R3 slooooow on battery

The GPU undervolts itself and no settings are able to fix this when the A/C is unplugged. The GPU goes from .9500 to .8250 and the clock speed drops from 675 to 200~. No values can change this. I am surprised noone else has been posting this. This is EXTREMELY annoying since I wanted to play on a trip here shortly that will be about an hour and a half which is what I will get with the GPU maxed out

If anyone has a solution that doesn't involve checking Power Options, Power Mizer, running MSI Afterburner, let me know. As none of these do jack for this problem.

 

So other R3 owners are able to compare, please list your system specs.

 

I've mentioned it in a few places Neptune, it downclocks itself and won't change but the CPU functions normally. It's a non-controllable form of Stealth Mode and as you mentioned it won't even allow you to change it by overclocking with Precision, Afterburner, Etc. My guess would be there are some registry entries that change based on BIOS instructions that downclock the GPU.

 

Partly why switchable graphics on a gaming machine is pointless. You can't actually game with battery.... so why carry a 12 pound brick just to surf the web?

 

Well first of all, you don't have to switch to intel graphics, it's a choice. You can use the GPU on battery if you wish.

Second of all, I can think of many reasons why...

1. I travel all the time and like to play games when I travel. In hotels and planes they have power to plug the PC therefore you can play, I know I do. Of course if you fly stupid airlines you won't have a plug.

2. I like to play in front of TV so I can be next to my wife. This enables me to have her happy as I am with her but I do my own thing. Go do that with a desktop.........

3. When playing and you need to use the restroom, you just take the PC with you... (The R3 has at least 1 hour of full load GPU gaming battery which is plenty when moving around.)

And I can go on and on about why I would never game on a desktop again. I am a laptop gamer all the way and many people are like me.

 

All I noticed once was I moved my machine and wow was lagging horribly and was almost unplayable.. I noticed after checking the settings that the cord slipped out the back. I can't say more than that but when I plugged it in it sped right back up. My frames dropped from 100ish to about 5-10

 

Makes sense if you have setup your PC to shut down the GPU on battery. I know I never set it up that way.

 

That "Real Men of Genius" beer commercial song is playing in my head right now

It's not something you can change Joebarchuck, the R3 has an uncontrollable "Stealth Mode" in it that gimps the GPU automatically. I have yet to find a controllable setting that will change that. And unlike the M15x, you can't use an overclocking program to change the clocks, it's hard coded.

 

Maybe this is what I keep experiencing after a couple hours playing dragon age? (While plugged in).

 

No if you're still plugged in as long as your temps are good you shouldn't be getting this. The only 3 ways you should be getting your gpu dropping clocks is 1-running on battery 2-driver/hardware instability 3-throttling due to high temps.

 

temps are fine and I'm back to running the dell drivers.
I guess that leaves hardware instability?

 

I set all my settings to max performance.. on battery.. off battery... everything. i unplug it and its like it has cardiac arrest

 

This definatly needs a fix, if we want full power on battery we should be able to enable it.

 

the problem is that the battery can't supply enough power to run the laptop at full performance. even if you can bypass it, i don't see it being good for the battery.

 

Even so, it shouldnt be forced into downclocking the GPU to near useless levels. Even the gpu at like 75% would be acceptable to me anyway, also how would it be bad for the battery....?

 

I have this on my R1... don't think its R3 Specific, I thought this was normal behaviour, have even made a post about it a few months ago and no one seemed to know what i was talking about.

I agree, It's <Insert Profanity> annoying when, for example someone kicks out the power cable and it underclocks to near useless levels, then proceeds running at about 5 FPS for about a minute or so after it's been plugged back in as it slowly clocks itself back up, it would be nice to be able to play for a while on battery.

 

btw, when you (anyone reading with an r3!) look at your power brick's plug in thing (attaches to wall receptacle) do you see a white tag?

What does this tag say?
Mine says 10A 125V

Would this be a potential source for problems? I'm going to take a leap and assume that means 10 amps, 125 volts....yet the power brick is max 240v.
Could make sense as the brick is essentially a bunch of batteries thrown together and they'll probably last longer when charged slowly.

Just something that's been bugging me for a while.

 

Guys as Inap mentioned this isn't an M11x, the hardware simply draws more juice even at 3/4 power than what the battery can supply. As he mentioned even if it were possible it would kill your battery very quickly. I'd be happy with a half speed CPU and full speed GPU though as most games are GPU intensive.

 

This occurs on the M17xR1 as well and I imagine will also apply to the 17xR2 and 15x.

Easy test to confirm with the R2 and 15x -

UNDER AC POWER:
1. Set power profile to High Performance
2. Edit High Performance and set CPU to 100% on batt (default is 5%), confirm GPU is set for Max Perf for battery power
3. Open GPU-Z and start your sensor monitoring, enable log.
4. Launch 3DMark06 and start your run.
5. As the first scene starts and they are battling it out, pull your AC power - you will immediately see your FPS take a hit.

Guessing this will happen with AMD or NV, meaning it would not be a GPU issue (or driver). Since the R1 and most likely R2 and 15x will have similar results, its not a SB CPU issue.

 

don't get me wrong, i would love to get full performance on battery. i tried to bypass this on my M15x, and was successful, but it took a toll on my battery, it degraded 10% in just 1 week of testing, so you can image what it would do if you did this all the time. it takes a 240watt to run the r3 when plugged in, so you really can't expect the battery to handle that kind of strain for long periods of time.

 

Are you serious and telling me that the R3 does not allow for the GPU to be turned on while on battery. This is ridiculous.

We are not asking for the battery to run everything at 100% but at least have the GPU run at 50% and CPU at 50% also. This should not decrease FPS of most games below 30 nothing compared to the 5 FPS the OP is talking about.

 

so how far is it down clocked? how about with ati gpu?

 

Mine kicks down to where it won't run any higher than 2D clocks. I'm guessing it's something at the BIOS level as even MSI Afterburner, EVGA, NST, etc won't do a thing it sticks at 2D clocks and won't budge. I checked all of the Windows power settings and it's a no go on full speed on battery

 

interesting thanks dane.

wanna try flashing the vbios to make the 2d clocks higher, hehehehe i know very risky.

 

I am really hoping we find a fix for this. This is bordering ridiculous you can't have it running fully clocked on battery.

 

As I posted here ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/7234386-post19.html) the R1 does this and I'm willing to wager the R2 and 15x do as well. Its not a GPU or GPU driver issue and its not a CPU issue. This has been like this for some time...

The 11x of course is going to be different. Much less demanding.

 

It sucks that Dell doesn't communicate this. I'm sure lots of people expect the thing to survive an hour or so of gaming on a plane trip for example.

 

That's what the 11x is for

but seriously, I am betting that any other comparable system (regardless of make) is going to display similar behavior/results.

I cant recall how my XPS M1730 handled gaming under battery. It probably never crossed my mind to try...

 

Every laptop I have owned with dedicated GFX cards have always downclocked when unplugged it's just how it is

 

It's nutty...I love this beast regardless, maybe with a 1200va UPS hooked up to it we can survive on "battery" or "batteries" for awhile

it just really sucks IMO...I could take 50% but it is literally running at 33% of its original stock value...

There is probably a way to bypass it on the GPU itself

More investigation is needed!

EDIT: On a side note, I will definately be picking up one of these "Razer Switchblades" for Ultra-Portable Gaming! This laptop might be my upstairs machine only here shortly...

 

Its just the GPU that's clocking down right? If that's the case I can survive.

I can think of a handful of work related tasks that would need the full CPU.

 

Dang, you guys all have the 460m, right? I'll be sure to check this out when I get mine (6970).

 

I think so, but it will likely be a similar outcome to what happens with ours. Its too bad they dont let us at least tweak it a little, like set the GPU to 50% and CPU to 40% on battery etc.

 

Trust me Inap I've already looked into possible ways to change it through the Vbios, the voltages won't read correctly and the only way to change it would be to make the lappy run on 3d clocks at all times which isn't worth it IMO. I have a feeling this is at the BIOS level not the VBios level so flashing it may cause the two to clash and give major problems here.

Both the R1, R2, and M15x do the same as I've owned all three, but the big difference is 1-you can switch stealth mode off with the touch strip button if you want 2-you can overclock using MSI, EVGA, etc even if you don't. You can't change this in any way aside from POSSIBLY flashing the VBios to different clocks, and as I mentioned if it's being changed in the actual system Bios it could cause some major problems.

Above all guys you have to think about the fact that even if we could get the GPU working we're talking about taking a 3-5 hour battery life down to probably 45mins to 1.5hrs at best. As BB mentioned you want gaming on the go? It's not in an m17x even the R3, the M11x is what that's for.

 

Um, Yeah! 110-125V is what most of your home electronics use as their power source (TV, lamps, fridge, DVD player, Etc.). Usually the only things that use 240 are clothes dryers, stoves, hot water heaters or items that are direct wired.
But AW has made it so that it can be used with 240 (if I'm correct) for foreign (no US) coutries that utilize 240V. So they would have a different cord and wall plug.

 

Back to topic:

Is there actually any way to "fix" this...We should be able to use full GPU on battery. Even if it's for 45 minutes.

 

13fps when they start shooting @3d06

 

What is it that locks us to certain "limits"? Is it the bios, vbios, gpu drivers, or is it windows power options (battery saver mode is the main example) ?

 

Not Windows options as I've messed with pretty much anything power related aside from the registry settings, not gpu drivers as they don't tell the card to downclock, honestly it's most likely the sBios and not the vBios as I've looked at the vBios and the only thing odd in there is the lack of changable voltages. If it is actually the bios there's only two ways to change it 1-have Dell release a different bios allowing full gpu clocks or at least the ability to OC it -OR- 2-have someone hack the bios to do the same thing. Neither are likely

 

Sounds like we're stuck with Plants Vs Zombies when on batteries eh guys?

Good thing its a fun game haha.

 

No not really I did some testing and it will run a lot of games on low-medium and lower resolutions still(SC2, L4D2, Fallout) as well as EMU's. Just don't expect great settings or to be able to run Crysis, Metro 2033, etc on battery.

 

The question is how do you fool the R3 to think that it is still plugged in after you pull the plug.

 

You dont, that would require A) a bios mod or B)a physical mod that would void your warranty.

 

This is a great idea lolz. Too bad it'd be too difficult to accomplish.

Could we somehow, grab an old ac adapter jack, and cut off the end that connects to the wall, and then grab a spare usb (jack), so that on one end of this new wire, there's the ac jack, and the other end is the usb, and just plug 'em both into the computer? Oh wait, nm, then if that "works", it would just be sucking more power from itself heheheh.

 

Even if it did work it wouldn't provide enough power to make the computer think it was on A/C, you'll usually get a warning anytime the adaptor reads under 240w and it probably wouldn't recognize anything at all under 130w or so. Again even if you managed that if Dell found out you did it your warranty would be completely void as physical mods like that are too easy to screw up the entire computer with.

 

That's hilarious that you even acknowledged my goofy idea heheheh.

I guess you are right about the computer's necessity of 240w though. I doubt the battery can pump out the much juice even if it wanted to, for long.

Also, in one of the R3 reviews, it indicates that you can press a button on the battery and the indicator lights will show you how much battery left. Is this true? Also, does the battery have to be connected to do this, or can you do it when the battery is in your hand?

 

Yeah it does have an indicator with 5 lights on it, it works both in and out of the computer And I acknowledged your idea because I've seen goofier things actually work but don't want some uber noob rigging his USB port to his charger lol.

 

This is hilarious, still, haha This feature is pretty neat. Do the lights stay on while the computer is on, or do they just come on when you press to "indicate" battery life?

 

Beating the perpetual drum beat that this happened in R1 R2 and 15 doesn't help

Now to the other's...has anyone tested the Amd Radeon 6970m to produce the same results. All I see here are the Nvidia 460m owners claiming to face similar problems. If all of who own R3 with Nvidia opted for 3D, then its obvious this has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with the switchable GPU that belongs to Intel. Switchable graphics is not available if you have bought with the 3D.

Are the Nvidia owners of non 3D R3 facing this problems. Are Non 3D R3 with AmD Radeon facing this problem? If this problem happens in both 3D and non 3D alike it rules out switchable graphics once more. If this is happening to only those with Nvidia then it points to Nvidia. If indeed its present as that Batboy fellow told, perhaps we should revert to Dell for a solution. A system shouldnt speed brake just like that. Its crude and not a sign of advanced hardware at all..hahahhaa..Sounds crude!

Like a more knowledgeable person stated...this happens in case of overheating in general. To speed throttle a system like this sounds like a desperate attempt to keep battery life at the promised duration. Also different situation require different scenarios..At times you may need to use the GPU for rendering etc when you are out of power..You must definitely be able to do it, irrespective of battery power. Stop having tunnel vision about gaming..Alienware is no more purchased by people for only benchmarking and gaming. Its also used for other purposes. Get real.

I own an R2 with full spec, but I dont face any of this throttling with or without AC power. I customise my own setting for " ON battery " situation.

I hope people stay focused on the initial thread title and conclude or state something that helps us understand this case better.

 

ummm ok. I defer to your experience with your R2 and your M1530.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I do not recall stating this was due to switchable graphics... I would ask you to launch 3DMark06 on your M1530 while under AC and then pull the plug while its running the benchmark and take note of the FPS drop - but ya know, not going to waste my time.