XPS 15 L502x Constant Fan On/Off

according to dell:

"I would like to inform you this fan issue isn't frequent problem in these XPS L702X laptops so far, this is the reason why Dell officially didn't communicate this information on the public. I also have no much experience with this issue.
"

the L702x and i guess this is the same for the L502x has no known Fan problem what so ever

 

Nothing to see here. Move along everybody.

 

got another reply back

"
Thank you for your additional information.

I'm sorry you're dissatisfied with fan solution on your PC.

It's just working as it was designed.

When will be something new about fan settings in Bios in the future it will be displayed on our website.

I registered your suggestion regarding this issue in our system.

SpeedFan or other programmes than can help to customers to have better control over the fan don't have to be compatible with our products since it's not Dell software.
"

so working as designed.. That i kind of already know, but the design is wrong..

 

I used system restore to restore the configuration of Day 1(Dell factory settings). It worked fine for few hours, but finally fan start/stop issue came again.

Now Dell is offering me 'heatsink+fan' replacement. I feed very bad that they will tear apart my new 3 day old laptop.

 

and i don't think that will help at all, but let us know..
There is nothing wrong with the hardware, it is just the logic behind the hardware that is badly programmed..

 

Yeah, I wouldn't let them do it, wecaz, just like I wouldn't send my laptop away like obsidian88 did. The system has design and/or software issues and no matter what parts Dell replaces, it will continue to work as designed...

 

Notes taken, thanks.

 

So do all Dell XPS 15 L502x owners have this fan issue? Should I search for a different notebook then? See no other option that would look similarly good from features standpoint, I was hoping the screen will be good for web design work. Wanted to get i5 version.
I will be very pissed if I have issues like this.

> I turned off the gpu monitoring gadget, and the problem seems to have improved at the very least. The fan now seems to be running more constantly at a lower rpm and doesn't spike to such a loud rpm.

I wonder if this means that I will be able to use Photoshop with GT 540M card on this without having fan issues?

 

No fan issue here.

For what it's worth guys. I'm very sensitive to fan issues because my previous M1330 had the NVidia GPU problem, which ended in a $100mil recall effort.

So here's the deal. My fan works spectactularly - but maybe because I did a clean install and left off a couple Intel drivers. The fan comes on slowly and when I have several apps it might speed up. Shortly after I close a few apps it slows down. I mean, it really works exactly like you dream it should.

I went from 92 OEM processes running, now only 52 after the clean install. It also has 19 less programs in "Add Remove" area. I did notice a difference in the fan atfer the Clean Install. But that's expected, a ton crap isn't running in the background anymore. I also didn't install the "Intel Monitor" Driver, that gadget in the upper right.

In the L502x Lounge, on or around page 76 I listed all the Drivers I installed and the correct order. The ones listed as "Optional" I did not add. I aslo have my laptop power setting on Maximum Performance, where it should be.

Lastly, NVidia had to write off $100mil in 2009 for Dell and some other laptops. Dell ate a bunch of money too. So I suspect they ALL are very sensitive to this issue now and try to make sure the damn PC stay cooler by using more of the fan.

 

My fan ramps up and down when the left side of the keyboard gets slightly warm; flash intensive webpage or just starting up window media center would cause the fan to ramp up for a few seconds.

I think its normal. When the left side stay cool, the fan stay quiet.
I have a cooling pad under my xps and the fan hardly ramps up under light use.

under heavy use or when the laptop is warm, the fan ramps up and down periodically.

i didnt do a clean install, i just uninstalled stuff.
i also have the gpu monitor on and run in balance mode.

 

If only Dell DID that what you say there!
In my opinion Dell wants to be to quite. because the fan is constantly completely turned off!
I don't want that, it always should run at a low speed.

I also did a clean install, and did only install what is needed. But still it constantly goes up and down, not always to annoying sounds, but now and then it really goes pass the 3000RPM which is loud.

I guess for the L502x you do have Optimus? So the gpu of Nvidia can be turned off, that would make a big difference. I can't use Optimus.

 

I had another issue. I had Audio-Video sync problem.

In order to fix this, Dell Tech. instructed me on phone to reinstall the OS (from the OS image on HDD). and phew...my AV sync problem is gone and it has taken away the fan issue as well

I have installed bare minimum softwares(no CPU, GPU, Memory monitor, Speedfan etc.) The fan is doing its karma.

Laptop is so cool.... It makes me happy (because this is the replacement of my old laptop which used to heat horribly)

 

Wecaz, that's great to hear, man. Just by reading this forum I was thinking that reinstalling might help you. I think I'll order XPS too then.

 

My flatmate is also getting an XPS15 this week!!

 

Anyone notice if the new A05 BIOS helps the fan throttling at all?

My XPS is currently in the repair depot

 

Here are my findings with my XPS regarding the fan noise:

I reinstalled the OS from DVD and started to instal drivers from DVD with drivers that came with it one by one. The way that CD is created I didn't like, noob won't understand what to do with those driver names and what they do at all, and I could use some explanation and more convenient way to pick drivers and install. I installed what I thought I need, but I didn't install "Intel CPU monitor" or something like that. Somebody mentioned here that he had some kind of problem with it. But I'm not sure.

Another thing. First I installed Intel HD driver without nVidia one, and I had bigger fan issues than I had with original Dell installation — the fan worked very often at idle, i didn't do anything and it just spinned more constantly but loudly. I started to get angry, there's no way I would be happy with that. As soon as I installed nVidia driver, fan started to work constantly but a low speed, but only when W7 loads and I guess nVidia driver loads, until then it's loud again at loading.

Maybe it will help somebody.

Bottom line: so far I'm not sure I'm happy. It's definitely not a good work by Dell at this particular fan thing, because if you install wrong drivers or something, you get a problem. It shouldn't be that way! It's a gambling. For now it works ok for me at a low load, but who knows what will be tomorrow. Other aspects of laptop are good. It looks nice, sound is good. As for the 1080 screen, I'm not sure yet.

 

I got my XPS 15 two days ago. I formatted the whole HDD and performed a clean install of Windows 7 EE. I've installed all the latest drivers (including A05 BIOS) from Dell's web-site. What can I say... The problem exists. It happens periodically, every 3-5 minutes. The fan goes on for ~10 seconds and then goes off. Hard to say what's causing this because I've been using this laptop for very little time.

But. The laptop is simply gorgeous. I've never seen this quality of image and sound before. So I'm completely satisfied. I guess this fan problem (if it's a problem) will be resolved sooner or later.

 

10 seconds every 3-5 minutes is absolutely normal and it should be acceptable to everyone since the laptop does need to cool down. The on/off behaviour that some here have experience is different. What happens in their case is that fan cycles on/off every second. That's caused by 3rd party software trying to do low-level video card and/or fan access.

 

Got my laptop back. Exactly 7 days.

They did the following:
Replace CPU fan
Clean and Test
MSR checked

Comments: "cpu fan worked fine compared to same model unit"

Used laptop for about 10 mins so far, the fan seems much quieter, but still ramps up occasionally. Didn't expect it to solve the issue, but at least they took a look at the insides.

Still on the A04 BIOS, will upgrade to A05 and report findings..

 

I hadn't experienced this problem myself until I launched Minesweeper with the 540 to get it to register temperatures in HWmonitor. The cycling didn't stop when I closed Minesweeper, as the card was now being activated by HWmonitor; however, it did stop when I ended HWmonitor.

Something might be keeping your 540s active under minimal loads?

 

Hope this works - Second post.

Fan Noise Problem SOLVED ? ? XPS 15 L502X

I have had all the different variations of fan noise - from the Studio 1558, to the Studio 1569 to two different system replacements XPS 15 L502X. The latest problem is, when just web surfing, every web page I click on, the fan will go on for a very short burst, medium loud.

This is every page, nothing else running, no YouTube video. Click on a page, fan burst, click on another page, fan burst (air is not hot, feels cool to warm). Drive me crazy !

My system:

i7-2620M, Video Card 525m, Screen 15.6 1366 x 720 (I think the screen is great), 6g RAM, 6 Cell Battery.

Bios - A05 5/4/11
Video Card 525m - Driver 268.30
Intel - Driver 8.15.10.2253

This is what has worked for me for the last couple of hours. Now fan goes on for approximately 1 minute (low to medium sound), approximately every 11 minutes. Much better - have not checked temps.

Control Panel > Power Options > choose Power Saver - then Change Plan Settings > Change Advance Power Settings (don‘t worry, you can change back to default - see other option). When shipped the XPS was set to High Performance.

Choose all of the options you would choose from High Performance - every option for max performance. Yes, you should be in Power Saver, switching all options to max performance.

Some of the not so obvious choices:

USB Settings - Enabled

PCI Express - OFF

Processor Power Management - Min 5% / Cooling ACTIVE / Max 100%

If the same exact settings options as described for Power Saver (listed above) are used in the High Performance option - this will not work; you will continue to have fan noise. I don’t know why.

Well, I hope this helps someone - it is currently working for me. I can’t take all of the credit as I have read a lot of the different forums (this seems to be a common problem).

 

Wow, thanks a lot!
I was getting so sick of the fan coming on all the time when just browsing.
Tried everything, even a repaste, but nothing worked.
This seems to completely fix the problem.

 

That is definitely something I haven't tried. I'm using it now and so far it seems ok. Really weird how changing a power saver plan to high performance settings would make the fan work less.. :S

 

I had assumed that the power saving options were managed solely through the user editable settings but it seems not.

Using exactly the same settings in balanced/power saver/high performance result in different behavior (at least in terms of what my fan/screen does) - so it seems that the power plan itself has an influence too.

Probably old news but thought it worth a mention.

Example - HD video streaming/playback is adversely effected for me when in power saver but fine using exactly the same settings in high performance.

 

In Windows XP there was a CPU affinity setting, which was corresponding to Intel SpeedStep settings ( link), however, it was only accessible via command line - powercfg.exe. But in Windows 7 this tool has fewer parameters and this setting is not there anymore. The only way I've been able to control my CPU (been messing around with this for a couple of weeks) is the processor power management and although it uses percents to control the CPU clocking and doesn't directly mention SpeedStep states, the effect seems to be the same as with the command line setting in XP.

 

Thanks, this seems to have quieted her down some.

 

How is everyone coping with the fan issue? Are the solutions posted above good enough for using the laptop in a quiet place (public library)?

 

The only thing that works is Speedfan 4.44 beta 4. It's impossible to find a link for it because there's been like 10 betas since then. I only managed to find a seemingly dead torrent that actually completed today. Here's my reupload for all you other frustrated users

CLICK HERE

Go to configure > options > enable Dell support > OK

Close the program and restart it, you should see an option for fan speed on the main menu now. There are only 3 speeds (0rpm, 2800rpm, 4000rpm).

I set it to 50%, put a Speedfan shortcut in my Startup folder, and configured it to start minimized. So now I turn on the laptop and the fan's always on. Better temps and no annoying bursts, but there's a constant whir. Of course you could just set it to 0 if all you're doing is browsing or light work.

Maybe I won't return the XPS after all

 

Thanks for the upload! How loud is the fan at 2800rpm setting? Unacceptable, would you say, in a quiet library?

 

It's surprisingly quiet for the speed, I can't even hear it over my desktop sitting next to me with all fans set to low. I can't imagine anyone at a library giving you looks. The on-off thing would definitely drive people nuts though if they were close enough to hear it. I was ready to call Dell up and return this thing

 

That relieves me somewhat. I am getting this laptop in a few days and I wasn't aware of this fan issue when I bought it. Thanks!!

 

Speedfan 4.44 beta 4 don't work fine on my xps 17, i have freeze on my pc when i activate dell support on speedfan.

 

I use ACFanControl ,software for acer notebooks or other and works well for me.......here is a link TPFanControl by troubadix

 

I experienced this issue with the sidebar GPU monitoring gadget. Once I removed that, the fan issue has resolved itself. I figure the trigger is in the GPU temp or fan speed sensor being accessed (in my case by the sidebar GPU gadget).

 

I downloaded this, but can't really figure out how to set it up. Can you send me your .ini settings please? Thanks

 

Have tried it out, but no chance to get it actually control the fan.
I´m excited to hear the explanation how it works for my self

MFG Jubeltrubel

 

so its there no solution yet? has anyone tried updating their drivers and see if the issue goes away?

 

Wow, you're a lifesaver. Closing SpeedFan stopped the fan on/off from happening immediately. It really does seem to be due to one of those sensors. Thanks!

 

Is the fan issue a problem for all L502x computers? Any consensus on how to resolve?

 

2 of my friends bought this computer when I bought it because it was on sale. Both of their xps's do the same, so I would imagine all of them do this. You can also find youtube videos with people having same complaint.

 

Hi Guys,

Since I set my processor management settings to throttle the CPU at 99% I don't get the constant on/off.

But I was wondering if anyone had experience of this?

Sometimes the fan comes on and then doesn't go off for absolutely ages, even under light CPU/GPU load (2630QM/540m). The fan takes the CPU down to about 42C but then doesn't go off again despite not doing anything taxing and the laptop feeling cool. The CPU normally hovers around 55C and fan comes on when it hits 60c.

The only way I can stop the fan is by toggling the power plan options.

Any idea/resolutions? Kind of annoying.

Thanks!

 

Hey guys,

SpeedFan 4.45 beta 2 is online! they say it supports Dell laptops now.. I am testing it now.. but I have no clue how to use it lol you have to register to be able to download the beta version, can someone try it and let us know the results.. this might be the solutions " hopefully"

Edit : please note that this is a beta version...

 

Hi guys,

I had this problem pop up for me yesterday. Luckily i managed to identify the cause before i went insane.

I noticed that the Nvidia GPU activity icon (by the clock) kept flashing on and off in sync with the fan going on and off.

I recently downloaded a Nvidia GPU temperature widget. In order for the widget to get temp readings it must access the GPU once every 1-2 seconds therefore triggering the fan.

To stop this, simply disable the Nvidia GPU temp widget.

Hope this helps

 

Wanted to chime in with what's worked for me - I'm now on the modified 'power saver' plan with some exceptions - graphics to maximum battery life, processor passive cooling, 5%/99% limits. The game changer was downloading a background distributed computing program (Folding@home in my case), and letting it do its thing. Now the fan runs continuously at a nice, low volume. Maybe not the most practical idea if you're always on batteries, but it does seem to be working.

 

I've had the L502x for about a month now, and the fan on/off issue just appeared about two days ago. Hate it. This laptop is plugged into the power supply constantly and never leaves my desk. Do you think running it on a laptop cooler of some kind will solve the issue?

 

Dell contacted me today and they will come to replace the FAN / Heatsink on Tuesday.. I hope this will Fix the issue, they will also changed the hard disk ( I have already installed an SSD and that fixed the left palmrest issue)

They will also send me a Windows DVD copy.. since they are sending a new hard disk which I don't mind lol...

 

I do get the fan on an off a bit. I have done a little bit of research regards installs etc. I am almost 100% sure it is to do with optimus.

First off, don't use the dell drivers.
Secondly don't use the latest nVidia drivers, get the 270.71 as the newer ones cause a lot more fan ramping.
Use the latest Intel drivers off Dell, the official Intel won't install for reference.
Make sure you have configured anything that either requires little gui or gpu power ( web browser, windows media player, power dvd ) to run off the intergrated graphics only. Auto settings for your browser for example will cause the nVidia gpu to kick all the time and cause ramping.

Make sure you uninstall both drivers, then install the Intel first and the nVidia 2nd.

 

Thanks you for you post! This has fixed my fan on/off issue! When running Dell's nVidia drivers I also had a random fan "click/pop" noise every 10 minutes or so that sounded like a loud hard drive click that has now gone away as well!

The only thing I'd change in your post is, the nVidia drivers are actually 270.61 and not 270.71 (or at least I could not find 270.71 for the 525M.)

Thanks again!

VVarwick

[UPDATE] I spoke too soon about the fan click/pop being fixed that I'm getting. Now instead of every 10 minutes or so, it does it every 3-2 hours. Not 100% fixed, but a lot more tolerable now!

 

Hey guys,

How do I setup the programs to use Intel integrated card, like IE, or firefox? I have a tech coming tomorrow and if I can fix it before he shows up then I don't need him to mess with my laptop ..

 

Hope it's not too late...

You can do that from "Manage 3D Settings" in Nvidia Control Panel which can be accessed by left clicking on desktop or just write it in the search box in the start menu.