crucial M4 128GB. Then I reinstalled Windows 7 Home Premium. I installed all of the drivers from Dells website in the recommended order but it looks like I'm running into a problem caused by Optimus.

The system runs fine as long I only use the Nvidia drivers R305946 A08 (Nvidia 268.30) which is the same version installed to the original drive.

If I install any later version (either the Dell A09 or Nvidias own notebook drivers) when the laptop restarts Windows is slowed down to a crawl. eg if I try to open Nvidia control panel it takes 30+ seconds to open up or if I try to open a game it just stalls etc.

I just want a straight build without all the Dell fluff that I don't need and running uptodate Nvidia drivers because the Dell ones are way out of date.

Any suggestions ?


Edit : I think the Nvidia card is completely FUBAR. Even with the A08 drivers which appear to run fine when I tried to play Dungeons & Dragons Online I get all sorts of graphical glitches and then it crashes. Also tried Unigine Heaven benchmark and 3DMark06 which both crashed trying to start. System slows to a crawl when running WEI and got stuck at Direct3D 10 Geometry (had to power off).

 

hey guys i am thinking of upgrading 4gb ram module to my xps 15 which is currently running on 4gb memory...can i do this as the system is still under warranty i mean will i loose warranty if i do it myself with third party ram?
if yes which brand is suitable?

 

No repairs or upgrades are forbidden under warranty. Open that sucker up and do whatever you want.

Also, my fan hasn't been misbehaving this weekend and I remembered why I love this laptop so much: these speakers are insane. Full volume watching Netflix in a hotel room before bed and no distortion.

 

Though I understand what you mean, you might want to rephrase that a little. It should be read as "Yes, you can replace certain parts, and it will not void your warranty". What you wrote makes it seem like it is not allowed and that you should still do it anyways

Essentially, the RAM, HDD, even WLAN cards can be replaced by the user.

If you really want to give your computer a boost, I recommend a SSD. Most people don't use more than 4GB of memory, and you won't really see much improvement past 4GB unless you multitask with many large applications. However, swapping out your HDD for a SSD will see the greatest improvement in everyday usage, from booting up, loading large applications, and loading times in games! That said, upgrading to a SSD is probably the most expensive upgrade you can get (second to buying a new computer).

 

Hi All,

Just have a quick question.

I have XPS L502X with i7-2630QM.. just wondering if anyone has ever replaced / upgraded the CPU to higher version of Sandy Bridge?

Is it possible to do that? Is it hard to replace the CPU?

and last question, does anyone know what is the socket/motherboard name of our L502X ?
Thanks

 

I also want to replace the CPU since the i3-2310m is not that amazing as those quad i7 with turbo boost ,8 threads and high mhz speed.

as far I know the socket is the 988
(PPGA988)

not sure about the motherboard name.

 

worth noting this thread:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...es/574500-can-i-install-i7-cpu-i5-laptop.html

It basically states "yes it is do-able, but please do some research to make sure you can do it before buying any components". Also, as with everything YMMV!

 

will there be BIOS limitation that prevent someone upgrade the CPU?

 

Can I put an Ivy Bridge processor in my L502x laptop?

 

No, because of incompatible firmware.

Though the sockets are the same (998), the required firmwares are different. You can drop a SB into a IB motherboard, but not the other way around.

 

I just got xps l502x few days ago and I noticed that its built in sub-woofer speaker produce bass distortion and noise at max volume with waves maxaudio3 set on Movie and equalizer on Rock Soft and sometimes also when equalizer is set on Off so is this normal or it has corrupted speaker ?

thanks in advance

 

I would say it's normal. I get some distortion and crackling on mine as well, but that's only when the bass and volume are both cranked up. I mitigate the distortion a bit through ffdshow and enabling LFE crossover. It takes away some of the really low end stuff by "bypassing" the signal to a non-existent subwoofer, resulting in a slightly cleaner sound.

The subwoofer on the XPS15, though very good, is still really a very small one and you shouldn't expect DTS quality output from it. If you really want proper audio, you should do some research into a proper 2.1 or 5.1 (S/PDIF) speaker system

 

Movie setting probably boost bass and treble, plus you're using that with maximum volume. The result is you're overdriving the speakers, so they distort. That's normal, as such tiny speakers can't handle such high volume and high bass. Lower the bass and/or volume.

 

Anyone in Vancouver with a 6-cell battery who would like to swap for a 9-cell, I recently broke my foot and I'm trying to lighten my load!

PM me, cheers!

 

@kgh00007

I would be interested since the 6 battery cell cant hold more than few minutes while gamming ^^


too bad I live on spain >.<

 

Wait, why is the BIOS downgrade necessary?

Incidentally, Dell's technician came out today and replaced my touchscreen, and it seems to have resolved my issue. (Which I have mixed feelings about, because I was king of trying to wrangle some sort of free FHD upgrade out of them. (Yes, they aren't selling that screen with new systems, but they must have SOME lying around for warranty service.))

 

I don't have a 6-cell, but I'd gladly take your 9-cell off of you!

 

It will also depend on the format of the sound: Some tracks will get a good bass boost under the right settings but wrecks the quality completely in others.

Free-to-air TV here sounds great with MaxBass at 100, but most other audio will suffer from severe distortion.

If you fiddle with the equaliser, you can also balance a better bass output while retaining a reasonable sound quality. (Avoid over-amplifying frequencies, but rather tuning down others)

 

Does anyone who has the B+RG 1080p screen have really poor black levels and bad colour banding when watching videos? Videos look terrible imo and I rather watch them on my 4 inch phone which speaks for itself.

Does Dell still stock the original AUO17ED v7 screens? I'm probably going to ask for a replacement eventually as I'm convinced I've got a dodgy panel.

 

Nope, blacks are black. With the calibration profile found in another thread (somewhere in the forums), colours are pretty good. No banding, no problems with blacks looking grey/purple, etc.

 

Well that confirms it to me. Blacks are very poor on my display and dark scenes are almost unwatchable, it's as if someone is shining a torch behind the screen, and the colour banding is really bad too. I'm also using the colour calibration profile.

I don't even mind if the replacement has dead pixels, and I normally can't stand them! But after living with this screen for a while, dead pixels don't seem so bad anymore. Unfortunately I can't replace it till October due to personal reasons, but I can't wait to replace this so called high end display.

 

Just curious, have you disassembled your unit before? Perhaps the ribbon cable between the screen and motherboard is loose?

 

Well.... a technician came to my house to replace the display that came with the laptop when I first got because it came with a noticeable scratch in the middle of the screen (under the panel, not the surface of the screen itself). Then I got this display, as soon as it went to the boot screen I noticed the black level looked more like a bright grey. I thought I'd just live with it and get used it, that didn't work out... The banding also came with the replacement screen.

When swapping the screens the technician only took the bezel around the screen off. He then had to take the ribbon cable off (the part attached to the screen only, not the motherboard) and attach it to the replacement screen. But other than that the laptop hasn't been disassembled any further.

I got the 3 year at home warranty with premium phone service (it was on offer), so I'm hoping this won't be an issue with Dell themselves come October.

 

I'm no tech, but it sounds like it's a possibility that the cable somewhere in the screen assembly and bezel (that you described) might be the culprit.

There's a few dedicated Dell representatives floating around this sub-forum. Might be worth PM-ing them with your issue, see if they can help troubleshoot it.

Then again, you do have the 3-year warranty so you could just call them up and work it out the traditional way

 

@ Vertro. The banding is caused by the Intel noise reduction feature. You should completely disable it from the Intel Graphics and Media in your Control Panel. Afterwards, make sure that you restart your computer with igfxpers.exe disabled so your color profile is retained. Try one of these profiles for your display (assuming you have the B+RGLED AUO17ED panel).

Profile #1
Profile #2

The contrast ratios during videos are likely the result of bad levels. You want your input as TV levels (16-235) and your output as PC levels (0-255). Aside from this, make sure you're not decoding with your IGP. You also want your video decoder to perform a software conversion to RGB color space.

 

I'm trying the first colour profile you linked and disabled the noise reduction feature, after a bit of testing I don't really see any improvement with the banding. I do have the AUO17ED panel, just not a well manufactured one it seems.

How do you set the TV levels and PC levels, and how do you disable decoding with the IGP? I would really like to improve my black level.

 

Please upload or link me to a reasonably sized video that displays the poor quality that you're describing. Banding is not a major problem on the B+RGLED panel in question. It does use static dithering which can be very noticeable, but most of the problems you're describing tend to be software related. It would also help if you link me to whatever software that you're using for playback.

EDIT: Also, it would help if you posted a screenshot of a particularly bad frame from your problem source.

 

I'm not sure if the images will look the same on your screen as mine, so I'll describe how they look on mine. The banding on my display is a lot more noticeable in dark scenes.

On the first image the banding is most noticeable on the sky at the left of the screen. It looks like individual bands of colour on my screen.


The second image is a video encoded in 720p and has banding all over the screen.


Here's a video on youtube. On 0.44 seconds the banding is very noticeable.
'TAKEN 2' International Trailer (2012) [HD] - YouTube

 

thank you very much for your help guys and I tried everything you told me and even after disable MaxxAudio ,the distortion continue to appear in many songs and I figured out that when I lower level of 125 and 250 Hz in Maxx Equalizer, this distortion begin to disappear..also there is another problem that my xps has touch screen and I installed latest N-trig driver but sometimes it can not detect touch scrolling movement and I have to remove N-trig driver and reinstall it again to make scrolling of pages by touch work again so is there any way to fix this problem ?

 

I also found the bass an issue (a little distorted), but after tweaking with MaxxAudio, it no longer is an issue.

 

Ugh, damnit, the new screen in my laptop has an impossible-to-ignore fairly large yellow patch. I guess when the case manager calls me tomorrow I'll have to ask for another replacement. This is starting to get annoying; I'm going to see if I can get an upgrade to the 1080p screen if they have any lying around.

 

I'm experiencing awful performance in Opera 12 (no problem running this on my like, six-year-old work desktop with worse specs) and fine performance in IE9. In Opera, with only 7 tabs open, it is seriously freezing like...every other 10 seconds, for about 5 seconds. The fan is going crazy, too. What the hell?

 

Opera 12 is very RAM heavy. Looks like a problem with the new release. On my machine, I've seen it eat up 2GB of memory. Maybe a Memory leak?

 

Hi all,

Got a problem, and limited time and availability to fix, so hoping you can all help.

Just today my LCD brightness settings have suddenly "stopped" working. My LCD is stuck on the top 2 brightness notches. I cannot bring it lower than the second highest setting.

I know that it's not a hardware thing because during the "Starting Windows" boot screen I am able to change the brightness setting from highest to lowest and lowest back to highest. Even if I set the brightness down to the lowset during the Starting Windows screen, upon reaching the Login screen it's back to highest brightness.

Also, all brightness settings are gone. Windows Mobility Center doesn't show the slider, the Power Options (e.g. under Balanced) doesn't show the display brightness levels under the Display parent item.

Problem is that I'm currently traveling for the next 2.5 weeks with limited internet, so trying out a billion different drivers is difficult.

Things I've tried:
System Restore to a last known good time (2 days ago);
Uninstalled 304.xx beta Nvidia drivers, reinstalled 301.42 latest stable (am currently on this ver.);
Uninstalled, reinstalled quickset drivers;

None of the above 3 methods worked for me. Normally I'm not a dummy with these things, but I just can't figure this one out. help?

 

I dont think it is related with nvidia drivers.

if reinstalling quickset drivers didnt worked.
try installing latest version of intel display drivers.

 

No, memory usage is fine. 2GB isn't even much (although it's nowhere NEAR that) cuz I've got 8GB RAM.

 

@ Vertron. WMP always uses DXVA (Intel ClearVideo) for 8-bit h.264 (which always has banding from color-depth) which can introduce macroblocking. Your pictures indicate source deficiency, not hardware deficiency. The only solution is another encode or real-time post-processing. I use MPC-HC + LAV Filters + FFDShow Raw Video Filter for video playback. I highly advise that setup myself.

I think your levels are fine; make sure your display brightness is properly adjusted though. I use my B+RGLED display at six blocks which is about 160 nits.

@ dorekk. Did you opt into hardware acceleration when you installed Opera 12? Hardware acceleration is a new feature with Opera 12, and Firefox also has the same problems that you're describing with hardware acceleration.

 

Where's the option for hardware acceleration?