S-XPS 1645 AC Power Throttle Issue Investigation

well tell ya. where i used to start out at 70fps i now start out at 110fps. areas where i used to range 30-50 fps are not 50-100fps. besides the pressing keys thing everything is a ton smoother and power draw is 100-105 watts all on tf2. I played over an hour the other night when the keyboard wasnt having issues, and temps were fine 75C all around the gpu peaking 80C. thats without a cool pad, etc. the multiplier that used to hang around 10-11x is not 14-18x.

Killing floor is also a ton smoother, just not sure how to measure fps in unreal just yet. everything a ton more enjoyable and is how the laptop should be.

Thanks uncleben for the updated utility it really should make more people aware of whats going on, and more what clock modulation is

 

ThrottleStop is still in beta testing. I tried to send you a link starrysummersky but you're not accepting PM messages.

 

Thats weird, I've checked and enabled 'receive messages from other members' on my profile options page...

 

i just read the previos pages, and i have to admit, im a bit lost. can someboy start a new thread, or just make a post here explaining whats going on with these various utilities, and links to them, so people will have a place to get started with the fix without trying to find out which pages of these 100+ to read? kthx.

 

If you need a beta version of ThrottleStop then send me a PM. I'm still thinking about some slight changes to it based on feedback before a general release.

atlstand's feedback at the top of this page is looking very promising.

 

Great work unclewebb. I'll wait for you to put the finishing touches to it then because the PM system on here seems to be fubar. When you think its fit for a general release can you post a download link here in the thread please?

Oh and I hope you don't take as long as Dell are taking because they are taking the P**s!

 

I'm a little quicker than Dell.

I'll have something generally available within 24 hours. I'll need to add a warning message to it so users with 90 watt power supplies won't try to blame me when they run FurMark and IBT and LinX and their power supply goes ka-boom. This utility will work best when used with the 130 watt or greater power supplies.

This program is a band aid but at least you won't have to wait for Dell to get around to fixing this issue.

 

I tried solving this issue with an external monitor. Anyone else notice that when you do this it doesn't seem to be able to stream video to the monitor and has wavy blurry lines sometimes? When I unplugged my laptop the lines disappeared

 

so you're saying for dell to "truly" fix this issue - not only will they have to throttlestop the system but include a 130 watt adapter yes?

btw unclewebb i take it your a programmer? do you work for skynet?

who are you REALLY uncle webb

 

He's the developer for RealTemp.

Yeah, we're sure that if everything performs at 100%, you will need larger than a 90W adapter.

~Ibrahim~

 

Even a 130 watt adapter might become marginal with the ThrottleStop utility when the CPU starts working like Intel intended. It's probably not good to use any adapter at or near 100% of its rated output for long periods of time.

Hopefully some testers can post some more details about power consumption.

That's a secret.

 

Well I've got 90, 130 and 150w Dell adapters, so I'm eagerly awaiting this Throttlestop app for some testing!

 

I had problems with the m17x adapter being able to charge the battery. Can anyone verify if the battery charges properly with the m15x 150w adapter?

 

Is there a way we can disable 2 or 3 of the cores with an app, prior to gaming? Wouldn't that also fix the throttling problem?

Side question: Is anyone getting BIOS warnings at reboot with power supplies > 90W?

 

I'm using a Dell PA-15 150w adapter and no, I'm not getting any BIOS warnings. It seems to be charging normally and doesn't run as hot as the the 90 or 130w adapters. It still has the throttlling issue although not to the same extreme degree as the 90w.

 

I am using the 90W adapter and am not getting any Bios warning and the 90W brick is only mildly warm under normal computing and watching Movies,

 

So we are waiting on an official statement by Dell on Tuesday on Direct2Dell.com then?

 

I am and I think that's the reasonable option. I mean, this is a DELL problem. Not a user problem. Why should I waste time trying to fix the issue simultaneously as Dell? I reckon they at least have senior engineer or designer looking at it and his solution will be hella better than mine (at least I expect so!).

blahblahblah: that's what I have to say. And this contributes nothing to the solution. Just my two cents on life.

~Ibrahim~

 

Also I looked at your dell build details and you may want to reformat or get rid of the software that Dell gives you if you have not done it all ready.

You should also update your Java to update 17 if you have not done so already, as this program is heavily exploited by viruses/spyware etc

 

Without ThrottleStop

Min multi: 7.00
Max: 12.00

3DMark Vantage (130w, brightness 100%, wifi/BT ON, Catalyst 9.11) :
GPU: 2932
CPU: 9120

With ThrottleStop

3DMark Vantage

GPU: 2830
CPU: 10275 !!

Min multi: 11.340
Max: 12.00

BTW: Furmark+ Prime95 without ThrottleStop (multi 7x) the pc dosen't freeze. With ThrottleStop (multi 12x), when I move the mouse, the cursor freezes and it moves every 10-15 seconds. The laptop is unusable during the benchmark cause of freeze.

 

BIOS already throttles the laptop if you plug in a 65 watt adapter (and warns you during power-on). Presumably it could do the same for 130 vs. 90 watt.

 

K i am so baked right now its not even funny. but i just got the laptop here today. which is ing amazing and words are there and small and clearish i love it. estimated dillivery datyet is 21st of dec. but i got it today.!!! woot thanks to my guy, or dell trying to get rid of all the ty 1645s. either way i dont know what to do. i had a jam last whenever and my laptop got tiefed. it was like a old r51 ibm thinkpad and i had important files on that baby. i honestly dont care about the laptop but those files man... the files were worth my time en effort. Kay now i have to start all over with my computerness which over the years i got like gigs of shtuff saved. im going to ki!! sp,eone. this keyboard feels wierd and i dont know about me. sorry im kinda fuzzed up and i got the pa-e3 or something so i assume its the 90w and i dont know anything about nothing right now bud. gnite

 

.....ok what was the point of that?

 

Has anyone tried if the throttle exists in a prev windows release? Like Windows Vista or XP?

Isn't there a way to stress the CPU and GPU directly without the need of a SO? Like dell tests?

 

lol, he did warn us he was baked.

 

So, I was reading the January issue of MaximumPC and in it they reviewed some C2D rugged laptop (can't remember the name).

Anyway, they described the exact same problem where the CPU would run at full speed only on battery during the benchmarks, but once plugged in would throttle down to about half.

They contacted the mfr and it was resolved with, you guess it, a BIOS update.

So, there is hope everyone.

 

fr0x: Why not enable turbo boost so you can get your maximum multiplier higher than 12.0? Make sure C3/C6 C-States is enable in the bios so you can create some more heat. There might be some more performance still hiding in that laptop.

For a lot of uses, hyper threading doesn't help out that much but it tends to create a lot of extra heat in the Desktop Core i7 CPUs. Try disabling that if you are power supply limited.

 

no problems with the 130 adapter, no warnings either

 

Sorry to ask again but isnt there a TSR we can run to temporarily disable some cores? I could swear I saw a utility some time ago that did this..

 

You can go into msconfig and disable cores that way. Just use the Boot tab and advanced options. Other than that you would need the bios to allow you to do this. Hidden might be a better word than disabled since I think the cores would still have some power going to them but they won't be seen by Windows and they shouldn't be running any code so they should be cool. You might get a better gaming experience if you were to disable 1 or 2 cores and control the power consumption and heat that way. I'd turn off hyper threading first.

Time for lots of bench testing. Send me a PM if you want to test ThrottleStop.

 

One thing I noticed is the BIOS doesn't throttle cpu 0 as much as the other cores. I never see it turn on clock modulation on that core only CPU 1-3, although it does reduce the multiplier on all cores. Could try forcing a game to run only on CPU 0 by setting its thread affinity in task manager.

 

Did you change anything in throttlestop after atlstlang said that keystrokes using his laptop keyboard caused throttling?

 

I'm curious about that too. I just got caught up on this thread and when i get home from work I'll try out throttlestop, but if i have to use an external keyboard then thats going to be a dealbreaker as I do a lot of my gaming and stuff on a small space that has just enough room for a mouse next to the laptop.

Is that a confirmed side effect for everyone or just some people?

 

it happens to siphen too. but it doesnt always happen to me. Sometimes when the computer comes out of sleep it wont do it. Where a cold boot it will. I dont know the reason, and dont really have to much time over the next day or two to investigate. but just letting ya know

edit: it doesnt seem to related to throttlestep program itself, but perhaps a side effect from windows, drivers or the bios.

 

I mentioned to atlstang that ThrottleStop doesn't put any significant load on the CPU so I don't think it is directly causing this keyboard problem. I'll wait for some more feedback before trying to change anything. I thought it might be a separate bios or Windows driver issue.

 

Alrighty cool cool, well I don't cold boot too much anyways. Mostly just sleep . So if it takes coming out of sleep to do this, it's no deal breaker for me. One thing is for sure DELL needs to get their act together and fix this problem with A04 Bios

 

umm because hyperthreading takes more power and the computer doesnt have the power. this keyboard feels iffy. kinda feels like they wanted to go chicklet but didnt because they were too but HP went full out apple style. actually it has the power it just being throttled back and reduced the potential of the actual hardware. i am installing left for dead 1 and see how it goes from there. my red alert 3 disk is messed!!! so sad =(. i am kinda better now that ive had coffee and munchies. so the bat is 90w and this screen is so long i like it tho. i like the non clicky sounding trackpad buttons. i hate making noise. lol umm... is there anything you guys want me to do with the system just recived now just now like now now when they said that this computer after the date shipping is better now kinda. so yeah what do i do with the thing that i got. also i got robbed! and i biked missions to a friend who was cracked and he got a ride from his mom and i misshed like 3 kilometers FML i fell like 20 times and almost died like 40 times.

this is awesome on the RGBLED screen!!!!
RedBlueGreen Lightshow

 

You Sir are my anti-drug <3 lol

But yeah back on topic. Try out the throttlestop app and let us know how it goes. Max out L4D some anti-aliasing. Also If you have anything more GPU intensive and CPU intensive? errm GTA 4? Dragon Age?

 

This hurts my eyes.

 

I almost died . Sent it to everyone on my Contact List

 

Had A Seizure....

 

you can all thank me =P REPS

 

Turbo Boost already enables. 3DMark Vantage uses all cores, so the max multi I can get in benchmark is 7x (720QM).

BTW: Furmark+Prime95 with ThrottleStop, 71° max for the warmest core (67° average) and 65° for the GPU. I remplaced the thermal past of the Artic Silver 5.

 

I would convert it to an animated .gif and make it my avatar, but I'm afraid someone with epilepsy would see it and die.

 

Just wondering about the multipliers


Are you sure the multipliers aren't


i7-720QM 1600 MHz ~ 12.0X multiplier
Turbo Boost Max = 2800 MHz ~ 21.0X multiplier

i7-820QM 1733 MHz ~ 13.0X multiplier
Turbo Boost Max = 3066 MHz ~ 23.0X multiplier

ie. thats a max of 12 when all 4 cores are running for 720
and a max of 13 when all 4 cores are running for 820

This is important for clarification re: testing

 

As an aside can everybody check their RGB LED screens to see if they notice flickering ....a slight brightness increase and maybe a colour shift every 10 seconds or so. It is maybe more noticeable when brightness is turned down to half or so.
It might be subtle for some to notice.

 

No, I would have noticed something like that.

 

I've got something like colour shift every 10-20 sec - mine is changing to red but it's like 0.001ms so it's very hard to notice (my girlfriend can't see it)
Its happening when the LCD is on minimum brightness - so all the time cos of the Throttle.

My RGB LCD was replaced already and I've had the same problem on old LCD so it's something wrong with the MOBO.
My whole laptop is falling apart and I'm planning to replace it after new year.

 

Could i please get a PM of the latest download to ThrottleStop?

Thanks!

 

If Dell doesn't give any good input by Tuesday, you guys should write a technical report about the issue and post it on Direct2Dell like it was done with the Latitude/Precesion issue. I'm not doubting that Dell's engineer won't figure out the origin of the problem, but if it can speed up the process, it would be nice. I would not really like to wait for 6 month until it is fixed as using a workaround isn't a solution IMO.