Dell XPS 15 R2 - L502x - Owners Lounge

Ok, i meant the clicking problem. I do not have it. But do you think tat there is a chance that they will replace it, since the cost the same?

 

I'm sure they'd only give you the 1080p screen if you had problems with the touchscreen, and you asked nicely, and touchscreen replacement didn't work. Otherwise it's up to you to buy one (although, having watched it three times now, it's not hard to replace yourself.)

Incidentally, the non-touchscreen is slightly slimmer! And lighter! So that's nice.

 

So, how do I get the problem?

 

...have a defective touchscreen?

 

NO FAIR I'm only getting my fixed L502X delivered today from the depot repair, after more than a month of trouble. And I don't even know if it's going to be good this time.

 

Well, I originally asked for a partial refund after getting so many bad displays...I think they decided giving me the 1080p screen looked better to their bosses/bit into the bottom line less. Also...I was really mad on the phone. So, yeah.

 

Hello!
I have some issues with my brother's XPS 15. He modded his bios to the dell's version and now he has fan and power issues. He has a gt540m. Could you tell me what bios is stock for this laptop and this video?

 

But how do I do that?

 

You don't. Therre's a reason why some parts are called "defective" if they don't function as they should. If you break it intentionally that wouldn't be considered defective.

 

Slightly slimmer? From what I'm looking at two different screens and it's twice the size of the 1080p panel lol....

 

Hey Dorling guess what? I JUST GOT MY L502X AND THE SCREEN IS LIKE YOU SAID OMG YES

IT'S A PARTY FOR THE BOTH OF US yeah

 

Haha, good luck! Hopefully they're willing to replace it with the 1080p screen.

 

I have recently purchased a Dell L502X, which came with a 1366x768 screen.
I've asked technical support if the screen could be upgraded to an HD one, and they've offered me a 1920x1080 screen for £147.60.
Is this a decent price or is it a tad expensive?
I also thought they'd have offset the cost of the current screen against that price, which they would get back, via the technician.

 

Hey guys this is my first time ever posting on this forum. I do not A lot about laptops but I need some help with a problem i have been having. I bought my computer last year at around this time and gamed on it a good amount of hours per week. In less than a month my computers performance level dropped to a horrid level not able to play any of the games I played with ease in the beginning. I reloaded my operating systems and drivers. I'm just wondering if anyone else has had this issue or can help me out at all before I spend money to repair it.

 

That could be any number of problems, ranging from a corrupted hardware driver (e.g. graphics card) to a computer virus.

During the time that your computer was going through bad performance, did you try to run any sort of troubleshooting to find out what you thought might have been the cause? Or did you just reformat your computer and reinstall the operating system?

 

Well i reformatted it and reinstalled the drivers without trouble shooting. But for the past few weeks it has been able to handle the games I am playing acceptably but will just crash at any time not corresponding to how long I have been on or temperature.

 

It could be a problem with your BIOS. Is it updated to the latest version on the Dell Support website?

Also, try downloading the NVIDIA driver from the NVIDIA website (not the Dell website)

In addition, download the Intel HD Graphics 3000 driver from the Intel website (you will have to uninstall the Dell Intel graphics driver before you install this one, or else the installation will not complete).

 

anyone else's silver trim comes off? also, does your heat up like crazy when playing games?

 

That price reflects about 100% (2X) mark-up, which is not surprising, as all manufacturers do it. I would recommend you take their offer, unless you're inclined to shop for the exact/genuine screen (AU Optronics B156HW01 V.7) and do the replacement yourself.

By the way, the 1920x1080 screen you want to upgrade to is termed FHD (Full HD), not HD.

Note to potential buyers who read this thread: Please, never, never, never order the L502X (or any 15.6" notebook) with a 1366x768 "HD" screen.

 

Not sure what you mean by "heat up like crazy" - what temps are you seeing? Both the CPU and GPU have been reported to heat up to as much at 70-100C under load (e.g. gaming, converting video), so if you see temps like that, you shouldn't be surprised.

As for the silver trim coming off, is that the silver trim that surrounds the touchpad?

 

Anyone who's swapped their disk drive for another HD bay, which one would you recommend? Just got my hands on an SSD and I'm itching to get it up and running!

 

@fifafreak

are you talking about replace the optical drive with a second HDD/SSD cady?

I got mine from newmodeus

2nd HDD or SSD Caddy for DELL XPS 15 (L501x, L502x) [OBHD-SATA12-SATA-BU] - $44.75 : NewmodeUS, Hard Drive Caddys for Notebooks

it works fine, however I never got the second hdd activity led working

the funny thing is that I can see people on forums complaining about the oposite problem, they cry because the led is to bright, lol

 

This is precisely what I'm talking about. I've been shopping around though and that seems a little pricey. I've found them for less than $15.

 

This caddy adapter is inexpensive and quite good. I use it.

For those who are looking for information: there is a helpful video on installing the caddy adapter, including swapping the optical drive faceplate.

 

I'm definitely going to do that when SSDs drop a little more in price. Prices fell 50% last year so I figure by Christmas or spring prices should be cheap enough that I can put a nice, big SSD in.

 

Ok... so I sprung for the Blu Ray drive on this thing and I didn't know Win 7 couldn't natively play BR...

How do you guys play them? a free solution ?

THanks

 

Check out smartsource.dell.com (it requires IE to scan your computer, likely for service tag).

At least for me, I have PowerDVD on the list of downloadable software, but it could be due to my unit coming with a BD-ROM.

It doesn't hurt to check it out.

 

Thanks for the tip.. I tried it but my computer isn't setup for that site. BUT, I just chatted with Dell support and they're mailing me a DVD copy of PowerDVD and some other software for free.... Thanks man

 

Well I've had my 2nd Dell XPS 15" for 1.5Y now (the first one was given away to the kids & is still working). It's been on pretty much 24/7 all this time, and no major problems so far (W7 64b is v. stable). Recently the fan started getting noisy even when not playing videos, etc., so I cleaned the vents as access to the interior is a pain in the , and will upgrade the BIOS to A11 just in case. I also switched the Power Management - Fan setting to PASSIVE even when plugged in, and this seems to help a bit. I will keep an eye on the CPU & HD temps via Speccy, as they seem to have gone down from over 70 to 60+ (C). I swopped out the DVD drive for the original HD when I bought it & put in a 128GB SSD - best change to a laptop I ever made. Machine is v. fast to start, stop, run apps, etc. Very pleased with my purchase but may swop for a 17" 3D model in a couple of years.

 

Can you or someone else please advise?
I have a dell xps l502x. it has GT540M graphics card. I bought around a year back. I have only updated drivers so far by "Dell drivers and downloads" and of-course windows automatically updates. I do not know how optimus works but downloading from NVIDIA does it break optimus and what about compatible intel driver? I had an understanding that both NVidia and Intel are customized by Dell. Other than graphics what could be other updates that i should get from manufacturers.

I have not been doing gaming, so i really do not need GT540M newest drivers. But since Dell did not provide for long, i am feeling outdated. It feel satisfying when things are current.

BTW, i am sure such questions have been already asked. Since I am a new user(this is my first post), i have not come across any yet. Please paste the link of the answer(s) if there is one.

Thanks very much in advance!

 

@nik22

yeah, dell drivers are usually out to date, that is why I allways download from nvidia, intel and other official sites.

latest version are 304.79 beta, you also can get 301.42 whql if you dont like betas.

to get them just go to GeForce.com

select notebook, and the desired beta or whql option.

using latest beta version here without any issue ^^

 

So yes, nik22, you can download the latest drivers from the intel and nvidia website without any problems. I actualy have no idea of Dell alters anything in the drivers they offer.

 

Thank you capitankasar and SemperEgor! Do you guys suggest a backup on disk before I install drivers? I plan to make a restore point but you know that can not be useful lots of times. Is there an order that I should follow? intel first, nvidia later or vice versa?

Thanks again!

 

I don't make backups when updating drivers, never had anything going wrong. If you just plan to update the drivers on your existing installation, it shouldn't matter which one you update first. If you were to install the drivers on a fresh W7 installation it should be the Intell driver first and then Nvidia.

 

well, in this case there is just update drivers, I dont think a entire backup is neccesary just for that, the procedure is almost automated and it works fine ^^


about the procedure, I would install intell first.

but if you installed dell drivers first, you may need to unistall dell intel graphic drivers first, reboot and install after the updated intel drivers.

the nvidia drivers dont give problems usually, so you can just install them over the older one, the installer already unistall them first automatically before install new ones

 

Thanks to both of you. I have installed intel newest driver and nvidia WHQL driver. I have another question though. I saw that nvidia installed HD audio driver. There was an option to unselect that but i did not do that. Does it by anyway affects realtek audio drivers? In "sounds, audio" in device manager, i see realtek, intel HD audio and bluetooth audio installed. How do i make sure that realtek is being used?

do you guys also been updating realtek audio drivers and synaptics drivers? i was just searching for synaptics and found a newer driver on their site but did not install after reading a note about generic version. What other drivers possible should be updated?

Thanks again!

 

I think nvidia HD audio driver is only used for the HDMI conection but not sure.

as for me, I just updated intel and nvidia drivers since I think those are the most critical ones, the other ones are from dell site.

not sure if I also updated realtek ones.

the synaptics driver is for the touchpad, right?

I think it is fine with the one who comes with dell.

as far I know video drivers are the one who need to be updated more often, specially if you are a gammer or if you use 3D apps usually

 

@capitankasar

You are correct that Nvidia HD Audio is used for HDMI.

 

Hi all,

I have noticed a number of dead pixels in a matter of few days on my screen. Its the full hd screen and everything else with the latop is absolutel fine, but the dead pixels are bothering me now. Not that they are blocking my view or anything but I can live without those dead pixels tbh.
Yes the laptop is out of warranty and I really want a fix for this.

 

Anyone know a good method for testing speed of USB 3.0 versus USB 2.0 on this laptop?

I have a couple of WD external hard drives, one USB 3.0 and one USB 2.0. So far when copying files from internal HD to external HD, I'm not noticing any real difference between USB 3.0 and USB 2.0.

 

Try copying a large single file, such as a 400 MB flac of ISO file. Or extract a large ZIP or RAR file from your internal to the external disk. For me USB 3 is very fast with such files. Extracting a large ZIP to my external disk is so fast, it finishes without my noticing anything has happened.

 

You could also try one of several benchmarking applications out there. CrystalDiskMark and HDTach are pretty good. Though not as accurate, realistically, as actually copying over several large files, it will at least let you know if your USB3 is functioning correctly.

One possible bottleneck could be your internal HDD - if the write speeds of both USB3 and USB2 are nearly the same, your internal HDD just isn't reading fast enough.

Don't forget to install your USB 3.0 drivers. Without the drivers, and depending on your hardware, it's just basically USB 2.0.

 

Livinsaint, if you have a lot of dead pixels and your machine is still under warranty, call Dell! You technically shouldn't have any. They probably have some sort of "you need so many in a certain area" policy to change out the display but what the heck! I'd call them anyway. After all, you paid for the warranty.
-joe-

 

I suppose you could use Crystal Disk Mark, but if you use something like Terra copy, it should tell you the average speed.

 

Just as an update, the screen started showing streaks of stuck pixels now on my screen....so I employed the rub and remove method....and eventually ended up breaking my screen...yes I broke it....
So can anyone suggest me now....should I buy the new screen from dell...they are quoting a price of 200$ (including onsite installation) and 3months warranty....
Is it a good deal or should I look for a new screen from ebay or some site....

 

Dude that blows. Ah well, stuff happens. I see you had the good, HD display. The 200 bucks isn't bad if it includes the labor and everything. I'd just go with Dell. You get that warranty with a new display.
-joe-

 

Agreed, go with the price and labour that Dell is offering. Reason being is if the screen is bad or the tech does something that causes damage or otherwise trouble for you, you can call them up and get them to fix it (again) this time free of charge

 

Are they just visible or you used any type of tool to find out? My laptop has a full hd too and it has been more than a year. The screen is kinda dirty, i wont even know if few dead pixels happen.

 

Well, what I am worrying about now is....what if the display starts misbehaving again after 3 months of warranty....in terms of dead pixels...or stuck pixels or for that matter any kind of hardware failure?

Just so that you know....dell is also offering to replace three parts of my laptop that might be causing any other kind of issue....but i can't find any....so what do you guys suggest...anything?

@nik22 Well my case was really bad...there was no need to minutely observe the screen to notice the stuck pixels...there were number of colored lines on the screen...
what you can actually do is try viewing screen from various other angles to differentiate between dust particles and dead/stuck pixels, you ll probably be able to make out the difference...

 

i have dell xps 15 L502x Notebook...


it only has nvidia geforce gt 540 m 2gb graphics card.

Can I attach an external graphics card ?

cause it aint got a express or any other fancy slots in it...