XPS 15 (L521X)(2nd version) Owner's Lounge (Windows 8/Wifi 1901/ i7 3632QM)

Naturoses: I doubt it's anything you did/didn't do, unless somehow it's the wrong quickset. I'd contact Dell support via www/facebook/forum and get advice on that. They support Win8 on the machine obviously and the whole set should work together. It's wacky that the display isn't.

Only other thing I can think of is just a stupid thing, based upon my experience with Windows ... uninstall all Dell drivers/software, make sure Windows is fully updated from MS, then install the driver stack one at a time again, saving QuickSet for last. It's a PITA but the only thing I can think of. In theory there is some hidden dependency in QuickSet for something one of the other drivers provides.

*sigh*

CosmoFX / Landon418: It just sucks that Dell is misleading with the machine, but time and again people get this machine and are disappointed by the gaming performance. Contrary to prior XPS machines it's just NOT a gaming rig and will never be.

 

I'm having the same problems. I installed my solid state drive and tried to reinstall the drivers. Took forever for me to get all of them lined up, but I still can't get brightness control to work.

This is very frustrating thus far as I've spent a total of ~5 hours configuring and finding the drivers. My most explicit problems were with the free-fall sensor (saying wrong OS) and Net Framework 3.5 not being able to download correct files. Finally got those two problems solved only to be stumped by the brightness adjustment issue.

This full brightness all the time is killing my battery life so quickly.

 

When downloading drivers from dell, it is important to note that their BRAIN DEAD WEB SITE re-sets the OS selection *every time* you get a file, or select a file.

So you need to make sure that EACH FILE is for the correct target OS.

I think it took me an hour to properly download all the drivers, when I did this last fall, for Windows 8.

And again for the big most-drivers-updated release in February.

Stupid damned web site.

 

Thank you for your support.

I did exactly as you said. I double and triple checked the OS and made sure it is win 8 64bit. Today, I called dell premium support and they did spend almost 3 hours trouble-shooting but no luck.

My eyes are watering and painful. I am unable to work for longer periods especially word docs etc., which have white background because it is so bright. I do not know whatelse to do....

Thanks

 

Same here, I've done everything suggested and much much more. This is incredibly frustrating and don't know what to do next. Dell support is of no help either.

 

Well, y'all could change then system colors so 'white' is a less bright color, until you get a better fix.

I always set my software development tools to use more muted colors for those same reasons.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk HD

 

Is it possible that it's the LCD itself or the cable connecting the display? That's the only possible thing I can gather from searching around forums and whatnot.

 

I am pretty sure it Just Worked for Naturoses on their previous OS install, and I doubt the cabling was affected by an OS reinstall.

Can't speak to your Trevorx3, if your machine arrived in that fashion from dell it seems like they need to repair/replace it, to me, but I'd think it's still a software quirk.

 

I can't remember if it worked. This is a refurb I received to replace my 15z. I swapped in a solid state almost immediately and never touched the brightness settings on the last hard drive install.
This is quite saddening though. I really don't want to reinstall, but I might have to.

 

Trevor, I have hard time seeing how an OS reinstall could help.

Driver stack maybe, but not OS.

In your case I can see how you may, MAYBE, have "jangled" something since you swapped out the mSATA or HDD.

Naturoses received their machine with the 256 Gb mSATA SSD (almost) completely unused, with the OS on the HDD.

"dumb" Dell, really "dumb"

 

I got my issue resolved after doing some very interesting work with the drivers. I had to save the drivers for BOTH the integrated graphics card and the NVIDIA to my computer. Turned all network connections off to prevent Windows from automatically installing the drivers that it 'finds.' Then I uninstalled both display devices (the Intel one and the NVIDIA one). Rebooted computer, installed both drivers ensuring they were the Windows 8 ones.

Restarted and all was well.

I also encountered issues with the fan running all the time. Both of these, I received some form of forum support from Dell in this thread: Re: Dell XPS 15 l502x - fan running and brightness issues - Laptop General Hardware Forum - Laptop - Dell Community.

Fixing the brightness issue and the fan constantly running has me very very relieved.
Hopefully this will result in much better battery life. I was receiving well under 2 hours off a charge when the issues persisted.

 

Thanks for sharing Tervorx3, hopefully Naturoses will notice your post and it will help there too.

 

I received the replacement with i7 3632QM and KILLER WIRELESS-N, 1202 and Nanya instead of Micron memory chips . The wireless card is the same as the N-6235 in terms of speed.
The worse thing is that the touchpad is like "Woodpecker", very loose and noisy.
I think, in fact I am pretty sure that has to be changed, and has to be taking apart all laptop to replace it, as far as the manual says.
I still have the old L521x and the touchpad is perfect.
Came with Bios A12, updated to A13 without any issue.

 

You could try swapping the touchpad yourself, between the two.

Owner's manual has info.

Of course, it's complete crap that it comes like that.

*sigh*

 

I did a quick check (on the old one), to see if is possible removing it, the touchpad, without the need of completely disassemble it.
Removed the battery and two connection that are passing above the touchpad and the three screws that holds it, but if Dell engineers designed the motherboard shorter with less than 1mm, on touchpad side, I could remove it easily. I even loosen a bit the motherboard lifting it a bit up carefully, to make room enough, but did not work.
I will see next days what I will do.
I did changed the touchpad on Studio 1537, it was much easier.

 

yeah, this thing is a little bit like electronic Jenga.

 

My battery life is still horrendous. I can't get more than 1 hour and 30 minutes currently. Even with the lowest brightness settings and power saver on and Dell's power saving options on in Quickset.

This is really unacceptable. Any ideas?

 

Sorry to crosspost this, but I may have better luck here.

I'm thinking about buying the i5 + gt 640m version of this laptop but I'm a bit worried about throttling issues.

All the complaints about throttling I've seen are in the i7 version. Can anyone with the i5 confirm they also have the same throttling issues ? i5 should have less heating since it's half of the cores of the i7.

I have seen this question asked several times in the forum, but couldn't find an answer.

Thanks.

 

Amazon.com: Dell XPS XPS15-9062sLV 15-Inch Laptop: Computers & Accessories
i purchased this one . i will receive tomorrow. i want to know if is easy to downgrade to windows 7?
and if somebody have a safe guide how to do it. thanks in advance.

 

You're basically talking about a clean install of the OS. You'll also need to buy your own copy of Windows 7.

I think you'd be a lot better off just getting "Start8" and installing that on Win8, myself, and it'd be a lot less hassle.

BUT if you persist, you'll want to go over here ( Drivers & Downloads | Dell US ) and get all the current Windows 7 drivers before you start. Be sure to get the correct WiFi drivers.

Dell has this to say about Win 7 reinstalls : Windows 7 Manual Reinstall

Once you get the OS installed, with all the drivers, you'll probably also want to install and configure the Intel Rapid Start in order to take advantage of the 32Gb mSATA.

Go over here ( http://en.community.dell.com/cfs-fi...ponsiveness-technologies-setup-guide-0p83.pdf ) to get Dell's guidance on that.

Good luck.

 

well i will keep my windows 8 then.
thanks

 

I think I found the root of my battery issue.

My processor is constantly running at 2.9 gHz, even when no load is placed on the processor. I have updated the BIOS to A13 (the most recent one listed on Dell's driver website) so I have no clue what to do to fix this issue.

This is very frustrating. I freaking love the build quality of this laptop and the overall feel. However, these small issues seem endless. Now, I'm also dealing with a touchpad that jumps to the top of the screen occasionally while scrolling. Very annoying.

 

Trevor, look in your task manager for processes that are running CPU heavy. Hopefully something will show there.

The trackpad lumpiness is a software artifact. Later model synaptics drivers are doing it. Maybe only win8 drivers, dunno.

 

Wow, I'm a total idiot. Forgot the first rule of troubleshooting; begin with the most basic and work towards the more complex. I just assumed since the throttling thing was a common issue, I'd blame it on that. Woops.

My school's anti-virus for some reason was a runaway process. I'm reinstalling it now. Hate Trend Micro... Wish we could just have MSE and be done with it.

 

You *have* to use Trend micro? Why not MSE or AVG or Avast?

 

I did swap the touchpad, but did not solved the issue. I had to swap the palm rest too, basically I disassembled both laptops completely, including the display.
It was a bit tricky, Dell glued the exhaust grill that it is also hold by four screws. I had to removed it to get the LCD out.
I also changed the DDRam Nanya with Micron. I do not know why Nanya reminds my of Narnia movie.......
It took me over two-three hours to put them back together with one brake.
Both laptops worked at first push of the button, in fact the second, first beeped a few times, turned it off than it worked perfectly.
I did it without the need of manual.
Now is working fine except the touchpad scrolling. I thing bios A13 on Win_8 messed up the driver. When I swipe down the pages goes up. I ticked the "reverse" box, I think, (I am using the one with Windows 7 now) and it is working fine but only with two fingers, with one finger is not working.
Strangely the wireless is working better now (Killer one), it catches over 7 other Internet access points, but the best of the best is a Studio 1537 which I picked form eBay as defect, very cheap, ( I needed the motherboard and the LCD from it, but only the power button was wrong, fixed it with a bit of soldering) the antennas are made by electronic PCB, I never seen such antennas....It catches over nine access points and the XPS 15 with N-6235 only one .

 

You're having too much "fun" with this stuff, codred2 but i applaud your attitude. ;^)

I'm not surprised wifi reception changed in one of them, one of the issues we've read about is that interference[/b] from other RF sources inside the machine (CPU, GPU, memory, data bus, whatever) can adversely affect the wlan function. Thus, how the antenna leads are routed and what they come close to can make a difference. There has also been some comments wondering about wrapping them to insulate them but I've seen nobody do it and report (or I don't remember). Mine works on the edge of "well enough", so I leave "well enough" alone.

 

I had good experience with this driver - synaptics 16.2.12.17 for win 8 Completely solved that touchpad problem. I no longer had my blood boiling while scrolling.

 

Nope, not working for me. I tried a few different drivers, but none of them working as it should be. This touchpad used to be on L521x that today has been collected by Dell, on which was Windows 7 and it worked perfectly.
I do not have one finger vertical scrolling working and I had to tick the reverse scrolling to be normal, and two finger scrolling.
I guess you have Win_8, do you have the touchpad working normal? I mean one finger vertical scrolling and when swipe down the pages go down not up.

 

Anyone experiencing an issue with the screen on the l521x, where the screen brightness appears uneven in the dark scenes of games and movies? I have noticed this issue in both my original and replacement l521x. In games such as Metro 2033 (which are especially dark) you can see a black splotch in the middle of the screen. Almost like a cable is running behind the screen and causing this effect.

I can't be the only one, right?

 

The win8 driver does not support the same scrolling gestures as the win7 driver, and vice versa, fyi.

 

hi all,

I have the L521x (2nd ver), win8, wifi 1901, i7 3632QM, 32gb msata, 100GB hd, 8gb and for the most part i'm really happy. however I was wondering if any of you folks with the same setup have had issues using the wifi and the bluetooth together?

I tried to connect my bluetooth headphones and did that successfully and then went back to browsing the web and my connection completely bottomed out. It was still connected to the network - but the 1901 completely stopped sending any data back / forth.
Same thing happened when i connected my bluetooth mouse.
As soon as i disconnected them - the internet connection went back to normal.

All drivers are updated and installed in the order as prescribed by http://forum.notebookreview.com/dell-xps-studio-xps/696206-xps-15-l521x-2nd-version-owners-lounge-windows-8-wifi-1901-i7-3632qm-9.html#post9112731

I'm also getting the issue with the trackpad jumping when scrolling with two fingers (very frustrating)

Any thoughts? Any one with the same issues?

I am in the process of talking to dell about it - but thought it would be good to get some thoughts from here.

 

I had lightly used the intel6235 with bluetooth and wifi at the same time, didn't notice anything caused by the bluetooth activity.

I currently have the killer-n 1202 and irregularly use them both at the same time, again I've never noticed an issue.

I do NOT listen to music over bluetooth though, so can't say whether that is affected or not, just that mouse and connectivity with phone and android tablet apparently work fine.

wrt:trackpad jumping, someone posted up that drive "16.2.12.17, A01" seems to not have the issue (you can get it via earlier releases in the Dell driver section for the l521x). You'll have to uninstall the current trackpad driver, reboot, then install the older one. It's a pain to retrograde drivers, but doable. I have done the retrograde but haven't had enough time on the machine to tell if it has had an effect yet.

 

Thanks for the feedback c0derbear. I haven't tried the Touchpad driver retrograde (will do that once i've got the wifi/bt issue sorted).

I'm still having issues with the wifi & bluetooth together on the Dell 1901 Combo card - Dell are sending a technician over tomorrow. Will update with the findings from there. Seems like it might be a faulty card. Dell customer service have been amazing i must say (sure this is the case as long as your machine is under warranty).

 

Yes, this driver works better compared with any release.
Scrolling is not working with one finger, just two fingers up. Its alright as long as it does right.
On XPS 15Z , there no issues with touchpad with Windows 8 installed. Works much better than on L521x.

 

FYI, I don't think ANY of the "win8" drivers support single-finger scrolling, only multi-touch, on this machine.

You may be able to use one of the win7 drivers though if you want that feature set instead of the win8 specific stuff.

 

My win8 on XPS 15Z supports single finger scrolling, I am using right now, but with default mouse drivers of win8.
I am not using any of Dell drivers, Cypress in this case.
I do not need any multi finger gestures/features, just normal scrolling and tapping.
The L521x scrolling works reverse, not normal as should be and two finger scrolling. Even the default win8 touchpad/mouse driver is not working vertical scrolling on L521x.

 

Does anyone have the pixel grid issue on the screen on the Win 8 version of this laptop? I had to previously return two laptops due to the screen issue.

 

yes (there have been a number of reports, doesn't seem like the '2nd version' is much different than the '1st version'

 

Thanks for that. I think I'll wait until the new i7 Haswell processors come out and then go for a Samsung. After returning the two XPS 15 units I went for a Samsung Series 7 700Z7C and I'm very impressed with it.

 

This is my first time posting in either of the threads but thought I would share my experience so far. I recieved a replacement model about a week ago and the wifi issue was not fixed. After many long talks with Dell I finally had a supervisor admit to me that Dell has still not found a fix for the problem but are working on it, They are sending me a wifi dongle to use on my machine and promised a resolution??? in the near future. Just thought I would share.

 

Okay finally some feeback.

Did the Touchpad driver retrograde - works like a charm.
Technician came and swapped out my dell 1901 card for the Atheros KillerN - works great in Windows 8 (haven't tried ubuntu 12.10) - can use both bluetooth with headphones and mouse and wifi with no cut-outs - wifi IS a little slower than it should be however I'm happy - i'm getting great speeds regardless.

wish you all the best of luck

 

I currently have an XPS with the 32gb SSD + 750gb HD option.
I also have a Sandisk 256gb SSD ( SanDisk Extreme SDSSDX-240G-G25 2.5" 240GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) - Newegg.com)

My question is, if I buy one of the current larger capacity Msata options out there (So I can do a work-OS / storage 2 drive solution). Would it be much slower than me just putting in the Sandisk SSD?

 

The mSATA SSD is not inherently any slower than a SATA SSD, it's more about the specific card. They both end up with SATA-3 connections, so just be sure to get a good mSATA. It won't be as inexpensive as the 2.5" SSD though.

I have a Mushkin mSATA SSD in mine, 120Gb, doing exactly what you ask about, and it works great.

If I'd had the extra money I would probably have gone for a larger one, but money is a factor.

I am currently planning on saving bank and eventually replacing the 750 Gb HDD with a similar or larger SSD sometime in '14 now that truly high capacity 2.5" SSDs are starting to appear.

 

Had some problems getting the UEFI to work while installing windows 8 from an USB but finally got it in legacy mode.

Loving the fact I have a 256ssd + the 700gb hd it comes with but.

You guys weren't kidding when you were talking about the grids! I've worked on my old 15z for 2 years and there is a noticeable difference in the screen quality.. I almost wish I could take out the screen on my 15z and put it in here (even though that one wasn't world changing either)

 

helo i got today my brand new L521x
Dell XPS 15 (L521X) - i7-3612QM, 8GB RAM, 1TB 5400RPM HDD + 256GB LiteON mSATA , 2GB nVidia 640M, 1080p LED
from local shop but it came with DOS comand line

i instaled Windows 8 in legacy mode i want to try in UEFI can anyone provide ho to instal windows 8 in uefi on dell xps laptops with ssd.

i still get one driver unrecignised i think its ST Microelectronics because of this ACPI/SMO8810 but i downold driver from webside it says its not comibalite with OS ???


after UEFI i will continue with this instuction http://forum.notebookreview.com/del...dows-8-wifi-1901-i7-3632qm-9.html#post9112731

 

Thank you!!! Sorry for my delayed response.

I got the brightness control working!!

One new problem is I get DVD disc working (In windows media player) but not Bluray Disc. The Bluray is recognized by the PC because I see it in my computer but I cannot get it to be played.

Also, I get a message that there is new update for nVidia drive (from nVidia update not Dell pop up update at the bottom right near the date and time location) but I am not sure whether to install it or not. The installed graphic driver is 311.00 and the new one to be downloaded and installed is Geforce Driver 320.49.

Also, Since, I have such powerful graphics card and processor why are some youtube videos pixelated (like squares). My native resolution currently is 1920 X 1020 (recommended). I see these pixelated/squary images more pronounced when I connect it to my HDTV. Any suggestions on how to improve this?

Thank you all for your support and guidance.

 

Windows does not include blue ray support, you need to buy and install software for that separately.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 4

 

Thank you, Is there any software you can suggest?

 

I haven't made my choice yet but PowerDVD seems a safe bet. I am sure there are others.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 4