XPS 15 (L521X) Owner's Lounge

Am i the only one having major issues with connecting this to an external monitor. It doesn't seem to want to display to the external monitor and if it does only briefly before going blank.

 

I wish Dell would send us a perforated bottom, or even if a third party made one that fit that would be great. I have the same experience with the XPS 1640. My cooling pad works great with my old XPS 1640 with the 9 cell battery because of the perforated bottom, but my Targus ChillMat doesn't make a 1C degree difference with the XPS 15.

All I have been able to do is underclock the GPU with afterburner to keep it below 80C while playing NFS MW or DiRT.

 

So im on the phone with Dell support right now and they are giving me the option to swap my xps 15 for a inspiron 15 special edition with similar or better specs. is this something I should consider? I need to buy through dell because I have an account there and no money to spend on another brand. The only issue I see so far is the price difference and they are not willing to refund any of the over because Iv'e had this xps for 4-5 months. lmk what you think. Thanks

 

for the issues I recall you'd reported gixer, i'd say go for it as having a reliable & capable machine is more important in the long run.

 

So I tried this .. Uninstalled and reinstalled with the drivers mentioned in this piece... I'm cautiously optomistic..

Here's the speedtest before upstairs and a few walls from the router. I ran it a few times as well as tried to stream my HD recordings from my media center.. Media center was sometimes choppy and the speed test's average was around:



Now, sitting in the same spot.. I haven't moved.. I did the reinstallation of the drivers in the order of NVIDIA first, reboot, then Centrino drivers.. Streaming in media center seems to be improved and I ran multiple speedtests and got an average of around



So.. we'll see how this goes in the next coming days

 

No problem here, I connect to an external monitor every day at the office.

 

I wonder if removing the optical drive and leaving it out will make a difference, the slot left for cd's might allow airflow to be pulled in from the side rather than just the front of the laptop.

I've been meaning to open mine up for a while, just bought a set of tools the other day, and I also had the same suspicions about the base possibly having some air vents. I'll see if I can't get Dell to send me a replacement base panel as I have access to a workshop that I could use to put some carefully placed holes in one to see how much a difference it makes. I'm not sure if it is the case, but if the flat part of the base panel can be separated from the rest of it, there's a chance I could design a replacement...

 

Unfortunately I've tried this and it doesn't help. The bottleneck for air is between the fan and the back panel. There is maybe 2mm of space between the two provided by inbuilt spacers on the fan unit. A problem introduced by removing the DVD drive and leaving the area unoccupied is more keyboard flex. With nothing to press up against the keyboard there is noticeably more flex and rattle.

A perforated bottom would probably help a hell of a lot though. One idea I had was to install a second blower into the DVD drive bay, that routed air directly to the main fan, as I still have my 1640 fan lying around. Problem is this is a laptop I got through work and I don't want to noticeably invalidate my warranty with the soldering required to hook up the fan. I may make a modified cable that will allow me to put them in series though.

Heatpipes are incredibly easy to make, I wish I had the tools to build a bigger longer heatpipe. Then I'd do it myself. There are many tutorials on the web that demonstrate just how easy it is. I wish dell would acknowledge this flaw and give an option for installing a new cooler.

 

I should have stated that my test did not involve a NAS or streaming high loads from a device. It was simply using my router. I don't have a super pipe, 15 Mbps download is my rate and this was maintained within 40 feet of router + the aforementioned walls and wooden door. Prior to this I was dropping to a pathetic .84 Mbps when the laptop was first configured. After the BIOS A12, this rate had increased, but only to 2.5Mbps with fluctuations up to 3.5Mbps. Now that I get 100% at 40 feet, I can state that this machine does exactly what I needed it to do. (keep in mind, I've also had them replace my screen (see previous posts) which was a tremendous improvement as well - got rid of the grid lines).

 

Ok so I got my external monitor working after reinstalling windows again and but it seems that it cuts off if I move the laptop and I can tell there are some slight pink/red lines sometimes. Could there be a loose connection somewhere? Seems like if I keep readjusting it, it eventually works. There's no problem on the monitor or cable side as it's worked fine with my old laptops for ages.

Edit : I think it was my hdmi cable being crap

 

I feel the same way. I know the xps has its issues but it feels solid to me and im sure the inspiron is going to be nothing like it but this has gone on for too long. At this point I just need a reliable machine and the reviews ive read look good on the special edition so I told him to ship it out. If it gets here and I don't like it or it has issues then it's going back and i'll keep the xps till they find a suitable replacement

 

How do you know your cable hasn't taken damage since you got your new laptop? My L521X works very well, I can output to two monitors and the laptop LCD, 1920x1080 (Laptop) + 1920x1200 (Dell U2410) + 2560x1440 (Dell u2711). It sounds like you've either got a bung cable or a loose conntection somewhere.

 

I tried this with the Dell 1901 card (using 1901 drivers of course) but same performance. It didn't make a difference for me.

I got a N300 Mini Wireless adapter. Has anyone else noticed that the speeds change depending on which USB slot you use the adapter with?

If I use the middle USB slot, I literally get no connection and speeds crawl to like .10 Mbit/s.

Using the 1st USB slot (to the left of the middle USB slot), I get speeds around 7Mbit/s.

Using the 3rd USB slot (right), I get speeds around 10Mbit/s.

So I guess that Intel whitepaper describing USB 3.0 interference with Wifi is probably the main culprit.

And why is it that my upload speeds don't suffer at all (even at a far distance) but download speed does? It doesn't make sense to me.

 

Because the interference is probably localized to the receiver, and it not strong enough to cause interference with your WAP's receiver, and your pc doesn't care about transmission interference.

Just a guess though.

 

Hi.
I tried to do a clean install of Windows 8 with UEFI but I had to give up. When I switch to UEFI in the BIOS options, it says it does not find any bootable device: it cannot find my harddrive, the Win8 install DVD or the Win8 install USB stick.
To be precise, I have the Dell logo, then a black screen, then something like "check media", then "fail" and it tries a second time before telling me it doesn't find any bootable device.

Did I miss something?

 

We are talking about 6235N, not 1901, the drivers are completely different... Didn't you try it with your microwave oven? LOL

 

Yeah I know you were talking about the 6235. I was just posting to say that this process doesn't work with the 1901 card if anyone was wondering. That's all.

And huh? Microwave?

 

Boot device list may not be set, I used temporary boot selection ... F12? ... To force boot from USB.

How did you make your USB stick?

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

 

Had the same problem with USB not being recognized no matter what I tried. I used FAT format using different programs and even tried NTFS format since the official Windows program uses that instead of FAT.

But I did use the DVD installation disc just fine though. As c0derbear posted, try using the boot menu to select your boot device.

 

Anyone know why there is that black tape on the bottom grill just opposite the fan outlet?

 

Good question, mine has it also. I wish someone will figure out a way to improve the cooling. I read somewhere that the same heatsink cools the gpu and cpu. That sounds like a major design flaw, especially if the fan can't keep up.

 

It makes me wish I had gotten an ugly alienware, but this was a gift so I can't complain too much.

 

I don't think there is much you can do. The laptop is great for normal use very quiet and cool but when it comes to say gaming I get a lot of throttling when I play bf3 I think the laptop can get around 60 fps before it heat's up on low settings but once it's hot it drops down to 20ish. I might try to mod the laptop when my warranty runs out in a years time by using some copper shims instead of the thermal pads and adding some extra heat sinks.

What I'd love to try is water cooling it ( like this guy) and placing the connections under the metal flip panel. But it's even more hard as there's limited space and it's risky.

 

My warranty ends 11/2015, I will probably get a new laptop at that point.

 

I'm sad to say I asked for a refund today and it was accepted. I was trying to play some Battlefield 3 ( yes I know it's not a gaming machine ) and the fps was a joke. Why am I sad? Because it's such a nicely made machine build quality is awesome so I wanted to keep it but the performance for high intensity is crap ( It's perfect for everyday work though). If I wasn't a student and had more money I may have kept it and bought a console or desktop and kept this for work. But it costs too much seeing as I can get a similar spec 15r se in the sale for around 500 quid which doesn't have throttling issues.

 

Actually, mine hasn't throttled so I guess I am lucky in the regard. It is just annoying that it gets so hot and the fan is really loud when gaming. I guess my expectations of a large ultrabook are unrealistic. BTW, I hope you have better luck with your next system. Maybe I should just start reminding myself that I really don't have time to game ;-)

 

Not sure why people keep saying it's not a gaming machine (not singling you out as I've read this from others on this thread as well) but Dell needs to tell us what their definition of a gaming machine is then. The L521x's components are perfectly capable of supporting gaming or other intense CPU/GPU activity. Dell chose to artificially limit the machine's capabilities due to poor airflow design/insufficient heat dissipation. There have been several "solutions" posted such as thermal repasting, new shims, etc. but the laptop should not require modification post-build by the end user to correct this. At home I can work around the limitations since I have a desktop and other devices I can use but the XPS is my traveling companion. . Hopefully the 15R SE works out well for you.

 

Also, had a bit of time to try the Wifi driver fix posted earlier on this thread before the holiday, the fix to uninstall the wireless and Nvidia drivers and re-install the Nvidia drivers first. While it does seem to work a bit better performance is still all over the place. This is using 5Ghz on the 6235. It's difficult to tell if what I'm seeing is a true performance increase, however tiny, or just placebo effect at this point. It's certainly possible the fix won't work for everyone.

I do wish we had more local network performance stats from those having issues instead of internet tests which can further skew the results.

 

I agree, the GPU should be able to handle most modern games with medium or low settings at or slightly below 1080i

I just wish the bottom was perforated so the fans with my cooling pad could help.

As far as thermal repasting, several people have done this and not noticed any difference in temp.

 

My L502X with a 540M and 2720QM can handle most games released within the past 1-2 years with medium or low settings at 1920 x 1080 and 30 fps. If the games are a few years old, it can often completely max out the settings and still yield 30 or more fps. That a machine with a 640M isn't suitable for gaming is true for only the most hardcore players who demand extreme performance and maximum settings. Unless there is something else wrong with the machine that is bottlenecking or throttling performance. I'm just saying...you don't need a bulky jet engine in order to play PC games (and have them look good). That's just what Dell wants you to think.

 

Summary of my brief L521X experience:

Received first machine in late November, after Black Friday. Windows 8 $1699 model. Wireless performance was excellent. Received 25mbps whereas I had only received closer to 20 on previous laptops, regardless of which corner of my home I was in. Granted, I live in a single-bedroom apartment and didn't test it anywhere else.

Played Guild Wars 2 for 15-30 minutes, high settings at 1920 x 1080 with 40+ fps. No throttling, but didn't play long.

No touchpad issues or issues with the screen touching the keyboard.

The display had gridlines which were discernible by me but perhaps not by many consumers. Images on websites were also noticeably pixellated. There was a blemish near the center of the screen which I cannot believe passed QA.

Also, the system froze upon the second startup at the Dell logo. Had to enter setup and change Intel Smart Response to AHCI and back. This is apparently a known issue affecting many, if not all, Windows 8 models, but they are shipping them out anyway and dealing with the problem as it comes to them.

Requested an exchange due to the unsatisfactory screen. Received replacement system within a couple of days.

Replacement system was also a brand new unit, or was supposed to be but had fingerprints on the screen that I noticed before turning it on. The new system's screen was equally gridlined and pixelly. There was not a blemish like the previous one, but there were 5 dead pixels around the borders that I could count.

In addition, the replacement system made an occasional grinding noise under the left side of the keyboard and had the same freeze-at-Dell-logo-upon-second-startup-attempt problem.

Did not test wireless performance or try gaming.

Touchpad was also fine, and the screen did not touch the keyboard.

My beef with the L521X is that it seems they tried to get away with using a junky screen on an otherwise premium system. Not just an average screen, but a BAD screen. Compared it to two other laptops, two TVs, and a desktop monitor...screens of varying quality...and, in my opinion, the L521X's was easily the worst of them all. For this reason, I requested a full refund and to be done with the system. I've liked Dell's computers in the past and will continue to keep my eye on them, but they lost my sale for this year due almost entirely to their choice in screen.

And a comment on their customer service: My contact method of choice is e-mail. All throughout their website, you are told to expect a response time of 1 business day. Once I read "1-2 business days." However, my response time for my 3 support requests were 5 business days (7 days total), 3 business days (5 days total), and 6 business days (8 days total). I did receive a replacement and ultimately a refund with no questions asked. Also, the refund was processed in about 2 days despite their stating it can take up to 30. So, I have mixed feelings about their e-mail support. Good service, but their website's estimated response time is just...completely wrong in my experience.

 

Ye what's the point of having the i7 ivy bridge and decent gpu in a laptop if we can't use them both to their full capacity. I've decided just to leave getting an upgrade and use my current L502x is good enough it's sandy bridge i5 525m gpu 6gb ram but it's better than the l521x when gaming lol. Another thing putting me off from upgrading is windows 8 I think I'll hate it I know you can make it look like windows 7 but it reminds me of what windows did to their mobile os they changed it from it's desktop feel to it's modern metro interface which restricted you in even dragging and dropping things from a pc. Kinda feels like they have dumb down the user interface I know it's good for touch screens but what about the normal desktop user? Why get rid of tried, tested and loved features I know the pc market is down and touch screen appliances are booming but maybe they should of marketed windows 8 just for those devices and made it easily switch-able to the "classic" look seriously it wouldn't even be that hard for them.

For those that can afford it just for general work use and have something else for gaming etcI think it's a great laptop. Problem is it's not marketed as that it's an XPS which is meant to be an Xtreme Performance System which it clearly isn't and I doubt dell will be saying by the way this throttles when you use it to its full capacity as that would impact their sales.

lol the good old l502x shame they didn't keep the design with a few modifications and just put new hardware into it and sell it as a mid range laptop in the xps range . I'll save like £400 quid from not upgrading and still have a decent laptop and just buy a £120 or so ps3 slim for dedicating gaming problem solved and money saved.



edit : Another thing that disappointed me is how notebookcheck and other reviews gave the l521x such good ratings when there are major flaws with the design. Yes it looks beautiful but it's also what's under the hood that counts.

 

I'm really tired of this FUD propogating.

I'm NOT a MS advocate in general, and am "stuck" more with a Windows machine because of work-related issues than anything else, BUT just because the default front-face of Win 8 is the new Start Screen does NOT mean you are restricted to that nor in any way restricted from the same multi-tasking and desktop application use that you have on Win 8. At all.

You can use the Start Screen and Metro apps for what they are good for, and the desktop and desktop-apps for what they are good for, and be happy. If you don't like the Metro version of something you can still use the desktop version (e.g. Metro version of Skype 'freezes' if you swap away from it, Desktop version doesn't, other apps will be similar).

You *really* decide you don't want the Start Page at all, then there's free and cheap solutions for that too.

But cutting yourself off from the current/best security and driver fixes from MS and other vendors when you haven't even TRIED the OS out? Well, that's just silly.

MS isn't going to be aging-out Win 7 anytime soon so it's not like you have to change now for an existing machine, but they will in the end really only be going forward with one platform I am sure. Likewise, you're going to have a more-and-more difficult time getting any new hardware for the consumer market that is not hosting Win 8. Soon enough all the non-consumer desktops and mobiles will be using Win 8 too.

There really isn't any reason not to do so, technically speaking.

 

Well how do you expect me to judge an operating system I have looked into it on the internet and from my findings/ others views think I will not like it. I'm not going to purchase a laptop do just try and then find to my distaste I don't like it and you can't really get much of a feel for it in a shop ( which again I didn't like). I guess I could download a trial if it exists but I don't have time to install and I'm pretty sure I won't like it as I'm more than happy with windows 7.

I did actually say you can make it like windows 7 but the problem is why make it a hassle to "change" it to look more like windows 7 you have to download this and that and not everyone wants to see a metro screen or have two types of application for desktops. Keep tried, tested and liked features, simple or at least allow them to be enabled through windows. Windows vista did crap and windows 8 doesn't seem to be doing particularly well either time will tell.

Microsoft will continue to provide fixes for windows 7 for a long while yet as they only recently stopped support for xp so I don't see any problems getting getting applications in the near future working it's not as though they are going to stop providing applications for such a large amount of the pc market, large organisations will continue to use it too. For example auto cad 2013 is still supported on windows xp and not on vista why probably because many companies still use it.

Put it another way what has windows 8 brought which windows 7 desktop users aren't already happy with? Result not as many people will be going over to windows 8 which seems the case.

 

I have a broken hinge of my XPS 15. Does anyone has same hardware problem??

 

I expect people to make opinions based on their own experiences and not necessarily strictly on the experience of others.

I read many commentaries myself before trying it out in any fashion, and found people with both opinions and no way to reconcile them other than it was some form of personal preference based upon experience.

I went into trying Win8 by setting up VirtualBox with a virtual machine using the free trial from MS. I decided after a couple weeks of playing with it within that toy environment that it was worth the boot/loading/interactive changes. I went so far in my reservations as to buy a license for Start8 in fact.

Which I have actually never used.

Once I installed '8 I gave it two weeks "as is" - with minor google searches to help find things I could not immediately find - and ended up deciding it wasn't worth installing Start8.

I have my start page set with those things I use for "consumption" only (netflix, weather check, etc.) and along with short-cuts to the desktop utils that I use most. I have found that it takes less effort, clicks, and keystrokes to do the same things in win8 that I was doing in win7.

*shrug*

If you're willing to base your opinion strictly on those of others and not on personal experience, I'll respect that choice. I just don't think it's the best way to do things. With an OS choice, which is a long term contract if you will, it seems to me that it deserves a reasonable number of hours spent to the task considering how many hours you will in the end be spending with the system.

I also respect that not everyone, probably not even many, share my opinion in that respect. ;^)

Even fewer probably have my technical chops to do as much as I do, exploration wise, on my computers (short resume: amateur hack from '82 through '91 and professional hack from '91 through present).

Further, I have the time available to pursue my interests, I also recognize not everyone has that either.

 

Drag! How did it break?

Nope - mine is solid. Approaching six months old now.

 

I agree, I also feel that Windows 8 is significantly faster than W7; however, I have not compared both operating systems on a same machine. The great thing about Windows 8 is if you can't find something, the search works really well.

BTW, has anyone had their screen replaced and saw a significant improvement related to the gridlines? I'm using my Mac for the moment and it is so much better except for the lower res.

Mc

 

Hi everyone.

I fought hard with Dell and they've agreed to send me a replacement unit (same or better they said). With that being said.. my L521x is the one with the i7 3612qm & Intel N 6235. The new ones ship with an updated processor (3632qm) and Windows 8. Do you think the replacement they are sending me will fix the issues (throttling, wireless, and for some reason when my palm is on the palm rest my speakers sometimes cut out?) Should I start looking at other laptops?

Responses would be appreciated. Thanks everyone!

 

my guess is the palm rest thing will likely be fixed, but popping the bottom and re-seating a cable may also have fixed that.

probably no change on the rest.

if the throttling and wifi are crux problems for you, you're not going to be happy with the replacement, i'd wager.

 

So I received my replacement system today. As some of you might remember Dell offered me a inspiron special edition. What arrived today?... Another POS XPS 15. Im so mad right now and calling dell to get a refund

 

ok so I tried to use my sd card reader and its not detecting anything, I cant even find the sd host controller in device manager or any hint that the system is dectting the card reader, usb ports work fine and I can use an sd to usb adapter fine, also the headphone jacks work fin.. I restarted the laptop, reinstalled the card reader drivers, opened up the laptop to unplug and replug the sd card reader board cable but nothing... help please it was working fine until a few days ago, the laptop said power surge and then it said one of your devices requires more power than can be supplied but there wasn't anything plugged in :S

also tried booting up in partition magic, gparted but it too could not detect an sd card reader.

 

I agree with c0derbear that the throttling and wireless issues won't be fixed by a replacement machine. There are so many posts in this thread of those that have their L521x replaced multiple times with little or no improvement. If based on your usage the wireless and throttling issues affected your last machine the new one won't really be any better. The wireless and throttling issues seem inherent to the design of the L521x. Some seem to have usage profiles that mask or prevent the issues from being noticed but I still believe those other machines are affected.

Other laptops might serve you better.

 

elvis, if an alternative bootable OS doesn't pick it up I'm inclined to think your power surge did some damage.

have you tried an Ubuntu desktop bootable disk?

 

installing it on a usb now. btw, the power surge was caused internally and not externally from my outlet. my powerbar s fine, a 300$ monster power bar. and its weird that it said a device requires more power than its getting...and nothing was plugged in

 

Has anyone used a Western Digital Passport with this system yet, or for that matter, any portable USB 3.0 hard drive? I am specifically interested in the experiences of people with the Windows 8 version, although, I welcome everyone's experiences and ideas.

Reason I ask is because my l521x will see the Passport briefly, sometimes for a few seconds other times for longer but ultimately the drive disconnects before all my data transfers. Once it disconnects and I reseat the cable, the system will only see it for a second then it disappears. The drive is fine, as it works on other machines, although my other machines are 32 bit. I purchased a new cable to be sure the cable was 3.0 capable.

I am trying to narrow down the possible causes. So far I am thinking it its a problem with the Windows 8 64 bit USB 3.0 drivers, since Intel has not provided Windows 8 USB 3.0 drivers yet. Therefore, you are forced to used Microsoft's drivers.

 

Ubuntu is not compatible with ufei booting I have windows 8 .

 

I have one. It works very well with win7 64 bit.

 

I have the 2nd version. I have not experienced any throttling but the computer does get hot while gaming (86C CPU and 84C GPU in 22C room with laptop cooler). Wireless connection speed is good, but the signal strength is slightly weaker than my MPB.

My major concern is the screen as I have the gridlines issue and a few dead pixels. I will get it replaced in a few months and I hope that will help. Also, I don't like the mousepad.

If your not going to game and the screen doesn't bother you then the XPS 15 should be fine. Otherwise, look elsewhere. If you are a gamer you could get a Alienware laptop for the same amount of money or less, but they weigh almost twice as much. Personally, if I could have gotten anything I probably would have gotten a Retina MBP.

 

Temporarily switch to bios for the DVD boot, won't hurt anything.

Re:USB 3

In have a cheap enclosure with a 3.5" drive that works fine with both win 7 & 8.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2