XPS 1530 Shuts off when 'playing' game on battery power

Hi there, I say 'playing' because I never actually get there. Say, Im on the train, and I'll want to play something.. Assassins Creed. I load it up, loading screen is fine, the little video opening is fine, as soon as it comes to actually rendering the graphics it jsut turns itself off. I plug it in at home and it runs beautifully, but as soon as I unplug that power cable, the whole thing just turns off.
It reports a windows error after this, but there is nothing in the error log telling me what shut it down. I KNOW this isn't overheating because I can play it fine on power and although it gets hot when playing gfx intense games it has never turned itself offdue to that.

The games I can play on battery are WoW and Cimcity 4 and audiosurf (although that lags alot on battery :\) xD
The games I cannot are Assassins Creed and Devil may Cry 4.

Is this a power issue?
I have tried on multiple power settings and it still likes to turn off when I want to play these games. It may be a GPU power issue?

I will contact Dell on monday, as I cannot find anyone with the same issue as me.

 

If you want to game on battery, you will have to disable powermizer. I dont know about Vista, but when i disable powermizer in XP, i'm able to play games normally and it doesn't shut off autmatically.
The reason, i think, that you are not able to play Assassin's Creed on battery, is 'coz its a graphic intensive game and depends on your GPU.
I'm not a 100% on this, but you can try disabling powermizer and see if ur able to play then.
Cheers.

 

Will disabling powermizer damage my laptop in any way - there might be a reason that it turns off when its off power that is to protect my lappy?

also, doesnt this mean me f**king about with my registry?

 

check your temperatures(use HWMonitor)

in most computers, the battery doesnt have enough drive the GPU at full speed.. and can only run full speed on AC ( and of course i'll throw in an exception... an apple story: their macbooks running on AC while having their batteries taken out CANNOT go on full speed... because of 'wattage limitations' on the AC powerbrick

i tested running GTA IV on my m1330 on battery only... (lol)... it was even crappier than running it on AC, but it didnt crash or anything

 

As I said before, I cant even get close enough to measure a temperature, the laptop just shuts totally off when it begins rendering the 3D environment in both Assassins Creed and Devil May Cry.

I have installed a temperature measuring program to measure my temperature during WoW - as that is the only game that runs on battery without turning it off with some gpu stress (compared to SimCity xD)

 

i mean ur idle temps, stress temps for CPU, stress temps for GPU, stress temps for both (eg 3DMark06 to stress....)

if ur idle temp is already 80+C, then something's wrong

 

The temperatures are fine, none are about 80 when stressed

 

may i ask how gta iv runs on your lappy? is it playable when connected to the ac?

 

GTA IV on the m1330?.... its playable(not that smooth, but at least 20fps..).. the big and main problem is the low graphics memory... i had to set the view dist/detail low, meaning no eye candy AT ALL and a lot of the times, the graphics don't load in time, so you'll get the wallhack graphics(see through buildings, or see through the ground...)

wouldn't recommend the experience to anyone, but if you really want to play, its playable... load times isnt that long surprisingly.... its just a lack of graphics memory

 

i might try it on my 1530 ...but i dont think ill be able to get 20fps since looking at your specs you have a t8300 and i only have a t5450.

 

Have the same roblem. Disablib Powermizer didn't helped. It run smooth on Ac(games too) and when I use Microsoft Word or Windows media player on battery it also run properly. Is it possible that GPU on battery doesn't work properly or can't do 3D? It shuts off even when I play Chess Titans(Vista system game!) But when i play, for exapmle Mahong on baterry it run perfect...

 

Have the same roblem. Disablib Powermizer didn't helped. It run smooth on Ac(games too) and when I use Microsoft Word or Windows media player on battery it also run properly. Is it possible that GPU on battery doesn't work properly or can't do 3D? It shuts off even when I play Chess Titans(Vista system game!) But when i play, for exapmle Mahong on baterry it run perfect...

 

Have the same problem. Disabling Powermizer didn't helped. It run smooth on Ac(games too) and when I use Microsoft Word or Windows media player on battery it also run properly. Is it possible that GPU on battery doesn't work properly or can't do 3D? It shuts off even when I play Chess Titans(Vista system game!) But when i play, for exapmle Mahjong on baterry it run perfect...

 

Have the same problem. Disabling Powermizer didn't helped. It run smooth on Ac(games too) and when I use Microsoft Word or Windows media player on battery it also run properly. Is it possible that GPU on battery doesn't work properly or can't do 3D? It shuts off even when I play Chess Titans(Vista system game!) But when i play, for exapmle Mahjong on baterry it run perfect...

 

Have the same problem. Disabling Powermizer didn't helped. It run smooth on Ac(games too) and when I use Microsoft Word or Windows media player on battery it also run properly. Is it possible that GPU on battery doesn't work properly or can't do 3D? It shuts off even when I play Chess Titans(Vista system game!) But when i play, for exapmle Mahjong on baterry it run perfect...

 

Have the same problem. Disabling Powermizer didn't helped. It run smooth on Ac(games too) and when I use Microsoft Word or Windows media player on battery it also run properly. Is it possible that GPU on battery doesn't work properly or can't do 3D? It shuts off even when I play Chess Titans(Vista system game!) But when i play, for exapmle Mahjong on baterry it run perfect...

 

I have the same problem. When I start to play Chess Titans( system Vista game!) or Scrapland it just shut off. It doesn't when I use Microsof Word or WMP, watch films. Screen become white for a second and all go off. Sometimes I can play for 20 minutes, sometimes I just turn on the game...I tries to change battery settings, or switch off powermizer - didn't help.

When I use AC everything works smooth and properly.
What can it be? Maybe on battery GPU can't do 3D or so?

Sorry for mistakes, I'm from Poland

 

OMG, I was writing in school my first posts and it was a problem, I was sure they weren't posted...sorry for so much of them!!!
Can a moderator delete some of them?

 

What do u mean. Shuts off ??? does it hibernate or what. try to set it to hibernate at least you dont have to boot up again

 

No, it doesn't hibernate, it just turns off. When I try too turn it on again I see the message: system wasn't closed properly and I have three options of starting, i choose: start normally.
Can battery be damaged? Or motherboard? That's what they suggested when I called Dell support. But i made diagnostic test using CD Driver & Utilities and it hasn't found any errors: All test passed.