S-XPS 1645 AC Power Throttle Issue Investigation

i just got the laptop. no power brick that is over 90w and also i will totally record my convo when i get a little more.. fun. umm so that means i dont wanna bake my power with throttlestop. =)

 

I hear the same thing on my end, although its been a while. They never mentioned they were able to replicate though, but did mention not to use 130w like your said.

Its a case of theyre doing it wrong. They should throttle for heat not power. I really hope its just some mis info spread by reps, as the heat issue doesnt seem to exist. But does worry me if they say that as they may take the fix with the 130w option off the table and try to "improve" things via bios. Which i dont think is going to make anyone happy.

 

??? wifi stops working when im charging this laptop with a hot charger that dies every 5 seconds then i have to unplug it from the wall then back in and wait for it to die in 5 seconds. but wifi stop working and i cant watch youtube!!! its annoying. i found a solution. ALLUMINIUM CASE. i had one lying around. its like half a centimeter thick. hmm thick... i could say half a centimeter thin... hmm apple says thin when they say stuff like this. its like half a glass full or half emply glass. marketing and english =P.

 

oh hey is the software for the xi or something sound upgrade worth is? like i know its just software and not a different sound card but my music sounds different then my ipod with studio headphones. it sounds a little more flat then dynamic if u know what i mean. im kinda a audiophile =P. im gonna go bake

 

Your brain? Sure. But never bake the power!

 

Please put the bong down, razr.

We need an intervention around here, me thinks

 

I agree. I'll set up an intervention thread .

Back on Topic:

Anyone else having luck with throttlestop?

 

Just put it on my laptop which I got today, coupled with the Pa-4E power brick I got it's working beautifully. No throttling

 

12 threads.

 

I have a kill-a-watt style device and the Dell 90w and 130w adaptors.
During the OCCT power supply test (Linpack + Furmark), I see a brief jump to about 95watts and then it settles down to about 87 watts. The wattage is the same with both adaptors, and throttling seems to happen with both according to TMonitor64.

IMHO the powersupply on it's own is not a solution. I hope Dell fixes this, but if you are going to have this much power in a relatively slim mobile laptop, you might have to compromise. I bought the the i7 because I wanted the power, I sure hope Dell delivers.

 

Awesome, I'm really happy for you man. Mine's shipping to Ft Lauderdale to my aunts house Dec 16th. I am in Jamaica.......idk how i'm gonna get it down to me

 

shaq smashed my bong... i went back to the convinence stop but they tied them down cuz they dont want people to steal them. now i just need to go home which is missions and get a pair of scissors or a knife... anyways i just recived my t3000 thermaltake cooler which i reviewed with my 5g nano which should be up as soon as i get my stolen laptop back which should be a few days because people all wanna jam at my house and i said i want it back or no jam. =P ... this laptop runs nicely with the powerbrick in the freezer. After messaging a guy for an hour here is what i got out of it.

Throttling issue?

no i have not been informed there is such an issue, please discribe the situation with your laptop.

....

ok it sounds to me like you've got yourself a defective laptop, we might need to take it in for testing.

BUT THERES SO MANY PEOPLE THAT HAVE IT TOO... LINK.

........ wait 10 minutes for response.......

disconnected from server. this session has ended.

OMFG

spent an hour with him messaging.

now its time for me to pick up the phone when i calm down. see you guys dont see me ranting anymore because i am offically calmer because of "baking of pies". personally i like pumpkin pie with a little whipped cream on top .

 

I don't know what is happening. Some Dell Agents know, most don't. We should just wait until NEXT Tuesday the latest *crosses fingers for tomorrow* and see what dell has to say

 

wait is it tomorrow or in 8 days?

 

We're hoping for tomorrow, but fearing 8 days.

 

It has some pretty cool audio FX all of which sound better with headphones, I'd say it's worth it, it's only like 20 bucks or something like that.

 

Fearing 8 days? lol

I'd be fearing never, really.

 

Is this throttling issue true for XPS 1640? Great work guys.....I really appreciate people who spent so much time understanding the problem and coming up with a solution.....

 

lol it'd better be tomorrow. They keep stalling and it's starting to me off

 

Anyone found a way to disable Hyperthreading? Don't like the idea of having to reboot to disable 2 cores for gaming. Bah. But still need to know how to kill Hyperthreading, which is not in the bios that I see..

 

In msconfig on the boot tab, just hit "Make all boot settings permanent" and you'll always boot in 2-core mode or whatever you like.

~Ibrahim~

 

Dell's great idea to excessively throttle CPUs to control the heat output seems to effect quite a few of their laptops.

The ThrottleStop app works on both Core 2 and Core i7 CPUs so if you don't own one yet, no worries. We now have what it takes to unleash the beast as long as you have a decent power adapter.

It's pretty hard to argue with 100% increases in frame rates while gaming and no one has burnt down their house yet so that's good too.

 

It seems to work everytime so far. To those that have the problem with pressing keys and lagging the system with Throttlestop. Before gaming close the lid of your laptop, let it sleep. Then open the lid and let it wake up on its own. For some reason this gets rid of the keyboard problem for me. Try it and let us know if it works for you.

and dont ask cause i havnt the foggiest.

 

Well I can set the core count to 1 or 2, but if I use a value of "2" how can I be sure that its using 2 logical cores and not 1 core with Hyperthreading?

 

What I am going to need is a good cooling pad that doesn't cost an arm and a leg. I am quite broke after purchasing this laptop >_>.

A question though:
The 1645 has a slight angle of elevation due to the size of the 9 cell battery. Do you think this will help even in the slightest with temperature control, as it allows more air to circulate freely beneath it?

 

I've been wondering the same thing I don't think it helps as much as it could though, the one vent is on the barrel hinge so quite strangely it's somewhat blocked when you open the screen. Dell is brilliant.

Also:
I should have my 130W brick tomorrow if Fedex stops pretending it has delivered to me. >_> I'm eager to give the throttlestop app a go and see if it works for me, I was wondering what temperatures for the GPU and CPU I should look out for, like what's a dangerous temperature? I have realtemp but I can't recall if it monitors GPU temp.

 

eh my temps hang around 75C and peak around 80C. for cpu and gpu both. Ill probably eventually get a cool pad, and put thermal paste as that doesnt seem to void warranty? for the long run that is. But for now it seems to work fine, with throttle stop running the fan actually hits its high setting for a few seconds.

from what i read those temps arnt bad i dont think. for peak anyway.

 

Thanks, hopefully I'll be able to try it tomorrow. Or later today rather.

 

Does anybody with a RGBLED display already tried unclewebb's ThrottleStop ? Wondering if the 130w adapter is ok with this setup.

BTW, the keyboard issue is pretty strange, hope its not a controller problem.

I don't have a 1645 yet but know that the keyboard is illuminated, but does it power up when you start typing or is it always on ? Could still be a power issue related to the keyboard led.

I don't remember who mentionned it, but I hope the keyboard is not on a PS/2 interface ^^. Does it still exist on a modern chipset like the PM55 ?

 

Keyboard and trackpad are ps/2. Anyway, it sends an interrupt when you push a key and the CPU has to acknowledge it.

 

Not that it truly matters, but it's better that it uses PS/2 rather than USB. PS/2 has a much lower overhead than USB. Additionally, the USB controller has a limited number of ports and to use them up on a keyboard and mouse would be wasteful. The principal advantages of USB over PS/2 is that USB provides more bandwidth (useful primarily for gaming mice) as well as more power (either gaming keyboards or mice, this time). Either way, not something we should be sad about not having.

 

Two words.... "USB HUB"

 

Since waking up from sleep is a workaround for this keystroke/lap keyboard issue maybe its not the "sleep" thats correcting this, maybe its the shutting off of the monitor. Could someone change the power setting to "shut off monitor" or "blank screen" when lid is closed. Just to Check if it's actually the shutting off and on of the monitor thats correcting this problem.

Worth a shot, nay?

Also has anyone used this Dell Studio XPS 1645 with Ubuntu Karmic Koala 9.10 64bit or 32 bit. I main Ubuntu and want to know if basic use with a few compiz effects will cause throttling.

[sorry about the specificness was doing it so search engines will pick it up better ]

 

@Unclewebb: I emailed the address in your realtemp app yesterday asking if you could link me to the ThrottleStop app. Did you get the email? I've got a 150w adpater and I really, really need to unleash the full power of my i7 1645! The slowdown in my games is annoying the hell out of me now!

 

I've just had my MOBO replaced and I've asked dell engineer to use my Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste - he had some standard quality one in the bag.
I've decided to burn the paste by running some benchmarks software on the XPS1645.
Downloaded latest FurMark, Real Temp IntelBurnTest and GPU-Z

I've runned all apps at the same time.

What I've noticed is that when the screen is on MAX brightness my GPU Load is showing max 45% usage and I've got max 17 FPS
When it's on MIN brightness then GPU is balancing between 66%-90% usage (fans are running louder) and the framerate is around 30-40FPS...

You can see the framerate dropping by increasing the brighntess...
My temp after 30min intel and furMark stress:
CPU: Max 74C
GPU: Max 80C

 

I'm a little confused, what is this keyboard issue when using ThrottleStop exactly?

 

Any announcements from DELL?? or looks like its next week?

 

-[Deleted]-

 

why do you say that n3verm0re? have they released a statement saying that they continue to have no idea how to fix it without costing them millions of dollars?

I am seriously thinking of returning the 1645 and just buying the 1647s which are out, (they probably have the same problem) but they have options that were not available on the 1645 in Canada (like bluetooth, other casing besides the standard one with RGB, etc.....)

 

Hey I ordered an XPS 16 and i was read that using Throttlestop and 130 W adapter makes the laptop very warm, will this significantly shorten the lifespan of the laptop? and would a good cooling mat solve that?

 

Bluetooth was a $20 option (which I selected) when I purchased my 1645 last week. AFAIK, that Bluetooth option has been available for a while, since I also saw it when researching these models a few weeks ago.

 

where can you find the 1647?

 

Apparently Dell Support has warned that a 130 W adapter is not approved for use with this laptop, so you would use at your own risk.

 

I say that because I don't have much faith in Dell promptly providing a solution. I certainly hope that my pessimism is ill-founded, but as I understand the situation with "Throttlegate," a similar issue plagued certain Latitude owners for over a year. Given that they treated their business customers so callously, I don't expect them to fair much better with their consumer line.

I truly hope that I'm mistaken, for all of our sakes.

Keep in mind that I say this as a customer who is largely unaffected by this issue with my 1645 in my day-to-day usage of the system. I'm actually overall very pleased with my system, though I certainly want this issue fixed.

 

If you go to the dell canada site, and try to select the xps 16 with i7 core, it says that it is a 1647 now, not a 1645.

This is why options that were not available in october, like bluetooth and different backings for the system have been available for a few weeks.

It doesn't make a point of saying it but if you look on the dell canada website you can't find the 1645 anywhere.....

 

The 1647 is assumed to be a new model of the Studio XPS 16 that will include the upcoming Intel Arrandale processors. Since Arrandale is not available yet, the 1647 is currently vaporware. You can probably expect an update sometime in the first quarter of 2010.

EDIT: Hmm, I wasn't aware that the 1647 was listed in Canada. I know that there were some people reporting that selecting one of the original three screen configurations caused the system to be listed as a 1647. Now I'm totally lost, heh.

 

-[Deleted]-

 

As you said, if you select the base model screen, this is the following title associated with it on dell canada:

"HD+ Widescreen 15.6 inch WLED LCD (1600x900) W/2.0 MP, XPS 1647 [Included in Price]"

Are we really not going to hear anything on dell blog today? :-(

 

As far as I know, the Latitude E6x00 issue still isn't solved. They've released new bios versions and turned up the positive PR and changed the throttling point by a degree or two but I think the problem still exists. Excessive use of throttling to control temperatures with no way for a user to manage this "feature" is not acceptable when you are paying big bucks for a high performance laptop.

tinkerdude's most recent test still showed his Latitude throttling away like crazy.

ThrottleStop is designed for the Core 2 as well but I've had virtually zero feedback from Core 2 owners. If you have a Core 2 laptop or know someone that does and want to do some testing then let me know. I've got a suspicion that there is a whole sh!t load of laptops built by Dell and others that are not properly using Clock Modulation and have a variety of throttling issues.

Intel rates their CPUs to run 100% reliably up to 100C for the Core i7 and 105C for most of the recent Core 2 mobile CPUs. ThrottleStop will add some extra heat to your CPU at full load but you'll still be within the Intel specifications. Dell took it upon themselves to throttle the CPU for a supposedly better user experience by keeping the laptop reasonably cool. Power users should be able to choose how they run their computer and now with the help of ThrottleStop, they can.

Edit: Some testers are having zero keyboard issues so I'm not sure what the real problem is.

 

I was also wondering if ThrottleStop would improve performance without the 130w adapter, since it sounds like its just the temperature causing the cpu to throttle speeds, plus someone else mentioned that with the 130w adapter he still only used i think +/-95w?