Hardware Who owns a Dell XPS 15Z?

[haddad]

If anyone in GBA Temp owns a Dell XPS 15Z, please tell me if you had any wifi issue's.

As soon as I go upstairs in my hours, my wifi speed decreases by like 50-70% (that should not happen!)

I had a old Dell Studio 1558 laptop and it's speed was the same everywehre around the house, also my brother's Macbook Pro has the same speed around the entire house as well.

I got a Fibe 12 connection, so if I am on the main floor in my living room, I tested with a 1000mb file, it downloads at 1.2 - 1.4 Mb/s (that is my correct speed)

As soon as I walk upstairs to my room, I notice my download decreases to 300 - 500 Kb/s

Anyone else has this issue?

 

[Deleted member 473940]

15Z erhmm could you tell me a bit more about it?
LX(something) or something ending with LX.

 

[haddad]

XPS 15z (L511z)

 

[Deleted member 473940]

I have XPS15 (L501x)
which has wireless issues aswell!
First few months it worked fine, and now I am out of warranty and it has some weird issues -.-
Doesnt work fullspeed just like you.

Even if I am out of warranty, I wanna call up Dell and see what to do about it.

 

[haddad]

I have XPS15 (L501x)
which has wireless issues aswell!
First few months it worked fine, and now I am out of warranty and it has some weird issues -.-
Doesnt work fullspeed just like you.

Even if I am out of warranty, I wanna call up Dell and see what to do about it.

I am under warrenty, I was going to cal them this afternoon.

 

[Deleted member 473940]

Than you got nothing to worry about
I called them up and they said I would have to pay about £70 if hardware needs to be replaced.
I am like.. NAH. I would get a cheap wireless adapter instead

 

[haddad]

Than you got nothing to worry about
I called them up and they said I would have to pay about £70 if hardware needs to be replaced.
I am like.. NAH. I would get a cheap wireless adapter instead

hopefully its fixable.

--edit--

I also heard it may be a PSP issue, something to do with power saving? And also using the Intel My WiFi Configuration, it could be fixed. I am gnna try the software side, then if it doesnt work, ill call them so they can come replace it for me

I'll update this thread with the solution.

 

[Deleted member 473940]

Than you got nothing to worry about
I called them up and they said I would have to pay about £70 if hardware needs to be replaced.
I am like.. NAH. I would get a cheap wireless adapter instead

hopefully its fixable.

--edit--

I also heard it may be a PSP issue, something to do with power saving? And also using the Intel My WiFi Configuration, it could be fixed. I am gnna try the software side, then if it doesnt work, ill call them so they can come replace it for me

I'll update this thread with the solution.

Yes! keep it updated here

 

[FAST6191]

For the record I lost count of the amount dell and be vendor installed network related cards I replaced about third year of being general computer fixing type and Dell were top 3 for it (regardless of the price of the model they picked junk). What you describe is classic signal drop off and a cheap piece of junk card (and/or a bad antenna) does not help here (neither will doing anything under warranty).
The fix is buy a proper card and quite nicely proper wireless cards are pretty cheap these days- although I just got done bashing dell they do it at the few cents per device level (kind of matters when you are doing a batch of 20000 devices) where this is just good sense. Bonus is if you want they tend to have really nice modes for wireless related attacks as well as linux drivers/compatibility. As wireless related attacks probably gave it away you are looking for an aircrack-ng compatible atheros or similar device- http://madwifi-project.org/wiki/Compatibility has something of a general idea (in the UK or in the USA I tend to use amazon but I am not sure about Canada). I have never seen a real world shop anywhere in the world sell a good model (usually a nasty piece of netgear or belkin junk) at what I would consider a good price (about the price of a pizza) so go online.

Still power saving traditionally falls to three problems

1) Drivers and power saving- "allow this device to return the system from standby mode" and the more basic sleep/standby/hibernation mode and issues when powering back on routines. I have seen this do from randomly bluescreen a system to the signal randomly dropping (although this is not the only cause of such things) as well as the usual not working properly.

2) Confusion about low power transmission- it is a "security" measure some routers used to have. The idea was to limit the range of the wireless by reducing the signal power and hopefully not having much escape your office/house. My hacker grade wireless cards are awesome, my hacker toolkit has a directional antenna (probably a cantenna but hey) and the third for now at least is even low signal still allows me access.

3) Actual wireless drop off/standby issues. Some routers experimented with a variation on the 2) as a power consumption thing- they would see what they were doing and if it is was not a lot or they would see the signal strength/quality and it was good lot they would drop wireless power and immediately spring back to life later as conditions demanded. I do not believe it is part of the spec and some setups had issues with it (although things are supposed to change as time goes on some just pick a transmission power almost immediately and stick with it) so most no longer do it.

 

[haddad]

The dell guy came and repalced my wireless card and LCD screen (which is where the antenna is), seems to work now