XPS 15 L502x Game Crashes

I found out NVIDIA 3D driver originally installed on XPS L520X had compatibility issues. Went on NVIDIA site and downloaded latest driver and that stopped freezes and crashes (at least for now). Seems Dell has totally ignored telling us the driver needed updating.
Not sure it will help your issue since your specs are a little dif

I have l502x but with i5-2410m, GT540m, 4GB ram and 1366x768 monitor. I bought it in june and it has worked fine until recently. Now i have random crashes in games (World of Tanks) and only why out of is manually reboot the laptop. When it started i was running the latest beta drivers, now i changed back to 285.62 and the problem is still there.

Hi dear user

I have actually tried downloading  the most recent nvidia drivers and that made the issue worse for me. I ended up having to go back to the newer drivers on Dells site to make it crash out less

Shadierdrew

Dell has dropped the ball on this time and time again on this for me. Kind of why I've been doing everything in my power to diagnose this issue on my own. However now I suppose I am at the mercy of dells support in india unless I want to pay 300+ dollars for their "premium" support in the u.s. which I am wondering wether or not they hold the answer to this problem or not or if there even is a solution other than a different model laptop

Shadieerdrew

The GT54O is a great mid range video card.  It may not play some of the games you mentioned in their top settings but should come pretty close.  If an exchange has been offered after having these replacements, I would generally suggest agreeing to it.  Yes the exchange is generally like for like, but as I mentioned before you really shouldn't be having these types of issues. If you would like for me to take a look into this please shoot me a private message with the service tag of the notebook.

TB

Hello. I have experienced similar problems while running demanding games on my xps 15 l502x GT540M core i7 2670QM 8GB RAM. After downloading the latest nvidia drivers (available on their site, not on dell`s) AND Intel HD 3000 graphics processor drivers on dell's website, it seems this problem has been solved. I've played Battlefield 3 for hours and did not experience a single crash.

oh and I also updarted the BIOS to A09 via Dell's website

I as well have had many issues with my Dell XPS15 laptop and would never recommend it to anyone. After receiving my computer in April 2011 I tried playing Dota (Customer map for WC III) and it crashed constantly. Assuming it may be the game I switched to HON (Heroes of Newerth) and the problem occured there as well, After "x"numbre of manual restarts my computer would no longer work and I called Dell.

My phone call with Dell consisted of an employee telling me I was not co-operating for 2 hours because I would not do a system restore and call back if the problem occured again. I told the employee I had done the restore several times in the past and it is only a temporary fix each time but this apparently was not satisfactory. I was not given the employees name or supervisor when I asked and as a result ended up calilng back to get a different employee. Immediately upon calling back another employee told me the motherboard would be replaced (which I knew it had to be, there are entire websites devoted to this issue) and a supervisor came and told me he knew of the problem. 2 Hours I spent trying to convince an employee it was a motheboard issue and was told that it could not be because a systems hardware test came back positive.

Now, after having my motherbiard replaced my computer crashed last night during gameplay in the same manner as before. I spent 7 months researching a laptop and went with dell over Sager. This is a mistake I will never make again and I want some rectificaiton for my computer crashing after the motherboard being replaced. How can a company justify replacing a faulty product with another faulty product?

Hello.. I purchased the same Dell XPS L502 in 3/7/2011. After a month it started crashing on games as well. Tried various setups on the laptop as well and adjusting the games to very lower settings (which is not why I purchased this laptop). Still crashed. I did get an exchange which still crashed on games. I then agreed to have the motherboard replaced. It seems to be working at the moment.I feel that I should get an extended warranty at the price offered at the time of purchase.

What settings have been tried?  With a system that has both integrated video and discreet video, if the game's Optimus profile is set to save battery power, Intel HD will be selected as the primary GPU.  Games will have to be set to the lowest settings and they simply may still be trouble.  Go into the game settings, most if not all will show what video card is being used.  If it shows Intel then I certainly suggest changing the Optimus profile.

Here is a link on Nvidia Optimus

en.community.dell.com/.../19405027.aspx

Assigning an application or program to the Graphics Processor

Open the NVIDIA Control Panel

* Select Manage 3D Settings

* Click on the Program Settings tab

* In 1: Select a program to customize, click on Add

* Browse to the application/game and open the executable file by clicking Open

* In 2: Select the preferred graphics processor for this program, click on the tab and select High Performance NVIDIA processor

* Click on Apply and the settings will be saved

Here are instructions on configuring Steam games for Optimus

Default STEAM Executable File Location: for STEAM Applications:

The executable file is located in the following directory:

C:\Program Files (X86)\Steam\Steamapps

Games will be located in either Common or the account name folder.

Special Instructions for Games Installed via Steam:

Once you have installed your Steam game, create a shortcut from your Steam games list. Once the shortcut appears on the desktop, follow the instructions below.  

Viewing Existing Optimus Settings for a Specific Program:

After configuring Optimus this way, go back into the configuration program for the game and check to see if it is seeing the Nvidia GPU and not the Intel GPU.

Even in the best of circumstances games will crash.  The trick here is to find out if it happens with specific games or all games?  Does the system crash while running bench marks?  Does the system crash while on the web, not performing 3D tasks?   The XPS L502X may not be the top gaming system but it should do a decent job.

TB

i have the same problem with XPS L502X, 2GB NVIDIA GeForce GT 540M graphics with Optimus..

i worked smoothly for a few weeks, but started crashing(especially while playing DotA), the situation became worse and i couldnt play the game at all. The screen gets frozen as soon as games get loaded, of a few minutes after.

i tried downloading and installing an updated NVIDIA driver from the following link a few minutes ago, now all games are running smoothly....atleast for now. Hope this information helps.

www.nvidia.com/.../index.aspx

same problems here... some games crash, some dont.

-wow crashes every time at some point.

-kingdoms of amalur never chrashes.

-mw3 crashes after a couple minutes.

system reset to deleivery status did not help, i will try out that new driver, lets hope it helps :)

I have exactly the same laptop apart from only having 4GB RAM, and it is having the exact same issue. Screen stutters for a second, an awful noise starts sounding from the speakers/headphones, the screen freezes and I have to do a hard reset. It happens most often in Warcraft 3 and sometimes in Starcraft 2 (as far as I know, I don't play a lot of other games - Audiosurf so far has NOT crashed).

Did the new drivers resolve the problem?

Thanks!