Dell XPS L701X and Windows 10 22H2

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notipa
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Dell XPS L701X and Windows 10 22H2

Post by notipa »

Yes, the Dell XPS L701X runs Windows 10 just fine, despite what Dell says, and I wrote this post on it. It'll work for you too; you'll just have to do some work with drivers and probably upgrade your hardware. I'm using a Windows 10 Pro license inherited from a Windows 7 Professional upgrade from back when you could do that, and I'm performing a clean OS install of Windows 10 22H2 from a USB drive created with the Windows Media Creation Tool. My L701X is optioned with an Intel Core i5-480M, Nvidia GeForce GT435M, a Corsair BX500 solid-state drive, and the maximum 8 GB RAM for the two-slot/i5 configuration. Systems that sold with both an i7 CPU and 16 GB of RAM have four RAM slots and a maximum 16 GB of RAM; and 16 GB only works with quad-core CPUs because Intel's first generation Core i series CPUs are fickle things. A lot of this information is relevant for the Dell XPS L702X as well, as they are very similar computers; the biggest differences will be the better memory controller on the second generation Core i series CPUs, and the newer GPU.

Hardware Upgrades
I strongly recommend a solid-state drive since this computer is fast enough to be bottlenecked by disk I/O performance, and 8 GB of RAM is necessary. Purchase these upgrades before beginning Windows 10 installation.

My RAM modules are running at 1066 MT/s (PC3-8500 equivalent), which is the highest supported speed on the Core i5-480M; faster modules will run at 1066 MT/s. L702X users should source modules of at least 1333 MT/s (PC3-10600). The memory configuration is important for systems running in their maximum RAM configuration, and for Windows 10 to be usable you'll need to max out the RAM. Use dual-rank (2Rx8) 4 GB DDR3 modules; DDR3L might work but I haven't tested it. These modules are $12 for a kit of two on eBay, but be sure to use Memtest86 or Memtest86+ to make sure you have working RAM before you start blaming system instability on other causes. My luck with eBay RAM has been pretty poor, with almost half of the modules I bought failing Memtest86; your mileage will vary.

Your hardware is generally slow as this is a 14 year old computer as of this writing, so you want to eliminate as many bottlenecks as possible. A hard drive is usually the bottleneck on most computers of this era, especially if running on 6 GB of RAM or less. Remove any hard drives and put a 2.5 inch SATA SSD in its place. It'll use less power, prolonging whatever battery life you have left; as well as being about ten times faster than a 2.5 inch HDD. You probably don't need a large drive since these computers can't really be used for demanding tasks. I purchased a 480 GB Corsair BX500 for roughly $43 on Amazon. SSD prices vary constantly, but it shouldn't cost all that much. The Intel RST controller will bottleneck a SATA SSD, which is exactly what you want to happen.

Wi-Fi modules are also pretty cheap. There's an inexpensive Wi-Fi 6E half-height Mini-PCIe module, the Intel AX210-based MPE-AXE3000H, that sells for about $20 on eBay and $26 on Amazon. These work quite well at using WPA3 encryption and accessing modern Wi-Fi networks without slowing down other devices, but you'll top out at about 300 Mbps on iPerf3 because of the Mini-PCIe bus. I put these in all of my legacy computers. Note that these modules internally contain a m.2 1612 module soldered to a Mini-PCIe carrier board, and the u.FL antenna connectors on the carrier board connect to the m.2 module via a short piece of coax. Some MPE-AXE3000H cards are missing the coax for the secondary (white) antenna connector. This coax lives under the RF shield, and the only way you can tell you're running with reduced performance is to disconnect the main (black) antenna and see if Wi-Fi signals drop significantly in strength, if not lost entirely.

Installation and Drivers
Install Windows, manually install any necessary network drivers to allow access to Windows Update (which you probably won't need to do since Windows includes drivers for most hardware from this era), and run Windows Update. You'll get most, but not all, of your necessary drivers.

Windows Update stubbornly and very persistently installs some broken drivers:
  • The Nvidia GPU driver version 391.35 delivered by Windows Update is not actually compatible with the Nvidia GeForce GT435M. I can't speak for other GPUs, since I don't have one. I'm aware the GT555M is an option for the L702X. If you have issues, just follow this procedure.
  • The Synaptics Touchpad Driver version 19 has bugs, most notably with the scroll indicator being stuck on the screen until you restart SynTPEnh.exe.
The drivers provided by Dell work perfectly fine, but you need to block Windows Update from installing other drivers. There's two ways to do this, and the procedure is conveniently provided by Dell themselves. I'll summarize the two ways they recommend for Windows 10 Pro systems:
  • Configure the policy under Group Policy, Computer Configuration, Administrative Templates, System, Device Installation, Device Installation Restrictions, Prevent installation of devices that match any of these device IDs. Additionally, enable the policy Allow administrators to override Device Installation Restriction policies. For my configuration of the XPS L701X (with Nvidia GeForce GT435M), the relevant device IDs you want to add to the prevented device IDs are:
    • Synaptics Touchpad:

      Code: Select all

      ACPI\VEN_DLL&DEV_046C
    • Nvidia GPU:

      Code: Select all

      PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0DD3&SUBSYS_046C1028
PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0DD3&CC_0300
  • Configure the policy under Group Policy, Computer Configuration, Administrative Templates, Windows Components, Windows Update, Do not include drivers with Windows Update. Enable this policy to prevent all driver updates from Windows Update.
Personally, I recommend the following order of operations:
  1. Run Windows Update to install as many drivers as possible. You'll also receive the bad drivers, but they aren't going to break everything. Don't reboot yet!
  2. Use wushowhide.diagcab to block the Nvidia and Synaptics drivers from Windows Update. It didn't work for me, but it'll probably help in the long run. Reboot after blocking these updates and completing Windows Update installation, pressing Install Updates if you have the option to download updates without installing them. Regardless, these drivers will still install.
  3. Enable the "Do not include drivers with Windows Update" and "Allow administrators to override Device Installation Restriction policies" policies. Reboot.
  4. Uninstall all Nvidia software from either Apps and Features, Programs and Features, or by using Revo Uninstaller. Everything must go, as you're going to be installing an older version of the driver. If you use Revo, make sure you aren't also deleting the post-reboot uninstall information during the registry and file cleanup phase.
  5. After uninstalling the Nvidia drivers, reboot. Uninstall the Synaptics touchpad driver from either Apps and Features, Programs and Features, or by using Revo Uninstaller. Reboot after uninstalling Synaptics drivers.
  6. Install the Dell-provided Synaptics driver, which is version 16.3.8.62 (see links at end of post). Reboot.
  7. Install the Dell provided Nvidia drivers, which is driver version 259.51 and control panel version 8.17.12.5951 (see links at end of post). Reboot, and verify your driver version in the Nvidia Control Panel.
  8. Configure the "Prevent installation of devices that match any of these device IDs" policy. Reboot.
  9. Unconfigure the policy "Do not include drivers with Windows Update" policy. Reboot, then run Windows Update. If you still receive the Nvidia or Synaptics drivers, repeat this process and do not unconfigure the "Do not include drivers with Windows Update" policy.
I recommend using device IDs to block installations, as this allows you to receive updates for other pieces of hardware.

Driver Links
Here are the drivers I needed to install to get my L701X fully functional. In the event of link rot, the Dell drivers' direct links are available on the Internet Archive Wayback Machine.
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