XPS 15 (L521X) Owner's Lounge

@ actionfiggar- Unfortuantly Dell don't seem to see this as an issue and have not fixed it. Apparently a temporary solution is to just leave a CD in the drive and it should stop making the noise.

 

I am not using any of the Intel Band-Aids, just letting Windows cache stuff normally (uses normal ram so cache is not persistent), and using window-based hibernation instead of intel RST. Drive is one partition hosting OS, apps, user registry hives, etc, but no other significant data.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

 

I have read every page of this thread been following it for the last 3 months, i had the same issues as most users, Today i got a replacement windows 8 laptop i wanted to test it and report here to everyone, unfortunately i am facing the same issue you are on boot up.. My screen freezes on the Dell logo it doesnt even go further than that,, If there is a fix for this please let me know also..

 

Has anyone else been noticed that their unit charges slowly (I'm coming from l520x)?

Also, how long are y'alls laptops lasting on each charge?

 

Hi there,
Some days ago, a tech guy came de replace the wifi card (by another Intel 6235) and the screen, this didn't change anything on the wifi side. Some minutes ago, I got a call from my dell representative to tell me they'll change the whole PC for the new, revised, L521x. It should be changed before the end of this month, I'll post some testing here.

 

have been away for a while...guys can you update me, all I know that A12 was released did it fix the wifi issue I currently have the A04...

 

Takes about 5 ho? rs to charge from >10% to 100%
Laptop only lasts around 4 - 4:30 hours

 

For me the A12 brought a good wifi improvement, it didn't bring my full wifi back, but it worth the update.

 

can anyone else confirm this? has anyone else been called and has their units changed?

 

Is battery life okay with it that's the reason why I kept the A04... how is the fan and etc...

 

I am guessing the revised version is with the dell 1901 card lol...

 

I was offered a unit exchange to a new machine on Win 8 with the 1901, or the installation of the 1901 and screen / antenna on Win 7 along with the backwards compatible Win 8 drivers to fix the WiFi issue. Haven't tried the fix yet, and was hoping to see some confirmation on here that it would work...

 

I can confirm that my Dell tech rep also called to offer to exchange out a brand-new XPS15 but since I don't really want to reconfigure everything on my laptop, I'm waiting for them to come next week to swap out just the display/antenna to see if that will fix the WiFi range issue. If not, then I will take them up on their offer for the exchange - I really want to keep this XPS15 as I'm happy with everything else about the laptop. I think that they were only willing to offer a new exchange since I had an RMA already authorized by Dell and wanted to give Dell another last chance to fix this. BTW, the RMA was set up by Lorna@Dell (mentioned earlier in this monster thread) who was extremely helpful since I was way past my return period...

 

I can also confirm that I was offered 3 options from Dell support. Return for refund, exchange for new system win 8 and 1901 card, and finally having a tech come out and replace parts of existing win 7 I own. They suggested it would take Approximately 2 weeks. I don't want to get my hopes up but it sounds like it may be a good solution. Good luck to the rest of you out there still looking for a resolution. BTW not a win 8 convert yet, I have played with it on another machine not bad, just not great at this point.

 

I just picked up this computer a few days ago and my WiFi works alright and my display is good however the battery life is terrible. It only lasts about 4 hours doing basic things such as Word and Chrome. Is this normal? Also I am running A09 BIOS, should I upgrade to A12 - and can I revert if upgrading messes something up somehow?

 

That's the battery usage I get as well. I believe this is the norm based on this thread.

 

Did you speak with anyone in particular about replacing your system with a new Windows 8 one? I wasn't sure if Terry-B from the Dell forums was the main guy to contact.

 

Seriously? Wow that sucks. Might have to get a different computer... this is too short of a battery life.

 

Terry_B was one of three reps that I worked with, in the end he was the one that provided the option to replace. I would suggest to reach out to him. We will see what happens when it comes out in a few weeks. Since I am not the only one, maybe this is the final solution that Dell is offering affected clients. Good Luck.

 

I guess for me the replacement will still include an Intel 6235. The wifi card hasn't been changed in the revised XPS15 in France.

 

It is the one with new configuration?

I am also got a message from Mr. Terry-B, it looks nice guy, here is:
...There are a couple options here; the first is perhaps the quickest and the only option if you wish to keep Windows 7. The first is a service that will replace the wireless antenna and the wireless card. The wireless card could be swapped out with the DW 1901 card although you will need to download the windows 8 driver for the 1901 (it is fully compatible with Windows 7).
If you don't mind the wait for an exchange or Windows 8 then the next possible option is a system exchange with Win 8 and the DW 1901 card. Engineering is telling me that most users will notice an improvement in WIFI performance with this configuration...
I might go for entire system.
Has anyone got the NEW L521x with new configuration? With DW 1901 card and i think new motherboard/processor.

 

Nothing works so don't get your hopes up. This laptop sucks people. Stop trying to convince yourself that its great when its not.

 

I assume so, Windows 8 was pre-installed.

 

disputed. mine is great (-1).

wifi could be faster, but it's reliable, and works to ~50-100Mbps u&d at home to about 30-40' from the router.

reports as-many-or-more networks as my nexus 7 does (best other mobile wifi device I have access to).

currently running win 8, and the default win 8 driver stack (dell drivers installed are for chipset, card reader, freefall sensor, touchpad, geforce 640m, and quickset - no intel rapid-anything installed) on my mid-summer edition machine.

it's actually worse than "all are bad" - because if that were true dell would in fact be forced to deal with things more publicly. The fact that many machines obviously do work well means that they don't need to change much.

until proven otherwise, it is very much playing the lottery, to buy one.

since the lottery games are tremendous money makers across the world I fully expect dell to make a good profit off this machine.

 

Were are you based? I am wondering if they will do the same system exchange in the UK, I think I need one...

 

hi, i am new to his thread and am thinking about buying a xps 15 or a xps 14 ultrabook. so, what do you guys think i should buy? i prefer xps 15 but i am worried about the throttling and wifi issues as i will be using it for medium to heavy gaming. are the issues resolved now? thanks.

 

Neither machine is probably suitable for heavy gaming, they both have significant throttling issues, part of it inherent in a "thin" machine and part of it caused by the cooling solution engineered by dell being insufficient to keep the CPU+GPU thermal level low enough to run them both at rated (non-boost) speeds simultaneously.

They also both have unresolved wifi performance issues.

I'd advise looking at other machines that have better thermal management properties.

 

I just updated my BIOS from A09 to A12 and now my touch pad wont work. Driver/Software version installed is 16.2.12.17

EDIT: Fixed by uninstalling v.16.2.12.17 software and installing v.15.3.45.93 - but now I have lost the ability to open the charms bar from the track pad. Hrm.

 

reinstall v16.x?

I have A12 plus win8 plus the win8 driver for the trackpad and it's fine.

surprisingly, I find the 'touchy' integration with the trackpad quite effective. looking closely at the gestures listing now and then to get new gestures into use is helpful ... learning the other day that a double-finger tap gets me the 'context' menu just completely eliminates the need for a right mouse button. Coupled with single-finger-tap for selection/etc and the trackpad could be click-less and be fine - for me at least.

 

I love this laptop my wifi is fine I can't tell anything wrong with the screen and I'm still able to play Dishonored at 1080p with medium setting perfectly.

I know there are plenty of people who will say the same.

 

thanks for your reply. i really appreciate your help bcoz i would be doing some amount of gaming on my laptop along with college work and as you pointed out, the throttling and wifi issues make it useless. so, can you help me find a good gaming machine that is also portable. i'll need a gpu of atleast GT640M level and my budget is 800 dollars. i know that with only 800 bucks i cant get a decent gaming laptop but with black friday coming i'm hoping to get a good deal. thanks

 

If I were you, I would look at the Lenovo IdeaPad Y580. It looks no where near as nice, and I'm pretty sure the battery isn't as good, but it's a much better gaming machine and it costs a lot less.

 

Anyone else than me seen the new update for nVIDIA GeForce GT 630M /640M | nVIDIA GeForce GT 630M that came out today?
Version: 9.18.13.668, A01
Problem: Can't download! .... (File not found etc) -.-

 

Got it figured out.

 

Well, seeing as competitive items ebay shows me on your page are listing for under 700, i'm sure 1100 is too much to start with. ;^(

 

There's no way it's worth less than $700.

 

i'm sorry - i'm not a retailer - but for a used commodity PC that has to be shipped somewhere it's just not worth so much, at least to me.

Shoot, NewEgg has *new* machines of similar spec for less than you are asking and they're not even on Black Friday sale yet.

You're trying to sell at the time of year when prices will drop to the floor. Just bad timing.

 

You could have bought a new L502x with those specs for ~$900 a few months ago, so a used one now has to be less than that. $1,200 is just silly. You can get a new L521x (base) for that.

Dell XPS 15 L502X i7 2630QM Quad 2 2 9GHz NVIDIA 525M 6GB 750GB Webcam Win 7 Pre | eBay
Dell XPS 15 L502X 15 6" Notebook i7 2 0 GHz 6 GB RAM Back Lit Keyboard Blu Ray | eBay

Don't compare the sucker "buy it now" auctions, look at the ones that are actually selling. Used computers are a difficult sell so the value drop is really bad, you're losing a lot from day one and then the drop off is bad too.

Don't take this the wrong way, but you might be better off keeping it for a while.

 

Sorry to say but it's worth no more than 800. Heck you can get the new L521X for under 1000 from Dell Outlet with a coupon. They release coupons for 20-30% off every week too. The L502X is a good machine but it's big, bulky, heavy, and last generation. Electronics, especially PCs have a low resale value, the moment you buy it, it starts to decrease in value.

 

Intel has a white paper about USB3 and interference of Wifi.

USB 30* Radio Frequency Interference on 24 GHz Devices

 

Could explain our issue with the wifi. Anyone have any ideas for shielding the usb3.0?

 

well, this explains a lot.

 

we shouldn't be doing that, dell should.

 

Isn't my processor better than the 2600's you're comparing with mine? This should mean the price is more, right? I find it hard to believe a once $2500 pc is worth less then $1000 a year later... That is very unfortunate.

Thanks for the info though, bro.

 

The wifi problem persists without USB devices connected (the port is "quiet"), and transfer rates in the 5 Ghz band is also a problem. Interference may be part of the problem, but I haven't seen enough evidence that USB 3.0 is the smoking gun...

 

The trick is uninstalling the v15 "Dell Trackpad" program from the Programs and Features control panel, and then restarting. Then install v16. If you just remove the driver from the Device Manager, you end up with a non-functional trackpad in Windows 8.

 

I am based in IRL. They do not dispatche their services outside of North America, but he has associates that can help

 

For most consumers the differences in the processors is negligable in real use i5 to i5, i7 to i7, and in most cases i3 to i7 ... for the most part this stuff is way into the "fast enough" class ... for gamers the whole system build makes a difference because the system has to blend together for good elite level performance ( cpu, gpu, ram, hdd, display ... ).

As to value - hell - the machine dropped 30-50% value the day you unboxed it. With this commodity hardware business there simply is no real resale value to think of.

In spring '07 my wife was granted a brand new not notebook (part of a academic grant from Intel during her PhD research), it was a then spanking new Core 2 Duo machine - 2.1 Ghz, yadda yadda - Dell Lattitude - solid, sturdy, fast everything, plenty ram and HDD. Dell MRSP was over 2k at the time. She tried to sell the NEW IN BOX machine that would come with full warranty for the better part of six months, she didn't even get a nibble of interest with the price listed as low as 600 bucks (and we lived in Austin TX).

I'm not trying to bust your chops on it, really, just trying to help set expectations. ;^(

Good luck dude.

 

I was trying to see if I could get better battery life so I put powercfg /energy in CMD and I got this back:

Code:

USB Suspend:USB Device not Entering Selective Suspend


This device did not enter the USB Selective Suspend state. Processor power management may be prevented when this USB device is not in the Selective Suspend state. Note that this issue will not prevent the system from sleeping.

Device Name Dell Wireless 1901 Bluetooth 
Host Controller ID PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1E26 
Host Controller Location PCI bus 0, device 29, function 0 
Device ID USB\VID_0CF3&PID_E003 
Port Path 1,5 

Code:

USB Suspend:USB Device not Entering Selective Suspend


This device did not enter the USB Selective Suspend state. Processor power management may be prevented when this USB device is not in the Selective Suspend state. Note that this issue will not prevent the system from sleeping.

Device Name USB Root Hub 
Host Controller ID PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1E26 
Host Controller Location PCI bus 0, device 29, function 0 
Device ID USB\VID_8086&PID_1E26 
Port Path 

Code:

USB Suspend:USB Device not Entering Selective Suspend


This device did not enter the USB Selective Suspend state. Processor power management may be prevented when this USB device is not in the Selective Suspend state. Note that this issue will not prevent the system from sleeping.

Device Name Generic USB Hub 
Host Controller ID PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1E26 
Host Controller Location PCI bus 0, device 29, function 0 
Device ID USB\VID_8087&PID_0024 
Port Path 1 

Code:

Platform Power Management Capabilities:PCI Express Active-State Power Management (ASPM) Disabled


PCI Express Active-State Power Management (ASPM) has been disabled due to a known incompatibility with the hardware in this computer.

Do any of these things really effect battery life and if so how do I go about fixing it?

 

I get the same power warnings on my system (two for USB parts but my bluetooth is part of the intel 6235 so currently my system is using the generic bluetooth adapter).

I'd guess that either the BT hardware doesn't support the same suspend or the driver needs a fix, or in my case I'd need to install the intel drivers instead of the win8 supplied drivers.