Dell :: What's Throttling?
Feb 12, 2010I 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.
View 4 RepliesI 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.
View 4 RepliesI 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.
View 6 Replies View RelatedI 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.
Programs used: RMclock, CPU-Z, GPU-Z, 3Dmark06, Prime95, Throttlestop
For Bill: Original 1640 threads where users started reporting throttling. Joker first reported throttling on the 1640s when he had a 3670.
==>The Official Studio XPS 1640 + ATi 4670 GPU Owner's Thread <== *Part 2*
===> The Official Studio XPS 1640 + ATi 4670 GPU Owner's Thread<===
**A user has decided to run a few gaming tests to prove it effects in real world everyday performance........................
I've been having some throttling issues with my 1558 for a past few days. I've been using it in the us but i'm on vacation now n i'm working on a 220V supply! Does that affect the performance of the adapter in any way?
My config is a core i5 520m,4GB ddr3, ati 4570 512mb,1080p screen.
I was playing Burnout Paradise n my system slowed down after 10 min of gameplay! I noticed that the CPU multiplier was frozen at 9. I really dunno y that happened! I've been playing the same game for hours together back home and it din seem to affect it in any way!
I tried updating it the latest BIOS that came out (A05) and that din help either. It also happened with a few other games as well.
I tried using throttlestop to just confirm that it was the CPU. The games was playing fine for 15 min wen the system just shut off!!
So I just tried to play for one last time with throttlestop off and it was actually fine till I got a critical error msg n my screen wasn't showing color properly!!
Have I fried my graphic card somehow?? Or is my adapter just not strong enuf to handle the load n hence throttling the system??
I tried updating my drivers to v10.4 N it kept saying INF not found n I had to install it indirectly.
Any way to find out if I've screwed up the graphic card?? I'm scared to push it with a game and screw up the system!!
for 130 Watt Adapter and update to the latest BIOS
View 10 Replies View RelatedI just bought an SXPS 1647 (I believe... I have the core i5-540 processor) and I wanted to know how the throttling issue effects these models.
Is it less of an issue because the i5's are less power hungry?
Has there been any response from dell about the throttling on this model? Are people requesting the 130Watt adaptor?
System:
i5-540
4GB RAM
128GB SSD
RGBLED 1080p Screen
Everywhere talked only 1645 throttling problem and dell fix 1645 and so on.. If Dell fix 1640 throttling problem to?
View 3 Replies View RelatedI was thinking about buying a notebook cooler, most likely the COOLER MASTER NotePal Infinite Notebook Cooler and i was just wondering if it would increase throttling as it draws its power from the laptop .....
View 3 Replies View RelatedHoping to buy one but wow, there are a huge amount of problems here.
If I order one now, will this brand new machine have these problems? Have Dell sorted this mess out?
My E6400 has been suffering overheating problems with the current hot weather (over 30C degrees). When the machine overheats it begun to throttle to 75% then to 35%. Once it reached 35% the machine is extremely slow (much slower than normal 35% in power saving mode), it like the machine is put in the safe mode and it won’t recover once the temperatures drops i.e. ACPI, & cpu =40’s & NVS160 = 60’s. The only thing fix the problem is to shutdown the machine & wait for few minutes and restarting the machine. Anyone have had experienced similar problem? I am suspecting the ACPI is triggering the machine to throttle.
I was able to replicate the problem and here is the temperatures the machine begun throttling
ACPI = 78C, Core 0 = 61C, Core 2= 72C, NVS 160 = 80CHDD = 45C
P8400 -> core speed = 1600MHz, multiplier = x6 bus speed = 266 MHz, FSB =1064MHz
BIOS = A11
My Inspiron 9300 has the following specs:
Pentium M 1.6Ghz pin modded to 2.13Ghz (previous CPu was 1.73Ghz) , 2Gb RAM (667Mhz sticks), 6800 Ultra (Xps Gen 2 Bios flash-A05, previous card was an X300 64MB.)
I seem to be getting odd 3DMark05 socres, around the range of 4500, I tried overclocking the 6800 Ultra to 500/1166 and that produced a result of around 5000. The odd thing is that 3DMark05 appears to be running "choppy" every other frame it seems to skip producing a choppy flow of the tests, the frame rate also fluctuate by about 5 FPS in somewhat low movement/action scenes.
I have tried numerous drivers all resulting in the same thing (every driver has been cleanly installed). I am also quite certain that it's not a temperature issue as the max temp the card reaches (according to I8kfanGUI) is around 80-85 C. Just to be certain I ran 3dmark while the laptop was in an ambient temp of -5C (holding laptop outside the window ;]) and still the same...although max temperatures were a lot lower.
So is it possible that the card is for some reason throttling back and forth from the high performance 3d profile (450/1064/1.38v) to the low profile one (250/658/1.1v)?
I got the card from eBay over a year ago now and thus have no warranty on it.
Has anyone else had a similar problem and found a solution?
I am currently considering flashing the card with a custom BIOS, using NiBiTor 3.6 get BIOS from card, change ONLY throttling values to 450/1064 and also voltage to 1.38v, do not touch anything else, save the BIOS burn to CD (alongside a copy of original BIOS read from card)-[no floppy] and flash.
However I am a bit worried about killing the card, has anyone attempted something like this? Also the ROM files generated by NiBiTor are exactly 64,000 bytes is this alright?
This has been happening lately ill be playing starcraft 2 ( other games as well ) but this one specifically that all of a sudden frame rates dip to 2 - 10 fps and the game crawls. Starcraft 2 gives me a warning saying my computer is running slow. I normally get 30 - 40 fps with a mix of medium/high settings at 1920 x 1080. Temps seem normal but my cpu usage is spiked at 100% when this is happening. I know throttling on the 1645 and 1647 is common but ive never had this problem with my 1640 until now. I have 2 years left of warranty so im ok. If i call dell what am i going to tell them and what are they going to do?
Below is a pic of temps
http://i43.tinypic.com/2gv254l.png
So I recently bought a Dell XPS 15 9530 and well I wanted to see how it would do in gaming. It was doing well in most games until one day, I started getting fps drops that lasted a long time. The FPS would go from whatever it started with, an example being Watch Dogs with 50 fps on low settings, to 9 fps. Another example is CS:GO where I get 60 fps on highest settings, I cap it at 60, but after a few rounds it goes down to 15 fps. So I got NVIDIA Inspector to see what was wrong as many had said it was the GPU throttling and the clocks were 135 MHz for the GPU Clock and 405 MHz for the Memory Clock instead of the default 941 MHz for GPU and 2500 MHz for Memory. The temperature was around 75 degrees celsius at most so I don't think that is the problem. It is plugged into wall while playing and I have most programs closed down when playing.
Also, I have my power plan set to 'High Performance'. The FPS drop does not last forever but lasts about 10-15 minutes and can either be resolved by restarting my laptop or, if I am lucky, restarting the game. It is quite annoying and I have been testing everything for about 2 weeks. I have tried re-installing BIOS, clean installation of drivers, used different programs like ThrottleStop, tried lowering the settings and none of these have worked.
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?....
[02/03/2010]
I posted a few weeks ago about how my 1640 might be throttling. While with unclewebb's ThrottleStop shows that when I run Furmark and Prime95, the multiplier of the CPU goes down to 3x.
I'm going to do some intensive testing tonight with my system and hopefully some other 1640 users could come out and test theirs since most of us have different configurations. (Please see my signature down at the bottom for system specs)
Also, I see that in the other thread about the S-XPS 1645, it was normal gaming that caused it to Throttle. Games such as TF2, Demigod, and D.A .....
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 .....
Hey guys just got my xps 1645 and im having throttling issues but not so much when plugged in but when running on batteries. I play cod4 and when i start game when plugged in it seems to be a bit juddery at first kind of just stop and start gameplay but then seems to smooth out after a min or two. (I updated bios to ao7 and rang dell asked them for 130 psu and the tech told me there was no longer an issue with my model in my country (crap) i just hung up. but i will ring back when i have time and demand one (im within my rights ya??) Anyway when i plug out during game play the game lags badly going down to like 10 or 15 fps as opposed to 60 fps plugged in (aa off) anyone any ideas??
View 8 Replies View RelatedPlease note that my GPU Throttles down when it hits 84C. This cycle will continue up and down as the system system downclocks the GPU.
View 10 Replies View RelatedIm not going to write my whole year long story here, but I will say that I am on my FOURTH e6400 and what do you know? The fan has lost its mind, having throttling issues and cant seem to get the temp down. Performance overall is declining, just like my last three...
Im so tired of dealing with these issues...I'm just exhausted and honestly, I feel defeated. They keep replacing my laptop (which I paid a small fortune for when they first came out last year) but the problem keeps coming back...
What are my options now? I feel like ive spoken to every person in that g-d forsaken company and its gotten me nowhere.
I have a new 1647, I did a clean install of Windows 7, updated to latest Dell BIOS for this laptop and currently I am plugged in via direct connection (battery taken out) to a 130W power adapter.
I am using VLC to playback a 1080p anime video. For the most part, video playback was smooth up until like 10 minutes ago. Laptop is noticibly warm, VLC keeps buffering. I'm assuming it's throttling .....
after reading [url]i just wonder if there is any dell i7 laptop with i7-920xm cpu, working under 100% cpu for over 6 hours a day, with no throttling issue, no over heat issue(max cpu temperature under 85C in 25C room), no overloud fan noise issue(fan noise no more than 40db)?
View 10 Replies View RelatedI 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.
Like many of you, i to had this throttling problem that occurs after couple minutes of play.
I read threads that describe how to fix this using RMClock and undervolting CPU, but i decided to try find some simpler and safer solution. I found this option that slows down processor before increasing fan speed. After i turned it off, i didnt experience any more performance drops.
Heres where you can find it:
-first go to Power options on control panel
-select Change plan settings for High Performance
-click Change advanced power settings
-scroll down to Processor power management and expand
-expand system cooling policy
-change value to Passive like shown in picture:
Im not sure that this will work for anyone, or that i had real throttling problem, but this really helped me. Before i could play up to 20-30 min maximum before my laptop performance started to drop and games started lagging. I tested this solution on dirt2 for 2 days and so far i didnt experience any performance drop, yay
You can see my specs in my signature.
I've had the Acer 6920G for quite some time, I realized I should put a stop to throttling/downclocking.
I tried the several ways which came from this site, especially from flipfire and DarkSilver. I already undervolted my cpu, but after I played L4D2 for about 10 mins it started to throttle again. And the post which DarkSilver made was to go to regedit and change some settings in the RightMark CPU Utility, I've done that yet it still throttled.
I also attempted to go to BIOS and check if I could disable EIST, but there was no option. Does anyone have any idea how to solve this? I've updated my drivers and everything, and I also upgraded to Windwos 7 - but it still stays the same way.
I have a dv7-1135 nr laptop .. spec's are as follow's amd turion x2 rm-70 cpu speed is 2.0 each core. the problem I notice is that my cpu is slowing down at the wrong time.
I use the program cpu to determine that my cpu is dropping sometimes as low as 500mhz .
I know that laptops have a throttling function but i have that disabled . I have looked in the bios for that feature also and can not turn it off. can someone please Help as i do notice an extreme loss of power during gaming .
So before I yell BS at Apple Care Support I hope some of you mac owners could clarify some questions for me. The only thing different about the Macbook Pro 17 I have is the T9900 CPU (3.06ghz), well onto my "problem".
I recently installed Windows 7 on my MB (No OSX present on the HDD), used BootCamp3.0 drivers from my OSX DvD and updated those to 3.1, so all drivers for the Hardware under Windows 7 have been installed -everything working nifty.
My problem is whenever I tax my system to the max (Read 100% CPU usage) the two CPU cores quickly reach 100-104Degrees, the fans kick in, but little do they help, the system instead clocks the CPU frequency down to first 2.8->2.6->....ending up at 1.5Ghz -the fans do nothing, since it never goes back to 3.06Ghz unless I stop the cpu intensive task.
Meaning under full load I can only utilize "~50%" of the power in my system. Do any of you have an idea why this happens? Its important to add that the MB is sitting on a flat table in a normally tempd. room, also the MB was bought October'09 so it is probably not dust clogging the fans........................
I recently returned my 1645 after 2 months of struggling with random crashing and throttling back to Dell for a full refund.
I am in need of a new system and was considering HP Envy 15 as an alternative, but I still like the 1645 given that it performs as advertised.