S-XPS 1645 AC Power Throttle Issue Investigation

Unclewebb deserves the donations....I mean what is the cost of peace of mind? That's what he's given a lot of us.

donation++;

 

Hear, hear!

 

I finally got dell to ship me a 130W Adapter, but.. they sent me the older model X9366(when I see the order status page). I should have asked explicitly for PA-4E, but I just thought the guy will send me the same . He was saying that he had sent to others.

If dell asks me to return my 90 W adapter as an exchange for this, I will definitely ask them to send me the slim Pa-4E. But if they do not ask me to return the older one I am thinking of keeping the older 130W one they sent me and using it only while gaming. Just to avoid spending more time on phone with them. Its getting boring

So my question, functionality wise, will this adapter(X9366) work the same as the PA-4E?

 

I'm going to order PA-4E, and I received the estimate.

Is the part description below right?
Is it the Dell's brand new slim 130W adapter?

'JU012 - ADPT,AC,130W,DLTA,3P,WW,M09'

 

We are having problems identifying the adapter as well, NOBODY has linked it on Dell's site. Only thing I see on the JU012 part number is a refurb.

 

ok. here is link at dell:
W/3 foot cord
W/6 foot cord "wow that much extra for 3 more feet???

 

See, those Power supplies dont have PA-4E or JU012 anywhere within their identifying numbers... what the..?

 

Its the same......
I googled it for you....
Here is one for 37 bucks....
grab it. i was the one who originally posted the link for triangle. they had 85 when i first found them 3 days later all gone

http://www.getpartsonline.com/pa-4e.html

Notice Alt. Part Number(s): 330-1829, 330-1830

 

Holy crap.

If everyone has to go out and buy a 130 watt adapter from Dell at those inflated prices, maybe I should be asking Dell to send some donations to help support ThrottleStop. I think I deserve a cut of that obscene price.

Thanks guys for the support.

 

that's not true, there is just a blue flash, and a pop. and if you're in jail, you can hold a peice of toilet paper above it, it will ignite, and you can light your smoke.

lol, you're a joke buddy. I had audio crackling in games, and drops in fps to ~1fps...when i turned the brightness down, went on battery, or onto the 130W Dell sent me for free, it resolves the issue.

That being said, how can you hold the opinion that the 130W did/does it not solve the issue?

isn't having a problem, and then taking action, and having it go away, the very definition of "resolving the issue"?

 

I think he might mean it's not a permanent fix, there might be negative long term effects of using the 130W. I'm not trying to sound like I know much of anything lol, just trying to see both sides here...

 

Post your paypal address

 

I'll definitely be making a donation to UncleWebb - thanks for your hard work!

 

They will be asking for the 90W adapter to be sent back or you will be charged for the 130W adapter.

Also the adapter that they should send you is:

PA-4E, new slim model
Dell p/n = JU012

That is what Dell has shipped out to me, the above model/part # and it certainly looks brand new. It also was sent to me for free.

FYI, However I did return the 130W adapter as I am not a gamer and when I tested both of the adapters they both were equally mildly warm to warm and would prefer to have the smaller and lighter adapter. I have run this laptop for 1 month 10-12 hours a day under normal computing and the 90W adapter does not get hot under those conditions in which I use it.

 

I just received my Watt-meter in the mail. I need that to test a few servers, but once the 1645 comes in, I can do some testing with the revised ThrottleStop program, to see which numbers we need to come as close to the 90W limit as is still safe and / or comfortable.

 

@DeathWalking

No, the upgrades are because I'm letting Dell "capture" my laptop for testing purposes.

~Ibrahim~

 

What upgrades are they giving you?

 

They are giving him the often sought, but seldom found... 1647

 

What's Different about the 1647?

 

I have a bridge I'd like to sell you

 

:laugh: Awesome lol

 

Haha, they don't know. They said like or better. I think maybe RAM and Windows 7?

~Ibrahim~

 

I like or better that.

Maybe I can get them to capture my system. Craving 8GB ever since I found out they do 6 with a 2+4 setup.

 

Dell tech support rang today to update me on the fact that there is no update on the solution to the problem.

I am returning my 1645 and will reorder if the dust settles.

I'm not paying extra for 130/150/200 watt adapter and the chance that the mobo circuits are not rated for above 90watts.

Could this system maxed out pull more than 150 watts?

 

Why not use the ThrottleStop? but you need the 130W at least with it. Im sure at one point Dell will issue a BIOS update. One day

 

On battery power these laptops don't throttle as much which means the CPU and motherboard are likely getting more than the 90 watts that the power adapter is allowed to deliver.

For a test why doesn't someone run a consistent load like Prime95 Small FFTs on all 8 threads without using ThrottleStop. Let this test run for something consistent like 5 or 10 minutes and do one test when plugged in and one test while on battery power.

RealTemp 3.50 can show how much Clock Modulation is being used. If on battery power the bios lets the CPU run at full speed without the multiplier sagging down or without any Clock Modulation then that would lead me to believe that this computer is quite capable of handling the extra wattage that a 130 watt adapter can supply.

It wouldn't absolutely prove anything but it might be interesting.

 

For what it's worth. Just received my 1645 Monday and after doing a fresh install of the OS I was finally able to test out a little gaming yesterday. Sure enough the cpu multiplier dropped down to x2 after about 10 seconds. CPU utilization was low ~15%. I clocked the gpu down and tried again and saw turbo boost kicking in, of course game performance was impacted by gpu underclocking. Running the game on battery with max performance worked just fine. Too bad the battery doesn't last long.

I have a friend that is a computer engineer and used to work at Dell on the server side. Asked him about power on the laptops and he said that a 130W brick wouldn't hurt the laptop at all. Since voltage is the same, the laptop will only draw as much current as needed. He said Dells response that it could hurt the MB is bogus.

 

If CPU-Z reports that your multiplier is dropping down to 2, that is an error. That's actually a very good sign that Clock Modulation is being used on your CPU to control temperatures which throws CPU-Z for a loop. The minimum multiplier physically possible is 7 for the i7-720 and 9 for the i7-820.

Try RealTemp 3.50 which I posted above. It correctly reports the multiplier and Clock Modulation on these new i7 laptops.

I agree with your friend's opinion.

 

Yeah, if the SXPS MB can't handle the 130, then why do these adapters exist for other systems:

"PA-4E - New Original Dell Latitude E5400, E6400, E6400 ATG, E6500, Precision M2400, M4400 Series 130W Laptop AC Adapter"​

They even have a 130w adapter for "XPS Gen 2 laptops":

130 Watt 3 Prong AC Adapter with 6-ft Power Cord for Dell XPS M1710/ M170 / Inspiron 5150/ 5160/ XPS Gen 2 Laptops / Precision Mobile WorkStation M90​

 

unclewebb can you send me throttlestop?

 

Does the laptop charge battery when there's no enough power?
I noticed my loptop battery stayed at 48% for a couple hours when I was playing game.

 

If your power adapter is maxed out while gaming then there are no watts left over to charge the battery. That's why the 90 watt is such a pathetic decision on Dell's part. The battery has to be able to get charged up while you are using your laptop.

If you can't send me a PM then send me an e-mail

Real_TempATyahoo.ca

 

thanks i send a mail to you...

 

Just want to say thanks to unclewebb, the man who did the trick.

Rep+ once a day for the next six months...

 

yes.. sorry, i write a bad english... with the trick has any problem? is possible damage de Notebook?

 

You're not english?
Me neither, so don't worry.

The 130W itself won't damage anything, the voltage should be about 19,5V, just as the 90W.

Just take a look at the temperatures, i used to put some heat paste on chips.

 

i dont get it... if the battery pushes more watts than the 90w ac then why would a highter ac pushing more watts be harmful?

 

im guessing the 1647 is the one with Arrandale. I dont think they want to skip it because of its benifits but i would rather a Nahalm microarchitecture processor because of the hyperthreading benfits in real world uses.

 

I need to clarify this point. We did request and receive talking points from engineering on this before we posted our initial response. The engineers never stated this to us in these terms. We mistakenly mis-worded this part of the intitial response.

In truth, we should have stated, "The system has not been qualified for a 130Watt adapter," which in no way should be inferred to mean the adapter will damage internal components. Still, with regard to using a higher Wattage adapter, in the stock state of the system, it will have little to no effect on system performance.

This is in part my own fault, as I did have the opportunity to review the initial statement before it went live, and I did have the engineers' response to your questions in front of me at the time. Sorry, all. I'll take the blame for that one.

 

Thanks for the clarification, and communicating with us directly as well. Its very much appreciated. Hopefully we can get more updates down the line as well

i know the engineers are aware of the problem and working on it. Although there is a lot of fluff in this thread, hopefully someone has looked at the information in this thread, as there is a lot of good real world testing/measurements/solutions (especially just recently) we have now that may be able to pinpoint/speed along the process for a final solution.

 

I'm really surprised this issue wasn't discovered during the QA phase. I ran a year old game (Titan Quest) and within seconds the game was stuttering. This was the first game I tried on the laptop. It actually runs worse than on my Latitude XT. But as soon as I unplug the AC, the game is playable again. It's even playable if I let the system clock the ATI4670 down to save power.

I've seen some strange tech issues during my career but this should have been an easy one to catch.

 

This thread is included on my watch list and my weekly internal reporting. The best example I've seen that really makes my detail gathering job easier is Khaledseif's post on DCF. I realize the same or some variant is posted on this thread, but honestly, that was all I needed besides volume and sentiment.

 

I hope they (engineers) will fix it... They can take the time they need to fix it but they have to do this ! One thing is sure, if it's not completely fixed one day, I'll never by Dell again, and spread bad noise about this brand...

Ouuua, I feel much better now

 

mobile i5 will be out January 7th, along with new systems

Guess I'll wait for those. Switchable gfx on the Studio XPS 16 would be sweet!

 

Plus they draw less power so there shouldn't be as much throttling!

 

I'd be quite surprised if the i5's were actually 'available' on the 7th... didn't it take quite a while after the 1645 was orderable for anyone to actually receive a system? I guess that's normally the case with new launches though. It's a shame the initial i5's are only dual-core too

 

See, I want dual core.

I don't need a quad in my laptop. The i5 also has turbo and ht, so it should be pretty sweet.

That, and the integrated gpu on the die is pretty nifty

 

"Fluff" is putting it mildly. Sadly, this thread is full of useless speculation and pointless Dell bashing. That helps no one.

It will be challenging for them to find the useful information, admidst all the crap. I agree that there are some really helpful contributors here, but they often get drowned out by the juvenile rantings of know-nothing folks who think that they are experts.

 

Can you please point me to someone who would send me a 130W adapter then?

I spent one hour yesterday while giving all reasons and explanation to finally get a 130W adapter shipped to me. And when I get it today its a big Brick and not the slim version.

Again spent an hour today trying to get it replaced to get the PA-4E. But I was plain refused, and given reasons like, it is not supported and will damage your warranty, forums are not right and even the 1645 is not a gaming system . My call got transferred and they just said we are looking at the issue and have got laptops from 7-8 users. I finally had to send back the older 130W adapter they sent to me.

 

I don't think you're reading what he wrote earlier. Dell is investigating this issue. That means they don't yet know the detail behind the problem, or the appropriate resolution. You're jumping to a conclusion that they aren't willing to make until they have investigated.