XPS 15 (L521X) Owner's Lounge

Yeah, I agree, truly sad.

There's been some discussion here about modifying the base plate to allow for better in-flow of cool air, which may also help, but I haven't heard of anyone actually doing so.

I'm such a light gamer these days it's not a factor for me, so I haven't really bothered researching it. My usage is fairly cpu-piggy, but since mine will maintain full-boost on whatever cores it's running and hold there I don't need much change.

*shrug*

related: our wifi router at home died last week and we have a new one coming in this week, so I'll get to see in a more controlled way how a good router deals with the killer-n in my machine on both 2.4 and 5 ghz bands. We're getting one of the late model ASUS Black Knight devices, so I'm very nerdly-network-geek excited about that. I should be able to test that on Friday. :^D

 

Sorry but what does removing the SD dummy come to play in this process?

 

Yeah, that's about it. If you use it with the integrated graphics it should work just fine. It just can't handle both the GPU and CPU at the same time.

I actually tried running one of these things with no bottom plate and a notebook cooler. I still couldn't stop it from throttling entirely.

 

Picked up this spec for £579 on outlet:

XPS 15 - L521x
32GB mSATA3 SSD for Minicard Slots
8X DVD+/-RW Drive Slot Load
English Genuine Windows 7 SP1 Home Premium (64Bit OS)
1 TB SATA Hard Drive (5400 RPM)
8 GB Dual Channel DDR3 1600MHz Memory (2 DIMMs)
Processor: Intel® Core™ i5-3210M (2.50 GHz with Turbo Boost 2.0 up to 3.10 GHz) (2 GB GDDR5 NVIDIA GeForce GT 640M Graphics)
Wireless: Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6235 and Bluetooth 4.0 Combo Card

I hadn't seen any information about throttling on a dual core with GT 640m and the information in this thread had me worried about what I'd end up with.

The good news is the laptop is amazing, as noted many times it is easily one of the best looking laptops money can buy, as far as mobility it fits fine in a backpack. As far as throttling, I haven't noticed it at all on less intensive games, Civilization V runs smooth as silk at 1080p on medium/high settings. When I tried Battlefield 3 on a medium preset at 1080p the CPU throttled down to the minimum multiplier, I used throttle stop to force it to run at 20x multiplier and it runs very well, I get a smooth 50ish fps and the game plays really well. Under these conditions the CPU bounces between 75c and 80c, with a max temperature of 84c over the course of a day. The max temp for Ivy Bridge is 105c, but these are still very high and I'd like to get them under 75c to be happy. I just tried Crysis 3 a few minutes ago and I managed to get it to a playable fps with lowest graphics, high textures and 720p resolution. Note that my ambient temperatures are a cool 23c.

The GPU hasn't throttled once, in fact when I'm gaming it's always turbo boosted to 700mhz.

The bad news is that the WiFi is inconsistent, I'm not in the best environment to judge it as I am in a Victorian era house with saturated WiFi channels, giving inconsistent performance room to room. The speed is very variable, I'm on a fiber optic line and most computers in the house manage to get up to 30mb/s off the 60mb/s connection. The maximum I've got is 20mb/s about 4 meters away from the router with a wall in between. Moving up a floor and a room away I get around 8mb/s. I'd rate the WiFi as being fine for streaming TV, playing games and general browsing of the net, but when it's mass download time I've been plugging in an Ethernet cable to get the most out of my 60mb/s connection.

The next issue is the 'gridding', I can definitely notice it if I look for it, but I have good vision and only one other person I've shown has noticed it, but when in general use it doesn't bother me in the slightest. In terms of disruption if you've used a cheap e-ips display and noticed horizontal lines on black screens it's akin to that.

Anyway, I just wanted to post some more positive information, as most content people don't tend to post on here and like I did during the long wait for this laptop you can get very worried.

I'll definitely be looking into re-seating the heatsinks and replacing the wireless card in the future but for now I'm very pleased.

 

Is not bad price you paid, in fact is really good.
I paid double you price and they said that is new, but sent a refurbished from a company named Pulsar in the UK that does only refurbished stuff...
I just got an email from Dell that they are going to exchange it with a new one.
I hope this time is new.

 

That's what I forgot to mention, this thing hasn't been used, it's in perfect condition, I'm not sure why you'd want to pay for a new one!

 

Contacted Dell about the throttling issue. They say they have no idea about it and are sending a tech to come in and look at it. I'm not sure what good that'll do, as its a bloody hardware problem. Im actually shocked that the person I spoke to didnt know that there was this issue with the l521x.

Anyways bought the thermal paste today. Will put the paste in after the tech has looked at it and then I'll post the results. Lets hope he doesnt tell me to send it off for indefinite repairs.

 

Hi everyone. I have been using L521x at home fairly close to my home router and have so far been unable to test out the WiFi problem --- now for the first time I am bringing it to Uni and immediately I realise the slow WiFi despite having 3-4 bars signals!

Hardware-wise it is a Win8 machine but OS-wise as I requested I am still on Windows 7 Home Premium (but I purchased the Win 8 Pro upgrade at the Deal price) - would upgrading to Windows 8 improve in this problem? I think a new driver has been released which is only available to Win8 users?

 

andy: Dell has been dealing with complaints about throttling since last June. They do not necessarily share that information to various CSR and tech people, or they are blatantly denying/ignoring it, whatever.

calvingoive: win8 will not intrinsically help, it's a hardware problem of the machine - not the wifi card, or the OS, or the drivers, etc. Different wifi hardware and driver releases have helped mitigate the issues but the fundamental problem has been proven time and again by users on this forum and others to be beyond that kind of repair. The closest kind of repair possible would be a replacement of the display/lid/antenna component and careful layout of the antenna leads inside the lower unit...but that is still no guarantee.

 

Which module do you have? Dell or Intel? If you have the Intel: Buy a Killer N 1202. Drivers won't help. W7/W8 has no difference, too.

 

This will fasten the boot process (W7 = 12 seconds, W8 = 2-4 seconds).

 

I think more people are talking in forums instead of talking with Dell

 

that is really sad. Than more people should contact Dell to let them raise the temperature limit. What do you think?

 

Is there a trick to getting the XPS 15 and Windows 8 to see a Bluetooth mouse?

I have a new BT mouse, and using the normal "Add a bluetooth device" using the BT icon in the system tray takes me to the wonderful (not) Windows 8 screen for PC settings.
On this screen, it automatically scans for new devices (over Wifi also, it seems, not just BT). Half the time it finds all my networked printers, and media servers, and the other half the time it finds absolutely nothing.
Never does it find my new BT mouse. (yes, my BT mouse is in discovery mode). Just to see if my BT mouse was good or bad, I tried adding it to my Windows 7 desktop PC. It picked it up right away, no problems.

What the heck? I really dislike Windows 8. What am I missing?

UPDATE: downloaded and installed the latest (02/03/13) drivers from Dell for the DW 1901 card. Rebooted and now it finds the mouse. Problem solved.

 

hi guys

i talk to dell today in chart, guess what, they said they fixed the wifi issue recently. is that true?

 

The only "recent" thing I've seen/heard of from Dell was a huge driver-stack update.

None of the change notification stated what was changed, nor what it fixed.

Anecdotal evidence from the few here that have used the new stack and compared showed hit or miss changes, some better, but not all.

It didn't make a significant change for me, FWIW.

Dell has been claiming for a long time that a replacement lid assembly would fix it and for the most part it hasn't made any change for the people that have reported here.

There are also a few people here reporting receiving units that just work well. I don't recall names but I think about a total of five or six units (one guy has three). I don't consider that a significant sample.

 

Thx for the answer

 

Just trying to keep it real.

FWIW, I really like my machine and enjoy having it as my PC...but I don't live and die work wise by either the wifi performance nor combined cpu/gpu performance, nor am I a digital artist. :^)

 

I assume you were talking about an internal WiFi card isn't it?

Is it difficult to take the machine apart? I have never really opened up a laptop and I am admittedly not feeling too confident... :/

 

Yes, he's talking about the wifi.

It's a LITTLE pains-taking to open the machine, but if you are AT ALL handy and can follow directions then changing the wifi card out is not a big problem.

- uninstall current wifi drivers, power down
- unplug machine
- It's like ten (10) screws to get the bottom off the machine (two cross-tip, the rest use a T-5 sized Torx driver)
- Gently disconnect the two (2) antenna leads
- It's one (1) screw to free the existing wifi
- unclick old wifi
- gently click-in new wifi
- screw it down (gently)
- reconnect antenna leads (they are tight, but don't be too rough or force anything)
- replace the bottom, gently replace the screws (the T5 screws are particularly easy to strip, they don't take much to hold the bottom on)
- power up
- install wifi driver
- reconnect to wlan
- have a beer

The Dell "Owners Manual" has pictoral guides.

 

Many thanks for the explanation. More generally - does one need to wear anti-static gloves etc to perform the tasks?

Also is Killer wireless-N 1202 the best out there and therefore people are recommending them or is it just simple fact that it works experimentally?

Cheers for everyone's help and advice!

 

Hello guys, this is my first post so I thought I would start with hello. I've read the quite a bit of this thread and despite everything I decided to give it a shot. I just ordered mine this evening and am anticipating delivery on March 6. I got the one listed for $1699 but used a $100 coupon code and I guess I get a $200 gift card back as well. What can I buy from DELL for 200 bucks? Anyway, the reason I posted was to hopefully clear up some confusion I'm having with the wifi cards. From what I have read replacing it with the Killer 1202 is the best bet, however it looks like the laptop already comes with that. I copied and pasted the listing below from my order confirmation and put in BOLD the parts in question. What gives? I appreciate any input and look forward to learning from you guys and hopefully contributing a little knowledge myself.


225-2991 XPS 15

319-1285 3rd Generation Intel Core i7-3632QM processor

319-0066 12GB, DDR3, 1600MHz

331-9396 US English Keyboard, 80 Key

320-3536 Silver Anodized Aluminum and 15.6" FHD 1080p Truelife WLED Display and Skype-Certified HD Webcam

320-3538 NVIDIA GeForce GT 640M with 2GB GDDR5 VRAM

421-9525 SRV Software Killer Wireless-N, 1202 for Video and Voice w/ BT 4.0

342-4471 750GB 7200 HDD with 32GB mSATA

421-8687 Windows 8, 64-bit, English

410-0565 No Adobe Reader Selected

318-2092 Slot Load Blu-ray Disc BD-Combo (Reads BD and Writes to DVD/CD)

318-1493 Waves MaxxAudio 4.0

430-4966 Killer Wireless-N, 1202 for Video and Voice w/ BT 4.0

331-1894 US Power Cord, 125V, 1 Meter

331-9184 MOD,GDE,PROD,SERI,ENG,DAO

331-9401 Badge

331-9456 Placement XPS

331-7266 Shipping Material, Clear

421-8828 Additional Software

331-9403 Platform Quickset

312-1338 65 WHr 9-cell Battery

421-8878 Cyberlink Media Suite Essentials BD

310-4388 No Wireless Display Application and Driver

421-8801 Microsoft Office Trial

993-8544 Dell Hardware Limited Warranty, Initial Year

993-8554 Dell Limited Hardware Warranty Plus In-Home Service After Remote Diagnosis, Initial Year

950-9797 No Warranty, Year 2 and 3

954-1900 Premium Phone Support, Initial Year

420-8878 Soft Contracts Dell In-Home Hardware Agreement

469-2120 ENERGY STAR qualified/EPEAT registered

331-0877 Retail Label, Dell, RETURNPOL

421-8626 SW RTL RGTN 2 X

461-8055 $200 Dell Promo Gift Card - Arrives in 10-20 days, carries a 90 Day Exp. Terms at Dell.com/giftcard

412-1089 No Adobe Elements Software Requested

730-3887 Thank You for Choosing Dell

421-9434 PocketCloud Companion, Standard, Digital Delivery, Inspiron, XPS; English

469-2486 CFI Not Included

469-2152 No SSD SW required

310-4386 No Palmrest Label Included

 

A 1080p Monitor if you dont already have one, but yeah I have my laptop and a 2nd monitor and I love the extra workspace when I'm at home

 

Yeah, it seems that whenever I speak with them, its the whole generic shabangabang, and theyll follow the usual procedures, when really its not the usual procedures needed. Theres definitely some denial going on here. They should just admit to the laptop having issues to help people make the right choice in the first place.

 

@c0derbear: did you hear or read something about routing antennas within the lower unit? for which result? Like you, I really like this PC very much, it's really a good piece of hardware, except for the Wifi (notice: I don't play, so the NVidia is always shutdown on my XPS).

 

calvingoive: anti-static gloves are NEVER a BAD idea, but if you're careful to make sure you discharge any static and have the machine disconnected properly and so forth you CAN work safely without them. I think it's better to have the anti-static stuff, but I don't happen to and I'm so rarely into the machines in our house that it's not worth the expendature ... I just get really careful.

As to the Killer-N being "the best" ... Bigfoot (the company that makes them) has a decent reputation and their PCI network cards for PC's were definitely top notch. There's not as much hardware-based differentiation on the Killer-N notebook products (not as much space), but they seem to be making solid hardware and their driver stack is working well. It is not required to run the Killer-N "app" constantly to use the hardware, but it's worth letting it run once to do whatever "optimization" it does for the network connection. It reliably works better than the Dell 1901, which is interesting data because they both use the Qualcomm Atheros radio for wifi so far as I know ... it may be different generations though, and it's certainly different driver implementations.

fcstevensv: Dell has been doing some minor running changes to the L521X, and shipping it with the Killer-N is an obvious reaction to improving the wifi reliability/performance. Dell started shipping L521X specific drivers for the Killer-N part only within the last month or so, before then we just used the base drivers from Bigfoot. I have not noticed a functional difference between the two, but I am using the Dell drivers on mine currently.

 

Hey guys, Dell tech finally came for a visit. Did SFA just as I thought he would. Didn't seem to have any clue about the throttling issue, so I showed him bf3. He had no idea what to do, he ended replacing the heat sink, which didn't change a thing. Then he said that he thinks its a game compatibility issue! He told to install another game and if problems persist, ring Dell. He barely looked at the bloody thing!

Anyways so after he left I decided to open it, flipped it upside down so the screen is resting on the floor and the base is upright. I blasted a fan on the base and got into a random bf3 mission. Had no throttling issues
Whatsoever, the game worked perfectly! But its only if you play it upside down with a fan cranked and the base off! Maybe a cooling pad can help cool it down?

Oh and Jesus that heat sink gets hot!

 

Yeah it's a known issue. That single fan cooling the CPU and the GPU is not powerful enough. Cooler pads definitely help but it's not an attractive solution.

 

Is anybody else getting pretty bad battery life? I'm only getting around 4 hours of battery life doing things like web browsing and listening to music at around 30% brightness.

 

My mistake. I was using Throttlestop 4 instead of 5 lol. It's alot better now. GPU throttling I fixed up by using nvidiainspector and forcing the Pstate to P5 and then forcing the clock speeds, so that it can't throttle back down when it gets past 80C. I'm pretty sure now I've solved all the problems I've had with this machine, but like I said, the wifi still leaves a little to be desired.

 

Yep I get about 4 hours of use on web surfing and just microsoft word. I lose about 20% in an hour... Not really the advertised 6 hours and I'm using an ssd too and have aggressive power saving settings.

4-5 hours seems to be the norm

 

can you tell me please how did you use the nividiainspector to force the clock speed ?

 

@romu: I've seen people talk about routing the antenna somewhere other than the lid, but honestly I don't see where putting it in the base is going to help.

Keep in mind that the antenna itself is a pretty small thing, square-ish or long-ish but not more than about 1cm or so in dimensions, give or take. There's just no ROOM to get something placed in the base in a meaningful way I fear.

Related to that would be the running of the antenna leads, preventing them from grounding anywhere and from picking up interference from anything generating high frequency signal ... like the cpu, gpu, clock chips, power regulators, etc. Again, there's just not a lot of room down there.

It'd be interesting to see someone one-off a case bottom with two antennae externalized on it (but still protected), with good lead routing. It'd take machining the bottom though, I fear.

 

Stick this into a batch file, (and change the name obviously) and you need to download nvidiainspector and put it on your desktop, as per the commands below.

cd c:/Users/Elliott/Desktop/nvidiainspector
C:\Users\Elliott\Desktop\nvidiaInspector\nvidiaInspector.exe -setGpuClock:0,1,709 -setMemoryClock:0,1,2000
nvidiainspector -forcepstate:0,5
command.com
color f0

Which should set it to stay on boost indefinitely.

cd c:/Users/Elliott/Desktop/nvidiainspector
nvidiainspector -restoreAllPStates:0
nvidiainspector -forcepstate:0,16
command.com
color f0

Stick this in a batch file to set it back to defaults. Its a shame we've got to do this but that's just how it is. It seems after a while, the CPU seems to throttle down due to the high temps (97+). Its a pretty slow process though, so you can get a bit of gaming in.

 

FWIW, I was reading the NvidiaInspector wiki and once you configure it in the GUI you can save a short-cut to your desktop that causes the parms to be set. No need for a batch file. Maybe.

 

Update: Took out the heat sink and applied Arctic MX4 Thermal compund to the cpu and gpu cores. Noticed better performance during battlefield 3, but nonetheless, it still throttled. Decided to go into the console of BF 3 and cap the frame rate to 40 fps. I had medium - high settings on 1600X900 resolution. Frame rate was very steady on 31 fps, would throttle as low as 25-26. Very playable, and wouldnt go any lower than that. I'm pretty happy with this considering when I first played it would drop sporadically from 40 - 5fps. I think its the best we can do. Unfortunately the fan doesnt force enough hot air out of the laptop. Dell need to provide a fan with more rpm.

 

The reason I capped the frame rate was because the cpu/gpu would heat up the same just to get to 50-60fps, capping reduced the workload and hence less heat. My next step is to find a decent enough cooling pad that can force air into the awkwardly placed vents at the base.

 

Would preventing the gpu from throttling cause damage?

 

Depends on how high the temps rise. If the GPU manages to reach and/or exceed it's operating limit and stay there for an extended period then yes, it would probably fail prematurely for it's age. It may display artifacts and other graphic glitches as it gets too hot. It will reach that temp sooner as dust starts to clog the intake and sets up on the heatsinks, etc.

With the limited cooling capacity of the laptop I would imagine other parts won't be so happy about reaching those temps either, CPU especially since it shares in the cooling system and is likely to be stressed as well.

Based on some others that have tried, I'm not sure a laptop cooler will be sufficient to help it.

 

Yeah definitely not worth it!

 

If you stop it from throttling it will just hit the thermal shutdown limit on the processor and shut down or the GPU will overheat and the graphics driver will crash. The problem with this design is not the software, it's that the cooling system can't dissipate the heat the GPU and CPU put out.

 

Well, I know not that many people will want to try this, but I purchased a chill pad (Targus gaming chill mat) and it has an aluminum grill on top with three fans. I can play games for hours/better half of a day with no heating/throttling problems at all. I also use the razer game booster which closes background crap while you play games and it shows you your computers temp. Even when playing rift on max settings, it never even gets close to that 97 degrees. It stays below 70c even after hours. Without the cooling pad, it gets noticeably hotter and the temp jumps on the game booster. I would consider it, it was a life saver for me (that and getting rid of windows 8). I even sometimes getting excess of 100 fps in wow on ultra maxed out settings.

 

Hi there, I was looking at purchasing a cooling pad, I felt that the thermal repasting I did worked, but wasn't enough. I'm looking at the cooler master notepal u3. It has three moveable fans, rpm set to max 1800 rpm and 22 cfm. This is good because the vents on the l521x are at the back, and most cooling pads have a fan in the middle. Do the fans on your cooling pad draw away enough heat that there is no throttling whatsoever? If so, this is very good news.

 

Yeah it does have that option, but as far as I can tell its just for the settings, there's no visible option I can see for forcing p states from the GUI But I agree, the capping at such high temps will probably cause some components to have shorter life spans than usual. I guess it comes down to how long you game and how you use the laptop :/ I'm still having the CPU throtting problem after a while on crysis 2, after half an hour it starts alternating to lower frequencies until in bottoms out eventually.. I'm using the latest throttlestop, any ideas?

 

Would you recommend MX4 Or Silver 5?

 

Research shows that MX4 works better, but the difference is marginal. I have also heard that the AS5 conducts as it is composed of a metal, which helped me decide to use MX4.

 

I bought an L521x off the outlet with the 1901 card and it arrived late last week. I can't connect to the internet at all. My previous laptops are all fine (including a previous L702x), even when outside in my back garden the speeds are consistent and high.

I've scrolled through pages and pages of solutions and ideas. On another forum, a number of people have had their problem fixed with the 6235 network card by downloading the latest driver (Wireless_15.3.1_Ds64.exe). Like I said, I have the 1901 card but can I download that and try to see if it resolves the issue?

Additionally, is there also any truth in doing a clean install of Windows 8 to make the wi-fi issue disappear?

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated as this is my new work laptop and it's of absolutely no use to me if the wi-fi doesn't work.

 

shapala: No, the 6235 driver is NOT for the 1901 card. Different hardware, not compatible.

If this is your work machine, my advice (with caveat) is to return it. The WiFi will *never* be as good as other roughly equivalent machines because Dell designed and manufactured the casing in such a way as it is very unreliable to get one that works well. It IS possible, just not LIKELY.

caveats:

- a number of us have replaced the wlan card with a different part and gotten better behavior. NOT perfect, NOT fixed, but usably better. This has been extra-cost to us, but you may be able to convince Dell to work with you and exchange for it if you are persistent and spend significant time. The device that seems MOST reliable is the "Bigfoot Killer-N 1202" wlan card. Dell currently supports it in the L521X.

- router choice has a big affect. My L521X with a Killer-N card in it basically doesn't work at all with my father-in-law's Apple Airport Extreme, which is a well-regarded router. I don't know if it's a limitation of the configuration of this particular router or not as it was not within scope of my actitivities to change their network configuration. Mine worked well enough, to a point, with my old router (DLink DIR-655), and seems to be working well with my current router (ASUS RT-AC66U, ".266" firmware) in both 2.4 and 5 Ghz bands - but I have not finished testing.

- I still carry an external dongle (which Dell provided me, upon complaint and request, last fall) in case the internal card still can't connect. I have to use this sometimes on public wifi (such as this morning at Starbucks).

So, it's up to you how much effort screwing with the L521X is worth, but for a dedicated work machine I would look elsewhere, maybe one of the late-model Dell Lattitude line, and certainly at competitors. Anything from dell with a "metal lid" I would regard suspect until it has proven to work well in most/all conditions.

 

There's a new driver for the dell wifi card dated 3/6 out. Try that new driver and see if it's better

 

Just bought a u3 cooler master pad for the laptop. Throttling has further reduced, but unfortunately it is still there. I started up a game of league of legends @ 1920X1080 and everything set to high. First 20 or so minutes was fantastic, hovered between 60-70 fps. After the 20 mins the throttling began albeit not as intense as without the cooler. Would get as low as 20fps before bouncing back up to 60 again. This would happen every 2-3 minutes (after the original 20 mins). I think the next step for me further down the line is to use a tool to make the vents bigger so the laptop can breathe more.

Ugghh so much unneccessary effort... Anyone know where I can purchase a spare base?