M17x stuttering too much

Hi, i have a really annoying problem with my m17x and i just cant seem to find a proper solution online...

Heres the prob, everytime i try to play mostly any games without having my laptop connected to the AC, i get terrible stutter and choppy performance!

For example, if im playing xcom-enemy unknown, i get choppy performance even with the lowest resolution. Another example is mass effect 3, it plays very smoothly when connected on AC, getting a constant 60 fps with barely any graphic stutter happening, which only occurs slightly when in big maps only reducing to 50 fps. Now once i unplug my m17x and try to play on the battery, it starts to stutter every 5 -10 seconds (lowest settings) and stutter for around 4 seconds giving me terrible 5-10 fps! I cant find any sense of why it would do that because before it starts to stutter, the graphics appear really smooth at 60-55 fps for 5-10 seconds until the stutter begins causing a horrifying 10 fps for 4 seconds and then goes back to smooth graphics, and the cycle repeats! It is just really irritating me knowing i cant play any of my fav games without them being plugged in to AC otherwise they will stutter

Plugged in: best performance, no stutter usually
On battery: worst performance, always stuttering on games

Any solutions on how to improve battery performance or to fix this??

BTW:i did a clean install of windows 7 about 3 months ago, removing all data and drivers because i had a windows issue, but i remember playing Mass Effect 3 on battery before i ever had to do the clean install and it didn't seem to stutter until it got to low battery points, that's when it began to stutter. After a clean reinstall of windows 7 and updating all my drivers and stuff, first time playing on battery, i got terrible stutter.

Here's my specs:
Alienware M17x R1
Q9100 Quad 2.26-2.27 GHz
Nvidia GTX260M SLI
4gb RAM
Windows 7 home premium 64

I would really appreciate the help and ideas because i just cant assume this is normal and live on thinking it is -.-

 

welcome to nbr!

unfortunately this is normal... even my R4 needs to plugged in for best performance

think about it.. you have a quad core cpu, 2 cards in SLI, and a 17" lcd screen.. a laptop battery simply is not going to have enough juice to run those components at max.. maybe in the future :thumbsup:

 

Thanks for the greet!

Yeah all those specs actually make me concept that the battery cant handle it all. I just thought maybe i was the only one experiencing these performance stutters. If i have to remain stationary next to an AC outlet just to play games, then might as well just switch to a hardcore desktop pc! lol

Thanks for the help jae

 

i just got the stuttering prob too but i figured out it was the new 310.90 driver for the graphic cards so i jumped back to the 310.70 driver.. no more stuttering...idk but it fixed it

 

I'd love to see a killer gaming desktop rig that is also portable enough to be taken to LAN parties, and also has 3-4 hours of battery for taking notes and doing networking stuff in class.

 

We would all love to see this but the batteries on the gaming laptops aren't that advanced yet. Unfortunately you won't be able to play for more than 1 hour on max settings. The AlienFusion Service lets you draw all the power you need from the battery but the lifetime goes down accordingly.