S-XPS 1645 Throttling Info. and Updates

same problem here in Malaysia...

 

That was fast. Already got an answer, and it was a "duh" moment for me. I was trained on this piece as a level one tech back in 2003. It's the first step in troubleshooting no POST situations on a Dell laptop.

There is a switch (or circuit) built into Dell AC adapters called a "crow bar switch" that automatically shuts down the AC adapter when the system requests more than the adapter's rated output Wattage. To clear the adapter from the switched off state, you have to simply unplug it from the wall outlet, wait a few seconds for flea power to discharge, and plug it back in.

EDIT:

There are also some BIOS implementations that cover situations when the system attempts to draw more than the rated power output of non-Dell AC adapters. I can't get into the details, but as a couple of you guys already called out, yes, the BIOS will not allow the system to draw more power than an adapter can provide.

 

Bill did say that he cannot operate outside the US but he also said that he is working on getting all the other regions up to speed and that by the time the A07 BIOS is released everyone should be on the same page and be ready to distribute 130W adapters to their customers. What you do now unfortunately is wait. Hopefully it won't be too much longer.

 

Hey bill, quick work, thanks for the adapter!

 

I think for Malaysians like us will have to wait for sometime longer even after the US region has solved the problem..

 

Well if Bill was right it shouldn't be too much longer. He did kind of imply it would around/slightly after the A07 release.

 

I looked around this thread but couldn't find an answer for this... is solution only to send replacements or will you get a 130w with your sxps if you order one now?

 

UPDATE (such that it is):

I just asked if we are still on target for the release date for A07. We are still on track, but I still cannot release the target date yet. They are working this on a really tight schedule and do not want to commit to going public with their date in case something fails out of test in the next day or two. I will just say testing indicates it will be very, very soon.

Once the BIOS goes live, Todd and I want to have you kind folks start using tech support to get your AC adapters. Once the time comes, I will ask that the front pages of this thread and this thread be updated with our notice to stop sending PM requests and call tech support instead.

 

As i know is that you still get the 90w but he'll ship you a 130w when you send him the details he wants

 

This is covered on the first post on this thread.

"We do not have an ETA for factory cut in for A07 and the new adapter (in other words, for the orders that have not shipped yet). We will post details on the ETA for factory cut in when we get them."

Bottom line, if you get your system, and it comes with a 90W adapter, call tech support and have them send you a 130W. They will overnight them to you.

 

As I recall one of the employees mentioned Feb15th for the bios release date. Also Bill the xps series has another bad defect and should be looked at, audio crackle/distortion issues and latency issues around 50%+ volume(are there any updates regarding this matter?). I can also verify the switch thing Bill mentioned. It already happens to me after an hour of gaming and my adapter just shuts down and I have to plug it out and plug it back in after a few seconds for it to start working.

 

Latency issues on this platform? I had heard about that in the early days of the 1640, but not on the 45 or 47. To try to isolate the problem, try disabling your WiFi card in device manager and stream some audio. If there is no latency there, then update your WLAN driver and post back what happens. On the 1640, the issue was corrected by one of the BIOS rev's and updated WLAN and ATI drivers.

 

shouldn't this thread be specifically for throttling info and updates and not this other info about WLED vs RGBLED? (good info, but not right thread?)

 

@asommers: Yes. We said that a few pages before, but there seems to be a problem in understanding that..

 

Based on the claimed efficiency rating of the PA-3E, this should translate to a quantitative value of '90% or better'. Also, the power factor should be '0.9 or better'.

So when my Kill-A-Watt-alike shows 90W on the AC side of my PA-3E, the worst-case power value for the DC side would be:-

90W * 90% efficiency = 81W * 0.9 power factor = 72.9W
(Multiplication is commutative, so you could do this in either sequence and get the same answer, even if both figures weren't = 0.9...)

That the 1645 is throttling to 75W DC at 90W AC, rather than 72.9W, shows that the PA-3E is a few percentage points above the bare minimum of the spec band it is in...

 

AFAIK Kill-A-Watt readings are with the power factor included. That means if Kill-A-Watt indicates 90W, the real power consumption of the adapter will be somewhere around 100W.


As the efficiency of the PA-3E is >90%, it looks like DC is pulling at least 90W.

 

Here's one more guess. I think if an adapter like the PA-3E which has a V class rating (90% efficient) would need to draw 100 watts from the wall to turn that into 90 watts DC with the 10 missing watts being turned into heat.

Considering how hot some PA-3E adapters get, it makes you wonder if maybe that V class rating is not accurate for all of the PA-3E adapters.

 

apparently FedEx did not delivery my 130W PSU according to customer service today as scheduled due to "customer not available" (My wife and I are unfortunately at work all day). I didn't see a note saying that signature is required on fedex's website and the customer service rep also said that they didn't see one either. However, the customer service rep said that the FedEx worker may have seen that it was a DELL package and used their own descretion as to whether they should have left the package at my front door. Has anyone else experienced this? Not a big deal as I can just sign the waiver slip for them to try tomorrow, but just annoying to get so close and yet still not have it...lol

 

I think he is referring to DPC latency not network latency. DPC latency associated with audio crackling. One of the earlier Bios's for the 1645 addressed (A03??) I noticed the issue on a game in single player.

DPC - Deferred Procedure Calls

I don't believe this is associated with the WLAN driver, but I am willing to be corrected. (not trying to be rude, so apologies if that appears that way, just trying to get info correct).

 

I have had stuff dropped at my door all the time. I actually dislike it very much. If it's in plain site, what's to stop people from stealing it? It's at the discretion of the driver to leave it or not. Annoys me. I have had 1-2 packages lost this way. The hassle of going through Fedex or UPS is a nightmare. If you can somehow request them to leave it at the Fedex Station, you can go pick it up. Otherwise, I'd advise against you leaving at your doorstep unless they have an area they can hide it behind.

Now I just ship stuff to my work. Makes it much easier, but I know that option is not available to everyone.

 

No rudeness perceived. I'm all too aware of DPC latency on Dell laptops. It has been the bane of my existence for 9 months now. I have escalated it on several platforms, including 1640, and have had it fixed on some and not on others due to one reason or another. The good news is, engineering committed to including the use of DPC Latency Checker in the test procedure for all future consumer products. Not sure about Biz Client boxes like Latitude and Precision.

Oh, and it's not always the WLAN card. I've seen ACPI.sys (probably the Microsoft Compliant Battery Manager driver) cause it on some platforms, and video drivers on others. WLAN is always the first suspect. Storage controllers are sometimes in the mix as well.

 

Since you are familiar with it(or anybody else), and I'm working on my understanding, and it's somewhat relevant to throttling..

My understanding that DPC is the lower priority procedure/task that is part a higher priority task such as an interrupt to be handled as soon as the processor is done dealing with higher priority tasks. I assume the latency is the time between the Handling of the higher priority task that spawned the DPC and it's completion. (I'm not a windows programmer, but familiar with some embedded OS's, which are generally simplier than their windows counterpart). I would assume that the throttling of clock speed would contribute to higher DPC latency.

Could these other drivers that are "causing" the latency are only because their priority is higher than the DPC and the processor did not have time to get to the lower priority tasks?? This amount of time would be directly related to the clockspeed of the processor, and whatever higher priority tasks still needed to be serviced.

 

@sneer82. Dell_Bill_B has told us that the 1645 on A03 limits to 75W. I see my Kill-A-Watt-alike showing 90w.

If you are right about power factor coming off first, then the efficiency of this adaptor would be 75/90, or 83.33%, so it wouldn't make V class.

My Kill-A-Watt-alike is not enough like a real one to measure power factor. And when I tried to measure Volts and Amps separately, I got 247V, 0.55A when I was getting 66W. Which only makes sense if this thing is cheating and calculating Amps on the basis of a hard-coded 120V, instead of what the Volts really are. I'll take it back tomorrow, and show Maplins what it's doing, and ask for a proper Kill-A-Watt.

@Unclewebb: See above. If the figures and observations are accurate, 100W AC in would yield 83W DC out, 17W heat in the adaptor. I have some 17W low-energy bulbs round the house which I will switch on and try holding tomorrow, for comparison.

 

So it shouldn't be a problem then If I bought the 65w Car adapter?

If the A07 comes out before you get through the PM's are we going to have to call if we already sent you a PM, or will you finish the PM's that you have?

I hope you finish the PM's you have because I really loath calling Dell Support. But I do understand this is not your normal job and Thank you for all your help.

 

have fun with that, I've touched some 13 watt fluorescent ones and even they can get quite hot!

 

Just remember surface volume and how fast the heat transfers on a light bulb vs. the adapter.

 

OFF TOPIC: Just asking this here cuz i know all / most of you are owners.

I'm on A05 Bios use ThottleStop and 130W adapter, i have issues with my gfx card where when the temperature reaches about 75 degrees or so it starts to cut back, dropping my frame rates a bit, is this just me or is the temperature tolerance really that low for this gfx card? because my friends macbook pro goes up in the 90's with no lag @ all. I have to play beside a fan or in a cold room (air conditioned) to not experience lag when the card gets to 75 or thereabouts.

I am using RealTemp 3.5 to monitor my GPU Temp

 

I wasn't going to say anything, I wanted to see what he found out

 

If its an LED he shouldn't have any problems

 

I recently purchased a 130W PA-4E Dell Adapter of eBay for use with my 1645 and Throttlestop. However when I plug in the new adaptor, my external monitor, a Dell 21.5" model, seems to get interference on it, with 'waves' flowing up and down the screen (not sure of the technical term). This is to the extent that the monitor is not usable and considering it is my main display, I currently don't use the 130W/Throttlestop solution.

My question is, will the A07 BIOS address this issue and stop the interference at the VGA port. And also, has anyone else experienced similar issues/know of a quick fix?

 

I see that my adapter order has been submitted. With next day shipping, I should see it tomorrow.
Thanks, Bill_B.

I look forward to testing both the 130w and the 150w when A07 comes out.

 

Go back to A03 for now lol the throttling in A05 is much more aggressive and that might be what's happening. See if it helps.

 

I have a studio xps 1640, should i not be concerned about this? Or they are still doing more testing on it?

 

You can check out the new 1640 throttling thread:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=458668

 

yea i just saw that. haha

 

As the poster of that thread, I'd really like to see a reply someday. What is the point in posting to DCF if there is no response from Dell?

Some ammunition to take to the engineer:

If you need a good example of where open communication is effectively used, Microsoft Security bulletins are a great place to start.

 

Sounds plausible to me, but TBH there are better sources for specific answers than I.

The only problem you will have is that the system will throttle on 65W adapters when the system demands more than the rated output, but that's just kind of common sense.

I was unable to get to any PM's last night, because I had a family member travelling through town on business. I will get to them all today, so there will be no effect on actual delivery date, since they would go out today whether I did them last night after hours or today during hours. It's just that if you are waiting for a reply that I got the PM, you will not be seeing it until later today. Sorry for any confusion.

 

Hello Bill, I had send a PM to Todd in the dell community, back on 2/9, still have not heard back from him, any idea. thanks

 

I'm kinda new around here, and am looking to buy a new Studio 16 XPS within the next week or so. I noticed the Dell contacts replying here, is there any news on whether new orders with get the 130w adapter going forward, or is this going to continue to be a back-fill process?.

I just wanted to verify before I place my order....as I may want to wait until the system is updated to come with a 130w adapter if that is on the road map.

 

Hi, wil.

Just go ahead and send me a PM here as well, please. If Todd already set up a dispatch, I'll check and PM you back.

EDIT.

Actually, since you are below the PM level here, you can post your service tag only, and nothing else, and I can check it. I will reply once I have the tag, and you can edit it out if you want to reduce the exposure.

If that is still not something you are comfortable with, you can also make the minimum requirement to have PM enabled here by going out and constructively contributing to some of the threads to get your post level up. Please do not spam these boards just to make the minimum. They have a very good reason for the minimum requirement, and have a great community. I'm sure you or I do not want to be part of a useless posting and spamming problem. Thanks.


EDIT II:

Another alternative: if you are on Twitter, you can contact me there. @BillatDell

 

If you place an order today, it's likely it will ship with a 130W, but if it does not, apologies in advance. You can just shoot me a PM or call tech support and have them send you one.

 

I posted on the DCF forums that there were a few from Tuesday that I discovered yesterday evening that had been lost in the spam of questions that I received. I'm working on those today.

 

Does this new power adapter addresses all the issues with XPS 1645

 

No, you will need to wait for the BIOS update. Power adapter + new BIOS = Problem solved.

 

Hey does anyone know if this fix is also for the 1640? or is the 1640 fine as is?

 

Yea id like to know as well, but check this out zaith

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=458668

 

yeah just read it, wasnt sure if the Bios update would work with the 1640 though or if the power adaptor would help =/ was wonder if anyone heard from dell or not

 

@Bill, Todd,

Thank you very much for the extremely quick shipment of the replacement adapter!!!! Now just waitin on the bios update.

 

I can give Dell credit for what they have done so far, but I wouldn’t jump the gun just yet.

Once A07 comes out we will also have to test it to verify if it still throttles with the 130W adaptor or not.

Remember, you can push the HP Envy to its limits and it doesn’t throttle at all on AC, I want the exact same from my 1645. We won’t know if this is going to be the case until we can stress this system to its max to see if it still uses any throttling schemes.

I already asked for clarification once if the laptop would still throttle with the 130W adaptor and A07 and the only answer I got was that they couldn’t comment on that right now. This tells me it probably does, we just won’t know to what extent until we can test it.

 

:laugh:

Careful fondling of, respectively, a 15w and a 20w low energy bulb that had been left on for a couple of hours pretty much bracketed my PA-3E.

So 17w as heat seems about right....