XPS1645 Owners & Potential Owners... Information regarding Throttling Issues (Throttlegate)

5 hours and counting...

Thank you so much for posting this information. I have been trying to figure out this problem for a while now and DELL REPS dont seem to know anything and seemingly think its ok to lie to thier customers and say things like "there is no issue" or "it was resolved in the last bios update".

DELL: dont you think its bad when you release a substandard product (late i might add) and leave it to your customers to fix on thier own? one might think dell would want to be proactive and fix the issue befor it becomes much larger and more expensive. remember the great battery recall of 2006? after which dell admitted it knew about a pre existing issue yet continued to ship computers with "hazardous" batteries that could explode or catch fire during use?

My sXPS16 with the i7 720 throttles pretty badly.  I can definetly feel it in Need for Speed Drift, and Dragon age.

If I plug in my adaptor through a watt meter it can be at 85 watts with no load except for battery charging.  Sometimes it idles in the 30watt range if the battery is charged.  If I stress the laptop I get a little spike to about 95w and then it settles down to 85 watts no matter what the load.  It seems to throttle itself to stay under 90watts artificially.  I suspect without throttling it would run in the 100-130 watt range. 

I believe the included AC adaptor is not nearly high powered enough and the bios is choking an otherwise powerful system.  At this point I really regret the purchase.  I hope Dell does the right thing and offers a fix to allow the true performance of the i7 720 and 4670 GPU.  I didn't pay the extra money for the i7 and ATI 4670 just because they look nice on paper.  I payed the money because I wanted to use the performance, otherwise I would've got a Core2Duo.

As everyone who has posted here could easily determine by simply searching, Dell is aware of the situation and have said publicly that they're working on it. BIOS revisions have already been provided for some models. 

So let's not make this out to be a big conspiracy or something. :emotion-2:

Yes I agree, and it is not my nature to make negative posts.  I am simply worried that it is a case of the squeaky wheel gets the grease.  I will be the first to post my gratitude if, and when Dell posts a solution.  At least they seem to acknowledge the problem now.  Initially several weeks ago, when I phoned and questioned tech support they claimed it had been fixed and BIOS A03 would solve my problems.  This was misleading of them and caused me to lose some faith in their process of of correcting design flaws.:emotion-45:  I hope this was just a casual error, and not a coverup attempt to make me go away.

Issue's like this are what determines whether a customer will be brand loyal in the future, or take their business elsewhere.  I hope Dell steps up with support their customers deserve, and I hope the these customers repay Dell in the future with repeat business.:emotion-2:

jdurston:

You'll get more accurate and up to date information here on the forum than calling some Dell tech support guy making 3 rupees an hour in India. But of course, the forum is part of Dell support.

As everyone who has posted here could easily determine by simply searching, Dell is aware of the situation and have said publicly that they're working on it. BIOS revisions have already been provided for some models.

Could you point to public statements Dell has made about the XPS 1645?

I agree with the above,

I still yet have to see where Dell admits this error and is working on a fix? The closes thing I can come to is what Lionel said, but that hardly represents Dell engineering and tech.

Buy a 130 watt adapter and run a program called ThrottleStop and then you can start using the performance that you paid for.

Whether the XPS 1645 gets properly fixed is debatable.  The Latitude E6x00 series that brought the Dell throttling issues to the media's attention has been throttling for over a year regardless of the PR campaign.

To test your laptop all you need to do is run Furmark and Prime95 Small FFTs.  8 threads for a Core i7 and two threads for a Core 2.  Use i7 Turbo to monitor the multiplier for either CPU.  If your multiplier does not mantain its default maximum then it is throttling.

I like to compare my purchase to buying a porsche with a porsche price tag only to have the car perform like a ford tempo... and the manufacturer say so theres nothing wrong with it.

I'm seriously considering picking up a Studio XPS 16 but I'm concerned about the throttling issues.

If I get a Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor P8700 (2.53GHz/ 1066 FSB/ 3MB Cache) rather than a i7 model will I still be affected or is the problem model specific rather than the processor?

I'd really appreciate any guidance!

yes...I have similar configuration ( Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor P8600 2.40 Ghz) and having same horrible issues..

stay away from dell...

I personally like the HP DV8... not quite as nice as the XPS but no throttling and its still an attractive machine. My friend has one ( he also was going to order a XPS1645 ) he choose wisely.