Dell XPS15 R2 (L502) Thread

Honestly, completely reformatting isn't so necessary with Windows 7. Add/Remove programs does a pretty good job of allowing uninstall--assuming of course that all the bloat has uninstalers.

 

I think that is the main problem, not all bloat has un-installers.

What one could do is, if you have ordered the CDs, note all the software and everything, email Dell (so you have proof instead your word against theirs) and ask if all of it is included in the discs. They will most probably say yes. And this is more of a way to make sure you get everything you originally had so if its not on the discs just call them up and show em the email.

It may be lenghtly but in the case where you need more software, you wont need to argue as much as you would have had to without the confirmation to get what you want.

As I always say, Better Safe than Sorry.

DakkonA, I'm like-minded about fresh installs and just un-installing the bloat, but a day or two ago someone posted that upon initial start all the bloat was taking 1.7GB RAM with 88 processes, if I remember correctly. That kinda made me re-think about the whole fresh install deal. It may just be worth the trouble.

 

I'd like to know what processes were left running after a fresh install and how much RAM was being used and the same with just un-installing the bloatware and running a registry mechanic. I'm not keen on doing a fresh install as getting all the drivers back on it - and playing nice, can be a pain. But I know it's good practice I often wait to do this after a year or so when things begin to clog up a little.

 

Motion Sensor..

 

I found the answer on page 71 of the setup guide. You just need to login to http://downloadstore.dell.com/media
All of the bundled software is there for download. I am downloading the Webcam Central and powerdvd at the moment. There are two versions of powerdvd, one with 3d, the other without.

 

This seems like good news.

 

i've been following this thread for awhile to get info about the new xps. ordered my xps back on 02/23/11. i just received the laptop today. I have to say i really like the laptop as a whole, but sadly dell sent me a laptop with a defective 1080p display. it has two spots, one on the left edge and bottom edge, that act like bad clusters of pixels, the screen is mostly white in these spots and doesn't show proper color.

called dell and they agreed it was defective and will send a new one within 1-2 weeks and then i return the defective one.

Hopefully no one else has to have this problem, the first wait for this laptop was long enough.

 

wow i thought you were joking but sure enough there is a motion sensor driver. Thanks.

laptop is running like a champ. Boots up in 40 seconds I have like 52 processes opening up compared to the 80 something before. I see the turbo working much more than it did with my xps 1645.

 

So I ran the WEI and during that my temps got up to 90 celcius. Should it be getting that high when just running something like that? I can't imagine how high it would get if I was running a graphics intensive game for a couple of hours.
Also, graphics was only 5.9...I expected a little bit better than that...

 

I personally reinstall windows because I use my own SSD instead of the mechanical hard drive that comes with laptops (it's too expensive to get one from Dell, or any other laptop manufacturer) and advise people to do the same, as an SSD is usually the best upgrade you can get for a laptop that anyone can notice, even casual users who surf the net and write e-mails.

 

Can someone verify that the FHD B+RGLED screen on the new XPS is still the AU Optronics B156HW01 V.7?

I think you can see the ID if you go to the Control Panel -> Hardware and Sound -> Device Manager -> Monitors -> double click the correct monitor to show the properties -> tab Details -> property: Hardware Ids

 

Occams or any other UK people - has your order gone to 'Shipped' overnight? Mine has It's coming from China though - hopefully not by slow boat...

 

Im sure the 5.9 reported is the intel graphics.

 

It's the "in case you drop it sensor". Glad it worked out, been there

 

I will order the new XPS 15 tomorrow, I've just sold the old one to my brother. I was configuring an XPS and It says it will be shipped on April 1, any chances it will arrive maybe a week early than that? (I'm leaving the country for vacation and I need a new one)

 

Mine is 'Work in Progress' - but I only ordered on the 8th and I also requested a UK backlit Keyboard (on the phone) which they confirmed they could fit. So mine maybe a little longer than normal if they are waiting for UK backlit keyboards to become available.

Owing to the catastrophically horrendous series of disasters in Japan, I wouldn't be surprised if shortages of certain components begin to effect different production lines globally. Words fail me a to the level of suffering the people have had inflicted on them.

 

Guys i am about to receive my laptop. i will do clean win7 installation, How many partitions would be great ? i will receive 750GB HDD .. Mainly i am thinking 3 Partitions. One for Primary Windows OS 100 GB and leave 300 - 300 GB for another two partition ? Or i just do 2 partitions and leave 600GB ?

 

Yeah that's definitely true. Watching footage of the tsunami rolling towards trucks driving on a highway on Friday morning was gutting and the news seems to be getting steadily worse.

I couldn't get the backlit keyboard, even after asking 3 people by phone and mailing my sales guy's manager about it. Ah well. I have a head torch...

 

I ordered on the 4th of march and for one week the status was in process and then it canceled for no reason even the dell sales rep couldnt give me an answer as to why it was canceled, it was reordered on the 11th and delivery date is now 6th of april not impressed at all.

 

Are you after a partition for Linux/BSD/etc? Personally I'm not a fan of partitions just to break up the space, can't think of much in the way of benefits other than possibly backup scripting and you run the risk of ending up with space in the wrong place

 

Up to $220 off & extra $70 Coupon Dell XPS 15 L501x 15.6" Core i7-2620M Laptop | XPS 15 Deals, Reviews, Coupon - LogicBUY

This was the best I could find via google when I ordered mine. Mistakenly ordered with 720P. Yikes.

 

I called them but they couldn't cancel as the order is in production. I can return without a restocking fee once I get it and then I can reorder. They offered me another $50 to keep the one I have.

 

does anyone know what the accelerometer is good for? I installed the driver and there is no way to do anything with it

 

Another Vid for XPS15 L502X
YouTube - New Dell XPS 15 L502X Running Crysis and Need for Speed Pro Street Demos

 

anyone know how to turn the light on above the touchpad? it is glowing red in this video, mine isn't even on

 

It says MONITOR\AUO17ED...so its definitely AUO but besides that I don't know.

 

If you are asking if the extra money for facial recognition only involves software, the answer is yes.

The 6230 is a dual-radio adapter for 2.4 GHz and 5 Ghz, enabling support dual-band 802.11n as well as 802.11a. If you live in a dense apartment building (or, in my case, go to conferences with a lot of laptop-toting people), then having support for the 5 GHz channels can be extremely useful. Even if you live in a house, your neighbors are likely close enough to cause interference in the 2.4 GHz range (especially since routers typically only come with one power setting: high).

So, if you are experiencing issues with your wireless, then get the 6230. However, the wireless router/access point will also need to be replaced with one that supports 5 GHz if it doesn't already.

It may be worth calling a second time and trying to get to a different department. I cancelled when In Production and they had no problem. I had to talk to six different people (I told them I wanted to change my order so they sent me to the Order Modification Department where they decided I really wanted to cancel it), but they made it happen.

 

If it's in production they should be able to cancel. Just haggle them a bit more. It's only once it's about to be shipped that they absolutely can't cancel it.

 

Light on means disabled.

 

That light indicates weather the touchpad is on or not, you can toggle it by pressing F3 (or Fn+F3 depending on your settings).
And as you may have figured out, when the light is off, the touchpad is on; when the light is on, the touchpad is off.

 

ahhhh, I thought mine was broken or something. I LOVE this laptop. Havent had a chance to game on it (dont have a mouse right now). Anyone using a bluetooth mouse with this?

 

Wow, he sucks at NFS .... but, not the point I guess.

Gameplay seemed quite decent, nice even, even though it wasn't on full settings and the fact that NFS isn't one of the most demanding/graphic intensive games...
That's good enough for me though, I really only play racing games. And only NFS at that... occasionally.

 

I'm torn between getting the i5-2410 or the i5-2520, All my extra cash will be spent upgrading to 1080 screen. I'll mostly watch movies, play some games (GTA, FIFA, NBA and the like), surf the web, use MS office and occasionally edit pics and vids on this lappy.

There's a deal, Dell's offer (9 cell, 6 GB upgrade and GPU up); But it's stuck on the i5 2410. (of course I'll then add the 1080)

However, if I choose the base, I could up to i5 2520 (+90) but I'll not be getting the 9 cell, Ram upgrade (I suppose I could stretch a bit for the GPU upgrade together with the 1080 upgrade).

So is it worth choosing one over the other? Also, is there any chance I'll get this thing before the estimated ship date? I'll be leaving for vacation and I need an entertainment outlet with me.

Cheers guys.

 

I made the same choice and concluded that the extra price was too high for a 10% increase in clock rate. You are more likely to notice the change in RAM and faster video card (also with more RAM).

The only other thing you would really miss out on is that the 2520M includes some nice virtualization support that does help with virtual machine performance. However, if you are running virtual machines, then the RAM is, again, more likely to be a factor.

 

I see a lot of folks format and reinstall their laptops as soon as they arrive. Put me in that camp, also. I bought L501X for my daughter for Christmas, and am planning on treating myself to the L502X in a few weeks.
My question is this: seeing as I had some problems reinstalling all the drivers, before I format the drive with the next laptop I want to find out where Dell installs the exisiting drivers. Is there a file or folder where all the drivers are located that I can then burn to a CD?
Thank you.

 

Thanks Logan, I suppose I'll be getting that deal then!

 

Any owners of dual core systems get their laptops yet? Wondering if there is a noticeable difference in battery life between dual core and quad, specifically with web browsing, email, word processing and other light use?

 

Yea, there is a folder right on the C drive that is called drivers. I am not but so tech savvy so I am not aware if they are all in there and whatnot but it seems like the important ones are and from what I have been reading in this thread the rest of the software can be had at the dell my downloads webpage.

 

Can someone with an L502 tell me if it supports SATA III drives? I'm not entirely sure if this is accurate, but SIW can provide logical drive port details.

When I look at what my XPS16 has, it says the current and max port speed is SATA-300. Hopefully the L502/L702 show a max of SATA-600.

 

When streaming music from my desktop it is extremely jumpy and not smooth at all. Almost like when something is buffering and it skips all the time..... Any suggestions? It even does it when I am sitting right next to my router. My xbox, ps3, and sony tv all stream music wirelessly with no problems whatsoever. Drivers maybe???

 

I was just playing the crysis 2 demo for about half an hour or so and my CPU temps are getting to 90 celcius. I feel like this is too high and is going to damage the processor....feedback please. How can I monitor the GPU temps? I am using CPUID to monitor the CPU temps.

 

That's pretty high for the CPU. That would be a decent (but not great) temp for the GPU.. but the CPU... not so good.

HWMonitor

That's the best app for temps, IMO. Let us know what that says for your GPU and CPU.

 

Same here. Just ran 3dMark06 in "as shipped" config and core 0 temp got up to 92*C. Then, I used my laptop cooler with a 4" fan blowing into the ram vents, and core 0 still reached 89*C. Shouldn't be getting that hot. HWmonitor still won't show gpu temps as I can't start it after starting 3dMark06, unless someone on here knows how to.

 

for some reason I cannot play Crysis 2 its says " Unsupported video card detected! Continuing to run might lead to unexpected results or crashes. Please check the manual for further info on hardware requirements NVIDIA GeForce GT 540M"

Any ideas to why?

 

I have the i7 2620M and the 6-cell battery.

I can get ~4 hours web browsing.

 

I wonder if re-pasting the CPU and GPU might be a good idea.

Anybody know what the latest recommendations are for a good thermal paste?

Has anybody got their units with LoJack pre-installed from Dell? I was told by Dell that they're having problems with the program playing nice in the L502.

 

Did you end up doing the clean install? Are you sure you installed the Motherboard/Chipset drivers as well as the Video drivers?

 

I get the same thing but I still can click OK and it runs fine. Its probably the Crysis software not recognizing the 540m yet. No biggy.

But yea, I was using CPUID HWmonitor. It doesn't show me the GPU temp either. Maybe I'll try to start CPUID when Crysis is running and the 540 is actually in use. I am 99% sure that I am going to be doing a repaste this week....come on dell.....

Also, could someone please stream some music wirelessly off your network to your L502 through WMP and let me know if it runs 100% smooth?? When I am streaming music that is on my desktop in the living room it is real choppy and stuttery. I dont't have that problem with my other devices that stream music on my network.

 

I'm considering placing my order this week, but I have a coupe of questions for you folks

Everyone here seems to have the backlit kb with their machine. I'm in Ireland and don't have that option. Will my machine then have the classical type of keyboard or a chiclet style but without the backlight?

The battery included is 9 cell. Is this the one that creates the bulge on the bottom of the computer that I have seen in some pics? Won't this change the shape enough to make the LAPtop uncomfortable in the lap and less grippy on most surfaces?

In the XPS 15's at least before the Sandy Bridge refresh, there were reports of the HD replacing being rather complicated, having to take apart the whole laptop. Is this still an issue? Will changing the HD then void the warranty?

 

I finally got some gpu data with HWmonitor by quickly starting HWmonitor right after clicking "run 3dmark06". It enabled the card quick enough for HWmonitor to detect it. Results:

Without Laptop Cooler:
Core 0 - 92*C
Core 1 - 90*C
Core 2 - 88*C
Core 3 - 84*C
GT540M - 75*C

With Cooler (Belkin Laptop Cooler sold by Dell):
Core 0 - 89*C
Core 1 - 88*C
Core 2 - 86*C
Core 3 - 82*C
GT540M - 74*C