M15x on battery results in slow performance issue

NOTE FROM MOD:

Please see this post from Alienware -
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...lts-slow-performance-issue-9.html#post6550680
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Ever since I bought my M15x in January I've been extremely upset with it's performance on battery.

Even with just web browsing the machine felt like it was 8 years old. I just thought it was the SSD doing something strange, since I was new to SSDs.

After trying everything to resolve the issue (SSD tweaks, bios, etc...) I just gave up and thought this laptop would only be an on power laptop for me. I even recently thought about putting in a 7200rpm drive and dumping the SSD.

Finally I looked over all the Windows power management options for a 100th time and made sure everything on battery and on power were set the same, ofcourse they were.

I went into bios one last time and disabled SpeedStep and restarted the machine... and what do you know... the laptop now runs amazing on battery... Intel really???

Not only does the machine feel like a new laptop running on battery, but battery life went from 1hr 5min with SpeedStep enabled to 1hr 21min with SpeedStep disabled...

Isn't the whole point of SpeedStep to increase battery life?!?!

Just thought I'd post this if anyone else was having this issue

SPECS:
Alienware M15x Special Edition – Nebula Red
Intel® Core™ i7-720QM Quad Core Processor 1.6GHz (2.8GHz Turbo Mode, 6MB Cache)
6GB DDR3 at 1333MHz
15.6-inch WideFHD 1920x1080 (1080p) WLED
1GB NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 260M
256GB Solid State Drive

 

Gonna try this RIGHT NOW! Haha, let's see how it goes

 

Does turbo boost still work? I would like to disable step speed, but I need turbo boost.

 

Turbo boost still works and so far I believe this totally fixes the slow performance on battery problem! +rep!

 

Glad it helped guys... it was really driving me nuts.

My wife's XPS just went out, so I'm ordering her a Studio 15... be interesting to see if it has the same issue with SpeedStep

 

The studio 15 my dad has doesn't have the same issues with SpeedStep if that helps at all.

 

Sounds good

If it does, at least I'll know where to look now... was driving me nuts, I hardly use the M15x though, so for you guys that use it a lot, hope it helped

 

This seems very random, like it only occured to a few buyers.

How can you know if this is "happening" to you, or i wont be in doubt if it is?

Still havent recieved my M15X !!

 

have you tried using throttle stop? could solve your problem without disabling speed step.

 

You'll know

It's night and day difference, I'm not being dramatic. Before I disabled Speedstep it was even unpleasant to even do very light web browsing.

 

I turned off step speed and the Intel turbo speed utility reported that turbo was not enabled, (I thought this was the case). I think that the same logic that underclocks the cpu is used to overclock it. I will do some more research, but at this time I have turned stepspeed back on as turbo is extremely important for the quad chip preformance.

 

Crap... I just tried to install the turbo boost monitor and it told me I need a computer with turbo boost. I think Markoxford is right on this one.

 

Lol back to the drawing board

 

Question about turbo boost...

How often and under what situations does it come on? I have an AW i7 based desktop as well and haven't seen the cpu go into turbo boost mode while running anything using Intel's monitor.

Don't game on either the pc or M15x... mostly development work

NM: it's going nuts now

 

Must be some way of keeping turbo boost with disabled speedstep... esp. since turbo boost is still enabled in the bios!

 

Weird issue offshore... I wonder if this is something with the Dell 256GB SSD or if its an issue with the 15x. Yours is the Dell drive correct? I don't have an SSD drive in my 17x and obviously they are two different systems - the issue you describe with performance under battery does sound frustrating.

Is this common with the 15x?

 

Nope, on battery all I do is browse the web and I have no issues with either my Mushkin or OCZ SSD

 

It's definitely not isolated to SSDs because I do not have one.

 

Well, perhaps its just the dell SSD then - thanks for the confirmation Drake.

EDIT:

Ahhh... so Zswickliffe, you dont even have an SSD?? Now this does sound bad if its an issue under DC across the board.

 

Pretty sure it's something to do with the cpu... who knows

 

Have you ever run a ThrottleStop log file while on battery power? Just download the program in my sig and leave it in monitoring mode and then use your laptop like you normally would. Check off the Log File option and it will keep track of exactly what your CPU is up to while on battery power. Upload a log file to MediaFire or similar and post a link here so I can have a look.

Lots of laptops have issues with the multiplier getting locked so your CPU gets stuck at the slowest speed or other problems that make performance even worse than that. The log file should be able to show you if this is the problem or if it is something else.

 

I'll try it tonight when I go downstairs and mess around with it

 

I'm in the process of doing it right now. I am also creating a log of my GPU with GPU-Z. Thanks a bunch for all your help!

EDIT:
Here ya go, attached are my log files and it seems as though my CPU is just fine. In fact, I think it is my GPU that is causing me all the problems. The more I think about it, I only experience stuttering visual effects and low fps videos, not slow performance by my CPU. When I try to set the clock to a certain amount on battery, it crashes. I'm assuming this is because the BIOS gives the GPU less power on battery, making it unstable at clocks over 500MHz. This doesn't make sense, though. Almost any computers, including netbooks, can play videos and such on battery flawlessly. Why limit such a powerful computer to the point where it can't even play a standard definition video?

 

Pretty easy to see in the log file what the problem is Zswickliffe.

Do you see the CHIPM column? That stands for chipset clock modulation which shows that the bios is telling the chipset to tell the CPU to slow down internally. The CPU multiplier does not accurately tell you how fast your CPU is running when this happens.

Think of clock modulation like a city repair crew. You may have 8 men working on the job but the crew doesn't accomplish nearly as much when 6 or 7 of them are sitting on their shovel and staring off into space. That's what your CPU is doing.

There is a whole column with readings of 37.5% and 25.0%. That column is supposed to always be 100% unless your heatsink has fallen off of your CPU. That hasn't happened because your temperatures are fine. A reading of 25% means that internally your CPU is being told to spend 75% of its time in an idle state and to only work the other 25% of the time. This kills performance and makes your whole computer choppy and miserable to use. A CPU that Intel has designed to run at 1600 MHz will be performing very similar to a CPU running at 400 MHz. That's why your laptop feels so sluggish even when trying to do something simple like surf the net.

It's a sign of a bios that has a major problem. I'm not sure what Dell is thinking but problems like this are throughout their laptop line up. You might as well grab a 10 year old laptop from your closet when this is happening.

 

Awesome! Guess we'll just wait for a bios rev to come out with no help

Do you know of any other possible ways around this? Something in windows that will keep speedstep away from killing performance?

Zswickliffe - Can you try the same test with Speedstep turned off?

Does Alienware still have decent support is it is purely through Dell now? I'm on my 3rd AW laptop and bought a desktop as well, when I contacted AW directly with my first laptop they were very helpful... not looking forward to reaching "Bob" from Dell.

 

There is absolutely nothing wrong with SpeedStep. It is necessary for the correct operation of turbo boost in the Intel Core i CPUs. It needs to be enabled and it works correctly.

Clock modulation has nothing to do with SpeedStep. It is chipset clock modulation that is killing performance. I'm not sure how Dell has gotten away with this for so many months without more users complaining about this serious problem.

It would be a good idea to change the title of this thread. More serious problems have been found but nothing has been fixed.

 

Any idea why when you disable Speedstep the machine runs just fine on battery (minus turboboost not running)?

Also - Zswickliffe do you have A06 Bios?

 

I understand what you're saying, but I don't understand why it's doing it. Is it because of a poorly designed bios? Or is it because the processor tones itself down whenever it's on battery to save power? Is this on purpose or is this an accident?

I do have A06 BIOS

 

Oh and what do you think about my GPU log? Is it supposed to clock back like that?

EDIT:

Just tested running ThrottleStop while I was on battery. I watched a video and the same thing is happening, so I'm going to upload a video of what is going on. As you will see, for the first 8 seconds, it's clear. Then I pulled the the A/C adapter out and it instantly starts stuttering. Sorry for the horrible quality, but you get the point.

Free File Hosting Made Simple - MediaFire

 

Great I have A05

I think he's saying that on a better design bios we wouldn't be running into this issue... I don't even know if it's worth bothering Dell on this... I seriously doubt we'd get anywhere with hours of being on the phone...

 

Just uploaded a video and edited my post, see previous post for details.

 

Sometimes when you disable SpeedStep, the CPU gets locked at the lowest multiplier. If you reduced power consumption by doing this then maybe chipset clock modulation doesn't get triggered when you switch to battery power. You'll have to do some testing with ThrottleStop to find out what's going on.

Dell likes complacent customers like that. Customers that never complain are just the kind of people that Dell dreams about. They can sell whatever garbage they want, consumers buy it and no one complains even when it runs like a 10 year old piece of crap. With consumers like that, I can understand why there are major problems like this almost a year after the M15x was first released.

If you bought a performance car with a V8 engine and got it home and discovered it was only running on two cylinders, would you put up with that? There's no reason for any properly designed laptop to be using any type of clock modulation and running the CPU at only 25% of its rated performance.

 

Upgraded to BIOS A06 and also installed the newest version of command center.

The newest command center listed a fix as improved power management.

After the bios and command center install, I opened command center and made sure all my power management options were mirrored for on and off power for all 3 plans...

What do you know it's running great now with speedstep and turbo boost enabled on ac and on battery as well

Zswickliffe - Can you try this as well and make sure minimum processor is set to 100% and let me know what happens

 

I do have my settings set to high performance and a minimum of 100%. Did anyone watch the video?

 

Webb,

I have to ask since you wrote Throttlestop and know it better than anyone else... I looked at his TS Log he posted and while I do see the change in the CHIPM column, his CKMOD column remains at 100 for the entire log. Doesn't this indicate the modulation is not changing? Take another look...

http://forum.notebookreview.com/att...-performance-issue-ssd-i7-throttlestoplog.zip

I wonder if the GPU driver is playing a factor in this... wick, which NV driver are you running?

 

Questions from engineering -

1. Are they streaming a video on battery?
2. Are they just surfing the web on battery?
3. Are they trying to game play on battery?
4. Are they playing online games on battery?
a. If so, provide a list.
5. Any specific sites this issue is seen on?
a. Provide a list of examples

 

1. Are they streaming a video on battery? - Watching a Hulu video, so yes?
2. Are they just surfing the web on battery? - Yes
3. Are they trying to game play on battery? - No
4. Are they playing online games on battery? - No
a. If so, provide a list. - N/A
5. Any specific sites this issue is seen on? - Every site that hosts videos, i.e. Youtube, Hulu, Break, etc.

 

Zswickliffe,

I cannot find the link to your video showing the issue? I am at home and cannot find the email.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...w-performance-issue-ssd-i7-3.html#post6499156

Let me know if there are any problems!

 

I am not sure how to read it so you are going to have to wait for Unclewebb, and I am using CCC 10.6 drivers for my 5850. Would you mind doing me a favor BatBoy? Would you mind changing the title of this thread so that people experiencing this issue will know not only not to do the "fix" listed in the first post but they will also know that it is not fixed? And I also ask the original poster to please edit his first post so that it does not steer people in the wrong direction.

 

Changing title now... title changed to: M15x on battery results in slow performance issue

Thanks for posting the driver info - i'm sure it will help them (AW folks) troubleshoot. I will keep an eye on the thread - if I think of anything, will post.

 

Thank you very much! I know I'm not the only one that experiences slow performance as soon as the computer is on D/C power. At one point I remember reading someone (maybe mandrake) say that with a more powerful processor and the 6-cell battery you may experience lockups and poor performance.

EDIT: Here is where I saw it;
http://forum.notebookreview.com/com...ware-m15x-9-cell-battery-new.html#post6437533

 

Nevermind, see the data in your post.

 

SSD drive installed? - No
ATI Mobility Radeon 5850 and Catalyst Control Center version 10.6

Did you watch the video? Is it clear enough or do I have to make a longer one?

 

It's clear enough, thanks.

 

Just in case you were going to troubleshoot by having me reinstall CCC, I just did and no dice. My display driver started crashing more frequently yesterday, so I uninstalled CCC and the driver, ran CCCleaner, then reinstalled the driver and CCC with no improvement. *runs out of ideas* It now crashes every time a few minutes into playing Crysis. The GPU isn't even being worked yet and it's already crashing. So frustrating.

 

My M15X runs like crap on battery. Stuttering video, choppy performance and all around inconsistent behavior. Sadly I've lacked the motivation to track down what could be the cause. I'm still using an old BIOS, so if I upgrade I'll let you know what I see.

 

Please post all requested information that I have posted on this page and the last. We are trying to get to the bottom of this.

 

Juason, as wick mentioned, I think the folks @ AW are looking for more details - see Chris's post on the previous page. Specifically,

Also, you might want to include your 15x's specs - CPU, GPU, HDD, RAM and the display driver ver you are using.

 

Hey Chris it's just over all performance for everyday use on battery.

Using Win 7 Ult 64 w/ IE 8 a few days ago I was on Dell's site ordering my wife a new Studio 15 and the pages where you configure the laptop were extremely slow... probably took me 3x as long to order the laptop then it would have if the M15x was plugged in.

After installing A06 and the new command center, and putting every option for power management to full performance, the laptop is running better on battery, not great but better.

Specs:
1 Alienware M15x Special Edition – Nebula Red
1 Intel® Core™ i7-720QM Quad Core Processor 1.6GHz (2.8GHz Turbo Mode, 6MB Cache)
1 6GB DDR3 at 1333MHz
1 15.6-inch WideFHD 1920x1080 (1080p) WLED
1 1GB NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 260M
1 256GB Solid State Drive (Samsung)