Hello,
I am the owner of an XPS 15, bought in December 2011, and I am at something of an impasse. For the last year I have been close to the end of my tether with this device. It started and continued with a weird audio/video freeze. At the beginning it was 10 minutes into any game, later that dropped to the start menu of even games from 1997. Performance was horrible and the machine was slow at even the most menial of tasks, like using the internet.
In response, I removed the Nvidia Geforce Experience and re-installed the original proprietary drivers for my GT 540m, I also cleaned the fan with a healthy blast of canned air and bought a notebook cooling stand which the machine now lives on. I also under-clocked the CPU to allow use of Turbo mode. With these measures, I can play games from around 2005 on middling settings. Compared to before, when I could run Skyrim on high, this is rather uninspiring.
The problem still occurs, but requires a little more time. What is intriguing however, is that when it does, the machine itself doesn't really feel all that hot, so I'm at a loss as to what the real issue could be. I'm aware that the relative age of the machine, along with the notoriously poor cooling efficiency of my particular model are definitely partly to blame, however I can't help but feel that there is something more that is holding the machine back.
I would appreciate any help that is offered, I'm rather desperate.
Many thanks