XPS 15 (L521X) Owner's Lounge

I've been monitoring this thread for quite some time, I must say somewhat nervously - I ordered my XPS 15 on the 26th July but as I am working in Qatar but wanted a UK spec I had to wait until one of my colleagues was coming back over here to get it, that day is tomorrow. I'm now pretty relaxed, yes there remains a Wi-Fi issue, which may or may not affect my system, but it does seem that we are getting closer to a resolution.
I have to agree with others the type of service being given to members of this forum by Dell-Bill_B is, as far as I am aware, 2nd to none I don't think you would get a certain Cupertino based company allowing employees to make similar comments in a public forum!

@Dell-Bill_B you made one comment that is very interesting to me

how would I go about this, I know the systems are sold in Qatar but it is generally via a reseller, would this count? I am keen, should my lappy have the Wi-Fi issue, to get a fix (who wouldn't) but I want to ensure I can sort this in the easiest manner and if it is possible to transfer the support to Qatar that would be easiest for me, the alternative is sending it back to the UK again for with another colleague to get it fixed

 

Without appearing rude, I think this is somewhat missing the core problem.

There is no dispute over the *maximum* speed achievable, but rather that rate at which this degrades compared to other laptops as you move away from the access point.

For example my XP 15, Asus G1 and Smartphone all get ~16 MB in my office with the router, this is close to the maximum my ISP and incoming line can provide. But 40 feet away through two walls the XPS 15 has dropped to ~0.5 MB whereas the other two are still getting ~ 10 MB.

 

To all the cospiracy people: the L521x is back on the italian site.

Bill, can you tell me if the wi fi fix would be available worldwide (or almost in Italy)?
I'm asking you because the people in the italian chat don't know anythig about the problems of this laptop, and I wanted to know if with "all the owners are getting the fix" you meant it outside the US too.

 

Good idea ! I wanted to check your result with my XPS and my external screen, but I stopped because I noticed something else had even more influence on wifi performances : the distance between me and my laptop !

- If I am standing in front of my computer (0,5m, not touching it), I have 1 or 2 Mbit/s down, sometimes 5.

- But if I go away (1 to 2 meters), I have 10 to 13 Mbit/s (my normal internet speed) in EVERY case ! (external screen connected or not, AC adapter plugged in or not, etc)



I sounds logical that the user could be an obstacle to the signal, but not so seriously ! I am not far from my Wifi router (6 meters, same storey) and I never had problems with my previous laptop which I used from the same desk.
And a laptop is supposed to be usable with someone in front of it...

 

Will do.

Won't be whole unit exchanges as far as I know.

We don't need a list. You tell us you have the problem. We dispatch service to fix it when we have a fix.

We don't sell them in Qatar, so you may have a challenge. I'd think you'd have to get warranty service through UK support while the system is in the UK.

 

As someone who has, in a past life, worked on WiFi chipsets, and actually sold said chipsets into Dell products (2004 time frame), I can say that even though most people want the problem solved now it doesn't really help to know what Dell and their supplier engineers are currently looking at because things can change and the knowledge/data is fluid. I liken it to a roller coaster when it comes to debugging HW/SW where if you look too closely and get too frequent updates the status changes too much. It isn't until you step away and wait until the engineers can fully investigate and debug the problem that the "roller coaster" smooths out... ie you get a solution.

I've worked with Dell before and have used Dell products over the years so I trust Bill when he says that Dell will push out the fix to all affected systems.

 

@Dell-Bill_B

If you can please check your PM. I will really appreciate any info about that

 

@ Dell-Bill_B
Can you answer me too please?

 

I'm not sure what your trying to prove . These are my speed tests and I'm on Windows 7 . I'm siting 6 ft from my router . The problems people are have would point to the antennas . RF is black magic voodoo . I work for a company that makes Mil. Radios . Their is a hole science behind RF and Antenna design .

 

I was getting those same exact speeds as you were under Windows 7 also, however, under Windows 8, I DO NOT get low speeds but what I should be getting. Clearly, this tells me is it not a hardware issue otherwise Windows 8 would have the same exact problem.

 

Well, something else must have happened with you...

Bill's Tiger team is at work now... and Bill told us it's hardware... Not that I don't want to believe you, but I'll take is word first, mostly because you're the only one to report such a thing!

In any case, consider yourself lucky if it solved your problem

 

Bill! Could I get some input from you please?! I'm still trying to decide.... Thanks

"Yea, hopefully it will be rolled out ASAP, which leaves me with one more thing for Bill: I'm still considering the purchase for early next week and it obviously won't have the fix yet, but what would be the max time I'd be waiting for it? (I'm hoping a month max, a week minimum?)

It will be too difficult to schedule for the fix when school starts up again in September, but I don't really want to wait until factory cut-in to get it!! "

 

Under Windows 7 I also tried the intel drivers instead of Dells so instead of me getting 2/4/6MBPS I get 30MBPS+ and very happy. Why not give this a try yourself, and fyi I "used" to work for Microsoft so I am up there in tech support also.

1) Uninstall BT & Wifi from the computer using either the Device Manager or Uninstall A Program
2) Download these

BT - http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Det...5&DownloadType=Software+Applications&lang=eng

Wifi - http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Det...-N+6235&DownloadType=Software+Applicationseng

Under BT, use the 2nd (last one) and under Wifi use the 4th (last one) install/reboot/test...


If this does not work for you, then you can pretty much call it hardware failure on Dell's part. So I would call tech support, and have my LCD Replaced because unlike on the L502x, you can "NOT" take this one apart. We know it can't be the driver if your at this point, or the wifi card, so that technically only leaves 1 thing left when you think about it.



GOOD LUCK!!!

 

It would have been nice if this fixed the problem, but I just tried it and there was no change. As soon as I leave the room where the router is, my connection drops to almost nothing. The only way I can get speeds like you say you have is to be 6 to 10 feet away in direct line of sight from the router.

Sounds like you are one of the lucky ones without the hardware issue.

 

I also tried the updated drivers with no change in throughput. I was seeing ~4Mb/s with the old driver and new. That is the best I have seen from my location (upstairs from the router), but there was no change between the drivers. I have a 5 year old dell that consistently gets in the 19Mb/s range from anywhere in my house.

 

anyone else upgraded the RAM in their machine?

I did that yesterday, got some sticks from Newegg (sorry bill, but Dell is waaaaay overpriced for that), so that I could max out the ram to 16 Gb (going to be doing some development where I'm running 2-3 VM's simultaneously).

Boy what a PITA, but it's to be expected with such a compact machine.

Basically you have to disassemble most of the machine's lower guts.

I think the only things not taken out was the sound i/o daughtercard, the keyboard, and the optical drive.

Everything else had to go since one of the 2nd ram socket is under the mainboard.

Took my time, was meticulous about keeping all the screws straight with where they came from, put it all back together, powered it on.

Black screen 5-beep code from bios on startup.

*sigh*

Almost panicked, walked away, thought it through, couldn't think where I went wrong, checked closely on the ram sticks.

The parts I got from Newegg were DDR3 PC3-10666 (which is what the specs list) and the memory out of the computer was labelled DDR3 PC3-12800. Hmmm, incompatible?

So, reverse the loop, put the original sticks back in. Power on.

Black screen 5-beep code from bios on startup.

Hmm. Okaaaaay. I was TRIPLE meticulous on 2nd run, so unless I'd originally damaged something there should not have been a problem.

Out of persnicketyness, I powered off, waited a sec, powered on.

Booted right up to Windows.

Hmmm. Okaaaaay. That's better. Let's try this one more time.

Rebuilt with new ram, power on.

Black screen 5-beep code from bios on startup.

Powered off. Waitasec. Powered on.

Booted right up to Windows.

Niiiice.

Rebooted into bios to verify settings (RTC was off, but all the rest of the defaults match what was set previously).

Although I probably have to restore the service tag.

Sooo, I don't recall reading in the Owners Manual to expect the beep codes, but apparently that's what happens.

If anyone has better info on the l521x beep codes that would be nice to know.

Machine operating fine, memory score in WEI went up with the Mushkin RAM. I need to finish researching what's actually different between the two types, but at this point it's not a factor for me.

Now I just need to put aside some money to grow the mSATA ... but that can wait ... at least accessing THAT is trivial.

 

I've been trying to communicate the same sentiments to my fellow owner's loungers. Words of wisdom. Too many updates regarding Dell's progress with the WiFi analysis will lead to confusion and misinformation most likely.

 

I think the Wi-Fi fix is just a matter of time, we just need to hold on until it's out. I've done some range testing on mine and it looks like the problem reduces the Wi-Fi's range by quite a bit. While I can hit 22mbps in my house if I go out a bit it drops off fairly quickly as compared to the Thinkpad Edge E430 (which can get up to about 37mbps) I tested against. For me it's not a real deal-breaker.

According to Bill the issue only affects some systems so I suspect that it's only specific hardware configurations. E.G. only with Bluray drives or only with Nvidia 460M and quad-core processors or only ones with 7200RPM hard drives (these are just examples, I don't know the criteria). Since most of us seem to have bought the 640M and 3612QM configuration it would be nice if some people with other versions were to post if they have this same problem.

P.S. Bios A06 seems to have done the trick for the throttling issues. At least for me.

 

So should I purchase this laptop guys or is the WIFI issue still a real problem?

 

It's definitely a real problem, if Wi-Fi performance is important to you be prepared to buy a USB Wi-Fi adapter or wait for a fix before buying.

 

Well for me, I'm willing to buy it and wait for a fix, but I'd like to know that I'll probably be getting the fix within a month or so...

 

There's also the throttling issue, check the latest comments on the anandtech first look.

 

The throttling is solved, there have been several users including one a few comments up and including myself who have no more severe throttling issues.

 

Yes, but to what extent? According to the reviewer, the gpu is periodically downclocked to a minimum of 200mhz. This is what he said about the A6 beta biod (last comment)

 

I haven't had problems running any games for hours on end. Skyrim for 3 hours and no drop in performance on near max settings.

 

Just wanted to drop in here and say hello. Since a few days I'm an owner of a l521x. Bought here in Europe with the issues discussed in this thread in mind.

I too experience a significant drop in WiFi reception strenght, as soon as the router is out of direct line of sight. Not as worse as some users described it, but still very noticeable. Will try the Intel drivers and see whether this will improve the performance.

 

How is the quality of the screen? I read posts about the vertical lines

 

I been having wifi problems and screen grid line issues. This onsite tech failed to install the Dell 1901 card earlier this week. Today I got a call from a resolutions expert and was put through to hardware support. Basically I am being sent a new system and they want my old system so they can research it. I was told that the usb 3.0 drivers are interfering with the wifi and that the other issue maybe something to do with the firmware (I think its the motherboard firmware)...They assured me the new replacement system will work because the motherboard will be different ( I am assuming a different brand?)...lets hope that they actually figured out what the real issue is...what do you guy thinks? Also, I think it is cheaper to send a new system out then to constantly repair them.

 

I thought I would just pop in and see how things were going. Seems Dell have nailed the throttling issue, is that right? However the Wifi is problematic? Dell were very quick to refund, they received it on Tuesday and had the money by Friday. Since I got my new MBP one thing I noticed is that it is silent! Not only that but it uses a dual fan configuration. I would encourage Dell to use this next time, and use the same kind of fan profile Apple does.

Couple of things Dell / Bill might want to take note of for the Gen 2.

1. Dual Fans!
2. A better coating for the keyboard, it was constantly picking up grease no matter how clean my hands were.
3. Make Wifi a number one priority of course lol.
4. Put a bigger battery in it.
5. Sort out your fan behaviour, it is much improved on the L502X but still annoying at times!
6. Have a better configuration choices.

Anyway, good luck guys I really do hope your issues are sorted.

 

That sounds consistent with my experience. So you're not the only one.

I've done a bunch of testing on the new A06 BIOS and I did notice that It does downclock the GPU fairly low in some specific cases. I'm not sure enough at this point to give any details. It will be interesting to see what Anandtech says.

If you want to see what I mean download HWINFO64 and install it, start up an action-heavy 3D game, run HWINFO64 and have it start logging, play the game for a hour and then take a look at the log file.

 

Is anybody having problems with the Dell QuickSet software? I can't get it to open on screen so I can adjust settings. I know it's running because the on-screen display shows when I use the media keys. I've uninstalled & reinstalled but that didn't help. I also remember when I originally installed, the "A" icon showed in the system tray but now doesn't (even if I set it to always show). Also, if I browse to program files and manually run the quickset.exe file, it doesn't show anything on screen either.

 

I think it's built in to Windows mobility center (Win+X)

 

Hi,

I've owned an L521X for two weeks now, and have followed this thread for most of that time. I too suffer the WiFi issue, and it seems to follow the behavior described by most here...a drop-off in download speed at modest range as compared to my dying Inspiron 1705. For convenience, I tested the L521X against my Motorola XOOM tablet and my Droidx cell phone. The L521X can hold its own in a low speed good signal environment (coffeehouse) but fails badly in a high speed fair signal environment (university wireless network) (See attachment).

I've had good experiences with Dell over the past 15 years, so I'm inclined to believe Bill when he says that a fix will be forthcoming. That said, I need to get Dell to confirm that I have a one of the broken laptops, and set in motion the real fix down the line. Any advice on how to do this without setting in motion futile repair visits by uninformed techs would be appreciated.

Asidw from the WiFi problem, everything else about my machine is prima, but I've got more testing to do.

 

Hello

Is it worth collecting our hardware specs to try and find a pattern. I say this as I received my laptop a couple of days ago and have no such WIFI problems so it would be interesting to see if we an find a pattern with specs of our laptops.

 

me too! I had no problem playing Skyrim for 5 hours yesterday

 

Do you have the i7 or i5 version?

 

Absolutey cr4p. The motherboards in any laptop are not "off the shelf" parts - they're custom designed for fit and function, and it would take months for a new design or supplier to come onstream with commerical quantities of parts.

 

Mine is the i7 with 8GB Ram, 1tb HDD, 128GB M4 mSATA SSD

 

Hi Guys, I've been lurking here both before and after my purchase of an i7 L521x and I've had the same issues that most have had with both the wifi, throttling and the screen.

However I've noticed a problem with A06 and reduced battery life and was wondering if anybody else is experiencing anything similar?

I upgraded the bios to A06 a few days ago, and on Friday was using the laptop in the lounge on battery power to browse the web and send a few emails. I was surprised to get a battery low warning after just 2 1/2 hours, given that screen brightness was set to 40% and I wasn't doing anything CPU/GPU intensive.

I noticed on plugging it back into the mains that the fan was running quite hard and it was producing a reasonable amount of heat. I rebooted and left it with no apps running but it was still running hot, and unplugging the mains gave a projected battery life of 20%/25mins remaining. Ran diagnostics etc with the help of Dell technical in the UK but couldn't find the problem. Tried various fixes with power profiles, graphics set to prefer the Intel HD4000 etc etc but no dice. As soon as I reverted my BIOS back to A04 the problem went away and I got back to a projected battery life in the 5-6 hour range.

I'm going to leave it that way until I have a chance to try A06 again under controlled circumstances.

Kafkaesque.

 

I been having the same problem I had to open the program manually, quickset crashes right when i start the computer...so basically when it crashes you gotta search for it "quickset64.exe" and click run as admin then it works...

 

I'm wondering - maybe i7 + m-SATA drive is taking too much power and that's why there are WiFi issues? That would explain why just some models are affected. Probably i5 + m-sata are not affected...

 

I don't know if it is Nvidia or Dell to blame for that.
(I'm using nVidia beta driver)

I manually disable both CPU and GPU turbo when gaming. The default GPU throttling policy is quite bad, the GPU reaches the 80 °C threshold at full turbo (709 Mhz), and then it may throttle even to 135 Mhz to cool itself. While gaming, I experienced clear shuttering for short periods of time.

By disabling the GPU turbo, GPU temp stay around 70 °C without throttling at all, and the gaming experience is much better. Unfortunately the way I use to disable GPU turbo keeps the GPU clock at 405 Mhz. I can do something more elaborate, but I prefer waiting for DELL or nVidia to exploit the other 10 °C of headroom in a way that is useful for the gaming experience and not only for benchmarks.

Anandtech will not catch this, if they measure only the average fps.

The A04 bios was awful, the CPU at 1.2 Ghz with the GPU at max boost was good for medium fps but I experienced a terrible input lag (seconds!), that was the reason I started my investigation. Also the notebook was always near the boiling point.

 

Thanks, that worked. I had to reboot after making the change before it took effect for all keys, but it got me what I needed. Thanks again!

 

I have the i5 +8gb ram + 32gb ssd cache+ 750gb hd and having the same wifi issue. the wireless card is an Intel Centrino advanced N6236 and connects fine if im on top of my router but more than 15 feet away its junk. I know nothing about pc's at all but is it possible that the aluminum top is blocking the wifi signal? this is the first laptop i have owned with an aluminum to so not sure if it could happen or not?

 

gixer2000: I think its more complicated than that. If that was the case Apple would have an interesting time shipping all those macbooks.

 

That's a very good point. As i said before i really know nothing about this stuff but I know things that transmit/receive signals can be affected by metal/steal/aluminum enclosures. I guess if it was that basic they would have thought of that. thanks

 

Anyone with 750GB 7.200 HDD tried to replace 32GB m-SATA with 128GB m-SATA? It seems that dell doesn't sell such configuration (750GB 7.200 + 128GB m-SATA) and I'm trying to figure out the reason. Could there be any technical limitations for that? Too much heat maybe? Any logical reason why it could not be working together?

 

Just sell-cost - you may be able to buy a machine setup that way if you make the final sale via phone instead of limiting yourself to what is on the web site.

According to the Samsung spec document, all sizes of the PM830 have the same power consumption and dimensions so I can't see *that* being the limiter.

 

I tried to buy L521x via phone and via chat and in both cases I've been told it's not possible to change the system configuration

 

When I bought mine it was offered to me to go over the spec and verify that there were no changes I wanted to make, but I declined since I was happy with the spec - and didn't want to (over)pay dell for the memory increase, nor wanted to spend on a larger mSATA at that time.

Since I did not follow that fork in the discussion I don't know if they were only going to try to sell me accessories or what.