S-XPS 1645 Throttling Info. and Updates

This is about the Studio 15, but throttling related. Apparently it received a new BIOS recently for throttling as well?

http://www.pcauthority.com.au/News/...combine-crysis-core-i7-and-a-1700-laptop.aspx

 

Bill,

Is there any chance I can get a 150W by calling Tech Support in Italy? I have RGBLED and i7-820.

 

Bios A07 does not support a 150 watt adapter so it won't be able to draw any more power than a 130 watt adapter is allowed to draw.

 

just received the 130W adapter "replacement" and it looks like they have given me the brick version... and no light near socket to indicate the adapter is on and it weighs like hell... i think time to call dell once again!

The good side of this adapter is that it fits in the socket perfectly! (WoW i'm Glad!)

 

Ya you did get the Brick one. Did you return your 90W Adapter? Hopefully you dint

 

Even I faced the same. I also had a talk with a supervisor named Ravi and both the tech and sup was so arrogant and rude that they dont wanna understand a thing and kept talking about terms and conditions. When I saw they dint have any respect for the customer and dint try to understand the situation I was in I just gave up coz I knew its useless to talk with these bunch of Bookish Technicians. The tech support in india has no idea about what is known as CUSTOMER SATISFACTION!

 

Yes, that is the brick and not the slim model, the Dell slim model P/N = JU012, this is the slim model and comes with the light indicator.

 

how is the brick version different from slim one?

I prefer a cooler adapter , I dun mind the bulk of it.

 

I got lucky!

The AC adaptor arrived this morning, PA-4E family, similar design to the 90W adaptor but noticeably bulkier.

Cheers Dell!

 

i believe that only INDIA tech support is shipping out brick adapters! x-(

 

Not True. Some got the slim adapter. Even I got the slim one.

 

humm..
I will be getting mine 2mmrw.
keeping fingers crossed!

still i wanted to know..

whts the disadv of brick over slim apart from weight?

 

you guys returning the 90w adapter in india? The customer care person tells me to return the 90w adapter when I receive 130W. Please help guys :>(

 

i will return it gladly, i dun mind the brick if its not inferior to slim one.
although i kinda like the led on the jack.

some one please tell me which is better? slim or brick temprature wise?

 

Yes, mine too. No mains cord, so it's good they sent that yesterday. And although it's straight-thru, I think there are some advantages over the 90w's cord, which is folded back over the adaptor. Though that fits, so I can use either.

I may have Douglas Adams to thank for the adaptor arriving, as well as the Dell guys. When I rang up to inquire why I had cable only, I was told, like others here, that the adaptor was out of stock, and it would be several days at best.

So, in signing off the call, I put on a mock-lugubrious Marvin voice and said "OK then, I'll just sit here and rust till it arrives".

This provoked a startling change in the Dell operator's mien, and she immediately put me on to her supervisor, who started, apparently, invoking special measures to get me the adaptor.

Which certainly worked; or perhaps it was coming anyway

But if anybody else has this issue, the above seems a useful tactic. Though I don't know if a Zaphod Beeblebrox impressonation would be as effective.

I'd let you know how the 130w/A07 runs, but my desk real estate is currently taken up by the old XP laptop I need to use a VPN client that won't even run on Vista, let alone W7 64-bit...

 

Temperature wise defenitely the brick one because it has more free room inside than the tightly packed slim one..

 

*picturing the scene* ... LOL!

 

Have you tried Windows XP Mode in Win7?? That might help you to run legacy applications, Right?

 

Dell Bill or Brad , can you please help me ? Swedish support dont know anything about the 130w adapter so i can not get one ... i have a 150w adapter at home whit same V as the 90w (dell) , can i use that witout getting any warranty trouble later ?

 

I got the same brick yesterday. PA-13 family.
The Dell invoice I got with the adapter requests me to return the previous adapter within 10 days or I will charged.
I tried GTA 4. A07 + 130w brick. No improvement in fps.
But the battery charges faster.
I think Ill hold onto my 90w adapter.

 

Good point. I need to back off on "never RGB again" statements and get you guys some real answers. Sorry about that. I will bring this up next week when the engineers return from holiday. Meanwhile, I can ask around in Product Group, who mostly sits stateside.

 

While on the RGB subject, Dell-Bill have you had chance to run at full resolution 3D MARK 06 and 3D MARK Vantage with power adapter and without and see for yourself how slow it is ...perhaps engineers can lurk on it and express their opinion.

 

As a safety measure (don't laugh, I said safety measure), the BIOS caps the total wattage draw at XXXW. You can use your 150W with no issues. If you can request your adapter via email, and they deny it, please copy the entire response email into a PM to me. I will find that agent and their manager, and shoot them a note asking them to follow the policy.

 

Damn.... If only i asked about the same thing to BILL before i had recieved my adapter..... I could have kept it for travel purposes n so on!!!

So if i call now and keep firing at the manager, will i get my old adapter back????? LOL...

 

I have not run those tests myself, but I think there are more than a few folks here who have told you that they have no or slightly marginal throttling issues with RGB+A07+130W. Perhaps you could "lurk" back a few pages and read those replies to your posts.

 

Another lucky customer to have gotten the PA-4E slim 130 W adapter in INDIA!!!

 

Thank you Dell-Bill. For taking care of this issue and not leaving sRGB users in the abyss.

 

Guys..... I was playing COD-MW2 yesterday in 1920x1080 resolution and all settings maxed except for AA. But it was kinda laggy (with the 130W).... Didn't install fraps and hence dont know the FPS i was getting.... But could anyone post at what settings they are able to play properly with a decent framerate?

Anyways... it was much much better than A06 which was super lagging..... I feel it is better than A03 also.... But please tell the FPS you got and @ what settings.

 

I'm curious as to why the bios "cap wattage" (ie. the max power this laptop draws) is secret ?

 

1920*1080, 4XAA, Details High, Everything checked except "Sync Every Frame"
Runs smooth

 

Hey, I'm thinking of buying the 1645 soon. I was hoping someone could tell me if they are including the 130W adapters with newly built systems. If they aren't, would I be able to call them up after I order and request a swap between the 90W and 130W? Thanks for your help

 

Cats are always curious. It is secret because engineers have not authorized us to say what it is. I could ask, but I have no reason to.

I'm sure you could make the reason fit into your "Dell Wants to be Green" caterwauling. Please author that post for the humor value if you have time.

How is A07 on your 1645 working out?

 

We have no word on the factory cut in for the 130W adapters as of yet, but yes, you could always call tech support and get one if yours ships with a 90W.

 

Daseppel, do you have the RGB or the WLED screen? I think that may be the difference between being able to play this game maxed without lag. I have the RGB and i7-720 so I had to tone down the details to normal and everything off to see minimal lag but it still lags. I'm also thinking it may be a gpu heat issue because it plays fine on high settings for a little while until it heats up and that's when I start to see lag in game.

 

Well just to humor you Bill here goes.

My reasoning is that this laptop was designed from the start to only use at most 90w, since it was supplied with 90w adapter,
irrespective of its real power needs to perform as advertised.

The reason I think that the cap is secret is that it would easily reveal that this laptop is still not getting enough power to run as advertised.

One explanation as to why Dell wont give us full power is that they can't,
maybe due to the increased risk of system failure by exceeding the design power limit of 90w.


The question is why are Dell underpowering their machines?

One reason I put foward is that they can say that their machine's use less power than the competion...with the dirty secret being that they cant perform as fast.

But I'll let people come to their own conclusions as to why there are so many other Dell products that are underpowered.


Wacky theory isn't it?

What's yours?


Just for a chuckle here's Michael Dell explaining it for me http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSsJKpT0d8Q&feature=related ...jump to 4:30 for the meat and potatoes

 

I am not sure I would call them marginal with 3-6 fps. I hope engineers can sill look into throttling issue and optimize bios settings accordingly.

Let's not forget RGB users are more affected by throttling issue than others. This is the main reason why RGB won't be offered anymore with Studio XPS 1645 and yet DELL thinks throttling issue is totally resolved.

IMO XPS 1645 with RGB display and 150W power adapter + new bios (A08) can yield better performance yet never max performance without replacing mb. This probably why DELL might or might not decide to offer 150w replacement at all

 

Mission accomplished. Mild lawz since you make more sense this time. I prefer your posts of the tinfoil hat variety, so I guess you have throttled yourself somewhat, pun intended.

90W was never the number, but I quibble.

That can't be the reason, because we admitted in deed by sending free AC adapters and changing the BIOS to allow more Wattage draw.

90 is not the number. My commenting on system failure would be pure speculation. I do not have that kind of information.

We don't have our leadership-ish position on the Green front by shaving a few Watts from a laptop. I don't think it's much of a secret the systems were underpowered.

Wacky indeed. I don't have a theory. I just communicate what I am authorized to say to customers, and what customers say back to the engineers.

How's A07 running on your 1645? Did you get your AC adapter? If not, I'm happy to send you one.

 

Very good feedback. I will make sure to bring this up next week after the holiday. Thanks.

 

When I say 90w im talking about ac draw on outlet side. not dc side.

edit: Sorry. When I said 90w I was talking about 90w dc side which is probanly over 110 ac side.

and when i say "The reason I think that the cap is secret is that it would easily reveal that this laptop is still not getting enough power to run as advertised." you forgot I said " still" in this sentance.

 

umm. I'm no engineer, but can you really control draw on the ac side from the BIOS to that degree? I mean, I know you can obviously if the system is requesting like 20W total, but I think I or you need to be schooled a bit on that one.

Besides, aren't there posts that show the ac side draw approaching 110-120 or so with an adapter rated over 90W?

 

For some reason I feel like I am working for DELL already but haven't received my check yet

 

Sorry for confusion above...but to sum it up .To draw 90w dc side you need to pull greater than 90 ac side .

The difference is in the heat released due to inefficiency in the adapter.No adapter is 100 percent efficient.



Ill post siphens results again for you.


So what I was getting at until my brainfart is ....

When you say 90watt is not "that number" have you got it confused with draw from ac side?

or worse "that number" is even lower.

Currently "that number" with A07 is around 79.2W DC as opposed to be where it should be at around 100W DC




Quote:
Originally Posted by quietCat
My reasoning is that this laptop was designed from the start to only use at most 90w, since it was supplied with 90w adapter,irrespective of its real power needs to perform as advertised.

Quote: Bill Dell
90W was never the number, but I quibble.

 

Hi Bill, from your honest opinion (though you might come back and say that was an honest mistake...), we can safely assume that either the RGB screen causes an excessive power consumption that can not be fixed by a BIOS due to the limit of safe power draw for the system OR it has some other issues that you can not reveal here. Either way, this is a huge potential risk for all the RGB screen owners when our warranty expires. Dell needs to give us a solution on this. Can we return the system and downgrade it to WLED with a refund of what we paid for the RGB, that is $200 hard-erned money for a huge potential problem!!

 

Well, what a suprise today.

As i rung dell earlier to say ive only recieved the cord (and for them to say they are out of stock), got home from work today to find TWO 130W slim adapters LOL.

Thanks Dell.

 

Thats why their out of stock! LOL

 

:laugh: You beat me to it.

 

I thought there was $250 price difference between WLED and RGB or this is at least how much extra I paid for RGB display.

 

Please reread my last 2 posts as I had brain fart and have added edits....sorry for confusion caused

but my argument on page 319 still holds http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=5903944#post5903944