XPS 15 (L521X) Owner's Lounge

These http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Sea...-N+6300&ProdId=3408&LineId=1784&FamilyId=1783

I think they are the same ones I got from Station Drivers the other day which had no effect.

 

The correct link for the newest drivers for the Advanced N 6235 that's in (at least my) L521x is: http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Sea...-N+6235&ProdId=3502&LineId=1784&FamilyId=1783

but I think the drivers are the same as the card you linked to.

15.2.0 is the version to which I was referring. Sorry, I assumed that everyone realized that there were new ones up.

 

Part of me is inclined to agree, but then it makes me wonder who their potential audience would be. The MBPRD has this problem--who is the audience for this laptop? It has "Pro" in the name, and the previous-gen Macbook Pro was designed for, you know, professionals. People who are going to be creating content on this device, like my cousin, who uses his for music production, or a friend who works with photographers. Her whole office was on Macs, and they used discs constantly. Those people NEED optical disc drives.

The MBPRD is a toy, created to show off the amazing high-resolution screen, with virtually no practical use.

I think an XPS without an ODD would have the same problem. A multimedia laptop that can't read (and preferably write) Blu-rays and DVDs is not a multimedia laptop, period. They can't market it as a gaming laptop because of Alienware, even though a subwoofer and better cooling would make it a highly capable gaming machine. So I think the potential market is smaller and the branding would have problems...and we all agree that Dell has already created some pretty confusing branding problems.

 

This is not related to WiFi, but towards IRRT and the mSATA drive.

I popped in an SSD, changed BIOS SATA Mode to AHCI, and installed windows 7. I formatted the SSD as a primary NTFS partition in Windows. After I install the latest Intel RST AHCI driver, the mSATA drive no longer appears in Windows. In the Intel RST GUI, it says that the drive status is "unknown." Is this expected behavior, or was I supposed to decouple the Intel Rapid Response stuff in the GUI on the shipped HDD before I replaced with SSD and installed fresh?

If I uninstall the latest Intel RST AHCI driver, the mSATA drive re-appears in Windows and behaves as expected.

Anyway figure this out or experience the same thing? I'm afraid to call Dell support with this one, as I'm not expected much help.

 

Drivers did nothing to increase the speed.

 

Go here.

en.community.dell.com/dell-blogs/direct2dell/b/direct2dell/archive/2012/04/13/dell-whitepaper-intel-responsiveness-technologies-setup-guide.aspx


Download the pdf, read then solve your problem hopefully

+1

 

Nothing reported from Bill tonight?

 

Is there someone who tried playing League Of Legends for a few (or more) hours with L521x? I happen to do it sometimes

 

After two days of stuffing around with a tech and tech support my Wifi Problem is fixed.
I asked for a refund and a return and it will be picked up next week for a full refund.
It is a shame but what a disapointment this has been for me.

 

What? The fix is the return and refund?

 

Yeah..The replaced the wifi card made no difference.They changed all the setting nothing worked.
So back it goes..Problem solved ..It is a pity the laptop was nice i actually liked it but why should i buy a product that does not work properly

 

I understand you man...

 

I sent over a metric ton of your comments and insights yesterday. I received no reply on any of the issues yet. I also sent over some of the same information in an email in conjunction with feedback we got from AnandTech and Notebookcheck regarding throttling today. Hopefully I will have something to report tomorrow.

Sorry I don't have more information at this time, but I promise to post anything I get as soon as I do.

 

Great stuff Bill, hoping for good news tmoz.

 

Okay ill try that later to see if it helps. Thanks.

Also the MSO 2010 installed is the ad supported version with missing features I have a copy of the full suite to install. Maybe i could just upgrade but I havent looked into Office yet. (Still admiring the beauty of the laptop and tweaking it not to mention enjoying Civ V since i actually have a computer now that can run it)

So far I love the laptop and pretty much everything about it. I am still absolutely amazed that I got the laptop 3 days after placing the order even with 7 day shipping. I did update the BIOS to the A05 Beta 2 BIOS as soon as I got it and I am working on updating the NVIDIA drivers (the beta ones are supposed to run Civ V 23% better according to Anandtech). I havent noticed any pixel grid with the screen even on splendid color and as for the throttling issues I havent tested for it yet.

I played Civ V last night for 3 hours on high settings (except for like shadows and water which were medium) and this was before I updated the drivers. The right side of the laptop was cool to the touch while the left side was noticeably warm it wasnt anything to get in a fuss about. As soon as I exited the game I checked the CPU's temp and it measure out to 75c which isnt too bad after 3 hours of game play.

My only complaints is obviously the wifi (going to try the new intel drivers someone so kindly posted earlier) and there seems to be a whining sound coming from the laptop when the fans are on; I have a feeling its the tape or wire or whatever it is that some people are claiming is a little loose and that if you tape it up yourself then itll fix the whining.

 

Yea I play for hours at a time with max settings (shadows off) with no problems at all, frames stay around 60 for the most part, never gets too hot. Im using the new beta bios

 

Thanks! This driver eased the wifi problem for me, before I would barely get any signal on a lower floor outside my apartment and now I'm happy to report that on the same exact spot I can download at 5-6 Mbit/s after applying the patch.
I also got higher down speed halfway down the stairs, the upload speed stays the same regardless of location.

the tests were done consecutively so there is definitely an improvement

 

This is something I love to read thank you!

Sent from HTC HD2 with Tapatalk

 

haha yea that was the first thing i checked, one of the few games ill be playing while at school

 

I upgraded to 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD and swapped the 32GB mSATA for 64GB mSATA last night. It took about an hour and wasn't too difficult. The hardest part was keeping up with the screws.

As promised, here are pics:

1) Removing the bottom

--Helpful hint -- loosen the two phillips head screws underneath the service tag flap, but don't take them out. Just reattach the flap. Be careful with the bottom -- the grille area below the touchpad seems to be especially easy to break.

2) Bottom removed

3) Remove the mSATA card

4) Remove the battery

5) Remove the HDD

--Helpful hint for re-installing the HDD cage -- the screws are small and the cables get in the way -- preload the screws into the cage, then carefully put the cage into place. If you drop a screw, you'll have to take the cage back out to fish the screw out.

6) Remove the WLAN card and Secondary RAM

7) Remove the fan

--Helpful hit for re-installing the fan -- one of the two phillips head screws under the system tag flap holds the fan in place. I kept thinking I had lost a screw.

...continued


8) I forgot to take a picture removing the heatsink. The heatsink screws are numbered and need to be removed 5-4-3-2-1 and installed 1-2-3-4-5. The thermal grease is reusable if you keep it grease side up while it's out of the computer.

9) Remove the motherboard

Re-installation was the same steps in reverse order. There were several little cables to reattach, but there's no way to plug things into the wrong place.

I'm pleased with the results -- the SSD provides a nice performance boost. I can't really tell much difference with the extra RAM though.

 

Thanks Chris! How is the heat now you have an SSD? I am assuming it is running a bit cooler now? I am waiting on Dell fixing the wireless performance before I invest in a drive.

 

Please take this as a friendly question and not as a challenge to your decision: (i) Do you use the 64GB mSATA SSD as a boot drive or as a cache? (ii) If the latter case, why do you need a cache when you already run everything off the 512GB SSD?

 

Thanks, but I found that on my own, and though it does a good job explaining things, it doesn't cover my issue with the mSATA drive being reported as incompatible by the Intel RST software. I understand that I can't use most of the software in AHCI mode, but I don't want to anyway--I just want to use the mSATA drive as storage in AHCI mode. It seems like the only way I can do that is to leverage the default windows AHCI storage controller drivers. Anyone encounter this?

Has anyone gotten the mSATA to act as a storage device with BIOS SATA Mode: AHCI and Intel RST installed?

 

You can't use the mSATA as cache with an SSD -- the RST software completely disables the caching feature. I'm using it for additional storage space. I made the swap simply because I had the mSATA laying around from a scrapped ultrabook.

 

There may be a slight improvement in heat; the performance boost is where it's at.

 

you may be on to something, my laptops drivers say they are from March 2012, the ones on the site or from May 2012....i wasn't having any wifi problems but i'll see anyways

 

I use an mSATA as storage (OS, actually), but didn't install the RST software. Why would I? As far as I know, the RST software is specifically for using an SSD as cache for a spinner.

 

I just installed the 15.2 drivers for the intel card.

Yesterday with the drivers the xps ships with I got:
4.5mbps down 4.2mbps up

Today after i updated the drivers i am getting:
12mbps down 4.3mbps up

I put this up against my old laptop a Dell Inspiron E1705 (from late 2006) it got:
20mbps down and 4.5 mbps up

The updated drivers seem to have helped significantly but it still isnt near the 20mbps my Inspiron gets.

 

Exactly. Why bother with Intel RST if the mSATA SSD is not being used as a cache?

 

Thanks for that!

You will not notice the change in RAM unless you are going to do some hardcore video editing or photo editing, on dedicated 64 bit software...

Most (from origin 32 bit programs) are limited in the amount of memory they use anyway, around 3 Gb max. Even most of the latest games are all designed to run on 32bit systems, and will not profit from huge memories.

You could on the other hand, assign a large part of your memory to be a RAM drive on startup. This will give you another slight performance boost in terms of access speed.

 

Right, I'm not trying to use it as a cache for the SSD.

iRST software can be used to leverage a multitude of features--SRT is just one of them. I typically install a components manufacturer driver over the OS default driver in general. In this case, I prefer to use Intel's AHCI Iastor.sys driver rather than the default windows 7 AHCI storage controller driver.

I'm not sure that there's much of a performance benefit, I just assume that over time, Intel will optimize things.

That being said, I suppose I could live without leveraging the Intel RST AHCI drivers in order to let me sister use the mSATA as a second storage.

If anyone has successfully installed Intel RST AHCI drivers with SATA Mode: AHCI while using the mSATA device as an addtional storage device (that is accessible in device manager, computer disk management, etc.), please let me know.

My experience with Dell support is that I should be able to accomplish this. They just haven't figured it out yet. I am mainly wondering if this has something to do with the fact that I did not disable SRT nor dissasociate the mSATA SSD via the RST GUI on the pre-installed HDD/OS. Being that after I swapped out HDD for SSD, I changed SATA modes, completely reformatted the mSATA SSD, and can access it just fine with the Windows built-in AHCI storage controller driver, I don't think that my methodology is affecting my outcome.

 

Ok, if your technical knowledge is above this I apologize.

Step 1. On the start menu, type disk management
Step 2. Find your mSATA drive in that list. Does it say unallocated space? Or something similar? I'm guessing intel sets it up so windows wont' see it as a disk.
Step 3. Delete any partitions that are there, then create a new one to use it as a regular drive

If that doesn't work, I'd try DISKPART from the command line. I am using the mSATA for my OS drive. I never installed the caching software.

 

To use the mSATA as a normal disk, after setting AHCI mode in the bios.

You must use DISKPART as 'disk management' sees it as a system disk and won't touch it....

in diskpart (this is from memory, don't shoot me if you screw up, or I mistype something):

Code:

list disk
select disk #      (pick the mSATA one)
clean

That should get you to the point where you can use just 'disk management' to format it or whatever you want....




I probably forgot to mention, in my l521x I reaplced both ram sticks with 8gb, so 16gb total, I also re-pasted (IC diamond) the cpu and gpu after cleaning them really good. I also took out the HD and put in a 256 gb crucial m4.

I have the OS installed on the m4, but am using the mSATA drive as pagefile and the 100 mb partition windows installs to enable encryption....
boot up is around 10 seconds to desktop

 

Oh shut up 2.0.

MOD Edit: some people aren't too bright. Especially when they have a rap sheet full of infractions.

 

Please how did you do these above? Especially the software part...

+1

 

10 seconds from the Windows sign or 10 seconds from pressing power?

I have a crucial m4 in mine and it took 20-30 seconds for complete boot. very slow for an ssd

 

20-30 seconds for m4 to boot Win_7? My Toshiba 500gb on Studio 1537 takes 20 seconds for compete boot. Well, I only have Office/AV/SAS installed and few light programs. I expect less than 10 seconds for a SSD to boot windows with the same configuration I have, if not is not worth money!

 

Well, dang. (I feel the urge to curse a bit more, the board probably won't have it). I haven't been to bothered with the whole throttling/heat issue until now - having just had the first thermal shutdown

And that while merely stressing the CPU, encoding a video on a (for Holland) hot day, around 25 degrees C outside..

 

Bloody hell.... Shutdown for that?

 

Yep. Although the GPU was enabled (unstressed), since I use an external monitor. I don't know what else would simply turn off the laptop, and refuse to let you turn it on again for 10 minutes or so... I was starting to fear it might've been bricked.

 

Just guessing, i'm a dumb about this topic: which relation exists beetwen using external monitor and not stressing GPU because of it ?

 

You must clean the partitions off the mSATA beforehand. Then format the M4 as one partition. Designate the mSATA as your boot device. Then install windows. Pick the M4 as your installation destination. It will place the 100mb partition that windows 7 needs on the boot device, which happens to be the mSATA. But then will install all the directories onto the M4.... perhaps a photo would be easier to understand.....

Contrary to what that says, the boot goes from the mSATA 'System Reserved' partition then loads from the M4, but uses the mSATA as the pagefile exclusively..... it is very fast.

10 seconds to the Desktop with everything loaded from pushing the power button (If I disable my windows password). There are a ton of tweeks to get this speed though.... for example windows does not load anything while playing that swirly color animation that windows 7 has.... only after that does it actually load and start booting, you can disable this and make it do both at once, thus sacrificing it being a smooth animation.....

Like I said ~10 seconds..... if you have it setup correctly.

 

Well, there's two main culprits generating heat in the system: CPU (with integrated Intel GPU) and the discrete Nvidia GPU. The Optimus tech will normally keep the GPU disabled when it's not required (no advanced 3D stuff going on). However, using an external monitor will (as far as I can tell..) also enable the Nvidia GPU. That's what I meant with "GPU was enabled". I wasn't doing anything that would make it work hard though, so it wouldn't have been generating much heat (the unstressed part).

 

From my various experiences with SSDs and reading reviews.. 10-14 seconds seems to be the average for boot times with a few programs installed.

Now where I see a ton of benefit is opening up programs such as Visual Studio, Photoshop... or loading levels in games such as Left 4 Dead or Skyrim.. I'm usually in a level on a multiplayer game with my friends way before they are.

 

hey guys... so i just took out my 32gb msata and replaced it with a 128gb m4, reinstalled widows on it and my computer is flying, so i can recomend it. The only thing is, since i have done this, i cant see my 1tb spinner anymore in windows! any ideas on how i bring it up? i can see it in the bios, but cant see it in computer management or divice manager.

 

just got my xps 15! i7 16gb ram 1tb hdd with 128gb msata! it's fantastic... i don't think i have the wifi problem since the download speed are the usual i get with my other pcs... speedtest.net is down at the moment so i cannot check it...
the touchpad needs time to get used to for sure...other than that i totally like the laptop!

 

Could you possibly share these tweaks you made to get thiS speed?

 

Just read the review by Anandtech ( AnandTech - Dell XPS 15 L521X: A Detailed First Look) and they mention that the display has a "strong blue component" and thus looks a bit blueish.
Here is a quote of their review

"The maximum white level is 350 nits, but that’s with a very strong blue component. Once you calibrate to remove that, the maximum white level drops substantially down to just 250 nits. If you prefer “cool” colors, the LCD will probably make you happy, but those who prefer natural or warmer colors will immediately notice something is off.
"

Has anyone who owns the laptop found this to be an issue? I understand the screen will not allow for accurate color reproduction, but I'm just wondering whether all colors really have a "cool" / "blueish" look to them or whether this is something that isn't really noticeable.
Thanks in advance for your answer.

 

I measured a "cool" white point (at 7500K). I don't think this is a problem, this should be the white temperature people like most. I haven't calibrated the monitor yet, I didn't feel any urgency.

(my xps1340 had it at 9300K, that's blueish for real)

 

Which program did you use to encode the video? The monitor was opened or closed?

I stressed my system a lot (at 30 °C ambient) and I don't think I'd be able to reproduce your shut-down without a load on the GPU and the A04 (default) bios.

edit: The A04 bios triggers the CPU heavy throttling even if the GPU is on but idle, and the CPU is under load. So you should have done the conversion at 1.2Ghz. Without a load on the GPU, I can't figure what triggered the shut-down.