Severe resonance on L501x

Hi,

I have been listening to a lot of music on my new L501x and I must say that I'm not very impressed with it considering that its supposed to be its forte. The main issue that I have with it is that it seems to suffer from resonance of the keys around 200Hz. I notice distortion even at quite low volume levels. Is anyone else having the same issues and more importantly does anyone know of a fix? The following wav will (or not) demonstrate the problem:

http://www.mediacollege.com/audio/tone/files/250Hz_44100Hz_16bit_30sec.wav

Many thanks,

 

Mine has no problems playing that. I played it about 10 times with my ear down by the keyboard to make sure there was no abnormal noise. If I were you, I would reset the keyboard. There are multiple tabs and 2 screws holding it down. Maybe something wasn't fastened down correctly during the build. I will say that I have taken my keyboard out twice for other reasons, so that may make a difference.

 

No issues here. That is one thing about this notebook that has always worked right. Even the subwoofer on my HDX18t rattled a bit at certain frequencies until I fixed it, but no such issue with the Dell XPS 15.

 

If I put my ear to my keyboard, I can hear a slight vibration. I can't hear it from a normal distance though.

 

I get bad resonance from keyboard when playing some bass-heavy tracks. Not even in full volume. Will try out your file when I'm back home.

 

Well, to cut a long story short... Dell "engineer" came out who knew next to nothing about computers attempted to fix the resonance by replacing the keyboard. Unsurprisingly it didnt fix it. He spoke to Dell engineers on the phone and they said replace speakers and subwoofer!!! There was clearly nothing wrong with those components. Thats where Dell and I parted company...

After hours of various (brand new) laptop components being scattered around my living room I fixed it! Basically, its quite a simple fix. Remove the troublesome keys from keyboard (such as return, backspace, spacebar, tab keys) by pulling vertically up on them (use your nails!) and place a small square of tape (I used insualtion tape) over the point where the key impacts the switch/"plunger" - hey presto resonance gone!

Please feel my pain in the hours spent talking to clueless Dell engineers or should I say technicians... er no please feel free to refer to them with any derogatory name you feel appropriate!

Regards

 

Is it an easy job? From my experience putting the keys back on is never smooth...

 

Yeah clipped straight back on, no bother at all. Although the spacebar was the hardest, but I wedged two credit cards length ways and persisted!