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    Low CPU performance on battery

    Discussion in 'Alienware 14 and M14x' started by JaronF, Jul 17, 2012.

  1. JaronF

    JaronF Notebook Enthusiast

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    The last few weeks I’ve been having some weird issues with my cpu (i7 2630QM) on my Alienware M14X. I know the gpu performance is a lot less on battery, but I’ve never experienced less cpu performance. I benchmarked cinebench 11.5 a few months ago and my score was around 5 while plugged in and around 4.9 on battery. Now i tested it again, the plugged in performance was the same, but battery scored only 4.1. When i looked at the clock frequencies, they did go as low as 1.9 GHz at some moments and then went to 2.6 again for a short period, but generally stayed around 2 GHz. While plugged in, it keeps around 2.6 GHz and sometimes even a little bit higher. While plugged in the tdp is around 45-50, and while on battery, it goes around 30 watts, which is way too low. Is there any way to fix this problem, or could somebody check these scores while on battery?

    Thank you.
     
    JaronF, Jul 17, 2012
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  2. singkuy

    singkuy Notebook Consultant

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    Check your powerplan and set cpu usage to maximum when on battery.
     
    singkuy, Jul 17, 2012
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  3. JaronF

    JaronF Notebook Enthusiast

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    I tried setting everything to maximum in my powerplan, but still the same result.. Could it be a bios setting?
     
    JaronF, Jul 18, 2012
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  4. Alienware-L_Porras

    Alienware-L_Porras Company Representative

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    Try updating the BIOS. You can also try removing the battery and adapter and holding the power button for 1 minute to drain the motherboard power.
    You can also try disabling the speedstep in the BIOS and try again.
     
    Alienware-L_Porras, Jul 18, 2012
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  5. JaronF

    JaronF Notebook Enthusiast

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    Thank you :) , updating the bios did help. Weird cause i updated it to the same version, it was already on A08.
    My Cinebench 11.5 score is now 4.92 on battery, as it was before.
     
    JaronF, Jul 18, 2012
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  6. Alienware-L_Porras

    Alienware-L_Porras Company Representative

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    Awesome! I'm glad it helped! It may be that a change was done and by re-flashing it the change was gone and now everything is back to normal :)
     
    Alienware-L_Porras, Jul 18, 2012
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  7. JaronF

    JaronF Notebook Enthusiast

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    Ok another weird thing, i changed a setting in the bios again, disabled speedstep, than rebooted, enabled speedstep again. Than the previous problem occurred again. It's like every time i change a bios setting, this problem occurs. I reflashed again and now everything is normal. Maybe it's a bug in the bios? Anyways it works now, and the previous made changes, those i made before reflashing, are still saved in the bios.
     
    JaronF, Jul 18, 2012
    #7