M1330: A05 vs. the other BIOS revisions

My original M1330 came with an A01 mobo loaded with the A05 BIOS revision. I never updated to A06 due to RachUK's astute observation of battery usage between the two BIOS revisions and didn't bother with A07 either.

Recently, my GPU died and my new mobo, an A04 revision, came loaded with A06. Knowing that it was a battery hog, I none the less ran other tests on it, including performance tests. Not finding A06 particularly noteworthy, I decided to test out A09 and it also didn't exhibit any changes in performance or otherwise, with the exception of one test...

Intel's Thermal Analysis Tool ( TAT) showed an interesting difference between A05 and the latter BIOS revisions. While subtle, there is none the less a change that seems to affect when the CPU cores are throttled down (which, in this case, is performed by dynamically altering the multiplier).

I first reported this throttling behavior with the A05 as the same tests did not because my Thinkpad's T60 dual core or my E6400 Desktop Dual Core to throttle, no matter what cpu load. With A05, throttling was noted at 95% (both cores), but with A06 as well as A09, this "threshold" has since dropped to 85%!

What this means is that if an application were to load both cores simultaneously @85% or more, the system will automatically cut the multiplier so that, for example, a 2.2GHz CPU runs at 1.6GHz. While 95% was reasonable, 85% sounds awefully low (imo)... !

On the other hand, I can't honestly say that I've tested with a real-world application that has managed to use 85% or more of both cores. Keep in mind that when a monitoring application reports CPU utilization at 100%, it is rarely (if ever) meant to suggest that both cores are at 100% simulatneously.

In terms of temperatures, A05 managed 78/83C for the cores before needing to throttle and with A06/A09, the cores throttled at around 77/81C. This leads me to believe that the BIOS now triggers throttling of the cores at about 80C and above, while the earlier revision allowed the cores to get a little higher.

It's up to you and your particular use for the M1330 to decide if this is a good or bad thing. IMO, the CPU temps are not the Achilles' heel of the M1330: that honor rests upon the GPU, which is badly cooled* (via a thermal pad) and under load, reaches into the mid 90's and above...

*A real shame because there's no reason why Dell's Designers couldn't have come up with a more effieicent cooling solution as this resourseful person did...

 

A tech via online installed A09 to my computer last week when they were trying to resolve some possible software issues. I haven't tested the battery life since i have been using the A09 bios but one thing i have seemed to notice is that my HD seems to click less now than it did with the A05 bios. The tech told me that the A09 addressed this clicking issue.

There is a possibility that i am going to be switching to the Penyrn processor soon so i might leave the A09 bios installed for a while.

 

Since it's easier for you to make your own comparisons then it is for me (or someone else) to emulate your not-so-empirical battery-life testing suite , I, for one, would be very greatful for your findings, if you get the chance

On the other hand, I'm working the performance angle and I'm a bit annoyed over the PCMark05 scores I've gotten with the A09. I should point out that my A04 Mobo + A06 BIOS combo scored better than the A01+A05, but A04+A09's the worst so far.

PCMark:
A01+A05: 4766
A04+A06: 4864
A04+A09: 4592
Since you mentioned the HDD clicking issue, I paid special attention to the HDD tests* as well as other areas where the scores varied significantly.

HDD - General Usage:
A01+A05: 3.58 MB/s
A04+A06: 3.8 MB/s
A04+A09: 2.97 MB/s

HDD - XP Startup:
A01+A05: 6.0 MB/s
A04+A06: 6.7 MB/s
A04+A09: 6.61 MB/s

*In all fairness I have to note that I didn't perform a defrag before any of the tests and a fragmented drive could be the sole cause of the difference in [HDD] scores. However... VISTA has an auto-defrag option which I have left enabled (but "scheduled" to my taste), so I do not suspect any major defragmentation.

Oddly enough, the other area where the score dropped significantly was in Graphics!

Physics and 3D:
A01+A05: 176.2 FPS
A04+A06: 179.9 FPS
A04+A09: 157.9 FPS

2D - Transparent Windows:
A01+A05: 4305 Windows/s
A04+A06: 4439 Windows/s
A04+A09: 3290 Windows/s

I'd say that if you determine that A09 uses up as much battery life as A06, I'll go back to A06 for max performance or I'll go back to A05 for max battery life and I'm leaning towards the latter as the performance difference in real-world apps won't be missed... . I'm not sensitive to the HDD's seek & access noises (the clicking) so the only benefit A09 brings to the table is Penryn support and I'll cross that bridge when I get to it...