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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.
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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]
XPSebastian
1 Message
0
February 15th, 2010 09:00
Hi Roland,
strange!! I´m from Germany and called the dell support today.
The support guy acknowledged the power problem immediately.
He only asked me about my service tag and name. Few seconds
later I got an email confirmation. In the next couple of days I will get the
130w adapter and can keep the 90w adapter... everything without charges.
I would say... simply try it again! I will keep my fingers crossed for you.
Greetings from Germany
Sebastian
renzska
6 Posts
0
February 15th, 2010 10:00
How long can you play MW2 at full specs before stuttering starts? Maybe I need to get a better laptop cooler because after about 15-20 minutes of playing the game, the pointer or sight starts to stutter and lag. At first I thought it was lag from my router but I can't even aim straight after about 15 minutes of gameplay and I have to exit the program. At this point my computer is pretty hot.
[/quote]
I ran into the same issue. I've verified that this is being caused by the GPU being "throttled" from 675MHz down to 300MHz using GPU-Z when the temps hit around 802C for a prolonged period. You can view my logs at the notebookreview forum: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5882519&postcount=2901
They need to change the scheme to start out at a speed which will maintain the temps (of course it's more complicated than that) so that the 375Mhz drop is much less when it hits the threshold.
I ran mine clocked at 500MHz using RivaTuner last night and it hovered around 80C which is about 5 degrees less than it would get when letting it do it's own thing. At least this way, I know what speed I'm getting and don't get killed in game because all of sudden my GPU decides it wants to cut performance by 55.5%.
I went back to the Dell supplied ATI Drivers and I still have the same issue. With Powerplay disabled it sits at 400MHz and never hits the high temps so it doesn't throttle but that's a big drop in performance from the 675MHz the card is rated at.
I'm going to continue to test more to see the max I can go without getting too hot.
The issue here is that if the system is getting that hot when running normal games such that it has to throttle by over 50%, then the system wasn't designed properly, IMHO.
Thanks,
John
DELL-Todd S
1.8K Posts
0
February 15th, 2010 11:00
Please be advised that communication is being sent out this week to all regions of Dell Technical Support regarding replacement issues for the Studio XPS 1645 systems. At this point we will no longer be processing PMs requesting replacement 130w adapters to be sent out. Please contact Dell Tech Support once the instructions have been communicated and they will be able to process your requests.
I don't have an exact date on which days the regions will officially get the communications this week but my best guess is that everyone should have been made aware by the end of this week.
kgorshkov
12 Posts
0
February 15th, 2010 15:00
I hope we are getting an update soon on the status of the A07 bios. I know it is out, and I know it fixes things. But I want to know if it is a work in progress type deal or are the engineers done with the throttling issue.
Baldip
32 Posts
0
February 15th, 2010 17:00
Do we get to keep the 90W adapter??
craig0
3 Posts
0
February 15th, 2010 17:00
Does anyone know if the 1647 model throttles any? I cant seem to get any real data to show either way if it does or doesnt. I am wanting to get the i5 540 since the 1645 is having so many problems. Can someone please verify the current state of the 1647s?
rob_z11
7 Posts
0
February 15th, 2010 18:00
I believe so.. I have gotten 135W, and it says no need to send anything back..
Any thoughts on vent being blocked by the screen?
gstboy
9 Posts
0
February 15th, 2010 18:00
Playing MW2 at high settings burns this laptop up. I have the fan running 100% when it hits 70 and this makes the screen hot enough to discolor the lcd when it is not showing any colors. I can play fine for a little while but then it gets hot and starts to throttle when gpu gets to 80C from what I see. The fan location on this laptop is not really good.
gstboy
9 Posts
0
February 16th, 2010 00:00
was able to tweak MW2 to be playable without heating the laptop too bad. To run it at 1080 need to turn everything off and set textures to 'normal' that did the trick for the most part, ran cooler, about 70's peak. Have to test more to find this games sweet spot.
aolee
25 Posts
0
February 16th, 2010 04:00
Hi Todd,
You mentioned that "communication is being sent out this week to all regions of DELL Technical Support regarding the replacement issues for the Studio XPS 1645 systems"
How are we going to get our 130W Adapter? should we call tech support? if yes, what should we tell them so we will have a common understanding on this. should we just call, tell our service tag and ask for the adapter?
Really appreciate if you could give us some info on this. i haven't installed the A07 bios because i fear it will cause trouble using a 90w adapter.
By the way, I live in Singapore.
Thanks!
rschilch
4 Posts
0
February 16th, 2010 04:00
Hey Sebastian!
The Dell support said that i should contact you. I called it again but i didn't get my new adapter. I mentioned that you got the adapter yesterday so they said i should ask you about your Service Tag ID.
Could you write me a Mail to ?
Thanks a lot!
Greetings from Austria,
Roland
<ADMIN NOTE: Email Id Removed Per Privacy Policy>
97mg
14 Posts
0
February 16th, 2010 04:00
Cheers Todd!
This was the response to my enquiry in Australia so the communication channels appear to be open :emotion-1:
Normal 0 false false false EN-AU X-NONE X-NONE
Dear Ivan,
Thank you for contacting Dell Online Technical Support.
Please, In my understanding, the power adaptor will be available soon. The throttling issue is able to be fixed then as per in your email.
Therefore, please check in our support website from time to time for the update.
Midnight_Voice
24 Posts
0
February 16th, 2010 06:00
Well, I should have let the tech who phoned up yesterday update me to A07.
I did eventually manage it, but I first choose to use the Dell Download Manager. As Julia Roberts would say, 'Big mistake'. :-(
The idea seems to be that you download this, and then you can choose a bunch of driver updates, and get them all at once. And fine, it downloaded OK, I ran it, it said I had nothing selected to download, which was true.
So I went back, selected A07, pressed Download - got the Download Manager again, not A07.
OK, maybe I did that wrong, went back to A07, said Add it to my Downloads, went to the designated place, pressed Download - got the Download Manager again.
In the end, I managed to have 7 downloads of that, and none of the A07 BIOS.
The problem seems to be with Firefox, as this does not allow you to execute a download directly, like IE does, but gives you only the option to Save the file.
The Help says that the DDM works with Firefox, though - but it clearly doesn't. It says that when you get the Save message, you can 'Save As' - but you can't.
In the end, I had to blow my Dell cookies away so I could get the A07 download without the 'help' of the DDM.
While Dell are paying some attention to us, can someone please look at this issue?
Also, the driver thing there is pretty primitive. 28 drivers listed, and I have no idea which ones are right for my exact machine, nor which ones I might already have.
My Tosh does better; a program can scan my machine, see which drivers are both applicable and newer, and offer them for download (real download!) and installation.
Something similar ought not to be beyond the wit of Dell, should it?
kgorshkov
12 Posts
0
February 16th, 2010 06:00
Just use IE. Problem solved.
malkie0831
3 Posts
0
February 16th, 2010 08:00
+1 to that!
I have installed A07 without any problems. This bios is definitely better, but the laptop still throttles under extreme load.
With Prime 85 running 8 threads, plus Furmark running in a 1024x 768 window, the CPU never exceeds 70 deg C and the GPU is about the same, but the multiplier drops back to between 9 and 10. Previously it would drop to 7 (933MHz cpu speed) and stay there. So it still doesn't run at the quoted speed (1.6Ghz on my i7-720) with the GPU at 100%, but it is much better.
But at least in just a GPU intensive program, like 3DMark 06 or Vantage, it seems to switch turbo mode on and runs much faster than it did.