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lordart

18 Posts

20587

April 22nd, 2008 13:00

M1730 and Stuttering on battery power

I already know that the official party line on the M1730 is you are only supposed to use it while plugged in, but then what is the point of a laptop?  Can't I watch a movie on a plane?  And why pay $300 for an extra battery that really can't be used?

 

I have tried via the "stock" Dell Video card drivers to turn off the power miser and put the power profile of the computer to Maximum Performance.  Unfortunately, even playing a DVD I get stuttering on battery power.  I upgraded from a 5+ year old Inpiron 8200, and can't believe a new $4k+ laptop can't play a DVD where my 5 year old laptop doesn't have an issue.

 

Any suggestions?  Will "hacked" video card drivers solve this or is this a BIOS only fix?

 

Thanks!

 

P.S.  I have a M1730 w/ 8700MGT SLI, 2x200GB HDs, T9500 2.6 CPU, 4 GB memory.

 

runnman

101 Posts

April 22nd, 2008 17:00

This really isn't an answer you are looking for.  But, on an airplane, I would want something a lot lighter than the M1730 sitting on my lap or tray so I could watch a movie even if the battery life was 2 - 3 hours.

RM

mfinnan101

1.2K Posts

April 22nd, 2008 18:00

So you get video stuttering on battery power? But when it's plugged in it's fine?

You have to remember the M1730 pulls a massive amount of power from the wall for a laptop, close to that of a desktop. So running the thing of battery power alone is going to give you no battery life at all...

mfinnan101

1.2K Posts

April 22nd, 2008 19:00

@lordart wrote:

Considering the amount of capability of the laptop, decoding a movie shouldn't tax the machine so much to make it stutter.

Processor intensive tasks will reduce the battery quicker. Normally I can get somewhere in the region of 4-5 hours out of my XPS M1530 Wi-Fi surfing on battery power, however if I am to do something such as compress files in the background that figure drops to less than 2...
If you can run half life 2 for an hour which will load the GPU more than watching a film ever would, your battery life should be longer when watching a film. I don't know....
Personally if I had an XPS M1730 I wouldn't ever use the battery. 

lordart

18 Posts

April 22nd, 2008 19:00

While I appreciate the fact that the battery life isn't going to be as good as something else, that's why I have a seperate battery.  I have played Half-Life 2 on battery power (once I lower the resolution, etc. to make it playable), and a battery charge lasts about an hour or so.  If I can do that, then I would think watching a DVD would be doable.  With two batteries (which I have), I should be able to do a movie.  Considering the amount of capability of the laptop, decoding a movie shouldn't tax the machine so much to make it stutter.

 

Any Suggestions?  I can't believe it "can't be done".  And I don't think "shouldn't be done" isn't an answer either (fine it eats battery power, what doesn't these days?  I just want it functional)  :)

 

Thanks!

 

 

 

mr_z06

1 Message

April 22nd, 2008 19:00

i am having the same issue with my 1705 and well the work around i found is to use VLC instead of Media player.

lordart

18 Posts

April 23rd, 2008 14:00

@mfinnan101 wrote:
Personally if I had an XPS M1730 I wouldn't ever use the battery. 
Why?  Seriously.  I'm not trying to be offensive, just curious.  If it was your only laptop (and even if it wasn't would you bring two laptops with you whereever you went?), and you needed to do the different things that  a laptop is required to do(at least for me), everything from business applications(Word, Excel, Programming, etc.), to 3D rendering, to gaming, to watching a DVD on trips (ie. a plane, on the way or from work on a train, etc.), or even surfing, why wouldn't you even try to use the battery on it?  I mean, buying a desktop unit for the different places you go would be MUCH cheaper than buying a laptop.
As an update on the issue, I have found if I lower the resolution of the screen, it doesn't flash like it would normally.  I guess it's either a vertical sync issue or it simply can't handle the native resolution of 1900x1200 of the screen on battery for overlays.  If I put the windows desktop resolution down, it doesn't happen as often and in certain cases, at all.  This works for normal DVDs, but blu-ray DVDs it will only seem to work in windowed mode without flashing.  Which works I guess, but isn't an ideal.  This is a work around, not a solve.
Message Edited by lordart on 04-23-2008 11:04 AM

lordart

18 Posts

April 23rd, 2008 15:00

Ok, I think I have it after a fashion.

 

Put the resolution at 1280x720 (This removes the flashing).  Turn ON SLI (otherwise it stutters).  I get about an hour under blu-ray (estimated).  Use Power DVD 8 from Cyberlink (Media direct isn't fast enough).  (I did try VLC as suggested, but it doesn't support the blu-ray format).  But at least it CAN be done.

 

 

mfinnan101

1.2K Posts

April 23rd, 2008 16:00

Glad to hear you're sorted. 

To be honest I wouldn't buy an XPS M1730 with portability in mind, it's not designed for that. It draws over 200W from the mains which is insane for a laptop! My desktop draws a similiar amount of power from the wall when gaming. If you want portabillity you'd be better off with something like the M1330.

The one thing the XPS M1730 would really shine for would be LAN gaming. I'd love one for LAN gaming, at the moment I use my XPS M1530 for LAN sessions but the M1730 would suit that role a lot better now and in the future. 

davislogic

1 Message

January 19th, 2009 08:00

I just shelled out the major bucks for the M1730 thinking that I would get something that would be fast and be the one computer for everything that I have long wanted.  Now that I see the issue with operating on battery, and the power brick that is the size of my first apartment, I'm thinking I just bought a new expensive desktop.  Will I ever be able to take it on the road?

I am going to try a travel charger and see if that works.  I guess I need to get in first class to plug in but it is worth it if you need it.  Otherwise I will have to take my old latitude on trips?

TheRealFireblad

4.6K Posts

January 20th, 2009 05:00

 

... I'm thinking I just bought a new expensive desktop.

 

In effect... that's exactly what you (and I) have bought.  It's classed a "desktop replacement" :emotion-55:

They're absolutely fantastic for gaming on.... no doubt about it. 

But portability was never going to be a strong point, and if portability was likely to be a regular requirement, you'd have been better advised getting (i.e.) a XPS M1530.

Whilst they don't have the raw graphics power of our M1730's, but they're a good compromise for their combination of gaming capability, portability, and battery running time.

 

It's probably too long after Xmas to say "Bah humbug" now... but it seems very fitting in this instance - unfortunately :emotion-41:

richardmoulton

3 Posts

May 7th, 2009 13:00

Hey - I've also had this problem with my M1730 and Dell has been absolutely no help at all.

I just tried the latest driver from NVidia's website - it was just released and it seems to fix the problem for me in Windows XP.  I can now run video in fullscreen on battery power without the stuttering and flashing video.

The driver version is: 6.14.11.8585 

I'd be interested to hear if it fixes it for the rest of you.

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