M4400 Throttles while on Battery?

I was running some tests today see how many watts was being pulled from the batter while at full load on my M4400 laptop after installing RM Utility. But found something I never noticed or did not happen before.

When set to max performance 100% CPU speed all the time, the systems keep the processor at 100%. As soon as you apply load while on battery it shoots down to 39% of full processor speed and then hops up and down. You can even see it in the temps while running tests, the processor is definitely not running at full speed. I swear I remember doing this same test a little while ago with no problems but I could be wrong.

So can I not run the systems at full capacity while battery power??

I was on A15 trying this test and downgraded to a14 with some results

Works fine and dandy while on AC

 

I haven't done any sort of tests, but I last night when I was watching a 480p Hulu video it would freeze up. I was on battery. I checked the Reliability and Performance Monitor and the Maximum Frequency for the CPU was jumping between 50% and 80%. Also, checking the Event Viewer I noticed there was an event ID of 7, which is the processor throttling.

It was really strange, because I watched a 480p Hulu video of a different show later and it worked fine.

Also, this is on the laptop in my signature, E6500 (basically the same as the M4400).

 

Interesting. Perhaps Dell are trying to conserve the battery life by reducing the potential maximum power drain.

It should be possible to use RMclock to over-ride the throttling. You need to create a power profile and then select 100% throttling (which means no throttling).

John

 

Hmm yah I'm not super thrilled about it. When I look at how much power is being consumed while this is all happening I never see the it go over about 52 watt (52000mw). I talked to precision support and didn't really have much to say.

 

Any chance anyone else was able to try running a quick test? I am more interested to know because I am considering a format and fresh install.