Thursday 8 March 2012

DELL L502x Crashing During Gameplay.

Many people are still experiencing system crashes when playing games and animations using the GT540m on the Dell XPS L502X laptop as described in the Dell forums:

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3519/t/19374663.aspx?PageIndex=16

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/p/19392683/19916265.aspx

There is allot of talk among these forums that suggests that a Software update/BIOS update will solve or help fix the problem. When I sent my laptop back to Dell for repair, they replaced the motherboard and ram. When i got it back All my games that used to crash were still on the hard drive since they didnt re install the operating system and they played fine straight away.This suggests that it is purely a Hardware problem and has nothing to do with drivers or firmware.

Another plausable solution is to Underclock your GPU which is not favoured by many as this lowers the speed of the graphics card and you are not getting the performance described when purchasing the system. Altering your GPU clock speed May void your warranty. If you have one you should use it to get a new, free motherboard from Dell.

There has even been talk of people who have had a the problem occur After repair. Crashing that becomes ever more frequent and the tell tale Metallic, Tinny noise that comes along with the crash. That leaves me thinking, How long has mine got left? Was it a bad batch of motherboards? Will this problem re occur for me? Only time will tell but there will be no free motherboard for me next time. My warranty is up.

6 comments:

  1. Hi, Thank you for gathering all the known issues and possible fixes here, I have purchased a XPS15 with 540m, I7 , 8g ram , ect ect...

    After a while the same symptomes you describe started to happen.

    I bought the computer in Netherland and i am currently living in Uganda so there is no way for me to get Dell To replace the motherboard

    In your previous post you mentioned a moded bios as a possible fix.

    I went on this site : http://forum.notebookreview.com/dell-xps-studio-xps/635536-l502x-modded-bioses-download-gpu-voltages-more.html

    I scrolled down to the 540 section and downloaded the A09 Version with 2D profile at 0.83v and 3D profile at 0.85v.
    itis a delicate operation but the instruction are very clear ( dont forget to check the checksum just in case).

    I flashed the bios and i have been playing for 2 days on power withoutany crashes.

    I noticed a bit of increase in the performances and the temperature of the gpu dropped a lot.

    I advise anyone with this probleme to flash this bios ( if you warranty is expired)

    PS ( do not overclock you gpu after flashing the bios, it is meant for standard clock speed and will become unstable id you push it too hard)

    Thank you, i will keep you posted if anything else happens , for now im going back MW 3

    It is a delicate operation

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  3. i used to haave the same problem...this has helped me...google 'nvidiainspector' link=(http://www.mediafire.com/?23k2jkxokjht2i4) ...download it, then extract files and run application.Then at the bottom click the button that says 'show overclocking' then underclock your shader clock to 1184mhz... it should now stop freezing.

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  4. I having the same problem with you, my XPS15 hang and unable to terminate process when I playing Dragon Nest & Team Fortress 2(gameplay). Looks like I gonna contact Dell to change my motherboard as soon as possible. Thanks for your info!

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  5. Hello I have the same problem but my warranty expired 4 months ago. Tomorrow a technician will help me to resolder the GPU (GT540) I expect this fix the problem. If this attempt doesn't works I think to buy a refurbished motherboard via Ebay :(

    ReplyDelete