S-XPS 1645 Throttling Info. and Updates

I believe the CPU is chugging at 13x with no clock modulation. I can verify this tonight and let you know. I currently don't have a notebook cooler but I'm hoping to get one soon.

I'm wondering if we should start another Studio XPS 1645 GPU Throttling thread so it has more traction rather than being intermixed with this thread. Any thoughts on this?

Thanks,

John

 

I've just called the 020 number in Amsterdam and got a Dutch guy on the telephone (Brandon Groeneveld) and he told me that he is/they are familiar with the Throtteling issue but he didn't knew nothing about the solution of updating your BIOS to A07 and sending a new 130W adapter.

So he couldn't help me with a new 130W adapter and said that he could only make a not to my service tag about the problem and that I've to wait than for a solution. I told him again that there already is a solution, but he said that he doesn't know anything about that.


SO WHAT NOW...!?!?!?

 

Yeah... Mine is also arriving tomorrow.... I will inspect it and then only return the old one to the person delivering!!!

How come this is the first time i am hearing about the "REFURBISHED" products thing??? Was this discussed before??? If it is true then that is really really sad DELL.....

 

Does the game your testing with, use all 4 cores of the cpu? besides dragon age, theres not may games yet that uses 4 cores. That i know of anyway. Why the cpu chugs at 13x? As that would be a sign of all 4 cores loaded. if you could get a throttlestop screenshot of all 8 threads while playing the game in windowed or somethin that would be great too.

 

So you mean to say if the game is using only 2 cores then the multiplier will be double the value?????

 

Sell the laptop on eBay and don't recommend dell to anyone.
That's what I will do. Had enough calls to dell support, waiting for a fix.
And now dell is asking us to return the 90W power supply??
That's just crazy !

Also what about other users that are not aware of the throttling problem ?
Will Dell call them and offer a power supply replacement ?

Sell/return the laptop and buy a similar model but not from Dell.
That's the ULTIMATE stress free SOLUTION to solve throttling problem !

 

That how it is for all companies. You dont get any new parts in replacement and I know about dell. Even i would only accept if it is a slim one and works fine.

 

I don't what is all this fuss is about, people wake up and smell the coffee latest bios A07 lacks significant improvement.

Simple way to test it is update your bios and run any application on your laptop without power adapter with battery alone. Laptop throttles and throttles again....

DELL pull this laptop off your website before someone starts class action suit.

Shame on you DELL!

 

I actually have no issues with the laptop throttling on the BATTERY. I want it to throttle so that i will get more hours out of it!! Thats what the others like SONY n HP do too..... Then file a case against all of 'em!!

 

So when they say they are replacing the RGB LED screen of someone they mean to say take out the faulty one and put in a refurbished one??? Now that is just B.S dude... Cmon...

 

Hey Bill/Todd (or anyone here), just wanted to ask a quick question if you do not mind. I was interested in purchasing the 1647 540M i5 xps 16 for gaming (since someone claims its competetive with the 1645). However, it has been shown to throttle. Your post in earlier in this thread reveals a new upcoming BIOS update has "eliminated" the throttling issue. Can this be confirmed? Am I good to go in ordering the 1647 now? Thanks!!!

 

if it only uses 2 cores, the i7 720qm should be at a 2.4ghz or an 18x multiplier, will be a bit lower in practice, but when i game tf2 thats multicore it runs around 15-18x a lot of the times. Single core games should be 21x, but can jump around 18x-20.5x due to other cores waking up as well from background processes. Which is why its odd, i dont that many games are 3-4 cores yet??

 

Ask Dell. You will get your answers.

 

Some xbox original games are designed for 3 cores.

 

Running 3DMARK06 at full resolution with latest a07 bios still is quite choppy and with only 5-7 fps that's simply not acceptable.

 

Lemme get my "new" adapter and if its not the slim one then the more furious i would be and the more info i can get out of them!!!

 

You use Some enumulator softwares for PS3 and xbox 360, i have heard they work on cpu solely to render graphics frames. Not sure though.

 

What is the expected result? Do we have results from another 1080p system with the ATI 4670 for reference?

 

Lets see what happens

 

Just called dell and got a 130w adpater replacement ref no . Itz a PA-4E (slim) , i conformed.

 

So do we have any confirmations that the 1647 throttling has been eliminated with the new BIOS update?

 

My 2 year old desktop system is running at 15fps and super quite smooth with fewer video and system memory.

 

So let me get this straight....Dell claim that their XPS studio line is designed for multimedia and not for serious gaming? But the XPS brand has always been branded specifically for gamers...great...so buy a 1080P laptop and watch it overheat and burn up if you try to utilise it's processing anf GPU ability. My 1640 over heats playing City of Heroes....my old HP 17" pavillion has none of these issues...it has a slower processor and a lower graphics card spec and yet that doesn't sound like a hair dryer after 5 mins of gaming.

 

exactly shame on you DELL !!!

...and no wonder DELL does not bundle anymore Intel i7 along with RGB screen because know there will be even more issues.

Why put all these high end components inside XPS 16 if they can't be utilized properly???????????

 

With new bios update 9 cell battery use shrinks to 2hrs from 2hrs 30mins and 6 cell battery from 1hr 30 mins to about 1hr so.

 

I am gonna test this tomorrow in mine after i get my new adapter..... Will let you knw then!!

How come furmark+prime95 is staying @ 12-13x but when running actual games the multiplier is still in the same 13x???

I smell something fishy!!!

 

Thats good to hear..... Anyways are you also telling that the adapter is a refurbished one????

 

Just ran Crysis on battery. Power plan set to maximum performance and powerplay set to maximize performance. No throttling. Multipliers weren't as high (10-12 battery vs 16-18 on AC), but I think that is completely acceptable for a laptop that is not dedicated to gaming. If this was a dedicated gaming laptop then I would be ticked. Even still, windows was calculating around 54 minutes of battery life. This is a 90WHr battery, if I assume that the battery still has 100% of its rated life then the laptop is pulling a little more than 90W.

 

hey all let the fog clear out.. its just 1 or 2 more days.. then we can take this upto DELL for not deleivering to wat we had paid for.. then let them pay the price!!!!!

 

my SXPS sux big time on battery........... it throttles like hell even with the A07 BIOS..... i always wondered why it was rversed in my case........... i hardly get 25 FPS in undercover and 15 fps in assassins creed............ just waiting to see wat "magical" changes take place wen i use it with the 130W adapter.........

 

yes it's time to call them up and ask for extra battery free of charge since this updated bios drains battery waaaaaay too fast!!!

 

Prime95 loads all cores so it's x12. and crysis is optimized for duel core so i get a x16 on battery (don't have 130w ,yet) and x18 on adapter.
Do u have TS runing while gaming ? You could check the log, the multiplier value would be more clear in the log.

maybe, donno but it looks brand new. I got a replacement for my crackling 90w last month.
and theres not harm in sending out refurbished product becauses they are first torn apart and then reassembled. All HDD companies(segate , for example) send out refurbished HDD's for replacment.

 

With the new bios and a 130 watt adaptor mine still drops the multiplier down to between 9 and 10 with Prime 95 and Furmark running. It used to drop back to 7x with A03, so it is better, and with just 3DMark running the multi stays above 12 most of the time, but we are still not where we should be are we?

 

Have you set Max Performance on battery in PowerPlay option of CCC??

 

The way some games are programmed might actually lead to lower performance and lower multipliers on these CPUs. If your write a program and you let the processor schedule a task then it does a great job of putting tasks on the appropriate core so other cores can go to sleep and your multiplier can go higher.

When games are written and they ask the CPU for specific cores and lock their code to specific cores then that can interfere with the ability of the CPU to send cores to sleep and maximize the multiplier.

Don't judge the success of bios A07 based on one game. Everyone has been begging for multi threaded games but depending on how they are written, that might be part of the problem that you are seeing.

On a Core i7-720QM as soon as a third core goes active, the maximum multiplier drops to 13. If code is being tied to specific cores, that might happen frequently.

Can someone post a ThrottleStop log file of 3DMark06? When all 4 cores are fully loaded it would be normal to see a multiplier in the 12 to 13 range but it should go higher during other parts of the benchmark.

 

hey unclewebb, this there some 3rd party app that could append the way game engine accesses the CPU . Something like distrubuting the processing task to more cores .

 

yeah dude............. i have! but still no luck....

 

I get better performance on battery. I get 2 hr 22mins on the lowest brightness level with the balanced profile.

 

With what software do I need to test my Studio XPS 16 to be clear that my laptop has the problem too and might get the 130W if I need?

Thank you

 

I don't think there are any games that do this. It's common for server software to set the thread affinities but on client with tons of background processes you wouldn't do this, it's likely to make performance worse.

 

To save you the effort of starting at the beginning of this thread, download Furmark and Prime 95. Prime 95 will stress test the CPU and Furmark will do the same for the GPU.

You will also need unclewebb's software solution, throttlestop. This can be used in monitor mode only to log the cpu state. Read page 1 of this thread and you should be able to see how to use it.

 

All of which is being hosted at the link in my sig.

 

If the C0% is averaging around 25% during a game and the multipliers are only running in the low 13 range then that seems to be a problem. Most well threaded games are running in the 15 to 18 range.

It could be something simple like an anti-virus program that was running in the background while gaming. This could cause an extra core to spend more time awake so the multiplier isn't able to go higher. The way turbo boost is designed to work can make accurate and repeatable testing difficult.

 

The best what you can do is call between 7:30 and 8:30 (dutch timezone). The dutch helpdesk is open after 8:30 and the UK helpdesk is open after 7:30 (I guess).

I called around 8:05 and got directly connected to the UK, they send the order to Dell NL to deliver the adapter (this time with a guy to replace my screen, because of backlight bleeding), I understood that he also takes my old adapter back.

I don't know which country you get when you call in the evening (I guess India). Or when you get a dutch employee on the line ask for his supervisor.

Good luck with this.

 

Is there any load on the battery to draw power to run the fan on cooler? Does it reduces the battery power available for the laptop?

 

What you're saying makes sense! This could be tested by booting Windows with only 2 or 3 cores active using msconfig, right?

I'm swamped with wirk right now, so cannot test this myself, and I may be wrong, but it could be worth a test...

 

How can you use lowest brightness level...maybe at night but daytime it must at 50% or higher to get nice crystal clear screen. So 2hrs or less with 50% bgirghtness on 9 cell battery with a07 bios running its bad very bad.

 

I'm getting ~2:37 right now with default setings on balanced. That is with a few IE windows open, rdp to some of my servers, Outlook, zune (playing music), wireless and bluetooth on. Default brightness is 40%.

 

Lucky Hillie actually got a mains cable; I got nothing, as the Dell shipment promised for today didn't turn up...

But I did flash to BIOS A07,once I got off the stupid merry-go-round of the Dell Download Manager under Firefox.

Out of curiosity, I thought I'd give Bioshock a go, and see what the Kill-A-Watt-alike said. Still limited to 90w on the AC side - no surprise there, and I didn't expect any different - but the sound on the game had lost all that terrible crackling it had before, and it seemed to move quite smoothly.

So, pretty good, huh? Except that when I exited the game, Windows 7 put up a message which said the computer seemed to be running pretty slowly, and asked solicitously if I'd like to drop from Windows Aero to the Basic colour scheme.

Wow. When your OS ups and tells you the machine it's on is blowing chunks - all I can say is roll on the 130w adaptor .

Also, apropos of an announcement of the 1645 throttling issue and Dell's attempt to rectify this, I expected to see the on the front page blog on the Direct2Dell site. But nothing there, nothing at all. I know it's in General Hardware, about three forum levels deep, but I couldn't find that from the front page. And I've posted in it. So what chance anyone else finding it?

 

Where is Bill?