New XPS 15z

I just added 1.30 more hours to my battery life, power saver and 6 lines of brightness.
Now it is showing my over 6 hours while typing.
I noticed that when the battery was fully charged and unplugged the power, the battery jumped from 100% to 92% instantly. Plugged the power back 100% charged, unplugged again 92%.
I removed the back cover, unplugged the battery cable, pressed and hold the power button 30-60 seconds, connected again the battery cable waited a few more minutes before power it up, done a bit of dust cleaning inside.
Put back the bottom cover, turn it on and amazingly started charging nicely...92%, 93%, 94%...to 100%. Now is charging and discharging as it should be, and gained more battery life.... Now is 5.55 hours left.
Maybe it could be useful to somebody who has the same problem I had.

 

Thanks for sharing this! I've got the same problem where the battery jumps to 92% immediately do I'll have to try this.

 

5.5 to 6 hours!! WOW!!...don't think I got that much even when my lappy was new!
That's a interesting tip you mentioned.. too bad it requires some work to open it

ok, how old is your lappy? any specific power options?
also, how do you use your battery? .. for example, lets say you use 10 hours per day, how much of that time is it on battery?

 

Well, yes, I did a few changes in terms of getting the best out of the battery.
I chose the XPS 15z over the L521x, to be the main laptop, I like it better...
I disable the keyboard light, while on battery, (its pity that there is not an option in Bios to disable it permanently)
Disabled the turbo boost, in Bios there an option, ONLY if you have the MODDED Bios for XPS 15z, ( (UEFI) Dell XPS 15z L511z modded BIOS - and HOWTO) otherwise has to be deactivated in More power option -> Power saver->change plan settings->change advanced power settings->process power management -> maximum processor state set to less than 100%. Mine is set to 99% and the Turbo Boost is disabled. As I said, I can disable it in Bios but sometimes I activate the turbo boost just setting the 100% processor state, no need to go into Bios again... I have the i5 2450 processor
I mainly leave it disable completely in all power options, this way the fan works a bit more quiet....
The brightness on power saver is set to six lines, it is alright for my eyes
I also use it around 13-14 hours daily, of which the battery 2-3 hours.
Maybe the modded Bios helped a bit...
The warranty, one year, expires today. 200€ for two more years extension is too much.
Dell will come over to change the palm rest and the bottom cover.......

 

XPS 15z owners. It is normal the thin black border around the edge of LCD?
The LCD has been changed yesterday with a new one, I have not noticed this issue on the other one.
One of the pictures below it has been taken for Dell community, other user complaining about it!
I installed/uninstall the video drivers, but no help.
XPS 15 L521x it is fine, no border at all, even the Studio 1537 is ok.

 

hmm.. modding bios is a bit scary especially since my warranty is over! (ya too much for warranty extension)

I'm curious -- anyone else did this bios modding?

I'll try the other settings you mentioned and see how it will work .. (apart from the modding)

 

Hello,

New the forums, had my XPS 15z for about 1.5 years and now experiencing system lag and slowness. Using apps like Photoshop is a nightmare.

Looking at my task manager, it seems out of whack, 100% with 1.0mbps, and then 95% with the top activity at 2.1mbps?

I am not sue if I am having hardware issues or software (Win 8.1)

 

Disk should not be at 100%, did you install the right Intel Rapid Storage Technology (IRST) drivers and chipset drivers?

 

I cannot say without reseacrhing, which I am going to do now. I had issues with the original update to windows 8, so I wiped and started form scratch. I always thought 8 was slow until I go 8.1, then I realized it could be slower.

 

Hello, I have installed the Intel Rapid Storage Technology. THank you for that suggestion.

Is there a guide or checklist of things I could go through to make sure I have everything I need? I believe I am having driver issues for the nVidia card. When I last updated through the NVIDIA GeoForce Experience software, sound out through the headphone jacks stopped working so I rolled the driver back.

 

I found and installed the Intel Processor Identification Utility. In the frequency test it is Reporting 2.25 GHz and noted Expected 2.80 GHz. It also states System Bus 69mhz Expected 100mhz. L3 Cache 4MB, though it didnt say what it expected for

This utility does not update my drivers from what I have found and when I go to Device Manager > Processor it list the processor 4 times and when I check for up dates, it finds that it is up to date with a driver from 4/21/09. Driver Version 6.3.9600.16384



I downloaded and installed Intel Turbo Boost and it shows my perforamnce up to 3.3ghz but restarted my computer an now it shows Reporting 2.125ghz in the Intel Processor Identification Utility

 

...Still enjoying the 15z ....ordered EVO256GB and i will upgrade the 750Gb standard HDD.
It is first SSD I will be using, I expect a bit more speed compared with the HDD.
I will see now.

 

Yes you will see the difference i'm using samsung SSD.


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