XPS 15 (L521X) Owner's Lounge

Re. WiFi issue:
I have installed Windows 8 Preview (as main OS not virtual) and the latest beta Drivers but the download speed did not Change compared to Win7 and the official Drivers and is still very slow

 

What were your total 3dmark scores? With the new bios, I saw a jump in the CPU scores, but a drop in the graphics scores.

N

 

bäh, at first I was really impressed by this laptop but now I'm really not sure if i should cancel my order.
did dell play tennis with this laptop or why does it have so many problems.

 

Had a tech come past today to try and fix the wifi issue with the xps 15, he replaced the wireless card with 2 different kinds to no avail, he said he'd replace the screen as his next and final step in the next day or so to confirm its not the antenna causing the rediculously slow speeds.

I'm fairly certain he won't be able to fix the issue, dell themselves haven't admited to a problem with their wifi connectivity so I reckon they've got no idea how to fix it, will most likely have to return the laptop if that's the case, no point in owning a laptop if I need to be right next to a router to use it effectively.

 

I'm starting to wonder how issues like these pass quality control. Are they hiring monkeys as engineers? The cooling system is useless and wifi hardly even works, how could Dell let such issues just pass? It's simply astonishing...

 

You will have to thank the beta testers who were overwhelmed by the free laptop, one of them even posted a great review not indicating any problems.

Looks like beta tester put the laptop on his desk, played some "movies" and tested how long he can hold for.

 

The beta testers tested the i5 with gt630 so the throttling wasn't noticed on it, I think.

 

They were given an i5, and not a i7 to test. So Dell deliberately compromised the issue by making it inexistant to them. The wifi issue should have indeed been present though. However, beta testing is a pre-final stage of releasing a product, which means they were already pretty sure everything worked the way it should. The beta testers are there to find small overlooked issues, these issues are far from small nor overlooked.
Perhaps the cost/benefit analysis which Dell applied, was very negative consumerwise?

 

The german review (also posted in this topic) also indicated bad wifi

 

really? could you give me the link to the review page? would be very glad ty

 

dell doesn't have great track record when it comes to wifi. My 15z was shocking. I actually had to go and purchase a wireless repeater to get it to work in areas where my iphone would. I am happy to wait for the fixes but I hope this time dell actually acknowledges the problems and does what is required to fix them asap. At the moment it feels like the early purchasers of this product are doing the beta testers job except we had to pay $2k+ for the privilege!

 

so i don't think i have the wi fi problem. i can get 5-10mb/s transfers in direct sight and it drops off too around 2mb when i am upstairs and through a few walls.

i also only have 4 gb of ram, so maybe that is the difference as some others have suggested? does someone who has the problem want to take out some of their ram to test?

 

My 3Dmark score was 11500 or thereabouts, the same as before I upgraded to a new BIOS. Still not home from work for a few hours.

 

There is no direct link as it is from a paper magazine:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/del...ell-xps-l521x-ivy-bridge-495.html#post8664301

Posted it already ~3 weeks ago without ANY reaction. Some time passed until some owners confirmed the issue. Looks like nothing was done. 20m distance to hotspot: 5Ghz was about 1/5 (0,9Mb/s) of the speed of the competitors (5,5 Mb/s). 2,4Ghz about 1/3 (1,9Mb/s) in comparison to the macbook (7,4Mb/s).

 

if its a design flaw ........ ie all aluminum and gglass cuasing the weak wifi performance i highly doubt dell is gonna change every ones display (i suspect its a design faw)

2) as for beta testers i think dell is suffering from (Trinidad syndrome) Trinidad syndrome is where you know some one high up in a company or business, u get in easy ...... so i suspect (some DELL employee hey i work for dell and we need beta testers "Friend sure sign me up") NB not bashing dell it happens in every organisation / school / business model people get roped in based on who they know in any part of the world.

Friend gets laptop and does light work ...... tell dell its gr8 and that he experienced hardy any/ or no issues and when the real power users (who should be beta testers btw like us) use it we get alot of issues since we tend to push boundaries.

now if only i can see the antenna layout within the screen panel area then i can probably say yes its that but i also need to find out if gorilla glass decreases WiFi signal at all (iPhone has its WiFi antenna external and no gorilla glass, HTC One S is aluminum uni-body construction and gorilla glass but has its antennas located in the plastic cut outs near the top and bottom of the device for better reception, Apple MBP & MBPwR have the plastic light up apple logo or in the MBPwR the hinge cap below the mac-book pro logo inside the display is plastic and the WiFi antenna reside there ... you see the trend

in not and expert but i can put 2 and 2 together as well as i may be 100% wrong after all dell has engineers for this stuff

 

Wow. Now I'm wondering if mine is defective. I haven't gotten a score anywhere near 11,500.

N

 

Dont confuse 3DMark06 with Vantage. If you're running vantage a score of 7-8000 is more along the right lines.

 

The L502X has a plastic piece in the aluminum lid to allow the antennas to function properly.

 

I just spoke a Dell technical rep. regarding the Wi-Fi signal complains. He said to disable Bluetooth and the wireless card signal it will be OK. Basically is not possible both of them to be enabled....can cause interference each other causing loss of signal. When you need one, disable the other one
I was nearly to place an order and I postponed it for now. It seems that there are issues with this laptop too!

 

That doesn't make sense...Why would bluetooth interfere with wifi...?

 

There actually is a new Bios. Got on Dell Tech Support online and had them control my computer from where they were and they installed new network card drivers and a new BIOS. Things are working a little better now.

It's seeming to me that my XPS 14 is only acting up while on AT&T U-Verse and when I'm at my home on another internet provider it works until night time and then gets super slow to about 2mbps. Weird.

 

This is bad. The same bad situation with the L502X: the culprit has been identified as the Intel WiFi-Bluetooth combo card (Centrino 6230).

"When you need one, disable the other one." Arrrggghhh! It's not unusual for WiFi Internet and BT mouse to be functioning at the same time!

I disable BT in my L502X.

 

dell is in a hot mess WOW if the last generation could not use bt and wifi at the same time change card vendors simple sigh ........... or do like other manufacturers and put Bluetooth on a tiny card with a 3 pin connector like lenovo has there on a bt card that looks almost like a wide match stick sigh with a short wire connector ......... every day im getting a reason to start a new laptop / pc company

 

idk what the f to do.

 

I can't believe Dell has failed so much in developing this laptop, and they claim about building quality...puah, they just bought excellent materials and put them on a badly engineered machine

 

I'm gonna check this when I get home. Not a dealbreaker for me since I rarely use my bluetooth and Wifi at the same time.

 

pff I'm copying Adobe creative suite CS5 from my local gigabit nas.
the file is 13GB and it is downloading for almost 2 hours with only 2,2MB/S

I'm 5 meters in line of sight with my Netgear WNDR3700 and got a link speed between 50 and 130 Mbit. but dropping from 130mbit to 50mbit does not affect the troughput of 2,4MB/S

I went into the networkcentre and disabled the bluetooth NIC (not sure if this is the way to turn of bluetooth) but this did not help.

it faster to leach adobe directly from the internet with my latude than it is with this laptop from my gigabit nas...

 

agreed
if DELL dont fix the wifi im going lenovo it cheaper + better specs
my schools wifi connection is already bad / crappy + a laptop with bad wifi performance = Dobule fail ...... i just need a computer that works dell is that so hard ????

 

Hi mate, I was trying to figure this out on my Lenovo the other day, not sure if you've fixed it yet, but this video helped for me

How To Enable Multi-Touch Right And Middle Clicking On A (Relatively New) Windows Laptop - YouTube

 

XPS 14 not planned for UK retail. At this point, we have no one in UK retail with the 15, but that may change in the future.

After you have 5 posts and wait a day for PM to turn on, shoot me a PM. I'll send you the link.

Sent.

I am pretty sure we're single sourced on the panel. All should be the same. If you are seeing the "grid effect," and it's prominent, you should use the links in my signature to get a service call set up to swap the panel and see if there is an improvement.

You need 5 posts and to wait a day for PM to be turned on. Once it's on, shoot me a PM, and I'll send you the link. As far as your screen, see above and get it swapped to see if there's an improvement.

WiFi issues:
We were already aware of this issue and have it escalated to engineering. We will let you know when there's a new driver posted or if we get an advanced copy to have you test. I think it's way too early to speculate on root cause, but that never stopped anyone. Rest assured, we'll comb through the comments for actionable information and do our best to ignore the speculation. I think it's a stretch to call it bad engineering when not all users are affected. However, it does warrant investigation in light of the number of users reporting the problem. We'll do our due diligence and keep you posted.

 

Dell have fixed the throttling with the new bios ( see a few posts back ), less than a month after launch. Yes, they should have not had this issue, but it appears fixed. The Wifi issues will be resolved as well I would wager. I don't think this is the laptop for you as it seems that you are finding many ways to convince yourself against purchase.

I suggest you go get yourself a HP Envy, that is if you can stand the orange screen. Failing that you could get the Sony Vaio, if you can stand the throttling and orange screen. There is of course the Samsung series 9, again if you can stand the throttling. You could get an Apple, it could run windows, but then you run in to compatibility issues and lower battery life plus it costs £300 and has a worse warranty with no accidental damage and you can cook an egg on it when doing any stressful tasks. You could also get the Lenevo Y580, if you can stand the weight, the fact it is built like a tank and would be embarassing to bring in to a business meeting. Still there are plenty of choices, which lesser of the two evils will you choose?

 

(Typing on an L502X with BT disabled.)

 

That goes for parenthetical speculation as well!!

I saw what you just did.

 

Spot on my friend. I've owned the Sony and the Series 9 and 7 all with Ivy Bridge and all had Wifi problem and throttling. None have been fixed. So Dell FTW!

 

My laptop has arrived! Alas, I cannot use it. Not because it is broken, but it was delivered to my old man's address as I was working. I can't collect it, as I cannot drive due to broken foot.

Any tips on bribing my old man to drop it over tonight lol? Also what tests do you guys want me to do? I WILL do a video, but I am not a fan of unboxing.

 

Would I be able to try out the new BIOS?

 

Speaking for me, but I think most of us complaining here agree: "we" aren't try everything to convince ourselves against purchase, otherwise we would just have bought something else. However we want to be sure that our money is well spent, for a well working laptop. I can guarantee you that
1) if many others confirm that the new BIOS solves throttling
2) if they release new drivers that fix the wifi issue
3) if the pixel grid thing comes out to be just a bunch of defective screens
I'll be more than happy to purchase it in 2 minutes

EDIT: don't forget the Asus N56VZ choice!

 

its between DELL and Lenovo the other brands you called are a joke .. right now both brands have their issues but the WiFi one on the dell is kinda of a biggie because of school as i said my university's WiFi is in a mess so the dell wont help me once bill says their is a fix for the WiFi ill buy it the DOA thing with Lenovo scared me apple is not worth if for me sorry ............. but seriously if you had a model b4 with the same issue why would any one put back an Intel card that has the same interference

thanks for the advice ill wait an see whats going on with both systems if by end of august ill wait for the win 8 refresh if there was such a system that exists

bear in mind this system is going to cost me ruffly about 10 000 - 11 000 for the specs i want i got to make sure my cash is well spent

 

Would you please flash the new BIOS and try some gaming while monitoring fps and/or CPU clock please? And also if you are affected by the pixel grid and the wifi issue (hope not!)
Thank you in advance for any report!

 

@bill: I want this laptop really but the WIFI problem keeps me from buying one. What if - in the worst case- this problem is due to a hardware issue?

 

For sure, bear in mind I am using i5 and Bill says I won't be affected on XPS 15. So I will do a comparison with each bios, to see how it compares. With regards the pixel grid thing, I would rather not go looking for it otherwise it will bug the hell out of me even if it is minor! However, it is noticiable on typing on forums like this or just on desktop without hunting it down then I will let you guys now. Sometimes these things are blown out of proportion.

I can also certainly test the WiFI as I have a 100m connection so it will put it through its paces for sure! I am beginning to think this is actually an Intel issue.

 

I just got the beta bios. I'm going to run 3d mark and Skryrim and do some tests pre and post BIOS

And I have the i7 CPU

 

My bios says its from 6/26/12. Is this the most recent one?

 

OT, but speaking of unboxing videos, this is the funniest compilation I've seen on the topic to date.
The Google Nexus 7 Is the Worst Gadget To Unbox, Ever—Watch Why

Depends. In any scenario there are paths to resolution, whether that path be to fix the problem or return the system. We'll have to play it by ear for now, as I've said we are in the early stages of identifying the issue.

I'll be taking a unit home tonight to test it on my mainstream Cisco home N router (I forget the model). I'll post back router model and revision, firmware version, and comparative data with the XPS 15 and my trusty Latitude E6400 workhorse.

 

Hey Risco, are you having the wifi issue as well? If so, did the new Bios fix it?

My current Bios is the 6/26/12 one. Is this the most recent or is the one that Bill is sending out the most recent.

Also this goes to everyone. When I go to install the Bios beta that Bill sent out it tells me "AC Detect Error!" and closes out of Insyde. Any help?

 

Bill, get yourself a USB WiFi adapter (that will act as an external antenna) and try with that. But it will have to have the same chipset to be able to determine if its a driver issue.

 

Maybe it wants you to have AC plugged or to have it unplugged but with at least 50% battery (just guessing, some smartphones behaves like this when flashing NAND)

 

your right guess i am blowing the wifi thing our of proportion if it bugs me that much i can use the atheros card from my old laptop in this one same half hight card and its wifi only

 

The same reason Dell put a crappy realtec NIC in this laptop instead of a proper Intel NiC. money...

I disabled bluetooth and copied the same 13Gb file and now its downloading with 1.0-1,4Mb/s, so half als slow as before and I did not move a inch.

But as said the link does not affect the trougput. you can see this nicely in the taskmanager, when the link goed down the load precentage goes up, but the troughput stays the same.