Dell has released their solution to the throttling issue, if you have updated to the latest A07 or newer bios, and recieved a 130w adapter from dell. Need to call the reps and get a 130w sent free of charge.
After more testing looks as if the A07 bios has indeed greatly improve the performance of the laptop. More testing will continue to see where the limit is at, as there may be close to the throttling edge perhaps.
Purpose of this thread is to educate those about the throttling issues with dell's laptops. Specifically to the xps 16 with i7 processors. Also to show community driven solutions as we wait for dells response to this issue.
This is an advancement from the power investigation thread, to summarize the thread here is a quick list. The 1645 is supplied and designed for a 90w adapter which is undersized and cripples the laptop under gpu + cpu stresses,
such as gaming and photo editing.Running on battery seems to let the laptop run more towards it potential.The problem severity varies and depends mostly on configuration and type of program being ran.A 130w or bigger power supply will not solve the issue alone, as the bios actively throttles to main 90w anyways.Through reps Dell seems aware of the issue. As of yet there has been no official announcement and is .....
I recently (Dec 7) bought a XPS 1645 and I'm experiencing the throttling issues. It's apparent when I play games (Left 4 Dead 2) and I have the RGBLED brightness set to high. If the brightness is at the max setting, the game is unplayable. If I minimize the brightness, the game immediately becomes playable. I have been keeping up with the throttling thread. From what I've read the upcoming bios update will not fix the issue. It has to be a combination of a bios update and new AC adapter. I don't expect Dell to send out 130w AC adapters after the battery fiasco they had - considering the 1645 was designed to use a 90w AC adapter.
This got me to thinking. If the bios update doesn't resolve the issue, there are only so many options that we have left.
1. We buy third part 130w AC adapters and hope that our laptops don't burn out.
2. We each individually call Dell Tech Support and stay on the phone until we get a refund/replacement unit (possibly the 1647?).
3. We roll over and use the throttled laptop and accept Dell's bios 'fix' - never getting the full performance out of our laptops.
4. Dell offers replacement units for affected customers.
Options 1-3 don't resolve the issue for us. As far as #4 goes, it's hard to imagine Dell issuing a voluntary recall on affected units. But I think option #4 is something that as a community we could make happen. While this issue seems to be fairly well known on the forums, (as someone mentioned in another thread) it is largely unknown to the outside world - based upon the reviews the XPS 1645 gets on Dell's website. If we were to go out and let others know how certain configurations of this laptop under perform, perhaps we make Dell notice enough that they would want to protect their brand by issuing replacements. The catch is that we have to loud and get this out there.
Dell won't voluntarily offer a product replacement. This issue is unknown. If they were to go ahead and replace our XPS 1645's, that would be letting the whole world they screwed up on the design on the laptop.
However, if we can somehow get this into the news cycle and let the world know, then it becomes in Dell's best interest to offer replacements.
On the featured systems, i was thinking of purchasing the second one which has the i7 processor, but i have a few questions before i would like to buy it.
1) This is a 1645 system meaning that throttling will be there right? 2) Does installing the A09 BIOS Solve the throttling issue? 3) Without using throttlestop is there any way to control the throttling? 4) Is it compulsory that throttling occurs on all the systems or some don't have it? 5) Will me playing NFS Undercover cause the laptop to throttle?....
I have been testing my Studio 1557 today for throttling issues.The i7 does throttle down to the x10 multi under a 100% load on the CPU and GPU after about 10 minutes. But it seems to be temp related not starving for power.
When my GPU hits 100c it will throttle back to about 88c.When the GPU does that the multi on the CPU goes from 10x to 12x (1.6ghz stock speed).While the GPU creeps back to 100c the CPU stays at 10x until the GPU hits 100c then back to 12x for a few minutes.
The latest drivers and software packages are for Windows 7 x64 only. They are the absolute latest versions and many aren't even listed on Dell's driver page. There are some hardware items not covered here which you can find updates for at http://support.dell.com/
Just a quick question please. Been wanting to buy a laptop probably with an i5 520 processor.
Seen very good deals on Lenovo, unfortunately came to find out their BIOS is locked, and so with Sony too. Is Dell BIOS locked also, main reason is because I use virtualbox and other related software, and I need VT enabled, will this be an issue with Dell too, as with Lenovo it is (at least as per the threads on the Lenovo side, and no fix yet).
One other thing, talking about Lenovo again or even Acer, I've seen them offer a i5 520 on 14/15" laptops, then why is that I don't have an option to get an i5 520 on a Studio 15.
One last no-brainer question, sorry.. 15.6" screens have a resolution of 1366x768 (16:9) and newer 14" laptops I've seen also have the same resolution, is that also 16:9 and 720p ?
I have been see-sawing between the Sony Z and the E4200 (two very different machines) but being a Dell customer for the past decade, and having access to Premier and EPP, tipped the decision in favor of the the smallest E in the new Dell portfolio.
I thought I would start this thread as a 'catch all' place for all the folks who are ordering the new E4200. I have been looking for info on the E4200 in particular but there isn't much to be found though a few folks have indeed received their E4300s.
There seems to be some disappointment with the E4300. I am holding out until the backlit keyboard as well Latitude ON (hardware-based) are widely available. It does seem that some of the kinks still need to be ironed out from the lilliputian E-class Dells. Here's an early review that pretty much sums up the disappointment that some new owners are feeling:
I am looking at getting a Studio 17 or a Studio XPS, both have the 12 month no payments, no interest. I was approved for 4 grand so everything will fit into my budget.
I also noticed, while reading the terms, that anything else purchased while purcahsing a qualifying product, will also be on the no payment/interest for a year.
Is there a big advantage to getting the complete care warrenty over the standard warrenty.
Im not worried that I am going to spill something or drop my laptop so I dont think the complete care is worth it, but I wouldnt mind some feed back from people who have had first hand experience.
Does anyone know the part number/manufacturer for the XPS 16's 128gb SSD. I just bought the 1645 with it and would like more info when I present the computer as a gift for xmas.
im looking at buying an xps16 for gaming and schoolwork. is the i7 720qm a good processor as far as gaming goes? should i get a bluray player? are there any issues with the laptop that would be a deal breaker?
I've ordered a Dell Studio 15 with ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4570 with 256MB. Now I am getting info that the 256MB version uses DDR2 and the 512MB version uses
DDR3/GDDR3! IS THIS TRUE?! If it is, I only have a few hours before I can change my order!
I called up several dell techs/sales reps and NO ONE HAS A Cute my little pony CLUE .....
Just wanted to give this info for M1210 owners out there because I found it pretty interesting.
I recently changed my M1210's thermal assembly, new motherboard (due to failed Go7400), and the new one I obtained to replace it was a new revision, A02... the old one I removed is A00, so it seems there have been two design changes to the heatsink since my computer was assembled.
I haven't been able to identify any other differences yet, but one obvious difference is that it uses a different heatpipe .....
I'm considering upgrading my wireless card from the Dell Wi-Fi 1505 card (I know it sucks) that's in my M1530 currently.
I'm not sure if it's the drivers or the card itself, but sometimes I won't be able to connect to networks that I know I can connect to. Also, it seems to loses packets from time to time .....
Has anyone out there any information on the integrated contactless reader in the E6400/E6500?
I know it's based on the Broadcom 5880 chipset, but not much else. Even Dell can't tell me much, other that it's supposed to support RFID and ISO 14443.
I'm looking at developing a RFID application to which would use the Dell reader if I can find any information.
I see all those threads about throttling, but they all are about the How and Why's, but none seems to tell me what throttling is / how i can recognize that my laptop is throttling.
I just got a new Studio XPS 1647. Specs are i7-620M, 128 GB SSD, 4 GB RAM, RGBLED, and the standard ATI 4670. Now that dell actually appears serious about fixing the throttling problem, I am seriously considering keeping the laptop. I would however like to make a few modifications. I need to actually put the correct RAM into the computer (they put in 133Mhz rather than 1067, i know its lol). More importantly I would like to change the GPU out for an ATI 57xx series. My question is can I put in a 5730/5750/5770 and not void the warranty? Also have the 5750 and 5770 even been released yet? It seems like it can only be a win-win situation. The 57xx series runs on less power (25-30W compared to the 35W of the 4670), and also they are faster, DDR5 with the two higher end models.
I have read a lot on this problem and just did some testing on my system.
I am running Modern Warfare 2 and within a few minutes my throttling begins; cpu drops to 700mhz and then doubles and then full speed... I have CPUZ running on second monitor watching it progress.
Next step, I disable the PowerPlay in the CCC ATI Control Panel; pick the game up where I left with CPUZ running on the second monitor... 30 minutes later; ZERO throttling.
I've got a 1330 with a T7250 processor, 4gigs of ram and a 8400GS.
I run my notebook all day long undervolted (tested stability a lot using orthos) so temperatures are less.
I also use RMClock to max out the cpu frequency when connected to AC (so that it stays locked at 2 ghz whenever i am in AC mode)
Also, my 8400 gs is Overclocked to 600/825 from stock 400/600.
The thing is the following: when running COD4, every once in a while my frames drop noticeably. I then went to investigate this and using RMClock's monitoring tool i noticed that the frame drop was consistent to a throttling of the CPU.
However, whenever i test out my pc with ORTHOS or rthdribl i get higher temperatures than when running COD4 and the CPU doesn't ever thottle itself...
As you can see, this is a pretty strange thing because temperature is NOT being the "throttling factor" over here, as it is almost all times. I also have the gpu copper mod applied and haven't ever passed out 80 degrees on the gpu (which are pretty normal temps for an xps1330, specially overclocked)
What do you think could be causing this? It is really bugging me a a lot. Could it be maybe unstable voltages or something?
In recent light of the the throttling investigation and incoming fix on the 1645 and 1647 models, Ive been instructed to make a separate thread to investigate the same issues for the 1640. If you have a 1640 with throttling issues please post any information in this thread. This is a new thread covering the same issue as the other problematic 164X's. Throttling.
Unclewebb can back me up on all of this as I went through these tests with him, the same tests he used to determine throttling on all other 164Xs models.
At full GPU and CPU load, mulitplier scales back to 6x and 3x. My 2.93ghz t9800 then clocks down to 1500mhz and 798mhz respectively.
