I clean installed Windows 10 on my Dell XPS 17 L702x a while ago already and this post is merely here to indicate: yes, it works and it’s not even a big deal. This also got rid of Dell software junk preinstalled on my machine which is awesome.
Dell doesn’t support the Windows 10 upgrade though, which is why it scares people and your mileage may vary, but in my case the only thing that didn’t work anymore after the upgrade is my SD card reader. The drivers for that device haven’t been updated since the Windows 7 version and I didn’t find anything more recent. It took me a few months to find out it was broken, so that shows how much I need that thing.
So to summarize:
You can upgrade your OS or do a clean install with Windows 10, but your SD card reader will not work afterwards. If your life depends on that card slot on the left, it’s wise not to upgrade.
As always, be careful with drastic operations like this and backup your data first. For real this time. Plenty of stuff can go wrong and knowing that your data is safe makes it a lot less stressful if shit does happen to hit the fan.
3 replies on “windows 10 upgrade on a dell xps 17 / L702x”
I would like to confirm to all DELL XPS L702 owners that I upgraded Win 7 to Win 10 updates two weeks ago. Everything works – really everything including the touch key control panel. You can calmly update your wonderful machines :-)
Good lukck.
Hi Chuck, I’m sorry to hear your video is acting up. I didn’t have any problems with my video card since the upgrade. It’s still working fine. I do have the NVidia Experience software installed which keeps my drivers up-to-date. I don’t know if you also tried those?
Another thing you can try is check if there might be a BIOS upgrade for your machine. I can’t remember when I’ve done this myself honestly, but I know that’s something that can help when you have problems with newer drivers or hardware.
What kind of video problems do you have btw? It’s kind of funny they appear when you use the mouse instead of a touchpad.
I did a clean install of Windows 10 on a Dell XPS 17 L702X notebook recently (Jan. 2020). We used a new SSD and removed the Windows 7 hard drive, so nothing “old” got in the way. I encountered severe video problems that do not replicate in Windows 7 (or 8). The video problems do not appear (as much) when I use a mouse instead of the touchpad. I did a clean install three times, and sometimes the video issue took a while to appear. Do you know if the machine you installed Win 10 on had any similar problems since this article?