Unsolved
This post is more than 5 years old
7 Posts
0
1719214
November 24th, 2009 17:00
DELL Studio XPS 16 1645 i7 power problem
Update 4 (2/13/2010):
Bios A07 shows a significant improvement with the 130w charger.
There is still throttling that need to be analyzed, most likely this throttling is a machine limitation.
For now, the system is able to run near the advertised specs.
Please post your experience with the updated BIOS.
Update 3:
Dell is finally listening, they are replacing the 90 watt charger with a 130 watt slim charger with a promise of a BIOS fix version A07 that is promised to fix the problem.
Will update upon the testing of the BIOS.
here is how to place a replacement request in USA and Canada
http://en.community.dell.com/forums/t/19320784.aspx
Update 2
DELL thinks a BIOS release will fix the problem and is working on it now.
ALL the people who performed all kind of testing in NBR assures the engineers at DELL that a BIOS fix will not fix the problem completely without the use of a charger of higher power. Using Throttlestop the system was able to consume 110-120 watts under load.
Some people will accept a BIOS that throttle up to the maximum power of the charger used so for a 90 watts charger the system throttles at 90 watts, for a 130 watts, it throttles at 130 watts.
Some people are planning a class action browse the thread for more information.
Update
Here is our group findings so far
1. The power conservative BIOS forces the system to throttle to 7x when the power consumption is around 90 watts due to one or more of the following reasons:
a. Limitation of the power supply capability
b. Limitation of the motherboard to accept more than 90 watts (This reason is from DELL, but we suspect it)
c. To increase the battery life
d. To limit heat generation
obviously DELL should be blamed for poor design if it is a, b, or d.
2. Thanks to unclewebb there is a software now to unlock the throttle, this one will almost certainly put the 90 watt charger to rest or fire.
3. Due to the power limitation, it looks like the people with the RGBLED are most affected by the problem due to the added power consumption.
4. DELL is aware of the problem, but according to them it only affects a small percentage of people that put the system on full performance.
5. DELL keeps saying that the 130 watts adapter is not the solution of the problem, which is quite true as it needs both an adapter and BIOS update.
6. After a long wait, DELL acknowledged that there is a problem and that they will address it soon without announcing a time frame.
7. We as a group lack the trust in DELL fixing the problem to our satisfaction.
I think most of our group will agree on the above.
With all the above said, i am quite happy that mine was returned back to DELL after a frustrating experience with DELL level 1, 2, and 3 technical support. This doesn't represent the other members as most of them are happy with their notebook but expect action from DELL.
------------------------------------------------------
We are among the first to receive our DELL studio XPS 16 1645 with i7. We have some benchmark results that strongly suggest that the equipped 90W charger is not providing enough power to the system. To summarize, the performance of the system is correlated to the brightness of the monitor which suggests that the power provided is not enough so when the monitor is dimmed it allows more power to be consumed by the system. Here is some findings:
Here is the findings, if you stress the laptop using 3Dmark06 the performance is correlated to the brightness of the screen, here is the findings
Full brightness: 5003 3DMark '06
SM2.0: 1664
SM3.0: 2189
CPU: 2568
Lowest brightness: 5405 3DMark '06
SM2.0:1834
SM3.0: 2326
CPU: 2785
To further see the effect of the power consumption, i ran Crysis benchmark for two cases with one difference, the power source battery and minimum brightness vs charger and maximum brightness. I used the exact same settings for power plan (High performance and optimize performance for powerplay)
On Charger, Battery full, maximum brightness
Run #1- DX10 1024x768 AA=No AA, 32 bit test, Quality: Low ~~ Last Average FPS: 68.75
Run #2- DX10 1024x768 AA=No AA, 32 bit test, Quality: Medium ~~ Last Average FPS: 30.24
Run #3- DX10 1024x768 AA=No AA, 32 bit test, Quality: High ~~ Last Average FPS: 20.38
On Battery, minimum brightness
Run #1- DX10 1024x768 AA=No AA, 32 bit test, Quality: Low ~~ Last Average FPS: 80.31
Run #2- DX10 1024x768 AA=No AA, 32 bit test, Quality: Medium ~~ Last Average FPS: 50.93
Run #3- DX10 1024x768 AA=No AA, 32 bit test, Quality: High ~~ Last Average FPS: 29.50
To further test the claim that the power is not enough, an external monitor is connected and to our surprise the system showed its muscles with best performance.
The correlation to the between the brightness and performance, and the heat generated from the charger strongly suggested that the charger is not providing enough power under full load.
It will be a shame if the power adapter is not adequate specially after the whole mess of delaying orders.
[Poll]
mjbrilla
8 Posts
0
January 30th, 2010 12:00
@ DELL-Todd S
I'm having throttling issues also, please see this post : http://en.community.dell.com/forums/p/19306277/19635574.aspx#19635574
Will the Bios update address the throttling issues in the XPS 1640 as well?
DELL-Todd S
4 Apprentice
•
1.8K Posts
0
January 30th, 2010 14:00
I do not know. If they determine that the XPS 1640 is experiencing the same problem, and the BIOS update they design will relieve the problem, then my best guess is that it will also be developed into a BIOS update for that model. When, I couldn't answer.
DELL-Todd S
4 Apprentice
•
1.8K Posts
0
January 30th, 2010 14:00
From what I understand we did that. And it got leaked. So no idea if we'll do it again.
BruceL86
13 Posts
0
January 30th, 2010 16:00
Uncleweb,
Thanks for your helpful posts. If I understand your last post correctly, when I have to do something that is processor and video card intensive, like video editing, I would get much better performance if I unplug my 1645 and run on battery power only because I will get the full performance of the chip. Also, It would be better to run on external monitors instead of the lap top screen because this will use less power so the battery will last longer. Is that correct?
Thanks in advance for your response!
Midnight_Voice
24 Posts
0
January 31st, 2010 08:00
(Re a BIOS beta test)
Bummer, and I quite understand.
But if that was the source of the X29 and A05 BIOSes floating around, should we take comfort from the fact that you are still experimenting, or take alarm from how distant they were from anything we would accept as an adequate solution?
DELL-Todd S
4 Apprentice
•
1.8K Posts
0
January 31st, 2010 09:00
Bummer, and I quite understand.
But if that was the source of the X29 and A05 BIOSes floating around, should we take comfort from the fact that you are still experimenting, or take alarm from how distant they were from anything we would accept as an adequate solution?
[/quote]
If it were that far from adequate it would help to explain why its taking a bit longer this time to come up with the next attempt at resolving the issue.
lammmy
25 Posts
0
January 31st, 2010 17:00
Has anyone else been having screen flickering problems? I noticed it most when reading webpage and such, like this one. Every few seconds the screen flickers a little bit...another annoyance.
So far I've got:
1. Random freezing,
2. Poor performance when it counts
3. Flickering screen
4, untouchably hot power supply.
Best $3000 I ever spent.
nikolay.t
19 Posts
0
February 1st, 2010 02:00
Yes, I experience te very same problem with the display. It is quite annoying and soon my eyes will start bleeding :(. No solution found yet. Even no statement from Dell regarding this issue, no matter my numerous posts.
Nikolay
aolee
25 Posts
0
February 1st, 2010 02:00
Yes, I experience te very same problem with the display. It is quite annoying and soon my eyes will start bleeding :(. No solution found yet. Even no statement from Dell regarding this issue, no matter my numerous posts.
Nikolay
[/quote]Maybe it's only your eyes guys. just kiddin. Are you using RGBLED?
nikolay.t
19 Posts
0
February 1st, 2010 03:00
Yeah, it is RGBLED. I thought its just me seeing this :), but afterwards I found out quite many people complaining about the same issue.
Nikolay
redrings
5 Posts
0
February 1st, 2010 06:00
I originally purchased one of these with the RGBLED and it arrived with a giant blob of dead pixels. Dell sent out a repairman to replace the screen, and after he left the memory started reporting faulty and it would not boot - they sent him back out, and after he left that time the hard drive failed, and then the memory again. After a couple months of having a bricked laptop the finally agreed to send me a replacement (albeit without any compensation for the 2 months I was without due to their errors). Now the problems with throttling. I am so done with Dell - I expect better when I pay that much for a machine.
lammmy
25 Posts
0
February 1st, 2010 08:00
Yes mine is RGBLED as well. This is crazy, I've never seen a single electronic device fail so miserably for so many people. I'm used to having problems, but me being the only one and just having the thing replaced right away...you know what companies usually do when something is broken.
samuellj
2 Posts
0
February 2nd, 2010 04:00
There is a NEW Bios Update (A06) posted on Dell's Support Site. Not sure if that fixes the problems stated here. Give it a try.
nikolay.t
19 Posts
0
February 2nd, 2010 05:00
The new BIOS does not fix the flickering issues. But seems there is an improvement towards the throttling one. Cant say for sure yet.
Nikolay
Baldip
32 Posts
0
February 2nd, 2010 06:00
The bios update did help a little bit. But still cannot use max brightness. There is still lag when brightness increases a bit from the lowest setting. Tested out on prototype.
No battery in.