New Dell XPS L521X (Ivy Bridge)

Performing Test now. Less than a minute in, major throttling down to 135 MHz. No point in even posting the log. Almost immediately down to 135 mhz.

 

If you're really interested in maxing out the GPU, try setting the max CPU in the power settings to 99%. I've found that this restricts the CPU from turboing up and that causes the GPU to run at max boost ON THE BETA BIOS. The performance in every game I've tried has been very good. Max GPU performance and reasonable CPU clocks.

This of course is just a temporary measure but it will let me play some games while I'm waiting for the final fix. I'm not expecting Alienware performance here, just that it will run at at least the normal clocks on both the CPU and GPU at the same time (preferrably favoring the GPU if it's running because how many really CPU intensive things also need the CPU at max?).

 

I just compared the two just now using Crysis 1 set at 1920 x 1080 high detail, AA off.

12.5 fps with turbo on, 11's with 99% set. Here are the FRAPS and HWINFO logs. It looks like the turbo still kicked in even with the CPU set to 99%

OT: This new forum look hurts my eyes. I do not like.

 

Thank you, I have understood...

OT: new forum style is terrible, I can't see more than 2 posts at time

 

yes the forum style is inefficient .... ill be ordering my XPS I5 with 640m dont need quad core yet

 

I probably would have gotten the i5 with the 640m, but its not an option in the US.

 

Yea, I'd rather have that instead of the 630M... :/

 

idk why we have it and yall dont these are the configs we got

New! XPS 15 laptop details | Dell Trinidad & Tobago
im going to get the 1499 version once my cash comes through but with a 750gb 7200 rpm i think i can get that changed trough my university or if my uncle orders through the company

i was going to go with the lenovo but butter build quality and i know that dell will stand by me in terms of support for Trinidad @ least won it out + there are some horror stories of DOA with lenovo DELL any day + all the XPS issues will be resolved

@bill i have one question will the xps systems bought before windows 8 get the UEFI or what ever is called bios update ?? i really think that this new lightweight replacement to bios should be used now if not when it come out should be backwards compatible

 

but i have an idea to remedy these static configuration issues

ie two models online i5 and i7 to choose from:
once you choose:
Ram: options 4 ,6 ,8 ,16GB

Graphics card: options 630m Base /640m options for i5,
i7 640 standard (reason they did not do this is 640m might outsell 630m unless budget is a factor)

HDD/SSS: options 500GB -7200rpm, 750GB -7200rpm 1TB 5400rpm
(32gb msata SSD standard)
with options for 64GB and 128gb msata ssd (OS is on the msata for 64/128GB as intel RST is use less @ 64GB go up )

Optical drive: options DVD RW / blueray DVD RW options


sigh rep pwr 6 still rep box grey smh

 

Not really. But i got bored to hear that we have the best support and we here our customers just to justify our price.
Btw, excellent way to add a 521 SSD for just 300$ difference from the previous model. You just make the user go to the higher one. Great move.

Bill I do not have something personal with you, but i think you just over-justify the company line(which is what you should do to be honest).

 

Turns out yes they can stop the UPS delivery, it got all the way to the local delivery van and now it's been flagged as return to sender. I notice that Dell hasn't refunded the credit card yet.

 

Yep, mine got to my local depot this morning and was updated to out for delivery at 05:00.

At 09:05 it changed to intercept.

 

Send them a mail and threaten with legal action. And don't just give up either.

 

What is really ticking me off about Risco was that he put it up on hukd passing it off as if he found it, which isn't the case and all for meaningless accolades . Especially with the crowd on hukd, you tend to get people ordering like 10 to make a profit instead of genuine people getting a really good laptop for a price they can afford.

 

@ Bill : I have a question about the XPS 15, In france, we must purchase the i7 version to have the 640M. Is there a way to purchase it with just the i5 which have no throttlings problems?
Thank you

 

Dude I hope your future product's website errors out and sells all of your inventory for a fraction of the sale price. I doubt you'd be singing the same tune.

I'm all about protecting the consumer, but this is too far for me. Then again, I live in the US so laws and mindsets are different.

 

Not posting here regarding all the people who ordered on HUKD but with regards to those who ordered here on NBR, I believe we all had our orders acknowledged, confirmed, money taken, shipped and invoiced PRIOR to receiving a cancellation.

That is a big ol breach of contract under UK sales of good.

If a cancellation had been received prior to confirmation or even shipping, people wouldn't have minded so much I expect.

 

You don't make the mistake in the first place, and it isn't the first time Dell has done this. Especially considering they've taken the money out of my account and called to make the damn order. If it was the other way you'd be stuck with the order or mis-price (at least for a long time) as stated in their terms and conditions, so I see nothing wrong with what he is saying.

 

Has anyone seen there are now 9 options on the UK home side for the XPS including BluRay options....

Getting expensive however.

Not to nitpick but no BluRay option on any i5s....


*posted in both threads*

 

Anyhow XPS15 tale will end, I think this will be the case for every IvyBridge + Kepler laptop. Simply put, "boost" technologies are a joke for intensive realtime applications like games on a thermal constrained system (notebooks).
They may be useful for benchmarks, but not for improving gaming experience without a frame cap.

Just think to two new features nVidia has annunced for imminent future drivers:

- adaptive v-synch (with the option for "half framerate").
- framerate target.

 

Also, if you want BluRay, if you don't get an SSD, you're stuck with the crappy 5400 rpm drive.

It's ridiculous that they have this many configs but don't let you choose what you want in there yourself. The cost saving excuse is clearly bulls**t. With this many different options I can't see Dell having them prebuilt to those specs. It would cost nothing more to allow them to be customised. I just don't understand it at all.

Maybe Bill you could shed some light on the reasoning behind this practice of not allowing customisation?

 

I too would like to know this. I never thought I'd see the day when you can buy a fully configurable HP online, but the equivalent Dell is only available in premade combinations.

Isnt built-to-order Dell's whole business model? Is this just for the XPS or is it a long term change in direction?

 

I hope not as it is really frustrating.

If I could just upgrade the 630m to the 640m in the base model, I would buy it in a heart beat.

 

Gfgrimm, please don't confirm the US citizens stereotype.

If a deal has been made, it is only reasonable that the contract is not breached. If not, what is there to prevent huge companies like Dell to abuse customer rights even further. Have you ever even looked at any general terms and conditions? They are never written in favor of the customer, mainly because customers demand low prices and don't read contracts. But that doesn't justify the fact that companies like Dell screw their customers over again and again. Don't believe me? Call their tech support. And wait for hours straight getting another anonymous person on the line every damn time. /endofrant.
My point is, companies screw you and international laws over all the time, it's only fair that you point them to those laws and don't allow them to continue such actions.

 

I'm honestly About to blow a gasket. I spend over 1k on a laptop and I can barely use wifi? This is absurd and I feel like Dell is taking it with a grain of salt. Bill, people have spent a lot of money on DELL's product. Wifi is a simple thing but an important thing and it's unacceptable that I'm still not receiving solid answers besides that I can try switching the wifi card. If this were a $300 acer id understand but not a $1,200 Dell.

 

Dudes, dudes, dudes.

This probably has a lot to do with minimizing time to market and ramping up sourcing and supply chain through their various channels.

Having a fully customizable computer to be built and shipped in a few business days at the scale at which Dell operates in non-trivial.

Devices that only come in pre-configured packages are hard enough to manage sourcing and supply chain issues for.

Another issue is globalization. If Dell only cared about me and the USA, they'd probably have nailed this by now with further customization, but because they are spread across the world (because you know UK, AUS, or whoever else will and moan if "only USA gets x y z.") Globalization in regards to operations, manufacturing, and retail is a huge pain in the --especially with consumer electronic devices. Every area has different regulations, import rules.

You can't equate this to a bunch of guys in a factory with all of the parts sitting around them just waiting to be put into your pre-manufactured chassis. There's much more that goes into it.

Everything about this is the result of engineering and business tradeoffs. You may offer your opinion on how Dell misses the mark, but it seems like a lot of you guys whining on here underestimate all the effort and planning required to do what your asking.

Believe me I wanted to see a fully customizable XPS 15 from the get go, but I have experience in the CED industry.

Furthermore, imagine how many permutations of the product would have to be tested when these early issues come out. Engineering's job would explode. To me it totally makes sense to limit pre-configured skus for the two months or so until you get the bugs that have been discussed on here ironed out.

/end rant

 

YOU GUYS KNEW THE DEAL WAS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE.

I pointed out that I'm from the US and that I have a different opinion. I could have said that y'all are a bunch of scheming, cheap, whiny babies, trying to milk an obvious mistake on a website; but I didn't.

I also said that I am generally in favor of consumer protection mechanisms.

If you don't like the way the company is handling the issue, take your business elsewhere, or even better, purchase computing systems that are designed and distributed by a company from your own country.

This is not a case of a company screwing you. It's a case of them making an obvious (when it comes to the people on this forum and similar to it) pricing error and trying rectify it. They're even throwing free money at you to apologize for their mistake. What if they let you keep the laptop, then if you were the other guy who paid full price, you'd be complaining about paying the full price while your bro got it on the cheap.

Let me cover myself by stating clearly that I understand that there is a history of large companies abusing it's consumers and that it is a non-ideal situation.

I can also say that' I've dealt with Dell for many many years. Their support tends to be adequate for me 95% of the time. In fact when I was 18 and managed a small army of laptops and desktops for the DoD, if there were any issues, Dell would be onsite 8AM the next business day to fix the issue. Of course with the scale of their company, you're going to run into less than the greatest people in their support system, but this is to be expected in today's outsourced support world.

 

Of course product failure is unavoidable at a certain rate, prevention at 100% would make products unpayable. Yet, here it's every L521x that has the same two issues. Don't tell me a billion dollar conglomerate like Dell does not have the necessary funds to do some proper testing before releasing a product into the market. Especially if the product was meant to have a premium value and is thus qualified as belonging to their luxury line of products.
Obviously Dell made a huge mistake not taking the time to organize a decent quality control.
You say it would take 2 months before bugs are ironed out. First of all, a bad cooling system is not a bug. Secondly, these 'bugs' could and will probably have been realized months prior to release. The only thing that didn't bring them to rethink the entire laptop or at least fix them at the moment of discovery is a simple cost/benefit analysis where the consumer drew the short straw.

 

I honestly think that the slim ivybridge+optimus laptops out right now were never designed for simultaneous 100% utilization of GPU and CPU.

It appears as though the enthusiasts on this site think differently.

I don't think the some of the throttling behavior discussed on here is a problem, I just think that people are looking for in the wrong place to be doing dual-full-usage scenario.

No one forced anyone on here to purchase the laptop before a significant amount of reviews would have shed light the thermal limitations of the laptop.

On the WiFi issue, they may have done their WiFi card qualification testing as well as design verification testing with a setup that doesn't represent the real world scenario that people are using today. I agree that the WiFi issue should have been caught, but I also know that sometimes bugs get through.

It's sort of unfair. Software guys push through completely crap, and then patch their stuff later.

Hardware guys have to get it right the first time because "patching" a "hardware bug" is a much more costly activity.

 

have you tried other recent Ivy Bridge laptops? I've tried a few and ALL had throttling (at least Dell fixed that). The XPS also runs cooler than most of the new laptops. Definately cooler than MacBook Pro and Asus N56 and same or cooler than the Samsung Series 7.

 

Is everyone just going to throw the wifi issue under the carpet? Why is no one discussing this. >

 

It has been discussed, Dell are aware and are working on a fix. Bill as also made a big post as to what they are going to do about it.

 

Yes I'm aware of the wifi cards they will send out.

What page is the "big post" by bill on?

 

Here

Also I tested a 6230 in my system just now which worked fine in my L502X and it had the same slow as hell results.

 

I`m following discussion there already for a long time... Now posting my first question and couple of "points" - previously sometimes many of users were speaking about "new line" of XPS and "perfect" quality. Why? There already is similar product on the market (and with almost similar specs) - Latitude line with very good build quality and also looking good... I have L502x, bought it year ago and after some time use, promised yourself never again go with XPS line - was frustrated with bad build quality and promised as well that next Dell will be nothing below Latitude. Now - why Dell needed "new line", when there already was Latitude on the market? Ok, new XPS is probably more "superior" (is build quality better?), but however why? It looks like similar product with a little better GPU...
And other "point" - till now Dell offers all L521-s with msata. What I want to say for information - for example in my country (small country and therefore suitable for WWAN) is very popular and advanced/developed WWAN (3,5 - 4G) and I can "boldly" say - half (or more!) of laptop users useing it steadily! Why Dell doesn´t afford (at least till now) models with WWAN card too (instead of msata)?
______________________________________________________________________________________________________

XPS_15 - Intel_HM67 - i5 - GT_540M - 6GB - Crucial_M4_128GB - 1920x1080 - Dell_5540_3G - Backlit - Win7

 

Is this the "big post"?

As Bill said, nothing formal, nothing official, no fix to explain to anyone yet.

So, what exactly are they "going to do about it"?

 

Can anyone confirm for me how many cycles the battery in our xps 15 is rated for? Also, about to place an order for the xps 15. Should I order it through my business and get that good discount, or order it regularly and get the regular warranty that includes lojack and accidental damage for a year. (as far as I can tell, when ordered through business, it doesn't say anything about that) And one last thing, would you see a big jump in battery life if you switched off the nvidia card?

 

No, clearly you did not bother reading my post above. I also cannot be bothered to link it You are another one who clearly thinks something can be fixed without testing. They have to send those cards out to the wild in order to determine if it is a driver incompatibility or the antenna setup.

 

Beta-testing by the customers?

 

Not sure if this has been said but I unplugged my xps 14 and it works fine with the wifi. Odd... It jumped from 0.40mbps(while plugged in) to 11mbps(unplugged).


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

 

Because it's impossible to quote anyone via tapatalk, i'll just reply without it.

No I have not tested every, not even any ivy bridge laptop. Yet to answer to both of your replies: I did not say Dell and Dell only, I said companies like Dell and companies in general. Meaning, all those companies offering hardware solutions that hardly function under real world conditions i.e. gaming, video processing,... are a clear example of how much companies actually care about consumers. They create a decent looking laptop with high end components, yet spare their money on the cooling solutions, lowering long term component durability extensively and forcing consumers to buy another expensive laptop after 3 years maximum.
Anyway, I'm just trying to make a point here, don't just accept something because it happens with different laptops. Ask yourself why things are the way they are.

By the way, does the lenovo y580 throttle?

 

I think the point is that every Dell laptop I've bought since 2001 has been configurable for things like RAM, HDD, CPU, and we're quite reasonably wondering why it's suddenly too hard.

In Australia there are currently 9 skus across home & business ... Surely it's not more efficient to have 9 separate inventories of completed products ?!

 

I very much understand why "things are the way they are." I happen to be a hardware design engineer and I work on several projects that have the similar design problems. These designs are the result of engineering and business trade offs targeted towards specific uses.

I very much doubt that the Dell design team expected people to purchase these laptops to play "serious" games. I think part of the issue for you is that the XPS line has changed it's target market over the year, which is the result of Dell mishandling is branding a bit.

Shrinking everything down--from the minimum transistor channel length to the z-dimension of the laptop body--even when we decrease over all power, the power density is increasing. This proves to be an ever increasing thermal problem to be solved. Honestly, dell probably could have incorporated a different thermal design, but then you'd complain about the weight, the cost, the lack of an ODD to incorporate another fan, the noise the fans make as they would need to run louder to properly cool a dual-full-load usage scenario.

COMPROMISES.

It looks like the leading laptop manufacturers in the industry have converged on some of their strategies in regards thermal design for super thin ivy-bridge laptops with discrete graphics solutions.

Buy something else if you don't like it.

My sister will be well served in college for her purposes. She won't be running Prime 95 and playing Crysis 34234 at the same time, so she'll be good to go.

Of course if this WiFi issue isn't appropriately addressed, all of this could change!

 

Two things:

1. Did you try to purchase each laptop within the first month of release? Also did these laptops push the design envelope in reference to previous generations like the L521X? I doubt this is the case for either question.

2. There's a reason that you're not in charge of Dells supply-chain and manufacturing divisions based on your 9 sku's comment. You may want to visit some factories before you through statements like that around. Plus 9 sku's is nothing compared to the fully customizable laptops that you're referencing...just start calculating the permutations...the number gets really big really fast.

 

Looks like I spoke too soon. My laptop only worked well because I was within 10-15 feet of the router. Ugh.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

 

I think you're a bit misinformed about how severe the thermal throttling issue is with this laptop. It's not just about edge-case scenarios that will never happen realistically. Under the A04 BIOS the CPU (i7 model) underclocks to 1.2Ghz whenever the GPU is in use in every game I've tested, even Sonic Generations that barely stresses the CPU at all. The test BIOS that Bill is currently distributing fixes that issue and replaces it with GPU throttling that can put the GPU down to 300mhz (from 625mhz stock).

A notebook should at least be able to handle the nominal (non-boosted) frequencies of the CPU and GPU at the same time. I'm still fairly hopeful that Dell will be able to at least provide this with a BIOS update if they can balance the CPU and GPU clocks but this is really frustrating for those of us who have bought these laptops.

 

I've read every single post in this thread. -_- So I am fully aware.
I purchased one of these also.

I speaking in terms of the hardware, not how the subsystems are managed by BIOS, drivers, and OS.

I do agree that updated BIOS are needed to to give us the best possible performance within the constraints of the established thermal design.

That is why I say "some of the throttling behavior."

I think we're on the same side- no worries.

 

I don't understand why someone that is not interested in performance should buy an XPS15.
XPS15 is heavy like a normal notebook, but looks like an ultrabook.
If you are not interested in performance I guess is better to choose a real ultrabook like HP Spectre, more lighter and thinner than XPS and maybe it can outperforms XPS because hasn't throttling issue (GPU throttling can put GPU down to 135MHz, and GPU memory bus to 202MHz, from 625MHz, 1000MHz stock).
I'm curious to see some comparison between XPS15 and notebook with only HD4000, in gaming scenario.

 

because the XPS is more of a mobile machine than a desktop replacement now dell said this that their shift is now to highly portable machines that still have some form of performance just not the performance of the old XPS line ...... there is the inspiron SE for that


and a system of 0.91" thick was never designed to run @ 80 - 100% CPU & GPU simultaneously unless you forgo the optical drive like mac and put 2 separate fans which i think dell should have done and just included an external optical drive and gave us 2 usb's on the right ... and a mini sub woofer .....

i will say this again dell slipped up and should have made this a studio and made the old xps slightly simmer / lighter with the same level of specs and JBL sound as the NEW XPS

 

I very much agree with these statements. Dell has mismanaged their laptop lines to an extent and created this confusion among long time consumers familiar with the spirit of the previous generations of XPS machines. Maybe they should be called XMPS now.