XPS 15 fan, on/off/on/off, gahhh!!!

I'm a tech novice. I'm ready to do this but before I do can you tell me:

1. Where do I get the drivers, what are they and what do they do exactly?

2. What are GPU tools?

3. If I uninstall every program with Nvidia listed will I be okay? Or do I need some of them to operate? What do they do and why don't I need them?

And lastly

4. Can you tell me why during the first week I didn't have this problem? Could it have been an update or a plug in or something I downloaded recently like Flash or Adobe that's suddenly causing this problem?

Thanks so much for your help!

I'm a tech novice. I'm ready to do this but before I do can you tell me:

1. Where do I find the drivers, what are they and what do they do exactly?

2. If I uninstall every program with Nvidia listed will I be okay? Or do I need some of them to operate? What do they do and why don't I need them? I guess I'm unclear on your "GPU and Fan related tools." What's a good way to figure out exactly which ones those are.

3. I searched for Optimus and I don't come up with anything. Does that mean I don't have it?

And lastly

4. Can you tell me why during the first week I didn't have this problem? Could it have been an update or a plug in or something I downloaded recently like Flash or Adobe that's suddenly causing this problem?

Thanks so much for your help!

Hello, I think the solution is finally there. There is a new BIOS update which claims to do something at the fan noise!

I updated it yesterday so I can't yet guarantee that the problem is totally solved, though (these couple of hours) my PC sounds a lot quieter.

You can download the update here (or from the Dell site).

Hi, I have the same issue...I have updated now to the latest bios, but now the fan stays on a level continously. Sometimes if I go in right click on desktop and press on Nvidia Control Panel, it diminuates a little bit.

my laptop is 1 week old and has the same problem, when I spoke to Dell they claim to have no knowledge of the problem, how can this be?

they sent a technician out with a new fan but did not bother to replace because it will not solve the problem.

they are sending a new replacement, but I think it will have the same problem.

its a shame because I love the XPS, Dell need to get there act together and solve the problem.

my laptop came with latest bios and still has fan problem. 

Someone has tried http://www.softsift.com/200701/i8kfangui-30-dell-notebook-fan-control-utility.html

Hi, due to take delivery tomorrow of a xps 15 l502x, having read this thread and several others now wondering if i did the right thing buying one, having just returned a fujitsu for excessive fan noise.

There seems to be a general  opinion that Dell does not care about XPS 15 owners who have this problem and there seems to be several fixes mentioned here, Bios, drivers, send to sleep, etc,  but not one that seems to suit all the fan noise problems.

also found this on the forum where Mr Geek says this is the fix:-

en.community.dell.com/.../20075251.aspx

anybody else tried this fix??

Hi Brifly48! Just letting you know that I only have this problem when I'm using the wireless connection that serves my mountain condo complex. Weird huh? It just much be a connectivity situation that's more taxing on the system.

That said, don't get me started on the lack of a 15-pin VGA port!

I found that with my dell XPS 15 (l502x) that removing all third party temperature monitoring tools stopped the fan from fluctuating between on and off. I had CoreTemp, SpeedFan and a few desktop gadgets to display temperatures. I was only using these programs to monitor the temperatures as I had no luck controlling the fan, but once I removed them all the fan stayed at a steady rate rather than fluctuating so much. It's an odd one I'll give you that, but I hope my contribution helps, as I didn't find anyone else mention this as a solution anywhere.

I still have the same problem with this computer.  The fan fluctuates on/off every 3 seconds, and it is extremely annoying.  I have tried different drivers (for both the nvidia and intel chipsets), different power plans, uninstalling all the programs listed (didn't see coretemp, or speedfan listed under Programs and Features.  Are there others?  What are the desktop gadgets named?).  I am at a loss.  The only thing I do now to keep this horrendous fan on/off thing from happening is run a program in the background that requires use of the graphics card.  I am on BIOS rev. A10, win 7 64 bit, GT 540M chipset.

I haven't a clue what else to do to fix this.  I don't want to have to do a complete reinstall of windows 7, because I spent so long getting this current set up the way it is.  I've been trying solutions for weeks trying to fix this, and I still have not figured it out.  It's just got to be software related, because I ran all the Dell diagnostics for the fans and temperature sensors, and they all passed.

Any news from this front?

The desktop gadgets were a CoreTemp gadget (In addition to the program iteself) and a GPU monitor gadget called GPU observer which is popular and can be found by a quick google search. (Not sure about link posting rules on the forum). They were all added by myself so you wont find them in Programs and Features if you haven't installed them yourself.

Oh, is there some way that this problem can get some kind of higher priority?  I mean, it's been around for over a year and Dell has not been able to solve it.

Unfortunately, I have none of those installed, and this annoyance has still been persisting.