S-XPS 1645 Throttling Info. and Updates

Well i think that made my decision concrete whether to send the laptop back or not. Was going to wait a bit longer, but looks like they want to screw over their customers like the latitudes "fix". I will be no part of it and actually a bit glad i cost them 2 laptops over this issue.

There is no way without a bigger adapter that these laptops will function like they should. My system with a wled screen needs 100-110w alone, people with the 820qm + rgbled are the most screwed and they payed the most money. Ill add this to the main page.

 

I am also struggling with these issues. There seem to be some damned cheap PA-15 options available to me in Canada.

I think that it's not just enough to find something that mechanically fits and runs at the right voltage and polarity. I once plugged my Dell supplied 90 Watt adaptor into my laptop, but I accidentaly didn't plug it in all the way. After a few moments the machine flashed a message telling me that it was running off the adaptor, but that because the adaptor was unrecognized, it wouldn't charge the battery.

So there is some communication there. We need to find adaptors that allow us to charge, so if people can start offering us part numbers that work, that would be very helpful.

Good luck

Tom

 

Look in the FAQ section of the main page. Lists the adapters people are using successfully.

 

I don't want to sound like a broken record, but if you're concerned about the charger itself, just get Dell to send you one. They will send you the 130W for free if you're persistent/get the right rep. And since you're in Canada, you can file a Better Business Bureau complaint if they don't send it to you and they will respond the very next day and send it to you. For free, of course. You'll only have to return the 90W back to them, but as stated before, they give you a prepaid postage box that you send the adapter back through.

 

I assume you are referring to this:

Known adapters that work.
130w

* PA-4E slim 130w adapter
* PA-13 brick 130w adapter

150w

* PA-15 150w adapter

--------------------------------

I saw this earlier, but it looks like there are a bunch of different model numbers for PA-4E (for example) including some 90W models according to ebay. I'm not sure if the 90W models are just errors or if "PA-4E" is some kind of base model with many sub-models. Ebay makes these adapters cheap but also adds layers of confusion.

Anyway, thanks for that FAQ and this thread.

 

Looks like the PA-15 does work but is everyone using Dell branded adapters? The unbranded ones are much cheaper. I'm sure their cheaper for a reason but wondered if anyone had any bad experiences?

Regarding getting Dell to replace the 90W adapter which will be supplied: I would quite like a spare anyway so will purchase the right one before the laptop arrives and then hassle Dell to swap the 90W one later!

 

Wait. I thought we had a general agreement that the 130W doesn't fully solve the problem, but mostly alleviates it. This was in the first thread when a person with like a 150W or something tested it and it still throttled.

~Ibrahim~

 

There's no way Dell will release a bios that depends on draining the battery to make up the short fall in power when using a 90 watt adapter. You would end up with computers crashing as soon as the battery went dead. The latest promises from Dell should be taken with a grain of salt. The only way to fix this is with a 130 watt adapter, minimum. Any scheme that doesn't involve replacing the real problem is not a fix at all.

ikjadoon: Someone posted that they were able to draw 146 watts while running Furmark and Prime or IBT or something like that. I think the 130 watt adapter is adequate for most systems in normal use but a 150 watt adapter might give you a little more headroom and it should charge your battery quicker when gaming as long as the bios doesn't complain that it's an unsupported adapter. I'm not sure what happens then.

 

130w with TS(throttle stop) does eliminate the problem. Its a bandaid though a very good one.

As bios will sometimes throttle for a split second before throttlestop disables it. Which isnt noticeable in a lot of games, but sometimes in dragon age it stutters for a split second. But hardly noticeable at all.

 

All right, thanks.

~Ibrahim~

 

This throttling problem also affects my 4 year old inspiron 6000 2.0GHz single core. I had to use RMclock to lock the clock to 2.0Ghz. And it did not throttle because of temperatures because those were within range.

 

With regard to the other options currently available on the XPS 16, how will a throttled i7-720 compare with a P8700 (2.53GHz) or T9600 (2.8GHz)for newer games....will it still be better even with the throttling or would you be better off with the Core 2 Duo? The P8700 would be a little cheaper, the T9600 a little more.

Thanks

 

Woldsman: It's impossible to make a meaningful comparison. Are you assuming that the P8700 and T9600 don't have any throttling issues? You might be in for a surprise if you believe that. I think there is a long list of laptops with throttling issues. We've just uncovered the tip of the iceberg.

 

I have tested my Studio 1737 with the P8700, and cound not get it to throttle. The T9600 might be a different story as I believe the P's are low power CPU's while the T's aren't.

 

Thanks for the reply.

I was hoping since the P8700 is rated 25W max TDP compared with the 45W of the i7 720 it might not be throttled. If this was the case I was wondering how the 3d benchmarks available on the web compare with the throttled performances of the i7 listed in these forums. I'm afraid I'm not knowledgeable enough to make sense of it myself. I just want to get as much performance and possible future proofing for gaming for the cash I have got.......but now rather than waiting for future releases.

 

I've been following this thread and the original throttling one from the start...
Great job on solving this issue..

I got the 130W PA-4E adapter yesterday and did some gaming (Burnout Paradise: max settings, except for shadows) to see the effect of TStop.

I used the latest TStop version (1.7), checked clock modulation @ 100%, Chipset CM @ 100%, multiplier @ 13 (shouldn’t it be 12x coz I have the 720q?), no battery attached, maxed the performance from ATI CCC, external mouse & keyboard, not much difference whether on an external monitor, or on laptop’s screen with maximum brightness.

In the attached log file are two gaming sessions; the first one with TStop disabled, and it clearly shows the throttling issue as the multiplier is showing 7, and the frames are around 10-15, and it goes down even more where the game becomes unplayable, along with the sound issues..

In the second session Tstop is enabled, and i'm averaging 35-40 frames and the game runs perfectly, and you can see the multiplier between 11 & 13.

There is definitely around a 300% increase when TStop is enabled in terms of frames per second, but (and here is my question) shouldn't the multiplier hit 15+, as i understood from the first post? Because on lower settings i get 60 frames constantly on FRAPS, and it never exceeds 60 (is this normal?) with or without TStop..

Appreciate any thoughts..

 

Ok guys was doing a test with and without TS while on the battery (i do not have a 130w adapter to test on it)

I have some pretty wierd results (may be down to the ffact that i do not entirely understand TS and i'm doing something wrong.)

Both these images were taken while i was running dragon age on full settings AA x8 etc so there is no unfairness on the tests.
Powerplay enabled and power options set to maximum performance.

First image. DA running and TS enabled as you see on my toolbar icons.


next one is with TS off. you can see some wierd results.
Such as C0% state not being high an lower multipliers?


TS settings are Clock Mod= 100% Chipset Clock Mod=100% multipler=13

 

sorry images mucked up abit and cut bottem half off.

But trust me in saying that on img one the TS is on
And image two, it is off

 

A.H.A thanks for the results, ill add it to the main page for others to see. glad it works for you as well.

iamscottish, you seem to have dragon age minimized? that may effect results. Also, when you disable throttle stop, it sometimes takes a while for the bios to take back control and do its throttling thing. Unclewebb mentioned it should take some where around 30seconds or so, but ive seen things take much longer. A cold restart is the best way to be sure.

Dragon age is also a very odd game, for me it uses 3 cores and not all at there max. Which would put the 720qm for me at the 13x mark with partial load. Im actually not to sure if things will throttle that way in the first place, if you get time try doing logs from a cold reboot, with throttlestop off, and throttle stop on.

 

In case you didn't see it, UncleWebb warned me not to start throttlestop while on battery and then attempt to swamp the system to test for throttling. I put TS on while running on the battery for the same reason you did and then ran Prime95 and Furmark at the same time and the machine shut off after about 10 seconds, possibly because of a self-protect circuit in the battery (it didn't throttle at all though ).

My battery + 1645 seem none the worse for wear, but others have apparently broken their batteries doing this.

 

You're most welcome. I always like to hear about the increases in gaming performance possible with a 130 watt adapter and the help of ThrottleStop.

The multiplier number in ThrottleStop is the requested multiplier. The default multiplier for a Core i7-720 is 12. When you request 12 or less, the CPU should give you exactly that multiplier. The 13 setting is a special request. It tells the CPU to use the default 12X multiplier plus as much turbo boost as possible.

That can range from as little as 0 if the CPU is heavily stressed like when it's running 8 threads of Prime95 or on an i7-720, as much as 9 bins of turbo boost up to the full 21. When running a single threaded activity it's possible that a setting of 13 will get the multiplier as high as 21 on the one active core for very brief amounts of time. Any background tasks will immediately drop the multiplier as they become active and wake up other cores and this is happening constantly. An average somewhere in the 20 to 21 range is possible on the hardest working core. Post an i7 Turbo screen shot while running a single thread of Prime95 or SuperPI mod and I will show you how to read the data coming from i7 Turbo.

Presently, the log file from i7 Turbo is not thorough enough. I plan to add the i7 Turbo multiplier data to ThrottleStop and to the TS log file in the near future so you will be able to see exactly what each individual thread is up to. When gaming you will likely see some threads running with a 15 to 18 multiplier. That's a greater than 100% improvement in CPU performance compared to be stuck with the lowly 7X multiplier on all threads.

Your initial log file shows a multiplier of 7 and the standard deviation is zero which means all multipliers are reporting the same thing. In the second part of your log file when ThrottleStop is enabled, the average multiplier jumps up and so does the standard deviation. The average C0% during this game is about 25% so most of the time there are going to be 6 threads in the sleep state. When you average the data from 6 sleeping threads with 2 active threads, the overall average is not going to be that impressive. A standard deviation number of 2 tells me that the active threads are using a multiplier a lot higher than 12.

Stay tuned for an updated version of ThrottleStop which will be able to show you exactly what you're interested in. I'm interested too.

Edit: You can also try logging with RealTemp which should accurately report the multiplier on your hardest working core.

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

 

After burn 2 time my battery (for multiple testing with TS), I saw that my battery can run at 115w max for the moment after several hours of testing. 120w burns the battery in 10 seconds.

 

Unclewebb is there a way to keep the minimum multiplier at 12x for all cores while allowing turbo boost to happen automatically? I'm always seeing a lot of 7's, 8's and 9's even with Throttlestop enabled.

I set up a friends desktop i7 860 based computer recently and noticed that it seemed to hold it's clock speed higher by default.
It seems like the the advertised 1.6Ghz base clock for the 720qm is only achieved with some loading. I expected it to stay at 1.6 or higher when set to highest performance in Windows power manager and running Throttlestop 1.7.

Also, you should add a donation button to Throttlestop. Edit, found it in the right click taskbar menu.

 

Wow! thanks for warning me about that. Could of messed up my laptop lol. Thanks

After what TomK2 has said i doubt ill try that again. But will run those tests when i get my 130w psu. (soon hopefully)

 

My test was sort of an "ultimate" scenario. 820QM + RGBLED at full brightness + keyboard backlight, and then cpu full out + gfx card full out.

I have a 150W adapter coming in the mail. Can't wait. I don't really intend to beat the hell out my rig with tests once I get the power bar. Just want to run my cpu hard while charging the battery and not melting my carpet.

Tom

 

what model is it?
How much was it?
And also do you know the dimensions?

im undecided wether to get 130w or 150w.
Depending on how much more power I would get from an 150w adapter.
And i'd buy the 150w if there is a slim model?

Ciaran

 

Got it from an ebay merchant in Canada for $30.99 (free shipping):
Original Dell PA-15 Adapter P/N D2746 N3834 ADP-150EB

Not positive it will work properly until I get it. Also not sure about the dimensions and weight. They also showed a disclaimer on the ad saying the slim model shown might not be what I actually get. I imagine I'll have it by Monday with a slim chance of getting it Friday. I'll let you know what shows up if you want.

I probably would have gotten a 130W since everyone else is doing that, but I was having a tough time getting one shipped to me in Canada for less than $70 all in.

 

superj: Show me a picture of i7 Turbo and ThrottleStop at idle. Usually setting the Minimum processor state to 100% and disabling C1E will give you the default multiplier on the desktop CPUs.

 

Ah yea upload a photo.

Probably go for the 130w slim myself, just found a seller on ebay UK selling for £24 with free P&P

 

Ran a test on WoW to show you all.

Was running on battery with not all settings on full.
Can post a screenshot of my settings if anyone wishes to see it.
I found my multiplier stuck at 12x but my C0% was crap to say the least.
Can't use TS as i dont have 130w psu, but could someone tell me if i'm being throttled badly.

This is the image with i7 turbo up and mouse over my fps.
(Image on next page due to this one being too small, sorry)

 

thanks iamscottish but the picture is too small to see any thing. Would you post again ?
Thanks

 

Sorry about that. hopefully this one is better.


If you click on that then go to full size and from the press "Crtl ++" a few times you'll see the larger picture.

Thanks.
Ciaran

 

Thanks,
My question may be stupid but I wanted to know if with a multiplier=12 can you play the games with no problem? and do a lot of work?
What is than the real problem if you are not using at full speed your processor?
Are your paying more expensive for what your are getting? Is that the problem?

 

Well i cant run crysis at all, havent tried any newer games.
3d model+rendering(what i do at college) is alot slower than it should be and can sometimes slow when multiple photo editing.
And with WoW i should be getting higher fps from a system this powerful.
Crysis or anything around that is currently unplayable and 3d modelling can be a real pain when it shouldnt be a problem for this system at all.

After this system costing £1.100 the least i can say is im disappointed..

If you're a gamer i'd say you will have to deal with these throttling issues in your new studio 1747 thats in production as i was looking and they are also shipped with the underpower 90w psu. But if its for general use and nothing too heavy on the laptop it'll be a great system.

Other than my (and so many others) thottling issues, i love the system, hence why i'm being very reluctant to return it.

 

iamscottish: Your screen shot shows that your multiplier is being throttled on battery power to 12X when it shouldn't be. This game is mostly single threaded which means if you were plugged in with a 130 watt power supply with ThrottleStop running, the multiplier on the first thread would likely be up in the 15 to 18 range. That would be a 50% performance increase.

With a 90 watt power supply you can still use ThrottleStop to monitor for clock modulation. Just don't check the boxes for clock modulation or to force the multiplier and then ThrottleStop will monitor to see if clock modulation is slowing you down.

It isn't using clock modulation in the game you are presently playing. You wouldn't see C0% = 100% if it was on that first thread.

This game puts a very light load on an 8 threaded CPU. Most of your threads are doing nothing (low C0%) because there is nothing for them to do.

clogui: There are probably lots of games you can play and even if there is some throttling going on they still might be very playable. The problem is that a lot of modern games are multi threaded and are looking to use the performance that these CPUs are designed to deliver. If Dell has decided to throttle them back then your gaming performance will suffer significantly. The XPS 1645 with a 90 watt adapter does not live up to its potential when it comes to gaming. A 130 watt adapter + ThrottleStop will make a night and day difference to frame rates in many games.

It's like buying a performance car and then finding out that the manufacturer adjusted it so the throttle pedal only goes a quarter of the way to the floor. Sure this car is still drivable and it will still get you to the store but you'll have a hell of a lot more fun the day you figure out how to get the pedal all the way to the floor. That's what ThrottleStop is all about.

 

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/P25-GENUINE-D...Computing_LaptopAccess_RL?hash=item518e841a54

Looking at that adapter for the laptop. will it be compatable?

And thanks Unclewebb. I actually understand what you're explaining (and thats saying somethign lol) cheers!

Ciaran

 

Thanks unclewebb
Are you a math teacher? cause the way you tell things is more than easy to understand and very clear.
k'

 

My wife's a computer teacher. Maybe I've been spending too much time with her. It's starting to rub off on me.

 

Using the same analogy as unclewebb in reply to Clogui. What do you choose if your offered a Ferrari with the throttle stuck above the floor for the same price as a Fiat Panda with a throttle that will go all the way and you just want the fastest car for the money? Sorry to be in the wrong thread but I'm interested in the Studio 1747 with the i7-720 and I'm trying to work out even if throttled will it be a better buy than the same configuration with a P8700 or even against the i7 in the 1545 with its inferior graphics card (as in my post on http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=420136&page=87).

I know Throttlestop and a better power supply will solve the problem but I would still like to know that even in the absence of this solution the 1747 would still have been the best buy against the alternatives at the same price. When buying something new you like to think you have bought the best on offer of what you can afford.

Any thoughts?

 

here are 2 screens, with and without c1e at idle.

 

superj:

I was talking with atlstang and he says the latest bios works just like your screen shots show with the multiplier jumping around at idle. As you know, that's different than how the desktop chips work.

 

hi
i got my dell xps 1645 on 26th last month and it's really a good laptop, except for the Throttling issue. Hopefully dell comes up with a solution.
Haven't played much demanding games yet, so can't comment on that.

Well there's a thing i noticed don't know if its related or not .The 90w default adapter , we all know it hum's and it's normal for Transformer to hum but when i switch to high performance plan and game (hl2: episold 2) the hum is audible and more of a crackling sound. Is it normal or there's a problem with my adapter ?

 

Just call Dell. They just sent me a new one that didn't crackle.

~Ibrahim~

 

Unclewebb, I have an i7 820. What should my multiplier setting be? Thanks.

 

The default multiplier on an i7-820 is 13 so if you want that plus turbo boost then you should be able to set ThrottleStop to 14. The extra +1 beyond the default asks the CPU for as much turbo boost as it is allowed to deliver based on CPU load.

Post an i7 Turbo screen shot while running a single thread of Prime95 or SuperPI with ThrottleStop set to 13 and then a second screen shot with ThrottleStop set to 14 so we can see the difference.

 

Here is an update from Dell Support that I am passing on. “We have received word from PG that the Bios update to fix the adapter throttling issue should be released by the 16th of January. Hopefully before that.
As of right now they are still working on the issue. Will send that across to you as soon as it is made available”.

 

I received two verbal quotes yesterday on the BIOS update. One said it would be out on or before the 8th. The second said on or before the 11th. LOL

 

Ten bucks says they block throttlestop in the BIOS update ahahah...

Should I call and ask for a 130w adapter? My xps 16 w/ i7-720 has an estimated delivery date of 1/25/09.

 

this month or feb?

 

This month.