XPS 13 9310 - Custom power settings not working correctly

Hi there!

Yes it is a well known problem, but Dell isn't very keen on acknowledging it, for some reason...

What you are talking about, is commonly referred to as "blinking light", you can find a lot of information about it on this very forum, as well as on reddit. There's no fix to it, there's a workaround that comes highly recommended in your case: disable TurboBoost.

This is because Dell uses something called Hybrid charge, a solution that allows the system to draw energy from both the battery AND the AC adapter when TurboBoost is on (and sadly TurboBoost enables for the lightest kind of work), and unfortunately it also recharges the battery a little bit. This means your battery gets recharged more than 300 times per hour. And yes, it's not exactly the shortest powerburst ever seen, some times it blinks for several seconds. Not good for our batteries.

Take a look at this post here and you will find some interesting information.

Well, give a look at the link I posted before, there a video you could find quite interesting. You can replicate it yourself, you can leave CpuZ open and see what happens to frequencies when the light blinks: frequency goes up to the roof for apparently no reason (it could be your mail app checking for updates, it could be windows security checking for updates, anything really), even for just a split of a second, and the power light blinks.

Display doesn't need to flicker, that's something that would happen with 9310 2in1 models, and it's been fixed since. Actually the 2in1 model probably received a full fix for the whole problem, as their model stopped showing this blinking light misbehaviour after a couple of updates. While the regular clamshell model has been sort of abandoned to itself.

I would suggest you to check what happens in CpuZ when the light blinks. Unfortunately I'm quite positive you're the new member of our sad club.

Thanks, yeah I've been reading some more about it on here since posting, including the mammoth 14-page thread on the subject.

I'm not getting and display flickering issues and didn't think the turbo boost issue was relevant as it happens when the machine is just idling at the desktop with no heavy load on it.

Honestly, on a brand new i7 or i5 you don't really need TurboBoost, the difference is negligible, but the power consumption is insane. It's been debated over the years of how little efficient TurboBoost is, it more than doubles the consume for a temporary +20ish% frequency boost... It gnaws at your battery, and you can see the difference when you turn it off, battery lasts so much more. It is very poorly implemented, I don't think it's Dell's or any OEM's fault, it's probably Intel's, you can't have an i7 running on TurboBoost while you're reading an article on the web, it makes no sense.

I'm afraid the difference will become palpable in a few years, when the system is starting to age, and having the extra kick would make all the difference in the world when opening an app or whatever. Actually if your laptop can run at cool temperatures then it could even enable for several minutes giving exactly the extra juice you need. So I sincerely hope they will give us a working update one day.

We need to keep pressing Dell for a solution.

Yes, the toggling/untoggling bug shouldn't concern you at all, it's my understanding that it was brought in by some earlier update (probably the 2.2.0) and lingered on through later updates, but if your laptop shipped with a later BIOS version (I think the 3.0.3 was already enough) then you are safe.

The 3.3.0 seems to be stable, no issue so far, but no you are absolutely right, it didn't solve the blinking light problem. Unfortunately there's some misconception about the issue, to some degree it's normal for batteries to receive microbursts because it's also how a system checks on their status (charge and health), but in this case charges often last for several seconds (5-6-10 seconds, for how long TurboBoost is on), sometimes after a day of work the battery would gain a couple of %, and this can't be good... I'm obviously not an engineer or a physicist but connecting and disconnecting a battery hundreds of times per hour doesn't sound good, thousands of times during a work day.

Unfortunately Dell doesn't seem to care much because it seems to be affecting only a specific model, the 9310, and only the clamshell version. And you only notice it if you leave your laptop connected to the power cord. So I'm afraid there aren't many users lamenting the problem.

Btw, don't use Primarily AC Use as battery charging setting, it doesn't work... (and this affects pretty much any XPS, as far as I know). Keep using customs thresholds.

Dell support are advising me to update the BIOS.  It shipped with 3.2.0 and 3.3.0 is now available.

I'm usually loathe to update the BIOS arbitrarily but will do so when I get a chance although I very much doubt it will change anything as others here have already reported the issue persists with this version.

Incidentally I have read here (from yourself perhaps) that the 3.3.0 update solved an issue with BIOS performance settings not saving correctly.  FWIW, I'm on 3.2.0 and the change to the boost setting has stuck fine so perhaps this was actually fixed in 3.2.0.

Whilst Dell are obviously communicating with me, it's concerning that they appear to be just treating it as an isolated incident and going through the usual recommendations of updating BIOS/drivers/etc and refusing to acknowledge that this is a general problem being experienced by many.

@DELL-Jesse L 

Hi!

Sorry for bothering you directly, but I noticed you picked the solution so I figured you might have some better insight into the matter than others.

Do you happen to know if by using a more powerful charger, like a 65W or perhaps an even more powerful 130W, we can avoid the blinking light problem?

You know, the hybrid power solution (as your colleague told us), cpu draws power from both the AC adapter and the battery, so it also charges it a little (several seconds, as I reported in this thread with a video); do you think the higher amperage would solve our problem? My guess is that the 45W charger the 9310 comes with has not enough power for a system running at full throttle, as when the TurboBoost is active, so maybe a bigger charger would help?

Should I get a Dell 130W USB-C charger? Or the system isn't designed to draw more than the 2.25A that the 45W charger supplies?

Hi Jesse L,

Thanks for answering.

Yes I understand that it is working as design, it is exactly the design I am concerned about. If you look at my video here, you can see the battery is charged 30 times in less than 5 minutes, and the charge burst can last for several seconds (for example, at the very beginning of the video you can see the 2nd charge lasting 12 seconds). This can't be good for the battery. If you do the maths, it's a huge amount of charges per day. At the end of the day, you'll find the battery is even up a few %. So unless you disable TurboBoost, battery's health will degrade just as bad as if you didn't use any precaution... Then what is the point in lowering charging thresholds or using "primarily AC adapter" settings? And how are we supposed to know this? It is not advised anywhere.

I have searched the web for other Dell laptops showing the same behaviour, and I couldn't find any. So this model seems to be the only one affected. The 9310 2in1 version used to have the same behaviour and it was later changed, no more blinking light when TurboBoost is on. So I am wondering, if it was deemed bad for the 2in1, how can it be acceptable for the regular/clamshell version?

Hi @DELL-Jesse L 

sorry to bother you again, just please bear with me for one last time, as I probably failed in conveying my message, so I would like to try and make my point on more time.

1. Blinking light: it is not about the light itself, it’s about what the led stands for. Which, as you can clearly see from my video here, means the battery is being charged. Look at the video, when the led is on, Dell Power Management app clearly shows the battery is being charged, and for how long. The second charge for example lasts 12 seconds. The battery is being charged for however long TurboBoost is on, whenever it activates. Hundreds of times per hour.
2. I appreciate what Dell hybrid power does, I’m aware other OEMs employ similar solutions on Intel systems, but I’m asking can it be somewhat modified so it doesn’t charge the battery as well in the process? Because charging a battery thousands of times a day doesn’t sound like a good plan. I want to know that I can rely on my battery when I’m away from home. Is it technically feasible? It’s been done on the 9310 2in1, hasn’t it? Why only the 9310 has dozens of threads on the web of people complaining about this behaviour?

Could we get a definitive answer from someone from the technical/development team? Keep the light blinking, just don’t charge the battery in the process because it would eventually prematurely wear it out. Or is it normal for them to have a battery charging thousands of times a day?

Could you forward this message to someone who works on this model’s development? Is it too much of an ask? Support team hasn’t been able to help me on this, language barrier probably had some factor in that. A lot of us would appreciate it, I can send you a long list of users from this very message board.

Thank you so much for your patience.

Ok.

So just to clarify this once and for all, they don't care if the battery gets charged in the process? Thousands of times a day? They know this, right? They are absolutely fine with it?

Hi @DELL-Jesse L 

Would you be so kind and make sure they DID understand that our concern is about the battery and not a led light?

Just to receive a definitive answer, some of us have been waiting for months in the false belief this problem would be fixed.

Ask them if they are aware of the ACTUAL thousand times the battery is being burst charged in a day, that these burst charges can last even dozens of seconds each. Show them the video on YouTube if necessary, it’s quite plain, every time the light blinks (symptom) the battery is under charge (problem).

This can’t be okay for the battery, design or not. But I want to read their opinion about it. With no evasion this time, we don´t care about the light, it’s not about cosmetics, it’s about the battery being under constant strain.

Please understand I have no quarrel with you DELL-Jesse L, but I have no other way to reach your engineering team, and whenever I manage to get in touch with them the answer is always extremely evasive. It’s a waste of time, and it’s inconsiderate to us.

Thanks in advance.

Hey Tatolino,

I have spoken with the Level 3 engineer and he has again informed our product group.  He is currently waiting on information from the product team.  Once I hear back from him I will post the information here on this thread.