Dell XPS15 R2 (L502) Thread

Where do you download from? My Comcast line has a 250 gb cap and I rarely hit 30 gb each month.

 

I have a netflix subscription and am currently hitting ~80Gb per month mostly from the movie streaming.

 

I'm based in Poland, so I don't think you'll be familiar with my ISP, but there's no data cap here. Anyway, I don't recall Dell drivers and software downloads to be very heavy, so you probably shouldn't worry about it

 

Some games would run reasonably well at medium 1080p. But I wouldn't count on it. You're probably better off running at a lower resolution at higher quality settings.

 

I guess it's down to whether I prefer to play every game in 1080 or whether I want a smaller and lighter system with more battery life. Tough decision. I've got some pondering to do. And, LoganK, I did check out some of the stats from notebookcheck, but, indeed, the problem is that I don't know which resolution those were tested at. Even looked at some nice gameplay vids, but they pretty much all use the old revision first gen i7 processors and the 445M GPU. Thank you both for your responses.

 

I have the i7 2620M, which is just an i5 with the full 4MB of L3 cache rather than the 3MB of L3 on i5s.

I have the 540M, 1920x1080, 6-Cell battery. ~4 hours on web browsing. As it is I'm sitting at 33% capacity remaining with 1:30 estimated battery life.

 

The 2630 is a quad core with 6 MB l3
Intel® Core? i7-2630QM Processor (6M Cache, 2.00 GHz)with SPEC Code(s)SR02Y

 

Does anyone have problems with the HDD being noisy and the case vibrating? It's really annoying. Also the trackpad gets slightly warm. What's the opinion of you guys? Does the HDD also leads to vibrations in the case?

 

is there a way to disable bluetooth? i don't see a fn key for the bluetooth

 

Could someone start a an Order Progress thread for the L502x, this thread is getting a few pages everyday and half are of "I ordered" or "still hasn't come".

IMHO It would help clean up this thread and leave it for discussion about the actual laptop.

 

there should be an owners thread

 

Sorry I keep coming back to this. I think I've decided on a Dell XPS laptop as my next PC. Now, I need to choose between the 15" and the 17" models, though. I am going to ask more specific questions about the 17 in its thread, but I would just like confirm one thing here: That gaming with the 540M and i7-2720QM on decent to high settings is quite possible at 900p, some games possibly even allowing for moderate settings at 1080. Also, battery life will be good for at least 3 non-gaming hours even with a 6-cell thanks to Optimus. Good assessment or a stretch from the truth?

 

Sounds about right according to previous posts

 

I second this.

 

If you're considering the 17" model and GPU is important to you, why not get it with the GT 555M, which is far better than the GT 540M? As you said, let's follow up on this in the L702X thread...

EDIT: Sorry, I can see now that you've already asked about the GT 555M in the other thread. My bad...

 

Hi

i want to replace the hdd inside the XPS 15 with a bigger one. 1TB harddrives like the western digital scorpio blue are a little bit higher than the "normal" ones: 0.5 inches instead of 0.4. does it fit inside the xps 15?

kind regards

 

Delivered today...unpacking has to wait until I get home from work

 

I don't know if it will fit in the XPS, but the WD Blue series drives are slow, in this case the drive is 5200rpm and, IMHO, not worth having. This will have a very noticeable negative impact on overall performance. If you want a WD drive, I highly recommend the Black series drives. Of course, they only go up to 750GB right now, so depending on what drive you ordered with the laptop it may not be much of an increase.

If storage capacity is more important to you, maybe a better option would be to get a USB 3.0 or eSata external drive to supplement the stock drive? Just a thought.

 

the capacity is more important to me. 750 gb would be okay but 1000 gb would be better. because the hdd is beneath the palm rest i chose a slower hdd: (perhaps) less vibrations and heat.

an external drive is no option. i don't want to carry a extra case and power supply around. this xps is already heavy and bulky enough

 

While there is a thread about the L502X CPU and GPU temperatures, I'd like to find out more about the heat on it's surface. Reading the L501X thread I'm getting the impression that under heavy load the palmrest gets really unpleasant and the bottom literally burns one's thighs... Also both the palmrest and the bottom can get quite warm when the machine is idling.

Can someone comment on the above in regard to the L502X? Any feedback is much appreciated

 

Mine also says it was shipped on 4/5 when calling order status line. Didn't bother calling them because I hate calling them. Did you get a tracking # yet?

 

I got mine to 100C on one CPU core and something like 94C at the GPU. The outside of the machine wasn't hot at all, and it hasn't got hot since I've had it. The vent gets hot and the air coming out of it is obviously hot - dont put your drink/phone/chocolate on the left - but that's it.

I had it at high temps for I'd guess around 40 min, though with a couple of rams down in that time. Maybe if you're keeping it at heavy load for a long time something else could happen, but i've not seen it. I definitely wouldn't say the outside gets 'quite warm' when idling.

BTW I started an owners thread - this one's been getting noisy, as people said above.

 

Hey:

I got it very late last night after calling the order status phone number. Mine should be here today.

 

Thanks, zygotic. And did you put it on your laps during that time?

 

I did, yeah. Generally checked now the thing felt on the keyboard, palmrest/trackpad, bottom, etc. I was trying to add to the discussion of temperatures on these machines! Didn't sit with it on my lap while doing the load/burn tests though - to avoid blocking the vents with trouser and making the test pointless.

 

Thanks again, that's encouraging

 

Was wondering if it was a joke - zygotes and hot laps and things...

 

please, someone with the UK version could post a photo from above of the keyboard? (best if is backlit version)
i'm considering to buy the uk version because the backlit keyboard is not available in my country and i want to compare the layouts.

thx!

 

plenty of images here

 

thanks! I know the page, but... is the US version. I need to view how is the UK version.

 

Mine is the UK version and it's the same (keys, spacing, etc). Although I don't have the backlit version, so the text is white on top of the keys.

 

I did a clean install on my system and updated to IE9, now IE9 is not working anyone else having problems with IE9 on XPS l502?

 

Just recieved my L502x and I've got a couple of questions.
Firstly, my system comes with the 525M graphics card, which I'm told is basically a downclocked 540M. As you'd expect, I want to try and OC it to 540M clocks, but don't want them applied all the time as the battery life would be drasitically reduced as it would override the optimus technilogy. What's the best way of doing this?
Also, I've got the JBL speakers with subwoofer built in, and was told that they were fantasic, but if I'm being honest I'm not that impressed - the subwoofer is terrible and I'm wondering if I've got a dodgy one - at higher volumes it makes a horrible kind of noise (if you've ever turned a cheap subwoofer up too high you'll know what I mean), and I'm not convinced that it's meant to do that, obviously I'm not expecting it to sound like a proper stereo, but the sub seems worse than useless to me. If a fellow owner could listen to the song I tried (dani california by the red hot chilli peppers) at high volume and tell me if it sounds bad I'd be really grateful. And sorry if that explanation was terrible, having read it back I realise it's a pretty poor one but I can't think of any other way of saying it.

 

Might try updating your adobe flash player, it has an issuse with Nvidia drivers.

 

PC Mag review is up: Dell XPS 15 (Sandy Bridge) Review & Rating | PCMag.com

 

I thought the UK keyboard had more extra keys, like in my country, eg "<" key between Shift and Z, and the Enter key is some different (two rows vs 1 row)

 

I agree on the subwoofer being crappy at high sound levels, even the demo songs that they have on WM sound crappy at high levels. Did i expect too much maybe? Is there some settings that you guys recommned?

Thanks

 

I got my Dell l502x on monday really happy with it! ,the thing is i cant get the (Windows Experience Index)to rate my computer???, i get this message (The windows Experience Index for your system cannot be computed)? ive checked all the drivers and there all updated including bios, im just wanting to find out if anyone has had the same issue for curiosity, i was speaking to dell today , they were working on the issue as they said its the first they have heard of it with the l502x but he recons its something to do the the graphics driver , so i did a clean install of windows myself and updated all the drivers again and same thing i cannot get a WEI Score?

 

Well, you know, English is not my mother tongue, so my choice of words might come out awkward sometimes

It's definitely not the same ( link). I'm used to US keyboards and having used a UK keyboard for about six months, I never learned how far the Enter key was...

 

I'm not alone then. Really suprising considering all the reviewers said it was fantastic.

I'm having that issue as well - it's okay when I do it on intel graphics but when I enable the nivida chip it won't work.

 

I disabled the gt540m through device manager and ran the Intel graphics card only then tried WEI again and still got the error (message window experience index for your system could not be computed), oh well at least im not the only one with this prob, i just cant figure out this one, ill have a checked through google and everything again and see what i can find

 

Mine sounds fantastic but it didn't at first. There are settings you need to enable to make it great. If you press the touch control to launch the Waves MaxxAudio control center you should find what you need. Also, did you purchase the SoundBlaster X-fi option? If not, that might also be the reason it doesn't sound as good.

 

Where's that touch control? I'll check it out. It's definitely got better sound than my Lenovo, but it doesn't seem mind blowing or anything.

I did get the Soundblaster.

 

Can you elaborate on that option (a link will suffice)? It doesn't seem to be available in my country...

 

pretty darn good review for only a 4 star rating.

 

The review for the older XPS-15 has a 4.5 star rating.

I think it's the price that caused him to rate it lower, but with the sales / coupons on the Dell site it's not nearly as expensive as the price he quotes in the review.

Unrelated, but he talks about the numeric keypad... huh?

 

Option soundblaster is available only for USA market, you can check in configurator on Dell.com.

 

Yeah, "it would have been the [desktop replacement] to beat" (meaning it's the second best available), is "phenomenal", and only four stars. Oh, well. They were probably upset with the reported sensor temperatures. :wink:

And their battery life test puts the other systems to shame.

I guess they want to be fair by comparing "retail" price with Apple since Apple doesn't have eternal sales and coupons. It's also kind of confusing to list the price of the machine as sold, but then quote the prices of the options as if they were add-ons.

I was curious about that myself. And this thing may be aluminum, but it sure looks and feels like plastic. The DisplayPort is actually a mini DisplayPort.

Also a shame that they didn't get a system with one of the faster processors for comparison with the MacBook Pro. For $1785 you would think it would have been easy.

 

I've messed with the settings and it didn't make much difference - what settings did you use? And I didn't get the sound blaster option as its not available in the UK but I would have thought that the combination of JBL speakers and waves audio control panel would have produced good sound.

 

I'm not a massive fan of the sound quality either - I have no idea what all the fuss is about in the reviews. Indeed, my Inspiron 9400 with subwoofer, has much better sound quality and better volume than this L502x.

I keep looking for an equaliser or at the very least a treble and bass adjuster instead of that silly 'Wave' software