New Dell XPS L521X (Ivy Bridge)

I have been looking at that model for a while too, however the bulk and size of it plus the gigantic power brick means that I won't be able to properly carry it around the campus.
So far my only options are the Sony VAIO series S and the Dell, if the throttling issue doesn't get resolved I'll probably be returning the latter

 

I don't know if I would hold out hope that Dell will fix that in a month's time. It might be deliberate on their part as a "thermal management" protocol.

Someone might want to get in touch with UncleWebb, the creator of ThrottleStop to see what he might be able to do as far as a workaround.

 

Not sure about the S series, but I have a 2-year-old E series and the keyboard is abysmal -- it's a chiclet design but with VERY large spaces in the plastic -- wide enough that small pieces get in it a lot. Probably every week or so I've had to take a key off and sweep its keypress zone with a bent straight-pin because the key wouldn't press due to some dirt caught inside it. The Lenovo looks good though if the Dell doesn't work out.

 

What do you guys think about Asus N56VZ? I can't stand that Sony Vaio S has GT640m LE...

 

Looks like Test Asus N56VZ-S4044V Notebook - Notebookcheck.com Tests it was reviewed at notebook check (They also have a review of the 630M version.

I won't repeat my distrust of ASUS systems again, but I think I'll stick with my XPS 15

 

I don't think this is the right topic to discuss trolling or what consists of trolling and what doesn't. Can we please get back on topic? Several pages were just back to forth arguments. Can't you use a PM for that?

@Alfling I brought up the Asus N56VZ and think it's a really good comparison in regards to specs. Microcenter had it for $1000 last time I posted it.
Very similar to XPS15 and has a on-par processor. But the battery life is shorter because it draws more power due to the CPU and GPU's higher draw.

Bill says the XPS and Asus aren't comparable because of the XPS's premium warranty and materials. Honestly thought I think the XPS and Asus are fair comparisons. Both are made of good materials, good specs, but Dell does have a better warranty and customer service.

However we are buying a premium laptop hoping it doesn't have bugs or flaws. Not because it has a super long warranty. The warranty is a plus but the build must be superior in the first place. <- Got that from a Honda commercial on TV

 

In my country looks hard to find a reseller for Gigabyte notebook, but on paper it look very good, specially Gigabyte P2542G:
It is sold with 128SSD mSATA + 750 HDD, blu-ray burner, GTX660m, FHD display, 3610QM, 4+1 speakers.
It has Dual Air Vent Design one for the processor and the other for the GPU.
Same weight of XPS15 2.6Kg, price looks around 1500€ (Germany reseller) as XPS.
http://www.notebook.de/index.php?section=shop&group=2464&productid=48824&lang=en

OT... I don't know what is happened, I believe someone has insulted some other, but the posts already had been almost all deleted when I have read.

 

Thank you, I definitely prefer XPS 15 too, and I'll buy it IF they solve the throttle thing (big IF unfortunately, so in the meantime I look around )

 

Already said that: http://forum.notebookreview.com/del...ell-xps-l521x-ivy-bridge-550.html#post8691595

But it was necessary to go over since there was an odd confusion as to what is appropriate and what isn't.

 

I was told that this system came with Laptop Low Jack for free. How do I go about getting that?

 

Been using my Dell XPS 15 for about 4 days now and I got to say I love it. Sound quality is good. Screen is excellent and performance is super fast. I use this computer primarily for Web Development work and have no issues running Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Flash Builder ect without any hiccups.

 

The first time you start it up it will ask you if you want to install LoJack. Also I think it is on the drivers and utilities disc that comes in the box.

 

Same here -- no issues. Overall, I'm very happy with mine.

 

Did you try to play some game too?

 

No I have a desktop for Gaming. I7 Sandy Bridge with a GTX 580. Been playing The Secret World on it.

My xps 15 is for work primarily and its been great for photo, video, and sound editing as well.

 

Whilst I bought this laptop as a laptop to use to produce music on and use when Djing out, which so far it has performed fantastically at, I have tried playing Civ V on it, and whilst I did see the processor speed drop it did not result in any tangible loss of performance.

 

I don't game, but I do heavy graphic arts work for pleasure and software/database design for a living. I've run into the throttling a couple of times but it was very brief and honestly no more often than with my L502x. It also did not impact the work I was doing at the time - was just something that I noticed after reading 50 pages complaining about it.

In my opinion, based upon what I've read here and elsewhere the throttling issue is being blown out of proportion. I'm not saying it doesn't exist, but it seems to be happening in very extreme circumstances where other laptops would likely perform the same way.

Historically, Dell has been very responsive to these sorts of complaints and quicker than most manufacturers to resolve them.

To anyone that is considering an XPS15, I would say be aware of the issue, take advantage of the 21 day return policy that Dell provides if you can't live with it, and know that there are a lot of disproportionate dramatics on this forum when it comes to issues. Buy what you like, like what you buy.

 

Wasn't asked. Put the cd in and tried to Auto Run it but get a runtime error / automation error.

 

I will wait for a few weeks before I'll buy one. I hope the disproportionate dramatics turn out te be just that because after 4 years the nvidia bug hit my xpsm1530 and I don't want another bug to hit my xps15

 

ThrottleStop 5.00 supports Ivy Bridge and should let users manage any throttling problem in this laptop. If you are having throttling issues, why not do some testing with ThrottleStop and post your results so other users can decide if they can live with this issue or not.

 

I would want to make some considerations about this new machine.
Obviously I hope that there will be a fix for the problem, but if it was not like that?

Up to now the several bench tests or the tests with the normal applications/games are performed on new notebooks and therefore heat dissipation system is to 100% of the efficiency because it's still clean and without dust.
What will happen when after some months It will not be more so?

The owners maybe will be forced to open it always once in the month to maintain cooling system to 100%, because it's already under-sized and and it cannot lose further cooling power.

Maybe many of us remember Dell Studio XPS 16 as an overheating system.
I want to remember it review on Notebookcheck.
In order to test this, they put their prototype under load overnight (Prime95 and Furmark) (no system shut down noticed) and afterwards compared the result in the 3DMark06 with that of a cold state. And see there, it was even 7 points more with 6828 points. The only problem has been that the PSU has touched the 77°.

You can still read this review in English, German and Italian.
Review Dell Studio XPS 16 (ATI HD4670) Notebook - Notebookcheck.net Reviews
Test Dell Studio XPS 16 (ATI HD4670) Notebook - Notebookcheck.com Tests
Notebookcheck IT: Recensione del Dell Studio XPS 16 (ATI HD4670) Notebook

 

From what I've read, it doesn't look like it's being blown out of proportion.... People are playing fairly old non massively demanding games and after a few minutes seeing their CPU throttle down to 1.2GHz which is not good.

 

Heh, fair enough. But I never really go into any other Dell threads. I just go straight to this thread from bookmarks typically.

It only comes with 640M LE though doesn't it? I was also looking at the Sony's a bit. Is it still true Sony doesn't let you install drivers from Nvidia?

 

Unfortunately, all Sony Vaio S 15 come with 640LE with DDR3 even if the configurator says only 640M for 1GB version, you can find this info in Sony Vaio owners thread in this forum.
It's true Sony doesn't let you install drivers directly from Nvidia, but it's very easy to bypass the problem, seems you can edit file .inf and it's done.

 

Apparently, with NVidia's newest beta drivers, (304.79 or something. 307?) you can install them without modifying the inf files. To the Sony, that is.

That said, it is a DDR3 640M LE, which is worse than most of the comparable options.

Edit: I think people are freaking out about the 640M LE too much. It's a lower clocked 640M, generally for thermal reasons, iirc, somebody in the Sony Vaio S thread said they overclocked theirs to roughly 640M temperatures, you just have to be careful about it. You're free to overclock the system to 640M heights, and if you fail, more or less, you know why they didn't include the 640M.

And I know thinner/smaller etc. computers have the same/better GPUs in them, but none of them have the specific characteristics of the Sony.

Personally, I think I'm back to the Vizio. They should be releasing very soon, and the couple people who have gotten one have pretty much praised it for being quiet (albeit the ultrabook), with a (depending on who you ask, kind of split) good keyboard and an average trackpad. Everything else was pretty welcomed by the people who own it. That said, it says nothing about the cooling on the notebook model, but I don't expect it to be overly horrible.

Again, it's a 640M LE though, so feel free to take your pick.

I think if you're looking for Nvidia graphics at 640M or higher though, for anybody interested, your only options are the MBP, the Asus N56vz (DDR3 650M), the XPS 15 (DDR5 2GB 640M), and the Samsung Series 7 (DDR5 1GB 640M). For 640M LE, add in the Vizio notebook (DDR5 640M LE) and the Sony Vaio S (DDR3 640M LE)

For a price to performance ratio, the samsung and vizio imo are the best buys. Samsung gives you a quad core and 640M but gives you a ty screen for 1050$, and Vizio gives you a dual core (plenty for gaming I guess) and a 640M LE (plenty for me at least) but a probably second to only the MBPw/RD screen.

Asus N56VZ is more of a power in exchange for battery life loss, while XPS15 is premium all the way, as we know.

Probably didn't need to type that all up, but just in case anybody was interested. ^.^

 

You forgot the HP Envy 15, which doesn't have an nVidia card but DOES have a high-end graphics card. (Between the 640M and 650M in performance, I believe.)

 

My review is up... it answers a lot of questions but it's not pretty:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/del...ps-15-l521x-owners-lounge-32.html#post8693676

 

I think the Asus N56 is pretty sharp, even though it's a little thicker. The main thing that I don't like with it is all the tiny speaker grille holes around the keyboard. I can see that being a disaster in terms of dust, hair and other crud getting trapped in there.

Wow that was brutal. I may just end up passing on a notebook that can game and buy an ultrabook to hold me over for a while.

 

As others have said, you can install Nvidea drives by modifying the .inf file. They talk about it in the owners thread.

The UX32VD looks really nice. Just with an SSD the price gets kind of high.

 

0 stars out of 5, so I guess you returned the laptop?

 

The quote is from his "review"

 

Errr

No 521x in India and 702x discontinued I am lucky I bought one 702x before time but now I am starting to hate dell they are behaving same as HP

 

It is but I couldn't totally believe one would return a laptop for this issue alone. If one is so much into insisting it should be for gaming then why would one not choose an alienware or whatever. The laptop itself has more to offer and can't be 0 out of 5.. Although I think Dell should be solving this problem quickly.

 

He's also spammed links to his ... review... all over the place. I'm installing some games now, so I'll see how it performs using real world usage scenarios.

 

Hi,

I do have to disagree...because I had an Envy 17 before which did throttle ("quite a bit") and made it a complete nightmare for me. I do not usually play games but once a year I go to a LAN party to meet some friends. The notebook was just not capable of its own heat which made it slowdown so much that I had lower framerates than other 3 year old crap notebooks using "near office performance gpus". HP did not give me any chance to solve the issue and I could not return it. So the only way would be returning it directly. If the issue cannot be solved for the XPS15 it would be also a 0/5 stars from me because the device just does not work. It is not able to use the GPU+CPU as it should and slows down to a speed which is definitely lower than other notebooks which have ULV + 620/630m or something.

 

I personally don't do a TOM of a gaming either on the PC (emphasis on the ton part), but I DO program for the GPU sometimes, which requires that I actually be able to run at 100% without throttling or crashing. In many cases I need to sustain some kind of CPU load as well, and that's where the issues crop up... The choice of the CUDA nbody program was not accidental at all; it's one of the only things in the whole sample package on the toolkit that will run indefinitely.

 

Are you kidding?
This is a very big issue, it compromises machine performance.
Every software that uses the whole power of this laptop for more than 10 minutes potentially could be shut down it.
If application doesn't use 100% of power but it involves both CPU and GPU then CPU downclocks itself to 1.2GHz.
You must consider that now cooling system has 100% efficiency because is still clean and without dust, but after some month?
A notebook with the marked operating temperatures could have big problems of reliability.

 

Has Bill abandoned us D:?

 

I take it everyone who actually owns the laptop and has noticed the issue being discussed has actually raised the issue with dell so they can look into it. I know we've got Bill, but as far as I can tell he's not omnipotent so letting as many facets of dell know as possible will possibly show them the gravity of the situation. Might be more use than sitting in a thread confirming there's a problem over and over

 

I'm running the passmark burnin test version 6 right now, I'm going to post the results in the owners thread when its done. So far I let everything run but optical and disk tests and its throttling GPU, but not CPU. I'm going to run a GPU and CPU only test when this is done. I think running a movie, ram tests, etc at the same time as full on CPU and GPU tests is a little extreme

Also my 640M is running at 650 Mhz, despite the spec calling for 640M's to run at 625.


Still testing, but I throttled down to 1197 Mhz and 350 Mhz at about 5 minutes in, for about 15 seconds then it throttled back up.

 

Is that on mains power or battery?

 

If you are asking me, it is plugged in. I do not run performance tests on battery.

 

I was... thanks for posting this up!

My thoughts exactly! Where are you bill?

I really hope Dell will speak about this soon... At least give us an answer, a "we're looking into it"...

But what I would like to know the most, is the story behind the problem... I mean, haven't they seen it coming, what happened behind the scenes... It's just not normal for the CPU to downclock so low for heat issues, isn't it? Throttling, ok maybe, but 1.2 Ghz?

 

Fair enough.

When you come to testing the games you're downloading. Can you do the same test on both battery and mains and see if it differs?

 

For me it is important to know why someone would give 0 stars out of 5 and seen by the answers I have more insight now. I've had many bsod because of the nvidia bug on the xpsm1530 but I want to stay clear of problems this time. For me the xps15 looks the perfect notebook to me if they solve this.

 

Quote from a apple forum:
I have a Macbook Pro Retina 2.7 GHz Core i7, 16Gb RAM.

I have installed the latest iStat Menu and have the "CPU 2" temperature reporting in at an average of 45C when idle, in the 50Cs when Xcode is running, in the 60Cs when running Safari (no video), and with peaks up to 85C-92C when running multiple things like a apps and a Time Machine backup. I haven't really stressed the system yet though.
end quote.

There are also reports of the MBRT having temps over 100 degrees.

So it seems the macbook retina runs just as hot.

this information including the reports about Macbook retina's also trotteling down to 1.2Ghz tells me its just a bios/software thing, or Intel really got a problem.

the initial test of the ivy bridge processors already stated they are not that energy suffucient as they would thought so it could alse be intel is giving wrong cooling requirements to laptop manufacteres like Apple and Dell.

 

It seems the following laptops all suffer throtteling issues when stress testing:

Samsung Chronos 700Z7C
Acer M5
Apple Macbook retina
Dell XPS15.

So its seems its a Intel Ivy bridge issue or a Nvidia 640 issue, rather then a thermal issue, because I highly doubt 4 different manufacturers have all made a bad design.

 

Ivy Bridge problem? I don't think so.
You can read Alienware M14x R2 review by Notebookcheck:
Alienware M14x R2 Review - Notebookcheck.net Reviews

Yes, it's a gaming notebook, I know, but is still 14" laptop with Ivy Bridge.
This review proofs that is not Ivy Bridge issue.
Alienware M14x (3720QM+GT650m) performs stress test (prime95+furmark) fairly well, it stay @ 3.1/3.2GHz, CPU hits 94°, but GPU stay under 70°.

 

Ok this is interesting. this particular gaming laptop starts throtteling the GPU above 70 degrees, and is not throtteling the CPU.

on the xps the GPU temps go above 85 degrees, so maybe GPU throtteling is not working as it should be.

Also the GPU can put the CPU in throtteling mode, it seems this is disabled in the gaming laptop as the GPU is the only one throtteling.

(speculating mode
so all we need is a bios to start throtteling the GPU above 70C and turn of the option for the GPU to throttle the CPU.

 

Just wondering about thermodynamics...
if CPU is before GPU in the heatpipe
if GPU reaches a higher temperature than CPU (gaming is a perfect scenario)
since heat goes from hotter to cooler in a passive system I'd guess that in this case heat would go towards the CPU instead of towards the fan, and this would explain the 95°C CPU at idle