Dell XPS 15 R2 - L502x - Owners Lounge

-_- i dont see the UEFI option where did u fine it .... i got a12 bios an i got a touch pad driver for an hp uninstalled it it was buggy .....my quick set is working flawlessly

 

uefi option is not present on official BIOS for the l502x, you can only enable that option by downloading a hacked bios, you can find then on my signature ^^

 

capitankasar's A12 bios is wonderful :thumbsup:

I've question about sata ports. I'm plannig to replace HDD with an SDD (Btw. Which 240-256GB ssd do you recommend for me ?)
I know L502X has got Sata 3 port but Intel Rapid Storage shows transfer rate of HDD 3Gb/s(Sata2) and transfer rate of ODD 1,5 Gb/s(Sata)
I've also checked this from Ubuntu. Same result. But this time I can see 6Gbps rate in the output yet disk's have same rates.

I couldn't be sure. Because, my mobo had replaced due to a power issue.
Are these transfer rates limited because of interfaces of devices or can this problem be related to motherboard ?

 

Its limitations due to the device interfaces. SATA 0 port (with the OS HDD) is SATA III (6Gb/s), not sure if the ODD is SATA III, but it comes up to 3Gb/s with a HDD installed.

 

Thank You

 

Generic Windows 8 touch-pad Drivers are out with all the windows 8 gestures but the one to switch apps does not seem to be working for me
Drivers | Synaptics

see if it works for you and watch the video of what each gesture does

 

I had a quick question for those that have had experience with Dell warranty. The hinges on my l502x seem to be breaking. I can't close the lid anymore and the screen wobbles back and forth. The left side hinge plastic is coming off and the right side looks like it's going to do the same. Will this be fixed under warranty by Dell since mine runs out next Feb? It hasn't been misused or anything, I guess I just open and close the lid a lot.

I had overheating problems and the bottom casing was changed last year, so I don't have a service tag sticker anymore, will this be an issue? Wanted to know before I get a headache calling Dell. Thanks

 

If you go into it with that attitude, then you're more likely to have a problem. Don't listen to the people here warning about how horrible Dell Support is. Often those people who are vocal and whiny here are the same ones who are disrespectful, disorganized and unreasonable with support staff.

Each time I've deals with Dell Support, it has been a good experience. They took the time to understand the issue and followed up on each issue. They're not perfect, but I've been pleased with their service.

So, get prepared: have your information all organized before calling. Be polite and respectful, and clearly state the issues in a logical, detailed manner to help the support person to understand and document the issue.

 

^^Agreed^^

Took me 15mins on the phone to get a replacement fan sent out after mine started making strange noises.

 

I fresh installed Windows 8. After the first restart, my windows won't start and it just frozen on blank screen with prompt blinking on top left.

I have intel ssd on sata 0 and 750gb hdd on sata 1.
i installed win8 from usb using the win usb dvd tool.

any ideas? my bios already the latest a12.

 

I solved this issue by installing from dvd rather than usb.

 

Install it from the DVD. I had the same problem when trying to do the USB install but the DVD worked fine.

 

I did an install of Windows 8 over my Windows 7. Installation went fine, seemed like I was able to find most driver eventually. I believe all the old programs I had running worked fine, no issues with compatibility. It started and shut down faster, I guess maybe IE was faster but you can get this free this month from Microsoft anyway with WIN7. I liked the startup screen, didnt find most of the "apps" to be very useful, obviously it is not comparable to the Apple store, but will grow over time. Was stable, never crashed or locked up. I found the interface very frustrating and in many ways pointless. I use Office 2010 all the time, so most of my time was spent in the Windows 7 interface anyway (except without the start button). Windows 7 works great for me, no issues, so windows 8 started/shut down faster, possibly more stable?? (I have no stability issues now), and while the apps and interface were cool, I spent 95% of my time in the old windows 7 desktop except it was more annoying without a start button.

Biggest issue for me: I upgraded the drivers on my video card (through microsoft update) and upon the mandatory reboot got a black screen. I could move the mouse and see the cursor, but nothing else. I talked to microsoft online chat for about 4 hours, they couldn't fix it. System restore and roll back did nothing, so bottom line I had a windows 8 computer with a blank screen - had to go back and reinstall everything all over with Windows 7 from scratch taking another day of my time. I found it to be a monumentally frustrating waste of time. On a tablet, I could see this as a good OS, but not as good as the IPAD with the robust apple store and zillions of apps. On a desktop or laptop - I see no real advantages at this point since windows 7 is quite stable and works great. I can wait the extra 1.5 seconds for it to start up.

 

I forgot to add, I use my laptop for work and the Nortel VPN Client also doesn't work on Windows 8.

 

Can somebody tell me when does the fan of the L502x turns on when you have the A12 BIOS and what is his processor and the hwmonitor's readings about the power, because i've got problems with these things? I'm wondering whether upgrading to it. I won't be going to W8 soon but i'm thinking about it.
Thanks in advance,
Greetings

 

last week I installed win8. I'm disappinted about it. My Dell XPS L502X was very HOT. the temperatures was at 70-75*c when I used the Chrome browser ( 3 tabs) . My XPS was installed with all the driver which I downloaded from Dell website. , and I turned on Windows media player, the speaker was poor
so I removed windows 8 from my XPS
sorry for my bad English

 

Hey guys,


So my B+RG screen had problems (a big white line started to appear through the panel). They are sending a replacement, but how do I confirm it's the B+RG screen that they are sending? Is there any way to find out? Any input would be appreciated.


Thanks,

N

 

I would try to install again. I installed my W8 week after it was released and it is running perfect. (knocking on the wood )
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

 

So an update on my original post here.

I HATE DELL!!

I finally had a tech come in last Friday. Took a day off from work and guess what? Dell only sent the tech a new LCD and a motherboard . No hinges or covers... So he came back Tuesday. Changed everything and boom... Laptop doesn't even turn on anymore... With battery in, I get the yellow battery light and it turns on for 4 secs and then shuts down. With the charger it still shows the yellow battery low light and nothing happens. Doesn't even turn on for 4 secs.

So another motherboard was ordered, and boom didn't fix the problem today. Now I have to wait till Monday or Tuesday for a new charger port and another motherboard. At least till Tuesday, it worked even if I had to connect to my TV to use it. Now it's dead and I got work to do. Plus the Dell rep on the phone with the tech was being mad stubborn. Kept saying I should send it to the depot which takes like 2 weeks. Why did I pay for next day service then? The next motherboard they replace will be the 5th one thus far. I'm sick and tired of this pos. Sorry for the rant. Was hoping I can get some advice.

 

My dell xps fan is running constantly without running any heavy programs like games and stuff.

Don't know what the problem is the processes in the task manager also don't show any large processes. Updated my BIOS and cleaned the vents still

no change.

And all the games which i try to play either lag or don't start up. So uninstalled and updated the Nvidia drivers still no change.

Please someone help me with this.

My xps was normal 2 days ago and now its acting weird!!

Thanks!!

 

Install HWMonitor run it and see what temperatures your laptop is hitting.
You will probably need to repaste.

 

idk bout u but my XPS is running it 48 - 52 *c with 7 chrome tabs Skype and fb messenger app open in windows 8
drop-box, and skydrive apps are always open in the background

try re installing windows ...

 

if it runs with the charger connected its not a mother board issue ... when i first opened my dell it would not come on i started to freak out i plugged it in it came on with an amber battery icon flashing and windows saying not charging that stopped after i took out the battery an replaced it. it could be a battery issue. as far as i know dell had better customer service that that in which u described. it sounds as if the rep and tech dude did not know what they were talking about or doing.

 

(sorry this is sort of a repost, but I think there's a greater chance for my question to be answered here)

So, I've made the jump over to Windows 8 with my L502x. While there are a few quirks, I really enjoy this OS. The touchpad driver directly from Synaptics website works quite well, and the new gesture(s) for opening the new menus are nice. There's a minor gripe though that I find rather annoying, especially if I am reading any kind of content (involving scrolling).

For some reason, Windows will not recognize my two finger scrolling as an action, thus keeping the computer status as "idle" rather than "active." So, since I have the screen dim after a minute, it will stay dimmed until I deliberately move the mouse (single finger movement on the touchpad). I also noticed that, when using two finger scroll, the pointer fails to change to the "scrolling" pointer as it did under Windows 7.

I would suspect this is due to the touchpad driver itself (16.2.21 from Synaptics' official site), but then again I could be wrong. Does anyone happen to have this issue, or a solution?

Thanks!

 

Yep, I got the same thing; best to delay the screen diming here. I don't see a workaround.

Again, this is all part of the drivers and there is little that can be done. Personally, I like that the pointer doesn't change since it provides a cleaner, consistent interface.

Cheers!

 

Ah, okay, this is what I suspected, thanks! Good to know I'm not the only one with the problem. I just bumped up the dimming timer to 3 minutes rather than 1. I doubt I'll see much of a decrease in battery life at all, especially with the programming and tasks I do on the go.

 

Something weird happened to my laptop today, My original optical drive drive failed so I swapped it with another optical drive from an Acer laptop, it worked fine on my laptop for a few days but today when I tried to copy a CD it couldn't read and I was unable to eject it so I did a restart, when the Windows 7 logo appeared I thought I should remove the optical drive and pressed the power button immediately. I removed it and when I turned the laptop on it took at least a minute and a half to go past the dell logo and after that my laptop wouldn't recognize my SSD or any optical drive I put in, turned the laptop off and on several times, same thing. I then did a diagnostic and after it finished my laptop did boot into Windows normally, is there something going on here?

 

If you're on the 5th motherboard get them to send you a new computer. That's how I went from my M1530 to the 1502X.

 

Hi,

Does anybody have an experience of connecting an external monitor to this notebook (with Nvidia GT 540M)? I plan to buy one and I have several questions about it.

What max resolution is it able to drive? To be sure.

It has HDMA and Mini Display ports and I might get the monitor that doesn't have HDMA, or I might have one without the Mini Display port. Will there be any difference? (I don't care about a monitor with built-in speakers).
Is there an option to turn off an internal monitor and use only an external one when connected?

Any problems with external monitors that this particular notebook might have? One of the reasons why I want an external monitor is that I want it for design and colors (and not wide-gamut bull display that this is, leaving me with only being able to have certain apps and one browser, Firefox, showing calibrated colors instead of everywhere throughout the Windows). So, I'm hoping to have at least my external monitor free of these limitations. I'd like to know if I will encounter any problems with that because I will be connecting the monitor to this notebook. I'm thinking all should be fine, but if any issues might arise I want to know, to avoid wasting money.

By the way, I'm generally happy with this notebook. It had fallen several times on the floor because of me being clumsy and survived and is working fine, which is a plus.

 

Does anyone know if it's possible to upgrade my CPU to an i7-3630QM?

I currently have the i7-2630QM.

 

You're restricted only by the port you are using. For example, if you use the HDMI port then you get max 1920x1080. If you use the Mini Displayport you are limited to something like 2560x1600 - don't forget though if you use an adapter to convert your mini Displayport to something like DVI, then you will effectively be limited by the DVI standards.

You can basically any external monitor into your laptop - you just need the right cables and adapters. Say you buy a monitor that only has DVI inputs. Then simply by a mini DIsplayport -> DVI adapter/cable. Voila, taken care of.

If you have any doubts about the ports on the monitor, simply post here and we'll see how we can help!

I don't think any "standard" LCD/LED panels will have trouble with the laptop. If you set it up on mini Displayport to DVI, you should have no problems.

 

as far I know it isnt posible with stock motherboard bios/firmware

however I am planing to continue my research of ading ivy bridge support to the l502x, theorically it is posible by upgrading intel ME 7 to Intel ME 8 and update the cpu microcodes and invel video vbios to hd 4000

currently waiting for some bios chips I ordered for testing.

 

Wow, that sounds like some hardcore hacking!

Please keep us updated and I'm sure everyone in this thread would love a write up if you're successful!

 

yeah, we are doing some huge progress at the bios-mods forums ^^

I will keep you guys updated

 

By they way, I calibrated the MaxxAudio3 EQ settings with a sweep test, and here is what I found works:

MaxxBass: Turn up all the way.
31Hz: +1dB
63: -5.1
125: -2.1
250: +0.1
500: +0.6
1k: -0.7
2k: -0.7
4k: -3.4
8k: +1.5
16k: +0.6

The reason for the MaxxBass is that it makes really low frequencies audible that are not audible when turning the lowest EQ bands all the way up. However, it overcompensates, so to correct that, I had to turn down the lowest EQ bands quite a bit.

However, with these settings, it makes all the test tones on my frequency sweep sound approximately equally loud. That being said, when I played real music, it still didn't sound quite as good as my Sennheiser HD203 headphones. There is only so much you can do with laptop speakers.

 

daver160, thanks for answering. Now choosing a monitor turns out to be hard.

Does anyone know if it's possible to keep notebook's display off while using the external one? If yes, what will I need to do?

 

I'm also searching for the "perfect" mix.

Try using the movies default preset and tuning the equaliser to these settings.

31: +1.4
63: +3.1
125: +1.2
250: -1.5
500: -1.2
1k: -1.4
2k: -0.4
4k: -0.1
8k: +2
16k: -1.2

I think that it is more than an art or a science, rather personal preference

I've heard of others who disable all WavesMaxx settings altogether!

 

@beyond one: Yes, that's possible. Go to Windows Mobility Centre, choose connect/disconnect monitor, and from there choose 'projector only'.
The precise wording may differ, as I am on the Dutch version of windows 7.

 

Well this is the replacement screen that I got...
It's supposed to be showing a black screen...

 

@Phonemes, that's great.

Do I understand right that if I decide to connect two monitors to this notebook in the future, one of them will have to have a resolution not higher than 1920x1080? (Because that's what HDMI supports max and another one will have to be connected using Mini Display Port). I am thinking Dell U2412M or U2312HM. One of them is 1920x1200px.

 

@Vertron

do you have the same issue while connecting the machine to a external screen?
specially by using the minidisplay port?

do the screen cables are properly connected?

even the teckinical support make mistakes sometimes

 

I just tried your settings with my frequency sweep, and your settings made each frequency sound more nearly equal to each other than with my settings. Thanks for posting that.

I mix sound for the worship band at my church, so I like the idea of hearing music the way the artists intended it to sound. (Then again, I don't have the money to spend on audiophile sound equipment.)

 

Its an adapted movies preset in the equaliser. I've just been gradually tweaking the frequencies over several months of use. Glad you liked it

 

Hi Guys

Can anyone advice if its worth spending the xtra 20£ on 1600 Mhz , CL10 RAM

Corsair CMSO16GX3M2A1333C9 Laptop Memory 16GB 1333MHz C9 DDR3 So-Dimm Kit: Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

Corsair CMXS16GX3M2A1600C10 16GB Vengeance Performance So-Dimm 1600MHz CL10 DDR3 Memory Kit: Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

 

^^^ The 1600MHz part will likely work, but will definitely be operated at 1333MHz. Save the 20£.

 

@sriks


with the modded bios of my signature you can take advantage of the 1600 memory.

you can select 1600 speed at the unlocked options, it has been confirmed by working from others with 1600 memory

 

Thanks for the response...

Thanks mate... flashing the bios now....

 

Hey guys!

I've been having some bad luck (and good!) luck lately,

-I won one of the game giveaways about a month ago (Sleeping Dogs)
-But then my SSD died on me and lost all progress (my game data folder was not included in with my backups)
-I was able to get my SSD working again, albeit with secure erase, so I lost everything
-Now my battery light is rapidly flashing amber x4 then white x1 whenever the charge reaches 97% and remains until it falls back to about 80%. (with AC plugged in or not)

Other than that, the battery is functioning normally and holds 85% of it's original charge. Some quick searches say to replace the battery, but I've found nothing conclusive.

I've done all sorts of diagnosing and I was wondering if someone could help me out

My battery is a nine-cell rated at 11.1V, but HWINFO reports it as 12.744V (that's 1.644V higher!). This might be related to the strange errors I'm receiving.

Could someone check their battery voltage readings in HWINFO vs specified rating?

Cheers

 

mmm, I think the battery voltage is normal



well, yours is a little higher , you got 12,74 when I got 12,37.

but well, I think that is aceptable.

did you tried completly discharging the battery, and then charge it again? ^^

 

Thanks for your reply.

I wanted to check the voltages because an error comes up when I insert the battery into the computer when it's on. It says that there isn't enough power, and to insert a Dell genuine battery (but it is!)

Yeah, I've also completely discharged the battery and recharged it. I've also let the computer sit unpowered, and separate from the battery overnight. But to no effect.

I'll see how it goes, but I won't be surprised if it dies in a few weeks.

And the voltage had dropped slightly, so as you suggested, some variation must be normal: