XPS M1730 owners - problems with machine running on battery

I recently purchased the following machine

Dell XPS M1730
2.4 Ghz CPU
2 GB RAM
Sli 8700M GT
Vista 32 Bit

I have noticed that the performance of the laptop is extremely poor when running from battery.

Whilst on power the machine scores around 8000 using 3dmark 06
Whilst running on battery the machines scores less than 1300
Both of the above were running the standard 3dmark settings

I have set the battery power setting to as high performance which is as they will possibly go

Dell have sent a replacement machine which has the same problems, they have failed to run the tests on any of the machines they have despite promising they would do so !!

Please can you try this on your XPS M1730 and let me know the results as I am now tired of waiting for Dell to come back to me as I do feel that there is a fundamental problem with these systems.

I have only installed MacAfee Enterprise on the standard build along with 3D Mark 06.

If 3dmark is ran on power and the power connection is removed during any of the tests - the difference is immediately noticeable

Also

Ageia demos (cloth) from the control panel also crashes the machine if ran on batteries. Plus I have encountered random crashes when running from batteries including loading Windows Media centre.

I do not see the point of having a powerful laptop if it does not perform when running from battery. If the problem was software related then the system should show the same results when running from battery or power?

If anyone can help I would greatly appreciate it.

 

Oh good! So I'm not the only one with this problem?

I've got general instability when running on batteries. DIVX files not playing properly, applications just not responding...etc...

 

my computer also runs like crap on the battery...

 

..guys, I'm not trying to laugh at you, but don't you find it funny that a high-end NOTEBOOK from Dell runs like crap on the battery? sure, its DTR but it still is a notebook..

..i take it as a joke from Dell's engineering department

 

I guessed they assumed that the reason why you buy a laptop is that it's easier to carry it to another place where you have AC power...

Too late for a refund? lol

 

I am currently working with Dell escalations, it has been weeks now but nobody at Dell has bothered to test this for themselves

I see this issue as a very big one as the machine is simply not fit for purpose. Dell have not said anything about the machine running slow on batteries - if they had then I would not have purchase it.

With the new 8800M being relase on Monday the 19th (this week) - I think it might be best to get a refund and then wait until the 8800 is out from Alienware or maybe Dell if I can trust them again

All these machines will be under warranty so if Dell fail to fix the problem in a reasonable time then they will have to provide refunds !!

 

I get the feeling the Alienware machines will be the same. This system is using components that require a lot of power. If the machine ran at full whack on battery then it would last about 5 mins.

I'm not trying to be negetive but I was under the impression that it was a gaming laptop, easy to transport and should always be run from power with the exception of picking up emails and other light tasks from battery.

 

That would be fine if Dell made the buyer aware of this.
I owned an XPS M170 before and that had no problem running from battery so I expected the M1730 to work the same

 

Yeah, you're right. If performance is an issue then Dell should mention this in their sales documentation.

 

UPDATE

I have been speaking to Dell about these problems, a chap from escalations has contacted me a number of times giving me updates. Nothing has really happened as yet but I have been asked to send the first unit back on Monday. The machine will be shipped back to XPS support in Ireland and will be tested. As soon as I know more I will post it here.

If anyone else is having the same problems please post your comments here


Thanks


Breadloaf

 

I know this may seem like a REAL dumb thought but it hasn't been mentioned. Has anyone checked to ensure the mode the system is running in on battery? If it defaults back to power saver vice high performance...that, in itself, would account for all.

 

Good point but I have tested the machine using High Performance when on battery, the setting does not change before or after re-running 3DMark06

 

I'm not really running it on battery but when I have it's not been too bad... saying that though I've not tried to run games etc.

 

Hope this will be helpful

This machine was an upgrade from my previous m1710 Which had many many problems. My m1710 had bad battery life but ran very well and didn't lag when on battery.

My m1730 IS 100% The opposite, I notice a HUGE lag, When unplugging the system, 5-10 seconds of 10fps then it jumps back to about 30-40 when it was at about 100. I have disabled all advanced power saving setttings, I have talked to a dell rep about it and it is getting quite frustrating.

I 100% agree that they system should run just as fast on battery as it does plugged in. Even if the battery life is only 20 minutes.
If this was not how the system were designed to be used then dell should note be including batteries with the systems, Seeming as they would obviously not meant to be used in any situation without being plugged in. And definitley should not be selling extra batteries.

the XPS line are dubbed "portables" because dell makes it semi-clear that they are not meant to be put on your lap, because the vents are on the bottom. I was only informed of this after my m1710 Shocked the **** out of my legs, and i called in to xps support, Needless to say a while of being on the phone i had a new, upgraded m1710 That had an overclockable processor, etc.

After having many of the same problems i had with the original laptop (minus the electric shocks and exploding motherboard capacitors.) They finally agreed to switch it out for this (m1730, 2gb, 200gb, bt, wifi n, 2.4).

Yeah 800mhz fsb, yeah its all black, yeah 3 headphone ports, yup Dual link DVI, hdmi to dvi cable, light up blue wings, it looks absolutely amazing. But its as if dell completely forgot to go over the list of issues that they have had with the m1710 and m170. I have experiences alot of the original issues i had on my m1710 with the new system, Screen flicker, Light FX visualizer Audio crackle, BSODs, LED configuration Randomly changes, Battery meter is about 5-10%~ off making the system power off (Like the battery was removed) when it thought it had 10% battery. ALOT of problems

What ever happened to companies that waited until both software and hardware was ready before releasing it? They Might as well Slap a big BETA sticker on the m1730 page.

I dont know maybe 230w is just too much to have streaming from a battery, If this is the case, THEN THERE SHOULD BE 2 BATTERY BAYS! Im sure people who are OK with carrying a 10lb laptop would be fine with an 11lb laptop if it actually worked on battery.

 

ivealwaysgotmail: what's happening now then? To be honest I get the feeling every 1730 will be like this. Are Dell doing anything about it or what?

To be honest I don't run off battery but if it's supposed to work fine off battery and it doesn't then I want them to change it for a new machine!!

If the machine had a couple of 8800GTX's in then it would be perfect for me but for the cost and trouble people seem to be having, I may have to contact Dell and get my money back or at least them to change it and see whether the new one is any better!

 

I can confirm that an Alienware 9750 with dual 7950 GTXs also drops in performance when running on battery. With power saving even on max, I only get about an hours worth of battery life. For me, as long as it works right plugged in, and I can do minor stuff like surf the web and open work documents on battery, I don't mind. But I think it's overkill and unreasonable to think I'll be getting max performance in games on that one hour of battery life.

 

Well, that makes me feel better now!

As I say I didn't really have a problem, I was concerned that other machines were fine and mine was broken... as it's not, there is no issue

 

UPDATE

Dell will not even confrim that there is a problem with the XPS M1730 even though they are looking into the issue ? I have even sent one of the machines back to XPS Support and showed the Sale Rep the problem but they still do not want to admit anything.

Personally - Feel extremely let down by Dell as nobody wants to take responsibility for the problem. The machines runs at less than 30% of it's power when running from battery, and it crashes all the time when running from battery anyhow. This machine is not fit for purpose and should not be sold unless they explain these problems before the purchase.

Games often say that the experience may change during online play, this is simliar in that the machine does not work for the intended purpose whilst on battery ?

I am appalled that Dell are still selling these machines knowing these faults as I was told by one of the Support chaps that if a fault like this was found then Dell will stop production. The chap I am now in contact with has said that this would not have been said but it was said ?

Fact is the chap I am speaking to now has been very helpful and has said that they should have something concrete in 2-3 weeks ?

eerrrrrm - for a problem they say is not confirmed ? strange.


I also find it interesting that Alienware systems have the same problem, Dell own Alienware so I am not surprised ?

 

To be honest, I don't even see this as an issue. Why would I play a game I'm into on battery knowing full well that my laptop will shutdown in under an hour? This is really the trade off when you want extreme performance vs something mid-level like a vostro or a mac book pro. Hell, ALL high end laptops only give an hour of battery life doing basic stuff like surfing the web and you want to try to do more on battery? You can check for yourself: Asus c90, Sager 9261, Alienware 9750, etc all perform poorly on battery life just surfing the web. If a powerhouse laptop were to run at full power in a game you're playing, just how quickly do you think that battery would drain? 30 minutes? 15 minutes? Hell, is it even physically okay for a battery to drain that quickly? I highly doubt it. I'm reasonably sure these notebook makers prevent the battery from draining too quickly by limiting the output in hardware.

Also, this is an SLi laptop. Have you seen the minimum power requirements needed on desktops to run Sli? The power supplies are headed to over 1000W if you just want your system to run stable in Sli. Running on anything less than 700W could induce instability (graphical artifacts, crashing, etc) to your system. It's not too far fetched that our SLi laptops also have similar power limitations.

I purchased a high end gaming laptop knowing not to expect much in terms of battery life and consider it mainly as a portable convenience and not much more.

 

Well said Grey!

The battery is a backup power supply in times of power failure, this gives you time to save and shut down etc.

I think the M1730 does a great job lasting the hour seeing as though it requires almost twice the power of it's predecessor. And SLI is a very valid point as well and cannot be ignored.

In the end you have to ask yourself, "do I have an expectation that this notebook will last 2 hours?" If the answer is yes, then get a piss weak 14" laptop with onboard video otherwise stop complaining.

 

Grey728,

I would agree if Dell mentioned this when the laptop was purchased, the fact that it is sold as mobile gaming supremacy is mis-leading to say the least. I also had a Dell XPS M170 before and that ran fine when on battery so I had no reason the think that this machine would be any different nor does anyone else who has purchased one of these machines !! However I did used my old machine to play the odd game for an hour and I would have liked to know that this was not possible on this machine so Dell should explain this. Games often say that performance may not be the same when playing online which is fine as they have told you before hand. Dell however do not even want to admit there is a problem here and so far I have been told that this should not happen (by XPS support) so as far as Dell are concerned the machine should run with full performance even when on battery ?

As I have said before, the machine is not even stable when running from battery and does not even allow playing a dvd or media centre movie without stuttering and or crashing. Surely this is not too much to ask from such a Notebook. Crashes are random when running on battery but the machine does seem stable on power.

If it were just the performance issue when on battery I could live with that but I cannot live with it crashing all the time.

Also - The power consumption of Sli for M type GPU's is much less than desktop Sli configs and the two should not be compared. The Dell Power supply only outputs 230W so it's much much less than a desktop machine as my 8800GTX Sli desktop currently runs a 900W PSU !!

 

That's right but don't you think it's an amazing feat as well to run SLI on 230W? Also, for example, if you played for an hour on your 1710 with a 130W requirement then it would be logical to say that you'd only get 30-40min on a 230W requirement. Maybe the extra strain on the battery might be the cause of your instabilities.

Now I'm not saying it wouldn't be great to play games off the battery just like it was plugged in (because it would) but when I read the line "mobile gaming" I interpreted this differently to you. I took the meaning that I could easily take the notebook to a friends place or work etc without having to lug half my study.

In hind sight, maybe when you purchased your notebook you should have asked your sales rep this before making the purchase, I did.

 

I do understand your point but Dell should be letting people know if there is performance loss when running from battery.

The machine also is unstable when running from battery so does this mean I have to disable Sli evertime I want to surf the web for 10 mins using battery. The machine is not just for playing games as I will use it on battery for other things, as I have said before I could put up with the performance loss but not if the machine is crashing all the time. I do not think I have used it for 20 mins without a problem when on battery as this is the second machine I have had.

There is currently a chap working on this issue within Dell so if there is not a problem why are they looking into it ?

To add to this XPS support were not aware of any issues and said that the machine should run fine !!

I have worked in the IT industry for 20 years and now work for a major software house - I think it is more than reasonable to ask that Dell either accept there is a performance loss and let people know before they purchase.

The customer should not have to ask a list of questions before they buy as many people would not even know what to ask. This is a flagship machine and it should be able to run from battery without crashing at the very least.

I am currently testing the latitude 830 for work, there are no problems when running that on battery and it has a faster CPU than my XPS - I know Sli takes a lot of power but the fact remains that Dell should admit there is a problem and address it on the website or the machines should work.

 

You have to understand that this is the first Sli notebook that Dell has ever produced. I'm on a second Gen Sli notebook from Alienware and still all the kinks aren't worked out. The biggest concern most gamers have is largely driver support in which the entire industry has yet to acknowledge as it's VERY customary for the industry to come out with one driver only and call it a day while they work on the next big thing.

I still feel the power consumption comparrison between desktop Sli and Notebook Sli still holds merit. I've used an Sli desktop that really didn't meet the power requirements it needed and ran into the same instabilities you're having. The point I'm trying to make is that the battery CANNOT physically handle the output you're asking for. If Dell allowed it to pull the power it needed to run your system at max capacity, I'm sure you're battery would explode.

If you can't do basic things like watch a movie or surf the web or look through your work files or photo's, then yeah, it's Dell's fault and they should have checked to make sure even basic stuff could work properly. I know that when I'm using my system on battery, I can still game, but it's like I'm using one Graphics card in power save mode. It's not pretty, it's sluggish, but it doesn't crash like how you say your 1730 does. I believe your system crashing on battery is due to some components in your system not meeting it's minimum power requirements and failing.

Sli in notebooks have only been around for 1 and a half years. There's still a lot of improvements that need to be made and issues addressed. Over time, I'm sure the technology will mature enough that these issues will be resolved, but not in this generation of notebooks.

If you want Dell to tell you their top of the line gaming rigs don't work well, it's like asking a car salesman what the cons are on a car they're trying to sell you. It's just not going to happen. That's what research is for, reviews, and forums like these. Most of the time, it doesn't pay to be an initial buyer. I waited a 6 months before buying my Alienware 9750 to see if anyone had issues with overheating and other things. Of course, the negative of waiting too long is that the next model laptop is right around the corner, but that's another problem.

 

i cannot believe this thread went three pages with posters "calling Dell up and demanding replacements".

everything on a notebook computer clocks down when on battery... the cpu, the gpu, usb ports, wifi, nic, modem, etc etc.

there was never anything wrong with your system and a user experiencing a significant performance drop going from a/c to d/c is 100% normal. it's the same reason your screen dims by default when you switch.

if you are not experiencing a drop in performance, all that means is that all your components are now set to operate at full capacity regardless of power supply.

again, your computer is supposed to take a performance hit when on battery.

 

By default, yes, but on high performance mode, it's supposed to run at full speed.

I think the battery is the issue. You're trying to power three hard drives, two GPU's, and in some cases a 44W Extreme processor (some of those overclocked) all off of the battery. Not to mention a rather large screen. It just can't supply that much power. With such huge 3dmark drops, it sounds like it's giving priority to the hard drives and CPU, rather than the GPU, and the result is horrific GPU performance. Maybe if you could switch hard drives 2 and 3 off, the 3dmark scores would improve.

I haven't noticed any performance drop while on battery from my 1520, including while gaming and stressing both the CPU and GPU at once, but it only uses 90W of power maximum. That's a lot less than 230W, and if the battery uses the same basic design, I don't think it's too hard to see why 230 W would be too much when 90 W or even 130 (1710) would not be.

 

I do agree with you chaps about the amount of power being drawn from the battery but I think your missing my point here along with others that have commented. The original post was asking people to test their machines as I wanted to make sure that this was not my system alone.

Dell should make this clear when the machines are purchased !!
If you are happy running the machine on power all the time then great I would play games on power most of the time anyhow. I just think that Dell and Alienware should do more to let their customers know about the performance decrease on battery and they should certainly not tell you that it should work OK when you ring technical support if the machine is known not to run a full performance when on battery. Have the machines been tested at all with this an if so why are XPS technical support unaware ?

I would expect 50% of the performance to come through on battery using the theory from Apollo13 as 230W at 50% is less power than an M170. I get less than 30% though Not only that the machine is also unstable - I also asked people to test this in my original post !!

Bottom line if your happy with your laptop then great, if not Dell have to give you a refund as they have not made it clear and that means that the machine is not fit for the purposed purpose as a machine running at less than a third of it's performance is not much use on battery at all.

Please don't forget that I have some pretty close ties to Dell for my work and they are working with me to sort something out but even they have said that the machine should work with full performance when on battery.

It's great for all us techy people but there are people (with too much money) who will buy these machines expecting more and they are not getting a good service from Dell now are they ?

 

Ok, to address the topic I just played Crysis on and off the battery.

Mains power @ medium quality with textures and physics on very high (not hardware), 1280x800 no FSAA, getting 35-50fps.

On battery @ medium quality with textures and physics on very high (not hardware), 1280x800 no FSAA, getting 30-45fps. However, I only get 20 minutes before the system decides to hibernate.

If I change the power settings to anything but performance the system barely functions though (maybe this is the problem). For me this conclusively confirms that you can run games on the battery and maintain a good frame rate (even if it is only for a few minutes). :wink:

 

Mr Bubbles, thank you very much for taking the time to run these tests, my machine gets nowhere near that level of performance so it's intesting to hear your results. The machine I have has a Physx card in it and crashes on battery every time the Physx demos are ran.

Please can you answer the following questions :-

Does your machine have a physx card ? it's not mentioned on your spec - please can you confirm

What power management settings are you running as I set my machine on High performance.

Thanks, I appreciate your time

I thought that it might have been a physx card problem right from the start so maybe we are getting somewhere. I can also go back and update Dell with your findings.

It might also shed some light on why the machine is so unstable when running on battery if there is a problem with the physx cards then it would makes sense (as long as your machine does not have one.

 

Hey breadloaf,

No I do not have the Physx card. And yes, I would definately say that is the issue. I did a bit of research before I bought mine and decided the card was more trouble than it was worth, they said even though the card calculates the objects on the screen the GPU still has to render them, thus reducing FPS! So I thought bugger this I would rather less objects on the screen and have a higher FPS.

Does anyone know how much power the Physx card use?

 

*** UPDATE ***

OK, I have continued to work closely with Dell and although I cannot name the chap I have been speaking to I would like to thank him for all his help and effort with this problem.

It is looking increasing like a problem with the Physx card as further testing using the machine I sent back and a system without a Physx card seem to proove the results found by Mr Bubbles (nice one MR Bubbles).

Dell are investigating the problem further and I look forward to hearing from the in the near future. If your wondering about disabling the Physx card then :-

The card cannot be disabled in the BIOS
If the card is disabled in device manager all sorts of problems happen with the machine so it is not recommended at this time.

These machines are only available with the Physx card at the moment, Dell are aware of this and the problem does seem to have their attention so, keep an eye on this thread as I will keep people posted with any progress.

 

Even before I got my M1730, I read Toms Hardware review and it mentioned that performance was reduced while on battery. What do you expect. I keep mine plugged it for sure.

Just feel you whopper power supply at how warm it gets! The Beast needs lots of power. No way I would ecpect it to run normally on a battery.

 

Please read all the posts , machines with Physx cards seem to have problems other than just the performance issue when running off battery including :-

Random Crashing.
Slow down when just playing movies or running media centre.


Dell are working on a fix for this at the moment and tests have already proven that the machine without a Physx card runs much faster on battery than a machine with a Physx card And we are talking much faster here not jsut the odd percent!!

The slow down on the machine is just one of the problems here but seems to have caught peoples attention. I have said this many times before - I would be happy for the machine to run slower on battery but less than 30% performance is just not good enough and the randam crashes I cannot live with

 

Sorry I did not take the time to read ALL the posts but it is 3-4 pages and it did not interest me to do so! Even disabling the Physx card will still find decreased performance on battery power AS MOST SHOULD EXPECT!

If my comments to you seem terse, they were ment to be!

 

We'll ignore this troll.

Anyway, I can confirm that this problem is shared amongst more than just yourselves! Whenever I run my M1730 on battery mode, regardless of the power setting (High Performance, Power Saver, any custom settings, etc) I have severe performance-related problems and crashes in most of my applications. For instance, most media players will not start up (Media Player Classic, for instance, will hang while loading any media files on battery, but works fine while plugged in). MAME (the arcade emulator) will run with performance akin to an old Celeron machine. It's awful, and I guarantee you that it is the AGEIA PhysX card. I know this because my system actually shipped without the card installed (for some odd reason? Perhaps Dell, now aware of this problem, is deliberately "forgetting" to install the card because it causes more grief than good?), and during the first week of running the machine, both on and off of battery, I had none of these symptoms. Then, after the first week, a tech rep came and installed the PhysX card in my machine and I've had these serious issues ever since.

So yes, the M1730 has a serious issue while running on battery power when the AGEIA PhysX card is installed. I'm going to contact Dell this week to help out in this issue. If it comes down to it, I'll just have them send the tech over to my place again to remove the card so that I can test things out. It's completely unsatisfactory to have this machine be nearly useless to me when running from battery. YES, the battery will drain quickly in high performance mode, but that is to be expected. I still would like to be able to walk from my office to a co-worker's office without my A/C adapter in tow!

So, to all the trolls who obviously don't know anything about power management in their operating systems: Laptops can run at full performance from a battery. EVERY laptop can do this. That includes the screen staying at full brightness levels if you so choose. Your power management settings determine what happens when you disconnect your A/C adapter, so if you set your machine to run at 100% performance when on battery, it WILL do that. That is why we are having these discussions about the M1730 as it is a known issue now and we need it resolved.

I hope this helps confirm the problem for other users! Call Dell Tech Support whenever you get a chance and see what they can do for you. Once I've resolved the issue with my machine, I will come back here to post an update.

 

Thanks for your post Kindred2k7

I am still speaking with Dell about these issues but as yet nothing has been resolved. On Thursday 20th Dec it will have been 3 weeks since I was told that the problem could take between 1 and 3 weeks to resolve ? I hope they come back with something but I doubt it with Christmas only days away etc I think it could be well into Jan before anything is sorted on this one.

I have just been onto the web site and noticed that the XPS M1730 is no longer listed ? Check it out - it's interesting don't you think

I have E-mailed Dell for an update - when I hear back I will let you know

 

Okay! I look forward to your post. I do find that interesting that Dell may have removed the system from their site. I just checked Dell.ca (I'm Canadian!) and it appears to still be on the site, so maybe they're just reworking Dell.com's layout or something?

Either way, the problem is real and I'm very irritated by it. I should have time today in between development (I use this machine for software development as well as gaming) to call their support department and see if I can get a tech to come to my place again. They farm out their work to a local company here, so I don't think it will be a problem. Once the PhysX card has been removed, I will do some tests to see if it really was that card causing the speed / crashing issues and I will then post my results.

..if only I had the tool used to open these notebooks (that plastic, screw driver-like hand tool they use to pry open the panel next to the mini LCD above the keyboard). Does anyone happen to know where I can pick one of those up? It would be nice to have so that I can do my own maintenance to the machine without scratching any of the external parts.

 

I just spent the past hour on the phone with Dell Canada tech support. We tried a few diagnostic tests, including the the one where you hold the Fn key down and press the power button to turn on the machine. The diagnostics completed successfully on battery power. We also tested things out in safe mode on battery and, even though this isn't a real-world test, everything that would crash on battery mode was loading fine in Safe mode (sound obviously wasn't playing, and DirectX related programs wouldn't load, etc, etc). As I said, this isn't a great test, but it shows there is an issue with drivers or system services.

I then demonstrated to him the actual problem by attempting to play a video with Media Player Classic in battery mode. MPC resizes it's display window and then hangs and will not close, no matter how many times you try to close it (forcefully or otherwise). I then rebooted and played the video in A/C mode and it plays fine... on pulling the plug while it is still playing, the video starts to chug along at about 1 - 2 frames per second with sound skipping etc.

All of these battery tests were performed with the "High Performance" setting in Windows Vista (except the safe mode test, of course, since we cannot change the battery levels in safe mode).

Anyway, they were not aware of this problem yet and the rep I spoke with asked around his office (as they always do) for any ideas. We tried disabling all system services and extra programs from loading at startup using msconfig, and that did not help the problem at all.

They are now sending a tech to my house to remove the PhysX card so that he can reseat it (they think it may have been installed incorrectly, because it did ship with 1 screw missing, so that was reason enough for them to send a tech I guess (those were his words: "reason enough")), and during this time he said it would be fine to ask the tech to setup the machine without the PhysX card installed to see if things work properly.

If this doesn't work, I will then need to send my machine into the depot to have them test out each part to see what the actual issue is. Although they say they weren't 'aware' of the problem, they fully understand that this shouldn't be happening.

So, once the tech has shown up and helped me do the tests, I will come back again and post my findings!

I hope this helps shed some more light on the situation for everyone! Dell Support are pretty nice to deal with (at least in my experience), so I'm glad they are trying to help me (and potentially others) out with this problem.

Just as a guideline, I find it useful to mention that you have found "other users with similar problems on forums" when you are speaking to the reps at any hardware company. There's nothing worse than bad PR to a company, so the mention of people openly conversing about a problem with their machines usually gives them more reason to help you out. I always say that "If you help me solve this problem, I'll be sure to post the solution to the forum once it's fixed." They do like to have people help them, as well (and there's nothing wrong with lending a helping hand).

So, good luck to any of you having this same problem. Do yourself a favour and call Dell Support right away and get the ball rolling. You should mention all of the things I tested on my machine so that they know you're aware of those tests (you should also perform them yourself before phoning, to save time).

I will post again soon (the tech should be here within the next two days, and if that isn't the case, he will be by here next Monday).

 

BTW: if you are in Canada, the XPS support phone # is: 1-866-398-8977

The other phone numbers listed on their site will get you nowhere.

 

"I have just been onto the web site and noticed that the XPS M1730 is no longer listed ? Check it out - it's interesting don't you think "

i noticed this too, was happily looking at certain models on monday, and tuesday all the links broke and the model has vanished from the euro dell website.

 

*** Update ***

I have just come off the phone from a conference call with Dell.
Level 3 technical support and the original chap who has been dealing with the escalation of this issue were on the call.

Basically the news is - the problem is now being looked at by Dell and third parties in order to resolve these issues - the problems have been replicated so the same issues are being worked on

The conference call was to explain what was happening and why a fix was taking so long. The problem is complex and although it looks like a Physx card issue it could be incompatibilities between other components that are actually causing the issues.

I will keep everyone posted on what is happening as both of the chaps have said they will mail me over the next coulpe of weeks.

I would like to thank them for all their hard work on this (they know who they are) - The fix might not be here yet but I am getting regular updates so I am happy that the issues are being looked at

By the way - M1730's are available again from the Euro website !!

 

The Dell service rep is due to arrive at my house shortly to remove my PhysX card to see if that solves the problem. I will post my findings in the next few hours!

If the removal of the PhysX card solves the problem, I am going to simply keep the card and install it myself later when Dell has found a way around the problem.

The service rep is bringing along with him a replacement PhysX card, as well, to see if it was a bad batch. We will test without the card and with the new PhysX card installed.

Also, he is bringing along a replacement DVD+/-RW drive, as the PBDS (Philips BenQ) drive that mine shipped with is garbage. The drive has known compatibility issues with many dual-layer discs on the market and yet Dell uses it in their flagship laptop. I will also post my findings in regards to this, just for the sake of getting the information out there.

..back in a few!

 

Well, I'm back and I bear some bad news.

The Dell tech removed the PhysX card and we immediately tested the machine only to find that it was still performing poorly on battery while in High Performance mode.

Just for the fun of it, we then installed the new PhysX card and tested it again with the same results.

He then replaced the DVD+/-RW drive with a new Sony Optiarc AD-5560A drive which is actually burning a dual layer disc right now on some media that the old Philips/BenQ drive would not burn to (or would not burn to "nicely" (it made a lot of noise and sometimes caused ImgBurn to give up on a burn)).

So, after getting the system fully assembled again, I further demonstrated the problem to the tech rep. He then called Dell through his direct line to their support specialists and he spoke with a few people in support who have experience with the M1730. Right away they knew what the problem was: they are aware that the problem exists and that it CANNOT be circumvented simply because the system is designed to severely limit the speed achieved while on battery due to the fact the machine draws too much power.

This, unfortunately, proves other posters correct in one way: it IS limiting the output from the battery so that battery life doesn't decrease too fast. However, it still should be a choice made by the user, not the system. So my only hope now is that Dell releases a firmware / system driver update that will allow us to set the system to "full power" on battery, even if the battery drains in less than 20 minutes (as I would expect it probably would). The tech that was here also asked if there were other battery options, but they explained that that other batteries would simply lengthen the time you can use the machine while on battery (which is expected) but they would not change how the system behaves while on battery.

To be honest, this is really odd behaviour by a hardware manufacturer. They give us so many options to customize this laptop, yet they basically tell us we cannot have high performance while running on batteries.

I brought up one issue to them that they agreed with, which is that if you're running your system on A/C and your power cord accidentally pulls out while you're watching a video in fullscreen, the system will lock up 90% of the time. This is completely unacceptable, as the A/C cord popping out has happened to me quite a few times while moving the machine around my desk, etc.

This laptop can NOT be used as a demo machine to show anything that uses a significant amount of CPU or graphics power when it is running from battery. To me, this is completely unsatisfactory and should be changed.

I plan to further pursue this issue as well and see if Dell will be persuaded to release an update that will fix the problem.

I'm sorry I couldn't offer any better news! :/ I was quite dismayed, myself. At least the machine is extremely nice to use on A/C... but isn't this still supposed to be considered a "portable" gaming machine? Hmmm.. not if it has this problem!

 

Am I right in assuming that your issue is that you don't know you've pulled the cord out when you move the machine?

This happens to me but for different reasons, I unplug from the mains when I turn the machine off and sometimes I forget to re-plug it in thus running off the battery when gaming/watching dvds (no mine does not freeze or loose too much performance on batter which is why I never notice it). This is what I do, you could change the brightness of your screen to the lowest setting when on battery, that way if you accidently unplug you will know straight away. I know its a work-around and its not ideal but it does help.

 

The low performance on the battery 'problem' is not a problem, rather a feature of the graphics cards to conserve power. Even setting to high perf. does not override this feature, all that does it set the motherboard/cpu to work as fast as possible.
I have experienced this on every laptop I have owned and encountered, and that's quite a few.

My m1730 was utterly useless on the battery, non existent battery life, low performance on the battery and crashed all the time. I have since exchanged it for a 1720 (which is faster in every respect except graphics power). But interestingly enough the performance on the battery, while still much lower than when it is plugged in is actually better than the m1730 on battery power, it all gets a 5 + 1/2 hr battery life

I feel that the m1730 has the potential to be great but it has so many kinks It's just not putting up with the problems.

I can still game quite well on my 1720 (not that the 1730 actually ran any of them at max settings) but I would rather game on my desktop as I can actually crank the settings to max and so far, it hasn't ever crashed.

 

That's very interesting - thanks for the update

I have passed this information on to the chaps at Dell (Ireland) who are looking at this problem. They have been testing 2 XPS's one without the Physx card and one with. the performance does increase to around 50% of what it runs whilst on power without the Physx card rather than less than 30% with the Physx card installed. This is a little different to your experience ? Again this is interesting.

Fact is - I could live with this as long as the machine was stable - I have explained this to Dell, they are currently working on the stability issues a long with choppy video playback although it's much harder to pin point random stability issues so this could take a while to fix.

Good luck and please let me know if your hear anything else from Dell - I am not sure if Dell Canada and Ireland are working together to fix this one ? - Maybe they should

 

It wouldn't hurt to notify them of the issues so that both parties can work together, really. I wrote Dell shortly after the tech came and they never responded to me. I'm still dealing with the horrible performance / stability while on battery.

In response to the post asking if I can simply have my screen brightness change when I'm on battery: no, that will not help. The issue is that regardless of how I start running from battery (whether it be accidental, or deliberate), I get horrible and unstable performance. The "accidental A/C loss" is just an example of how useless the M1730 can become when on battery. The point was that if I were, for instance, in the process of watching a high-resolution (especially HD resolutions) video in fullscreen and suddenly lost A/C (for whatever reason) the machine will lock up. It is NOT normal for it to perform so badly that a simple HD video cannot display in fullscreen. I realize the display is 1920x1200 pixels, thus requiring a lot of power to display content on the screen.. but even low resolution videos upscaled still perform very poorly on battery. Poorly being slow + unstable. It's a bad combination for any computing environment. The whole point of having a laptop is to enable the user to be mobile. With a problem like this, the machine no longer can be referred to as a mobile solution. Sure, I can go room to room and use it... but I have to make sure I'm not doing anything graphics intensive while doing so!

If / when I hear more from Dell, I will be sure to post!

Thanks to all of those who are also looking into this issue. Dell Canada, Dell Ireland and I believe Dell USA are all aware of the problem at this point (and more than likely always were, thus this problem is more likely to be a false-advertising issue).

 

***** UPDATE *****

OK - I have some news

Dell have come back to me saying that they now know what the root cause of the problem is (for legal reasons they cannot say what part it is) Once it has gone through legal they can tell me more.

I don't know when it will be but it looks like a solution to the problem could be on the way. I have just mailed Dell back so I am hoping for another update very soon - I will keep you all posted

 

Please do update us as soon as you know! I want to contact Dell Canada again regarding this with any information I can get from your post.

Yesterday I decided to sit on my couch and watch a tech video streamed over the web in Windows Media Player.. Of course... WMP continuously crashes because I was on battery. It was working fine while I had the system plugged in and sitting on the table next to the couch. I tested it several times.. restarted on battery and brought up the video again... no good.. keeps locking up WMP. Ugh. This machine is utterly useless on battery. It was a simple video from Channel9.msdn.com on a topic I was interested in. This is completely unacceptable!

 

I hadn't heard back from Dell XPS Tech Support (Canada) for a while, so I e-mailed my contact there again today and he responded rather quickly. He stated that he had been recently speaking with T3 (Tier 3) tech support regarding the problem and they had confirmed that the machines indeed "malfunction" (his exact wording) while running on battery power. Since I had brought the problem to them within 30 days of the initial purchase I am able to return the system for a full refund. Sales support is now looking further into this, as that is the route I plan to take since I cannot use this machine for development like I intended to. After this machine has been credited back to my company's account, I will be purchasing a Vostro 1700. The hardware setup is very similar to the XPS M1730, but Dell XPS TEch Support believes that the Vostro 1700 should not have the same battery problems.

I will keep everyone updated on this, including the purchase of the Vostro 1700 as a replacement. It will be interesting to see how it performs on battery!

Take care and good luck everyone!