XPS 15 (L521X) Owner's Lounge

There is no difference between legacy and uefi with legacy rom enabled if you have w7 installed in legacy mode.

 

You can not install the driver in W8 as long it is deactivated in the BIOS. It is strange that you can not select it. Are you sure the mSATA is installed?

 

Yes, in the BIOS it is listed at "SAMSUNG SSD PM830 mSATA 32GB". In Windows 8, I have a D: drive called DATAPART1. It's empty though.
I am able to install the Intel Rapid Storage driver and app. The app says everything is good with both drives (it lists my 750GB HDD and the 32GB mSATA).
I am unable to install the Intel Rapid Start application. It says my system doesn't meet the minimum requirements
In the BIOS, I have SATA Operation set to "Intel Smart Response Technology" and a bit further down, the "Intel Rapid Start Technology" item is greyed out and cannot be selected.

Ideas?

 

Sorry, I thought Smart Response is grey.

I'm not sure but I think the SSD should be without a partition. Did you install windows with AHCI setting? This makes it hard to activate SRT afterwards.

 

It's Windows 8 PRO installed by Dell...just the way it came. I thought it odd, with the 32GB mSATA, that it wasn't configured to use it.

 

Even if you will be successful it won't work without any problems in every case. I had sometimes the problem that W8 does not boot anymore. I had to toggle the AHCI/SRT setting.

My proposal: Buy a Samsung 840 Pro SSD and throw the mSATA/HDD away

Anyone interested? I'm selling mine
Samsung PCIe mSATA (SATA) SSD mit 32 GB MZ-MPC032D | eBay mSATA SSD
Western Digital WD Scorpio Blue 1 TB HDD Festplatte WD10JPVT | eBay HDD 1 TB

 

I haven't run win8 with the intel smart stuff enabled, as I am using a 120Gb Mushkin mSATA ssd for the OS host drive.

No need to run the intel boot/hibernation acceleration when the base windows stuff handles it just as well, with more flexible drive partition setup, in this configuration.

Doesn't help the guy who has the OS on the HDD though, sorry. ;^(

 

I'm sure everyone is sick of these same questions being asked all the time, but I'd tried using the Search Thread function and couldn't really find the answer I was looking for.

I'm considering getting this notebook with the i5-3210m, does it tend to throttle under heavy tasks?

 

Thanks for at least trying with the search.

Word on the street is that the i5 is less an issue since it doesn't generate as much heat as the i7.

 

I was unable to install the vast majority of drivers due to already having newer versions.

 

OMG I can confirm that having the dummy sd card causes an increased boot time in Windows 8 as well. With the dummy it takes around 14 seconds... without it takes 3 seconds on a full restart (without the fast start-up thing from windows 8). This is using the Samsung 512 GB SSD drive.

 

3 seconds?!?! What?

 

I had the same issue with the Windows 7 version from the outlet. I followed the steps from this link and it worked great: Re: Intel Rapid Start Technology - Laptop General Hardware Forum - Laptop - Dell Community

 

For no good reason ... thermal management humor ....

xkcd: Workflow

Be sure to wait for the mouse-hover tooltip to pop up.

 

Taken from the dell support site regarding the wireless issue:

THERE IS A FIX FOR THE WIRELESS PROBLEM for N-6235: - NEW INTEL DRIVER.

today the dell tech downloaded and installed the new Intel driver. this has FIXED the problem. before the fix using wireless 3.5Mbps download speed. Using dongle 24Mbps. Now without the dongle 24Mbps.

Using the Intel N-6235 card:



Driver version: 15.5.7.52

___________________________________--

More people have confirmed it's working. Anybody tried and does it only work with windows 8 or?

 

Any one else having any luck with this?

 

I'm not using the 6235 any more, using the Killer-N 1202 now, but with the driver stack update from last week I'm getting ~ 100 Mbps u/d at up to about 20-25' at home (2.4 Ghz, 802.11n). Haven't done real testing though, just anecdotal.

 

which killer N driver are you using? How did you set it up?

 

How do you like the Killer N and how bad was it to install? This is my last attempt at getting this card to work.
As soon as I graduate from college this labtop is getting some upgrades

 

Yep, the owner broke it alright, just got of the phone will dell support, was a long wait, but their sending out a engineer to replace the antenna as a good will gesture as its not covered under warranty because somebody else broke it, but we'll see how things go on Wednesday to see if it helps

 

I may not be reading correctly, so this is not me being argumentative.

I see the default warranty as 1 yr standard. I know at launch (I was working for the team at Dell who planned and launched the product at the time) it was the default offering and part of the cost justification. It seems as though they have quietly changed it to 1 year standard.

But again, I could be totally missing something.

 

xnap & tonkawv:

Installing the killer-n wasn't difficult, physically you just need a Torx T5 driver and a cross-tip screwdriver to be able to take the bottom of the unit. The Owners Manual on Dell.com has pictoral instructions on how to replace the WLAN card, it's not a big deal.

I'm liking the Killer-N, as it bolstered my systems WiFi performance quite a bit as a direct swap-out vs the 6235. I have since put the 6235 in my wife's Studio XPS 1645 where it is serving good network behavior ... and has supported Win 8 drivers where her old Dell 1510 didn't.

Software wise, my installation of the drivers was documented earlier, maybe another thread, so I'll do the short version here (again)...

0. Download all updated drivers from dell.com (2013/2/6 edition)

1. uninstall all drivers that are going to be replaced, and any affected drivers (e.g. unwind the software stack completely), reboot as required.

2. install all new drivers, in order, rebooting as requested by a driver install or at each *reboot* point at minimum. note special activity for the nvidia and killer driver installs...

- BIOS (if necessary, I was already at a13 though)
- intel chipset
- freefall sensor
- intel management interface
- intel sata driver
- realtek audio driver
*reboot*
- intel hd 4000 video driver
- nvidia m640 driver, note: after install disable the nvidia update service, and disable the nvidia update user account
*reboot*
- realtek ethernet network driver
*reboot*
- killer-n kit, note: after install go delete the shortcut to the killer-n manager from the Startup folder under the All Users account, from the Start Menu directory tree. You may need to search.
*reboot*
attach to WLAN
run the killer-n manager, let it do it's "optimization for your network"
*reboot*
- install synaptics driver
*reboot*
- configure synaptics driver to taste
- install QuickSet
*reboot*

done

If you're using the Dell 1901, replace the killer setup with that, and obviously ignore the killer manager stuff.

If you're using the Intel 6235 then install that, and the intel bluetooth driver, (in that order) instead of the killer stuff.

If you're using the Intel 6235 then at the end you could then install the Smart Connect and WiDi support

Note that I am NOT using the Intel Rapid Start stuff at all. I have my OS (Win8) installed on a mSATA SSD and have no need for it. If you're going to use Rapid Start though I'd do that last. I know there's a lot of reboots here and it may speed things up temporarily, however it'd be caching stuff you may not need again. *shrug*

 

Man.....I was hoping I wouldn't have to be apart of any negative post on this thread but boy was I wrong. As much of you have noticed, Major Wi-Fi problems, Touch Pad Issues, and now my screen doesn't work at all......It's been a hell of a 3 Days since i've recieved the laptop. Nothing but issues......my XPS Studio 16 from 4 years ago with the original i7 never gave me this many problems in its lifetime!

Dell has really dropped the ball as far as quality control and properly addressing multiple customers issues with the same product.

 

Welcome back Bill! I see you are working at Dell again!

 

I am having issues selecting the correct drivers. Some of the drivers that Dell "recommends" appear to be older than some of the previous versions. Anyone have a suggestion?

Mc

 

These newest drivers have really helped my WIFI. It doubled my speed within ten foot of my router and made it functional in other rooms of my house. I am writing this while downloading stuff in my bedroom. I definitely could not do that before.
I still miss my studio XPS 1645 that this replaced but now that I have wifi that works its tolerable.

 

IS your current driver 10.0.1.71?

I had the january one installed but I'm not sure what the change is for the february one if there even is a change.

 

yes, killer-n 10.0.1.71

FWIW I have little faith in the version number tracking for notebook stuff. The in-registry configuration data can have a dramatic influence over the behavior of the driver, and that can change from install package without changing the driver revision.

Similarly, the driver file can change without the driver revision changing. The only way to be sure is to do a binary file comparison between the releases. The UNIX way of including cryptographic hash values for the files in a package makes sense, at least it's easy to know what changed, but that doesn't happen for Windows drivers ... the whole thing is hopelessly obfuscated.

I despise that Dell doesn't publish what the meaningful changes are for their driver releases, stated "it's urgent" for everything is just as bad as stating nothing, and irresponsible if you ask me.

The rule of thumb of "if it ain't broke don't fix it" applies here ... however with the l521x the wlan performance, and anything affecting thermal management, cpu, and gpu performance is sort of by definition 'broke' so it's worth trying the updates. Probably.

My logic for why I bothered with this pack goes like this

- total time to update my machine: estimated 30 minutes
- cost to download : free
- likelihood of breakage : low
- cost of Dell to produce the massive driver package : significant

Therefore I assume, dangerously, that there was a *reason* behind dell publishing this driver set - something making it worth bumping most everything, other than some manager having a wild hare up their butt for correcting the spelling or copyright notice in some embedded file.

Lastly, I also strongly believe that for Windows it is a best-practice to UNINSTALL anything you are replacing or updating, software wise, so that the updated driver/package install has as much as a clear-field for installation as possible. There's just too many ways I've seen things break by stacking updates onto the machine.

Some vendors take the time to make their update mechanism work well, but most don't bother, so I play it safe.

 

One question guys, im wanting to buy this machine but i knew that it have a lot of problems, with screen and wifi, its this solved or should i buy another laptop ?....

 

SeritoS: there was a recent driver update that may or may not help/fix things. Too early to tell. Past history speaks to software not being able to completely fix the wifi, but who knows.


Sent from my brain using neurons fueled by glucose

 

This laptop is reaching it's 1 year mark so if you can hold off a few more months you can get a newer and better one?

Or maybe you're getting this because the price is good but honest it's not worth the headache

 

currently dell is selling this model with the Killer Wireless-N, 1202 by default. Does this fix the wirelss problems?

The Dell Online Store: Build Your System (right colum)

 

It worked better for me, for sure.


Sent from my brain using neurons fueled by glucose

 

sorry if this has been asked, but can you remove the battery from this laptop? I am worried that the battery is always being charged because I am using it at my house leaving it plugged in...

thanks for any info...

 

The dell 'desktop' power management mode will take care of that for you.

Only way to tasks battery out requires partial disassembly.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk HD

 

thanks sir, is there a setting I should use for this?

 

I have been reading about problems regarding the wifi...and I just bought my L521x 2 days ago...

I went to the device manager and my network adapter states: Dell Wireless 1510 Wireless-N WLAN Mini-Card

Havent really tested it that much...

 

Killer N works better for me too.

The touchpad and keyboard issue when screen is closed is really annoying though. I just plugged in my computer to watch a movie and the mouse moves all over the place, clicks and pauses the movie and stuff.

 

is the Killer N same as the Dell Wireless 1510 Wireless-N WLAN Mini-Card? Sorry for the noob question...

 

I spoke too soon. The drivers helped but it still fades in and out when not close to the router. So much for hope

 

are the problems only with the intel centrino ones and not the dell wireless cards?

 

From what I have read it is both. The only people I have heard have good signal is people with Killer N cards they installed themselves.
I have read theories from its the case fault to the USB 3.0 so untill dell actually figures it out we wont know

 

I had problems with wireless signal too! I solved it by replacing the router antennae with a much larger one. Now I get a strong wireless signal all throughout my house. I can even surf my web at my neighbour's house two doors up the road.

 

Denniscu: I think the setting is either in quickset or the mobility center. I forget which honestly and it may vary win8 vs win7.

Re wifi:

- dell 1901 != killer n (google for killer-n)
- dell 1510 is a very old part, no Bluetooth
- killer-n helps sure, but hardware design definitely affecting receive sensitivity and thus connection stability and speed
- do not assume, plan on, or think dell will ever fix the wifi in the l521x - at this point their engineering is at least two generations beyond and they are under financial strain.
- I would not be surprised to see dell leave the consumer hardware business over the next 5-10 years altogether, it is a shrinking business because of phones and tablets


Sent from my brain using neurons fueled by glucose

 

But with my legacy installed Win7 the boot up time is already shorter than your UEFI installation so whet is the point to reinstall in UEFI?

 

thanks for the info, so that means my wireless card is old, LOL...i have not tried the wifi on the 2nd floor of our house though...

 

I had a technician coming in today to replace Dell 1901 card to a Killer N 1202. There were some problems installing the new driver for Killer card. Had to do a system restore to get it installed properly. I tried twice.
But after all these trouble, performance of the Killer card seems to be less than my Previous Dell 1901 card. :/
What should I do ?? Shall I replace it back to Dell 1901 ??

 

Are you using an Airport Extreme base station? I've seen bad performance with that when visiting family, but was unable to spend time on the airport to research the settings that may be in conflict.

Personally I'd uninstall all wlan drivers, then reinstall the killer software, and check.

I don't trust that driver conflicts don't happen, and I don't trust Dell techs further than I can spit a hippopotamus.

 

Jace, I have noticed the exact same issue with video play back as you. Did you ever find a solution to this problem?
Thanks.

 

Where do you guys update your drivers? From the dell website or through windows update?