S-XPS 1645 Throttling Info. and Updates

Haha, wicked! I mean, I think it closely resembles our situation, lol...

~Ibrahim~

 

If you buy from eBay, don't forget to claim your 8% Bing cashback.

http://www.bing.com/ (go to shopping)

 

Just ordered it there now.
Gaah got my cashback...thanks for the reminder

Hope this dramatically changes this laptops performance from what it is at the min..

 

With TS it will.

 

Good work Fenikkusu. If you can't convince a Dell rep to give you one then I would file a BBB complaint immediately. That seems to get their attention. The outside surface temperature of some 90 watt adapters can be dangerous; especially if you have a young child in your home. The 130 watt adapters run significantly cooler since they're not being stressed or run at or beyond their limit.

 

There's a picture (maybe this thread) of a melting 90W adapter.

Outrageous.

 

chad2009's results yesterday showed his 90 watt adapter hitting 78C (172F). That could cause a serious injury and I don't understand how these adapters were ever approved for this application. His 130 watt adapter, even when running ThrottleStop so it was drawing the full 130 watts, only hit a surface temperature of 43C (110F).

 

I received my XPS on Friday, did some test to confirm the issue with the machine. Today I am returning it, I didn't spend 2k + for a machine that doesn't perform to its specs.

The CSR said that it's a know issue with this machine and they are working on it to resolve it. I asked for the timeline and he had no clue. I then mentioned that I read some a Dell CSR that a BIOS fix is coming this month and he had no knowledge of it. He then tried to bs me telling me the problem is the mobo and it can't handle the power the components were pulling. I then mentioned this forum and the issue was not the mobo but the AC and the bios throttling and he changed his tune. Tried to upsell me to a M15X and I said I just wanted a refund and he finally agreed.

Too bad this machine is pretty nice, but like I said I am not paying 2k for a crippled product.

 

i wouldn't doubt it, this thing can bake brownies easy

i wonder if it can heat up my bed? or would i spontaneously combust while sleeping leading to an unfortunate short life but a good reason for dell to fix the problem... ( lol at the useless reply )

when i was getting the replacement sxps 1640 i was told by the rep i would be getting the 130 watt adapter, but i didnt get it ( not surprised at all actually )
using the previous sessions i could probably get one easily, just have to find the time to do it
the reason is im also getting the throttling, although it seems to just come and go.... weird...

 

Thats exactly how I feel. With TS running and the 130watt adapter this laptop exceeds my hopes and expectations for performance. I'm still arguing with Dell over the return.... but ultimately if I get stuck with it, with TS and the 130watt it is an amazing computer. Dell really shot themselves in the foot with this one, I feel this could have honestly been a turning point in my opinion of Dell if it wasn't for Throttlegate.

 

If anyone is daring enough, they could probably just leave a crysis loop running and evac their house. After the fire we would get news coverage and Throttlegate would be blown wide open!

 

All we need is someone willing to sacrifice his/her home...
...Not it.

 

I have been thinking the same thing and not wanting to voice the opinion for fear of being mistaken as a plant from Dell! Looking at the 1647, with a 620M cpu and comparing it to what I paid for my 820QM with RGBLED and blu-ray burner (I'm in Canada and I think I got a good deal on it), The 1647 is just plain less of a computer for those of us focused on cpu horsepower.

If Dell fixes this issue with new bios code and 130W adapters or even if they screw us but TS enables us to run our machines properly without damaging them, the 1645 could go on to become a real giant killer in terms of price/performance. Maybe that's a good business reason for them to avoid fixing this thing?

Looking at the responses from Dell tech support that have been relayed here by posters, I get the feeling that its pretty chaotic inside that organization right now. The website is constantly riddled with errors, some people get 130W adapters for free while others get laughed at. Rumors about the 1645 being canceled fly... A new bios is promised for three or four different dates almost every single day. It's clear no one knows what the hell is going on. They are not controlling the flow of information because there doesn't appear to be anyone inside the company capable of doing so.

If someone gets around to running a RGBLED with the 820QM processor with Prime95 + furmark + Throttlestop + 150W adapter for 20 hours without the machine catching fire (I'm to chicken) then I'll be holding onto this machine like grim death.

As much as it sucks, I have to admit I'll end up holding onto mine even if they do nothing ever, because I can run the cpu hard with little to no throttling on a 90W adapter. That means "the s win" of course, and I sympathize with people who expected to be able to game with this thing.

Anways, I ramble....

 

so, you can run the cpu hard with little or no throttling on 90W?? Meaning for the 720qm, it can run at the bast 1.6 and turbo upto 2.8 on a system with RGB screen?

 

It depends on what you're doing really.

 

As someone else said, it does depend on what you are doing. If I run the "blended" tests with 8 threads in Prime95 with my 820QM cpu it will throttle with the RGBLED turned up to full brightness. If I turn brightness down low, it will stop throttling.

So with a 720QM you might not have to turn the screen down.

If I run Prime95 again with the "small fft" test, I can have the RGBLED up at full brightness without throttling. The small FFT test stresses the cpu and not the ram or the video card. The "blended" tests stress cpu + ram.

So my interest in this machine is to do cpu intensive tasks (sometimes) and I think I can make it work the way it is even though its a load of crap Dell didn't include a proper adapter. You can see from my tests that the 90W adapter is "right on the edge" in those "blended" tests and just upping the brightness on the screen is enough to make throttling start to kick in. (its throttling to around 9x-11x with CO State % staying at 100 ).

The throttling with gpu + cpu is ridiculously bad though, so stay away from this machine if you want to run video games without waiting for a Dell fix or resorting to throttlestop + a 130 W adapter.

Edit: Just ran Prime95 with 1 thread "blended" and although the results are harder to read, I think it's not throttling. The "calculated multiplier" in the "i7 Turbo" application (where I got my other test results from). hangs around 18.5% with individual cores showing a multiplier of 22.x. Of course the system keeps changing the "active core" so you have to chase that number around. This is consistent with the 23X multiplier you would expect with an 820QM except that you never quite get there because windows always runs background threads which means you never really only run just the one core.

 

Basically, if you aren't doing what this computer is advertised for doing, you'll be just fine. /sigh

 

basically if i expected it to perform like my 4 year old hp c2d, i would be fine.

sorry i havnt update this post lately, ive been sitting on more results/info etc to add here. just havnt had time, as its a bit time consuming. ill have it up in a day or so.

I agree with someones post either in this thread or the other. That dell really doesnt have things together, with the mis information about being canceled and target dates for fix is always a week away etc. Which makes them incompetent or their purposely misleading. Either way i dont see us getting a proper fix, but something half baked. Like this laptop seems to have been from the get go.

For me if this laptop was successful would of been a turning point. By all means should of been, it runs amazingly with no sign of "issues" with throttlestop. But now i really hope throttlegate gets out and hits them very very hard.

 

Thats completely true.

 

Waiting with baited breath...Today, the 11th, is supposed to be (according to everyone I've spoken with on Dell support) the day that they will be releasing a BIOS upgrade (A04?) that will be 'attempting' to fix this throttling problem. Obviously, there's always a chance - as we are dealing with Dell - that this date doesn't mean a single thing as they've screwed us around on many a promised date in the past. However, if something drops today, anyone have any predictions on how effective the BIOS upgrade will be?

I was waiting for awhile for the BIOS to be released for the E6400/E6500 heat-based throttling issue, and that really didn't fix anything for me, so if Dell is consistant with their track record, this new BIOS probably won't do anything other than change the version number.

Am I being a bit overly pessimistic?

 

No you are not. I would say if it got released today it will fix some minor bugs. Of course, i hope im wrong and they really fix the issue. The best way to fix it with minimal financial damages to dell is to update the acpi tables which will allow the the system to draw more then 90w when it detects higher than 90w ac and limits it to 90w when it detects 90w ac.
Just my 2 cents

 

It definitely wont be released today more like you have to wait up to the end of January for a release of any sort or kind.

 

If Dell have even an ounce of sense this is what they should be designing/planning.

This option would mean that Dell could continue to supply the laptop with the sub standard 90W adapter and ship the 130W adapter to those who complain...

Are you reading this dell?!?!

 

Thought someone said it was delayed to the 19th or the 28th now?

~Ibrahim~

 

Hi fellow peeps,

Would this power adapter be OK to use with throttlestop?

http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130356612080&ssPageName=ADME:X:AAQ:CA:1123

thanks,

 

I ordered this adapter from these people on Monday last week. I haven't gotten it yet, but I can let you know when it comes in if you want.

 

I'm guessing the 150W and 210W adapters are huge. Does anyone have one that they could compare to the slim 90W included with the 1645? I'm curious, because even the slim 130W makes the 90W look small.

 

This is the 150w power supply. It's barely larger than the 90w.
http://imgur.com/xuCBB.jpg

http://imgur.com/UKTiH.jpg

 

So you have been using the 150w without no issues?

Is the dell model number: ADP-150EB

This one: http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130356612080&ssPageName=ADME:X:AAQ:CA:1123

 

You are not being pessimistic at all. The Latitude E6400/E6500 has been out for well over a year and contrary to Dell's December PR campaign; there still isn't a bios available that takes care of the throttling Latitude problem.

The Dell PR machine was able to blanket the web with nonsense articles like this:

http://www.electronista.com/articles/09/12/03/dell.issues.software.fix.for.latitude.pcs.more/

"Computer maker Dell has addressed the recently publicized issue with its Latitude E6400- and E6500-series notebook computers through a pair of updates (E6400, E6500)."

These press release articles are not backed up by any testing. Anyone that properly tested this updated bios would not be in agreement with Dell's conclusion.

A quick fix for the XPS 1645 goes against this companies recent track record.

 

Well, like I said in another thread, I've cancelled my order for a second 1645, and opted with the 1647 with the Core i7-620M. This is in hopes that even if Dell never fixes the 1645 (or doesn't within a resonable timeframe), I'd have a laptop that performs optimally on AC power when running your TS (thanks, BTW) and using a 130W PSU, and a 2nd computer that may not need the use of anything at all to run at the speed that it is supposed to.

Now, it'll probably have some other huge vice that will start a whole new slew of problems and work-arounds, but ultimately, that may be the nature of this business; release a product with flaws and make it barely tolerable, refresh the product and sell more. I can remember this happening all the way back to the days of the C-series latitudes. Fix one thing, and sell it again, introduicing more problems. I wonder what the 1647's huge problem will be?

L.

 

I suspect that if Dell continues to use a 90 watt adapter, the 1647 will continue to throttle too. Probably rarely if ever when working in 2D but as soon as you start gaming, if you are using an ATI 4670, you can look forward to some throttling.

The power savings of these new CPUs is not that much. The TDP is only 10 watts less. Their base mulitplier and MHz is significantly higher than the Quad cores so there is not a huge power savings to look forward to.

No worries. A proper 130 watt adapter combined with ThrottleStop should be able to take care of these new laptops too. The Dell 90 watt adapter is not adequate for any laptop that has a Core i processor combined with an ATI 4670 GPU.

 

the 1647 also comes with a hd 5730 which i think has a tdp of 28 or so, that should help throttling a little bit

 

That's correct...plus the 10W TDP saving is actually taking to account the processor AND the intel GMA that is on the chip. With that disabled, you might be able to squeak a bit more out. It's probably not enough to eliminate throttling, but it's something...Either way, I'm not worried with a 150W adapter and TS.

 

which on a side note is a vastly inferior gpu .......

 

Intel GMA...my soul just vomited. :confused2:

 

Is it me or everyone else noticed that the I5 cpu's are not there anymore? Looking now at DELL USA I cant find the i5 anymore

 

I don't think it's that inferior, if at all:

http://www.notebookcheck.net/ATI-Mobility-Radeon-HD-5730.23825.0.html

http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-ATI-Mobility-Radeon-HD-4670.13881.0.html

A bit more pipelines, a bit faster, DX11, Shader 5.0...What makes the 4670 superior, if you don't mind me asking?

L.

 

Yikes a laptop sucking down 150Watts not exactly going green. Or energy savings.

And the 150 watt PS yes its bigger, but is it just me or does it look like a made in China cheap knock off, becase of the no UL or other labeling anywhere. Safety hazard???? hmmm


there should be a caption on those picks.

Spot the Knock off!!

legit DELL authorized on LEFT (tons of certifications) looks like the NASCAR of Power supplies.

Cheap knock off on the RIGHT, not a single saftey or cerification lable anywhere.

 

Still present on dell canada website. Not sure why it wouldn't be on the USA website.

 

Where did u get the 150W from ?

 

i5 is there but no dual core i7 and 5730, hmm mistake i guess: speaking of which my system was listed as 1299 with an extra 9 cell battery for a while in canada, but then they changed it and i spent hours convincing them to give it to me for that price

 

Any link????

 

no i noticed something happened but i still had my checkout thing up for a screen shot, but afterward i couldn't find it anywhere. That was about a month ago too. for the core i7 620 it was on the canada site, try there.

 

I'm not sure that's right. I just ordered a new F series (having been scared away from the Dell by this forum!), and if you google the part number for the additional ac adapter, it looks like a 90 watt model. Needless to say, the salesperson assured me all was right with the world, but I have some concerns. Is a 90W adapter necessarily a problem with any i7 laptop?

Many thanks for any insight.

 

Someone earlier did some tests on the dell's 90w power supply, showed it had a pretty bad effeciency (close to 70%). Meaning even though its only taking 90w at the wall, it is no where near 90w into the laptop.

Givin that the 90w's we have would probably kill people if they were pushed to their supposedly rated capacity, it would seem from the test 90w rating is misleading on these adapters. at least not for consistent loading. And that only holds if that test the user did is repeatable for all our laptops.

Could be with an adapter that can safely run to 90w on the output side, and a more power friendly videocard and screen it might just run okay. A lot of ifs but maybe never know.

 

Straight from dell.com's overpriced store.

@Ice Cold: *facepalm* Here's the fun UL label, located on the bottom (where the UL labels can be found on all Dell power adapters) --

http://imgur.com/gjKDk.jpg

And here's the knockoff:

 

It's tough to find the genuine part but Dell's PA-15 is available elsewhere for around $40-$50 bucks. I'll track it down again and post the links.

 

that picture was a DA150PM100-00 AC adapter. It looks like a slim version of the pa-15. The Pa-15 is a brick.

 

Hi all

Just got my new Studio XPS 16 last night (specs in sig). Beautiful thing, isn't it?

I was extremely apprehensive about the throttling issue occurring on it. However, I couldn't resist Modern Warfare 2 on it just to check things out. Here's what happened.

1. On first run things worked fine for a while but then stuff got stuttery and audio garbled. I assumed this was the well known throttling issue.
2. I had to come back to my room from a friends (where we opened the laptop). I decided to give MW2 another go. And played it for about half an hour or so. Buttery smooth, no stuttering.
3. Played again today, perfectly fine.

Was playing at native res 1920x1080, 2xAA, shadows and depth of field on, getting an average of about 35-40FPS. As far as I can tell, it wouldn't be doing that if it was in fact throttling. By the way, I have the WLED screen, not RBGLED.

Thing is, Dell shipped my system with the old A01 BIOS. And things seem to be working alright for now. I suppose it does throttle at times, but works most of the time. Haven't tried WPrime and CoreTemp yet, but will to know exactly whats on.

So my question to y'all is
1. Should I stick with the A01 BIOS or upgrade to A03 immediately?
2. What's your experience with the default installed Dell OEM image? Recommend reinstalling? Not too much bloatware that I can see on the comp. Got rid of McAfee and stupid Facial Recognition.

What do you guys make of my scenario? Is there any way to be sure if it is throttling or not? Should I run Furmark simulatenously to see what happens?

UPDATE:
Tried Prime95. Also tried i7Turbo to see what happens to the multipliers. On MW2, the multiplier went upto 14. Stayed on 12 while running Prime95. Max CPU temp was 75. Not sure what to make of that, but no stuttering. Still can't decide. To update or to not update BIOS. Help people.

UPDATE 2:
With processor loaded and Furmark on - there is throttling. But no issues in gaming. Perhaps it could be even smoother if this laptop had no issues? Anyone wanna weigh in on this? Has updating BIOS to A03 helped for anyone?