i've purchased 5401 i5 version - the laptop works fine when connected to power. I can control the modes and make in quiet and slow or noisy and fast. But not on battery - as soon as my cable is disconnected laptop ignores the OS settings and forces to quet low speed mode. The only way to make it usable again is to plug the cable.
Latest bios installed, tried resetting to factory and bios defaults etc.
Same behavior in Windows and Ubuntu (pre-installed) - so looks like it is BIOS bug...
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As per the diagnosis, we've identified that the system hardware is working fine. For the issue to be resolved, as we have limited support for Ubuntu Operating system, you may check on the open source platform
Hardware does not give errors - but it works terrible. When disconnecting the battery it works OK almost until 70-75% of capacity and then dramatically slows down. No overheat or errors - but it becomes unsable, like I do not have 10Gen anymore but returned to the era of Pentium II. Even if I reboot , even reboot different OS - no matter Windows, pre-installed Ubuntu or some live-usb - it continues to run slow. Until I plug the cable in. Or - charge battery almost to 100%.
As I do not have any error message - it does not overheat, does not report any issue - seems that it is a feature that Dell implemented intentionally. And it is not in OS - I boot several OS's with the same results. SO it is either hardware or BIOS (my BIOS is latest) - and for me it makes absolutely unusable as I use laptop most on battery. I still hope for some fixes in BIOS but looks like i need new PC.
Looks like it is not a feature but a bug. FInally i set up several runs on Ubintu with Unigine tropics benchmark loading GPU. The test run was simple - charge 100%, run benchmark, unplug power.
Then the rhings go weird. Up to 75% of battery it runs full speed as set by ubuntu. But on 75% speed drops about 4 times, CPU get 400-500Mhz, Gpu 150-300 ( even below the minimum 300 set by OS). Barely moving. And this goes till 45% of battery when - unbelievable - the speed returns back, CPU and GPU come to the normal frequencies and things continue fine. Maybe there are some more magical numbers back and forth but after 40% I plugged the power in, charged to 100% and the cycle of 75-45 was repeated again.
So hopefully in the next releases of BIOS this buggy 75-45 region will be fixed
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Posted November 18th, 2020 13:00
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