**The Official Studio XPS 1645 Intel Core i7 "Owners Lounge"

I will be receiving my laptop in the evening tomorrow, and will run a conclusive test both stock and with the latest drivers over the next few days. I'll be honest up front I will probably do a terrible job at documenting it, however I'll give you an honest result of what I find.

Also, ZOMG FINALLY.

 

There is hope in the universe. I thought Dell was playing a cruel, unending joke on you!

 

I hate to say that I couldn't disagree more with this theory. I'm open to troubleshooting it to disprove (or prove) it, but I would hedge my bets against it being the adapter.

Dell sending some one an adapter means nothing. None of those guys have a clue what they're talking about. It's likely he presented his case well so they just agreed to get him off the phone and keep their Call Handle Times low.

 

Any reasons why you don't like the adapter theory? You see the same symptoms if you run any laptop on an underpowered a/c adapter. Although some of them just automatically switch over to battery power.

 

ya, cause they're in the habit of sending out free cords to everybody. btw, the call lasted more than 15min, as i was on hold for a while, spoke with a supervisor, and nothing was rushed at all. he took his sweet time browsing this thread via quick connect, rather than just load the site himself.

 

I posted the problem on DELL's forum

http://en.community.dell.com/forums/p/19306277/19596373.aspx#19596373

For the one receiving the power adapter:
I will not be surprised if DELL customer support send out the same 90w adapter

 

An issue: the driver can control what settings the graphic card runs at, voltage and clock speed-wise. The reason for the performance loss is that the GPU is underclocking, something that the driver can control. A new driver could possibly avoid that.

~Ibrahim~

 

lol, we'll see in a few days.

 

I'm going to go and update to Mobility drivers on ATI's website and see if that cures anything.

On a happier note, A02 BIOS has decreased my startup time!

~Ibrahim~

 

Well if you use GPUZ the clock rates stay at maximum even while you hit the slowdown. My hunch is the bottleneck is actually related to the CPU. I've been working on a 3D engine, I may try to reproduce the issue while running my own code and then try to determine where the bottleneck is.

 

I was just doing some research saw the comparable hp envy uses a 120w adapter. The graphics card in those supposedly less power then ours. Thought i might just point that out.

I wonder if someone could use an external screen, but hook things up to the usb to draw power. See if maybe replicated it. just an idea. nevermore taking out the battery seemed like a good idea too. Though i feel once someone gets a 130w ps itll be the most definitive.

I do appreciate the stuff you guys are doing. For us that havnt received it yet it does help us to know what to prepare for.

 

So now we have these scenarios for possible problems:

1. Possible AC Adapter issue
2. Possible GPU Drivers Issue
3. Possible BIOS Power Management issue
4. Heat Issue
5. CPU Issue ( thats a new one)

Did I miss anything?

 

Eh, what? That is not what my GPU-Z Sensor log reflects.....attached. I am definitely getting underclocking and much more of it when I'm plugged in versus the battery.

See, this is where I'm confused. I think there is more than one problem here, but I'm only affected by one.

~Ibrahim~

 

Yes, but this one is designed to charge both the main 6 cell battery and the extra slice battery.
Dv6t Quad comes with a 120 watts adapter though.

 

I just got my sXPS 1645 today.

i7 720 QM
RGBLED 16'
Sata 500 go
Win 7 x64 Ultimate
Standard Dell ATI Drivers

Here's my results

Power management MAX
Brightness Max
Resolution 1280x1024

With AC Adaptor Battery 100%
3DMark Score 6839
SM 2.0 Score 2454
SM 3.0 Score 2898
CPU Score 3131

Without AC Adaptor Battery 100% (At the end 84%)
3DMark Score 7145
SM 2.0 Score 2546
SM 3.0 Score 3114
CPU Score 3030

Is this cool? Don't know what these numbers mean, i'm pretty new to benchmarking. Is this normal for CPU test 1 & 2 to get about 0-1 fps?

Is there any settings I should change to get better results?

Can I do any other test to help troubleshooting the Adaptor problem (if any)

Regards.

 

They sound about right. But you have the Dell Driver and your numbers were fine...Ugh, this gets more confusing by the minute. What brightness?

Yeah, CPU tests should be only 1 or so FPS, lol. Uh, not much. Make sure PowerPlay is on Maximum Performance.

It's all good for right now, thanks, though.

 

Brightness maximum for both tests.

 

Got it. I just ran the tests again, full brightness, identical configuration of power. I didn't have time to run the whole test, but I had about 1960 frames from the firsts from BATTERY and when I run it with the adapter plugged in, I got 1421 frames.

Did both tests twice, nearly exact same numbers both times. FUGHLY ness.

~Ibrahim~

P.S. Quick question: What is your "MAX" profile? Did you make this? What changes did you make to it? And what ATI driver version are you?

I'm on Driver Packaging Version 8.634.3-090729b-086429C-Dell. Copy and paste this from CCC, if you could.

 

The behavior I get is the GPU clocks stay at maximum during the slowdown, but the load is very low around 30% and occasionally drops to 0%. This leads me to believe its CPU-limited.

Edit:
Okay I measured the CPU and GPU clocks while running the Crysis GPU benchmark. The throttling is definetely happening on the CPU, no doubts about it. GPU clock rate stays constant. CPU drops to 600 mhz and occasionally to 300 mhz! If I unplug the laptop from A/C, CPU clock rate spins back up to 1.3 ghz.

 

Interesting....looking at my sensor graph, the load is all over the place. 0% @ 675MHz (full) and then sometimes 0% @ 220MHz (underclocked). Freaky, freaky, freaky.

~Ibrahim~

 

Hmm. I'm not sure if you're talking about this but the MAX profile i'm talking about is inside CCC. On the Power Play window, Enable Power Play is checked and under Plugged In and Battery I put Maximize performance. I didnt change anything for this profile by myself. I think "profile" is not the right word to use.. I'm sorry

Driver: 8.634.3-090729b-086429C-Dell

I've done another test on AC power, battery was at 64% before the test.

Results:
3DMark Score 6801
SM 2.0 Score 2460
SM 3.0 Score 2895
CPU Score 2992

 

Yeah what we're seeing is the CPU isn't keeping up with the GPU.

The program running on the CPU has to continually send drawing commands to the GPU. It says "draw this object here, move this over here", etc. If the CPU is being throttled down because of lack of power or because of heat, it can no longer send commands fast enough to the GPU. So the GPU is just sitting and waiting, with the load at a low level. And PowerPlay then comes in, "oh it looks like the GPU isn't getting much use, I'll throttle it down".

Then the super-slow CPU finally gets around to sending some drawing commands, and GPU spins back up. Then goes back to waiting, and this happens over and over.

 

CPU throttling, I didn't even think about that, but it makes sense.

Heat, hmm...I didn't see it go too far above 75C with the initial testing I did a few days ago. I'll test some more tomorrow.

However, it should be noted that the CPU speed bounces around a ton on these i7s.

 

I got some findings
I ran crysis benchmark with all maxed on battery and found the discharge rate as 8000mW.
Then during the test i plugged the adapter and the charging rate is 5mW.
Due to the nature of the charging process there is a lot of variability starting from the current, the adapter and the laptop. This suggests that the adapter is working at its max designed power and may be insufficient at certain points.

 

Okay I called Dell about the poor performance on A/C adapter issue. And they say it's a known problem with the laptop that they're currently troubleshooting and they escalated my case. I'm supposed to hear back from a Level 2 technician.

 

For the first time i am starting to think i made a mistake ordering this notebook so quickly.....

 

I ran Crysis benchmark for high settings, GPU-z, CoreTemp and BatteryMon.
I found that the CPU is working on a lower voltage when adapter is plugged than when working on Battery .
Maybe due to the insufficient power.

 

Not really, i am very happy and satisfied with it.

 

Hey khaled is ur screen RGBled?? Do u think Dell will call back all 90 W adaptors, if its root of all problems.....??

 

No, it is WLED HD, the RGBLED consumes more power and that is why the people who got it have the problem more obvious.
If it turns out that the charger is indeed the problem and this is our point of view so far, i am positive all of us will be getting a better adapter.

Worst case, a $20 DELL charger from ebay.

 

Does the voltage change for the better if you go external monitor or dim the brightness?

 

Very True abt RGBLED.. But i live in India... these high powered adapters are hard to get from ebay here.... will have to talk with dell customer care executive here....

 

Why pay to fix it yourself when there's a warranty? If you have the same issue then call up Dell, the more people who report it the better. It should help expedite things.

 

hmm seem to be having some issues shutting down or putting the computer into sleep after a clean reinstall of windows 7.

anyone else had these issues?

 

I can run some more test tonight, just let me know what I need to test.

My XPS is standing on Zalman Cooling Pad and when I'm playing games CPU temp is between 55C and 60C (room tem is very low - around 18C - I like it this way) fan is running on minimum speed. So in my case it's not overheating problem.

I've played Dragon Age and Left 4 Dead 2 last night and laptop was working fine - no freezing and sound problems.
I've disabled power charging and some devices I don't use in BIOS(eSata WWAN Bluetooth) not sure if that helped or not.

I think that the Power Supply is to weak (possibly overheating), or it’s a driver problem.

I was looking for Omega drivers but they didn't release anything for Windows 7.

I've had similar problems with my previous gaming laptop.
When I was playing games for long time charger couldn't handle the CPU and GPU load and battery was losing power.
After 7h of playing my Benq laptop (not recommended) had 60% of battery life remaining, but there was no problem with sound and performance in games.

 

I think best would be if the following comparisons could be made:

1. Test on 100% charged battery system WITH the 90W AC Adapter @ Full Brightness, Wifi+Bluetooth On, etc. (Max Performance)

2. Test on 100% charged battery without the adapter @ Full Brightness, Wifi+Bluetooth On, etc. (Max Performance)*

3. Test on <90% charged battery without the adapter @ Full Brightness, Wifi+Bluetooth On, etc. (Max Performance)

4. Test on <90% charged battery WITH the 90W Adapter @ Full Brightness, Wifi+Bluetooth On, etc. (Max Performance)

5. Test on 100% charged battery WITH the 90W Adapter @ Full Brightness, Wifi+Bluetooth On, etc. (Max Performance) AND charging disabled in the BIOS

6. Test on <90% charged battery WITH the 90W Adapter @ Full Brightness, Wifi+Bluetooth On, etc. (Max Performance) AND charging disabled in the BIOS

7. And possible the most important one: repetition of tests 1, 4, 5 and 6 WITH a 130W Adapter.


* Be sure to check that your Power Management profiles have not automatically changed to a lower performance/maximize mattery life type profile.
** In tests 5 and 6 with battery charging disabled in the BIOS this naturally means that this setting (battery allowed to charge) is kept as default/factory settings in the previous tests.



I believe these tests should be most conclusive.

If you'd like to save a bit of time you could skip either test 2 or test 3 as they will 99,99% give the same result.

Ah yes and again add a small note as to what your system specs are and what external (USB) peripherals you have attached. RGBLED will definitely consume more than WLED. The 500GB 7200rpm HD will also consume a little more than the SSD's. And the Blu-ray burner drive MAY consume slightly more than the other 2 I'm guessing.

 

Mine was shipped today, can't wait!! to see whether mine has the same battery issues

 

Honestly, I still am going to be very surprised if a new AC adapter makes a difference... I have a feeling that it will be something that they "fix" at the software level. Hopefuly the "fix" isn't a crappy bandaid.

I have a feeling its something to do with the power management effecting the CPU throttle. You guys worrying about not enough actual power need to understand that of all the things to keep track of, power requirement is fairly simple. I'm sure the laptop is getting enough juice, it just isn't manageing itself properly.

Mine arrives today, so we'll try some things...

Has anyone (asking this again as i havn't seen an answer) tried using the laptop WITHOUT THE BATTERY INSERTED ??

Also, can we disable the CPU throttle or lock it at 1.6GHz to try and confirm the theory that the dynamic throttle and over/underclocking is causing an issue? If we lock it in place and still get stutters it would point to the GPU or some other component (software or hardware)

 

Who has a link to the proper adapter? I'd rather spend the $20 and be done with it...

 

Not true. the first time you run 3dmark it will almost always be slower then running it again right after.

things like cached textures and stuff that stay cached because you still have the program open (swap files, textures in vid mem, etc etc etc) that dont have to be reloaded will improve that CPU score slightly.

I bet if some one were to run the test several times on and off AC power the average would be very close. if they arn't then we are tracking a real issue and not an illusion of one. Care to try?

 

Your point of view is somewhat correct. Crysis benchmark is run 3 times after a warming loop and the FPS is better for them. So the results should be consistent charging and on battery, there was a difference between both as i indicated earlier.

 

@Ibrahim
Could you run any extensive benchmark and use BatteryMon to monitor the discharge rate when running on battery and then the charging rate when you plug in the adapter.
Mine showed 8000mW discharging and 5mW charging(i.e., not charging).

 

I agree with khaled even if 3dmark scores where affected like that, still wouldnt explain the drastic difference in game fps.

I dont understand though when you say 8000mW is the discharge rate under load? thats only 8 watts isnt it?

 

I missed your post earlier, and that is exactly what I've been asking for. Thanks

There is definatly a quirk in the system. I'm still inclined to think its a power management issue either on the CPU, GPU, or possible BOTH via the BIOS as it would have some influence as to how the system was acting.

I'm not worried too much. It will either get resolved or I'll have fun raising hell

 

It is 100% easy to fix as it is already working at max on battery

 

FPS drops in games typically mean GPU is downclocking for whatever reason... any one check out GPU clock rates while gaming?

 

Yes, and that is strange, but when charging under less intensive load, it charges at ~3500mW.
But the argument is that the charging is ~0 at full load which supports the claim that the charger is not supporting enough power.

 

I had RivaTuner monitor working and it showed 675 all the way.

 

If that's true this is the worst benchmarking tool on earth. You load all the resources you need before starting the test. Its certainly not going to explain a 30% difference in scores. Besides, this issue reproduces consistently over and over again. I've seen a CPU throttle down to 300mhz in the middle of a Crysis benchmark, software throttling isn't able to slow it down that much. It would have to hit PROCHOT or its this power issue.

 

I would agree, if only those numbers seemed accurate and deduce how much its drawing from the battery could correlate how much it draws from the adapter. an 85watt/hr battery should only last around 57 minutes if 90watts where pulled for that amount of time.

If only we had someone with a watt meter and a 130w powersupply. Would remove all confusion.