S-XPS 1645 AC Power Throttle Issue Investigation

Back On Topic Gentlemen

Has anyone tested ThrottleStop 1.2? Does it fix the keyboard/keystroke issue? Or does anyone still have to resume from sleep as a workaround?

 

Deleted by original poster

 

The program works just fine for me, although I can't say I've run into this keyboard issue yet, at least during a game..

Last weekend I spent most of Saturday playing WoW (all settings maxed except shadow, which was off), and it ran like a charm. 60fps everywhere, and just a bit of lag in Dalaran (which is unavoidable. period.) For grins I disabled ThrottleStop, and I immediately saw frames drop in-game (like 5-9 frames in empty, not-graphics-intensive areas).

I didn't realize how pathetic this laptop was without ThrottleStop.

 

Look at this thread from Dell forums: http://en.community.dell.com/forums/p/19310587/19612534.aspx#19612534

 

I just reply to my own post. The IDT driver didn't fix this problem. Last night was probably a coincidence. The laptop is back to old throttling behavior for unknown reason.

Update: I figured out the condition which cause cpu run at turbo speed. Playing hardware accelerated flash video (mobility mod and flash 10.1) and 3d game at same time.

 

I'm planning to do a clean install on my 1645. I have some questions to ask.

1. After doing clean installing, do need to download all essential drivers one by one? Can you give me the lists of important driver i have to install no matter what? From Dell or Manufacture?

2. About the power issue, If i update Bios to the newest version and buy a 130w charger, ?Can it solve the issue?

3. Can you guys give me the links buying a slim 130w charger compatible with Dell 1645 (dont mind how much) ?

4, If i want some applications from Dell (facial recognition and the Dell Webcam software), Should i install them using the CD coming with my laptop or download from Dell individually?

I know there are answers on this topic, but I cannot afford to read all posts from the beginning . Thanks much

 

I don't know, I've seen laptop surveys that put Dell at about the middle (next to Apple) with HP/Lenovo at the worst reliability end and Asus/Toshiba as most reliabile. Truth is, all laptops are pretty unreliable especially compared to desktops, you should expect problems and always get extended warranties.

 

Holy cow. At least our CPU's aren't frying like the 1747s. Checked out the Thread above and now feel lucky to have a semi working laptop.

 

Yeah, the 1645 even runs pretty cool. The only problem is this throttling issue, which there are a number of workarounds for. Technically, we first reported the issue to Dell 6 weeks ago, and it's a non-trivial problem, so I haven't really been expecting much yet, but I wish their support reps wouldn't lie and make stuff up on the phone to get rid of you.

 

I know im returning mine since im still within the 21 days. Thats crazy money comparing to what we are getting. Not worth it at all.

 

So I started a chat session with Dell today because my LCD no longer works right (it either doesn't turn on, or turns into a strobe light and shows my desktop with a heavy blue tint). Amongst the things I asked about was the performance when plugged in vs. battery. After the tech connected to my machine and did the usual tech support stuff (why, oh why do you clear my Prefetch folder Dell?) (oh, he tried to update the BIOS too as someone previously noted, because it was "going to fix the slowdowns." That plan was stopped once I explained that I had already updated to A03), I communicated to him that the laptop works great except under load (games, etc.). His supervisor called me and told me that other Dell customers have had a similar issue and that he's supposed to call me or email me in the next 3-5 days with an update.

Interesting times. For now, maybe I'll play some trance that's in tune with the flashing of my monitor. Gotta get my money's worth somehow

 

Might I suggest some PvD or George Acosta for your screen.

Should go nicely

 

Gah let us know if you hear back from them, I've gotten the 3-5 days thing a few times already, and never heard back and I originally called about this 6 weeks ago.

 

Not to get any hopes up, but got an email telling me that Bill should have some good news "sooner than later". Could be referring to the issue overall or to my capture.

~Ibrahim~

 

I received my 1645 two days ago. I havent run any comprehensive tests but I can report that I can play both Modern Warfare 2 and Dragon Age Origins at full 1920x1080 fully maxed (no AA though) with no stutter whatsoever while plugged in. Ive got the core i7 720 with 6gb ram and the 90w power supply. I have the 1080p LED NOT the RGBLED. I updated the video drivers direct from ati for the 4670 and installed these games. I played both for a significant amount of time. I haven't installed CRYSIS yet, but plan on doing so eventually. If I am experiencing this power issue, it had been transparent to me thus far.

 

Ok, so no call from the technician today. I chatted with Dell support and the agent told me that they had a delay. why am I not one bit surprised?

Anyways, at that point, I was a bit frustrated so I had the agent put on his/her supervisor.

I spoke with the supervisor about the performance issue and how my nearly 3 year old desktop is running circles around it.

Two key points of the conversation:

* They are aware of the problem, and the agent admitted to the following:
- Insufficient power supply (admits needing 130w or higher).
- Buggy Bios (do they mean the new one that busted my machine too? )
- Out of date Radeon Mobility driver. I've checked on the ATI site and it says they only have beta drivers for Windows 7 x64. Oh well, this one I'm the least worried about since I actually have a bit of control over the matter (at least later when a better driver exists).

* Some of you have already noted this, but officially there is no 130w power supply authorized for the 1645. I tried to convince the agent that this was false, but he held a pretty solid dragon stance on this one.

So, admitting there is a big problem is good. The fact that there is no indication of a fix on the horizon stinks.

 

These games are not stressing the unit, there is a frame rate drop not obvious for the eyes for these games, use a utility to monitor the frame rate with and without the battery and you will see a difference. Now when using a more demanding application or game it will drop under 30 fps and be visible.

 

Good to know. As these are what I am using it for at the moment, I have no worries about the laptop underperforming for now. Hopefully Dell will have a solution for this issue by the time I get around to stressing the unit.

 

Have you returned it already? Can you tell me how? I just got it a week ago so it has not passed 21 days yet.

Thanks

 

Just got my UPS label today. Call tech support and let them know you wanna return it. No questions asked they will return it.

 

I havent read the Dell returns policy but their 21 day policy is not legal in Ireland and the UK for the sale of a defective item under the Sale of Goods Act and the Unfair Terms of Contract Act.
I'm sure that the USA has a similar law.

So anybody who wants a full monetary refund is entitled to it in this case despite what the agents tell you about 21 days.

Be aware of your legal rights and dont be afraid to use those rights.

If everybody returned their laptops now I think that it might help dell "sooner than later" come up with the fix.

 

Yeah i have a similar setup and thought they same thing at first. When throttlestop came out i was amazed at how much better things where vs what i thought they were. Its really a big difference, even if it doesnt crawl all the time like others. Theres power still left to be unleashed with a 90w, and its amazing when working right.

 

http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/3/3/1794507/ThrottleStop.zip

Here's a minor update to give the 90 watt users some more control. Adjustable clock modulation. Instead of letting the bios control your multiplier and clock modulation settings during a game, now you can lock them to what works best for you. You should be able to run your rig closer to the 90 watt limit without it randomly cycling all over the place.

When Clock Modulation is not enabled, the window will report the current clock modulation value like it did before. When this is enabled, it is going to be trying to force it to the value that you have selected. 100.0% means it will try to keep your computer running at full speed.

 

Also it would be nice to set it per Core, some games are single-threaded and it would be fine to let the unused cores throttle down to save power especially on a 90 watt. I'm using my own hacked together program to do this right now, but I could start using ThrottleGate if it supported this.

 

If the application you are running is mostly single threaded then 3 of your 4 cores are going to be spending the majority of their time asleep, turned off and not contributing to your total power consumption. Setting Clock Modulation different on a per core basis isn't really recommended and I don't think it would really gain you a lot on one of these CPUs. When lightly loaded, these cores spend most of their time in the C3/C6 sleep state.

What sort of advantages are you seeing with your hack? Are there any advantages to power consumption or game play or ...?

 

Yes but the majority of the time isn't good enough, any process running in Windows could wake up and start burning CPU, and would be scheduled onto another core, and send it over the 90 watt limit. Since it's not possible to control the behavior of everything on the system, its safest to force the other cores to be throttled down so even if they do get scheduled, it wont go over 90 watts.

Edit: Basically doing this:
Set game process affinity to CPU 0/1. Force to 12x multipler, no clock modulation.
Force all other CPUs to 7x multipler, full clock modulation.

This ensures the game runs with no throttling while playing it safe with the wattage limit.

 

just got a reply from a Technical support "see the details below"


I just bought the Dell Studo XPS 16 (See details below). However, I got an inefficient power problem that seems to happen to most people using this laptop. The problem is that the 90w power charger coming with this laptop is not efficient enough to provide power to use it at full setting. Moreover, using it on battery is more performance than on AC charger plugging in, which is very weird to me. I went to do some researches and found that there were a lot of people out there suffering this problem as well. Fortunately, they have found the solution for this issue, that's to get the 130W Charger from you and update a new bios. ( See the link provided below)

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=437800&page=57

you might want to read this topic from the beginning to see how many people suffering this problem and how to find it.

I really think you have to send the 130W one to me because I have tried some other ways to solve this issue such as updating the newest Bios just coming out on 12/09/09 from Dell website, but it still have the problem. So I think getting the 130w charger is the last way for my case.

I'm a software engineer. My jobs depend on a very powerful PC.(running multiple applications and servers at the same time, including some software requiring the good performance of a PC to run them smoothly) That's why
I chose your laptop with the most powerful hardware possible. But, now i cannot use its full ability because of the power issue. I don't think it's fair to me paying my money $2400 (Cash without using any financial) but will not have what I am supposed to. I dont want to be mean saying this, but if you think you will not send a new 130w adapter to me for any reason, please provide me the further information about how to return this laptop to you. I know I might have to pay the extra cost for returning it. But ,I dont care. I just dont want to use it with uncomfortable feeling.


Dear APICHA DARUNYOTHIN,

Thank you for contacting Dell XPS hardware Support. I would be glad to assist you with your Dell XPS 1645 with Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit on it.

Apicha, I regret the inconvenience caused and I understand it is indeed disappointing to have such issues with the laptop. We have not received any proper update on the status of the issue . I request you to follow the steps below to check if that would help as we have received this from one of our customers with similar system stating the troubleshooting did help with his system:

control panel>>power options>>now click on change plan settings: (Change below settings to never)

Dim the display = Never
Turn off the display = Never
Put the computer to sleep = Never

I request you to perform the same and let me know the status.

Awaiting your reply on the above.


I dont think he got what I told him. Is it going to solve the problem? I dont think so

 

Back on page 3 or so when we were testing, those were some of the standard conditions that we tested under. Its how we figured out that the problem existed even when the computer is in no way set to conserve energy.

 

You dont need to pay any extra charge right? I got mine on Dec 14, It should be ok right?


I'm grad I bought two Pcs at the same time (one new iMac and this laptop)
I dont need to worry about having no any pc at any time. I might wait til they have fixed this issue and order one again or go with new coming latops (like Sony or HP envy 17)

 

If you bought it on the 14th then you are good. but just make sure to mention to the rep that there shouldn't be any restocking fee. Just to be on the safe side.

 

If i have done the clean install and have some software installed already (MS Office Ultimate), Would i get the full refund? and How long?

Thanks

 

I'm interested in purchasing one a XPS 16 with all (or most) or the upgrades (820QM, 320SSD, 8GB, etc.), but I just learned about this throttling issue via these forums.

Can someone tell me if the laptops purchased now are still affected by this issue? I'm not in a huge hurry as I have a new Mac Book Pro and Sony Vaio Z that I'm currently using, so I can wait for an official fix if one seems to be on the way.


thanks,
-brit

 

320 SSD? Huh?

 

I didnt know they make em.....

 

I only see the 256 option now. I may have confused it with the HP Envy SSD option. I'm also looking at that laptop.

 

As of right now, any 1645 in any configuration will suffer from Throttlegate.

 

Ok, thanks for letting me know.

 

Tested with my new 130W adapter, games are much, much better. I went from absolutely unplayable framerates in Batman: Arkham Asylum to > 40fps all of the time.

Thanks unclewebb, excellent job on the program. You have my donation and support.

EDIT: Tested 130W with ThrottleStop.

 

Hey all, Just joined the forums. I have already ordered the XPS 1640, P8700 (2.53GHZ) CORE 2 DUO, 4GB, DDR3, ATI MOBILITY RADEON M96XT - 1GB, blah blah blah.. Anyways.. seeing how this is effecting the i7's for the most part, what should I expect..

The same deal with the throttling?

Should I send it back as soon as I get it and claim its defective because of this..

I rather have the refund rather than the worry.

edit: is this only effecting the 1645 models?

 

I have heard of other models beside the i7 throttling, but have done testing on my own P8700 (in a Studio 1737). I was unable to get it to throttle. So you might be fine.

If you want to be 100% sure, you can do the test. It is not so hard to do and is described in this thread. In less than an hour you will know for sure.

 

I would hope this would be the case.. I'm a laptop noob, and this is my first dell to begin with. After all this fuss and the amount of stress i've seen this company put xps owners through the past >fixed<- year or so- really shakes my faith in their business all together.

I wont even have mine shipped till the 14th of jan.

 

You'll get it a couple days before that
I Hope no throttling[related to lack of power] happens with your 1640. Power Consumption is a lot less wit the Core2Duo's especially the P series

 

That statement needs to be clarified. Throttling issues have not been going on for "days/weeks" at Dell. The throttling issue has only started to get a little more media attention recently.

This issue has been going on for over a YEAR now. The throttling Latitude E6400 was released last summer. Not 2009 but 2008 and there is still no bios available for it that totally eliminates throttling at full load.

Does anyone think that the throttling issues with the 1645 series are going to be solved in the near future? I don't think that thought is realistic based on the above history.

I might add some Clock Modulation logging features to ThrottleStop tomorrow. I think we're just at the tip of the iceberg here. Once more users can start to easily monitor their mobile CPUs, I think the list of laptops with issues is going to grow and grow.

 

That's correct. My 1737 with the P8700 pulls a little over 60W at full load. It has the ATI 3650 though, so that might make some difference. But it is a fact that the C2D's leave more headroom.

Logging would be great. this way we could spot the throttling afterwards (when the system is running and you're not there). It would be very useful for me and once that feature's there I fully intend to run it constantly to see how the system performs under real-life loads (working in Visual Studio / SQL Server, Photoshop, etc).

I just noticed that they have shipped mine today, so if the weather permits it, I will receive it on thursday. Just in time for X-Mas

I intend to do a quick synthetic throttletest, but my main interest lies in a real-life-load scenario. I don't have much time for playing games, but do load the system quite often. So far I thought it would hold up to that, but in a little over a week I can tell you more about that. With my kill-a-watt meter and ThrottleStop I will try to monitor my 1645 for some time.

This might also lead to more usefull data towards Dell. I'veread reports of them saying it is not a gaming machine, so if it thottles under professional use, that argument won't hold and we can build a stronger case. If that even matters...

 

I don't think they will fix this anytime soon, or maybe not at all. All we can do is speculate at this point in time and HOPE something good happens for us.

 

A question, would it be safe to keep ThrottleStop enable at all times? And not Just during gaming/cpu&gpu intensive tasks. I mean it wouldn't draw the extra power or be preventing clock modulation unless it needed to [or this is what i gather]

 

That logging feature would be nice. I see it modulating all the time now that you added that in the new version. I disable modulation every once in a while to see, and see that it going sometimes. More than i thought.

The only thing i can think of that i dont think others have mentioned. Would be really nice for me anyway, i assume others? If you could add the max cpu and gpu temp just off the side somewhere? I used to run real temp and gpu-z, then ya added gpu temp in realtemp and have since been running that alongside tstop just to monitor temps. I just like to see where the max is during gaming, since we have the safety's disabled.

To note, ive been playing a lot recently with a really bad cool pad on it, havnt seen the temps go above 77C on gpu or cpu. With a proper cooling pad, and thermal paste this would probably be pretty cool.

edit: mitchell as to its not a gaming machine, if it really isnt one. they probably shouldnt mention it in their advertisment/promo page. or advertise for "ultimate performance". if dell rep is saying that, get a new rep

 

My plan at the moment is to add some RealTemp and some i7 Turbo features to ThrottleStop and make it a more useful stand alone application that covers the basics. Hopefully for laptop owners it will be a good alternative to RealTemp and other software. I think logging of clock modulation data is going to open up some eyes. The C0% number is also very meaningful on a Core i7 when the CPU is in a throttling state.

Stay tuned.

 

Unclewebb, i want to thank you immensely for the great work & contribution you've been doing in this forum.
I have a couple question, and hope you lot would excuse my lack of understanding as i am not as technical as most of you are:

1- Clock modulation is a feature implemented into the CPU to prevent it from overheating, am I right?

2-When Clock modulation is set high - say at 100% - it will mean that Tstop will reduce the CPU Cores speed - to prevent them from overheating; which means we will see lower multipliers; is this correct?

So to get the best out of the Notebook, one needs to set Tstop clock modulation to 0% and use the 130w adapter, ideally also check the Auto Stop box in case the notebook gets unplugged.

Just wanted to make sure i am reading from the same page as you guys as i struggle to catch up.

Unclewebb - Thanks again

 

Yes, that's right. The Clock Modulation feature is build into the CPU to regulate heat and power usage.

Almost.It is exactly the other way around. The setting reflects the rate at which the CPU is allowed to work. So 100% means it works at full speed, 12.5% (which I believe is the lowest setting) means it works as the slowest speed.

Set it to 100% and use the 130W adapter.